THE FRENCHMAN DIES.
However, if I expected my Frenchman to sit very long silent, he soon
undeceived me by beginning to complain in his tremulous aged voice of
his weakness and aching limbs.
"'Tis the terrible cold that has affected me," said he, whilst his head
nodded nervously. "I feel the rheumatism in every bone. There is no
weakness like the rheumatic, I have heard, and 'tis true, 'tis true. It
may lay me along--yes, by the Virgin, 'tis rheumatism--what else?" Here
he was interrupted by a long fit of coughing, and when it was ended he
turned to address me again, but looked at the bulkhead on my right, as
if his vision could not fix me. "But my capers are not over!" he cried,
setting up his rickety shrill throat; "no, no! Vive l'amour! vive la
joie! The sun is coming--the sun is the fountain of life--ay, mon brave,
there are some shakes in these stout legs yet!" He shook his head with
a fine air of cunning and knowingness, grinning very oddly; and then,
falling grave with a startling suddenness, he began to dribble out a
piratical love-story he had once before favoured me with, describing the
charms of the woman with a horrid leer, his head nodding with the
nervous affection of age all the time, whilst he looked blindly in my
direction--a hideous and yet pitiful object!
I could not say that his mind was gone, but he talked with many breaks
for breath, and not very coherently, as though the office of his tongue
was performed by habit rather than memory, so that he often went far
astray and babbled into sentences that had no reference to what had gone
before, though on the whole I managed to collect what he meant. I was
sure he had not power enough of vision to observe me in the dim reddish
light of the cook-room, and this being so, he could not know I was
present, more particularly as he could not hear me, yet he persisted in
his poor babble, which was a behaviour in him that, more than even the
matter of his speech, persuaded me of his imbecility.
He made no reference to our situation, and in solemn truth I believe his
memory retained no more than a few odds and ends of the evil story of
his life, like bits of tarnished lace and a rusty button or two lying in
the bottom of a dark chest that has long been emptied of the clothes it
once held.
But my condition made such heavy demands upon my thoughts that I had
very much less attention to give to this surprising phenomenon of
senility than its uncommon merits deserved. It has puzzled every member
of the faculty that I have mentioned it to, the supposition being that,
given the case of suspended animation, there is no waste, and the person
would quit his stupor with the same powers and aspect as he possessed
when he entered it, though it lasted a thousand years. But granting
there is no waste, Time is always present waiting to settle accounts
when the sleeper lifts his head. There may be an artificial interval,
during which the victim might show as my pirate did, but the poised load
of years is severed on a sudden by the scythe and becomes
superincumbent, and with the weight comes the transformation; and this
theory, as the only eye-witness of the marvellous thing, I will hold and
maintain whilst I have breath in my body to support it.
I left him gabbling to himself, sometimes grinning as if greatly
diverted, sometimes lifting a trembling hand to help his ghostly recital
by an equally ghostly dumb-show, and went on deck, satisfied that he was
too weak to get to the fire and meddle with it, but sufficiently
invigorated by his long night's rest to sit up without tumbling off the
bench.
This time I carried with me an old perspective glass I had noticed in
the chest in my cabin--the chest in which were the nautical instruments,
charts, and papers--and levelled it along the coast of the island, but
it was a poor glass, and I found I could manage nearly as well with the
naked eye. There was no change of any kind, only that there was a
sensible diminution in the blowing of the wind and a corresponding
decrease in the height of the seas. The ice stretched in a considerable
bed on either hand the ship and ahead of her; the water frothed freely
over it, and there was a great jangling and flashing of broken pieces,
but the hull was no longer heavily hit by them.
I got into the main chains to view the body of the vessel, and noticed
with satisfaction that the constant pouring of the sea had thinned down
the frozen snow to the depth of at least a foot. This encouraged me to
hope that the restless tides would sap to her keel at least, and put her
into a posture to be easily launched by the blow of a surge upon her
bows--that is if fortune continued to keep her head on. But by this
time, my transports having moderated, I was grown fully sensible of the
extreme peril of our position. Should the sea rise and the ice bring her
broadside to it, it was inevitable, it seemed to me, that she must go to
pieces. Or if the ice on which she floated, fouled some other berg it
might cost us all our spars. Then again occurred the dismal question,
Suppose she should launch herself, would she float? For eight-and-forty
years she had been high and dry; never a caulker's hammer had rung upon
her in all that time. Tassard had spoken of her as a stout ship, and so
she was, I did not doubt; but the old rogue talked as if she had been
stranded six months only! I had no other hope than that the intense
cold had treated her timbers as it had treated the bodies of her people,
an expectation not unreasonable when I considered the state of her
stores and the manifest substantiality of her inward fabric.
