Читать книгу The Queen Versus Billy, and Other Stories - Lloyd Osbourne - Страница 3

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IT was the Sandfly, Captain Toombs, that brought the news to Sydney and intercepted her Majesty’s third-class cruiser Stingaree, as she lay in Man-of-War Cove, with her boats hoisted in and a deck-load of coal as high as her bulwarks, on the eve of a long trip into the western Pacific. It was the same old story—another white man sent to his last account in the inhospitable Solomons, where if the climate does not kill you the black man soon will: “Thomas Hysslop Biggar, commonly known as ‘Captain Tom’; aged forty-six; British subject; occupation, trader in coprah; place of residence, Sunflower Bay, island of Guadalcanar; murdered by the natives in September, 1888, between the 7th and the 24th, and his station looted and burned.” There was trouble in store for Sunflower Bay; they had killed Collins in 1884, and Casseroles the Frenchman in 1887, and had drawn upon themselves an ominous attention by firing into the Meg Merrilies in the course of the same year. Murder was becoming too frequent in Sunflower Bay, and Captain Casement, while policing those sweltering seas, was asked to “conduct an inquiry into the alleged murder of T. H. Biggar, and take what punitive measures he judged to be necessary.”

It was not everybody who would have liked such a task; in dealing with savages the innocent are too often lumped with the guilty, and while you are scattering death and canister among the evil-doers, you are often mangling their wives and children in a way horrible to think of. Captain Casement had seen such things in the course of his eventful service, and though no stickler where his duty was concerned, he was neither a brute nor a coward. He was a simple gentleman of character, parts, and conscience, with refined tastes, and a horror of shedding innocent blood. Under his command were five officers: Facey, acting first lieutenant, Burder, acting second, Assistant Paymaster Pickthorn, Engineer Sennett, Dr. Roche, ten marines, and a crew of eighty-eight men.

After a roundabout cruise through the pleasant groups of Fiji, Tongataboo, and Samoa, with little to occupy him save official dinners, tennis parties, and an occasional dance ashore, Captain Casement headed his ship for the wild western islands and pricked out a course for Sunflower Bay. One hot morning, when the damp, moist air made everything sticky to the touch, and the whole ship sweated like a palm-house from stem to stern, the Stingaree ran past the towering cliffs and roaring breakers of Guadalcanar, and let go her anchor off the blow-hole in Sunflower Bay. It was a melancholy spot to look at, though beautiful in a gloomy and savage fashion, and the only signs of man’s occupancy were the blackened ruin of the trader’s house, a small mountain of coal half covered with creepers, and a flagstaff surmounted by a skull. There was no visible beach, for the mangroves ran to the water’s edge, save where it had been partially cleared away by the man whose murder they had come to avenge; nor did the closest scrutiny with the glass betray any tell-tale smoke or the least sign of habitation. Captain Casement surveyed the place with his keen, practised eyes, and the longer he looked the less he liked it. The desolation jarred upon his nerves, and his heart fell a little as the blow-hole burst hoarsely under the ship’s quarter, and the everlasting breakers on the outer reef droned their note of menace and alarm.

“Goodness gracious!” he said, in his abrupt, impatient fashion, as he stood beside Facey on the bridge and superintended the laying of the kedge. “I don’t half like the look of it, Mr. Facey; it’s a damned nasty-looking place.”

The first lieutenant nodded. He was a burly, inarticulate man, to whom speech was always a serious matter.

“And see here, Facey,” went on the captain. “Guns don’t matter much; none of the devils shoot fit to speak of; but their poisoned arrows are the very deuce—you know that was the way Goodenough was killed—and you must keep your weather eye lifting.”

“Am I to go, sir?” asked the lieutenant.

“Yes,” said Casement. “You must take Pickthorn and twenty-five men in the first cutter. Send Burder in the second, with twenty more, to cover your landing. And for God’s sake, Facey, keep cool, and neither get flustered nor over-friendly! Don’t shoot unless you have to; and always remember they are the most treacherous savages in the world. Be gentle and firm, and do everything with as little fuss and as great a show of confidence as you can.”

