The Ocean Waifs Part 34

They also comprehended whence the answer was to come. Twice before had they consulted that dread oracle, whose response was certain death to one of their number. Twice before had they recognised and submitted to its decree. No preliminaries needed to be discussed. These had been long ago arranged. There was nothing more to do than cast the lots.

On the moment after Le Gros had put the question, a movement was visible among the men to whom it was addressed. One might have expected it to startle them; but it did not appear to do this,--at least, to any great extent. Some only showed those signs of fear distinguishable by blanched cheeks and white lips; but there were some too delirious to understand the full import of what was to follow; and the majority of the crew had become too callow with suffering to care much even for life!

Most that could, however,--for there were some too feeble to stand erect,--rose to their feet, and gathered around the challenger, exhibiting both in their words and att.i.tudes, an earnestness that told them not altogether indifferent to death.

By a sort of tacit agreement among them, Le Gros acted as master of the ceremonies,--the dispenser of that dread lottery of life and death, in which he himself was to take a share. Two or three of his fellows stood on each side of him, acting as aids or _croupiers_.

Solemn and momentous as was the question to be decided, the mode of decision was simple in the extreme. Le Gros held in his hand a canvas bag, of oblong bolster shape,--such as sailors use to carry their spare suit of "Sunday go-ash.o.r.es." In the bottom of this bag,--already carefully counted into it,--were twenty-six b.u.t.tons: the exact number of those who were to take part in the drawing. They were the common black b.u.t.tons of horn,--each pierced with four holes,--such as may be seen upon the jacket of the merchant sailor. They had been cut from their own garments for the purpose in which they were now, a third time, to be employed, and all chosen so exactly alike, that even the eye would have found it difficult to distinguish one from the other. One, however, offered an exception to this statement. While all its fellows were jet black, it exhibited a reddish hue,--a dark crimson,--as if it had been defiled with blood. And so it had been; stained on purpose,--that for which it was to be employed,--to be the exponent of the _prize_, in that lottery of blood, of which its colour was an appropriate emblem.

The difference between it and the others was not perceptible to the touch. The fingers of a man born blind could not have distinguished it among the rest,--much less the callous and tar-bedaubed "claws" of a sailor.

The red b.u.t.ton was cast into the bag along with the others. "_He who should draw it forth must die_."

As we have said, there was no settling about preliminaries, no talking about choice as to the time of drawing. These matters had been discussed before, both openly and by secret mental calculations. All had arrived at the conclusion that the chances were even, and that it could make no difference in the event as to whose fate was first decided. The red b.u.t.ton might be the last in the bag, or it might be the first drawn out of it.

Under this impression, no one hesitated to inaugurate the dread ceremony of the drawing; and as soon as Le Gros held out the bag,--just open enough to admit a hand,--a man stepped up, and, with an air of reckless indifference, plunged his arm into the opening!

CHAPTER SIXTY EIGHT.

THE LOTTERY OF LIFE AND DEATH.

One by one the b.u.t.tons were drawn forth from the bag,--each man, as he drew his, exhibiting it in his open palm, to satisfy the others as to its colour, and then placing it in a common receptacle,--against the contingency of its being required again for another like lottery!

Solemn as was the character of the ceremony, it was not conducted either in solemnity or silence. Many of the wretches even jested while it was in progress; and a stranger to the dread conditions under which the drawing was being made might have supposed it a raffle for some trifling prize!

The faces of a few, however, would have contradicted this supposition.

A few there were who approached the oracle with cowed and craven looks; and their trembling fingers, as they inserted them into the bag, proclaimed an apprehension stronger than could have arisen from any mere courting of chance in an ordinary casting of lots.

Those men who were noisiest and most gleeful _after_ they had drawn were the ones who before it had shown the strongest signs of fear, and who trembled most while performing the operation.

Some of them could not conceal even their demoniac joy at having drawn blank, but danced about over the raft as if they had suddenly succeeded to some splendid fortune.

The difference between this singular lottery and most others, was that the blanks were the prizes,--the prize itself being the true blank,--the ending of existence.