I regained the deck and stepped over to the pumps. There were two of
them, but built up in snow. My business was to save my life if I could,
and the schooner too, for the sake of the great treasure in her. Nothing
must disconcert me I said to myself--I must spare no labour, but act a
hearty sailor's part and ask for God's countenance. So I trotted below,
and selecting some weapons from the arms-room, such as a tomahawk, a
spade-headed spear, a pike and a chopper, I returned to the pumps and
fell upon them with a will. The ice flew about me, but I continued to
smite, the exercise making me hot and renewing my spirits, and in an
hour--but it took me an hour--I had chopped, hacked, and beaten one of
the pumps pretty clear of its thick crystal coat. They were what is
called brake-pumps--that is to say, pumps which are worked by handles.
The ice, of course, held them immovable, but they looked to be perfectly
sound, in good working order, though there would be neither chance nor
need to test them until the schooner went afloat.
I cleared the other one and was well satisfied with my morning's work.
But I did bitterly lament the lack of a little crew. Even the Frenchman
as he was yesterday would have served my turn, for between us we might
have made shift to clamber aloft, and with hatchets break the sails
free of their ice bonds, and so expose canvas enough to hold the wind,
which could not have failed to impart a swifter motion to the berg. But
with my single pair of hands I could only look up idly at the yards and
gaffs standing hard as granite. Still, even such surface as the spars
and rigging offered to the breeze helped our progress. We were but a
very little berg, nay, not a berg, but rather a sheet of ice lying
indifferently flat upon the sea, and, as I believe, without much depth.
Our spars and gear were as if the ice itself were rigged as a ship, and
then there was the height of the hull besides to offer to the breeze a
tolerable resistance for its offices of propulsion. In this way I
explain our progress; but whatever the cause, certain it was that our
bed of ice was fairly under weigh, and at noon the island of ice bore at
least half a league distant from us, and we had opened the sea broadly
past its northern cape.
I have often diverted myself with wondering what sort of impression the
posture of our schooner would have made on the minds of sailors sighting
us from their deck. We looked to be floating out of water, and mariners
who regard the devil as a conjuror must have accepted us as one of his
pet inventions.
The many icebergs which encumbered the sea filled me with anxiety. We
were travelling faster than they, and it seemed impossible that we could
miss striking one or another of them. Yet perilous as they were, I could
not but admire their beautiful appearance as they floated upon the dark
blue of the running waters, flashing out very gloriously to the sun with
a sparkling of tints upon their whiteness as if fires of twenty
different colours had been kindled upon their craggy steeps, and then
fading into a sulky watchet to the dull violet shadowing of the passing
clouds. I particularly marked a very brilliant scene on the opening of
five or six of them to the sunshine. They lay in such wise that the
shadow of the cloud covered them all as with a veil, the skirts of
which, trailing, left them to leap one after the other into the noontide
dazzle; and as each one shot from the shadow the flash was like a
volcanic spouting of white flame enriched with the prismatic dyes of
emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and gems of lovely hue.
To determine the hour and our position I fetched a quadrant from my
cabin, and was happily just in time to catch the sun crossing the
meridian. My watch was half an hour fast, so I had been out of my
reckoning to the extent of thirty minutes ever since I had been cast
away. I made our latitude to be sixty-four degrees twenty-eight minutes
south, and the computation was perhaps near enough.
This business ended, I went to the cook-house to prepare dinner, and the
first object I saw was Tassard flat upon his face near the door that
opened into the cabin. He groaned when I picked him up, which I managed
without much exertion of strength, for so much had he shrunk that I dare
say more than half his weight lay in his clothes; and set him upon his
bench with his back to the dresser. I put my mouth to his ear and
roared, "Are you hurt?" His head nodded as if he understood me, but I
question if he did. He was the completest picture of old age that you
could imagine. I fetched a couple of spears from the arms-room, and,
cutting them to his height, put one in each hand that he might keep
himself propped; and whilst my own dinner was broiling I made him a mess
of broth with which I fed him, for now that he had the sticks he would
not let go of them. But in any case I doubt if his trembling hand could
have lifted the spoon to his lips without capsizing the contents down
his beard.
