Dead Men Tell No Tales Read online

  CHAPTER III. TO THE WATER'S EDGE

  It was not the new panic amidships that froze my marrow; it was not thatthe pinnace hung perpendicularly by the fore-tackle, and had shot outthose who had swarmed aboard her before she was lowered, as a cartshoots a load of bricks. It was bad enough to see the whole boat-loadstruggling, floundering, sinking in the sea; for selfish eyes (and whichof us is all unselfish at such a time?) there was a worse sight yet; forI saw all this across an impassable gulf of fire.

  The quarter-deck had caught: it was in flames to port and starboard ofthe flaming hatch; only fore and aft of it was the deck sound to thelips of that hideous mouth, with the hundred tongues shooting out andup.

  Could I jump it there? I sprang down and looked. It was only a few feetacross; but to leap through that living fire was to leap into eternity.I drew back instantly, less because my heart failed me, I may truly say,than because my common sense did not.

  Some were watching me, it seemed, across this hell. "The bulwarks!" theyscreamed. "Walk along the bulwarks!" I held up my hand in token thatI heard and understood and meant to act. And as I did their bidding Inoticed what indeed had long been apparent to idler eyes: the wind wasnot; we had lost our southeast trades; the doomed ship was rolling in adead calm.

  Rolling, rolling, rolling so that it seemed minutes before I dared tomove an inch. Then I tried it on my hands and knees, but the scorchedbulwarks burned me to the bone. And then I leapt up, desperate with thepain; and, with my tortured hands spread wide to balance me, I walkedthose few yards, between rising sea and falling fire, and falling seaand rising fire, as an acrobat walks a rope, and by God's grace withoutmishap.

  There was no time to think twice about my feat, or, indeed, aboutanything else that befell upon a night when each moment was morepregnant than the last. And yet I did think that those who hadencouraged me to attempt so perilous a trick might have welcomed mealive among them; they were looking at something else already; and thiswas what it was.

  One of the cabin stewards had presented himself on the poop; he had abottle in one hand, a glass in the other; in the red glare we sawhim dancing in front of the captain like an unruly marionette. Harrisappeared to threaten him. What he said we could not hear for thedeep-drawn blast and the high staccato crackle of the blazing hold. Butwe saw the staggering steward offering him a drink; saw the glass flungnext instant in the captain's face, the blood running, a pistol drawn,fired without effect, and snatched away by the drunken mutineer. Nextinstant a smooth black cane was raining blow after blow on the man'shead. He dropped; the blows fell thick and heavy as before. He laywriggling; the Portuguese struck and struck until he lay quite still;then we saw Joaquin Santos kneel, and rub his stick carefully on thestill thing's clothes, as a man might wipe his boots.

  Curses burst from our throats; yet the fellow deserved to die. Nor, as Isay, had we time to waste two thoughts upon any one incident. Thislast had begun and ended in the same minute; in another we were at thestarboard gangway, tumbling helter-skelter aboard the lowered long-boat.

  She lay safely on the water: how we thanked our gods for that! Lower andlower sank her gunwale as we dropped aboard her, with no more care thanthe Gadarene swine whose fate we courted. Discipline, order, method,common care, we brought none of these things with us from our floatingfurnace; but we fought to be first over the bulwarks, and in the bottomof the long-boat we fought again.

  And yet she held us all! All, that is, but a terror-stricken few, wholay along the jibboom like flies upon a stick: all but two or three morewhom we left fatally hesitating in the forechains: all but the selfishsavages who had been the first to perish in the pinnace, and onedistracted couple who had thrown their children into the kindly ocean,and jumped in after them out of their torment, locked for ever in eachother's arms.

  Yes! I saw more things on that starry night, by that blood-red glare,than I have told you in their order, and more things than I shall tellyou now. Blind would I gladly be for my few remaining years, if thatnight's horrors could be washed from these eyes for ever. I have said somuch, however, that in common candor I must say one thing more. I havespoken of selfish savages. God help me and forgive me! For by this timeI was one myself.

  In the long-boat we cannot have been less than thirty; the exact numberno man will ever know. But we shoved off without mischance; the chiefmate had the tiller; the third mate the boat-hook; and six or eightoars were at work, in a fashion, as we plunged among the great smoothsickening mounds and valleys of fathomless ink.