“All right, sir,” said Facey.

Half an hour later, Facey, with twenty-five well-armed men, had vanished into the mangroves, while Burder and his crew lay forty yards off the shore in the second cutter, the officer devouring “Under Two Flags,” and the men smoking and yarning in the bottom of the boat. On the Stingaree two light guns were cast loose and made ready to open fire at a moment’s notice, and a lookout man was stationed in the maintop. The doctor busied himself in dismal preparation, while the captain paced the bridge with quick and anxious steps, fretting for the safety of his party ashore.

Hour after hour passed and brought never a sound from the melancholy woods. The fierce sun mounted to the zenith and sank again into the western sky. Casement was beside himself with suspense; a cup of tea served him for lunch, and he smoked one cigar after another. A deep foreboding brooded over the ship; the men sat or walked uneasily about the waist; the maintop was clustered with anxious blue-jackets; and old Quinn, the gunner, a half-crazy zealot whose religious convictions were of the extremest order, pattered off prayers beside the shotted guns. Towards five o’clock, when things were looking desperate and all began to fear the very worst, a sudden shout roused the ship, and the shore party, noisy and triumphant, were seen streaming down to the beach. A few moments later the two boats pulled slowly off to the ship, Facey’s company the richer by a black man, whose costume consisted of little more than the ropes he was bound with. A thundering cheer hailed them as they swept under the stern and drew up at the starboard gangway, and Facey was soon reporting himself on the bridge.

“I can’t tell you what a relief it is to see you,” said the captain. “I wouldn’t pass another such day for a thousand pounds!”

Facey was dog-tired, and his tattered clothes and scratched face gave evidence of a toilsome march. But he was in a boisterous good humour. He had acquitted himself with marked success, and was thankful to have brought back his party and himself safe and sound.

“Well, how did you make out?” asked the captain.

“We landed at the trader’s house,” began Facey, “followed a path that led inland, and reached some Kanaka huts. Not a soul in ’em; clean gone, every man jack. Followed along a well beaten path which led us into the next bay, bearing north-northeast half-east, keeping the liveliest lookout all the time. Three miles along we ran into another village, chock-a-block with niggers. It looked a nasty go; lots of guns and spears, and everybody pretty skittish, kind of they would and they wouldn’t! I recollected your orders and went slow; you know what I mean, sir—worked off the presents, and smoked my pipe leisurely. By and by they came round, tricky as the devil, on to make friends or to eat us alive, whichever seemed the more promising. I let out what I wanted, and bit by bit found out that all the Sunflower Bay crowd were there, even to old Jibberik, the chief—him Toombs said was the biggest scoundrel of the lot. He looked pretty sick and knew mighty well what we were after. I talked broadsides to that old man, and put it to him that he had better give up the chaps who had killed the trader than waltz back to the ship and be shot instanter himself—for somebody had to go, I said; and just as soon as I got the old codger alongside of me I gave him to understand that he was my bird, and kept my cocked pistol pointed at his belly. After no end of a fuss, and lots of frothing and loud talk, with things looking precious ugly now and again, we ended by coming out on top. Then they dragged along a young nigger named Billy, a returned labour-boy from the Queensland plantations, they said, and handed him over to me as the murderer. I thought it was more than likely they’d give us some cheap nigger they had no use for, or some worn-out old customer, as they did in Pentecost to Dewar of the Royalist; but I think this Billy was all right. A lot of niggers—Billy’s own push, I suppose—looked as black as fits and wouldn’t come round for a long time. Then I lashed the prisoner’s hands and tied him to one of our men, and talked pretty straight to Jib. I made him promise he’d bring his people back at once, and be down on the beach, himself and two others, to-morrow morning to give evidence against Billy.”

“You’ve done well, Mr. Facey,” said Casement, as his lieutenant drew to a close, “and I tell you the story sha’n’t lose when I report it to the admiral. You had better go now and get your clothes off,” he added.

Facey jumped to his feet. “I am sure I am awfully obliged to you, sir,” he said.

