Cast the Jonah overboard and let him try his evil eye upon the sharks.’
‘So be it,’ answered the other man, and finished striking off my fetters.
‘Those who have come to a cup of water each a day, do not press their guests to share it. They show them the door.
Say your prayers, Englishman, and may they do you more good than they have done for most on this accursed ship.
Here, this is the stuff to make drowning easy, and there is more of it on board than of water,’ and he handed me the flask of spirit.
I took it and drank deep, and it comforted me a little.
Then they put the rope round me and at a signal those on the deck above began to haul till I swung loose beneath the hatchway.
As I passed that Spaniard to whom I had been given in slavery, and who but now had counselled my casting away, I saw his face well in the light of the lantern, and there were signs on it that a physician could read clearly.
‘Farewell,’ I said to him, ‘we may soon meet again.
Fool, why do you labour?
Take your rest, for the plague is on you.
In six hours you will be dead!’
His jaw dropped with terror at my words, and for a moment he stood speechless.
Then he uttered a fearful oath and aimed a blow at me with the hammer he held, which would swiftly have put an end to my sufferings had I not at that moment been lifted from his reach by those who pulled above.
In another second I had fallen on the deck as they slacked the rope.
Near me stood two black men whose office it was to cast us poor wretches into the sea, and behind them, seated in a chair, his face haggard from recent illness, sat de Garcia fanning himself with his sombrero, for the night was very hot.
He recognised me at once in the moonlight, which was brilliant, and said,
‘What! are you here and still alive, Cousin?
You are tough indeed; I thought that you must be dead or dying.
Indeed had it not been for this accursed plague, I would have seen to it myself. Well, it has come right at last, and here is the only lucky thing in all this voyage, that I shall have the pleasure of sending you to the sharks.
It consoles me for much, friend Wingfield.
So you came across the seas to seek vengeance on me?
Well, I hope that your stay has been pleasant.
The accommodation was a little poor, but at least the welcome was hearty.
And now it is time to speed the parting guest.
Good night, Thomas Wingfield; if you should chance to meet your mother presently, tell her from me that I was grieved to have to kill her, for she is the one being whom I have loved.
I did not come to murder her as you may have thought, but she forced me to it to save myself, since had I not done so, I should never have lived to return to Spain.
She had too much of my own blood to suffer me to escape, and it seems that it runs strong in your veins also, else you would scarcely hold so fast by vengeance.
Well, it has not prospered you!’
And he dropped back into the chair and fell to fanning himself again with the broad hat.
Even then, as I stood upon the eve of death, I felt my blood run hot within me at the sting of his coarse taunts.
Truly de Garcia’s triumph was complete.
I had come to hunt him down, and what was the end of it?
He was about to hurl me to the sharks.
Still I answered him with such dignity as I could command.
‘You have me at some disadvantage,’ I said.
‘Now if there is any manhood left in you, give me a sword and let us settle our quarrel once and for all.
You are weak from sickness I know, but what am I who have spent certain days and nights in this hell of yours.
We should be well matched, de Garcia.’
‘Perhaps so, Cousin, but where is the need?
To be frank, things have not gone over well with me when we stood face to face before, and it is odd, but do you know, I have been troubled with a foreboding that you would be the end of me.
That is one of the reasons why I sought a change of air to these warmer regions.
But see the folly of forebodings, my friend.
I am still alive, though I have been ill, and I mean to go on living, but you are—forgive me for mentioning it—you are already dead.
Indeed those gentlemen,’ and he pointed to the two black men who were taking advantage of our talk to throw into the sea the slave who followed me up the hatchway, ‘are waiting to put a stop to our conversation.
Have you any message that I can deliver for you? If so, out with it, for time is short and that hold must be cleared by daybreak.’
‘I have no message to give you from myself, though I have a message for you, de Garcia,’ I answered.
‘But before I tell it, let me say a word.
You seem to have won, wicked murderer as you are, but perhaps the game is not yet played.
Your fears may still come true.