"We don’t dare to take no chances with such a desperate murderer."
"Men," shouted the captain, "you heard what’s been said?"
"We did, sir; an’ we seen it all from the beginnin’," answered a voice out of the darkness, a voice full of ugly threat and menace, which the captain did not recognize and thought best to pass unnoticed.
"Poor Mr. Woywod’s been killed, you understand. Mr. Salver will take his place as mate of the ship. Mr. Gersey will come aft as second mate, to be obeyed and respected accordin’."
"Damn good riddance," yelled another voice out of the darkness, carefully disguised.
This was too much. He could not overlook a remark of this kind, and yet in the black night there was little he could do, since the speaker was unrecognizable.
"Who said that?" blustered the captain, handling his pistol and peering forward.
"If the man who made that remark dares to repeat it in daylight, I’ll cut his heart out. An’ if I hear any more such talk, I’ll let fly at the bunch of you as it is. Get for’ard an’ to your stations."
The unknown commentator had obviously expressed the prevalent opinion aboard the ship on the death of Mr. Woywod. There was nothing else to be said or done then. The captain’s orders were carried out as a matter of course. The excited men dispersed without comment, but with a feeling that all the honors were with them. The boatswain came aft, having stripped his cabin. The prisoner was finally locked therein and left to himself. Bread and water were handed to him sufficient to keep life in him and not much else. The ship was hove to and Woywod was buried the next morning with due ceremony, the captain himself reading the service, the whole crew being mustered in due form, but never a man was shot down into the vasty deep with less of the spirit of prayer and forgiveness following him than the mate who had met his just deserts, if the looks of the crew, to which the captain was perforce oblivious, gave any indication of their feelings.
Beekman’s reflections could easily be imagined. To his dying day he would never forget the surprised, puzzled look on the mate’s face, the change of his countenance from mad passion to astonishment, from that amazement to pain, to horror, to deadly fear! He would never forget the convulsive struggle of the man on the deck at his feet, the white bone handle of the knife sticking out of his breast and shining in the light of the big hanging lamp against his blue shirt. There was a human life on his hands, calloused and hardened as they were. There was blood upon them. Had the blood been shed righteously? Had he been well advised to give way to his passion? Had the fact that he had gone there in behalf of another, a helpless weakling, dying himself from the ruthless treatment meted out to him, entitled him to take the mate’s life? Would the mate have shot him with that pistol? Was it self-defense? Had that only been back of his blow and his thrust?