“Ugh, that’s all right,” said Casement, in his testy way. “What have you done with the prisoner?”

“Turned him over to the sergeant for safe-keeping, sir,” returned the officer.

“Leg-irons?” asked Casement.

“Leg-irons, handcuffs, and a dog-chain,” returned Facey, with a grin. “He’s cost too much to take any chances of his getting off.”

The first thing next morning, old Jibberik was brought aboard with his two companions. He was a disgusting old gorilla of a man, with a hairy chest and a cold, leering eye—a mere scarecrow of humanity, of a type incredibly cruel and debased. He had worked up enough courage overnight to beg for everything within sight, and he fingered the clothes and accoutrements of the seamen like a greedy child. His two friends were not a whit behind him, either in manners or appearance. They clicked and chattered like monkeys, and showed extraordinary fearlessness in that armed ship amid the swarming whites; the only man they seemed to dread was old Jibberik himself; and they wilted under his piercing glance like flowers in the sun, whenever his baleful attention fell their way.

Four bells was the time set for the court martial; at nine o’clock Casement sent for Facey and told him he must prepare to defend the prisoner.

“Burder will prosecute for the Queen,” he said. “Pickthorn will act as clerk. Sennett, Roche, and I will compose the court.”

The first lieutenant was overcome. “I don’t think I can, sir,” he said feebly. “I never did such a thing in my life; I wouldn’t know where to begin, or to leave off, for that matter.”

“You can leave off when we hang your prisoner,” Casement returned, with his bull-doggish air. “Of course, it’s all a damned farce,” he went on. “Somebody’s got to act for the nigger; it’s printed that way in the book.”

“I’ll move for an adjournment,” said Facey.

“I’ll be hanged if you will,” said the captain. “It’s a beastly business, and we have got to put it through.”

Facey groaned.

“Well, do you think I like it?” said Casement.

The lieutenant saluted and walked away to find his prisoner.

Billy was clanking his chains in a canvas hutch alongside the sick-bay, where a man lay dying. He looked up as Facey approached, and his face brightened as he recognised his captor. He was a good-looking young negro, and the symmetry of his limbs, and his air of intelligence and capacity, stood out in pleasant contrast with the rest of his comrades in Sunflower Bay.

“Billy,” said Facey, “they are going to make judge and jury for you by and by; and I am to talky-talky for you.”

“All same Queensland,” returned Billy. “May the Lord have mercy on your sinful soul!”

Facey was stupefied. “Where in thunder did you learn that?” he demanded.

“Oh, me savvy too much,” said Billy.

“Now, see here,” said the lieutenant. “You didn’t kill that trader?”

“Yes, I kill him,” said Billy, cheerfully.

“You did?” cried the other.

“White fellow no good; I kill him,” said the prisoner.

“If you tell that to the captain he’ll shoot you,” said Facey. If the prisoner was to be defended he was going to give him all the help he could.

The black boy looked distressed and nodded a forlorn assent.

“You’ll be a big fool to say that,” said Facey.

“White fellow no good; I kill him,” repeated Billy.

“You unmitigated idiot, you’ll do for yourself,” cried the lieutenant, angrily. “What’s the good of my talking for you if you can’t stand up for yourself?”

Billy began to whimper; the other’s loud voice and threatening demeanour seemed to overwhelm him.

Facey was struck with contrition. “Now shut up that snivelling,” he said, more kindly. “Tell me the truth, Bill. Isn’t this some humbuggery of old Jib’s—a regular plant, to shield somebody else at the cost of your hide?”

Billy rolled his eyes, and wiped away the tears with a grimy paw.

“White fellow no good; I kill—”

“You be damned!” cried his legal adviser.

At ten o’clock the court martial was assembled on the quarter-deck. The captain, with his brawny shoulders thrown forward, and his hands deep in his trouser pockets, had all the air of a man in the throes of indigestion. On either side of him were Sennett and Roche; and in front, beside a table covered with a flag, was Pickthorn, with a clerkly outfit and a Bible. Billy stood in chains beside a couple of marines, looking extremely depressed. The old gorillas, their filthy kilts bulging with what they had begged or pilfered, were in charge of the sergeant, who had all he could do to prevent their spitting on the deck.

