“Little Dick, sir—” he began.
“My God!” I exclaimed, for I had actually forgotten, in the excitement
of the combat and the succeeding events, to enquire about my young
preserver, and I now felt a strange presentiment that the mate had come
to acquaint me with his death—“what of him? Is any thing the matter?” I
asked eagerly.
“I fear, sir,” said the messenger, shaking his head sadly, “that he
cannot live till morning.”
“And I have been lying here,” I exclaimed, reproachfully, “while the
poor boy is dying,” and I sprang at once from my hammock, hurried on my
clothes, saying, “lead me to him at once.”
“He is delirious, but in the intervals of lunacy he asks for you, sir,”
and as the man spoke we stood by bedside of the dying boy.
The sufferer did not lie in his usual hammock, for it was hung in the
very midst of the crew, and the close air around it was really stifling;
but he had been carried to a place, nearly under the open hatchway, and
laid there in a little open space of about four feet square. From the
sound of the ripples I judged the schooner was in motion, while the
clear calm blue sky, seen through the opening overhead and dotted with
myriads of stars, betokened that the fog had broken away. How calmly it
smiled down on the wan face of the dying boy. Occasionally a light
current of wind—oh! how deliciously cool in that pent-up hold—eddied
down the hatchway, and lifted the dark chesnut locks of the sufferer,
as, with his little head reposing in the lap of an old veteran, he lay
in an unquiet slumber. His shirt-collar was unbuttoned, and his childish
bosom, as white as that of a girl, was open and exposed. He breathed
quick and heavily. The wound of which he was dying, had been intensely
painful, but within the last half hour had somewhat lulled, though even
now his thin fingers tightly grasped the bed-clothes as if he suffered
the greatest agony. Another battle-stained and gray-haired seaman stood
beside him, holding a dull lantern in his hand, and gazing sorrowfully
down upon the sufferer. The surgeon knelt beside him, with his finger on
the boy’s pulse. As I approached they all looked up. The veteran who
held him shook his head, and would have spoken, but the tears gathered
too chokingly in his eyes. The surgeon said,—
“He is going fast,—poor little fellow—do you see this?” and as he
spoke he lifted up a rich gold locket, which had lain upon the boy’s
breast. “He has seen better days.”
I could not answer, for my heart was full. Here was the being to whom,
but a few hours before I had owed my life—a poor, slight, unprotected
child—lying before me, with death already written on his brow,—and yet
I had never known of his danger, and never even sought him out after the
conflict. How bitterly my heart reproached me in that hour. They noticed
my agitation, and his old friend—the seaman that held his head—said
sadly,
“Poor little Dick—you’ll never see the shore again you have wished for
so long. But there’ll be more than one—thank God!—when your log’s out,
to mourn over you.”
Suddenly the little fellow opened his eyes, and gazed vacantly around.
“Has he come yet?” he asked in a low voice. “Why won’t he come?”
“I am here,” said I, taking the little fellow’s hand, “don’t you know
me, Dick?”
“Doctor, I am dying, ain’t I?” said the little fellow, “for my sight
grows dim. God bless you, Mr. Parker, for this. I see you now,” and he
faintly pressed my hand.
“Can I do nothing for you, Dick?” said I, “you saved my life. God knows
I would coin my own blood to buy yours.”
“I have nothing to ask, only, if it be possible, let me be buried by my
mother,—you will find the name of the place, and all about it, in my
trunk.”
“Anything—everything, my poor lad,” I answered chokingly.
The little fellow smiled faintly—it was like an angel’s smile—but he
did not answer. His eyes were fixed on the stars flickering in that
patch of blue sky, far overhead. His mind wandered.
“It is a long—long way up there,—but there are bright angels among
them. Mother used to say that I would meet her there. How near they
come, and I see bright faces smiling on me from them. Hark! is that
music?” and, lifting his finger, he seemed listening intently for a
moment. He fell back; and the old veteran burst into tears. The child
was dead. Did he indeed hear angels’ voices? God grant it.
I opened his trunk, and then discovered his real name. Out of mercy to
the unfeeling wretches, who were his relatives, and who had forced him
to sea, I suppress it. Suffice it to say, his family had once been rich,
but that reverses had come upon them. His father died of a broken heart,
nor did his mother long survive. Poor boy! I could not fulfil the whole
of his injunction, for we were far out at sea, but I caused a cenotaph
to be erected for him beside his mother’s grave. It tells the simple
tale of The Ship’s Boy.
Philadelphia, May, 1841.
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