CHAPTER XVI.
INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH.
"Let terror strike slaves mute; Much danger makes great hearts most resolute." --MARSTON.
"Death, when unmasked, shows us a friendly face." --GOLDSMITH.
"Rebels, turn out your dead!"
The inhuman call came down the opened hatches, and the prisoners, stupidwith the foul air they had breathed all night, prepared to obey. So manytimes they had heard the cry that they had grown callous to its coarsebrutality.
It was the end of September, and the delayed equinoctial storm wouldsoon ravage the coast. For a week the sea-faring folk had been expectingit; and now at last the great gale or the forerunner of it was uponthem, for all night the waves had been rolling in from the outside withthe sound of thunder. The ship had pitched and tossed and strained atits moorings, while the living freight in its hold prayed that it mightbreak away entirely. The hatches, when lifted, showed no blue sky, butgray clouds and scurrying mist wreaths. The men, coming up out of thehot and fetid air, shivered a little in the stiff breeze on the deck,then opening their mouths, drank it in like wine. The faces of thelandsmen had an added ghastliness from seasickness, but they were allbad enough to look upon,--seamen and soldiers alike. In squads of sixthey took their breakfast, eating by sheer force of resolution what theyloathed, that the hunger pains might not gnaw so hard.
"How many dead this morning?" demanded the warden.
"Two,--Drake and Cowles," answered Jack Bangs.
"Nay, there are three, Master Warden," said Peter Ruffin, sadly; "Ifound Richard Clevering lying stiff and stark beside me when I got up.The bodies are there beside the capstan."
The three were stretched upon the deck; the corner of Richard's blanket,as if by accident, fell over the upper part of his face, but the mouthbelow was blue and drawn. With an exclamation of surprise and sorrowJack Bangs crossed the deck and, lifting the blanket for a moment,looked at the face beneath. Then, reverently replacing it, he made thesign of the cross above the body, and speaking a few low words to Peter,went away. The warden, who had watched the scene satirically, gave eachcorpse a shove with his foot, cursing the while.
"D--n 'em! had to die the worst day of the month, that the burial mightbe the more troublesome!" He glanced at them again, gave each anotherkick, and checked off their names in his book. "Here, fix these houndsup, and cut your work short so they'll be in the ground before the stormbreaks."
"If you please, may I go in the boat this morning? Clevering was from mytown, and I should like to pay him this last respect."
"No."
Peter knew better than to urge his plea, and so stepped quietly aside.But the warden, noticing the slow motions of one of the men to whom hehad beckoned, shouted angrily, "Out of the way there, you infernalsnail, or I'll fix you so you'll go in the boat and stay!"
Peter sprang into the man's place. "I will be very quick," he said,touching his cap; and without another word wrapped one of the bodiesquickly in its coarse covering and took a few stitches with the needlehis comrade held out. He was so deft, and the lightning was so vivid,that the warden grunted and let him go on. Under other circumstances hewould have been put in irons for insubordination.
The stitches in Richard's blanket were few and slight, just enough tohold it about the body.
"What was the matter with that fellow? I never heard him say he wassick," said one of the sentinels, stopping to look on.
Peter's pulse stood still. "He has complained for some time of a painabout the heart. All last night he tossed and rolled, and just beforethe hatches were opened, he said to me that his time had come. He'shardly cold yet," he added hastily, as the man bent as though to touch ahand left exposed by a rent in the blanket.
"Well, he'll have time enough to get cold in the ground," the wardensaid, coming up behind, and mistaking Peter's words for a plea for moretime before the burial.
"He was a sullen chap to whom I've been looking for trouble. I'llwarrant he gets not cold between this and the devil," the guard said,giving the stiff body a parting kick.
The waves tossed furiously, but the long-boat was launched, and two ofthe guard took their places in it, while the man who was to assist Peterat the graves followed to receive the bodies; for the sentinels nevertouched them, partly through fear of contagion, and partly out ofcontempt. The first two were finally lowered, and then came the momentPeter had dreaded; those other two had been stiff and stark enough, buthe wanted no prying eyes looking on when he lifted this one, and sobefore he bent over to Richard, he glanced down the deck and raised hishand, quite casually, it seemed, to his face. Instantly, as though hehad been on the watch for a signal, Jack Bangs started a funeral hymn,loud and wailing.
"Stop that devilish howling!" roared the warden, wheeling around.
