would have tried a shot at him. This indomitable old gentleman had been
near twenty-four hours in the saddle, yet he kept ahead of me. His trot
had fallen to a walk; he ploughed along with hanging head, yet he never
stopped; while, as for me, I was fain to halt every few paces, and,
even so, I thought I should have burst. A man could have crawled on his
belly faster than Murch was going, and yet I could not gain upon him.
There was but one chance left. When he came within hail of the ship
there might be a delay while the men got a boat ashore. But even then
Murch had as good a chance--or better--of shooting me as I approached,
as I had of shooting him. Meanwhile, he was slowly, irresistibly
drawing near the goal; to all appearance, the little black triangle of
the schooner’s sail was hardly within the bay; and, keeping the same
distance behind him, as though the space between us were enchanted,
dragging one foot up and setting it down again, with an inconceivable
effort, there came toiling the last hope of Brandon Pomfrett, of Mr
Dawkins, of the merchants of Bristol city, and of Mrs A.
So we went, one behind the other, until the masts and yards of the
_Blessed Endeavour_, lying beneath the crags, were dimly printed in
the shadow. The schooner was behind us now, and the last flicker of
hope died within me. The red ball of the sun hung immediately above the
horizon; sea and shore were drenched with red light; a red mist swam
giddily before my eyes, with the figure of Murch, a black dot, in the
centre.
Suddenly, I saw the bowed figure halt and throw up its hands; the red
mist cleared away, and I beheld Murch sinking to his knees, struggling
in the sand. He cried out, with an accent of mortal terror dreadful to
hear, and, as in a dream, when one strives to run and leaden weights
clog the feet, so I struggled ineffectually towards the agonised
figure, that seemed, in the red illumination, to be writhing in a lake
of blood. The quicksand had him by the waist; he upreared his huge
trunk, and I saw his face for one moment--not all the tides of time
can wash out the remembrance. He flung himself this way and that, with
gasps and groans that seemed to tear his heart. The ooze rose to his
chest; his arms were swallowed to the elbow; he dragged them free with
a bursting effort, and the slime rose to his chin. An inarticulate
gabble of sounds broke from him; then, his mouth was choked with sand.
The last I saw of the poor wretch was a hand that clutched at the air
once or twice, then sank out of sight. A ripple agitated the wet, oily
surface once and again, and all was still.
XXI
MR DAWKINS HAS THE LAST WORD
I watched the sun visibly declining, until the glowing sphere was
half submerged; and across the red semicircle slowly glided the black
triangle of a sail. Presently, the sun vanished below the far sea-line,
and the grey ghost of a schooner stole across the glimmering water
and vanished into the gloom that was thickening under the Point. The
voyagers might take their time, now, after so many thousand leagues
of chasing; and so might the wretched chronicler of those travels,
dragging himself towards the lights that glimmered in the darkness
under the hill. But that night Pomfrett and Dawkins and I were sitting
at supper again in our own cabin.
But I could not eat; the thought of Murch and his insatiate craving for
food stuck in my throat.
“Sick, are you? Well, and I don’t wonder. I’m on’y surprised as a man
of Murch’s education didn’t take warning from that there unnatural
craving for victuals,” observed old Dawkins, shaking his head. “That
was the grave-hunger, that was; the earth a-hungry for its nat’ral
food. I seen it before, and never know’d the sign to fail. But it was
fate, I reckon.”
My tale draws to its natural conclusion. I have but to seize the loose
strands of the rope’s end, and it’s done. Pomfrett had the _Blessed
Endeavour_ repaired and floated off, before he touched upon the subject
of the dividend to the ship’s company, and then he took a short way
with those unfortunate buccaneers. He so contrived that they were all
ashore together without boats. Then he sent for the quartermaster, and
went round the ship with him, collecting every man’s possessions, which
were piled in a heap in the waist. Next came the delicate question of
the division of plunder. Since the ship had been stolen, Pomfrett might
justly have taken possession of the whole cargo. But he had dipped his
hands into the same bucket as themselves; he, too, had been a gentleman
of fortune; and, moreover, he had no mind to incur the hazard of being
blackmailed for the rest of his life by every stray desperado of
Murch’s gang. So he decided to treat the booty gained by the _Blessed
Endeavour_ while she was under Mr Murch’s captaincy, as though the
old pirate had commanded her in the interests of the rightful owners,
but omitting from consideration dead-shares and compensation for
wounds. Under this arrangement, himself and Dawkins and I profited
with the rest, as though we had been aboard throughout the voyage. The
owners, of course, had no part in plunder, as such, as I have before
explained in Chapter II. To them belonged all coined money, bar gold
and silver ingots, women’s ear-rings, pearls and precious stones, and
loose diamonds. The plunder itself, then, including bedding, clothes,
gold rings, buckles, buttons, liquors, provisions, arms, ammunition,
watches, wrought silver or gold crucifixes, prisoners’ movables
generally, and wearing apparel, was equitably divided by the supercargo.
“You’ve a pretty high way with you, hain’t you?” grumbled the
quartermaster. “I seen many a dividend, but never a one like this here.
Where’s the skipper? Why don’t we wait for Mr Murch, then?”
“We might have to wait long, and it’s a pity to miss the tide,” said
Pomfrett, pushing a paper across the table to him. “There’s the formal
quittance in full on behalf of the officers and crew. You are to sign
for yourself and the men ashore.”
“Not me; not likely,” returned the other, angry and suspicious. “D’ye
think I want a knife in my back? The officers and crew have got to be
present at this here dividend, themselves.”
“Please yourself,” said Brandon. “It’s that or nothing. I’m stretching
a point as it is, though you mayn’t think it.”
