Sea Fangs by L. Ron Hubbard

Author:L. Ron Hubbard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781592126088
Publisher: Galaxy Press
Published: 2010-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

Death by Torture

SHERMAN stood in the center of the floor and looked up. Then he walked calmly to the stairs and reached the door. Heavy hands closed about his arms, thrusting him ahead. He made no resistance and looked neither to the right nor left.

The postern opened before him and strong sunlight smote his unaccustomed eyes. Blinded to the colorful scene spreading before him, he felt the rough path under his feet.

When his sight returned, they were on the cobblestone street of the town. The quays were before him, backed by the green of the harbor. Colored dresses in the doors of the houses swung into line behind him as he was pushed on. Voices had become an unceasing roar in his ears.

As he entered the square before the quays, he saw that the Bonito was gone, probably sunk, against prying eyes. But the Seafarer lay far up the beach, her masts bare, swinging gently in the offshore breeze.

Beside the quays were the four speedboats, machine guns mounted in the bows, pointing toward shore. Sherman noted that the boats were empty and quickly weighed his chances of getting to one of them. But already they were swirling about him. He saw ropes in brown hands, saw that he was facing a tall stake in the center of the square.

They twisted him about, his back almost flat to the huge stake. People were a mass of shifting, noisy color in front of him, to each side of him.

He thought of Phyllis and decided that the note had merely been intended to cheer up that long night. It had been kind of her to do that. She was probably locked securely in her house to the north of town.

Sherman was glad that she hadn’t been able to do anything, endangering her own life. Perhaps she would be able to get away later. He was glad, too, that she was not in the crowd about him. It would have made it too hard to die.

The burly mestizo came close to him and laughed. With his thick arms he swept the crowd away from the stake. With slow fingers he finished tying Sherman securely, so that he could not move.

Sherman was almost as tall as the stake, towering above the surrounding crowd. His tattered clothing did not rob him of a certain dignity which he bore in his aloofness. Now and then the breeze tossed his blond hair down into his eyes. Where his shirt was ripped open, the sun beat in hotly upon him.

The mestizo held a thin case of knives in his hands, holding them up for all to see. They were the surgeon’s knives Sherman had always kept aboard the Seafarer, and their thin blades were as keen as light. The burly one flipped up the cover and laid the case on the cobblestones at Sherman’s feet. Carefully selecting a lancet he stood up and drew back his lips, showing wide, tobacco-stained teeth.

The crowd opened in front of Sherman and a little native hurried forward to the mestizo, shouting loudly as he came.

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