CHAPTER XVI.

DREAD.

"What the devil is the matter?" asked Captain Phillips, as he hastily donned his pea-jacket, and addressed Hawkshaw, who was seated on the cabin locker, panting with excitement.

"Did you utter that dismal howl, Captain Hawkshaw?" added Dr. Heriot, impatiently; "speak, sir, have you lost your voice?"

"Very nearly, and my senses too," groaned the other, whose cup of shame and misery was well-nigh full now.

"What has happened?"

"Look at my hand!" said Hawkshaw, striving to gain time for thought--to rally his scattered wits for the coming _dénouement_--for an explanation, or a bold defiance.

"Well, what has happened?"

"It is almost bleeding--bitten."

"By what--by whom?" asked everyone at once

"A madman."

"Mad!" was exclaimed in wild tones by all.

"Yes," said Hawkshaw, through his clenched teeth, and with a glare in his eye, that seemed somewhat akin to insanity; "one of those fellows between-decks--one of those wretches we took off the raft (a curse upon them all!) has bitten me."

"But which of them?" asked Heriot, who had now completely attired himself.

"Oh, I don't know which, and I care not which," replied the wretched Hawkshaw, as he rubbed and blew his breath upon his aching digits.

"And he actually bit you?"

"Yes; have I not already said so?"

"What were you doing?"

"Doing--adjusting the clothes upon him," replied Hawkshaw, after a pause; "and look you, he has almost bitten my hand to the bone."

As he spoke he held up his right hand to the cabin lamp, and there certainly were the marks of a row of teeth distinctly visible, for Noah Gawthrop had been determined to give Morley's nocturnal assailant a stamp by which he would know him again.

"For all that I know, he may have half strangled one of his companions, in addition to this wild assault upon me," added the Texan captain, as a sudden thought occurred to him, for in his confusion he did not know how far he had assaulted Morley.

Heriot, a very sharp-witted and intelligent fellow, who, at his native university, had met men from all parts of the world, and had thus gained a considerable insight of human character, had been scrutinising Hawkshaw keenly, and something in his manner, or in the expression of his face, seemed to excite some vague suspicion--Heriot knew not exactly of what--in his mind.

"To me this appears like an impossibility," he began; "excuse me saying so, but what motive----"

"I know nothing of motives, Dr. Leslie Heriot," interrupted Hawkshaw, becoming furious and desperate; "but this I know, that I may be tempted to use my revolver with a vengeance, if I am molested again by anyone on board this ship; be assured of that."

At this sudden outburst, Heriot gave a smile of well-bred surprise, and glanced at the captain, who said:

"This is a most extraordinary and unaccountable affair, and must be instantly inquired into. I am sure that the poor fellows looked quiet enough when I saw them last. Steward--Joe, a lantern--quick! Come, doctor, Mr. Basset--we'll see to this."

"Oh, Leslie," cried Rose, "take care, take care!"

"Oh, papa--dear papa, you, at least, must not go," added Ethel, who had now put on her morning wrapper, or dressing-gown, and appeared at the door of her little cabin.

"Pooh, pooh, Miss Basset, there is not the slightest cause for fear, my dear girl," said the captain, laughing, as Joe lit a ship-lantern.

"But the poor man's sufferings may have made him vicious--wild."

"I'll take care of your papa, ladies; and bite the fellow's head off, mayhap, if he bites him. Come, Captain Hawkshaw, and show us which of the four is the culprit, and then, if need be, we shall get the bilboes ready." *

* Iron shackles used on board ship to secure the feet of prisoners.

"No, no, I cannot," replied Hawkshaw, with a sullen and hang-dog expression in his now white and livid face.

"What--you won't go?"

"No."

The captain looked at him with a smile of contempt.

"Lead the way, captain," said Mr. Scriven Basset, impatiently; for his ideas of legal prerogative and position were gradually becoming stronger as he drew near the scene of his future judgeship--the sunny Isle of France. "I am anxious to see the end of this singular affair."

"Oh, most accursed fate!" murmured Hawkshaw, as he sank upon the stern locker. "All is over with me now!" he added, as Mr. Basset, the captain, Heriot, and others quitted the cabin, to go forward between decks, and then every minute that elapsed seemed at least an hour.

The cabin appeared to whirl round him like a great revolving cylinder; there was a confused hum of voices, that seemed to mingle with the rush of many waters, in his ear.

Again his former thoughts of suicide occurred to him; but his soul shrank within him at the idea of self-destruction. A loaded revolver was close by; he glanced at it with haggard and wistful eyes. One bullet would enable him to escape the coming shame, and by so doing, he would gain a triumph--a ghastly victory over them all.

But then he thought of a suicide's grave in the midnight sea; shot off a grating to leeward, without even a prayer, and shudderingly he withdrew his hand, and closing his eyes, muttered, with quivering lips:

"No, no--I cannot--I cannot."

At this moment a soft little hand was laid gently upon his, and looking up he beheld Ethel Basset.

Ignorant of all this man's secret life; of his crimes committed in wild and lawless lands; the wrong and cruelty of which he had been guilty to herself and to Morley--she surveyed him with something of pity, and he gazed at her bewildered, and in silence, thinking that she never looked so lovely as at this terrible moment of his humiliation and suspense.

She wore a loose and ample morning wrapper, of white stuff, spotted with red; it was profusely frilled, and fitted closely round her delicate throat, and her tapered white arms came softly out from its wide falling sleeves. A white tasselled cord confined it at the waist, and she had no ornament about her, save Morley Ashton's ring.

Turned hastily off her face, and behind her white and handsome ears, her dark, glossy, and glorious hair fell in a long mass down her back, and she was knotting it up with her right hand (thus showing to perfection a smooth white arm and dimpled elbow), while her left, so soft and small, rested on the hand of Hawkshaw; the hand that only five minutes before had aimed a death-clutch at the throat of Morley Ashton.

She gazed kindly and inquiringly into his pale and agitated face, for his present wretched and guilty aspect astonished and perplexed her.

Her colour, always so delicate, was somewhat heightened beyond its usual roseleaf tint, by the late excitement, and, as we have said, Hawkshaw, with all his selfishness, with all his guilt and bloodthirstiness, thought he never beheld her looking so lovely and so pure as at this, to him, most terrible time.

She was about to speak, when several footsteps were heard coming towards the great cabin, on which she retired hastily to her own, and shut the door.

"Oh, my God! they are coming to denounce me! Peril--disgrace--ruin, and no escape but death!" groaned Hawkshaw, covering his eyes with one hand, while the other fell, by chance--or was it fatality!--on the cold butt of the loaded revolver.