I heeded her not; her tongue was a rattle, and very heedless at times. After a little, finding I did not speak, she looked at the boat through the glass. Long practice had now enabled her to keep open the eye she applied to the telescope. I, too, gripping the spokes, gazed astern; the sail of the boat was like the wing of a white butterfly out on the dark blue, that thrilled with the breeze. The island hung massive and rugged in the sky, but already was it growing blue in the blue air.
At this time Jimmy came along with some breakfast. He put the tray upon the deck. The pot of cocoa Meehan was to have cooked had overboiled and was burnt. Jimmy brought us some fresh coffee, salt beef, and biscuit. The girl and I ate and drank, Jimmy meanwhile holding the wheel. My lady asked me how the prisoners were to breakfast? Could they feed themselves with handcuffs?
“No,” said I.
“They’ll need to be regularly supplied with food,” said she. “Who’ll feed them?”
“Parece que quiere hacer buen tiempo,” said I to change the subject.
When I had breakfasted I held the wheel that Jimmy might eat. I was forever racking my brains to conceive how I was to manage, alone as I was with the youth. The girl was of no earthly use. Indeed, for the matter of that, the boy himself did not know how to steer, and was a poor sailor aloft, though as “an idler” he was expected, and was used to help the men in reefing and in putting the brig about. I was grateful for the beautiful morning with its gentle breeze. “Perhaps,” I said to myself, “I shall have worked out some theory of navigating the brig with the aid of Jimmy, before a change of weather happens.”
The lad took the wheel, and I went below to remove the gags from the men. I had a brace of loaded pistols in my pocket, and I pulled out one of them, and looking to its priming, I walked to the berth in which we had thrown Teach, and opened the door. The man’s posture was that in which we had left him, saving that his head had fallen forward. I did not like his looks, and felt afraid; I went up to him and took his arm; he did not stir. I lifted his head by the chin, and saw death in his eyes. On this, full of horror and pity, I removed the gag. It was a piece of drill with a lump of stuffing stitched amidships to fill the mouth. Aurora had made it, as she had made the bag with which we had stifled the two men. The stuffed part of the gag that had filled the man’s mouth was soaked with blood, and when I pulled the gag off, and the head fell forward, a quantity of dark blood followed.
No doubt he had ruptured a blood vessel; in any case, his death was not to be laid to the account of the gag, in other words, to our having suffocated him. Nevertheless, I was as greatly shocked, and viewed him with as much horror as though he had died by my hands.
I then bethought me of Travers and rushed, with my heart beating hard, to his berth, dreading to find him dead likewise. The man was standing upright, looking at the sea through the scuttle. He turned when I entered, and presented his gagged face to me. I thanked God to find him alive. So far we had managed all this business bloodlessly. I am one, and ever was one, of those who count human life the most sacred thing under God’s eye.
I had thrust the pistol into my pocket at the sight of Teach, and now kept it there in the presence of this man Travers, gagged and handcuffed as he was. He motioned piteously with his head, lifting his fists a little way toward his face. I at once took the gag off, and threw it aside. He tried to speak; he fetched many breaths, during which some froth gathered upon his lips; he then, in a dim, husky voice that seemed to rise from the bottom of his chest, exclaimed: