Wolves of the Sea | Page 5

with only here and there a countenance exhibiting
viciousness, or a tongue given to ribaldry. I could remember seeing but

few of them before, yet as I observed them more closely now, realized
that these were not criminals being punished for crime, but men caught,
as I had been, and condemned without fair trial, through the lies of paid
informers. I could even read in their actions and words the simple
stories of their former lives--the farm laborer, the sailor, the
store-keeper, now all on one common level of misfortune and
misery--condemned alike to exile, to servitude in a strange land,
beyond seas.
The ticket given me called by number for a certain berth, and I sought
until I found this, throwing within the small bundle I bore, and then
finding a chance to sit down on the deck beneath. The last of the bunch
of prisoners dribbled down the ladder, each in turn noisily greeted by
those already huddled below. I began to recognize the increasing
foulness of air, and to distinguish words of conversation from the
groups about me. There was but little profanity but some rough
horse-play, and a marked effort to pretend indifference. I could make
out gray-beards and mere boys mingling together, and occasionally a
man in some semblance of uniform. A few bore wounds, and the
clothes of several were in rags; all alike exhibited marks of suffering
and hardship. The butcher from Harwich, and the white-faced lad who
had marched beside me down the wharf, were not to be seen from
where I sat, although beyond doubt they were somewhere in the crowd.
The hatch was not lowered, and gazing up through the square opening,
I obtained glimpse of two soldiers on guard, the sunlight glinting on
their guns. Almost immediately there was the sound of tramping feet on
the deck above, and the creaking of blocks. Then a sudden movement
of the hull told all we were under way. This was recognized by a roar
of voices.

CHAPTER II
THE PRISON SHIP
The greater portion of that voyage I would blot entirely from memory if

possible. I cannot hope to describe it in any detail---the foul smells, the
discomfort, the ceaseless horror of food, the close companionship of
men turned into mere animals by suffering and distress, the wearisome
days, the black, sleepless nights, the poisonous air, and the brutality of
guards. I can never forget these things, for they have scarred my soul,
yet surely I need not dwell upon them now, except as they may bear
some direct reference to this tale I seek to tell. As such those weeks
cannot be wholly ignored, for they form a part of the events to
follow--events which might not be clearly understood without their
proper picturing.
We were fifty-three days at sea, driven once so far to the southward by
a severe storm, which struck us the second day out, as to sight the north
coast of Africa before we were able to resume our westward course. To
those of us who were tightly shut into those miserable quarters below
these facts came only as floating rumors, yet the intense suffering
involved was all real enough. For forty-two hours we were battened
down in darkness, flung desperately about by every mad plunge of the
vessel, stifled by poisoned air and noxious odors, and all that time
without a particle of food. If I suffered less than some others it was
simply because I was more accustomed to the sea. I was not nauseated
by the motion, nor unduly frightened by the wild pitching of the brig.
Lying quietly in my berth, braced to prevent being thrown out, amid a
darkness so intense as to seem a weight, every sound from the deck
above, every lift of the vessel, brought to my mind a sea message,
convincing me of two things--that the Romping Betsy was a staunch
craft, and well handled. Terrific as the gale became I only grew more
confident that she would safely weather it.
Yet God knows it was horrible enough even to lie there and listen, to
feel the hurling plunges downward, the dizzy upsweeping of the hull; to
hear the cries, groans and prayers of frightened men, unseen and
helpless in the darkness, the creaking timbers, the resounding blows of
the waves against the sides, the horrid retching of the sick, the snarling,
angry voices as the struggling mass was flung back and forth, the
curses hurled madly into the darkness. They were no longer men, but
infuriated brutes, so steeped in agony and fear as to have lost all human

instincts. They snarled and snapped like so many beasts, their voices
unrecognizable, the stronger treading the weaker to the deck. I could
not see, I could only hear, yet