II

It is only by inadvertence that I have omitted the information that the

vessel in which I was now a pervading influence was the _Bonnyclabber_

(Troutbeck, master), of Malvern Heights.

The _Bonnyclabber's_ reactionary course had now brought her to the spot

at which I had taken passage. Passengers and crew, fatigued by their

somewhat awkward attempts to manifest their gratitude for our miraculous

deliverance from the cloud-bank, were snoring peacefully in unconsidered

attitudes about the deck, when the lookout man, perched on the supreme

extremity of the mainmast, consuming a cold sausage, began an apparently

preconcerted series of extraordinary and unimaginable noises. He

coughed, sneezed, and barked simultaneously--bleated in one breath, and

cackled in the next--sputteringly shrieked, and chatteringly squealed,

with a bass of suffocated roars. There were desolutory vocal explosions,

tapering off in long wails, half smothered in unintelligible small-talk.

He whistled, wheezed, and trumpeted; began to sharp, thought better of

it and flatted; neighed like a horse, and then thundered like a drum!

Through it all he continued making incomprehensible signals with one

hand while clutching his throat with the other. Presently he gave it up,

and silently descended to the deck.

By this time we were all attention; and no sooner had he set foot

amongst us, than he was assailed with a tempest of questions which, had

they been visible, would have resembled a flight of pigeons. He made no

reply--not even by a look, but passed through our enclosing mass with a

grim, defiant step, a face deathly white, and a set of the jaw as of one

repressing an ambitious dinner, or ignoring a venomous toothache. For

the poor man was choking!

Passing down the companion-way, the patient sought the surgeon's cabin,

with the ship's company at his heels. The surgeon was fast asleep, the

lark-like performance at the masthead having been inaudible in that

lower region. While some of us were holding a whisky-bottle to the

medical nose, in order to apprise the medical intelligence of the demand

upon it, the patient seated himself in statuesque silence. By this time

his pallor, which was but the mark of a determined mind, had given place

to a fervent crimson, which visibly deepened into a pronounced purple,

and was ultimately superseded by a clouded blue, shot through with

opalescent gleams, and smitten with variable streaks of black. The face

was swollen and shapeless, the neck puffy. The eyes protruded like pegs

of a hat-stand.

Pretty soon the doctor was got awake, and after making a careful

examination of his patient, remarking that it was a lovely case of

_stopupagus oesophagi_, took a tool and set to work, producing with no

difficulty a cold sausage of the size, figure, and general bearing of a

somewhat self-important banana. The operation had been performed amid

breathless silence, but the moment it was concluded the patient, whose

neck and head had visibly collapsed, sprang to his feet and shouted:

"Man overboard!"

That is what he had been trying to say.

There was a confused rush to the upper deck, and everybody flung

something over the ship's side--a life-belt, a chicken-coop, a coil of

rope, a spar, an old sail, a pocket handkerchief, an iron crowbar--any

movable article which it was thought might be useful to a drowning man

who had followed the vessel during the hour that had elapsed since the

initial alarm at the mast-head. In a few moments the ship was pretty

nearly dismantled of everything that could be easily renounced, and some

excitable passenger having cut away the boats there was nothing more

that we could do, though the chaplain explained that if the ill-fated

gentleman in the wet did not turn up after a while it was his intention

to stand at the stern and read the burial service of the Church of

England.

Presently it occurred to some ingenious person to inquire who had gone

overboard, and all hands being mustered and the roll called, to our

great chagrin every man answered to his name, passengers and all!

Captain Troutbeck, however, held that in a matter of so great importance

a simple roll-call was insufficient, and with an assertion of authority

that was encouraging insisted that every person on board be separately

sworn. The result was the same; nobody was missing and the captain,

begging pardon for having doubted our veracity, retired to his cabin to

avoid further responsibility, but expressed a hope that for the purpose

of having everything properly recorded in the log-book we would apprise

him of any further action that we might think it advisable to take. I

smiled as I remembered that in the interest of the unknown gentleman

whose peril we had overestimated I had flung the log-book over the

ship's side.

Soon afterward I felt suddenly inspired with one of those great ideas

that come to most men only once or twice in a lifetime, and to the

ordinary story teller never. Hastily reconvening the ship's company I

mounted the capstan and thus addressed them:

"Shipmates, there has been a mistake. In the fervor of an ill-considered

compassion we have made pretty free with certain movable property of an

eminent firm of shipowners of Malvern Heights. For this we shall

undoubtedly be called to account if we are ever so fortunate as to drop

anchor in Tottenham Court Road, where I have an aunt. It would add

strength to our defence if we could show to the satisfaction of a jury

of our peers that in heeding the sacred promptings of humanity we had

acted with some small degree of common sense. If, for example, we could

make it appear that there really was a man overboard, who might have

been comforted and sustained by the material consolation that we so

lavishly dispensed in the form of buoyant articles belonging to others,

the British heart would find in that fact a mitigating circumstance

pleading eloquently in our favor. Gentlemen and ship's officers, I

venture to propose that we do now throw a man overboard."