With some small idea of rallying the old villain, I mixed him a very
stiff bumper of brandy, which he supped down out of my hand with the
utmost avidity. The draught soon worked in him, and he began to move his
head about, seeking me in his blind way, and then cried in his broken
notes, "I have lost the use of my legs and cannot walk. Mother of God,
what shall I do! O holy St. Antonio, what is to become of me?"
I guessed from this that, impelled by habit or some small spur of
reason, he had risen to go on deck and fallen. He went on vapouring
pitifully, gazing with sufficient steadfastness to let me understand
that his vision received something of my outline, though he would fix
his eyes either to left or right of me, as though he was not able to see
if he looked straight; and this and his mournful cackle and his nodding
head, bowed form, propped hands, and diminished face made him as
distressful and melancholy a picture of Time as ever mortal man viewed.
He broke off in his rambling to ask for more brandy, taking it for
granted that I was still in the cook-room, for I never spoke, and I
filled a can for him and as before held it to his mouth, which he opened
wide, a piece of behaviour which went to show that some of his wits
still hung loose upon him. This was a strong dose, and co-operating with
the other, soon seized hold on his head, and presently he began to laugh
to himself and talk, and even broke into a stave or two--some French
song which he delivered in a voice like the squeaking of a rat
alternating with the growling of a terrier.
I guess his stumbling upon this old French catch (which I took it to be
from seeing him feebly flourish one of his sticks as if inviting a
chorus) put him upon speaking his own tongue altogether, for though he
continued to chatter with all the volubility his breath would permit
during the whole time I sat eating, not one word of English did he
speak, and not one word therefore did I understand. Seeing how it must
be with him presently, I brought his mattress and rugs from his cabin,
and had scarce laid them down when he let fall one of his sticks and
drooped over. I grasped him, and partly lifting, partly hauling, got him
on his back and covered him up. In a few minutes he was asleep.
I trust I shall not be deemed inhuman if I confess that I heartily
wished his end would come. If he went on living he promised to be an
intolerable burden to me, being quite helpless. Besides, he was much too
old for this world, in which a man who reaches the age of ninety is
pointed to as a sort of wonder.
As there was nothing to be done on deck, I filled my pipe and made
myself comfortable before the furnace, and was speedily sunk in
meditation. I reviewed all the circumstances of my case and considered
my chances, and the nimble heels of imagination carrying me home with
this schooner, I asked myself, suppose I should have the good fortune to
convey the treasure in safety to England, how was I to secure it? Let me
imagine myself arrived in the Thames. The whole world stares at the
strange antique craft sailing up the river; she would be boarded and
rummaged by the customs people, who of course would light upon the
treasure. What then? I knew nothing of the law; but I reckoned, since I
should have to tell the truth, that the money, ore, and jewellery would
be claimed as stolen property, and I dismissed with a small reward for
bringing it home. There was folly in such contemplation at such a time,
when perhaps at this hour to-morrow the chests might be at the bottom of
the sea, and myself a drowned sailor floating three hundred fathoms
deep. But man is a froward child, who builds mansions out of dreams,
and, jockeyed by hope, sets out at a gallop along the visionary road to
his desires; and my mind was so much taken up with considering how I
should manage when I brought the treasure home, that I spent a couple of
hours in a conflict of schemes, during which time it never once
occurred to me to reflect that I was a good way from home still, and
that much must happen before I need give myself the least concern as to
the securing of the treasure.
Nothing worth recording happened that day. The wind slackened, and the
ice travelled so slow that at sundown I could not discover that we had
made more than a quarter of a mile of progress to the north since noon,
though we had settled by half as much again that distance westwards.
Whilst I was below I could hear the ice crackling pretty briskly round
about the ship, which gave me some comfort; but I could never see any
change of consequence when I looked over the side or bows, only that at
about four o'clock, whilst I was taking a view from the forecastle, a
large block broke away from beyond the starboard bow with the report of
a swivel gun.
I had not closed my eyes on the previous night, and was tired out when
the evening arrived, and, as no good could come of my keeping a watch,
for the simple reason that it was not in my power to avert anything that
might happen, I tumbled some further covering over the Frenchman, who
had lain on the deck all the afternoon, sometimes dozing, sometimes
waking and talking to himself, and appearing on the whole very easy and
comfortable, and went to my cabin.
