Under the Waves: Diving in Deep Waters

by R. M. Ballantyne

As it is desirable that the reader should have a little more extended knowledge of the miscreants referred to, we will retrace our steps in time a little, and change the scene.

On one of those sweltering mornings in which the eastern seas appear to have a tendency to boil under the influence of the sun, three piratical junks might have been seen approaching a small island which lay on the sea as if on a mirror. They were propelled by oars. The largest of these junks was under command of our red-jacketed acquaintance, Pungarin. It was what is termed double-banked, and the oars were pulled by “slaves,” that is to say, the crews of trading vessels recently captured.

Pungarin had more slaves than he knew what to do with on that occasion. He had been unusually successful in his captures. All the white men taken had at once been slaughtered, also all who attempted to give the pirates trouble in any way, including those who chanced to be too weak, ill, or old to work. In regard to the rest, each man was secured to his place at the oar by means of a strip of cane, called rattan, fastened round his neck, and a man was appointed to lash them when they showed symptoms of flagging. This the unhappy wretches frequently did, for, as on a former occasion to which we have referred, they were made to pull continuously without food or water, and occasionally, after dropping their oars through exhaustion, it took severe application of the lash, and the discovery of some unusually sensitive spot of the body, to rouse some of them again to the point of labour.

The junks were strange, uncouth vessels, of considerable size, capable, each, of containing a very large crew. They might almost have been styled “life-boats,” as they had hollow bamboos wrought into their structure in a manner which gave them great buoyancy, besides projecting beyond the hulls and forming a sort of outside platform. On these platforms the slaves who rowed were fastened. In each vessel there were at least forty or fifty rowers.

Pungarin walked up and down his poop-deck as if in meditation, paying no regard to what was going on around him until a feeble cry was heard from one of the rowers,—a middle-aged and sickly man. The pirate captain looked carelessly on, while the overseer flogged this man; but the lash failed to arouse him, and the captain ordered the man to desist—but not in mercy.

“Over with him,” he said, curtly, and then resumed his walk.

The slave-driver drew his knife, and cut the rattan that bound the man, who turned his dying eyes on him with an imploring look.

At that moment one of the pirates, who from his dress and bearing seemed to occupy a position of authority, stepped upon the platform and looked at him. He gave a brief order to one of his comrades, who brought a large piece of cork and fastened it to the slave’s neck. He also brought a short spear, with a little flag at its handle. This he thrust a few inches into the fleshy part of his shoulder, and then pushed him off the platform into the sea. Thus the wretched creature was made to float, and, as he went astern, some of the pirates amused themselves by shooting at him with their muskets.

Now, gentle reader, don’t shut your eyes and exclaim, “Oh! Too horrible.” It is very much because of that expression of yours, and the shutting of your “gentle,” (we would rather say selfish) eyes that these accursed facts exist! Yes, we charge it home on you so-called “soft ones” of the earth, that your action,—namely, shutting your eyes,—does probably as much, if not more, to perpetuate horrible evil as does the action of open godlessness,—that condition which is most aptly expressed by the world’s maxim, “every man for himself and the devil for us all.”

Do not imagine that we presume to invent such things or to exaggerate for the sake of “sensation.” We relate well-authenticated facts. We entertain strong doubts as to whether devils are, in any degree, worse than some among the unsaved human race. There is great occasion for you, reader, whoever you are, to know and ponder such facts as we now relate. We are too apt to regard as being applicable only to the past these words, “the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.” If we were to fill our book with horrors from beginning to end, we should only have scratched the surface of the great and terrible truth. Assuredly now, not less than in days of old, there is urgent need of red-hot philanthropy.