He tried to mouth his desire, to speak it aloud, and a weak and painful gurgle struggled outward from his throat.
There was a stir close by him, and a voice spoke up. Martin was then aware that the deep rumble he had been listening to was the sound of a man swearing deeply and softly. The man now spoke to him.
"Ow, lad, is that you? 'Ave you come to, Martin!"
Martin peered toward the voice, and saw a few feet ahead of him, beyond a circular stanchion, the shadowy outline of a man. He tried to speak, to say, "Bosun! Bosun!" But his misused throat and parched tongue refused to form the words. And with the other's voice came memory, complete and terrible. The past was arrayed before his mind's eye with a lightning flash of recollection. The dreadful present was clear to him in all its bitter truth.
He remembered the trip to the deck in search of Little Billy; the black, evil night, and MacLean's horrified outcry. He remembered the scene in the cabin, Captain Dabney lying inert on the floor, the hateful ring of yellow faces, and Carew—Carew clasping Ruth in his arms!
He remembered felling Carew, and being felled himself by the lethal clutch of the Japanese. He remembered Ichi, and even Ichi's words, "compelled to use the ju-jitsu." They had ju-jitsued him! That was what was wrong with his throat.
The sum of his memories was clear, and for the moment it crushed and terrified him. For it was evident that that which they had speculated upon as a remote almost impossible, contingency, had come to pass—the brig was in Carew's hands. They had been surprised in the fog, a piracy had occurred, murder had been done, and Wild Bob and his yellow followers had taken the ship.
He was a prisoner in the bowels of the ship, his hands chained behind his back, absolutely helpless. And Sails was dead! And Little Billy was dead! Captain Dabney was dead! The crew—God knew, perhaps—they were slaughtered too! And Ruth—Ruth was alive, in Carew's hands, at the mercy of the brute she so feared. Ruth was alive—to suffer what fate? And he—he who loved her—was chained and helpless.
Panic, rage, despair, shook Martin. In excess of misery, he groaned aloud, a smothered sob of anguish.
"Martin, lad! 'Ave you come around? You're sittin' up. Ow, swiggle me, lad, pipe up!"