Part 115 (1/2)

David stood looking on at the slaughter with a helpless puzzled air.

At last he seemed to have an idea, he caught Jack up by the throat and knee, lifted him with gigantic strength above his head, and was just going to hurl him shrieking into the sea, when a dozen strong hands interfered, and saved the man. Then they were going to bind Billy hand and foot; but he was discovered to be perfectly calm; so they remonstrated instead, and presently Billy's commander-in-chief, a s.h.i.+p-boy called Georgie White, shoved in and asked him in a shrill haughty voice how he dared do that. ”My dear,” said Billy, with great humility and placidity, ”he was killing G.o.d's creatures, no allowance: *

so, ye see, to save their lives, I was _obliged._”

*Nautical phrase, meaning without stint or limit, or n.i.g.g.ardly admeasurement as there is of grog.

At this piece of reasoning, and the simplicity and gentle conviction with which it was delivered, there was a roar. It subsided, and a doubt arose whether Billy was altogether in the wrong.

”Well,” said one, ”I daresay life is sweet to them little creatures, if they could speak their minds.”

”I've known a s.h.i.+p founder in a fair breeze all along of killing 'em,”

said one old salt.

Finally, several sided with Billy, and intimated that ”it served the lubber right for not listening to _reason._” And, indeed, methinks it was lovely and touching that so divine a ray of goodness and superior reason should have shot from his heart or from Heaven across that poor benighted brain.

But it must be owned his mode of showing his humanity was somewhat excessive and abnormal, and smacked of lunacy. After this, however, the affection of his messmates was not so contemptuous.

Now the captain of the _Vulture_ was Billy's cousin by marriage.

Reginald Bazalgette. Twenty years ago, when the captain was a boy, they were great friends: of late Bazalgette had seen less of him; still it seems strange he did not recognise him in his own s.h.i.+p. But one or two causes co-operated to prevent that. In the first place, the mind when turned in one direction is not so sharp in another; and Captain Bazalgette had been told to look for David in a merchant s.h.i.+p bound for the East Indies. In the next place, insanity alters the expression of the face wonderfully, and the captain of a frigate runs his eye over four hundred sailors at muster, or a hundred at work, not to examine their features, but their dress and bearing at the one, and their handiness at the other. The worst piece of luck was that Mrs. Dodd did not know David called himself William Thompson. So there stood ”William Thompson” large as life on the s.h.i.+p's books, and n.o.body the wiser.

Captain Bazalgette had a warm regard and affection for Mrs. Dodd, and did all he could. Indeed, he took great liberties: he stopped and overhauled several merchant s.h.i.+ps for the truant; and, by-the-by, on one occasion William Thompson was one of the boat's crew that rowed a mids.h.i.+pman from the _Vulture_ alongside a merchant s.h.i.+p to search for David Dodd. He heard the name and circ.u.mstance mentioned in the boat, but the very name was new to him. He remembered it, but only from that hour; and told his loving tyrant, Georgie White, they had been overhauling a merchant s.h.i.+p and looking for one David Dodd.

It was about Midsummer the _Vulture_ anch.o.r.ed off one of the South Sea islands, and sent a boat ash.o.r.e for fruit. Billy and his dearly beloved little tyrant, Georgie White, were among the crew. Off goes Georgie to bathe, and Billy sits down on the beach with a loving eye upon him. The water was calm: but the boy with the heedlessness of youth stayed in it nearly an hour: he was seized with cramp and screamed to his comrades.

They ran, but they were half a mile from the boat. Billy dashed into the water and came up with Georgie just as he was sinking for the last time; the boy gripped him; but by his great strength he disentangled himself and got Georgie on his shoulders, and swam for the sh.o.r.e. Meantime the sailors got into the boat, and rowed hastily towards them.

Now Billy was undermost and his head under water at times, and Georgie, some thought, had helped strangle him by gripping his neck with both arms. Anyway, by the boy's account, just as they were getting into shallow water, Billy gave a great shriek and turned over on his back; and Georgie paddled with his hands, but Billy soon after this sunk like a dead body while the boat was yet fifty yards off. And Georgie screamed and pointed to the place, and the boat came up and took Georgie in; and the water was so clear that the sailors saw Billy lie motionless at the bottom, and hooked him with a boat hook and drew him up; but his face came up alongside a deadly white, with staring eyes, and they shuddered and feared it was too late.

They took him into a house and stripped him, and rubbed him, and wrapped him in blankets, and put him by the hot fire. But all would not do.

Then, having dried his clothes, they dressed the body again and laid him in the boat, and cast the Union Jack over him, and rowed slowly and unwillingly back to the s.h.i.+p, Georgie sobbing and screaming over the body, and not a dry eye in the boat.

The body was carried up the side, and uncovered, just as Mrs. Dodd saw in her dream. The surgeon was sent for and examined the body: and then the grim routine of a man-of-war dealt swiftly with the poor skipper. He was carried below to be prepared for a sailor's grave. Then the surgeon walked aft and reported formally to the officer of the watch the death by drowning of William Thompson. The officer of the watch went instantly to the captain in his cabin and reported the death. The captain gave the stereotyped order to bury him at noon next day; and the body was stripped that night and sewed up in his hammock, with a portion of his clothes and bedding to conceal the outline of the corpse, and two cannon b.a.l.l.s at his feet; and so the poor skipper was laid out for a watery grave, and covered by the Union Jack.

I don't know whether any of my amorous young readers are much affected by the catastrophe I have just related. If not, I will just remind them that even Edward Dodd was prepared to oppose the marriage of Julia and Alfred, if any serious ill should befall his father at sea, owing to Alfred's imprudent interference in rescuing him from Drayton House.

CHAPTER L

LAW

MINUTE study of my fellow-creatures has revealed to me that there are many intelligent persons who think that a suit at law commences in court. This is not so. Many suits are fought and decided by the special pleaders, and so never come into court; and, as a stiff encounter of this kind actually took place in Hardie _v._ Hardie, a word of prefatory explanation may be proper. Suitors come into court only to try an issue: an issue is a mutual lie direct: and towards this both parties are driven upon paper by the laws of pleading, which may be thus summed: 1.

Every statement of the adversary must either be contradicted flat, or confessed and avoided: ”avoided” means neutralised by fresh matter. 2.

Nothing must be advanced by plaintiff which does not disclose a ground of action at law. 3. Nothing advanced by defendant, which, if true, would not be a defence to the action. These rules exclude in a vast degree the pitiable defects and vices that mark all the unprofessional arguments one ever hears; for on a breach of any one of the said rules the other party can demur; the demurrer is argued before the judges in Banco, and, if successfully, the faulty plaint or faulty plea is dismissed, and often of course the cause won or lost thereby, and the country saved the trouble, and the suitors the expense of trying an issue.

So the writ being served by Plt.'s attorney, and an appearance put in by Deft.'s, the paper battle began by Alfred Hardie, through his attorney, serving on Deft.'s attorney ”THE DECLARATION.” This was drawn by his junior counsel, Garrow, and ran thus, after specifying the court and the date:

_Middles.e.x to wit_ Alfred Hardie by John Compton his attorney sues Thomas Hardie For that the Deft. a.s.saulted Plt. gave him into custody to a certain person and caused him to be imprisoned for a long s.p.a.ce of time in a certain place to wit a Lunatic Asylum whereby the Plt. was much inconvenienced and suffered much anguish and pain in mind and body and was unable to attend to his affairs and was injured in his credit and circ.u.mstances.

And the Plt. claims L. 5000.