cabin-door. They shuffled, pushed, had an irresolute mien and stolid
faces. At every slight movement Knowles lurched heavily on his short
leg. Donkin glided behind backs, restless and anxious, like a man
looking for an ambush. Captain Allistoun came out on the quarter-deck
suddenly. He walked to and fro before the front. He was grey, slight,
alert, shabby in the sunshine, and as hard as adamant. He had his right
hand in the side-pocket of his jacket, and also something heavy in
there that made folds all down that side. One of the seamen cleared his
throat ominously.—“I haven’t till now found fault with you men,” said
the master, stopping short. He faced them with his worn, steely gaze,
that by a universal illusion looked straight into every individual pair
of the twenty pairs of eyes before his face. At his back Mr. Baker,
gloomy and bull-necked, grunted low; Mr. Creighton, fresh as paint,
had rosy cheeks and a ready, resolute bearing. “And I don’t now,”
continued the master; “but I am here to drive this ship and keep every
man-jack aboard of her up to the mark. If you knew your work as well
as I do mine, there would be no trouble. You’ve been braying in the
dark about ‘See to-morrow morning!’ Well, you see me now. What do you
want?” He waited, stepping quickly to and fro, giving them searching
glances. What did they want? They shifted from foot to foot, they
balanced their bodies; some, pushing back their caps, scratched their
heads. What did they want? Jimmy was forgotten; no one thought of
him, alone forward in his cabin, fighting great shadows, clinging to
brazen lies, chuckling painfully over his transparent deceptions. No,
not Jimmy; he was more forgotten than if he had been dead. They wanted
great things. And suddenly all the simple words they knew seemed to
be lost for ever in the immensity of their vague and burning desire.
They knew what they wanted, but they could not find anything worth
saying. They stirred on one spot, swinging, at the end of muscular
arms, big tarry hands with crooked fingers. A murmur died out.—“What
is it—food?” asked the master, “you know the stores have been spoiled
off the Cape.”—“We know that, sir,” said a bearded shell-back in
the front rank.—“Work too hard—eh? Too much for your strength?” he
asked again. There was an offended silence.—“We don’t want to go
shorthanded, sir,” began at last Davis in a wavering voice, “and this
’ere black....”—“Enough!” cried the master. He stood scanning them for
a moment, then walking a few steps this way and that began to storm at
them coldly, in gusts violent and cutting like the gales of those icy
seas that had known his youth.—“Tell you what’s the matter? Too big
for your boots. Think yourselves damn good men. Know half your work.
Do half your duty. Think it too much. If you did ten times as much it
wouldn’t be enough.”—“We did our best by her, sir,” cried some one
with shaky exasperation.—“Your best,” stormed on the master; “You hear
a lot on shore, don’t you? They don’t tell you there your best isn’t
much to boast of. I tell you—your best is no better than bad.” “You can
do no more? No, I know, and say nothing. But you stop your caper or I
will stop it for you. I am ready for you! Stop it!” He shook a finger
at the crowd. “As to that man,” he raised his voice very much; “as
to that man, if he puts his nose out on deck without my leave I will
clap him in irons. There!” The cook heard him forward, ran out of the
galley lifting his arms, horrified, unbelieving, amazed, and ran in
again. There was a moment of profound silence during which a bow-legged
seaman, stepping aside, expectorated decorously into the scupper.
“There is another thing,” said the master, calmly. He made a quick
stride and with a swing took an iron belaying-pin out of his pocket.
“This!” His movement was so unexpected and sudden that the crowd
stepped back. He gazed fixedly at their faces, and some at once put on
a surprised air as though they had never seen a belaying-pin before.
He held it up. “This is my affair. I don’t ask you any questions, but
you all know it; it has got to go where it came from.” His eyes became
angry. The crowd stirred uneasily. They looked away from the piece of
iron, they appeared shy, they were embarrassed and shocked as though it
had been something horrid, scandalous, or indelicate, that in common
decency should not have been flourished like this in broad daylight.
The master watched them attentively. “Donkin,” he called out in a
short, sharp tone.
Donkin dodged behind one, then behind another, but they looked over
their shoulders and moved aside. The ranks kept on opening before
him, closing behind, till at last he appeared alone before the master
as though he had come up through the deck. Captain Allistoun moved
close to him. They were much of a size, and at short range the master
exchanged a deadly glance with the beady eyes. They wavered.—“You
know this?” asked the master.—“No, I don’t,” answered the other, with
cheeky trepidation.—“You are a cur. Take it,” ordered the master.
