FOR many hours, Jan lay on the floor, rising only to drink at intervals from a pan of water which the men had gingerly slid into his cage.
But the sea grew calmer, the rocking of the craft became less violent and gradually his seasickness left him. And he grew very hungry.
Although Chicma had been fed several times during this period, Jan’s original ration remained untouched; and he was given nothing more to eat. A huge black man—the one who had helped to capture the chimpanzee—had come in once and refilled his water pan for him. Jan had growled at this giant as he had at the others, but the man had talked softly, soothingly, to him, and had been very deliberate in his movements, so the boy had made no attempt to molest him as he poured the water into the pan from the pitcher.
With his appetite back and his sickness gone, Jan drank the last of the water which the black giant had left for him. Then he ate the bananas set before him—a fruit of which he was very fond. But the cold chili burned him with its pepper, and he quickly spat out the first mouthful. But the smell of the meat in it urged him on. Scooping up another mouthful, he chewed it rapidly, and swallowed it. This mouthful seemed to bite him a little, but not nearly so much as the first. Quickly he finished the contents of the bowl.
His stomach filled, Jan was stretching out in his excelsior when he heard the voices of men descending the ladder.
Tensely alert, he sat up as two men entered the room. The foremost was the yellow-bearded white man he had learned to dislike so intensely. Behind him walked the giant Negro. The white man carried a short stout rope and a roll of leather. The Negro carried a pitcher, with which he refilled the pans of Chicma and Jan while the first mate unrolled his leather bundle.
“Now, Borno,” said Grubb, “I’ll show you how to dress up this kind. Might have to dress him down before I dress him up, but that’s all in a day’s work.”
“Oui, m’sieu’,” acquiesced Borno, who was a Haitian Negro, and actually though not nominally the second mate of the Santa Margarita. “Oui, m’sieu’, I watch.”
The leather which Grubb had unrolled was a short skirt, slightly resembling a Highlander’s kilts, and attached to a stout belt. Holding this spread out in his two huge hands, he slowly advanced toward Jan, who backed away with a snarl.
“Needn’t to act thataway. Ain’t goin’ to hurt ye none,” said Grubb. But his actions belied his words, for he made a sudden spring, clasping the belt around the boy’s waist, and lifting him from the floor.
Squirming, kicking, clawing, Jan was soon dangling with the belt beneath his armpits, still unbuckled. With cat-like quickness, he doubled up and bit clear through one of Grubb’s hands.
Roaring a blood-curdling oath, the first mate dropped him and backed away, nursing his wounded hand. Then, flinging down the leather skirt, he caught up the rope he had brought.
Jan did not cower as the big man advanced toward him, but strained at his chain in his endeavor to reach his enemy. Standing just out of his reach, the mate brought down the end of the rope with a skill that came of long practice, and a little stream of blood trickled downward, from the welt it made in Jan’s tender, sunburned skin.
Again and again he swung the cruel rope, blood spurting from a new welt at each blow. But not so much as the slightest whimper escaped the lips of Jan. Instead, he strained at his collar until it nearly choked him in his attempts to reach his cruel foe. And in his glittering eyes was the light of a killing frenzy.
Aroused by this mistreatment of her foster child, and by the smell of blood, Chicma also was tugging at her chain, endeavoring to go to the boy’s rescue while voicing her anger in forceful chimpanzee invective, and gnashing her powerful teeth until her pendulous lips and hairy chest were flecked with saliva.
Borno watched the proceedings calmly at first, but when the body of the boy was a mass of bloody welts and his spirit remained unbroken, his eyes glittered with a light that echoed the look in those of Jan, and his thick lips compressed in an expression of disapproval.
“Zis is too much for Borno,” he growled at the mate, and went up on deck.
Chicma, who had been jumping up and down, now turned, and grasping her chain in both front paws, braced her hind feet against the wall and pulled. Jan, who was as quick to see the advantage of this means of leverage as he was to imitate, followed her example. He was stronger and heavier than the ape, and the staple which held the ring pulled out, dropping him on his bloody back on the rough planking.