Facey was the first one sworn. He deposed as to the capture and identity of the prisoner. Then Billy was led up to the table and told to plead.

“Kiss the book and say whether you murdered the trader or not,” said the captain.

“White fellow no good; I kill him,” quavered the prisoner.

“Pleads guilty,” said Casement to the clerk.

“What did you do it for?” demanded the court.

Billy reiterated his stock phrase.

“Take him away,” said the captain.

Jibberik was the next witness. He kissed the book as though it were his long-lost brother, and looked almost unabashed enough to beg it of Pickthorn. I shall not weary the reader with his laboured English, that lingua Franca of the isles which in the Western Pacific is known as Beach da Mar. He told a pretty plain story: Billy and the trader had always been on bad terms. One night, crazy with palm-toddy, Billy had sneaked down to Captain Tom’s house and shot him through the body as he was reading a book at supper. As to the subsequent burning and looting of the station the old savage was none so clear, sheltering himself in the unintelligibility of which he was a master. His two companions followed suit, and drew the noose a little tighter round Billy’s throat.

Then rose Burder for the Queen. He was a cheeky youngster, with pink cheeks, a glib tongue, and no end of assurance.

“I don’t propose to waste the time of the honourable court,” he began; “but if ever there was a flat-footed, self-confessed murderer, I would say it is the dusky gentleman in the dock. The blood of Biggar cries aloud for vengeance, and it would be a shame if it cried in vain,” he said. He would point to that dreary ruin of which the defunct had been the manly ornament, radiating civilisation round him like a candle in the dark, and then to that black monster, who had felled him down. This kind of thing had got to stop in the Solomon Islands; the natives were losing all respect for whites, and he put it to the court whether they would not jeopardise the life of the new trader if they acquitted the murderer of the old. Now that they had got their hand in, he would go even further, and hang up with Billy the three witnesses for the prosecution, old Jib and the other brace of jossers, who had villain and cutthroat stamped—

“Stick to the prisoner,” cried the court.

“I bow to correction, sir,” went on Burder. “I say again, this is no time for half-measures; and I say that Sunflower Bay will be a better place to live in without Mr. Billy. I leave it to the honourable court, with every confidence, to vindicate justice in these islands by condemning the prisoner to the extreme penalty of the law. The case for the Queen is closed, gentlemen.”

“I believe you appear for the defence, Mr. Facey?” said Casement, as the Queen’s prosecutor took his seat.

“I do, sir,” returned the first lieutenant, nervously.

“I should like to say, first of all,” he began, “that I will not cross-examine these dirty old savages who have given evidence against my client. I quite agree with everything my honourable friend has said regarding them, and I cannot think that the court will attach undue importance to any evidence they may have given. We’ve been told that the Kanakas are losing all respect for whites, and that if we don’t take some strong measures there will be the deuce to pay in these islands. Perhaps there will be; but is that the British justice we’re so proud of, or is it fair play, gentlemen, to the unfortunate wretch who is trembling before you? From what I’ve seen of the whites in this group, I can say emphatically that I’m in a line with the Kanakas. Now, as to this Billy: What is there against him but his own confession? and that, I beg leave to point out, ought not to be taken as conclusive. As like as not he is the scapegoat for the whole bay, and has been coached up to tell this story under the screw. Just look one moment at old Jib there, and see how his friends wither when his eyes fall their way. For all we know to the contrary, his gibberish and click-click may be to the tune of ‘Billy, you son of a gun, I’ll cut you into forty pieces, or flay you alive if you don’t stick to what I’ve told you.’ After all, what have we learned from Billy? Nothing more than this: ‘White fellow no good; I kill him.’ Is that what anybody would call a full confession? Does it give any clew or any details as to the motive or the carrying out of this murder? It may be, indeed, that Billy is a monomaniac with a confirmed delusion that he has killed Biggar; the court may smile, but I think I am right in stating that such things have occurred and have even led to miscarriages of justice in the past. I tell you, gentlemen, I believe it was the whole blooming bay that killed Biggar, and that Billy was just as guilty or just as innocent as the rest. And there is one thing I feel mortal sure about: that if we take the prisoner outside the heads we will soon get the gag off his mouth, and learn a good deal more about this ugly business. Under old Jib’s search-light he’s got to keep a close lip; but take him out to sea, and I answer for it he won’t be so reticent. In conclusion, gentlemen, I say again that the evidence in this case is inconclusive; that the honourable gentleman who has appeared for the Queen has failed to make out a convincing case against my client; that Billy’s confession in itself is not a sufficient proof that he committed the crime charged against him; and that we cannot take the life of a human being on such flimsy and unsupported evidence.”

