"I want him dead," growled Huxham gruffly, "drown dead an' buried."
Perhaps his sojourn in distant lands on the fringes of the empire had familiarised the captain with sudden death and murder, for he made this amazing proposition in a calm and cheerful voice. But the minister was not so steeled to horrors.
"What?" he repeated in a shaking voice and with dilated eyes.
"All fur you," murmured the tempter persuasively, "every blamed acre of et, t' say nothing of Bella es is a fine gel, an'----"
"No, no, no!" cried Silas vehemently, spreading his hands across his lean, agitated face, "how dare you ask such a thing?"
"Jus' a push," went on Huxham softly, "he bein' on the edge of one of them ditches, es y' might say. Wot th' water gits th' water holds. He'd go down int' the black slime an' never come up. It 'ud choke him. Cuss me," murmured Huxham softly, "I'd like t' see the black slime choke a Lister."
Pence gasped again and recalled how the Evil One had taken the Saviour of men up to an exceedingly high mountain, to show Him the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. "All these things will I give thee," said Satan, "if----"
"No!" shouted Silas, his eyes lighting up with wrath. "Get thee behind me----" Before finishing his sentence, and before Huxham could reply, he scrambled down the ladder to rush for the open trap. The captain leaned from his quarter-deck scornfully. "Y' needn't say es I gave y' the chance, fur no one 'ull believe y'," he cried out, coolly, "an' a milksop y' are. Twenty acres, a house, an' a fine gel--y'd be set up for life, ef y'd only push----"
Pence heard no more. In a frenzy of horror he dropped through the trap-door, inwardly praying that he might be kept from temptation. Huxham saw him vanish and scowled. "Blamed milky swab," he grumbled, then turned to survey the bribe he had offered for wilful murder. He looked at the corn and across the corn uneasily, as though he saw danger in the distance. "No cause to be afeared," muttered the ex-mariner; "he can't get through the corn. It keeps me safe anyhow."
But who the "he" referred to might be, Huxham did not say.
Imagine a man wrapped from infancy in the cotton wool of civilisation suddenly jerked out of the same into barbaric nakedness. Deprived of the strong protection of the law, brought suddenly face to face with the "might-is-right" theory, he would have to fight for his own land, even to the extent of slaying anyone who thwarted his needs. Such a man, amazed and horrified at first, would gradually become accustomed to his Ishmael existence, since habit is second nature. Silas Pence felt sick when he reflected on the offer made by Captain Huxham, and to him of all people--a minister of the Gospel, a follower of the Prince of Peace. For the first time in his guarded life, he became aware of the evil which underlies the smiling surface of things, and it was as though an abyss had opened suddenly at his feet. But although he did not know it at the time, the seed had been sown in his heart at the right moment, and would germinate almost without his knowledge. In a few days Silas could look back at the horrifying suggestion with calmness, and could even consider the advantages it offered.