I slept sound the whole night through, and on waking went on deck before
going to the cook-house and lighting the furnace (as was my custom), so
impatient was I to observe our state and to hear such news as the ocean
had for me. It was a very curious day, somewhat darksome, and a dead
calm, with a large long swell out of the south-east. The sky was full of
clouds, with a stooping appearance in the hang of them that reminded you
of the belly of a hammock; they were of a sallow brown, very uncommon;
some of them round about sipped the sea-line, and their shadows,
obliterating those parts of the cincture which they overhung, broke the
continuity of the horizon as though there were valleys in the ocean
there. A good part of our bed of ice was gone, at least a fourth of it;
but the schooner still lay as strongly fixed as before. I had come to
the deck half expecting to find her afloat from the regular manner of
her heaving, and was bitterly disappointed to discover her rooted as
strongly as ever in the ice, though the irritation softened when I
noticed how the bed had diminished. The mass with the ship upon it rose
and sank with the sluggish squatting motion of a water-logged vessel. It
was an odd sensation to my legs after their long rest from such
exercise. The heaving satisfied me that the base of the bed did not go
deep, but at the same time it was all too solid for me, I could not
doubt, for had the sheet been as thin as I had hoped it, it must have
given under the weight of the schooner and released her.
The island lay a league distant on the larboard beam, and looked a
wondrous vast field of ice going into the south, and it stared very
ghastly upon the dark green sea out of the clouds whose gloom sank
behind it. I could not observe that we had drifted anything to the
north, whilst our set to the westwards had been steady though
snail-like. The sea in the north and north-west swarmed with bergs, like
great snowdrops on the green undulating fields of the deep. Now and
again the swell, in which fragments of ice floated with the gleam of
crystal in liquid glass, would be too quick for our dull rise and
overflow the bed, brimming to the channels with much noise of foam and
pouring waters, but the interposition of the ice took half its weight
out of it, and it never did more than send a tremble through the vessel.
What to make of the weather I knew not. Certainly, of all the caprices
of this huge cold sea, its calms are the shortest lived, but this
knowledge helped me to no other. The clouds did not stir. In the
north-east a beam of sunshine stood like a golden waterspout, its foot
in a little flood of glory. It stayed all the while I was on deck,
showing that the clouds had scarce any motion, and made the picture of
the sea that way beyond nature to my sight, by the contrast of the
defined shaft of gold, burning purely, with the dusk of the clouds all
about, and of the pool of dazzle at its foot with the ugly green of the
water that melted into it.
I went below and got about lighting the fire. The Frenchman lay very
quiet, under as many clothes as would fill a half-dozen of sacks. It was
bitterly cold, sharper in the cook-house than I had ever remembered it,
and I could not conceive why this should be, until I recollected that I
had forgotten to close the companion-hatch before going to bed. I
prepared some broth for my companion, and dressed some ham for myself,
and ate my breakfast, supposing he would meanwhile awake. But after
sitting some time and observing that he did not stir, a suspicion
flashed into my mind; I kneeled down, and clearing his face, listened.
He did not breathe. I brought the lanthorn to him, but his countenance
had been so changed by his unparalleled emergence from a state of middle
life into extreme old age, he was so puckered, hollowed, gaunt, his
features so distorted by the great weight of his years that I was not to
know him dead by merely viewing him. I threw the clothes off him,
listened at his mouth breathlessly, felt his hands, which were ice-cold.
Dead indeed! thought I. Great Father, 'tis Thy will! And I rose very
slowly and stood surveying the silent figure with an emotion that owed
its inspiration partly to the several miracles of vitality I had beheld
in him during our association, and to a bitter feeling of loneliness
that swelled up in me.
Yes! I had feared and detested this man, but his quick transformation
and silent dark exit affected me, and I looked down upon him sadly. Yet,
to be perfectly candid with you, I recollect that, though it occurred to
me to test if life was out of him by bringing him close to the fire and
chafing him and giving him brandy, I would not stir. No, I would not
have moved a finger to recover him, even though I should have been able
to do so by merely putting him to the furnace. He was dead, and there
was an end; and without further ado I carried him into the forecastle
and threw a hammock over him, and left him to lie there till there
should come clear water to the ship to serve him for a grave.