“Do you think to frighten us with ground sharks?” replied the coxswain, “keep under cover, my lad; Jack, give him a shot to prove we are in earnest, and every time he or that nigger show their heads, give them another, my lads.”
“For God’s sake, don’t attempt to swim,” said Jack, in an agony; “I will try some means to give you water.”
“Too late now—you’re doomed;” and the coxswain sprang off the rock into the sea, and was followed by two other men: at the same moment a musket was discharged, and the bullet whistled close to our hero’s ear.
Mesty dragged Jack from the gangway, who was now nearly fainting from agonizing feeling. He sank on the deck for a moment, and then sprang up and ran to the port to look at the men in the water. He was just in time to see the coxswain raise himself with a loud yell out of the sea, and then disappear in a vortex, which was crimsoned with his blood.
Mesty threw down his musket in his hand, of which he had several all ready loaded, in case the men should have gained the boats.
“By the powers, dat no use now!”
Jack had covered his face with his hands. But the tragedy was not complete: the other men, who were in the water, had immediately turned and made for the shore; but before they could reach it, two more of these voracious monsters, attracted by the blood of the coxswain, had flown to the spot, and there was a contention for the fragments of their bodies.
Mesty, who had seen this catastrophe, turned towards our hero, who still hid his face.
“I’m glad he no see dat, anyhow,” muttered Mesty.
“See what?” exclaimed Jack.
“Shark eat em all.”
“Oh, horrid, horrid!” groaned our hero.
“Yes, sar, very horrid,” replied Mesty, “and dat bullet at your head very horrid. Suppose the sharks no take them, what then? They kill us and the sharks have our body. I think that more horrid still.”
“Mesty,” replied Jack, seizing the negro convulsively by the arm, “it was not the sharks—it was I—I who have murdered these men.”
Mesty looked at Jack with surprise.
“How dat possible?”
“If I had not disobeyed orders,” replied our hero, panting for breath, “if I had not shown them the example of disobedience, this would not have happened. How could I expect submission from them? It’s all my fault—I see it now—and, O God! when will the sight be blotted from my memory?”
“Massa Easy, I not understand that,” replied Mesty:
“I think you talk foolish—might as well say, suppose Ashantee men not make war, this not happen; for suppose Ashantee not make war, I not slave—I not run away—I not come board Harpy—I not go in boat with you—I not hinder men from getting drunk—and dat why they make mutiny—and the mutiny why the shark take um?”