Le Gros continued to hold the bag, and with an air of nonchalance; though anyone closely observing his countenance could tell that it was a.s.sumed. As had been already proved, the French bully was at heart a coward. Under the influence of angry pa.s.sion, or excited by a desire for revenge, he could show fight, and even fling himself into positions of danger; but in a contest such as that in which he was now engaged a cool strife, in which Fortune was his only antagonist, and in which he could derive no advantage from any unfair subterfuge, his artificial courage had entirely forsaken him.

So long as the lottery was in its earlier stages, and only a few b.u.t.tons had been taken out of the bag, he preserved his a.s.sumed air of indifference. There were still many chances of life against that one of death,--nearly twenty to one. As the drawing proceeded, however, and one after another exhibited his black b.u.t.ton, a change could be observed pa.s.sing over the features of the Frenchman. His apparent _sangfroid_ began to forsake him; while his glances betokened a feverish excitement, fast hastening towards apprehension.

As each fresh hand came up out of the dark receptacle bearing the evidence of its owner's fate, Le Gros was seen to cast hurried and anxious glances towards the tiny circle of horn, held between the thumb and forefinger, and each time that he saw the colour to be black his countenance appeared to darken at the sight.

When the twentieth b.u.t.ton had been brought forth, and still the red one remained in the bag, the master of the ceremonies became fearfully excited. He could no longer conceal his apprehension. His chances of life were diminished to a point that might well inspire him with fear.

It was now but six to one,--for there were only six more tickets to be disposed of.

At this crisis, Le Gros interrupted the drawing to reflect. Would he be in a better position, if some one else held the bag? Perhaps that might change the run of luck hitherto against him; and which he had been cursing with all his might ever since the number had been going through the teens. He had tried every way he could think of to tempt the red ticket out of the bag. He had shaken the b.u.t.tons time after time,--in hopes of bringing it to the top, or in some position that might insure its being taken up. But all to no purpose. It would obstinately stay to the last.

What difference could it make were he to hand the bag over to some other holder, and try his luck for the twenty-first chance? "Not any!" was the mental reply he received to this mental inquiry. Better for him to hold on as he had been doing. It was hardly possible--at least highly improbable--that the red b.u.t.ton should be the last. There had been twenty-five chances to one against its being so. It is true twenty black b.u.t.tons had been drawn out before it,--in a most unexpected manner,--still it was as likely to come next as any of the remaining six.

It would be of no use changing the process,--so concluded he, in his own mind,--and, with an air of affected recklessness, the Frenchman signified to those around him that he was ready to continue the drawing.

Another man drew forth Number 21. Like those preceding it, the b.u.t.ton, was black!

Number 22 was fished out of the bag,--black also!

23 and 24 were of the like hue!

But two b.u.t.tons now remained,--two men only whose fate was undecided.

One of them was Le Gros himself,--the other, an Irish sailor, who was, perhaps, the least wicked among that wicked crew. One or other of them must become food for their cannibal comrades!

It would scarce be true to say that the interest increased as the dread lottery progressed towards its ending. Its peculiar conditions had secured an interest from the first as intense as it was possible for it to be. It only became changed in character,--less selfish, if we may use the phrase,--as each individual escaped from the dangerous contingency involved in the operation. As the drawing approached its termination, the anxiety about the result, though less painful to the majority of the men, was far more so to the few whose fate still hung suspended in the scale; and this feeling became more intensified in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the still smaller number, who saw their chances of safety becoming constantly diminished. When, at length, only two b.u.t.tons remained in the bag, and only two men to draw them out, the interest, though changed in character, was nevertheless sufficiently exciting to fix the attention of every individual on the raft.

There were circ.u.mstances, apart from the mere drawing, that influenced this attention. Fate itself seemed to be taking a part in the dread drama; or, if not, a very singular contingency had occurred.

Between the two men, thus left to decide its decree, there existed a rivalry,--or, rather, might it be called a positive antipathy,--deadly as any _vendetta_ ever enacted on Corsican soil.

It had not sprung up on the raft. It was of older date--old as the earliest days of the _Pandora's_ voyage, on whose decks it had originated.

