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{87} On pretence of gathering berries, six sailors
were landed with fourteen women. Two watched their chance and dashed
for liberty in the hills. On the way back to the ship, one woman was
brained to death by a sailor, Gorelin; seeing which, the others on
board the jolly-boat took advantage of the confusion, sprang overboard,
and suicided. But there were still a dozen hostages on the ship.
These might relate the crime of their companions' murder. It was an
old trick out of an ugly predicament--destroy the victim in order to
dodge retribution, or torture it so it would destroy itself. Fourteen
had been tortured into suicide. The rest Pushkareff seized, bound, and
threw into the sea.
To be sure, on official investigation, Betshevin, the Siberian
merchant, was subjected to penal tortures for this crime on his ship;
and an imperial decree put an end to free trade among the fur hunters
to America. Henceforth a government permit must be obtained; but that
did not undo the wrong to the Aleutian Islanders. Primal instincts,
unhampered by law, have a swift, sure, short-cut to justice; to the
fine equipoise between weak and strong.


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