A dead silence fell upon the court when Facey drew his case to a close and resumed his seat. Nothing could be heard but the scratching of Pickthorn’s pen and the reverberating growl of the blow-hole as it fretted and fumed within for the screaming blast which was soon to follow. Casement rammed his hands deeper into his pockets, gnawed his tawny mustache, and protruded his chin. At last, with a start, he awoke from his reverie, and barked out:

“Mr. Sennett, as the youngest member, it is for you to speak first.”

“I think he’s guilty, sir,” said Sennett.

Casement turned his quick glance on Roche.

“Same here,” said the doctor.

“The finding of the court,” said the captain after another pause, “is that the prisoner Billy is guilty of the murder of T. H.—what’s his name?—Biggar, at Sunflower Bay, on the blank day of September, 1888, and is condemned to be shot as an example to the island. Sentence to be deferred until I get the ship back from New Ireland, where I’ve to look into that Carbutt business and the outrage at MacCarthy’s Inlet, on the chance of the prisoner making a further confession and implicating others in his crime. The court is dismissed.”

“Beg pardon, sir,” said Pickthorn, looking up from his writing as the others rose to their feet. “What am I to call the case?—the Queen versus Billy what?”

“Billy nothing,” said the captain, savagely. “Call him William Pickthorn if you think it sounds better.”

The verdict of the court was explained to Jibberik, and the old rogue and his pair of friends were landed in the cove, the boat returning to find the ship with anchor weighed and the loosened sails flapping on the yards. In a few minutes she was steaming out to sea, and every one grew confident that Billy’s tongue would soon wag as he saw Sunflower Bay dwindle behind him. But the dogged savage stuck to his tale; he had but one reply to all inquiries, to all probing and pumping for further particulars of the murder. On his side the conversation began and ended with: “White fellow no good; I kill him.” On other topics he could be drawn out at will, and proved himself a most tractable, sweet-tempered, and far from unintelligent fellow. The men got to like him immensely, keeping him in perpetual tobacco and providing him with more grog than was quite good for him. In the fo’castle it was rank heresy to call him a murderer or to express any doubts regarding his innocence. He became at once the pet and the mystery of the ship, and his canvas cell the rallying-point for all the little gaieties on board. He played cards well, was an apt pupil on the accordion, and at checkers he was the master of the ship! And he not only beat you, but he beat you handsomely, shaking hands before and after the event, like a prizefighter in the ring.

Casement felt very uneasy about the boy; he grew more and more uncomfortable at heart, and it was the talk of the ship that the problem of Billy was weighing on the “old man” like a hundredweight of bricks. The whole business preyed upon him unceasingly and he dreaded each passing day that brought the execution ever nearer. Billy kept him sleepless in the steaming nights; Billy faced him like a spectre at his solitary board; Billy’s face blurred the pages of the books and magazines he had laid up for these dreary days in the Solomons. Casement visited his prisoner twice a day, against the better judgment that bade him keep away and try to forget him. He never said much after his first two ineffectual attempts to wrestle with Billy’s stereotyped phrase and to extort further information; but, chewing a cigar, he would stare the black creature out of countenance for ten minutes at a time, with a look of the strongest annoyance and disfavor, as though his patience could not much longer withstand the strain.

