You see there's that in a fire, that it never knows when it is beaten:
you drive it down in one place, and it comes up in another, just where
you least expect it; while, after such a shock as we had had, there was
nothing surprising in our feeling as most people do when there's a fire
in a ship with a mixed cargo--afraid of an explosion. There were the
flames towering up again quite fiercely and always in the most savage
way, just out of our reach.
But if the flames could be savage, I felt that I could too, for, you
see, I looked upon it as my fault, for sleeping at my post, when I ought
to have seen the first flash out. So I got down amongst the smoke and
steam, and as they handed me buckets of water, I placed them well, and
by degrees we got the fire under again. It was just about daybreak as
we turned all the glow and flame into blackness, half hidden by steam;
but even then we daren't leave off, for another such outbreak would have
made an end of us. Even now, most of the cargo seemed destroyed, and it
was cruel work, for everything fought against us except the weather,
which certainly did keep clear and calm, or we must have gone to the
bottom. But, as I said, it did seem such cruel work to have things,
that we were ready to die for the want of, destroyed before our eyes.
We were all worn out; but sooner than run any more risks, we kept on
pouring water here and there, till it seemed quite impossible for fire
to break out again; and there we were at last with the ship our own,
what there was of it; but though there was a good-sized piece of the
fore-deck left, and a little round the wheel, the only way to get from
stem to starn was by climbing down amongst the burned rubbish, and then
making your way through it till you reached the poop.
By means of a little hunting about, though, we managed to get at some
provisions, and among other things a cask of pork, with the top part
regularly cooked. We got at water, too, and some rum; and then it
didn't seem to matter, danger or no danger, fire breaking out or
mutineers coming back, sleep would have its way, and one after the other
we dropped off, the fat passenger in a corner, and Mr Tomtit with his
legs dangling down over the burned hold.
I talked to Miss Bell and Mr Ward afterwards about my having neglected
my duty, but they would hardly hear a word about it; and now I found
that though we had all slept, Miss Bell had been awake and watching; but
now she went into the sort of tent we had rigged her up; and Mr Ward
having the same thing in his head as I had, we went and had a talk
together, and an hour afterwards we had poor Mr Bell neatly wrapped in
a piece of sailcloth, with some iron stanchions and bolts at the feet,
and lying decently waiting for Miss Bell to wake again.
She came out of her tent at sundown, looking pale and haggard; and as
soon as she saw what we had been about, the tears began to roll down her
cheeks, and she came and knelt down by her brother's head and joined her
hands.
I did not want the sign Mr Ward made me to do as him and Mr Tomtit
did, and there we knelt for some time on that calm, solemn sort of
evening, with the ship just gently rolling on what seemed a sea of
orange. There wasn't a breath of wind stirring, but all was quiet and
peaceful, with only Miss Bell's sobs and the twittering of birds to
break the stillness.
I don't think I said so before, but there were a many of the birds
escaped the fire, and perched about on the deck and the rigging of the
foremast; and when Mr Ward and I had gently lifted the body of the poor
gentleman on to a hatch by the side, we drew back, and knelt down again,
thinking Miss Bell might like to say a prayer aloud before we gave the
body a sailor's funeral, when one of Mr Butterwell's robin-redbreasts
hopped down upon the deck, and then giving a flit, perched right upon
the dead man's breast, and burst out into its little sad mournful song,
making even my poor old battered heart swell and swell, till I was 'most
as bad as the fat passenger, whose complaint I must have caught. I
can't tell you how much there seemed in that little bird's sad song, but
it was as if it took you back into the far past, and then again into the
future; and weak as the little thing was, it had a strange power over
all of us there present.
As if that robin had started them, the sparrows began to twitter just as
though at home in the eaves; a thrush, far up on the fore-to'gallant
yard, piped out a few notes; and a lark flew up and out over the
glorious sea, and fluttered and rose a little way, singing as it went,
just as if it were joining with the others in a sort of evening hymn.
And now it was that Mr Ward made a sign to me, just as he'd told me he
would; and I got up and went softly to raise the head of the hatch, to
let the burden it had on it slowly slip into the golden water. But with
a faint cry, Miss Bell started forward, seeing what I meant, and half
throwing herself upon the long uncouth canvas-wrapping, she sobbed and
cried fit to break her heart.
It was a sad sight, and there was not a man there who did not feel for
the poor girl. I felt it so much myself that I was glad to turn away;
and there we all waited till the sun dipped down below the waves, lower
and lower, till he was gone, and a deep rich purple darkness began to
steal over the sea. From golden orange the sky too turned from red to a
deep blue, with almost every colour of the rainbow staying where the sun
had gone down. Then it grew darker and darker, with star after star
peeping down at us, and the smooth sea here and there rippled by a soft
breeze that came sighing by.
And now it was that Miss Bell's sobs seemed to have stopped, and,
leaning over her, I saw that she had gently slipped away, so that only
her poor white arm lay across the body, and when Mr Ward gently lifted
it, her head sank lower and lower, and we knew that her grief had been
too strong for her, and she had swooned away.
I've been at more than one sailor's funeral, which has a certain sadness
about it that seems greater than what, you know ashore, but this seemed
to me the worst I had ever had to do with. Trouble seemed to have been
heaped upon trouble, and though in the heat and excitement of a storm or
a fight you often go very near death, yet you don't seem to fear it as
you do at a time like this was, when, as I stood over that bit of
canvas, it seemed to me that I was nearer to my end than I had ever felt
in all the dangers I had been through before.
It was growing darker and darker; the birds had all stopped their
twittering, and I was thinking and thinking, when in a slow sad way Mr
Tomtit got up, and came and stood over the corpse, and tried to speak,
but his voice seemed choked. He went on after a minute or two, though,
and said, in a quiet deep voice, a short and earnest prayer, one that I
had never seen in a book, nor heard before or since; and in it he prayed
the great God of all people, who had seen the sufferings of this our
poor brother, to take him to Himself, even as we committed his poor
decaying body to the great deep--the Almighty's great ocean, upon which
we poor helpless ones now floated--thanking Him for His preservation of
us so far, and praying that His protection might be with us evermore.
And he prayed too that as it had pleased God to bereave the sorrowing
sister, might it please Him to put it into the heart of every man
present to be a new brother and protector to the weeping one, even, were
it necessary, unto death.
And then there was a great silence fell upon us all; then came a slow
grating sound, a soft rustle as I raised the hatch, and a heavy splash
in the water, which broke up into little waves and flashes of light, to
die away again into darkness.
There was more than one deep sob heard there that night from out of the
darkness; and though dark, it was not so black but we could see Miss
Bell at Mr Tomtit's feet, holding his hand as he bent over her, and she
seeming to be kissing and crying over it.
No one seemed to care to move for a long, long time, but at last Miss
Bell's dress rustled softly as she glided away to her tent, and then Mr
Tomtit went and leaned over the side. And mind, I do not call him by
that name from any disrespect, for, though we had all been ready to
laugh at him for his looks and ways, there was not a man there but would
have gone and gladly shaken the hand which Miss Bell had kissed; and I
felt vexed myself for not feeling before how good a heart the man must
have who had so great a love for all of God's creatures, that he would
risk his life even for his birds.
That was a sad, sad night, though the ship seemed lighter now that there
was no longer death on board; and I was in such a low miserable state,
that I did what seemed to me to be the only thing I could do that
night,--I went and sat down beside the fat passenger.
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