en the spell of rowing was
more than usually protracted the boatswains would thrust lumps of bread
sodden in wine into the mouths of the toiling slaves to sustain them.
The scurvy broke out on that voyage, and there were other diseases
among the rowers, to say nothing of the festering sores begotten of
the friction of the bench which were common to all, and which each must
endure as best he could. With the slave whose disease conquered him or
who, reaching the limit of his endurance, permitted himself to swoon,
the boat-swains had a short way. The diseased were flung overboard; the
swooning were dragged out upon the gangway or bridge and flogged there
to revive them; if they did not revive they were flogged on until they
were a horrid bleeding pulp, which was then heaved into the sea.
Once or twice when they stood to windward the smell of the slaves being
wafted abaft and reaching the fine gilded poop where the Infanta and her
attendants travelled, the helmsmen were ordered to put about, and for
long weary hours the slaves would hold the galley in position, backing
her up gently against the wind so as not to lose way.
The number that died in the first week of that voyage amounted to close
upon a quarter of the total. But there were reserves in the prow, and
these were drawn upon to fill the empty places. None but the fittest
could survive this terrible ordeal.
Of these was Sir Oliver, and of these too was his immediate neighbour at
the oar, a stalwart, powerful, impassive, uncomplaining young Moor, who
accepted his fate with a stoicism that aroused Sir Oliver's admiration.
For days they exchanged no single word together, their religions marking
them out, they thought, for enemies despite the fact that they were
fellows in misfortune. But one evening when an aged Jew who had
collapsed in merciful unconsciousness was dragged out and flogged in
the usual manner, Sir Oliver, chancing to behold the scarlet prelate
who accompanied the Infanta looking on from the poop-rail with hard
unmerciful eyes, was filled with such a passion at all this inhumanity
and at the cold pitilessness of that professed servant of the Gentle and
Pitiful Saviour, that aloud he cursed all Christians in general and that
scarlet Prince of the Church in particular.
He turned to the Moor beside him, and addressing him in Spanish--
"Hell," he said, "was surely made for Christians, which may be why they
seek to make earth like it."
Fortunatel
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