Then half a pint of water was served out to each.
Here the struggle to keep order was fiercest. The strong would attempt
to deprive the weak of their share, and Bludson's whip was kept
constantly going.
Once a brawny negro made a strong effort to seize the bucket,
regardless of the cowhide, when Long Tom felled him at a blow with his
pistol butt, then cocking the weapon, glanced sternly around at the
circle of angry faces by which they were surrounded.
The negroes would have torn them in pieces had they dared, for the want
of water was already rendering them desperate in that fetid hole.
Ralph returned to the deck pale, nauseated, and sick at heart. The
captain noticed this and it angered him, as did nearly everything which
the boy now did.
"Hark ye!" he growled. "D'ye think you'd like to spend all your time
down there?"
"I would rather be dead," said Ralph half angrily, for his whole being
rebelled against the atrocity of which he was being made, perforce, one
of the perpetrators.
"Would, eh?" The captain eyed him with leering malevolence. "You'll
mind your eye then while you're on this craft, and you'll obey orders,
without a word, or--down you go among those demons for punishment. Go
to my room and bring up my small glass--the double one. Stay--while
you're there make up the berth and tidy things up a bit. Lively now!"
Ralph went below burning with a sense of futile rage. It was useless
to rebel, however, for on a ship a boy is the most helpless of
creatures.
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