, and
others with ears cut off, and mouths slit, and toes missing. So that I
lived in hourly fear lest in some drunken fit Griggs might command me to
be tortured. But, fortunately, he held small converse with me, and when
sober busied himself in trying to find the island and in cursing the fate
by which it eluded him.

So I existed, and prayed daily for deliverance. I plied Cockle with
questions as to what they purposed doing with me, but he was wont to turn
sulky, and would answer me not a word. But once, when he was deeper in
his cups than common, he let me know that Griggs was to sell me to a
certain planter. You may well believe that this did not serve to liven
my spirits.

At length, one morning, Captain Griggs came out of his cabin and climbed
upon the poop, calling all hands aft to the quarterdeck. Whereupon he
proceeded to make them a speech that for vileness exceeded aught I have
ever heard before or since. He finished by reminding them that this was
the anniversary of the scuttling of the sloop Jane, which had made them
all rich a year before, off the Canaries; the day that he had sent three
and twenty men over the plank to hell. Wherefore he decreed a holiday,
as the weather was bright and the trades light, and would serve quadruple
portions of rum to every man jack aboard; and they set up a cheer that
started the Mother Careys astern.

I have no language to depict the bestiality of that day; and if I had I
would think it sin to write of it. The helm was lashed on the port tack,
the haulyards set taut, and all hands down to the lad who was the cook's
scullion proceeded to get drunk. I took the precaution to have a hanger
at my side and to slip one of Cockle's pistols within the band of my
breeches. I was in an exquisite' agony of indecision as to what manner
to act and how to defend myself from their drunken brutality, for I well
knew that if I refused to imbibe with them I should probably be murdered
for my abstemiousness; and, if I drank, the stuff was so near to alcohol
that I could not hope to keep my senses. While in this predicament I
received a polite invitation to partake in the captain's company, which I
did not see my way clear to refuse, and repaired to the cabin
accordingly.

There I found Griggs and Cockle seated, and a fair-sized barrel of rum
between them that the captain had just moved thither. By way of welcome
he shot at me a volley of curses and bade me to fill up, and through fear
of