Foul Play Part 28

When he had done, one of the sailors asked him to pa.s.s the Bible forward.

He did so; and in half an hour the leaves were returned him; the vellum binding had been cut off, divided, and eaten.

He looked piteously at the leaves, and, after a while, fell upon his knees and prayed silently.

He rose, and, with Miss Rolleston's consent, offered the men the leaves as well. "It is the Bread of Life for men's souls, not their bodies,"

said he. "But G.o.d is merciful; I think he will forgive you; for your need is bitter."

Cooper replied that the binding was man's, but the pages were G.o.d's; and, either for this or another more obvious reason, the leaves were declined for food.

All that afternoon Hazel was making a sort of rough spoon out of a fragment of wood.

The night that followed was darker than usual, and, about midnight, a hand was laid on Helen Rolleston's shoulder and a voice whispered--"Hus.h.!.+

say nothing. I have got something for you."

At the same time something sweet and deliciously fragrant was put to her lips; she opened her mouth and received a spoonful of marmalade. Never did marmalade taste like that before. It dissolved itself like ambrosia over her palate and even relieved her parched throat in some slight degree by the saliva it excited.

Nature could not be resisted; her body took whatever he gave. But her high mind rebelled.

"Oh, how base I am," said she, and wept.

"Why, it is your own," said he soothingly; "I took it out of your cabin expressly for you."

"At least oblige me by eating some yourself, sir," said Helen, "or" (with a sudden burst) "I will die ere I touch another morsel."

"I feel the threat, Miss Rolleston; but I do not need it, for I am very, very hungry. But no; if _I_ take any, I must divide it all with _them._ But if you will help me unrip the jacket, I will suck the inside--after you."

Helen gazed at him, and wondered at the man, and at the strange love which had so bitterly offended her when she was surrounded by comforts; but now it extorted her respect.

They unripped the jacket, and found some moisture left. They sucked it, and it was a wonderful and incredible relief to their parched gullets.

The next day was a fearful one. Not a cloud in the sky to give hope of rain; the air so light it only just moved them along; and the sea glared, and the sun beat on the poor wretches, now tortured into madness with hunger and thirst.

The body of man, in this dire extremity, can suffer internal agony as acute as any that can be inflicted on its surface by the knife; and the cries, the screams, the groans, the prayers, the curses, intermingled, that issued from the boat, were not to be distinguished from the cries of men horribly wounded in battle, or writhing under some terrible operation in hospitals.

Oh, it was terrible and piteous to see and hear the boat-load of ghastly victims, with hollow cheeks and wild-beast eyes, go groaning, cursing, and shrieking loud, upon that fair gla.s.sy sea, below that purple vault and glorious sun.

Toward afternoon, the sailors got together, forward, and left Hazel and Miss Rolleston alone in the stern. This gave him an opportunity of speaking to her confidentially. He took advantage of it, and said, "Miss Rolleston, I wish to consult you. Am I justified in secreting the marmalade any longer? There is nearly a spoonful apiece."

"No," said Helen, "divide it among them all. Oh, if I had only a woman beside me, to pray with, and cry with, and die with; for die we must."

"I am not so sure of that," said Hazel faintly, but with a cool fort.i.tude all his own. "Experience proves that the human body can subsist a prodigious time on very little food. And saturating the clothes with water is, I know, the best way to allay thirst. And women, thank Heaven, last longer than men, under privations."

"I shall not last long, sir," said Helen. "Look at their eyes."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that those men there are going to kill me."

CHAPTER XX.

HAZEL thought her reason was going; and, instead of looking at the men's eyes, it was hers he examined. But no; the sweet cheek was white, the eyes had a fearful hollow all round them, but, out of that cave the light hazel eye, preternaturally large, but calm as ever, looked out, full of fort.i.tude, resignation, and reason.

"Don't look at _me,"_ said she, quietly; "but take an opportunity and look at _them._ They mean to kill me."

Hazel looked furtively round; and, being enlightened in part by the woman's intelligence, he observed that some of the men were actually glaring at himself and Helen Rolleston in a dreadful way. There was a remarkable change in their eyes since he looked last. The pupils seemed diminished, the whites enlarged; and, in a word, the characteristics of humanity had, somehow, died out of those bloodshot orbs, and the animal alone shone in them now; the wild beast, driven desperate by hunger.

What he saw, coupled with Helen's positive interpretation of it, was truly sickening.

These men were six, and he but one. They had all clasp-knives; and he had only an old penknife that would be sure to double up or break off if a blow were dealt with it.

He asked himself, in utter terror, what on earth he should do.

The first thing seemed to be to join the men and learn their minds. It might also be as well to prevent this secret conference from going further.

He went forward boldly, though sick at heart, and said, "Well, my lads, what is it?"

The men were silent directly, and looked sullenly down, avoiding his eye; yet not ashamed.

In a situation so terrible, the senses are sharpened; and Hazel dissected, in his mind, this sinister look, and saw that Morgan, Prince and Mackintosh were hostile to him.

But Welch and Cooper he hoped were still friendly.

"Sir," said Fenner, civilly but doggedly, "we are come to this now, that one must die, for the others to live. And the greater part of us are for casting lots all round, and let every man, and every woman too, take their chance. That is fair, Sam, isn't it?"

"It is fair," said Cooper, with a terrible doggedness. "But it is hard,"

he added.

"Harder that seven should die for one," said Mackintosh. "No, no; one must die for the seven."

Hazel represented, with all the force language possesses, that what they meditated was a crime, the fatal result of which was known by experience.

But they heard in ominous silence.

Hazel went back to Helen Rolleston and sat down right before her.

"Well!" said she, with supernatural calmness.

"You were mistaken," said he.

"Then why have you placed yourself between them and me. No, no; their eyes have told me they have singled me out. But what does it matter? We poor creatures are all to die; and that one is the happiest that dies first, and dies unstained by such a crime. _I heard every word you said, sir."_

Hazel cast a piteous look on her, and, finding he could no longer deceive her as to their danger, and being weakened by famine, fell to trembling and crying.

Helen Rolleston looked at him with calm and gentle pity. For a moment, the patient fort.i.tude of a woman made her a brave man's superior.

Night came, and, for the first time, Hazel claimed two portions of the rum; one for himself and one for Miss Rolleston.