And he cowered down at Harkaway"s feet with averted glance, endeavouring to shut out the fearsome sight.
"Take him away," said Harkaway to the men.
They advanced and laid hands upon him, but Hunston fought madly with them and clung to Harkaway"s knees in desperation.
It was his last chance, he felt positive.
"Think, Harkaway, think," he cried again and again. "Remember our boyhood"s days; remember our youth, pa.s.sed at school together. We were college chums, and--"
"No; not quite," interrupted d.i.c.k Harvey in disgust. "We were at Oxford together, but never chums."
"You were never the sort of man that one would care to chum with,"
added Harkaway.
"Never!"
"Take him away."
Hunston gave a loud yell of despair, and gazed around him.
Again his glance was riveted by the sight of the two boys standing in the same att.i.tude, and then horror-stricken, appalled, he sank upon the ground all of a heap and half fainting.
A miserable, a piteous object indeed.
"Hunston," said Harkaway, after a few minutes" pause, "you bade me think. It is my turn to bid you think. If your white-livered fears had not blinded your judgment, you would have known that your life is safe here."
Hunston raised his head slowly.
He gazed about him with the same vacant look, utterly Unable to realise the meaning of Harkaway"s words.
"You jest," he faltered.
"We are not butchers," said Jefferson, sternly.
Humbled, degraded, though he was, these words of hope sent the blood coursing through his veins wildly.
Saved!
Was it possible?
Young Jack stepped out of the circle and approached the miserable wretch.
"When we last stood face to face, and when you ordered the Greek brigands to fire on us, Hunston, I told you that this would come about."
Hunston shrank affrightedly before the lad.
"I told you, Hunston," continued young Jack, "that the time would come when you would grovel in the dirt and beg your life from my father.
That time has come, you see. Like the miserable cur that you are, you grovel and beg and pray in a way that I would never condescend to do to you. You have tasted all the horrors of antic.i.p.ation, and that is worse than death itself. Now, perhaps, you know what I and my comrade Harry felt when you condemned us to death."
"We told you," added Harry Girdwood quietly, "that it would come home to you; it has."
During the foregoing, Hunston began to realise the truth.
They lived.
"Get up," said Jefferson; "it is time to end this sickening scene."
Hunston slowly rose to his feet
"Excuse me," said the captain, stepping forward, "but as captain of this ship--under your orders, Mr, Harkaway, of course--I can"t see how it is possible to allow his offence to go unpunished. You are of course at liberty to forgive him for any wrong he may have done you all, but with all due deference I must set my face against winking at such offences as he has committed on board this ship."
"Listen to the skipper," added another of the crew.
"To let him off scot free would be to encourage insubordination and mutiny, in fact."
"Then I leave it to you, captain," said Harkaway; "I shall not interfere in your management of the ship."
Hunston"s heart sank.
"Get rid of him at once," suggested Harvey.
"How?"
"Lower him in a boat; provision it for a month and set him adrift."
"Good."
"Do that," said Hunston, "and you consign me to a living death, worse than any tortures that savages could inflict." He remembered too well how he and Toro the Italian had been cast adrift from the "Flowery Land."
He had not forgotten the horrors of that cruise.
It was, in truth, as he said, ten times more horrible than death at their hands could be.
"My own opinion is," said the captain, "that his crime should be punished at once; such a crime should not be allowed to pa.s.s on board ship."
"What would you do?"
"Tie him up to a grating and give him four dozen lashes."
A wild storm of cheering greeted this proposal.
There was some feeble attempt at opposition upon the part of the Harkaway party, but this was overruled by the captain and crew.
"I"m not a cruel man, gentlemen," said the captain, "but I must side with the crew in this. Now, we"ll give him every chance. I propose to let him off if there is a single voice raised in his favour."
Not a word was spoken.