CHAPTER XXIII.

HAWKSHAW'S OLD FRIENDS.

One day, Ethel, inspired perhaps by Hawkshaw's evil genius, expressed a wish to go forward and see what she termed "the front part of the ship."

Her papa and Dr. Heriot were near; but as Hawkshaw had a jealous dislike of Heriot's attention to the sisters, and Mr. Basset had no desire to take more trouble than was absolutely necessary, the ex-captain drew closer to her, on which she said:

"Please take me to see it."

Hawkshaw, though he would almost as soon have walked into a furnace, gave his hand reluctantly to Ethel, pulled his newly-donned wide-awake down over his eyes, and led her forward from the sanctum of the quarter-deck.

Though in no way enchanted with her cavalier, Ethel, with a minuteness that, to him, was alike distressing and provoking, insisted on examining everything in this new region of the ship. The capstan, with its drumhead, pals, and bars; the hatches, with their tarpaulins and iron bands; the long-boat upon its chocks, lashed amidships, full of hens, pigs, and all the debris of the deck; the cook's galley, with its hot, steaming coppers and tin pans; the skuttle-butt, from which the sailors drunk their water, by a long tin measure lowered through the bung-hole; the bowsprit, riding gallantly above the foam, with its perpendicular martingale for guying down the headstays, dipping in the sea from time to time; the catheads with their double sheaves; the windlass, the best bower anchor, and the sheet anchor; and last of all, she peeped into the forecastle bunks, a dreary-looking little den, in the berths of which a number of the ruffian-like crew were lounging, sleeping, and some, in defiance of all orders, smoking pipes and cigaritos.

So full of interest had the beautiful and intelligent girl been while exploring this new world, passing from object to object, stepping lightly and gracefully with her gathered skirts above her pretty tapered ankles, that some time elapsed before she perceived, that which the more wary Hawkshaw had from the first observed, the cool and deliberate insolence with which the seamen--so unlike British seamen--were observing her. They loitered or stood directly in her way, and, when she begged pardon or turned aside, they leered at her, thrust their tongues in their cheeks, applied their forefingers to the side of their noses, whistled, and betrayed other and unmistakable signs of coarse wit or insolent admiration.

Ignorant of all this, poor Ethel continued to loiter among them, thinking them all very brave and fine fellows, though very dirty, and quite unlike William in "Black-eyed Susan," with his spotless trousers, tight at the waist and loose at the feet, his low-crowned, varnished hat, with its black ribbon, his dandy jacket, broad collar, and black silk neckerchief, with its peculiar tie.

The Barradas, Bill Badger, and Co., were the very antipodes of all this; but now the cook's galley interested her again.

"Oh, Captain Hawkshaw--the cat--look at the poor cat!" she exclaimed, as this useful domestic animal peeped at her from amid the cook's kettles.

"Well, Ethel, what of the cat?"

"See, what a horror it is!" continued Ethel, pointing to pussy, who had neither ears nor tail, and whose usually silky coat was coarse as that of a Spitzbergen bear, by almost daily immersions in the salt water of the lee-scuppers. "Captain Hawkshaw, tell me----"

"You must not speak so loudly, Miss Basset!" said that personage, with uncontrollable asperity and alarm. "I am close beside you; and others will hear as well as myself," he added.

"Others, sir?" repeated Ethel, with astonishment.

"You were about to ask something," said he, with visible uneasiness and confusion.

"I was about to ask who had mutilated the poor animal so cruelly."

"How can I say? Some ruffian, no doubt. Come aft, and ask the captain about it."

"Lord love you, marm," said the cook--a greasy black fellow, who seemed to be in a perpetual state of steam, grime, and perspiration; and no wonder, when he had his blazing coppers around him, and overhead a tropical sun that melted pitch out of the decks--"there ain't no cruelty in this whatsomdever."

"What! no cruelty in mutilating the poor animal thus?"

"It's natur's wicious, marm," replied the cook, with great earnestness. "'Tain't lucky to have a cat aboard o' ship, or a parson neither, for the matter o' that. We can't dock the parson; but we docks the cat, as you see."

"Poor little pussy!"

"Poor! be darned, marm! I shears off the ears for'ard, and docks the tail aft, leavin' on'y the starn post; and so a cook's knife alters their appearance and their wicious nature entirely."

"What strange stuff is that you are cooking?"

"Scouse, for the fork'stle, marm; have a taste?" replied the cook, offering a huge dirty ladle, filled with a queer mess, to Ethel's lovely lip.

But she shrank back; so he poured down his capacious throat the scalding contents, which, in reality, was a savoury mess, composed of salt junk, chopped into small pieces, bruised biscuits, potatoes, suet and pepper, all stewed up together, and ready to be served up in the wooden kid for the ship's crew.

"Shall we go aft, now?" said Hawkshaw, with irrepressible annoyance.

"Yes, please," replied Ethel, hastening away, on finding herself the centre of what she deemed a curious, but which was in reality an impertinently admiring group.

