"Great heavens!" he exclaimed, "has the captain taken upon himself the responsibility of ordering an execution? What a daring exercise of arbitrary power! It is dangerous to go on board! The brutal tyrant might hang any of his passengers!"
He was about to order the men to row back to the shore when he recollected the danger which there awaited him. He was between Scylla and Charybdis. In the mean while the Brazilian boatmen, who, with their backs towards the ship and their ignorance of the English language, neither witnessed the startling phenomenon nor understood the meaning of Pate's exclamation, vigorously plied their oars, and soon brought the boat to the vessel's side. Pale with terror and trembling in every joint, Pate looked up and beheld a number of passengers on deck laughing immoderately. Their mirth convinced him that no tragedy had been enacted, and he went on board where he learned that Hercules had been captured on shore and brought alongside lying in the boat in a helpless condition superinduced by inebriation. A perplexing consultation among his captors was cut short by Old Nick, who, having made ready a rope, leaped into the boat, and putting a stout band around the body of the giant, hooked on,--and up he went, with his imperfectly articulated maledictions mingling with the hearty "Heave ho!" of Peter and Paul, who were hoisting him on deck.
Thus was Hercules held up as an example to all evildoers; and when the Professor reached the ship, and was informed of the circumstance, he gravely remarked that men who were so imprudent as to indulge in the excessive use of strong drinks would sometimes become wonderfully elevated.
The mortification of M. T. Pate at having been compelled to leave the Brazilian Empire as an absconding debtor was intense, and he was now teased and tormented by his comrades in the most unmerciful manner.
They told him that as soon as his ruthless creditor discovered his flight he would apply to the Emperor for redress, who would dispatch a swift-sailing man-of-war to capture him; and that he would be carried back and imprisoned in the calaboose until he had paid the last dump of the debt. Whenever a sail hove in sight, some one would cry out, "There comes the Brazilian vessel in pursuit of Pate;" when all would advise him to secrete himself in the hold of the ship, and said that they would inform the captain of the man-of-war that he had unfortunately fallen overboard when off Cape Frio.