Donkin’s arms seemed glued to his thighs; he stood, eyes front, as if
drawn on parade. “Take it,” repeated the master, and stepped closer;
they breathed on one another. “Take it,” said Captain Allistoun
again, making a menacing gesture. Donkin tore away one arm from his
side.—“Vy are yer down on me?” he mumbled with effort and as if his
mouth had been full of dough.—“If you don’t...” began the master.
Donkin snatched at the pin as though his intention had been to run away
with it, and remained stock still holding it like a candle. “Put it
back where you took it from,” said Captain Allistoun, looking at him
fiercely. Donkin stepped back opening wide eyes. “Go, you blackguard,
or I will make you,” cried the master, driving him slowly backwards
by a menacing advance. He dodged, and with the dangerous iron tried
to guard his head from a threatening fist. Mr. Baker ceased grunting
for a moment.—“Good! By Jove,” murmured appreciatively Mr. Creighton
in the tone of a connoisseur.—“Don’t tech me,” snarled Donkin, backing
away.—“Then go. Go faster.”—“Don’t yer ’it me.... I will pull yer up
afore the magistryt.... I’ll show yer up.” Captain Allistoun made a
long stride, and Donkin, turning his back fairly, ran off a little,
then stopped and over his shoulder showed yellow teeth.—“Further on,
fore-rigging,” urged the master, pointing with his arm.—“Are yer goin’
to stand by and see me bullied?” screamed Donkin at the silent crowd
that watched him. Captain Allistoun walked at him smartly. He started
off again with a leap, dashed at the fore-rigging, rammed the pin
into its hole violently. “I’ll be even with yer yet,” he screamed at
the ship at large and vanished beyond the foremast. Captain Allistoun
spun round and walked back aft with a composed face, as though he
had already forgotten the scene. Men moved out of his way. He looked
at no one.—“That will do, Mr. Baker. Send the watch below,” he said,
quietly. “And you men try to walk straight for the future,” he added
in a calm voice. He looked pensively for a while at the backs of
the impressed and retreating crowd. “Breakfast, steward,” he called
in a tone of relief through the cabin door.—“I didn’t like to see
you—Ough!—give that pin to that chap, sir,” observed Mr. Baker; “he
could have bust—Ough!—bust your head like an eggshell with it.”—“O!
he!” muttered the master, absently. “Queer lot,” he went on in a low
voice. “I suppose it’s all right now. Can never tell tho’ nowadays,
with such a ... Years ago; I was a young master then—one China voyage
I had a mutiny; real mutiny, Baker. Different men tho’. I knew what
they wanted: they wanted to broach the cargo and get at the liquor.
Very simple.... We knocked them about for two days, and when they
had enough—gentle as lambs. Good crew. And a smart trip I made.” He
glanced aloft at the yards braced sharp up. “Head wind day after
day,” he exclaimed, bitterly. “Shall we never get a decent slant this
passage?”—“Ready, sir,” said the steward, appearing before them as if
by magic and with a stained napkin in his hand.—“Ah! All right. Come
along, Mr. Baker—it’s late—with all this nonsense.”
CHAPTER FIVE
A heavy atmosphere of oppressive quietude pervaded the ship. In
the afternoon men went about washing clothes and hanging them out
to dry in the unprosperous breeze with the meditative languor of
disenchanted philosophers. Very little was said. The problem of life
seemed too voluminous for the narrow limits of human speech, and by
common consent it was abandoned to the great sea that had from the
beginning enfolded it in its immense grip; to the sea that knew all,
and would in time infallibly unveil to each the wisdom hidden in all
the errors, the certitude that lurks in doubts, the realm of safety
and peace beyond the frontiers of sorrow and fear. And in the confused
current of impotent thoughts that set unceasingly this way and that
through bodies of men, Jimmy bobbed up upon the surface, compelling
attention, like a black buoy chained to the bottom of a muddy stream.
