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When Israel Potter awoke all was silence and darkness. Total darkness. He closed his eyes and reopened them again into nothing. The only thing that told him he was not in his grave was the aching in his head.

Other parts hurt, too—his legs and feet and back—but when Israel tried to search out the bruises he found that he could not move his hands. They were trussed in heavy iron cuffs, as were his legs. He could barely move his body at all, for the irons were fastened to the bulkhead. He knew then where he was—in the forward hold aft of the bow—in the place called the Hole, and when he knew it, he moaned and cried aloud, "Oh, God."

A response to his words came. Chains rattled in the darkness and a rasping voice said, "He ain't here, lad. He don't come down this far—not usually."

"What?" said Israel. "Who are you?"

"Lyman Terwilliger at your service," said the voice. "You slept past tea-time, where we might have been introduced."

Israel was barely sure he was not dreaming. He still could not see anything in the darkness, though the man's voice seemed close in back of him.

"My name's Israel Potter. I'm an American."

"Congratulations," said Terwilliger. "We had a Turk in here the week before, but he didn't last."

"The week before," said Israel. "How long have you been here?"

The cackle that came from the darkness gave Israel to know that he was sharing the space with a madman. It was meaty laughter, the kind that fed on flesh.

"I was born here, lad," he said so close in Israel’s ear that the sound was like a thought. “In this very place. All that went before was but a dream. I had a wife. A darling child I could hold in the palm of my hand. I had good work at the candle factory in Chelsea. My own little button of a cottage. Then one day I was a-walking down by the dalles when a party of men came along and took me in the press. They knocked me on the head and put me on board the King George. Now, there's some men that ain't made for the sailing life and that's them that knows a better. I couldn't stop believing in the things I'd had. It made me wild in my head to think of Marcy and the babe. I did some things. . . . Oh Lord, I did some things."

The voice wisped off before coming back with crazed vigor. "Have you ever pissed in the ear of a midshipman that was the third son of the Duke of Cumberland—and while he was sleeping? Have you ever done that, lad?"

"Not yet."

"I don't recommend it," said Terwilliger. "The satisfaction lasts no more than the first few days here. Then you fall to wondering—What if I'd only pissed in his boots? He wouldn't so much as have noticed. Hell, he might have tipped it back and drank it straight down, like he did everything else. But then, if he didn't know, what would be the point?"

"Little, it seems."

"Aye," said Terwilliger, like a seaman. "Everything's got to have a point, don't it? So what brings you to this place? What misdeeds have you owned?"

"None," said Israel. "I did nothing."

"Oh, that's the worst to be sure," he said. "Innocence is the very worst. It’s possible you'll never be forgiven."

That was the craziest thing Israel had ever heard, but he had to agree. He did not understand what he had done to be beaten and thrown into this place of darkness and insanity.

"Do they feed us here, Terwilliger?"

"Grandly," he said. "A bit of biscuit and water every other day. But if you want to stay alive, you'd better be setting out your traps."

"Traps?"

"You've got to sit up if you can," he said. "It'll take most of the day to get it done, but you can do it. Then I'll tell you how to loop the chains round your cuffs. They come for your toes—always the toes. But it's easy enough to catch them. You'll see their eyes clearly. Even a rat has got to know what he's chewing on."

"Rats?"

"The meat ain't half bad," said Terwilliger in a voice that grinned its ghastly words. "But you have to promise a fair share. Whatever you get, I claim half."

Israel did not answer the madman he still could not see. There was no purpose in it. He would not eat rat. He would die first in the stinking bowels of the Centaur.

"That's good, lad. Be still. Quiet and still. You won't see hide nor hair of them if you're jabbering all the while."

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