This noisy slumberer was the Irishman, O’Gorman,—one of the parties to that suspended fight, to be resumed by day break in the morning. Whatever evil deeds this man may have done during his life,—and he had performed not a few, for we have styled him only the least guilty of that guilty crew,—he was certainly no coward. Thus to sleep, with such a prospect on awaking, at least proved him recklessly indifferent to death.
The two men by the mast,—whose eyes were evidently upon him,—had no very clear view of him where he lay. Through the white mist they could see only something like the shape of a human being recumbent along the planks; and of that only the legs and lower half of the body. Even had it been daylight they could not, from their position, have seen his head and shoulders; for both would have been concealed by the empty rum-cask, already mentioned, which stood upon its end exactly by the spot where O’Gorman had rested his head.
The Irishman, above all others, had taken a delight in the contents of that cask,—so long as a drop was left; and now that it was all gone, perhaps the smell of the alcohol had influenced him in choosing his place of repose.
Whether or not, he was now sleeping on a spot which was to prove the last resting-place of his life. Cruel destiny had decreed that from that slumber he was never more to awaken!
This destiny was now being shaped out for him; and by the two individuals who were regarding him from the bottom of the mast.
“He’s sound asleep,” whispered one of them to the other. “You hear that snore? Parbleu! only a hog could counterfeit that.”
“Sound as a top!” asserted the other.
“C’est bon!” whispered the first speaker, with a significant shrug of the shoulders. “If we manage matters smartly, he need never wake again. What say you, comrade?”
“I agree to anything you may propose,” assented the other. “What is it?”
“There need be no noise about it. A single blow will be sufficient,—if given in the right place. With the blade of a knife through his heart, he’ll not make three kicks. He’ll never know it till he’s in the next world. Peste! I could almost envy him such an easy way of getting out of this!”