"Eat first; drink afterwards," said Bludson, striking lightly right and left to restrain their eagerness. "That's the law aboard here. Mind, Ralph; one bit of meat apiece—no more."
One sailor bore a lantern, for the only light afforded outside of that was from the grated hatch above. Amid the half obscurity Ralph saw a jumble of swart, brutish faces and wildly gleaming eyes, and heard a babel of guttural sounds suggestive of a savage Bedlam where violence was restrained only by fear.
Up and down the rows of naked forms they passed, dealing to each one a ration of bread and meat, scanty and coarse enough, yet sufficient to sustain life. Then half a pint of water was served out to each.
Here the struggle to keep order was fiercest. The strong would attempt to deprive the weak of their share, and Bludson's whip was kept constantly going.
Once a brawny negro made a strong effort to seize the bucket, regardless of the cowhide, when Long Tom felled him at a blow with his pistol butt, then cocking the weapon, glanced sternly around at the circle of angry faces by which they were surrounded.
The negroes would have torn them in pieces had they dared, for the want of water was already rendering them desperate in that fetid hole.
Ralph returned to the deck pale, nauseated, and sick at heart. The captain noticed this and it angered him, as did nearly everything which the boy now did.
"Hark ye!" he growled. "D'ye think you'd like to spend all your time down there?"
"I would rather be dead," said Ralph half angrily, for his whole being rebelled against the atrocity of which he was being made, perforce, one of the perpetrators.
"Would, eh?" The captain eyed him with leering malevolence. "You'll mind your eye then while you're on this craft, and you'll obey orders, without a word, or—down you go among those demons for punishment. Go to my room and bring up my small glass—the double one. Stay—while you're there make up the berth and tidy things up a bit. Lively now!"