Told by the Death's Head: A Romantic Tale
CHAPTER I.
THE PIRATES.
The English did not think me of sufficient consequence to suspend mein an iron cage over the crocodile pool. This honor was reserved forthe native shahs and rajahs.
I was transported, with scant ceremony, to Bombay, from which city Iwas shipped to sea, together with fifty other prisoners, who, likemyself, had come to India to seek their fortunes, and whose chiefcrime was their nationality. They were natives of France, Holland,Germany and Spain, and the East India Company believed it had a rightto arrest them and ship them in a body to New Caledonia.
Now, honorable gentlemen of the court, I beg you to tell me which wasthe pirate?--I, in the unseaworthy cutter, bound with chains to aSpaniard, perspiring over my oars, sailing to New Zealand instead ofto New Caledonia, where the captain had been ordered to take us;having nothing to eat and drink but dried fish and stale water, thecaptain having again disobeyed orders, for the East India Company hadshipped honest biscuit, smoked meat and brandy for the prisoner'sfood--which of us, I ask, was the pirate? the captain, who plunderedthe helpless prisoners in his power and broke the maritimelaws--which, I ask, was the pirate; Captain Morder or I?
"I say Captain Morder was the pirate--" and the prince emphasized hisreply by thumping the floor with his cane.
Many thanks, your highness; I wanted the question decided, for,against unauthorized force, self-defence is always justifiable. Whenwe poor exiles became aware that our vessel was going farther andfarther south, which we were able to judge from the stars; when, inconsequence of the wretched food, the scurvy broke out among us; andwhen at last we also got a taste of the scourge, if we made anycomplaint, we conspired together to release ourselves from our chains;and to take possession of the cutter.
My hidalgo comrade was an expert in such matters. He showed us how toget rid of our manacles as easily as if they had been gloves or boots.It is a very pretty trick, but I don't think I could show you how itis done unless I received something in return--
"We don't want to learn the trick," interrupted the chair. "We have nouse for it."
Well, after we had removed our fetters, we bound the sleeping crew,and, without shedding one drop of blood, made ourselves masters of the"Alcyona."
Now, honorable gentlemen of the court, I ask you: Can what we did becalled mutiny? We were not the slaves of the East India Company; wewere not prisoners of war; nor were we criminals. The captain had noright to chain us to the oars; we had done nothing to deservedeportation to a savage country.
On Captain Morder, however, rested most of the blame. He treated usfree men like negro slaves; he gave us nothing to eat for a whole weekbut dried fish, though not all of us were papists; and to be moredisagreeably contrary, he gave us smoked meat on Fridays because themajority of our crowd were Catholics.
"That rascally captain deserved to be hanged to the tallest mast onhis ship!" exclaimed the justly indignant prince.
Yes, your highness, he did, but we didn't hang him, because wecouldn't get hold of him. While we were securing the crew, he fleddiscreetly to the powder-room, and threatened to blow up the ship whenwe went to take him. We had to treat with him for terms. We assuredhim we did not want to injure him; we only wanted to leave his ship.To this he replied that we might go to the devil for all he cared.
Then followed a twenty-four hour truce, and our first business was--
"To eat your fill," interposed the chair.
Yes, your honor, to eat and drink all we wanted. Then we lowered thelarge boat, supplied it with mast and sails; loaded it with all thechests of biscuit, and casks of brandy it would hold, also a smallcannon. Then we cut into bits the rigging of the cutter; threwoverboard all the weapons we could find, in order that the captaincould do us no injury in case he took it into his head to pursue us;took possession of his charts, compass, and telescope, and sailed awayone beautiful moonlight night without saying goodbye to any one. Howdid Captain Morder reach home with the "Alcyona?" I really forgetwhether I ever heard.
There were fifty of us in the boat--five different nationalities. As Iwas the only one who could speak the five different languages, I waselected ship's patron, an office which differs from that of captain inthat the latter commands every one on board a vessel, while the formercarries out what his companions decide.
"I see plainly to what this subtle distinction will lead," drylyobserved the chair. "Some one else will have to bear the blame forwhatever misdeeds the 'ship's-patron' committed."
I am compelled to admire the honorable gentleman's keen perceptions,returned the prisoner in his most deferential manner. In this case,however, they are at fault; neither the ship's company nor its patrondid anything which deserved yard-arm punishment.
Our intention, when we left the ship was to land in Florida, or thePhilippines, and there found a new republic. But more than oneunlooked-for hindrance prevented us from carrying out the plan. Hardlyhad the "Alcyona" disappeared from view, when a dead calm settled downon us; it was so still the sails hung in heavy folds from the yards;we could make progress, and that only very slowly, when we employedthe oars.
The calm continued for two days, during which not a breath of airwrinkled the surface of the ocean.
"Didn't you say you had taken all the provisions on the ship?"inquired the chair.
