Edgar Burroughs - The Return of Tarzan

“Can you not drop his body overboard, William?” she asked.

Clayton rose and staggered toward the corpse. The two remaining sailors eyed him with a strange, baleful light in their sunken orbs. Futilely the Englishman tried to lift the corpse over the side of the boat, but his strength was not equal to the task.

“Lend me a hand here, please,” he said to Wilson, who lay nearest him.

“Wot do you want to throw 'im over for?” questioned the sailor, in a querulous voice.

“We've got to before we're too weak to do it,” replied Clayton.

“He'd be awful by tomorrow, after a day under that broiling sun.”

“Better leave well enough alone,” grumbled Wilson .

“We may need him before tomorrow.”

Slowly the meaning of the man's words percolated into Clayton's understanding. At last he realized the fellow's reason for objecting to the disposal of the dead man.

“God!” whispered Clayton, in a horrified tone. “You don't mean—”

“W'y not?” growled Wilson . “Ain't we gotta live? He's dead,” he added, jerking his thumb in the direction of the corpse.

“He won't care.”

“Come here, Thuran,” said Clayton, turning toward the Russian.

“We'll have something worse than death aboard us if we don't get rid of this body before dark.”

Wilson staggered up menacingly to prevent the contemplated act, but when his comrade, Spider, took sides with Clayton and Monsieur Thuran he gave up, and sat eying the corpse hungrily as the three men, by combining their efforts, succeeded in rolling it overboard.

All the balance of the day Wilson sat glaring at Clayton, in his eyes the gleam of insanity. Toward evening, as the sun was sinking into the sea, he commenced to chuckle and mumble to himself, but his eyes never left Clayton.

After it became quite dark Clayton could still feel those terrible eyes upon him. He dared not sleep, and yet so exhausted was he that it was a constant fight to retain consciousness.

After what seemed an eternity of suffering his head dropped upon a thwart, and he slept. How long he was unconscious he did not know—he was awakened by a shuffling noise quite close to him. The moon had risen, and as he opened his startled eyes he saw Wilson creeping stealthily toward him, his mouth open and his swollen tongue hanging out.

The slight noise had awakened Jane Porter at the same time, and as she saw the hideous tableau she gave a shrill cry of alarm, and at the same instant the sailor lurched forward and fell upon Clayton. Like a wild beast his teeth sought the throat of his intended prey, but Clayton, weak though he was, still found sufficient strength to hold the maniac's mouth from him.

At Jane Porter's scream Monsieur Thuran and Spider awoke.

On seeing the cause of her alarm, both men crawled to Clayton's rescue, and between the three of them were able to subdue Wilson and hurl him to the bottom of the boat.

For a few minutes he lay there chattering and laughing, and then, with an awful scream, and before any of his companions could prevent, he staggered to his feet and leaped overboard.

The reaction from the terrific strain of excitement left the weak survivors trembling and prostrated. Spider broke down and wept; Jane Porter prayed; Clayton swore softly to himself; Monsieur Thuran sat with his head in his hands, thinking.

The result of his cogitation developed the following morning in a proposition he made to Spider and Clayton.

“Gentlemen,” said Monsieur Thuran, “you see the fate that awaits us all unless we are picked up within a day or two.

That there is little hope of that is evidenced by the fact that during all the days we have drifted we have seen no sail, nor the faintest smudge of smoke upon the horizon.

“There might be a chance if we had food, but without food there is none. There remains for us, then, but one of two alternatives, and we must choose at once. Either we must all die together within a few days, or one must be sacrificed that the others may live. Do you quite clearly grasp my meaning?”

Jane Porter, who had overheard, was horrified. If the proposition had come from the poor, ignorant sailor, she might possibly have not been so surprised; but that it should come from one who posed as a man of culture and refinement, from a gentleman, she could scarcely credit.

“It is better that we die together, then,” said Clayton.

“That is for the majority to decide,” replied Monsieur Thuran.

“As only one of us three will be the object of sacrifice, we shall decide. Miss Porter is not interested, since she will be in no danger.”

“How shall we know who is to be first?” asked Spider.

“It may be fairly fixed by lot,” replied Monsieur Thuran.

“I have a number of franc pieces in my pocket. We can choose a certain date from among them—the one to draw this date first from beneath a piece of cloth will be the first.”

“I shall have nothing to do with any such diabolical plan,” muttered Clayton; “even yet land may be sighted or a ship appear—in time.”

“You will do as the majority decide, or you will be ‘the first' without the formality of drawing lots,” said Monsieur Thuran threateningly. “Come, let us vote on the plan; I for one am in favor of it. How about you, Spider?” “And I,” replied the sailor.

“It is the will of the majority,” announced Monsieur Thuran, “and now let us lose no time in drawing lots.

It is as fair for one as for another. That three may live, one of us must die perhaps a few hours sooner than otherwise.”

Then he began his preparation for the lottery of death, while Jane Porter sat wide-eyed and horrified at thought of the thing that she was about to witness. Monsieur Thuran spread his coat upon the bottom of the boat, and then from a handful of money he selected six franc pieces. The other two men bent close above him as he inspected them. Finally he handed them all to Clayton.

“Look at them carefully,” he said. “The oldest date is eighteen-seventy-five, and there is only one of that year.”

Clayton and the sailor inspected each coin. To them there seemed not the slightest difference that could be detected other than the dates. They were quite satisfied. Had they known that Monsieur Thuran's past experience as a card sharp had trained his sense of touch to so fine a point that he could almost differentiate between cards by the mere feel of them, they would scarcely have felt that the plan was so entirely fair. The 1875 piece was a hair thinner than the other coins, but neither Clayton nor Spider could have detected it without the aid of a micrometer.

“In what order shall we draw?” asked Monsieur Thuran, knowing from past experience that the majority of men always prefer last chance in a lottery where the single prize is some distasteful thing—there is always the chance and the hope that another will draw it first. Monsieur Thuran, for reasons of his own, preferred to draw first if the drawing should happen to require a second adventure beneath the coat.

And so when Spider elected to draw last he graciously offered to take the first chance himself. His hand was under the coat for but a moment, yet those quick, deft fingers had felt of each coin, and found and discarded the fatal piece.

When he brought forth his hand it contained an 1888 franc piece.

Then Clayton drew. Jane Porter leaned forward with a tense and horrified expression on her face as the hand of the man she was to marry groped about beneath the coat. Presently he withdrew it, a franc piece lying in the palm. For an instant he dared not look, but Monsieur Thuran, who had leaned nearer to see the date, exclaimed that he was safe.

Jane Porter sank weak and trembling against the side of the boat. She felt sick and dizzy. And now, if Spider should not draw the 1875 piece she must endure the whole horrid thing again.