A few months after this he again fell in with the gunboat Sovereign. He was sailing a huge junk at this time, and under this disguise came near escaping again. He was recognized, however, and captured with his entire crew. They were taken to Hong-Kong. Here he was confined for nearly a year, an object of curiosity, until they were ready to cut off his head.
He and his men were led out every day or two and held in line while the swordsman walked along them with upraised blade. When this grim executioner had chosen a man, which he did at random, he would bring the weapon down suddenly upon the back of his neck. This was trying on the nerves of those of the crew who had to look on. No one knew just when his turn would come.
Craven, however, stood it well for a month or two and was apparently indifferent to the sight of death, but the long strain of hunting his fellow-men and of being hunted in turn by them had done its work. His nervous energy had been pretty well used up. One day a trader came into the harbor and brought a woman to the English consul’s. She claimed to be Craven’s wife. It took some time before she could get to see her husband, but through the consul’s influence she finally did. Then came the break in the man’s nerve.
From that time on he trembled when the sword struck. At the end of a week he was hysterical, and they had to hold him when they brought him out. His sole idea now was to live to see the woman who had caused his ruin. This he struggled and cried for, and the idea of separating from her again caused him more agony than one can well conceive.
The Chinese are always particular that great criminals of theirs shall get great punishments. Craven’s sufferings were prolonged as much as possible. There were forty men of his crew taken with him, and he had seen the heads of nearly all cut off. When his turn came, and it was next the last, he screamed shrilly as the swordsman swung up the blade two or three times over the victim’s head before giving the final stroke. Craven was trembling all over. He cried and begged for a little delay. His horror of death was terrible, and he pleaded to see his wife once more. The idea of separating from her now forever was more than he could stand, and it caused the greatest possible amusement to the on-lookers. They laughed and drew their long pigtails upward, meaningly, in derision. When the sword fell, Craven had gone entirely to pieces and died the death of a most pitiable coward.
Camp, who was the only man left, finally managed to get the English consul to intercede in his behalf. He was afterwards released, but his sufferings had been so great during his imprisonment that he died soon afterwards.
THE DEATH OF HUATICARA
WE were lying in the stream with the topsails hanging in the buntlines. Everything was stowed ready for getting under way. The night was very dark, as the sky was obscured by the lumpy clouds which had been banking in from the westward all day before the light sea-breeze. Now it was dead calm, and the water was smooth and streaky as it rippled past the anchor-chain and cut-water, making a low lapping sound in the gloom beneath us, which was intensified by the stillness of the quiet bay.
Gantline and I sat on the forecastle-rail, watching the lights of the city and small craft anchored closer in shore. On the port bow the black hull of the Blanco Encalada loomed like a monster in the gloom, her anchor-lights shining like eyes of fire. Her black funnel gave forth a light vapor which shone for an instant against the dark sky and vanished. Long tapering shadows cast in the dim light of her turret ports told plainly that she had her guns ready for emergencies. She lay there silent and grim in the darkness, and our clipper bark of a thousand tons appeared like a pilot-fish nestling under the protecting jaws of some monster shark, as we compared the two vessels in respect to size and strength.
It was quite late and our last boat had come aboard some time since, bringing our skipper, Zachary Green, his pretty daughter, and two passengers. At daylight we would clear with the ebb-tide and land-breeze of the early morning, and then, with good luck, we would make an offing and stand away for the States. We were sick of the war-ridden country, and even the town of Valparaiso itself offered no attraction for us. Our cargo hardly paid enough freight money to buy the vessel a suit of sails, and it was with a feeling of great relief that we steved in the last bale and closed the hatches.