But the matter had to be opened much more at large to the quartermaster
before he would sign. In fine, it was the beach for him and his mates,
whether or no; the choice lay between full pockets and empty.
So he signed at last, and Pomfrett folded the paper, and buttoned
his coat upon the document which was both to set him square with his
owners and secure him against any future attempt at blackmailing.
The long-boat was loaded with the men’s kit and their booty, and
sent ashore with the quartermaster, who was left on the beach to do
sentry-go over a king’s ransom until such time as the crew should come
along. But, they were happily employed in an ale-house some two miles
inland; and we of the _Blessed Endeavour_ never saw those scoundrels
any more.
We fetched up in Bristol docks on a clear, frosty evening at sunset,
the bells chiming somewhere in the darkling town, with its lights
glimmering here and there, and the sky over all jewelled with faint
stars. Morgan Leroux was waiting on the quay--Brandon had sent her a
letter from Morte Bay--and those two went off together to the house of
Brandon Pomfrett the elder. Old Dawkins and I were left to keep each
other company; and as we sat upon the deserted deck, where everything
was so strangely still and motionless, and looked ashore at the
darkness closing down upon the packed houses, a kind of melancholy fell
upon us.
“Why, now, shipmate,” says Dawkins, “we had ought to been happy, you
and me, not to mention the young turtle-doves yonder; though I reckon
them being inexperienced, they think they’re in heaven, having fetched
up safe and hearty, and chock-a-block with plunder, too. But we ain’t
not to say hilarious, are we now? No, says you, not properly so. Ah,
well, things is so, shipmate. I reckon we wants a good rousing supper
with plenty liquor, to start us on the Jerusalem tack, shipmate.”
And certainly, when, a little later, we found ourselves seated at the
table of Uncle Brandon Pomfrett, not even Mrs A.’s sour countenance
could stay our hilarity. Old Dawkins presently found his tongue,
getting to his feet and leaning forward on the table in his old way.
“Here’s to you, gentlemen o’ fortune all, and you, ma’am, what’s a
lady o’ fortune, by what I hear,” shouts Dawkins, glass in hand.
“Gentlemen of fortune all, by the bones of the deep! For if you don’t
sail yourselves, you sends us on the account, and ‘there’s many a man
gone on this cruise, what never has come back’--ah, many a good seaman!
Not a dozen men left, out o’ ninety hands! Ah, it’s you that stays at
home is the bold ones, for every man that’s drowned in the deep or cast
away, or perished in mortal pain and sickness, or gets shot or stabbed
or what not, why, his blood’s at your door. Ah, it is! No wonder you
goes to church so frequent, and pipes all hands to prayers twice
daily. Lord!” says Dawkins, staring hard at Pomfrett the elder, and
turning his little, lighted eyes upon Mrs A., who paled visibly, “as
I look at you, lady and gentleman born, I could swear I see the blood
a-spotting your white hands. But what cheer! The longest liver takes
all, and the chaplain can square the dividend, I reckon. What’s he draw
pay and rations for, else?”
There was an uncomfortable silence. If those good ship-owners, Mrs A.
and Mr Pomfrett, never heard the truth before, they heard it, then,
from Mr Dawkins’s vinous lips. But that gallant seaman, not in the
least understanding the situation, kindly relieved our embarrassment
by incontinently breaking into song; and the rest of the evening went
pleasantly enough, for we told the whole history of our adventures;
only suppressing Mr Dawkins’s share in them to the extent of setting
our detention in Barbadoes to the sole account of the late Mr Murch.
The rest is soon told. When the owners came to overhaul the accounts,
Sir Henry Morgan’s silver was, at Morgan’s request, made over to them.
They never knew to whom it had originally belonged. The sacrifice
was the easier, because Murch had left the bag of diamonds he took in
Cartagena in Morgan’s keeping, and the supercargo saw no reason for
including that little piece of booty in the Book of Plunder. And, as
soon as might be, the two were married, of course. Pomfrett goes no
more to sea; he is become a country gentleman and a Justice of the
Peace; and I know no life better worth living, if you own a taste for
it. As for me, I am sufficiently occupied with that leisurely study of
the ancients, to which Mr Murch had looked forward with such admirable
enthusiasm. And as for Captain Dawkins, he would not touch his plunder.
“No, no,” said he. “Why, inside of a month old Dawkins would come
a-begging to your door, as poor as the day he were born. No, don’t you
give Dawkins no money, if you love him, no more than a matter of a few
dollars, drawn weekly, you understand. And don’t you give him no more,
not if he was to beg on his bended knees.”
So Pomfrett invested Mr Dawkins’s little fortune, and bought him a
white cottage by the water-side, with a stout sail-boat moored at
the garden foot, and a flagstaff in a gravelled square, bordered
with sea-shells. There the old gentleman entertains his old friend,
the Reverend Jeremiah Ramsbottom, who is understood to be piloting Mr
Dawkins’s soul on the straight course to the Golden Gates.
“I never knowed,” says Dawkins, “that religion were that easy. Why, a
child could learn it! You ain’t got to do nothing, on’y avoid several
things what a man of my age and experience don’t want to do anything
_but_ avoid, and believe what the chaplain tells you to believe.
Believe! Why, there ain’t anything a seaman can’t believe, I often
think, if he lays his mind to it. That,” says Dawkins, with a wink, “is
the benefit of being a sailor, d’ye see. And to think o’ the many poor
seamen drowned, what ain’t had my opportunities! Ah, well, they’re all
right, too; we’ll meet again, I reckon--
“‘We’ll meet again at Fiddler’s Green,
All up among the stars.’”
FINIS
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Woven with the Ship
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.