Part 15 (2/2)
”What a hurry you are in! Pa.s.s the grog. Well, the _Rose;_ she lay off Ushant. We canted her to wash the decks; lucky she had a careful commander; not like Kempenfelt, whose eye was in his pocket, and his fingers held the pen, so he went to the bottom, with Lord knows how many men. I noticed the squalls came very sudden; so I sent most of my men ash.o.r.e and got the boats ready in case of accident. A squall did strike her, and she was on her beam-ends in a moment. We pulled ash.o.r.e with two bales of silk by way of salvage, and sample of what warn't in her hold when she settled down. We landed; and the Frenchmen were dancing about with excitement. 'Captain,' says one, 'you have much sang fraw.'
'Insured, munseer,' says I. 'Bone,' says he.
”Then there was the _Antelope,_ lost in charge of a pilot off the Hooghly. I knew the water as well as he did. We were on the port tack, standing toward the shoal. Weather it, as we should have done next tack, and I should have failed in my duty to my employers. Anything but that!
'Look out!' said I. 'Pilot, she fore-reaches in stays.' Pilot was smoking; those sandhead pilots smoke in bed and asleep. He takes his cigar out of his mouth for one moment. 'Ready about,' says he. 'Hands 'bout s.h.i.+p. Helm's a-lee. Raise tacks and sheets.' Round she was coming like a top. Pilot smoking. Just as he was going to haul the mainsel Somebody tripped against him, and shoved the hot cigar in his eye. He sung out and swore, and there was no mainsel haul. s.h.i.+p in irons, tide running hard on to the shoal, and before we could clear away for anchoring, b.u.mp!--there she was hard and fast. A stiff breeze got up at sunrise, and she broke up. Next day I was sipping my grog and reading the _Bengal Courier,_ and it told the disastrous wreck of the brig _Antelope,_ wrecked in charge of a pilot; 'but no lives lost, and the owners fully insured.' Then there was the bark _Sally._ Why, you saw her yourself distressed on a lee sh.o.r.e.”
”Yes,” said Wylie. ”I was in that tub, the _Grampus,_ and we contrived to claw off the Scillies; yet you, in your smart _Sally,_ got ash.o.r.e. What luck!”
”Luck be blowed!” cried Hudson, angrily. ”Somebody got into the chains to sound, and cut the weather halyards. Next tack the masts went over the side; and I had done my duty.”
”Lives were lost that time, eh?” said Wylie, gravely.
”What is that to you?” replied Hudson, with the sudden ire of a drunken man. ”Mind your own business. Pa.s.s me the bottle.”
”Yes, lives was lost; and always will be lost in sea-going s.h.i.+ps, where the skipper does his duty. There was a sight more lost at Trafalgar, owing to every man doing his duty. Lives lost, ye lubber? And why not mine? Because their time was come and mine wasn't. For I'll tell you one thing, Joe Wylie--if she takes fire and runs before the wind till she is as black as coal, and belching flame through all her port-holes, and then explodes, and goes aloft in ten thousand pieces no bigger than my hat, or your knowledge of navigation, Hudson is the last man to leave her. Duty!
If she goes on her beam-ends and founders, Hudson sees the last of her, and reports it to his employers. Duty! If she goes grinding on Scilly, Hudson is the last man to leave her bones. Duty! Some day perhaps I shall be swamped myself along with the craft. I have escaped till now, owing to not being insured; but if ever my time should come, and you should get clear, promise me, Joe, to see the owners, and tell 'em Hudson did his duty.”
Here a few tears quenched his n.o.ble ardor for a moment. But he soon recovered, and said, with some little heat, ”You have got the bottle again. I never saw such a fellow to get hold of the bottle. Come, here's 'Duty to our employers!' And now I'll tell you how we managed with the _Carysbrook,_ and the _Amelia.”_
This promise was followed by fresh narratives; in particular, of a vessel he had run upon the Florida reef at night, where wreckers had been retained in advance to look out for signals, and come on board and quarrel on pretense and set fire to the vessel, insured at thrice her value.
Hudson got quite excited with the memory of these exploits, and told each successive feat louder and louder.
But now it was Wylie's turn. ”Well,” said he, very gravely, ”all this was child's play.”
There was a pause that marked Hudson's astonishment. Then he broke out, ”Child's play, ye lubber! If you had been there your gills would have been as white as your Sunday s.h.i.+rt; and a d--d deal whiter.”
”Come, be civil,” said Wylie, ”I tell you all the ways you have told me are too suspicious. Our governor is a highflyer. He pays like a prince, and, in return, he must not be blown on, if it is ever so little.
'Wylie,' says he, 'a breath of suspicion would kill me.' 'Make it so much,' says I, 'and that breath shall never blow on you. No, no, skipper; none of those ways will do for us; they have all been worked twice too often. It must be done in fair weather, and in a way-- Fill your gla.s.s and I'll fill mine-- Capital rum this. You talk of my gills turning white; before long we shall see whose keeps their color best, mine or yours, my boy.”
There was a silence, during which Hudson was probably asking himself what Wylie meant; for presently he broke out in a loud but somewhat quivering voice: ”Why, you mad, drunken devil of a s.h.i.+p's carpenter, red-hot from h.e.l.l, I see what you are at, now; you are going--”
”Hus.h.!.+” cried Wylie, alarmed in his turn. ”Is this the sort of thing to bellow out for the watch to hear? Whisper, now.”
This was followed by the earnest mutterings of two voices. In vain did the listener send his very soul into his ear to hear. He could catch no single word. Yet he could tell, by the very tones of the speakers, that the dialogue was one of mystery and importance.
Here was a situation at once irritating and alarming; but there was no help for it. The best thing, now, seemed to be to withdraw un.o.bserved, and wait for another opportunity. He did so; and he had not long retired, when the mate came out staggering and flushed with liquor, and that was a thing that had never occurred before. He left the cabin door open and went into his own room.
Soon after sounds issued from the cabin--peculiar sounds, something between grunting and snoring.
Mr. Hazel came and entered the cabin. There he found the captain of the _Proserpine_ in a position very unfavorable to longevity. His legs were crooked over the seat of his chair, and his head was on the ground. His handkerchief was tight round his neck, and the man himself dead drunk, and purple in the face.
Mr. Hazel instantly undid his stock, on which the gallant seaman muttered inarticulately. He then took his feet off the chair and laid them on the ground, and put the empty bottle under the animal's neck.
But he had no sooner done all this than he had a serious misgiving. Would not this man's death have been a blessing? Might not his life prove fatal?
The thought infuriated him, and he gave the prostrate figure a heavy kick that almost turned it over, and the words, ”Duty to employers,” gurgled out of its mouth directly.
It really seemed as if these sounds were independent of the mind, and resided at the tip of Hudson's tongue, so that a thorough good kick could, at any time, shake them out of his inanimate body.
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