Part 11 (1/2)
We had breakfasted, and were lying on the deck chatting and reading, as the _Leonora_ glided over the heaving bosom of the main--the sun s.h.i.+ning--the seabirds sailing athwart our course with outstretched, moveless wings--the sparkling waters reflecting a thousand prismatic colours, as the brig swiftly sped along her course--all nature gaily bright, joyous, and unheeding. Suddenly one of the wounded men, Henry Stephens by name, raised himself from his mat with a cry so wild and unearthly that half the crew and people started to their feet.
”My G.o.d!” he exclaimed, as he sank down again upon his mat, ”I'm a dead man--those infernal arrows.”
”Poor Harry!” said Nellie, who by this time was bending over him, ”don't give in--by and by better--you get down to bunk. Carry him down, you boys!”
Two of the crew lifted the poor fellow, who even as they raised him had another fearful paroxysm, drawing his frame together almost double, so that the men could scarcely retain their hold.
”Carry him gently, boys!” said Hayston; ”go to the steward for some brandy and laudanum, that will ease the pain.”
”And is there no cure--no means of stopping this awful agony?”
”Not when teta.n.u.s once sets in,” said Hayston; ”it's not the first case I've seen.”
The other man was quite a young fellow, and famed among us for his entire want of fear upon each and every occasion. He laughed and joked the whole time of the fight with the Santa Cruz islanders, said that every bullet had its billet, and that his time had not come. ”He believed,” he said, ”also that half the talk about death by poisoned arrows was fancy. Men got nervous, and frightened themselves to death.”
He was not one of that sort anyhow. He had laughed and joked with both of us, and even now, when poor Harry Stephens was carried below, and we could hear his cries as the increasing torture of the paroxysms overcame his courage and self-control, he joked still.
The day was a sad one. Still the brig glided on through the azure waveless deep--still the tropic birds hung motionless above us--still the breeze whispered through our swelling sails, until the soft, brief twilight of the tropic eve stole upon us, and the stars trembled one by one in the dusky azure, so soon to be ”thick inlaid with patines of bright gold.”
”Reckon I've euchred the bloodthirsty n.i.g.g.e.rs this time,” said d.i.c.k, with a careless laugh, lighting his pipe as he spoke. ”This is 'Twelfth night.' That's the end of the time the cussed poison takes to ripen, isn't it, Nellie?” he laughed. ”It regular puts me in mind of old Christmas days in England, and us schoolboys counting the days after the New Year! What a jolly time it was! Won't I be glad to see the snow, and the bare hedges, and the holly berries, and the village church again?
Dashed if I don't stay there next time I get a chance, and cut this darned slaving, privateering life. I'll--oh! my G.o.d--ah--a--h!”
His voice, in spite of all his efforts, rose from a startled cry to a long piercing shriek, such as it curdled our blood to hear.
Hayston came up from the cabin, followed by Nellie and the other girls.
All crowded round him in silence. They knew well at the first cry he was a doomed man.
”Carry him down, lads!” he said, as he laid his hand on his forehead and pa.s.sed it quietly over his cl.u.s.tering hair--”poor d.i.c.k! poor fellow!” At this moment another frightful spasm shook the seaman's frame, and scarcely could the men who had lifted him from the deck on which he had been lying control his tortured limbs. As they reached the lower deck another terrible cry reached our ears, while the continuous groaning of the poor fellow first attacked made a ghastly and awful accompaniment to the screams of the latest victim.
As for me, I walked forward and sat as near as I could get to the _Leonora's_ bows, where I lit my pipe and awaited the moment in which only too probably my own summons would come in a like pang of excruciating agony. The gleaming phosph.o.r.escent wavelets of that calm sea fell in broken fire from the vessel's side, while the hissing, splas.h.i.+ng sound deadened the recurring shrieks of the doomed sufferers, and soothed my excited nerves.
Now that death was so near, in such a truly awful shape, I began seriously to reflect upon the imprudence, nay, more, the inexcusable folly of continuing a life exposed to such terrible hazards.
If my life was spared I would resolve, like poor d.i.c.k, to stay at home in future. The resolution might avail me as little as it had done in his case.
As I sat hour after hour gazing into the endless shadow and gleam of the great deep, a strange feeling of peace and resignation seemed to pa.s.s suddenly over my troubled spirit. I felt almost tempted to plunge beneath the calm bosom of the main, and so end for aye the doubt, the fear, the rapture, and despair of this mysterious human life. All suddenly the moon rose, sending before her a brilliant pathway, adown which, in my excited imagination, angels might glide, bearing messages of pardon or reprieve. A distinct sensation of hope arose in my mind. A dark form glided to my side, and seated itself on the rail.
”You hear eight bell?” she said. ”Listen now, you all right--no more poison--he go away.” She held my hand--the pulse was steady and regular.
In spite of my efforts at calmness and self-control, I was sensible of a strange exaltation of spirit. The heaven above, the sea below, seemed animate with messengers of pardon and peace. Even poor Nellie, the untaught child of a lonely isle, ”placed far amid the melancholy main,”
seemed transformed into a celestial visitant, and her large, dark eyes glowed in the light of the mystic moon rays.
”You well, man Hil'ree!” she said in the foc'sle vernacular. ”No more go mat. Nellie so much glad,” and here her soft low tones were so instinct with deepest human feeling that I took her in my arms and folded her in a warm embrace.
”How's poor d.i.c.k?” I asked, as we walked aft to where Hayston and the rest of the cabin party were seated.
”Poor d.i.c.k dead!” she said; ”just die before me come up.”