The Sailor. Snaith John Collis
he was face to face with that which his mind could not meet. But he was as sure as those stars were in the sky, that as soon as it was light the Old Man would put him ashore on the Island of San Pedro, and that even Mr. Thompson would raise no protest.
Once or twice he tried to think, but it was no use. His brain was going. He must lie there and wait. How long he lay he didn't know, but it seemed hours before he heard the morning watch come on deck, and even then it was some while from daylight. For a long, long time he lay stupefied, unable to do anything but listen for the stealthy plop-plop of the sharks in the water. And when the daylight came, at first it was so imperceptible that he did not notice it.
At last the sun got up, and then he saw that right away to starboard the sky was truly wonderful, a mass of delicate color which the eye could not grasp. For a moment, the soul of Henry Harper was entranced. Heaven itself was opening before him. His mind went back to the Reverend Rogers and the Brookfield Street Mission. With a stab of shame for having so long forgotten them, he suddenly recalled the words of the Reverend Rogers upon the subject of the Golden Gates. Flooded by an intolerable rush of memories, he imagined he could see and hear the Choir Invisible. The fowls of the air were heralding a marvelous sunrise in the Pacific.
For a moment he forgot the Island of San Pedro. Another door of memory had been unlocked. He was in a flood of golden light. There straight before him were the gates of paradise. He was looking at the home of God. Suddenly Henry Harper thought he could hear the voices of the angels. He strained his eyes to starboard. Real angels with wings would be a wonderful sight. The fowls of the air were in chorus, the sharks were plopping in the water, the gates of heaven were truly marvelous – orange, crimson, gold, purple, every color he had ever seen or imagined, and he had seen and imagined many, was now filling his eyes with ecstasy. At every pore of being he was sensing light and sound. He was like a harp strung up. And then in the midst of it all, there came the voice of the Old Man as he climbed on deck, with Mr. Thompson at his heels. And then … and then … the heavens opened … and Henry Harper saw … and Henry Harper saw…
There was a great plop in the water, much nearer than that of the sharks. There followed heartrending screams and cries, enough to appall the soul of man. All hands rushed to the side of the ship.
"It's on'y Sailor," said the Old Man, with a drunken growl. "Let him drown."
In the next instant there came another great plop in the water.
"What the hell!" roared the Old Man.
"Please, sir, Mr. Thompson's gone for him."
"Mr. who? … blast you!"
"Mr. Thompson, sir."
"Then lower the gig." The Old Man began to stamp up and down the deck, roaring like a maniac. "Lower the gig, I tell ye." His fingers were the first on the davits. "And all hands pipe up a chantey … louder … louder … blast you! … to keep off those sharks."
The Old Man's voice was hoarse and terrible, as he worked like a demon to launch the boat.
"Louder, louder, blast you!" he kept roaring. The smooth, dead-white bellies lay all around, shining in the sunrise. The Old Man was in a frenzy; it seemed as if the boat would never be got into the water.
At last it was launched and the Old Man was the first to jump into it, still roaring like one possessed. He beat the water furiously with a piece of spar. But Mr. Thompson with the boy in tow seemed to be holding his own very well. Either the sharks had not seen them, or they dare not approach in the midst of that terrific outcry.
They were soon in the boat, Mr. Thompson being a powerful swimmer; and when at last they were back on the deck of the Margaret Carey, the boy lay gasping and the mate stood by like some large and savage dog, shaking the water out of his eyes.
"Whatever made you do that, Mr. Thompson?" expostulated the Old Man. He was a good deal sobered by the incident, and his manner showed it.
Mr. Thompson did not answer. He stood glowering at a number of the hands who had gathered round.
"Don't none o' you gennelmen touch that bye," he said with a slow snarl, and he pointed to the heap on the deck.
They took Mr. Thompson's advice. Most people did aboard the Margaret Carey. Even the Old Man respected it in the last resort, that was if he was sober enough to respect anything. But with him it was the seamanship rather than the personal force of his chief officer that turned the scale. It was the man himself to whom less exalted people bowed the knee.
It took the boy the best part of two days to recover the use of his wits. And even then he was not quite as he had been. Something seemed to have happened to him; a very subtle, almost imperceptible change had taken place. He had touched bottom. In a dim way he seemed to realize that he had been made free of some high and awful mystery.
The knowledge was reflected in the thin brown face, haunted now with all manner of unimaginable things. But the feeling of defeat and hopelessness had passed; a new Henry Harper had come out of the sea; never again was he quite so feckless after that experience.
For one thing, he was no longer afraid to go aloft. During the warm calm delightful days in the Indian Ocean when things went well with the ship, and there happened to be nothing doing in the cabin, Sailor began to make himself familiar with the yards. All through the good weather he practiced climbing assiduously, so that one day the Old Man remarked upon it to the mate, demanding of that gentleman, "What has happened to Sailor? He goes aloft like a monkey and sleeps in the cross-trees."
Mr. Thompson made no reply, but a look came into his grim face which might be said to express approval.
The Old Man and the mate were the first to recognize that a change had taken place in Sailor, but the knowledge was not confined exclusively to them. It was soon shared by others. One evening, as Sailor sat sunning himself with the ship's cat on his knee, gazing with intensity now at the sky, now at the sea, one of the hands, a rough nigger named Brutus, threw a boot at him in order to amuse the company. There was a roar of laughter when it was seen that the aim was so true that the boy had been hit in the face.
Sailor laid the cat on the deck, got up quietly, and with the blood running down his cheek came over to Brutus.
"Was that you, you – ?" To the astonishment of all he addressed in terms of the sea the biggest bully aboard the ship.
"Yep," said the nigger, showing his fine teeth in a grin at the others.
"There, then, you ugly swine," said Sailor.
In an instant he had whipped out one of the cabin table knives, which he had hidden against the next attack, and struck at the nigger with all his strength. If the point of the knife had not been blunt the nigger would never have thrown another boot at anybody.
There was a fine to-do. The nigger, a thorough coward, began to howl and declared he was done. The second mate was fetched, and he reported the matter at once to the Old Man.
In a great fury the Old Man came in person to investigate. But he very soon had the rights of the matter; the boy's cheek was bleeding freely, and the nigger was more frightened than hurt.
"Get below you," said the Old Man savagely to the nigger. "I'll have you in irons. I'll larn you to throw boots."
That was all the satisfaction the nigger got out of the affair, but from then boots were not thrown lightheartedly at Sailor.
XVII
After many days of ocean tramping with an occasional discharge of cargo at an out of the way port, the ship put in at Frisco. Here, after a clean up, a new cargo was taken aboard, also a new crew. This was a pretty scratch lot; the usual complement of Yankees, Dutchmen, dagoes, and an occasional Britisher.
For a long and trying fifteen months, Sailor continued on the seas, about all the oceans of the world. At the end of that time he was quite a different boy from the one who had left his native city of Blackhampton. Dagoes and niggers no longer did as they liked with him. He still had a strong dislike, it was true, to going aloft in a gale, but he invariably did as he was told to the best of his ability; he no longer skulked or showed the white feather in the presence of his mates. Nevertheless, he was always miserably