Adams was almost fainting from loss of blood. For myself, I was
scarcely good for anything--not for a struggle, that was certain. I
might defend myself for a time. I would try, anyhow. I could only die.
All at once we heard the hatchway opening stealthily.
"Whist!" said Jones's voice. "Who's alive down there?"
"Two!" I answered. "Adams and I--Tom Watson. We are both badly
wounded."
"Thank heaven you are not dead!" he said. "You can save yourselves, if
you've strength enough to lower yourselves into a boat. I've got it
down into the water. Will you try?"
We went at once, and gained the deck. Only one of the villains was on
the watch forward. We could see the dark figures of the rest sprawling
about in the semi-darkness far aft, and we went down on our hands and
knees, and crawled in the shadow to the side. But just as we reached
it, the moon came out from behind a cloud, and the man fired, and
shouted loudly.
Adams went down, and we two only were left.
"Save yourself! Jump!" cried Jones. "I'll keep 'em back! Avast there,
you black-hearted swabs, or I'll chop you to pieces!" And as five of
them, the soberest of the lot, came rushing on us in a body, he laid
about him right and left with a large cutlass, much heavier than I
should have believed he could use, and the beggars rolled over, slashed
and mangled beneath his strokes.
I never before or since have seen a man fight like Atlantic Jones did
then. Stripped to the waist, his long hair flying in the wind, his
hands red with blood, his body bespattered, too, he looked more like a
fiend than a human being, much less a very bad play-actor; but all the
while he fought he never once ceased yelling out the silly gibberish he
thought was sailors' talk.
They fell back at last enough to allow us to reach the boat, and we
pushed off. They fired on us then, furiously, and I did all I could to
make Jones lie down, to be out of harm's way, but he would not--
continuing to yell defiance and wave his cutlass. Those left alive were
too drunk, fortunately for us, to make any decisive effort to stop us;
and we drifted away, for the oars had fallen into the water.
This would be a longer tale--and it's long enough now, I'm sure--if I
were to tell you what we suffered those four days we drifted in the open
sea. Then, more dead than alive, I was taken on board a passing ship;
and Jones, who had tended me the while with every possible care, though
his own sufferings were at times intense, nursed me through a long
illness.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I told you I never could tell a tale. My tale ought to have begun where
it's left off, pretty nearly.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The last time I saw Jones he was at his play-acting again at the Hull
Theatre. He was a sailor once more, and had a deuce of a set-to with
some Lascars. But the audience didn't seem to think much of it. They
goosed him, and shied orange-peel.
Very low-spirited he was, poor chap, when I met him at the stage-door
afterwards, and he didn't cheer up much when I stood some beer.
Next day I picked up with a skipper, and got off on a whaling voyage.
Rare game it was, ketching the big fish, I can tell you, only one day
they put me ashore on an iceberg to pick a hole for an ice-anchor, so as
to get the ship on the lee when it came on to blow.
I didn't take no notice though, but kept on picking away, till all at
once there came on such a fog that I could hardly see my boots.
That there fog lasted three days, and when it was gone, there was no
ship nowhere, and the iceberg drifting away doo north as hard as ever it
could go.
I wouldn't ha' cared if it hadn't been so cold, for I got plenty of
seals and sea-birds, snaring 'em when they was asleep; but the cold was
awful, and when we got stuck fast--froze up at last--I was glad to get a
good run over the solid ice, which I did till I came to the edge of a
big basin, like, where I lay down, tired out, and dropped off to sleep.
You've just come, I suppose?
The doctor nodded.
"Ah! and it's as cold as ever," said the English sailor. "Now, if
Atlantic Jones--Heigh--was--he--here--hum! Well, I am sleepy. Got a
tot of grog, mates?"
The doctor reached out his hand for the case-bottle; but, as he did so,
there seemed to be a mist come on suddenly where the English sailor sat;
and, when it cleared away, there was a lot of moisture freezing hard, an
empty tobacco-box, and the rusty blade of a knife.
"As-tonishing!" said the doctor. "Suspended animation!"
"But where's he gone now?" I says.
"Into his original constituents," said the doctor; and our fellows all
shuffled out of the tent, with their fur caps lifted up by their hair,
and wouldn't go in again; so we had to move the bit of a camp farther up
along the edge of the big basin, and scrape and clear the snow off the
transparent ice--where, hang me! if there wasn't another fellow a few
inches down.
"Yes," says the doctor; "this place is full of relics of the past, and
if we searched we should find hundreds. Get him out!"
"But what's the good?" growled Scudds, "if they on'y melts away again?"
"We must do it for scientific reasons," says the doctor. "Out with him,
men!"
There was no help for it, so at it we went; and now our chaps got over
some of their scared feelings, all but the doctor's nevvy, who did
nothing but shiver, and nearly jumped out of his ice-boots, when, after
thawing, the rough figure we had got out of the ice sat up suddenly, and
exclaimed--
"An' did somebody say how did I get here?"
"We thought it," said the doctor.
"Bedad! I heard ye," said the figure. "Give's a taste of rum, which is
the best makeshift for poteen, and I'll tell ye. But it's very cowld."
He cowered close over the lamp, trying to warm his hands; and I noticed
that when they handed him some rum, he put it down by his side, going on
talking like to the lamp, as he spun away at his story.