Kinraid lay as still as any hedgehog: he rolled when they pushed
him; he suffered himself to be dragged without any resistance, any
motion; the strong colour brought into his face while fighting was
gone now, his countenance was livid pale; his lips were tightly held
together, as if it cost him more effort to be passive, wooden, and
stiff in their hands than it had done to fight and struggle with all
his might. His eyes seemed the only part about him that showed
cognizance of what was going on. They were watchful, vivid, fierce
as those of a wild cat brought to bay, seeking in its desperate
quickened brain for some mode of escape not yet visible, and in all
probability never to become visible to the hopeless creature in its
supreme agony.
Without a motion of his head, he was perceiving and taking in
everything while he lay bound at the bottom of the boat. A sailor
sat by his side, who had been hurt by a blow from him. The man held
his head in his hand, moaning; but every now and then he revenged
himself by a kick at the prostrate specksioneer, till even his
comrades stopped their cursing and swearing at their prisoner for
the trouble he had given them, to cry shame on their comrade. But
Kinraid never spoke, nor shrank from the outstretched foot.
One of his captors, with the successful insolence of victory,
ventured to jeer him on the supposed reason for his vehement and
hopeless resistance.
He might have said yet more insolent things; the kicks might have
hit harder; Kinraid did not hear or heed. His soul was beating
itself against the bars of inflexible circumstance; reviewing in one
terrible instant of time what had been, what might have been, what
was. Yet while these thoughts thus stabbed him, he was still
mechanically looking out for chances. He moved his head a little, so
as to turn towards Haytersbank, where Sylvia must be quickly, if
sadly, going about her simple daily work; and then his quick eye
caught Hepburn's face, blanched with excitement rather than fear,
watching eagerly from behind the rock, where he had sat breathless
during the affray and the impressment of his rival.
'Come here, lad!' shouted the specksioneer as soon as he saw Philip,
heaving and writhing his body the while with so much vigour that the
sailors started away from the work they were engaged in about the
boat, and held him down once more, as if afraid he should break the
strong rope that held him like withes of green flax. But the bound
man had no such notion in his head. His mighty wish was to call
Hepburn near that he might send some message by him to Sylvia. 'Come
here, Hepburn,' he cried again, falling back this time so weak and
exhausted that the man-of-war's men became sympathetic.