"So! Then I'll sleep. But waken me when they begin yelling again. They thought I'd come down to the same hell I sent them to, and that they'd watch me burn. But I fooled 'em, Beatrice, by loving you. You're the chip of wood that keeps me afloat--afloat--afloat--" And he drifted into sleep, while she leaned against the bunk, almost unconscious from fear and exhaustion. CHAPTER 35 Kamasura, in nowise loath to bring his work to an end, stood back and laid on the whip with redoubled vigor. The lash spatted sharply against the raw and bleeding flesh. The screams sank into moans, and the moans in turn declined to a mere horrible gasping of the breath. Even this ceased at length, and the quivering of the body stopped. Kamasura leaned over and slipped his hand under the body in the region of the heart. When he straightened up again, he made a gesture of finality with his crimsoned hands. The mate was dead. They cut his body loose at once and pitched him over the rail, then turned their attention to Van Roos. Sam Hall was the inspired man this time, and according to his directions they lashed the body of the big mate on the same blood-spotted hatch cover where Borgson had lain a moment before, but this time the victim was placed upon his back. Hall himself attended to the tying of Van Roos's head, and he performed his work so ably that the mate could not change his position in the least particle. He was literally swathed in ropes; so much so, in fact, that it was difficult to see how he could be tormented. Sam Hall, however, insisted that this was what he wanted, and the crew consented to let him do his work. "You've heard something, an' you've seen something," said Hovey at this juncture to Campbell; "but what you've seen and heard isn't nothin' to what'll happen to you unless you start handling the engines of the _Heron_. Why, Campbell, I'm goin' to give you to the firemen!" "Hovey," answered the engineer calmly, "the only place I'd run this ship would be down to hell--your home port. That's final!" The bos'n was white with rage. "I'd like to tear your heart out an' feed it to the fish," he said, stepping close to Campbell, and then, remembering himself, he moved back and grinned: "But the men will find something better to do with you." He crossed the deck and held up a bucket of water toward Harrigan and McTee. He raised a dipperful and allowed it to splash back in the bucket. "Well?" asked Hovey. They merely stared at him as if they had not heard him speak. "All right," said Hovey, quite unmoved, "there's plenty of time for you to make up your minds. But if you wait too long--well, we'll come and get him. And the girl, too!" He laughed and turned away. "I thought," muttered McTee, "that we could end it by simply dying--but I forgot the girl." "The girl," answered Harrigan, "and--and them! She's got to die before we're too far gone. You'll do that to save her from--them?" McTee moistened his parched lips before he could speak.