We steamed all that day upon a fair sea, but at sundown the truth came
out. We had not coal enough for another hour's run and were still a
hundred miles from Ascension. I watched the faces of the men when
Nicolson told them. They seemed to care nothing. The gold greed was
upon them; the ingots were piled up everywhere about the launch and the
hands hugged them as children, dearer than anything afloat or ashore.
Nicolson got curses for his pains and went below again.
[Illustration: "THE GOLD GREED WAS UPON THEM."]
I watched the scene gloomily from the stern--it was beginning to dawn
upon me that no man would see land again; and when an hour and a half
had passed and the engines of the launch suddenly stopped I could not
call myself a pessimist. The hands themselves, awed by the mishap,
began to talk of sailing ships which would pick them up and of a story
they must have ready. Nicolson was to be the captain of a ship which
had stranded; Barlow was his mate. They did not name me; and, as the
day is my witness, I believe they intended to murder me.
You may think that this sent a man to his supper with a good appetite.
Truth to tell, I lay down in my blanket at ten o'clock and never
expected to see the sun again. A shadow passing by me, a voice, a
whisper, made me start like a frightened hare. Once I found the nigger
Sam bending over me, and I jumped up, wet through with perspiration.
Even a child would have seen that these madmen, lost to all sense of
reason, would never take me ashore with them. Then when would they make
an end of it? Soon, I hoped, if it must be. The suspense was making an
old man of me. Every evil glance that was turned upon me seemed like
a warning anew. I believe to this hour that they would have shot me
before dawn but for the wind, the truest friend a man ever had in the
hour of his need. Yes, to the wind and the sea, twin brothers to a
sailor, I owed my life. It began to blow about seven bells in the first
watch, and by dawn the waves were running as they run on no other ocean
but the Atlantic. Laden as we were, deep down in the seas, our chances
of weathering the gale may be imagined. Had we still owned a fire the
first wash over would have snuffed it out. The good launch staggered at
every blow, like a boxer badly hit. I said that the gold must go--and
not a man aboard who did not know that I spoke the truth.
I have witnessed some strange scenes in my life--niggers running amuck
in St. Louis, French sailors among the drink in a panic, a liner
sinking with more than a hundred women aboard; but for honest madness
about money the scene on that launch defies my words. No sooner was it
plain that we should sink if we could not raise her in the water than
the men (but chiefly the Irishman and the nigger Sam) got the gold open
again and fell on it, blubbering and raving like children. Drink they
had from somewhere, that I was sure of--even Nicolson the engineer
showed the whites of his eyes when he staggered up to them; and what
with their terror of the sea, their greed of the gold, and the whisky
they had drunk, they might have been raving madmen let loose from
Bedlam.
I said that the launch could not last another hour. The shrieking of
the wind, the monster green seas gathered up in walls of jade-like
water, the great hollows into which we went rushing like a switchback,
cascades of foam and spindrift, the scudding masses of cloud, they
terrified these wretched men, and would have appalled the heart of the
strongest. If we were to have any hope at all, the gold must go. Again
I said it; and fearful for my own life, yet caring nothing what they
might do to me, I stepped forward and addressed them.
"This is your share and share alike, is it?" I cried--"the little bit
that Joey Castle will not miss. Well, it's got to go overboard, my
lads, and pretty soon about it. Nicolson, you're no fool; Barlow, you
know how long the game can last. Do you want to live or die? It's come
to that, as you pretty well see."
They heard me in sullen silence. A big wave catching the launch
amidships heeled her so far over that I thought she would never
recover. It threw Nicolson off his feet; and as he fell and turned
over my own revolver dropped from his pocket. You need not ask me if I
snatched it up. It was in my hand and smoking before ten seconds had
passed. And there was one man less upon the launch.
So it came about. The great Irishman, standing ankle-deep in the gold,
leaped out upon me when the launch righted herself. What quite happened
I can scarcely tell you, but I know that I felt his colossal arms
crushing the life out of me and that I saw it was his hour or mine.
Then a report rang loud in my ears, and I was free once more; while the
man tumbled backward, clutching at the air; and the sea engulfed him,
and there were four in peril where five had been. From that moment the
fear of God, I do believe, fell upon the others. They neither spoke
nor stirred for many minutes together. The terrible wind howled its
wildest--the heavens were black as night. I said that the sea was with
me, and, crying out to them to save themselves, I began to drop the
ingots overboard.
One by one, each a fortune to a poor man, we cast the gold bars into
the ocean. That which would have meant so much to us ashore meant
nothing here in the face of death and the storm. And yet I could
not but think of the pleasures this very dross (as it seemed there
upon the high seas) would give to many a home, to honest toilers and
starving children in the great cities I had known. Nevertheless, it
must be swallowed by the green water, lost for ever upon the bed of the
Atlantic. And moment by moment the launch rose higher and higher upon
the mountainous seas, like a bird that has been weighed down but now is
free. I began to tell them that we should make Ascension Isle after
all. I did not know that we should have no need to make it.
[Illustration: "THE MAN TUMBLED BACKWARD, CLUTCHING AT THE AIR."]
The last of the ingots had been cast overboard, the wind had begun to
fall, when the British cruiser picked us up. There was no need for
explanations. She had searched the _Oceanus_ at dawn and seized her
treasure before Joey Castle could get what was left of it away. She
knew that we had ingots for our cargo, and she followed us westward. We
went aboard her to laugh at the chagrin of her commander and to show
him our empty well.
"What you seek is a thousand fathoms down," said I, a little bitterly;
"you don't need to ask me why."
"Mr. Lorimer," he cried, with a smile, "if all the gold in the world
were in the same place, what a pleasant place this old globe would be
to live on!"
I knew what he meant--but, after all, if men weren't cutting each
other's throats for gold they would be doing the same for shells or
silver or other rubbish, as any philosopher will tell you.
_Our Grandmothers' Fashion-Plates._