Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/421

 . 6, 1860.] back to their places, and took the rest of the boy’s watch myself.

“Poor youngster—he cried himself to sleep. You see we’d had twelve days of it, and not a dry rag on us since the first day. Our skins were quite sore and covered all over with little pimples; and round the waist and neck, where the clothes rubbed, there were quite sores. You try a poultice anywhere for twelve days, and see what it’ll do for you. Poor Sands—he was worse than either of us.

“So we went on, day after day—plenty of food—seal beef.

“Some days we saw ships, some days none. It was weary work, but I kept ’em up to it: there’s nothing like regular work to keep you from brooding over unpleasantness—nothing. Sometimes we got a shot at some birds, but more than half fell in the water.

“On the eighteenth day we were nearly thrown down by the breaking off of the small pointed piece you see in the sketch.

“It broke off and splashed into the water with an awful noise, and almost sunk, and then came up again, and shook us to pieces as it rubbed against our piece. Next day it separated and got farther off, and on the second day it was hull down, and we lost it at night.

“That was the twenty-first day, and the sun was hot—not warm, but hot. We got a few dry clothes by stretching them out to wind’ard on the ramrods, but they got sopped again at night.

“Sands gave up on this night—he couldn’t take his watch, he was so bad. We must have got into warmer water, too, for instead of rising out of the water it began to sink—more one side than the other, too, so that the tracks were getting too slippy to be safe. Another thing I noticed was, that the whole affair turned round sometimes with the sun, sometimes the other way, and then again was quite still for a day at a time.

“On the twenty-fourth day—the boy was gone to light the lamps. Sands says to me, ‘How long will he be gone?’

‘A half an hour,’ says I.

‘Stevens,’ says he.

“I told him to say Ben.

‘Ben, then,’ says he, ‘I’m not going to last much longer. I feel it here, somehow—sort of warning.’

“He did look awful bad, but I told him to cheer up; we might get taken off any time for we were just in the track now.

‘No, no,’ says he, ‘it’s all over with me, I feel it here,’ and he put his hand on his breast. Lord, what a hand it was to what I first knew it! Thin and lean, and the bones making the skin look shiny over them. Soft, too, as a woman’s!

‘There’s a thing I want you to do, Ben, if you get off this at all.’

“I told him I’d do anything for him I could.

‘Now listen, Ben,’ says he, ‘for I ain’t got much wind left.’

‘The voyage before last I came home with a lot of money, and made up my mind for a spree; so I went ashore, and got a flashy suit of clothes. Well, I didn’t like the name of Sands, so I took another, and had a regular game. I’m very sorry now; but you see, when a fellow’s been three years amongst the coolies it seems as though he ought to have a little freedom when he gets amongst white people again. Well, I went down to the sea side to a village I knew, and there I saw a girl at church. She seemed took with me, so I struck up an acquaintance with her for a lark. She took it quite serious, and was regularly in love with me, and I got at last to be in love with her. Well, I didn’t mean no harm to the girl, I meant to marry her. I did, as true as God,’ says he. ‘Well, we went wrong, and one night she said I had been cruel to her—and got cross—and then told me we must be found out soon. I was savage at that and at her being cross—poor girl, she’d cause to be. So I said I’d never see her again, and went off in a huff.

‘I meant to come back, I did, Ben. I swear it. Instead of that, I met a messmate of mine, and he got me drunk, and shipped me on a West India trader, and when I came to myself I was too far from shore to get back, so I sulked, and shirked duty. The Captain says to me:

‘My man, it’s no use—you’re here, and you’ll be paid. You can’t get back any quicker than with me; so do your work like a man, and we shall be back in a couple of months or so, at least.’

‘So I did my work. When we got to Kingston I took the fever, and was in the hospital near two months, and he left me there, paying me for the voyage out; and then I came home and heard that she’d gone away, nobody knew where.

‘Well, I set to work to find her, and tried all ways till the money was gone, and then had to ship in the Belle of Aberdeen, for I’m pretty good at whaling, and knew I could get money; and I wished to go back and find her, and get married to her.’

“Here he was took with spasms, so bad that I brought out my case-bottle of brandy and gave him a little. I’d just put in the cork, when the boy came running to me and fell down all of a heap close by me.

‘What’s the matter?’ says I.

“He opened his mouth once or twice, and at last got out:

‘A sail! It’s close by—I can see ’em on the deck,’ and he fainted right dead off.

“I told Sands.

‘A sail!’ says he, and tried to get up. Lord! he’d no more strength than a baby, and fell down directly, looking as dead as could be. I wanted to know more about him, so I gave him some more brandy, and asked him the girl’s name.

‘The sail,’ says the boy, for he’d come to, and would say nothing else. ‘Oh, the sail!’

‘What’s her name?’ says I to Sands. He stared at me as if he didn’t hear.

‘The sail!’ screamed the boy; ‘you’ll miss it, and we shall die.’

“I gave him some more brandy, and asked him again as loud as I could:

‘What’s her name? What’s the girl’s name?’

‘Esther Th,’ and he couldn’t finish.

“I gave him all that was left now, and asked him again.