  Scarcely were we clear when the foremast dropped down on the fastenings,dashing the jib-boom into the water with its load of demented humanbeings. The mainmast followed by the board before we had doubled ourdistance from the wreck. Both trailed to port, where we could not seethem; and now the mizzen stood alone in sad and solitary grandeur, herflapping idle sails lighted up by the spreading conflagration, so thatthey were stamped very sharply upon the black add starry sky. But thewhole scene from the long-boat was one of startling brilliancy andhorror. The fire now filled the entire waist of the vessel, and thenoise of it was as the rumble and roar of a volcano. As for the light,I declare that it put many a star clean out, and dimmed the radianceof all the rest, as it flooded the sea for miles around, and a sea ofmolten glass reflected it. My gorge rose at the long, low billows-sleekas black satin--lifting and dipping in this ghastly glare. I preferredto keep my eyes upon the little ship burning like a tar barrel as thepicture grew. But presently I thanked God aloud: there was the gigswimming like a beetle over the bloodshot rollers in our wake.

  In our unspeakable gladness at being quit of the ship, some minutespassed before we discovered that the long-boat was slowly filling. Thewater was at our ankles before a man of us cried out, so fast were oureyes to the poor lost Lady Jermyn. Then all at once the ghastly factdawned upon us; and I think it was the mate himself who burst out cryinglike a child. I never ascertained, however, for I had kicked off myshoes and was busy baling with them. Others were hunting for the leak.But the mischief was as subtle as it was mortal--as though a plankhad started from end to end. Within and without the waters roseequally--then lay an instant level with our gunwales--then swamped us,oh! so slowly, that I thought we were never going to sink. It waslike getting inch by inch into your tub; I can feel it now, creeping,crawling up my back. "It's coming! O Christ!" muttered one as it came;to me it was a downright relief to be carried under at last.

  But then, thank God, I have always been a strong swimmer. The water waswarm and buoyant, and I came up like a cork, as I knew I should. I shookthe drops from my face, and there were the sweet stars once more; formany an eye they had gone Out for ever; and there the burning wreck.

  A man floundered near me, in a splutter of phosphorescence. I tried tohelp him, and in an instant he had me wildly round the neck. In the endI shook him off, poor devil, to his death. And he was the last I triedto aid: have I not said already what I was become?

  In a little an oar floated my way: I threw my arms across it and grippedit with my chin as I swam. It relieved me greatly. Up and down I rodeamong the oily black hillocks; I was down when there was a sudden flareas though the sun had risen, and I saw still a few heads bobbing and afew arms waving frantically around me. At the same instant a terrificdetonation split the ears; and when I rose on the next bald billow,where the ship lay burning a few seconds before, there remained but ared-hot spine that hissed and dwindled for another minute, and then lefta blackness through which every star shone with redoubled brilliance.

  And now right and left splashed falling missiles; a new source of dangeror of temporary respite; to me, by a merciful Providence, it proved thelatter.

  Some heavy thing fell with a mighty splash right in front of me. A fewmore yards, and my brains had floated with the spume. As it was, theoar was dashed from under my armpits; in another moment they had found amore solid resting-place.

  It was a hen-coop, and it floated bars upwards like a boat. In thiscalm it might float for days. I
climbed upon the bars-and the whole cagerolled over on top of me.

  Coming to the surface, I found to my joy that the hen-coop had righteditself; so now I climbed up again, but this time very slowly andgingerly; the balance was undisturbed, and I stretched myself cautiouslyalong the bars on my stomach. A good idea immediately occurred to me. Ihad jumped as a matter of course into the flannels which one naturallywears in the tropics. To their lightness I already owed my life, but thecommon cricket-belt which was part of the costume was the thing to whichI owe it most of all. Loosening this belt a little, as I tucked my toestenaciously under the endmost bar, I undid and passed the two ends underone of the middle bars, fastening the clasp upon the other side. If Icapsized now, well, we might go to the bottom together; otherwise thehen-coop and I should not part company in a hurry; and I thought, Ifelt, that she would float.

  Worn out as I was, and comparatively secure for the moment, I will notsay that I slept; but my eyes closed, and every fibre rested, as I roseand slid with the smooth, long swell. Whether I did indeed hear voices,curses, cries, I cannot say positively to this day. I only know that Iraised my head and looked sharply all ways but the way I durst not lookfor fear of an upset. And, again, I thought I saw first a tiny flame,and then a tinier glow; and as my head drooped, and my eyes closedagain, I say I thought I smelt tobacco; but this, of course, was myimagination supplying all the links from one.