And, grasping the belaying pins to steady her steps, she hastened towards the quarter alone, for Hawkshaw remained behind, paralysed, and almost cursing her in his heart, on finding himself confronted by the bulky form and lowering front of Pedro Barradas.

He saw that Ethel, alone and unattended, had reached a seat near the taffrail, and was now beside her father, Rose, Dr. Heriot, and some of the ship's officers; so he turned hastily away, seeking to get aft by passing between the foremast and the forehatch; but there he was encountered by Bill Badger, the raw-boned, red-skinned, and ruffianly-looking Yankee, who said, while touching his hat in insolent mockery:

"Avast! I beg yer pardon, Capting 'Awkshaw, but haul yer wind. I calculate there's a yellow cove as wants to speak with yer uncommon pertic'lar--one o' the not-to-be-done squadron."

Turning, with rage and desperation in his heart, Hawkshaw affected a calm exterior, and said, suavely, to Barradas:

"I believe you wish to speak with me, my good fellow?"

"Ha! ha! ha! _morte de Dios_; how well he does it!" exclaimed the black-whiskered Pedro, slapping his huge thigh with a great brown, hairy hand, and showing a row of strong white teeth that a shark might envy. "But it won't do, capitano--_caramba!_ it won't do!"

"I do not comprehend you, fellow!" said Hawkshaw, with an assumption of dignity.

"Oho! hallo, mates, he doesn't comprehend. Shall I make him?"

"Aye, aye; pitch into the cork-sucker!" growled several of the crew, bent upon mischief.

"Step with me this way," said Hawkshaw, with growing perturbation, drawing Pedro Barradas towards the bow of the long-boat. "I assure you that I am quite at a loss to know what you mean."

"Mean!" thundered the other, with a scowl on his dark visage, so terrible that Hawkshaw expected next moment to see a sharp knife glittering at his throat; "do you pretend to say that you have forgotten our old South American life, _camarado_, and how well you handled your lasso in the Barranca Secca, between Orizaba and the Puebla de Perote?"

"You are labouring under some strange mistake."

"If I were, would you take it so quietly, unless you were a coward? Mistaken! _Por vida del demonio_, I am not!"

"You are, fellow!"

"Oh, no, we are not mistaken," sneered the seaman.

"We?"

"Yes, we--Zuares and I. We knew you at once, and have known you ever since we cleared the Thames; so you may as well let your beard grow, and leave off skulking below when we take our trick at the wheel, or our spell at church on Sunday. You may as well leave off your blasted quarter-deck airs, too, for they won't go down with either of us."

"Scoundrel!" began Hawkshaw.

"Hah! is it to be _guerra al cuchillo_ between us?" said the half Spaniard, touching his knife with a grim smile; "if so, _cuidar con el lobo!_"--(beware of the wolf.)

"Let me pass," said Hawkshaw, choking with rage.

"Not yet. I see you have still on your finger the ring we cut off the hand of the old padre, whom we lured into the Barranca, by sending, in the name of our Lady of Guadaloupe, a message that he must hasten to a dying man."

"Liar!" hissed Hawkshaw, while the crew drew nearer.

"He bent down to hear the confession of the expiring sinner--you, capitano--YOU, who sprang up and cut his throat. Ho! ho! Demonio, I knew from the first that we were _companeros de viage_."

"Villain and fiend!" muttered Hawkshaw, while drops of shame and rage rolled over his damp, pale visage, and his hands longed to clutch the muscular throat of the brawnier, mocking, and malevolent Barradas; "villain and fiend! so you are here?"

"Yes, and Zuares, too, Senor Capitano, as you have known well by the skulking aft; so civility is best. Oh, neither of us have forgotten that pleasant afternoon which we spent together in the Barranca Secca."

"Was I to blame for your mistake, or your brother's crime?"

"Now, what have you to say that I do not denounce you to your fine friends in the cabin, eh?--particularly to that girl with the dark eyes. Santos! what shoulders she has, such a bust and ankles! and then, there is that pretty little mina-bird, her sister, with the red cheeks and plump arms. It makes a fellow's mouth water to see them here upon the open ocean, so far from land--and help, eh, mates?--one would admire a coal-black negress here. And so you love the oldest one, capitano, eh?"

Hawkshaw drew back with indignant disgust at the idea of Ethel being referred to by such lips.

"Hah, did I sting you there?" resumed Barradas; "well, beware that you do not feel all the bitterness of losing her."

"Losing her?"

"Yes--before our ground-tackle is rove and ready. Take care," continued the mocking ruffian, "that you do not experience the bitterness of seeing a happiness that shall never be yours, _ours_. Harkee, _hombre_, can your fair ones swim?"

"Why?" asked Hawkshaw, mechanically.

"We meant to have had some fun with them when we crossed the Line, and shall have it yet. In their dainty white English skins--nothing else, remember--they will look uncommonly pretty floundering alongside, in the belly of a top-gallant studding-sail, won't they--eh?"

"You cannot mean--you dare not!" gasped Hawkshaw.