Its first seeds had been sown in that quarrel between Le Gros and Ben Brace,--in which the Frenchman had been so ignominiously defeated. The Irish sailor,--partly from some slight feeling of co-nationality, and partly from a natural instinct of fair-play,--had taken sides with the British tar; and, as a consequence, had invoked the hostility of the Frenchman. This feeling he had reciprocated to its full extent; and from that time forward Larry O'Gorman--such was the Irishman's name-- became the true _bete noir_ of Le Gros, to be insulted by the latter on every occasion that might offer. Even Ben Brace was no longer regarded with as much dislike. For him the Frenchman had been taught, if not friendship, at least, a certain respect, springing from fear; and, instead of continuing his jealous rivalry towards the English sailor, Le Gros had resigned himself to occupy a secondary place on the slaver, and transferred his spite to the representative of the Emerald Isle.

More than once, slight collisions had occurred between them,--in which the Frenchman, gifted with greater cunning, had managed to come off victorious. But there had never arisen any serious matter to test the strength of the two men to that desperate strife, of which death might be the ending. They had generally fought shy of each other; the Frenchman from a latent fear of his adversary,--founded, perhaps, on some suspicion of powers not yet exhibited by him, and which might be developed in a deadly struggle,--the Irishman from a habitude, not very common among his countrymen, of being little addicted to quarrelling.

He was, on the contrary, a man of peaceful disposition, and of few words,--also a rare circ.u.mstance, considering that his name was Larry O'Gorman.

There were some good traits in the Irishman's character. Perhaps we have given the best. In comparison with the Frenchman, he might be described as an angel; and, compared with the other wretches on the raft, he was, perhaps, the _least bad_: for the word _best_ could not, with propriety, be applied to anyone of that motley crew.

Personally, the two men were unlike as could well be. While the Frenchman was black and bearded, the Irishman was red and almost beardless. In size, however, they approximated nearer to each other,-- both being men of large stature. Both had been stout,--almost corpulent.

Neither could be so described as they a.s.sisted at that solemn ceremonial that was to devote one or other of them to a doom--in which their _condition_ was a circ.u.mstance of significant interest to those who were to survive them.

Both were shrunken in shape, with their garments hanging loosely around their bodies, their eyes sunk in deep cavities, their cheek-bones prominently protruding, their b.r.e.a.s.t.s flat and fleshless, the ribs easily discernible,--in short, they appeared more like a pair of skeletons, covered with shrivelled skin, than breathing, living men.

Either was but ill-adapted for the purpose to which dire necessity was about to devote one or other of them.

Of the two, Le Gros appeared the less attenuated. This may have arisen from the fact of his greater ascendency over the crew of the raft,--by means of which he had been enabled to appropriate to himself a larger share of the food spa.r.s.ely distributed amongst them. His ample covering of hair may have had something to do with this appearance,--concealing as it did the unevenness of the surface upon which it grew, and imparting a plumper aspect to his face and features.

If there was a superiority in the quant.i.ty of flesh still clinging to his bones, its quality might be questioned,--at all events, in regard to the use that might soon be made of it. In point of tenderness, his muscular integuments could scarcely compare with those of the Irishman, whose bright skin promised--

These are horrid thoughts. They should not be her repeated, were it not to show in its true light the terrible extremes, both of thought and action, to which men may be reduced by starvation. Horrid as they may appear, they were entertained at that crisis by the castaway crew of the _Pandora_!

CHAPTER SIXTY NINE.

A CHALLENGE DECLINED.

When it came to the last drawing,--for there needed to be only one more,--there was a pause in the proceedings, such as usually precedes an expected climax.

It was accompanied by silence; so profound that, but for the noise made by the waves as they dashed against the hollow hogsheads, a pin might have been heard if dropped upon the planking of the raft. In the sound of the sea there was something lugubrious: a fit accompaniment of the unhallowed scene that was being enacted by those within hearing of it.

One might have fancied that spirits in fearful pain were confined within the empty casks, and that the sounds that seemed to issue out of them were groans elicited by their agony.