"Yes, your honor, but 'all' was only the one-half of 'many,' andexactly the one-tenth of 'enough.' Even had there been 'many,' we had'more' hungry mouths, and to take plus from minus is not permissablein Algorithm."
"And it can't be done," authoritatively interposed the prince. "Youcan't take eight from seven unless you borrow. From whom did youborrow, prisoner?"
"From a crab-fisher we met, your highness. During a calm, the largesea-crabs are more easily taken than at other times."
The honorable gentlemen of the court will have learned from naturalhistory the peculiar characteristics of the sea-crab, which is of allliving creatures--the human being not excepted--the most timorous.When a crab hears thunder or cannonading, he immediately flings offone of his huge claws, in order that he may escape more quickly.
Crab-fishers know this, and have made a compact with all warships, bywhich the latter have agreed to refrain from firing off cannon when insight of a crabbing vessel. This is the reason all such vessels have alarge red crab painted on their sails. The compact also obliges thefishers to deliver half of their catch to any warship they may meet onthe high seas.
Consequently when we came in sight of the crabber we signalled for ourshare of his catch. We had eaten all our dried fish, and were onhalf-rations of biscuit.
"Oho!" called the fisher when he came near enough to distinguish thecharacter of our craft. "How can you demand crabs of me? You aren't awarship."
"But we are hungry, and have a cannon on board. You know the result ofa cannon-shot during a calm!"
This threat brought the argument to a conclusion; the crabber,according to seaman's custom, shared his catch with us.
"If," interposed the prince in a thoughtful manner; "If it wasaccording to seaman's custom it cannot be termed 'piracy.'"
"No, certainly not!" ironically appended the chair. "It cannot betermed piracy--only an act of playfulness--a bit of frolic! But, letus hear what other pranks the band of fifty played with their cannon?I will spread the map here on the table, so that I may follow thecourse of your boat. I fancy I shall be able to tell from that whetheryou and your fellows comported yourselves as honest seamen or thievishpirates."
There was an almost imperceptible twitch of the prisoner's left eyelidwhen the mayor concluded his remark, and spread the map on the tablein front of him.
In the neighborhood of the Marquesas Islands, honorable gentlemen, wefell in with a Spanish ship loaded with coffee. The captain, inresponse to our petition, supplied us with coffee, chocolate, andhoney. This enabled us to continue our journey; we sailed toward theAleutians, and met on our way a Russian merchantman, the owner ofwhich took pity on us, and gave us several barrels of
good brandy andsalted fish.
When we were near the island of Yucatan our provisions again gave out,and we were compelled to borrow from an Italian trader some sago-palm,flour and several boxes of sultanas.
"What need had you of sultanas?" inquired the chair.
Sultanas are not women, your honor, but dried grapes, which are packedin boxes. When a man is starving he will eat anything! In theneighborhood of Barbados a Turkish vessel very kindly gave us a supplyof pickled pork; and the captain of a Chinese junk we fell in withnear the Canary Islands, was friendly enough to share his wine withus.
When off Madagascar, a Greek captain loaded our boat so generouslywith _rahut rakum_, it almost foundered under the weight; and whennear Terre del Fuego we--
"Hold! stop!" screamed the chair thumping with both fists on the map."If I wanted to make an accurate diagram of your course, I should haveto tie a thread to the leg of a grasshopper and let him loose on ablank sheet of paper! A courier on horseback could not have made suchtwists and turns!"
"We did travel in a sort of zig-zag fashion," admitted the prisonerdeprecatingly; "but, you see, none of us understood navigation.Besides, our charts were not accurate, and our compass full of whims."
"Must have been a feminine compass!" jocosely remarked his highness.
"To tell the truth, honorable gentlemen, I am not quite certain ifthe names I have given you are the ones properly belonging to theportions of the globe we visited. The excellent custom which obtainsin all civilized regions, of posting the names of places at thestreet-corners, had not yet reached those remote corners. I can assureyou, however, that we really met all the ships I have mentioned, as wewere forced to beg our way over the limitless ocean."
"Beg your way!" sarcastically interrupted the chair. "It seems to methat fifty determined men, with small arms and a cannon, and a boat asswift as yours might have overtaken almost any other craft afloat."
"We did overtake a good many, your honor, and all of them verywillingly shared their provisions with us when they saw we were indistress."
"Do you remember meeting a merchantman from Bremen?"
"Don't I? Don't I remember the generous gentleman! We met him near theCape of Good Hope. That point of land hasn't got its name for nothing!It brought 'good hope' back to us! We were in tatters; the stormyweather; long voyage; and many hardships had reduced our frames toskeletons, our clothing to rags. When the brave man--blessed be hismemory!--came up with us, and saw our nakedness, he took off his owncoat and gave it to me--may heaven's blessings rest on him wherever hemay be!"
