Chapter Sixty Eight.
Long-Suffering.
“Virgen Santissima! Mother of God, have mercy!”
The cry is heard in the cabin of the Condor—Don Gregorio Montijo giving utterance to it.
Several days have elapsed since the desertion of her crew, and she is still afloat, drifting in a south-westerly direction, with all sail set, just as when the pirates put away from her.
Why she has not gone to the bottom is known but to two men—they entrusted with the scuttling.
And just as when left, are the three unfortunate beings aboard: the black cook on his galley bench, the captain and his passenger vis-à-vis at the cabin-table, bound to and bolt upright in their chairs.
But though the attitudes of all three are unchanged, there is a marked change in their appearance, especially of those in the cabin. For the white man shown the effects of physical suffering sooner than the Ethiopian.
For over five days Don Gregorio and Lantanas have been enduring agony great as ever tortured Tantalus. It has made fearful inroad on their strength—on their frames. Both are reduced almost to skeletons; cheekbones protruding, eyes sunken in their sockets. Were the cords that confine them suddenly taken off, they would sink helpless on the floor!
Not all this time have they been silent. At intervals they had conversed upon their desperate situation. For the first day, with some lingering hope of being released; but afterwards despairingly, as the hours passed and nothing occurred to change it.