The officers were not a whit behind their captain. Billy’s artless ways and boundless good humour had won the whole ward-room to his side; and his grim determination to die, at once bewildered and exasperated every soul on board. The strange spectacle offered of a hundred men at work to persuade their prisoner to recall his damning confession, and on pins and needles to save him from a fate he himself seemed not to fear. The captain as good as told Facey that if the boy would assert his innocence he would scarcely venture to shoot him; and this intelligence Facey handed on to his client, and, incidentally, to the whole ship’s company. Never was a criminal so beset. Every man on board tried in his turn to shake Billy’s obstinacy, and to paint, in no uncertain colours, the dreadful fate the future held in store for him. One and all they retired discomfited, some with curses, others on the verge of tears. They swore at him for a fool; they cajoled him as they would a child; they acted out his last end with all fidelity to detail, even to a firing platoon saying “Bang, bang!” in dreadful unison, while a couple of seamen made Billy roll the deck in agony. The black boy would shudder and wipe his frightened eyes; but his fortitude was unshaken.

“White fellow no good; I kill him.”

Then old Quinn got after him—wild-eyed, tangle-haired old Quinn, the gunner, who was half cracked on religion. He prayed and blubbered beside the wretched boy, overwhelming him with red-hot appeals and perfervid oratory. Billy became an instant convert, and got to love old Quinn as a dog his master. There was no more card-playing in Billy’s cell, no more rum or tobacco; even checkers fell under the iron ban of old Quinn, to whom every enjoyment was hateful. Billy learned hymns instead, and would beguile the weary sentry on the watch with his tuneful rendering of “Go Bury thy Sorrow,” or “Nearer, my God, to Thee.” He was possessed, too, of a Bible that Quinn gave him, from which the old gunner would read, in his strident, overbearing voice, the sweet gospel of charity and good will. But if old Quinn accomplished much, he ran, as they all ran at last, into that stone wall of words which Billy raised against the world. Contrition for the murder which had doomed him to die was what Billy would not show or profess in any way to feel. Rant though old Quinn might, and beseech on bended knees, with his eyes burning and his great frame shaking with agitation, he could extort from his convert no other answer than the one which all knew so well. Billy’s eyes would snap and his mouth harden.

“White fellow no good; I kill him.”

As the days passed, and the ship made her way from bay to bay, from island to island, in the course of her policing cruise among those lawless whites and more than savage blacks, the captain grew desperate with the problem of Billy. They all said that Casement looked ten years older, and that something would soon happen to the “old man” if Billy did not soon skip out; and the “old man” showed all the desire in the world to bring about so desirable a consummation. Billy was accorded every liberty; his chains had long been things of the past, and no sentinel now guarded him in his cell or watched him periodically in his sleep. Billy was free to go where he would; and it was the fervent hope of all that he would lose no time in making his way ashore. But though Casement stopped at half a hundred villages, and laid the ship as close ashore as he dared risk her, still, for the life of him, Billy would not budge. Then they thought him afraid of sharks, which are plentiful in those seas, and kept the dinghy at the gangway, in defiance of every regulation, in the hope that the prisoner would deign to use it. But Billy showed no more desire to quit the ship than Casement himself, or old Quinn. He did the honours of the man-of-war to visiting chiefs, and seemed to be proud of his assured position on board. Go ashore? Escape? Not for worlds!

Then the captain determined upon new measures. He passed a hint to Facey, and Facey passed it to the mess, and the mess to the blue-jackets, that they were making things too comfortable for their prisoner. For a while Billy’s easy life came to an abrupt conclusion. His best friends began to kick and cuff him without mercy. He was rope’s-ended by the bo’sun’s mate, and the cook threw boiling water over his naked skin. The boy’s heart almost broke at this, and he went about dejected and unhappy for the first time since he had come aboard. But no harsh usage, no foul words, could drive him to desert the ship. He stuck to it like a barnacle, for all the captain spun out the cruise to an unconscionable length and stopped at all sorts of places that offered a favorable landing for the prisoner. But if Billy grew sad and moody under the stress of whippings and bad words, it was as nothing to the change in Casement himself, who turned daily greyer and more haggard as he pricked a course back to Sunflower Bay. Of course, he maintained a decent reserve all along, and betrayed, in words at least, not a sign of his consuming anxiety to rid himself of Billy. But at last even his iron front broke down. It was on the bridge, to Facey, when the ship had just dropped anchor in Port McGuire, not forty miles from Sunflower Bay.