Falsehood triumphed. It triumphed through doubt, through stupidity,
through pity, through sentimentalism. We set ourselves to bolster it
up from compassion, from recklessness, from a sense of fun. Jimmy’s
steadfastness to his untruthful attitude in the face of the inevitable
truth had the proportions of a colossal enigma—of a manifestation
grand and incomprehensible that at times inspired a wondering awe;
and there was also, to many, something exquisitely droll in fooling
him thus to the top of his bent. The latent egoism of tenderness to
suffering appeared in the developing anxiety not to see him die. His
obstinate non-recognition of the only certitude whose approach we
could watch from day to day was as disquieting as the failure of some
law of nature. He was so utterly wrong about himself that one could
not but suspect him of having access to some source of supernatural
knowledge. He was absurd to the point of inspiration. He was unique,
and as fascinating as only something inhuman could be; he seemed
to shout his denials already from beyond the awful border. He was
becoming immaterial like an apparition; his cheekbones rose, the
forehead slanted more; the face was all hollows, patches of shade;
and the fleshless head resembled a disinterred black skull, fitted
with two restless globes of silver in the sockets of eyes. He was
demoralising. Through him we were becoming highly humanised, tender,
complex, excessively decadent: we understood the subtlety of his fear,
sympathised with all his repulsions, shrinkings, evasions, delusions—as
though we had been over-civilised, and rotten, and without any
knowledge of the meaning of life. We had the air of being initiated in
some infamous mysteries; we had the profound grimaces of conspirators,
exchanged meaning glances, significant short words. We were
inexpressibly vile and very much pleased with ourselves. We lied to him
with gravity, with emotion, with unction, as if performing some moral
trick with a view to an eternal reward. We made a chorus of affirmation
to his wildest assertions, as though he had been a millionaire, a
politician, or a reformer—and we a crowd of ambitious lubbers. When
we ventured to question his statements we did it after the manner of
obsequious sycophants, to the end that his glory should be augmented by
the flattery of our dissent. He influenced the moral tone of our world
as though he had it in his power to distribute honours, treasures, or
pain; and he could give us nothing but his contempt. It was immense;
it seemed to grow gradually larger, as his body day by day shrank
a little more, while we looked. It was the only thing about him—of
him—that gave the impression of durability and vigour. It lived within
him with an unquenchable life. It spoke through the eternal pout of
his black lips; it looked at us through the impertinent mournfulness
of his languid and enormous stare. We watched him intently. He seemed
unwilling to move, as if distrustful of his own solidity. The slightest
gesture must have disclosed to him (it could not surely be otherwise)
his bodily weakness, and caused a pang of mental suffering. He was
chary of movements. He lay stretched out, chin on blanket, in a kind
of sly, cautious immobility. Only his eyes roamed over faces: his eyes
disdainful, penetrating and sad.
It was at that time that Belfast’s devotion—and also his
pugnacity—secured universal respect. He spent every moment of his spare
time in Jimmy’s cabin. He tended him, talked to him; was as gentle as
a woman, as tenderly gay as an old philanthropist, as sentimentally
careful of his nigger as a model slave-owner. But outside he was
irritable, explosive as gunpowder, sombre, suspicious, and never
more brutal than when most sorrowful. With him it was a tear and a
blow: a tear for Jimmy, a blow for any one who did not seem to take a
scrupulously orthodox view of Jimmy’s case. We talked about nothing
else. The two Scandinavians, even, discussed the situation—but it was
impossible to know in what spirit, because they quarrelled in their
own language. Belfast suspected one of them of irreverence, and in
this incertitude thought that there was no option but to fight them
both. They became very much terrified by his truculence, and henceforth
lived amongst us, dejected, like a pair of mutes. Wamibo never spoke
intelligibly, but he was as smileless as an animal—seemed to know much
less about it all than the cat—and consequently was safe. Moreover,
he had belonged to the chosen band of Jimmy’s rescuers, and was above
suspicion. Archie was silent generally, but often spent an hour or so
talking to Jimmy quietly with an air of proprietorship. At any time
of the day and often through the night some man could be seen sitting
on Jimmy’s box. In the evening, between six and eight, the cabin was
crowded, and there was an interested group at the door. Every one
stared at the nigger.
He basked in the warmth of our interest. His eye gleamed ironically,
and in a weak voice he reproached us with our cowardice. He would say,
“If you fellows had stuck out for me I would be now on deck.” We hung
our heads. “Yes, but if you think I am going to let them put me in
irons just to show you sport.... Well, no.... It ruins my health, this
lying-up, it does. You don’t care.” We were as abashed as if it had
been true. His superb impudence carried all before it. We would not
have dared to revolt. We didn’t want to, really. We wanted to keep him
alive till home—to the end of the voyage.