"Oh, don't be shocked, _companero_, before that comes to pass, you and some others shall have walked the plank, or been shot endlong, foot foremost, off a grating to leeward. Do you remember the Gulf of Florida, and what we did there to the mate of the _Polacca_?"

"Will you keep silent?" groaned Hawkshaw.

"Yes--if I am paid for it," grinned the other.

"Of course."

"But how am I to answer for Zuares, unless he is paid, too?"

"Of course," replied Hawkshaw, utterly bewildered.

The storm so long dreaded had burst upon him at last; and this was all he reaped by the cruel manner in which he had supplanted Morley Ashton.

"Well, the _duros_?" resumed Pedro, with a scowl, placing his hooked nose instantly within an inch of Hawkshaw's.

"I have no money."

"_Maldita!_" replied the South American, with a frown, "have you nothing?"

"Absolutely nothing--but this watch."

"Let us see it--presto!" said the impatient Pedro, with an oath that made even Hawkshaw shudder.

Turning his back to the quarter-deck, the latter drew from his vest pocket, with a sullen, humiliated, and hang-dog aspect, a handsome gold watch.

"_Muchos gratias_," said the mocking Barradas, with a grin, as he snatched it away with such force as to snap the guard; and then he thrust it into one of the pockets of his tarry trowsers, adding, "Now be off to your quarter-deck, and take care how you come forward again, _until you are wanted--vaya usted al demonio!_ and the devil go with you!"

Barradas spat at Hawkshaw, with a scowl in his face, and turning away, walked to the forecastle, laughing.

A red blindness came over Hawkshaw, as if a crimson cloud enveloped him; he trembled in every limb, and his breath came in short painful gaspings. So black was his fury, that at first he thought of getting a revolver from his baggage, and shooting both the Barradas before the passengers and crew; but the fear of being instantly immolated by the latter restrained him, for he was a coward at heart, and one, moreover, who felt that he dared not die!

He was staggering, oppressed by hate, by rage, and shame, with the voice and mocking laugh of Barradas and his companions ringing in his ears, filling his tortured heart with bitterness and confusion, when suddenly several men on the weather-side exclaimed:

"A man in the water!"

"A dead body alongside!"

"Lay the ship in the wind!"

"Where away?" cried Mr. Quail.

"It's to leeward now. Bear a hand, boys; lower away the quarter-boat--stand by the falls."

This clamour, perhaps, arrested some immediate catastrophe, and gave a new current to the fierce emotions of Hawkshaw.

Though everything was set aloft that would draw or catch a breath of air, the breeze was very light, and all upon the starboard beam; thus the ship went very slowly through the water, with a steady but gentle heel to port.

Far away to leeward the western sun cast her giant shadow upon the sunny bosom of the deep, and it was in the midst of that shadow, about twenty yards from the ship, that the sad object was seen floating.

Soon it was abeam; then on the lee quarter, and soon astern, among the gold-tipped summits of the waves, as they rippled up in rapid succession beneath the passing breath of the light breeze.

Captain Phillips gave orders to lie to; so the mainyard was backed, and two of the crew, who owned the aristocratic names of Cribbit and Bolter, accompanied by Dr. Heriot, Manfredi, and Hawkshaw (who, after his late excitement, was anxious to do something, he knew not what), shoved off in the larboard quarter-boat, with four six-pound shots in a canvas bag, to sink the body after examining it.

A few strokes of the oar brought them alongside, scaring away a flock of Mother Gary's chickens that were hovering and tripping about it.

The body appeared to be that of a young seaman.

It was floating on its face, as all male corpses do when in the water, while those of females float on their back. How is it so?--let naturalists determine.

With his death-clutch his hands still grasped the lanyard of a life-buoy, from which the action of the weather had effaced the ship's name, and, as the poor fellow was minus a jacket, there were no pockets to search for anything that could lead to his identity. His dark hair rose and fell, floating on the water with every ripple that ran past him.

"He must have fallen overboard in the night, or belonged to some craft which has foundered in a storm that has not come our way," said Manfredi.

"Aye, aye," added Dr. Heriot; "some morning, perhaps the poor fellow little thought his soul would be required of him ere night; and little thinks some poor wife or sweetheart, mother or sister, that one they love is floating thus, so far from land."

"How long has he been in the water?" asked Hawkshaw, in a low tone.

"About four days, I think," replied Dr. Heriot, who, as he spoke, smartly lashed the bag containing the four six-pound shots to the feet of the corpse, at the same time desiring Hawkshaw with a clasp-knife to cut away the lanyard of the life-buoy, which was grasped by the hands of the deceased.

Hawkshaw reluctantly and shudderingly obeyed.

Then, as the poor corpse began to sink feet foremost, slowly, solemnly, and gradually into the pale green and transparent sea, the head rose, nodding, but almost erect, from the water.

The face became visible in the glare of the setting sun, now almost level with the sea, and an exclamation of horror burst from Hawkshaw, as he fell backward over the middle thwarts of the boat, for in the ghastly lineaments of the sinking dead man, as the sea closed slowly over them, he seemed to recognise--oh, was it conscience, fancy, or reality?--the dreaded features of MORLEY ASHTON!