“Mr. Facey,” he said, “send Mr. Burder ashore with an armed party; tell him just to show himself a bit and come off again.”

“Yes, sir,” said Facey.

“I am thinking they might take that fellow Billy to translate for them,” he went on, shamefacedly.

The first lieutenant turned to go.

“Hold on,” said the captain, suddenly lowering his voice and drawing his subordinate close to him. “Just you pass it on to Burder that I wouldn’t skin him alive—you know what I mean—if—well, suppose that black fellow cut his lucky altogether—”

Facey smiled.

“Of course,” rasped out the captain, “I can’t tolerate any dereliction of duty; but if the young devil made a break for it—”

“Ay, ay, sir,” returned the first lieutenant, and darted down the brass steps three at a time. He called Burder aside and gave his instructions to that discreet youngster, who was sharp to see the point without the need for awkward explanations. A broad grin ran round the boat when Billy was made to descend and take his place beside Burder in the stern; and so palpable and open was the whole business that some aboard even shook the negro by the hand and bade him God-speed.

A couple of hours later Burder embarked again and headed for the ship in a tearing hurry. A chuckle ran along the decks as not a sign of Billy could be made out, and the nearing boat soon put the last doubt at rest. There was no black boy among the blue-jackets.

Burder skipped up the steps and saluted the captain on the bridge.

“I have to report the escape of Billy, sir,” he said, with inimitable gravity and assurance. “I scarcely know how it came to happen, sir, but he managed to bolt as he was walking between Miller and Cracroft.”

“This is a very serious matter,” said the captain, with ill-concealed cheerfulness. “I don’t know but what it is my duty to reprimand you very severely for your carelessness. However, if he’s gone, he’s gone, I suppose. I hope you took measures to recapture him?”

“Yes, sir,” returned Burder. “Looked for him high and low, sir.”

“Poor Billy!” said the captain, with a smile that spoke volumes. “We’ll say no more about it, Mr. Burder; it may be all for the best; but remember, sir, it mustn’t happen again.”

“No, sir,” said Burder.

“How did you manage it, old man?” was the eager question that met the youngster as he took shelter in the ward-room and ordered “a beer.” All his messmates were round him, save Facey, who was officer of the deck and could not do more than hang in the doorway.

“I tell you it wasn’t easy,” said the boy. “We promenaded all round the place, and I tried like fun to shake him off. I sent him errands and hid behind trees, and talked of how we were going to shoot him to-morrow—but it was all no blooming good! I was at my wits’ end at last, and had almost made up my mind to tie him to a tree and run for it, when I got a bright idea. I pretended I had dropped my canteen under a banyan a mile behind the town, a kind of cemetery banyan, full of dead men’s bones—a rummy place, I can tell you. And when we got down near the boat, I took the nigger on one side and bade him go and fetch it. ‘And don’t you come back without it, Billy,’ said I. ‘I’ll be dismissed the service if I can’t account for that canteen!’ Then he asked how long I was going to stay, and I said a week; and he went off like a lamb, while we squared away for the ship. Didn’t you see the jossers pull!”

It had been the merest pretence that had taken the war-ship into Port McGuire, and now that her merciful errand had been so successfully accomplished, and Billy reluctantly torn at last from those who had to kill him, Captain Casement lost no time in ordering the ship to sea. But as the winch tugged at the anchor, and the great hull crept up inch by inch to the tautened chain, a sudden yell roused the captain on the bridge and struck him as cruelly as one of those poisoned arrows he feared so much.

“Billy, on the starboard bow!”