More amused than perturbed by this incident, Grubb laughed and cut at the boy’s unprotected chest and abdomen with his bloody rope.
But it was only for an instant that Jan remained on the floor. With lightning quickness he rolled out of reach, then leaped to his feet and faced his tormentor. Grubb instantly followed him, and had his rope upraised for another blow when Jan seized the heavy chain which hung from his collar and, imitating his attacker, swung it back in retaliation. It caught the first mate a terrific blow across the face, half stunning him for an instant. But before Jan could swing it a second time the man leaped for him.
Unhampered now by the chain, it would have been easy for the youth to dodge beneath the extended arms. But he had no thought of flight. Instead of attempting to escape, he leaped on the back of his enemy. There flashed to him, at this instant, the memory of the manner in which he had vanquished the alligator. And he did not doubt that this new enemy might be overcome in the same manner. Lightning-quick to act on any impulse, Jan found the two soft vulnerable spots and plunged in gouging fingers.
With a shriek of anguish, Grubb seized the boy and flung him over his head. But swift as his action had been, it was far too slow to save his eyes from torture.
Unhurt by his fall, Jan sprang to his feet to face a totally changed enemy. Instead of menacing him with the cruel rope, the mate was now holding his hands over his face and groaning. But such conduct only added contempt to Jan’s hatred. Again he swung his heavy chain, cutting Grubb across his unprotected middle.
With a shriek of fear, the mate groped for the door, and hastily climbed the ladder. But Jan, his anger unsated, followed him, relentlessly swinging his heavy chain.
When Borno, having sickened at the sight of the cruelty practiced on Jan reached the deck, he found Captain Santos scanning the horizon with his binoculars.
“’Ave you dress the boy so soon?” Santos asked, as he struck a match on the side of the cabin.
“Non, m’sieu’ le capitain,” replied the Negro respectfully. “I theenk you better stop M’sieu’ Grubb from use zat rope. Zat boy he’s never geeve up until he dead. Borno know.”
Santos laughed nastily. “You lak the young devil pretty well, heh? You don’t lak to see heem hurt. Well, I tal you sometheeng. Thees Grubb knows hees beesiness. He’s ’andle many men—’undreds, thousands. He’s ’andle man or boy wan time, that wan nex’ time ees do what Señor Grubb tal heem.”
They both whirled at a sudden sound.
“Nombre de Dios!” Santos cried. “What ‘as ‘appen to you, señor?”
But Grubb, who had just emerged from the hatchway, blood streaming down his face, neither saw nor heard them. Shrieking his fear and anguish, he ran aimlessly hither and thither across the deck. And following him grimly, relentlessly, was Jan, bloody but unconquered, swinging his heavy chain regularly and effectively.
At each thud of the chain Grubb tripped over a coil of rope and shrieked and ran. Once he fell. But he was on his feet again in an instant, running as if the very devil were after him. Santos and Borno sprang forward to rescue the mate. But they were far too slow. Before they shad taken a dozen steps they saw him blunder against the rail and pitch overboard.
Both men instantly hurried to the rail, Santos hastily snatching a life preserver while he watched the water for the mate’s reappearance. His head bobbed up, and the captain cast the circle of inflated rubber. But the mate could not see it.
Following the ship at a pace that matched its own, several large sail-like fins protruded from the water. The two men saw them converge toward the struggling human figure.
“Maria Madre!” exclaimed Santos. “Sharks! It ees the end!”
One fin, nearer than the others, suddenly disappeared. The bobbing head went down with a final, despairing shriek. There was a flashing and darting hither and thither of other fins and the water was churned to a pink foam.
Both men had, for the time, forgotten the presence of the red-haired youth. They found him lying unconscious beside the rail in a pool of his own blood, the heavy chain still gripped in his fingers.
Borno lifted him as tenderly as if Jan had been his own child.
“Maitresse Ezillee,” he prayed to his Voodoo goddess, “give zis boy hees life, hees health.”
Gathering Jan to his broad black bosom, he carried him down the ladder and gently laid him on his bed of excelsior.