Singleton as usual held aloof, appearing to scorn the insignificant
events of an ended life. Once only he came along, and unexpectedly
stopped in the doorway. He peered at Jimmy in profound silence, as if
desirous to add that black image to the crowd of Shades that peopled
his old memory. We kept very quiet, and for a long time Singleton
stood there as though he had come by appointment to call for some one,
or to see some important event. James Wait lay perfectly still, and
apparently not aware of the gaze scrutinising him with a steadiness
full of expectation. There was a sense of a contest in the air. We
felt the inward strain of men watching a wrestling bout. At last Jimmy
with perceptible apprehension turned his head on the pillow.—“Good
evening,” he said in a conciliating tone.—“H’m,” answered the old
seaman, grumpily. For a moment longer he looked at Jimmy with severe
fixity, then suddenly went away. It was a long time before any one
spoke in the little cabin, though we all breathed more freely as men
do after an escape from some dangerous situation. We all knew the old
man’s ideas about Jimmy, and nobody dared to combat them. They were
unsettling, they caused pain; and, what was worse, they might have
been true for all we knew. Only once did he condescend to explain them
fully, but the impression was lasting. He said that Jimmy was the cause
of head winds. Mortally sick men—he maintained—linger till the first
sight of land, and then die; and Jimmy knew that the very first land
would draw his life from him. It is so in every ship. Didn’t we know
it? He asked us with austere contempt: what did we know? What would we
doubt next? Jimmy’s desire encouraged by us and aided by Wamibo’s (he
was a Finn—wasn’t he? Very well!) by Wamibo’s spells delayed the ship
in the open sea. Only lubberly fools couldn’t see it. Whoever heard
of such a run of calms and head winds? It wasn’t natural.... We could
not deny that it was strange. We felt uneasy. The common saying, “More
days, more dollars,” did not give the usual comfort because the stores
were running short. Much had been spoiled off the Cape, and we were on
half allowance of biscuit. Peas, sugar and tea had been finished long
ago. Salt meat was giving out. We had plenty of coffee but very little
water to make it with. We took up another hole in our belts and went
on scraping, polishing, painting the ship from morning to night. And
soon she looked as though she had come out of a band-box; but hunger
lived on board of her. Not dead starvation, but steady, living hunger
that stalked about the decks, slept in the forecastle; the tormentor
of waking moments, the disturber of dreams. We looked to windward for
signs of change. Every few hours of night and day we put her round with
the hope that she would come up on that tack at last! She didn’t. She
seemed to have forgotten the way home; she rushed to and fro, heading
northwest, heading east; she ran backwards and forwards, distracted,
like a timid creature at the foot of a wall. Sometimes, as if tired
to death, she would wallow languidly for a day in the smooth swell
of an unruffled sea. All up the swinging masts the sails thrashed
furiously through the hot stillness of the calm. We were weary, hungry,
thirsty; we commenced to believe Singleton, but with unshaken fidelity
dissembled to Jimmy. We spoke to him with jocose allusiveness, like
cheerful accomplices in a clever plot; but we looked to the westward
over the rail with longing eyes for a sign of hope, for a sign of fair
wind; even if its first breath should bring death to our reluctant
Jimmy. In vain! The universe conspired with James Wait. Light airs
from the northward sprang up again; the sky remained clear; and round
our weariness the glittering sea, touched by the breeze, basked
voluptuously in the great sunshine, as though it had forgotten our life
and trouble.
Donkin looked out for a fair wind along with the rest. No one knew the
venom of his thoughts now. He was silent, and appeared thinner, as if
consumed slowly by an inward rage at the injustice of men and of fate.
He was ignored by all and spoke to no one, but his hate for every
man dwelt in his furtive eyes. He talked with the cook only, having
somehow persuaded the good man that he—Donkin—was a much calumniated
and persecuted person. Together they bewailed the immorality of the
ship’s company. There could be no greater criminals than we, who by
our lies conspired to send the unprepared soul of a poor ignorant
black man to everlasting perdition. Podmore cooked what there was to
cook, remorsefully, and felt all the time that by preparing the food
of such sinners he imperilled his own salvation. As to the Captain—he
had sailed with him for seven years, now, he said, and would not have
believed it possible that such a man... “Well. Well... There it was...
Can’t get out of it. Judgment capsized all in a minute... Struck in all
his pride... More like a sudden visitation than anything else.” Donkin,
perched sullenly on the coal-locker, swung his legs and concurred. He
paid in the coin of spurious assent for the privilege to sit in the
galley; he was disheartened and scandalised; he agreed with the cook;
could find no words severe enough to criticise our conduct; and when in
the heat of reprobation he swore at us, Podmore, who would have liked
to swear also if it hadn’t been for his principles, pretended not to
hear. So Donkin, unrebuked, cursed enough for two, cadged for matches,
borrowed tobacco, and loafed for hours, very much at home, before the
stove. From there he could hear us on the other side of the bulkhead,
talking to Jimmy. The cook knocked the saucepans about, slammed the
oven door, muttered prophesies of damnation for all the ship’s company;
and Donkin, who did not admit of any hereafter (except for purposes of
blasphemy) listened, concentrated and angry, gloating fiercely over
a called-up image of infinite torment—as men gloat over the accursed
images of cruelty and revenge, of greed, and of power....
