X.

There was a parcel of candles in the pantry--as I term it. I had a flint

and steel in my pocket, and followed by the men, I led the way below,

bidding them stand awhile till I obtained a light; and after groping and

feeling about with my hands, I found the paper of candles, lighted one,

and then called to the men. They arrived. I pointed to the jars, saying

in English, there was wine in them; and then to the slung cask of water,

and then to the food on the shelves. They instantly grasped each one of

them a pannikin, and mixed a full draught and swallowed it, with a

strange trembling sigh of relief and delight. They then fell upon the

biscuit and sausage, eating like famished wolves both fists full, and

cramming their mouths. They were not very much more distinguishable by

the feeble light of the candle than on deck; however, I was able to see

they were not blacks. The man who had addressed me was of a deep Chinese

yellow, with lineaments of an African pattern, a wide flat nose, huge

lips, eyes like little shells of polished ebony glued on porcelain. His

hair was the negro’s black wiry wool. He wore a short moustache, the

fibres like the teeth of a comb, and there was a tuft of black wool upon

his chin. Small gold earrings, a greasy old Scotch cap, a shirt

like a dungaree jumper, and loose trousers thrust into a pair

of half Wellingtons, completed the attire of the ugliest, most

villainous-looking creature I had ever set eyes on. His companions were

long-haired, chocolate-browed Portuguese, or Spaniards--_Dagos_ as the

sailors call them; I noticed a small gold crucifix sparkling upon the

mossy breast of one of them. Their feet were naked, indeed their attire

consisted of no more than a pair of duck or canvas breeches, and an open

shirt, and a cap. They continued to feed heartily, and several times

helped themselves to the wine, though before doing so, the yellow-faced

man would regularly point to the jar with a nod, as though asking leave.

“You Englis, sah?” he exclaimed, when he had made an end of eating. I

said yes. “How long you been heär, sah?”

I told him. He understood me perfectly though I spoke at length,

relating in fact my adventure. I then inquired who he and his companions

were, and his story was to the following effect: That he was the

boatswain, and the other two able seamen of a Portuguese ship called the

_Mary Joseph_, bound to Singapore or to some Malay port. The vessel had

been set on fire by one of the crew, an Englishman, who was skulking

drunkenly below after broaching a cask of rum. They had three boats

which they hoisted out; most of the people got away in the long-boat,

six men were in the second boat, he and his two comrades got into the

jolly-boat. They had with them four bottles of water, and a small bag of

ship’s bread, and nothing more. They parted company with the other boats

in the night, and had been four days adrift, sailing northwards by the

sun as they reckoned, under a bit of a lug, and keeping an eager

look-out though they sighted nothing; until a little before sundown that

evening, they spied the speck of this wreck, and made for it, but so

scant was the wind and so weak their arms that it had taken them nearly

all night to measure the distance which would be a few miles only. They

got their boat under the bow--she was lying there now, he said--and

stepped on board one after the other. This explained to me their

apparition. Of course I had not seen the boat or heard her as she

approached, and to me, lying aft, the three men rising over the bows

looked as though, like ghostly essences, they had shaped themselves on

the forecastle out through the solid plank.

I addressed the others, but the yellow man told me that their language

was a jargon of base Portuguese, of which I should be able to understand

no more than here and there a word, even though I had been bred and

educated in Lisbon.

“We mosh see to dah boat,” he exclaimed, and spoke to his mates,

apparently to that effect.

I extinguished the candle, and followed them on deck. It was closer upon

daybreak than I had supposed. Already the gray was in the east, like a

filtering of light through ash-colored silk, with the sea-line black as

a sweep of India ink against it, and the moon a lumpish, distorted mass

of faint dingy crimson, dying out in a sort of mistiness westwards,

like the snuff of a rushlight in its own smoke. Even whilst the three

fellows were manœuvring with the boat over the bow, the tropic day

filled the heavens in a bound, and it was broad morning all at once,

with a segment of sun levelling a long line of trembling silver from the

horizon down to mid-ocean. My first glance was for the _Ruby_, but the

sea lay bare in every quarter. The fellows came dragging their boat aft;

I looked over and saw that the fabric was of a canoe-pattern, with a

queer upcurled bow, and a stern as square as the amidship section of the

boat; four thwarts, short oars with oval-shaped blades, and a small mast

with a square of lugsail lying with its yard in the bottom of the boat.

The yellow man pointing to her exclaimed in a hoarse, throaty, African

guttural, “It is good ve keep hor. Dis wreck hov no ’atch; she sink, and

vidout hor,” nodding at the boat again, “were ve be?”

I said yes, by all means let us secure the boat. He exclaimed that for

the present she would lie safely astern, and with that they took a turn

with the line that held her and she rested quietly on the sea clear of

the quarter.

Forthwith the three fellows began to explore the hull. The yellow man or

boatswain, as I must henceforth call him, said no more to me than this

as he pointed to the yawning hatches: “You are gen’elman,” with an ugly

smile intended no doubt for a stroke of courtesy as he ran his eye over

me: “ve are common sailor. Ve vill see to stop dem hole. More fresh

vataire to drink ve need. Possib more bee-low. Also tobacco.” And thus

saying he cried out to the others in their own dialect, and the three of

them went to the main hatchway and disappeared down it.

I lifted the telescope and ran it over the sea, then sighed as with a

breaking heart I laid the glass down again upon the deck. A strong

sense of dismay filled me whilst I sat musing upon the men who were now

coolly rummaging the vessel below. The rascality which lay in every line

of the ugly yellow ruffian’s face, coupled with the stealthy, glittering

glances, the greasy, snaky hair, the dark piratic countenances of the

others might well have accounted for the apprehension, the actual

consternation indeed which fell upon me whilst I thought of them. But

that was not all. The recollection of the gold rushed upon me as a

memory that had clean gone out of my mind, but that had suddenly flashed

back upon me to communicate a sinister significance to the presence of

the three Portuguese seamen. I can clearly understand now that my brain,

as I have said, had been weakened by the horror of my situation, and by

the long madness of expectation which had held it on fire whilst I

searched the sea and waited for the _Ruby_ to appear. So that, instead

of accepting these three foreign sailors as a kind of godsend with

whose assistance I might be enabled to doctor up the wreck so as to fit

her to float until help came, not to speak of them as companions in

misery, human creatures to talk to, beings whose society would

extinguish out of this dreadful situation the intolerable element of

solitude--I say instead of viewing these men thus, as might have

happened, I believe, had I been my old self, a profound fear and

aversion to them seized me, and such was the state of my nerves at that

time, I call to mind that I looked at the boat that hung astern with a

sort of hurry in me to leap into her, cast her adrift, and sail away.

With an effort I mastered my agitation, constantly directing glances at

the sea with a frequent prayer upon my lip that if not the _Ruby_, then

at least some ship to rescue me would heave into view before sundown

that night.