Quick as a flash Peter, signing to his assistant, lifted the prostratefigure at his feet and swung it over the side. The ropes grated on therail, and when the warden looked again, it was all over. Peter slidinstantly down one of the ropes, and he and his fellow grave-diggeruntied the cords from the body and rolled it over beside the other twoin the bottom of the boat, the guards having their hands full to keepthe little craft from swamping in the waves. Then they cast off andpulled for the shore.
"What makes you look at that carrion so confoundedly straight andscared," one of the soldiers asked Peter, sharply, noticing how oftenhis eyes went to the figure at his feet.
Peter cursed himself inwardly, but he had been so afraid that theblanket would rise and fall with a strong man's involuntary breathingthat he had watched it in a sort of fascination. Now he looked away,answering slowly:--
"I have known him since he was a baby; he used to play with my littleboy that died, and so I keep thinking of those days."
One of the men laughed scoutingly, but the other growled out, "Let thefool have his fling, and give me a light, Carson; my pipe's gone out inthis cursed spray." And while their heads were close together, Peterstretched his legs out over the body, that if so it lost for a momentits rigidity, they might not see.
It seemed to him an hour before the shore was reached and the landingeffected; then he and his assistant carried the bodies high up on thesand. Richard's went first.
"He is alive," Peter whispered, as they moved up the beach, "but if yougive the faintest hint of it here or on shipboard by word, act, or look,I'll throttle you like a viper."
"You need not threaten--I'm no peacher; and besides, I liked the lad,and wish him well; but his chance is slim, and if he is taken, they willtorture him like the incarnate fiends."
An officer from the patrol, strolling near the boat, called out:--
"How many to-day, Carson?"
"Three."
"That is an unusual haul; you are thinning them out fast."
"Not half fast enough; looks as if the cursed dogs held on to life tospite us."
"Well, 'tis said that Howe will bring back plenty of recruits from theFrench fleet to fill your gaps."
"How is that? What is the news?"
But Peter was listening eagerly, hoping to catch some bit of outsideinformation. The officer pointed to him with elevated eyebrows, and theguard drove him with imprecations to his task.
"Your shovel?--Well, there it is, you son of perdition! Go on, and mindyou be quick in hiding that carrion from the crows."
Beside the boat, with guns cocked and ready, the three men thentalked over the war tidings, while thirty yards up the beach the twograve-diggers fell to their task. Rapidly the two first graves were madeand the occupants laid therein with only a muttered prayer from Peter;and so were closed two human chapters in the varying story of life. Thewind shrieked in from the sea, edged with foam or stinging sand caughtup at the water's edge, and the heavens were like a vast slaty canopytorn now and then by jagged lightning flashes. The scene was a fitsetting for the mournful work in hand. Once or twice while the twolaboured, one of the guards walked over to look
at them, and thenwandered back to the boat and his companions.
Over the first two graves the sand was heaped high, forming, as far aspossible, a barrier for the third. Shallow that third grave was,--soshallow that a man could scarce lie therein and be concealed; but soit must be that the sand might not be too heavy on the body, and yetseem to be piled up. Tenderly Peter lifted that last silent figure andstretched it in the hollow made for it; then, while he still stooped,he broke the frail stitches of the blanket, and snatching two piecesof driftwood he put them crosswise over the head of the grave with theirends on the edges. The hollow space below might contain enough air tolast a man a little while.
"Stay, here is piece of hollow cane in the sand," said the assistant,"keep one end of it over your mouth, Richard; we will leave the otherjust out of the sand; in this way you can breathe longer.--So."
"Quick, quick; the shovels! The guard is returning," cried Peter.
It seemed to them that their shovels crawled, and yet they worked likemad. If the guard got there before they finished, all was lost. Spadefulafter spadeful,--was ever a man so hard to cover? Another step and thesentinel would be upon them, and the blanket scarcely hidden, and thosetell-tale boards and the cane yet in sight. It was a fearful moment.Peter's heart stood still, and his comrade's hands were like ice.
"What the devil are you so long about?"
But it was only the angry voice that reached them; a blinding lightningflash ripped the heavens wide open, and the wind with a demoniacalshriek rushed down the beach, throwing the sand in a swirling cloudabout the on-coming man, making him stagger with its force and snatchingaway his hat and rain coat. Half blinded, he raced down the slopingstretch to regain his garments which more than once eluded him. Then inthe lull he came back swearing furiously; and finding the men leaning ontheir shovels, he stuck his bayonet into each of the three mounds. Intothe third it penetrated only a little way; but he did not notice, forthe wind was again gathering itself for a fresh burst of fury.