"He tells quite a different story," responded the chair. "On hisreturn home, he complained to the Hansa League that a boat load ofpirates was sailing the high-seas, plundering, and levyingcontributions, from all vessels it met. He also related how thepirates had taken all his, as well as his crew's clothing. This mustbe true; for no Bremen trader has ever been known willingly to givecoat of his to anyone. Bremen is not far away. We can summon thecomplainant--whose name, I believe, is Schulze--and let him tell hisstory here--"
"May I beg that your honor"--quickly interposed the prisoner--"will atthe same time summon the witnesses who will testify for me? They are,the Spanish merchant Don Rodriguez di Saldayeni, from Badajos; theRussian captain, Bello Bratanow Zwonimir Tschinowink, fromKamtschatka; the Italian, Signor Sparafucile Odoards, from Palermo;the Turk, Ali Baba Ben Didimi Effendi, from Brusa; the Chinesemandarin, Chien-Tsen-Triping-Van, from Shanghai; the Greek, HerosLeonidas Karaiskakis, from Tricala; the--"
"Enough! enough!" roared the mayor clapping his hands to his ears. "Idon't want to hear another name. Rather will I believe every word yousay! You were sea-beggars, impoverished voyagers--anything butpirates! Will your highness permit us to erase also this indictmentfrom the register?" The prince assenting, his honor added: "Now wewill hear how the crime of cannibalism will be disposed of."
"I will first take the liberty to remind the honorable gentlemen ofthe court, that anthropophagy is not at all times considered a capitalcrime. The inhabitants of the Fiji Islands look upon it as the onlyproper method to dispose of a captured foe. The eating of human fleshis a part of the religious cult of the Mexicans; and during theTartar invasion of Hungary, the people--as Rogerius proves--who hadbeen robbed of the necessaries of life, were forced to eat each other.To such a condition of starvation we were also reduced, a fearfulhurricane having compelled us, while on the Pacific ocean, to throwoverboard all our stores in order to prevent the boat from sinking--"
"Now you are telling another story," thundered the chair. "You say youwere on the Pacific ocean. If it is a _pacific_ ocean how is itpossible that such a storm as you describe raged there? You shall bebound to the wheel, if you don't confess at once that hurricanes neverrage on the Pacific Ocean."
Your honor is right--my memory served me ill--there are no such stormson the Pacific Ocean. But there are sharks. The voracious beastssurrounded our boat in such numbers that, in order to prevent themfrom eating us, we gave them all our provisions, hoping to fall inwith a kind-hearted captain who would replenish our larder. But wedidn't meet a single ship. For two whole weeks we managed to keepalive by eating our boots, and not until the last pair had beendevoured, did we decide to resort to the "sailor's lunch," and castlots which of us should be served up as such.
My name was drawn, and I made up my mind to die calmly--_pro bonopublico_. But, when I began to remove my clothes, the Spaniard to whomI had been chained on the "Alcyona," and for whom I entertained theaffection of a brother, stepped forward and said:
"You shall not die, brave rajah. You have a wife--nay, two of them,to whom your life is valuable. Here am I--your brother, who willconsider it a privilege, an honor--as did the brave Curtius when hegalloped into the abyss to save the republic--to fling myself intothese hungry throats!"
With these words the noble fellow drew his sword, severed his headfrom his body and laid it before us.
"Did you eat any of him?"
"I was starving, your honor."
"That establishes your crime. The punishment for eating a body endowedwith a human soul is death at the stake, you--"
"Hold," interposed the prince. "What portion of the Spaniard's bodydid you consume, prisoner?"
"His foot, your highness."
"Has the human foot a soul?"
"Why, certainly," answered the chair. "How frequently do we hear: 'Hissense or his courage are in his knees'--sense and courage cannot existwithout a soul. And, don't we say: 'Honest from his crown to histoes'--whereby we establish that even the toes possess a soul.'"
"These are merely phrases--maxims," returned the prince. "If the soulextends to the extremities, then the man who has a foot amputatedloses a portion of his soul also; and it might happen, thatone-quarter of a human soul would go to paradise, and the otherthree-quarters to hades--which it is absurd to suppose could be thecase. To my thinking this is so important a question, that only thefaculty of theology is capable of deciding it. Until those learnedgentlemen have delivered an opinion on the subject, we cannot go onwith this case. Therefore, the prisoner is remanded to his cell untilsuch decision shall arrive."
A week was the time required by the learned faculty to discuss thequestions: "Does the soul extend to the extremities of the humanbody?"
If not, just where does it terminate?
The decision was as follows:
"The soul extends to the knees--for this reason man is required tokneel when he prays. Consequently, that portion of the human framebelow the knees is a soulless appendage."
"Then," decided the prince, when this decision was read to him, "theindictment for cannibalism may also be stricken from the register."
PART X.
UXORICIDE.