Foul Play - Dion Boucicault (the best books to read txt) 📗

recovered his feet, had not immediately cut the sheet with his knife; there was no time to slack it; and, even as it was, the lower part of the sail was drenched, and the boat full of water. “Ship the helm!” he roared.

The boat righted directly the sheet was cut, the wet sail flapped furiously, and the boat, having way on her yielded to the helm and wriggled slowly away before the whistling wind.

Mackintosh rose a few yards astern, and swam after the boat, with great glaring eyes; the loose sail was not drawing, but the wind moved the boat onward. However, Mackintosh gained slowly, and Hazel held up an oar like a spear, and shouted to him that he must promise solemnly to forego all violence, or he should never come on board alive.

Mackintosh opened his mouth to reply; but, at the same moment, his eyes suddenly dilated in a fearful way, and he went under water, with a gurgling cry. Yet not like one drowning, but with a jerk.

The next moment there was a great bubbling of the water, as if displaced by some large creatures struggling below, and then the surface was stained with blood.

And, lest there should be any doubt as to the wretched man’s fate, the huge black fin of a monstrous shark came soon after, gliding round and round the rolling boat, awaiting the next victim.

Now, while the water was yet stained with his life-blood, who, hurrying to kill, had met with a violent death, the unwounded sailor, Fenner, excited by the fracas, broke forth into singing, and so completed the horror of a wild and awful scene; for still, while he shouted, laughed, and sang, the shark swam calmly round and round, and the boat crept on, her white sail bespattered with blood—which was not so before—and in her bottom lay one man dead as a stone; and two poor wretches, Prince and Welch, their short-lived feud composed forever, sat openly sucking their bleeding wounds, to quench for a moment their intolerable thirst.

Oh, little do we, who never pass a single day without bite or sup, know the animal Man, in these dire extremities.

 

CHAPTER XXII.

AT last Cooper ordered Fenner to hold his jaw, and come aft, and help sail the boat.

But the man, being now stark mad, took no notice of the order. His madness grew on him, and took a turn by no means uncommon in these cases. He saw before him sumptuous feasts, and streams of fresh water flowing. These he began to describe with great volubility and rapture, smacking his lips and exulting. And so he went on tantalizing them till noon.

Meantime, Cooper asked Mr. Hazel if he could sail the boat.

“I can steer,” said he, “but that is all. My right arm is benumbed.”

The silvery voice of Helen Rolleston then uttered brave and welcome words. “I will do whatever you tell me, Mr. Cooper.”

“Long life to you, miss!” said the wounded seaman. He then directed her how to reef the sail, and splice the sheet which he had been obliged to cut; and, in a word, to sail the boat; which she did with some little assistance from Hazel.

And so they all depended upon her, whom some of them had been for killing. And the blood-stained boat glided before the wind.

At two P. M. Fenner jumped suddenly up, and, looking at the sea with rapture, cried out, “Aha! my boys, here’s a beautiful green meadow; and there’s a sweet brook with bulrushes. Green, green, green! Let’s have a roll among the daisies.” And in a moment, ere any of his stiff and wounded shipmates could put out a hand, he threw himself on his back upon the water, and sunk forever, with inexpressible rapture on his corpse-like face.

A feeble groan was the only tribute those who remained behind could afford him.

At three P. M. Mr. Hazel happened to look over the weather-side of the boat, as she heeled to leeward under a smart breeze, and he saw a shell or two fastened to her side, about eleven inches above keel. He looked again, and gave a loud hurrah. “Barnacles! barnacles!” he cried. “I see them sticking.”

He leaned over, and, with some difficulty, detached one, and held it up.

It was not a barnacle, but a curious oblong shellfish, open at one end.

At sight of this, the wounded forgot their wounds, and leaned over the boat’s side, detaching the shellfish with their knives. They broke them with the handles of their knives, and devoured the fish. They were as thick as a man’s finger and about an inch long, and as sweet as a nut. It seems that in the long calm these shellfish had fastened on the boat. More than a hundred of them were taken off her weather-side, and evenly divided.

Miss Rolleston, at Hazel’s earnest request, ate only six, and these very slowly, and laid the rest by. But the sailors could not restrain themselves; and Prince, in particular, gorged himself so fiercely that he turned purple in the face, and began to breathe very hard.

That black speck on the horizon had grown by noon to a beetle, and by three o’clock to something more like an elephant, and it now diffused itself into a huge black cloud, that gradually overspread the heavens; and at last, about half an hour before sunset, came a peculiar chill, and then, in due course, a drop or two fell upon the parched wretches. They sat, less like animals than like plants, all stretching toward their preserver.

Their eyes were turned up to the clouds, so were their open mouths, and their arms and hands held up toward it.

The drops increased in number, and praise went up to Heaven in return.

