"We have."
"Ought he not to get off easier dan dat dam skunk, dat Hunston fellar?"
"Yes, but you wouldn"t recommend joking with him as we do with Mr.
Mole?"
"No. I"d let it be no joke, Ma.s.sa Jack; I"d just frighten him out of his darned skin, dat"s all."
Harry Girdwood was taken into their confidence, and a fine plot was agreed upon.
The only difficulty was the sailor nurse.
Joe Basalt was on guard again.
They gave Joe Basalt a good stiff tumbler of grog--and where is the sailor who could resist that?--and oh, wickedness! the grog was hocussed.
In plainer language, that means drugged.
Not very long after drinking their healths in a b.u.mper, old Joe felt drowsy, and he fell asleep.
The patient slept, and would not have awakened probably for two hours had not the two negroes Sunday and Monday set up a most unearthly, moaning noise.
The pitch was low but thrilling, and not the pleasantest thing for a man to hear with a conscience laden with guilt as was the wretched man Hunston"s.
The sick man was for some time oblivious of the sounds which were going on for his special ear.
But after a certain delay it began to tell.
He moaned.
Then moved.
Then turned upon his back.
"Hunston! Hunston! oh, Hunston!" Sunday groaned. "Awake."
And then the two darkeys would groan together.
A responsive moan from Hunston was heard.
He opened his eyes, moaned and groaned, and awoke wakeful at once.
And when he awoke!
His startled eyes fell upon two awful and awesome figures.
The two boys, young Jack and Harry Girdwood, standing hand in hand, their faces bearing the ghastly pallor of the grave and their brows smeared with blood.
In the darkened cabin a flickering, phosph.o.r.escent light played upon them, a hint which had perhaps been borrowed from the practical joking in the chamber of the sham necromancer in Greece.
The two victims glared upon the sick man, while he could only stare in fearful silence.
He stared.
Then he closed his eyes and rubbed them, and opened them again, as if to a.s.sure himself that it was real.
But they never moved.
Never spoke.
He essayed to speak.
But his tongue refused to wag.
It stuck to the roof of his mouth.
The perspiration stood out upon his brow in thick beads.
Presently, when a sound came from him, it was a dull, hollow moan of anguish, that sounded like the echo of some "yawning grave."
A sound which seemed to contain the pent-up agony of a whole lifetime of suffering.
But his tormentors were merciless.
They did not budge.
"Away, horrible creatures!" gasped the miserable wretch, in tones scarcely louder than a whisper. "Away, and hide yourselves!"
And he strove to drag the coverlet over his head.
But there was a fearful fascination in it which forced him in spite of himself to look again.
"I know you are unreal," he faltered. "I know my mind is wandering-- that I fancy it all--all. Begone! away!"
As well might he have invited them to shake him by the hand or to embrace him affectionately.
No.
There they stuck glaring upon him with eyes full of hideous menace.
"What brings you here?" he said again. "Why do you come to torment me now? Rest in your graves. Away, I say, away!"
His manner grew more violent as he went on speaking.
"You had no mercy upon us," said young Jack; "and now remember when last we were upon earth."
A groan from Hunston was the only response.
"Beware!" said Harry Girdwood, in sepulchral tones. "Beware, I say!"