THE LAST END OF JACKSON
“Off Cape Cod!” said the steward, coming forward from the quarter-deck,
where the captain had just been taking his noon observation; sweeping
the vast horizon with his quadrant, like a dandy circumnavigating the
dress-circle of an amphitheater with his glass.
_Off Cape Cod!_ and in the shore-bloom that came to us— even from that
desert of sand-hillocks—methought I could almost distinguish the
fragrance of the rose-bush my sisters and I had planted, in our far
inland garden at home. Delicious odors are those of our mother Earth;
which like a flower-pot set with a thousand shrubs, greets the eager
voyager from afar.
The breeze was stiff, and so drove us along that we turned over two
broad, blue furrows from our bows, as we plowed the watery prairie. By
night it was a reef-topsail-breeze; but so impatient was the captain to
make his port before a shift of wind overtook us, that even yet we
carried a main-topgallant-sail, though the light mast sprung like a
switch.
In the second dog-watch, however, the breeze became such, that at last
the order was given to douse the top-gallant-sail, and clap a reef into
all three top-sails.
While the men were settling away the halyards on deck, and before they
had begun to haul out the reef-tackles, to the surprise of several,
Jackson came up from the forecastle, and, for the first time in four
weeks or more, took hold of a rope.
Like most seamen, who during the greater part of a voyage, have been
off duty from sickness, he was, perhaps, desirous, just previous to
entering port, of reminding the captain of his existence, and also that
he expected his wages; but, alas! his wages proved the wages of sin.
At no time could he better signalize his disposition to work, than upon
an occasion like the present; which generally attracts every soul on
deck, from the captain to the child in the steerage.
His aspect was damp and death-like; the blue hollows of his eyes were
like vaults full of snakes; and issuing so unexpectedly from his dark
tomb in the forecastle, he looked like a man raised from the dead.
Before the sailors had made fast the reef-tackle, Jackson was tottering
up the rigging; thus getting the start of them, and securing his place
at the extreme weather-end of the topsail-yard—which in reefing is
accounted the post of honor. For it was one of the characteristics of
this man, that though when on duty he would shy away from mere dull
work in a calm, yet in tempest-time he always claimed the van, and
would yield it to none; and this, perhaps, was one cause of his
unbounded dominion over the men.
Soon, we were all strung along the main-topsail-yard; the ship rearing
and plunging under us, like a runaway steed; each man gripping his
reef-point, and sideways leaning, dragging the sail over toward
Jackson, whose business it was to confine the reef corner to the yard.
His hat and shoes were off; and he rode the yard-arm end, leaning
backward to the gale, and pulling at the earing-rope, like a bridle. At
all times, this is a moment of frantic exertion with sailors, whose
spirits seem then to partake of the commotion of the elements, as they
hang in the gale, between heaven and earth; and _then_ it is, too, that
they are the most profane.
“Haul out to windward!” coughed Jackson, with a blasphemous cry, and he
threw himself back with a violent strain upon the bridle in his hand.
But the wild words were hardly out of his mouth, when his hands dropped
to his side, and the bellying sail was spattered with a torrent of
blood from his lungs.
As the man next him stretched out his arm to save, Jackson fell
headlong from the yard, and with a long seethe, plunged like a diver
into the sea.
It was when the ship had rolled to windward, which, with the long
projection of the yard-arm over the side, made him strike far out upon
the water. His fall was seen by the whole upward-gazing crowd on deck,
some of whom were spotted with the blood that trickled from the sail,
while they raised a spontaneous cry, so shrill and wild, that a blind
man might have known something deadly had happened.
Clutching our reef-points, we hung over the stick, and gazed down to
the one white, bubbling spot, which had closed over the head of our
shipmate; but the next minute it was brewed into the common yeast of
the waves, and Jackson never arose. We waited a few minutes, expecting
an order to descend, haul back the fore-yard, and man the boat; but
instead of that, the next sound that greeted us was, “Bear a hand, and
reef away, men!” from the mate.
Indeed, upon reflection, it would have been idle to attempt to save
Jackson; for besides that he must have been dead, ere he struck the
sea—and if he had not been dead then, the first immersion must have
driven his soul from his lacerated lungs—our jolly-boat would have
taken full fifteen minutes to launch into the waves.
And here it should be said, that the thoughtless security in which too
many sea-captains indulge, would, in case of some sudden disaster
befalling the Highlander, have let us all drop into our graves.
Like most merchant ships, we had but two boats: the longboat and the
jolly-boat. The long boat, by far the largest and stoutest of the two,
was permanently bolted down to the deck, by iron bars attached to its
sides. It was almost as much of a fixture as the vessel’s keel. It was
filled with pigs, fowls, firewood, and coals. Over this the jolly-boat
was capsized without a _thole-pin_ in the gunwales; its bottom
bleaching and cracking in the sun.
Judge, then, what promise of salvation for us, had we shipwrecked; yet
in this state, one merchant ship out of three, keeps its boats. To be
sure, no vessel full of emigrants, by any possible precautions, could
in case of a fatal disaster at sea, hope to save the tenth part of the
souls on board; yet provision should certainly be made for a handful of
survivors, to carry home the tidings of her loss; for even in the worst
of the calamities that befell patient Job, some _one_ at least of his
servants escaped to report it.
In a way that I never could fully account for, the sailors, in my
hearing at least, and Harry’s, never made the slightest allusion to the
departed Jackson. One and all they seemed tacitly to unite in hushing
up his memory among them. Whether it was, that the severity of the
bondage under which this man held every one of them, did really corrode
in their secret hearts, that they thought to repress the recollection
of a thing so degrading, I can not determine; but certain it was, that
_his_ death was _their_ deliverance; which they celebrated by an
elevation of spirits, unknown before. Doubtless, this was to be in part
imputed, however, to their now drawing near to their port.