Part 19 (2/2)

Let us see!

Bound to the labouring oar--itself of enormous size and weight, being fifty feet long--seven _cond.a.m.nes_ to each oar, they sat at sixty benches, thirty on each side, four hundred and twenty men in all, including Turkish slaves. Naked they rowed for hours chained to these benches--sometimes for twenty-four hours at a stretch--while the _comites_, or overseers, men brutal beyond all thought and chosen for the post because of their natural ferocity, belaboured their backs with whips made of twisted and knotted cords. If they fainted under these continuous thras.h.i.+ngs, their backs were rubbed with vinegar and salt water to revive them; if they were found to have died under their chastis.e.m.e.nt, the chains and rings round their legs were taken off and they were flung into the sea like carrion as they were. Then another man took their place, there being always a reserve of these unhappy creatures.

To see them would have wrung the hearts of all but those who dominated them. Their naked backs had upon them wheals, sores, old and new, scars and cicatrices; their faces were burnt black from the effects of the suns, the diverse winds, and the sprays under which and through which they rowed _en perpetuite_--since most were doomed for life; their hair was long and matted with their beards, when they were not old men who had grown bald in their lifelong toil and misery.

Moreover, they were nearly starved, their daily food being twenty-six ounces of coa.r.s.e and often weevily biscuit, and four ounces of beans a day--or rather ”pigeon peas”--with water. And if any swooned from their long hours of rowing (hours only relieved by a favourable wind springing up, when the small sails could be set), in contradistinction to their fainting from the brutalities of the _comites_, then there was placed in their mouths a piece of bread moistened with salt water or vinegar, or sour and sharp wine, either of which was supposed to be an excellent reviver.

All were distinguished by numbers and none by name, though, in occasional moments that could be s.n.a.t.c.hed from under the watchful eyes and ears of the _comites_, the doomed wretches could sometimes acquaint each other with their names, former positions in life, and supposed reasons for being condemned to their perpetual slavery. But not often, for a word spoken and overheard brought terrible retribution in its train, especially as in nine times out of ten religion was both the cause for which they suffered and by which they were punished. The galley slaves were in general Protestants who would not embrace the Roman Catholic faith, while the superior officers and the overseers were ardent papists. Yet there were others who, in ordinary eyes, though not in those of their taskmasters, would have been deemed to be sunk in crimes worse than that of being Huguenots.

No. 512 was a murderer--of his own father; No. 497 had been caught giving information to England, he being a fisherman, of the whereabouts of Jean Bart's flotilla; No. 36 had cursed the king and his family--a truly awful crime; No. 98 had robbed a church, and so on. But in the eyes of the law, which was the king, or rather the reformed and married wanton, De Maintenon, none were so vile, none deserved such bitter punishment and bastinadoing, and rubbing in of vinegar and salt in their wounds, and starvation, as the pestilential heretics.

The black spot on the horizon grew larger to the view of the officers standing aft on the _coursier_, or raised fore-and-aft pa.s.sage of the galley, which ran between the larboard and starboard gangs of rowers, and across which they were hourly stretched to be bastinadoed by their fellow-slaves, the Turks; and those officers by no means appreciated the increasing size of that spot. It showed that the English frigate was overhauling the French galley. The latter, low down in the water though it was, and with its two sails furled, had been seen by the former and the pursuit had begun. Fortunate for the galley, and unfortunate for the miserable slaves whose lives were a curse to them, if she escaped that frigate now following it so rapidly!

”Row! row!” howled the _comites_, as they rushed up and down the gangways of the benches, striking the bare backs of the _vogueurs_, or row-slaves, till they were all crimson with blood. ”Row! In time! in time! Beware, all you,” cried one, as bench 12 rowed wildly, while the lash fell on all their backs in consequence; ”will you impede the galley's course? _Carogne!_” (a common oath), ”you wish the accursed English to take us--foul Protestants like yourselves!”

”Ay,” replied one slave on that bench, a man known as 211--”ay. Pray G.o.d they take us or sink us! In the next world we shall not be chained, nor you free. The chances will be equal.”

The lash fell on his back as he spoke, raised a new wheal to keep company with the others already there, and then the _comite_ pa.s.sed on, thras.h.i.+ng and belabouring all the others on his side of the s.h.i.+p, and howling and bawling and blaspheming at them.

Meanwhile the black spot became a large blur on the blue water; now her royals were visible, white and bright against the equally clear blue sky. She was sailing down the galley,

”Have a care, 211,” muttered the _galerien_ next to him--”have a care.

If we escape the English s.h.i.+p with life, your existence will be a greater h.e.l.l than before for those words!”

211 threw his matted hair back from his eyes with a jerk of his head--his hands he could not release from the oar--and looked at his neighbour. He was a man burnt black with the sun, thin, emaciated, and half starved. On his shoulders, where they caught hourly the cords of the _comite's_ whip, great scars, and livid--as well as raw--wounds; yet still young and with handsome features.

”We shall not escape,” he replied. ”She gains on us each moment.

See!” and as their faces were naturally directed aft of the galley, they could observe, through the great scuttle by the p.o.o.ps, the frigate rising larger each instant behind them.

”Better even this than death,” said the other. ”We know where we are now, at least--who knows where we shall be? Hist! he returns.”

Again the _comite_ ran along the gangway, dealing out more blows and curses, each of these men getting their share. Then, when the hoa.r.s.e, foul voice of the overseer was heard at the other end of the hundred and eighty feet long galere Grand Reale, No. 211 answered him.

”No,” he said, ”death is better than this. It is peace at least.”

”You seek it--hope for it?”

”Ay,” No. 211 replied, ”pray for it. Hourly!”

”What was your crime?” his companion asked. They had been chained together for two days only, the slave whose place the questioner now filled having been beaten to death, and this, in the excitement of the impending attack, was their first opportunity of conversing.

”Nothing.”

The other grinned. Then he exclaimed, ”We all say that.”

”Most of us say true.”

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