Patter, patter, patter; down came a shower, a rain—a heavy, steady rain.

With cries of joy, they put out every vessel to catch it; they lowered the sail, and, putting ballast in the center, bellied it into a great vessel to catch it. They used all their spare canvas to catch it. They filled the water-cask with it; they filled the keg that had held the fatal spirit; and all the time they were sucking the wet canvas, and their own clothes, and their very hands and garments on which the life-giving drops kept falling.

Then they set their little sail again, and prayed for land to Him who had sent the wind and rain.

 

CHAPTER XXIII.

 

THE breeze declined at sunset; but it rained at intervals during the night; and by morning they were somewhat chilled.

Death had visited them again during the night. Prince was discovered dead and cold; his wounds were mere scratches, and there seems to be no doubt that he died by gorging himself with more food than his enfeebled system could possibly digest.

Thus dismally began a day of comparative bodily comfort, but mental distress, especially to Miss Rolleston and Mr. Hazel.

Now that this lady and gentleman were no longer goaded to madness by physical suffering, their higher sensibilities resumed their natural force, and the miserable contents of the blood-stained boat shocked them terribly. Two corpses and two wounded men.

Mr. Hazel, however, soon came to one resolution, and that was to read the funeral service over the dead, and then commit them to the deep. He declared this intention, and Cooper, who, though wounded, and apparently sinking, was still skipper of the boat, acquiesced readily.

Mr. Hazel then took the dead men’s knives and their money out of their pockets, and read the burial service over them; they were then committed to the deep. This sad ceremony performed, he addressed a few words to the survivors.

“My friends, and brothers in affliction, we ought not to hope too much from Divine mercy for ourselves; or we should come soon to forget Divine justice. But we are not forbidden to hope for others. Those who are now gone were guilty of a terrible crime; but then they were tempted more than their flesh could bear; and they received their punishment here on earth. We may therefore hope they will escape punishment hereafter. And it is for us to profit by their fate, and bow to Heaven’s will. Even when they drew their knives, food in plenty was within their reach, and the signs of wind were on the sea, and of rain in the sky. Let us be more patient than they were, and place our trust— What is that upon the water to leeward? A piece of wood floating?”

Welch stood up and looked. “Can’t make it out. Steer alongside it, miss, if you please.” And he crept forward.

Presently he became excited, and directed those in the stern how to steer the boat close to the object without going over it. He begged them all to be silent. He leaned over the boat side as they neared it. He clutched it suddenly with both hands and flung it into the boat with a shout of triumph, but sank exhausted by the effort.

It was a young turtle; and being asleep on the water, or inexperienced, had allowed them to capture it.

This was indeed a godsend—twelve pounds of succulent meat. It was instantly divided, and Mr. Hazel contrived, with some difficulty, to boil a portion of it. He enjoyed it greatly; but Miss Rolleston showed a curious and violent antipathy to it, scarcely credible under the circumstances. Not so the sailors. They devoured it raw, what they could get at all. Cooper could only get down a mouthful or two. He had received his death-wound, and was manifestly sinking.

He revived, however, from time to time, and spoke cheerfully, whenever he spoke at all. Welch informed him of every incident that took place, however minute. Then he would nod, or utter a syllable or two.

On being told that they were passing through sea-weed, he expressed a wish to see some of it, and when he had examined it, he said to Hazel, “Keep up your heart, sir; you are not a hundred miles from land.” He added gently, after a pause, “But I am bound for another port.”

About five in the afternoon, Welch came aft, with the tears in his eyes, to say that Sam was just going to slip his cable, and had something to say to them.

They went to him directly, and Hazel took his hand and exhorted him to forgive all his enemies. “Hain’t a got none,” was the reply.

Hazel then, after a few words of religious exhortation and comfort, asked him if he could do anything for him.

“Ay,” said Cooper, solemnly. “Got pen and ink aboard, any of ye?”

“I have a pencil,” said Helen, earnestly; then, tearfully, “Oh, dear! it is to make his will.” She opened her prayerbook, which had two blank leaves under each cover.

The dying man saw them, and rose into that remarkable energy which sometimes precedes the departure of the soul.

“Write!” said he in his deep, full tones.

 

“I, Samuel Cooper, able seaman, am going to slip my cable, and sail into the presence of my Maker.”

 

He waited till this was written.

 

“And so I speak the truth.

“The ship Proserpine was destroyed willful.

“The men had more allowance than they signed for.

“The mate was always plying the captain with liquor.

“Two days before ever the ship leaked, the mate got the longboat ready.

“When the Proserpine sank, we was on her port quarter, aboard the cutter, was me and my messmate Tom Welch.

“We saw two auger-holes in her stern, about two inches diameter.

“Them two holes was made from within, for the splinters showed outside.

“She was a good ship, and met with no stress of weather to speak of, on