On clear evenings the silent ship, under the cold sheen of the dead
moon, took on a false aspect of passionless repose resembling the
winter of the earth. Under her a long band of gold barred the black
disc of the sea. Footsteps echoed on her quiet decks. The moonlight
clung to her like a frosted mist, and the white sails stood out in
dazzling cones as of stainless snow. In the magnificence of the phantom
rays the ship appeared pure like a vision of ideal beauty, illusive
like a tender dream of serene peace. And nothing in her was real,
nothing was distinct and solid but the heavy shadows that filled her
decks with their unceasing and noiseless stir: the shadows darker than
the night and more restless than the thoughts of men.
Donkin prowled spiteful and alone amongst the shadows, thinking that
Jimmy too long delayed to die. That evening land had been reported from
aloft, and the master, while adjusting the tubes of the long glass,
had observed with quiet bitterness to Mr. Baker that, after fighting
our way inch by inch to the Western Islands, there was nothing to
expect now but a spell of calm. The sky was clear and the barometer
high. The light breeze dropped with the sun, and an enormous stillness,
forerunner of a night without wind, descended upon the heated waters
of the ocean. As long as daylight lasted, the hands collected on the
forecastle-head watched on the eastern sky the island of Flores, that
rose above the level expanse of the sea with irregular and broken
outlines like a sombre ruin upon a vast and deserted plain. It was the
first land seen for nearly four months. Charley was excited, and in
the midst of general indulgence took liberties with his betters. Men
strangely elated without knowing why, talked in groups, and pointed
with bared arms. For the first time that voyage Jimmy’s sham existence
seemed for a moment forgotten in the face of a solid reality. We had
got so far anyhow. Belfast discoursed, quoting imaginary examples of
short homeward runs from the Islands. “Them smart fruit schooners do
it in five days,” he affirmed. “What do you want?—only a good little
breeze.” Archie maintained that seven days was the record passage, and
they disputed amicably with insulting words. Knowles declared he could
already smell home from there, and with a heavy list on his short leg
laughed fit to split his sides. A group of grizzled sea-dogs looked
out for a time in silence and with grim absorbed faces. One said
suddenly—“’Tain’t far to London now.”—“My first night ashore, blamme
if I haven’t steak and onions for supper... and a pint of bitter,”
said another.—“A barrel ye mean,” shouted someone.—“Ham an’ eggs three
times a day. That’s the way I live!” cried an excited voice. There
was a stir, appreciative murmurs; eyes began to shine; jaws champed;
short, nervous laughs were heard. Archie smiled with reserve all to
himself. Singleton came up, gave a careless glance, and went down
again without saying a word, indifferent, like a man who had seen
Flores an incalculable number of times. The night travelling from the
East blotted out of the limpid sky the purple stain of the high land.
“Dead calm,” said somebody quietly. The murmur of lively talk suddenly
wavered, died out; the clusters broke up; men began to drift away one
by one, descending the ladders slowly and with serious faces as if
sobered by that reminder of their dependence upon the invisible. And
when the big yellow moon ascended gently above the sharp rim of the
clear horizon it found the ship wrapped up in a breathless silence; a
fearless ship that seemed to sleep profoundly, dreamlessly on the bosom
of the sleeping and terrible sea.
Donkin chafed at the peace—at the ship—at the sea that stretching away
on all sides merged into the illimitable silence of all creation. He
felt himself pulled up sharp by unrecognised grievances. He had been
physically cowed, but his injured dignity remained indomitable, and
nothing could heal his lacerated feelings. Here was land already—home
very soon—a bad pay-day—no clothes—more hard work. How offensive all
this was. Land. The land that draws away life from sick sailors.
That nigger there had money—clothes—easy times; and would not die.
Land draws life away.... He felt tempted to go and see whether it
did. Perhaps already... It would be a bit of luck. There was money
in the beggar’s chest. He stepped briskly out of the shadows into
the moonlight, and, instantly, his craving, hungry face from sallow
became livid. He opened the door of the cabin and had a shock. Sure
enough, Jimmy was dead! He moved no more than a recumbent figure with
clasped hands, carved on the lid of a stone coffin. Donkin glared with
avidity. Then Jimmy, without stirring, blinked his eyelids, and Donkin
had another shock. Those eyes were rather startling. He shut the door
behind his back with gentle care, looking intently the while at James
Wait as though he had come in there at a great risk to tell some secret
of startling importance. Jimmy did not move but glanced languidly out
of the corners of his eyes.—“Calm?” he asked.—“Yuss,” said Donkin, very
disappointed, and sat down on the box.