CHAPTER VI
“Die life, fly soul, tongue curse thy fill, and die!”
—Marlowe, in The Jew of Malta.
The trial of the pilot for the instigation of mutiny was conducted in the fly-boat’s main cabin with strict secrecy, in order that faint-hearted ones might be spared the disheartening anxiety which a knowledge of the conspiracy would have brought to them. The ship’s commander, Captain Pomp by name, who had appeared greatly flurried and genuinely amazed on hearing Vytal’s story, presided at the inquiry. Beside him at the long table sat Vytal on the one hand and Ananias Dare, now sober but forlorn, on the other.
The pilot, brought in by Hugh Rouse, came stolidly, without a struggle, and during the trial faced his judges with defiance, turning now and then an expectant look on Ananias Dare. For, preceding this investigation, the assistant had gone to the deck at sunrise and held a conversation in whispers with the guilty man, telling Hugh, who would have questioned his authority, that he but sought to elicit further information from the captive. What he had actually said was this: “An you betray me, we’re both lost. Make no accusation at the trial. Even though I testify against you, I will save you in the end.”
But the pilot’s eyes gazed at him with little trustfulness. “You swear it?”
“I swear it.”