Sure enough, a black poll protruded above the rippling bosom of the bay, and two frantic arms were seen driving a familiar dark countenance on a course towards the vessel. It was Billy indeed, his honest face marked with anguish and despair as he fought his way to regain his prison.

Casement groaned. And for this he had been holding the cruiser two long weeks in those God-forsaken islands, and had invented one excuse upon another to delay his return to Sunflower Bay! Billy had been given a hundred chances to escape, and now, like a bad penny, here he was again, ready to precipitate the catastrophe which could no longer be postponed.

A great laugh went up when Billy presented himself on deck, exhausted, dripping like a spaniel, and sorely hurt in spirit. He began at once to blurt out the story of the canteen, and made a bee-line for Burder; but that intrepid youngster could afford to listen to no explanations, and in self-defence had to order Billy into the hands of the marines, who led him away protesting.

Casement’s patience was now quite at an end. He headed the ship for Sunflower Bay, and spared no coal to bring her there in short order. Three hours after they had passed out of the heads of Port McGuire the Stingaree was at anchor off the blow-hole.

Facey was drinking a whisky-and-soda, and preparing himself, as best he could, for the ordeal he knew to be before him, when the captain’s servant entered the ward-room and requested his presence in the cabin.

“Mr. Facey,” said the captain, “take the doctor and the pay and forty men well armed from the ship, and when you’ve assembled the village take that Billy and shoot him.”

“Yes, sir,” said the lieutenant, turning very pale.

“Faugh,” rasped Casement, “it makes me sick. Damn the boy, why couldn’t he cut? Well, be off with you, and kill him as decently as you know how.”

Billy did not at first realize how seriously he was involved in the plans of the shore party that was making ready. He dropped into one of the boats light-heartedly enough, and took his place cheerfully between two marines with loaded rifles. But the mournful hush of all about him, the eyes that turned and would not meet his own, the tenderness and sorrow which was expressed in every movement, in every furtive look, of his whilom comrades, all stirred and shook him with consternation. No one laughed at his little antics. He tickled the man next him, and nudged him, his friend Tommy, who could whistle like a blackbird and do amazing tricks with cards; but instead of an answering grin, Tommy’s eyes filled with tears and he stared straight in front of him. Billy was whimpering before they were half ashore, and some understanding of the fate in store for him began to struggle through his thick head.

There was no need to assemble the village. It was there to meet them, old Jibberik and all, silent, funereal, and expectant. The men were marched up to the charred remains of the trader’s house and formed up on three sides of a square, leaving the fourth open to the sea. To this space Billy was led by Facey and old Quinn, the gunner. The negro looked about him like a frightened child and clung to the old man.

“Will you give the prisoner a minute to make his peace with God?” asked old Quinn.

Facey nodded.

Quinn plunged down on his knees, Billy beside him. For a brief space the gunner pattered prayers thick and fast, like a man with no time to lose.

“Billy,” he said at last, “as you stand on the brink of that river we all must cross, as the few seconds run out that you have still to live and breathe and make your final and everlasting peace with the God you have so grievously offended, let me implore you to show some sorrow, some contrition, for the awful act that has brought you to this! Billy, tell God you are sorry that you killed Biggar.”

For a moment Billy made no answer. At last, in a husky voice, he said:

“You mean Cap’n Tom, who live here before?”

“Him you hurled into eternity with all his sins hot on him. Yes, Captain Tom, the trader.”

“No!” cried Billy, with a strangled cry. “Me no sorry. White fellow no good; I kill him.”

“Quinn,” cried Facey, “your time’s up.” The first lieutenant’s face was livid, and his hands trembled as he bound Billy’s eyes with a silk handkerchief.

“Stand right there, Billy,” said the officer, turning the prisoner round to face the firing party, that was already drawn up.

“Good-bye, Missy Facey and gennelmen all,” whimpered the boy.

“Good-bye, Billy,” returned the other. “Now, men,” he added, as he ran his eye along the faltering faces, “no damned squeamishness; if you want to help the nigger, you’ll shoot straight. For God’s sake don’t mangle him.

“Fire!”