"Now then, get you to the boats!" he cried, standing behind them.
Peter paused a moment and crossed himself reverently, saying in a loudvoice, "Your bodies to the earth, your souls to God's care; and may youpass to liberty in the folds of the in-rolling fog."
"Pass to hell and the devil! Get on, I say!" cried the guard, angrily,as he struck Peter across the shoulders with his bayonet. And Peter,having said his say, ran nimbly to the boat; and pushing it off, theyleaped in, and were soon toiling amid the breakers to reach the ship'sside.
It seemed to Richard that long months passed while he lay motionlessunder that weight of sand, breathing spasmodically through the bit ofreed. The drift-boards kept the pressure partially from his chest sothat he suffered very little. The guard's bayonet had grazed his legwithout piercing it, but the thirst in his throat was somethingterrible. Peter's voice had penetrated through the boards and their thincovering of sand, so that he knew the fog was following the wind fromthe sea. It was for this he had hoped, and it was this Peter meant totell him in those last words. Dear old Peter; how he had tried todissuade him from this mad plan, and when that was impossible, how hehad risked his own safety to aid him. Richard felt the tears on his faceas he recalled his friend's unselfish offices. Several times during thewait for a stormy day he had been on the point of giving up the wholeplan, lest it work a mischief for Peter; but the latter had said itwould mean only a day in irons for him, and that he was willing to riskthat much for his friend's liberty; it was for Richard himself that hefeared. But even death had a smiling face for Richard, compared to awinter spent in the vile ship; and so the plan had gone on, and byPeter's care he was lying here in his grave, accounted of the world asdead.
By and by his limbs began to cramp and ache. Through strong will powerhe had kept them rigid during those terrible moments of examination andremoval from the ship. He would not have dared assay the plan had he notknown how superficial, through repetition, had become the warden'sinspection of the corpses--just a few questions and that savage kick.Each time there had been a death during the past fortnight, he hadstudied the details of the preparation and burial, until he wasconvinced that he could carry his scheme to a successful close if onlyPeter was allowed to be one of his sextons.
As the minutes now passed, the ache in his limbs increased, for thepressure of the sand was stopping the circulation. Then the dryness inhis throat grew and grew, until he could bear it no longer. Had he lainthere a year, or only a day? Slowly and cautiously he drew his hands upto his breast, then higher, and finally placed the palms against theboard over his head. The first movement brought the sand in a showerupon his shoulders; but after a while he worked it far enough back toleave a crack between it and its fellow. This he could only feel, forknowing the sand would strangle and blind him, he had not as yet takenthe blanket from his face, since moving it ever so little to receive thereed into his mouth. Next, he slowly pushed the other board downwarduntil a rush of cold air told him he was once more in the world ofhumanity, not forever sealed in the haunt of ghouls. Cautiously heshoved the blanket from his face and looked up into the storm-hungheavens. It was mid-afternoon, and he had thought it must be midnight.Eagerly he drew in the air, cool and laden with moisture, and tried toforget his aching limbs. He dared not stir yet lest the patrol shouldsee him. He must wait; and while he waited, how the moments lagged!
The wind had fallen, but the waves still thundered on the shore, and thelightning now and then raced along the clouds. Afraid to raise his head,he could only lie still and stare straight above him into the square ofmist and clouds. With a great throb of joy he watched the gloom deepen.He had not heard the sunset gun from the station down the beach, but thefog would befriend him; so when he could no longer bear the straitenedposition, he lifted his head and shoulders and looked around. The fogwas everywhere; scarcely could he see the tumultuous waves thatshattered themselves along the sand. He need wait no longer, no onecould see him now; and painfully and carefully he finally drew hisstiff limbs from under the sand. To stand at full length was not to bethought of, but he rolled over and rubbed and stretched himself untilthe cramp was relieved. Then he set himself to fill in and round up hisvacated grave; for Peter's sake he must do this, that no suspicion mightbe aroused when the funeral boat brought its next cargo ashore. Swiftlyhe worked, using a piece of the drift-board for a shovel, and crawlingfrom head to foot to be sure that all was right. His heart was full ofgratitude when at last it was finished, and, with a sigh of relief, hethrew the board aside and stood up straight,--a free man.
But at this moment something came out of the fog from the shore side,and as he steadied himself upon his feet, he found himself face to facewith a man.