“I can tell yeh,” he continued. “Yeh will get hanged.”
By that time I was too amazed to get angry. I simply suspected the Blue
Nose of being drunk. But he glared at me so soberly that next moment I
felt frightened.
“Hanged by the neck,” he repeated; and then added, “Young fellow, you
scoot. Take a fool’s advice, and _scoot_. That Castro is a blame fool,
anyhow. Yeh want men for that job. Men, I tell you.” He slapped his bony
breast.
I had no idea that he could look so ferocious. His eyes fascinated me,
and he opened his cavernous mouth as if to swallow me. His lantern jaws
snapped without a sound. He seemed to change his mind.
“I am done with yeh,” he said, with a sort of sinister restraint. He
rose to his feet, and, turning his back to me, began to shave, squinting
into a broken looking-glass.
I had not the slightest inkling of his meaning. I only knew that going
out of his berth was like escaping from the dark lair of a beast into
a sunlit world. There is no denying that his words, and still more his
manner, had awakened in me a sense of insecurity that had no precise
object, for it was manifestly absurd and impossible to suspect my friend
Carlos. Moreover, hanging was a danger so recondite, and an eventuality
so extravagant, as to make the whole thing ridiculous. And yet I
remembered how unhappy I felt, how inexplicably unhappy. Presently the
reason was made clear. I was homesick. I gave no further thought to the
second mate. I looked at the harbour we were entering, and thought of
the home I had left so eagerly. After all, I was no more than a boy, and
even younger in mind than in body.
Queer-looking boats crawled between the shores like tiny water beetles.
One headed out towards us, then another. I did not want them to reach
us. It was as if I did not wish my solitude to be disturbed, and I was
not pleased with the idea of going ashore. A great ship, floating high
on the water, black and girt with the two broad yellow streaks of her
double tier of guns, glided out slowly from beyond a cluster of shipping
in the bay. She passed without a hail, going out under her topsails with
a flag at the fore. Her lofty spars overtopped our masts immensely, and
I saw the men in her rigging looking down on our decks. The only sounds
that came out of her were the piping of boatswain’s calls and the
tramping of feet. Imagining her to be going home, I felt a great desire
to be on board. Ultimately, as it turned out, I went home in that very
ship, but then it was too late. I was another man by that time, with
much queer knowledge and other desires. Whilst I was looking and longing
I heard Carlos’ voice behind me asking one of our sailors what ship it
was.
“Don’t you know a flagship when you see it?” a voice grumbled surlily.
“Admiral Rowley’s,” it continued. Then it rumbled out some remarks about
“pirates, vermin, coast of Cuba.”
Carlos came to the side, and looked after the man-of-war in the
distance.
“_You_ could help us,” I heard him mutter.