The effect was electrical: the motion was carried by acclamation and

there was a unanimous rush for the now wretched mariner whose false

alarm at the masthead was the cause of our embarrassment, but on second

thoughts it was decided to substitute Captain Troutbeck, as less

generally useful and more undeviatingly in error. The sailor had made

one mistake of considerable magnitude, but the captain's entire

existence was a mistake altogether. He was fetched up from his cabin and

chucked over.

At 900 Tottenham Road Court lived an aunt of mine--a good old lady who

had brought me up by hand and taught me many wholesome lessons in

morality, which in my later life have proved of extreme value. Foremost

among these I may mention her solemn and oft-repeated injunction never

to tell a lie without a definite and specific reason for doing so. Many

years' experience in the violation of this principle enables me to speak

with authority as to its general soundness. I have, therefore, much

pleasure in making a slight correction in the preceding chapter of this

tolerably true history. It was there affirmed that I threw the

_Bonnyclabber's_ log-book into the sea. The statement is entirely false,

and I can discover no reason for having made it that will for a moment

weigh against those I now have for the preservation of that log-book.

The progress of the story has developed new necessities, and I now find

it convenient to quote from that book passages which it could not have

contained if cast into the sea at the time stated; for if thrown upon

the resources of my imagination I might find the temptation to

exaggerate too strong to be resisted.

It is needless to worry the reader with those entries in the book

referring to events already related. Our record will begin on the day of

the captain's consignment to the deep, after which era I made the

entries myself.

"June 22nd.--Not much doing in the way of gales, but heavy swells left

over from some previous blow. Latitude and longitude not notably

different from last observation. Ship laboring a trifle, owing to lack

of top-hamper, everything of that kind having been cut away in

consequence of Captain Troutbeck having accidently fallen overboard

while fishing from the bowsprit. Also threw over cargo and everything

that we could spare. Miss our sails rather, but if they save our dear

captain, we shall be content. Weather flagrant.

"23d.--Nothing from Captain Troutbeck. Dead calm--also dead whale. The

passengers having become preposterous in various ways, Mr. Martin, the

chief officer, had three of the ringleaders tied up and rope's-ended. He

thought it advisable also to flog an equal number of the crew, by way of

being impartial. Weather ludicrous.

"24th.--Captain still prefers to stop away, and does not telegraph. The

'captain of the foretop'--there isn't any foretop now--was put in irons

to-day by Mr. Martin for eating cold sausage while on look-out. Mr.

Martin has flogged the steward, who had neglected to holy-stone the

binnacle and paint the dead-lights. The steward is a good fellow all the

same. Weather iniquitous.

"25th.--Can't think whatever has become of Captain Troutbeck. He must be

getting hungry by this time; for although he has his fishing-tackle with

him, he has no bait. Mr. Martin inspected the entries in this book

to-day. He is a most excellent and humane officer. Weather inexcusable.

"26th.--All hope of hearing from the Captain has been abandoned. We have

sacrificed everything to save him; but now, if we could procure the loan

of a mast and some sails, we should proceed on our voyage. Mr. Martin

has knocked the coxswain overboard for sneezing. He is an experienced

seaman, a capable officer, and a Christian gentleman--damn his eyes!

Weather tormenting.

"27th.--Another inspection of this book by Mr. Martin. Farewell, vain

world! Break it gently to my aunt in Tottenham Court Road."

In the concluding sentences of this record, as it now lies before me,

the handwriting is not very legible: they were penned under

circumstances singularly unfavorable. Mr. Martin stood behind me with

his eyes fixed on the page; and in order to secure a better view, had

twisted the machinery of the engine he called his hand into the hair of

my head, depressing that globe to such an extent that my nose was

flattened against the surface of the table, and I had no small

difficulty in discerning the lines through my eyebrows. I was not

accustomed to writing in that position: it had not been taught in the

only school that I ever attended. I therefore felt justified in bringing

the record to a somewhat abrupt close, and immediately went on deck with

Mr. Martin, he preceding me up the companion-stairs on foot, I

following, not on horseback, but on my own, the connection between us

being maintained without important alteration.

Arriving on deck, I thought it advisable, in the interest of peace and

quietness, to pursue him in the same manner to the side of the ship,

where I parted from him forever with many expressions of regret, which

might have been heard at a considerable distance.

Of the subsequent fate of the _Bonnyclabber_, I can only say that the

log-book from which I have quoted was found some years later in the

stomach of a whale, along with some shreds of clothing, a few buttons

and several decayed life-belts. It contained only one new entry, in a

straggling handwriting, as if it had been penned in the dark:

"july2th foundered svivors rescude by wale wether stuffy no nues from

capting trowtbeck Sammle martin cheef Ofcer."

Let us now take a retrospective glance at the situation. The ship

_Nupple-duck_, (Abersouth, master) had, it will be remembered, gone down

with all on board except me. I had escaped on the ship _Bonnyclabber_

(Troutbeck) which I had quitted owing to a misunderstanding with the

chief officer, and was now unattached. That is how matters stood when,

rising on an unusually high wave, and casting my eye in the direction of

Tottenham Court Road--that is, backward along the course pursued by the

_Bonnyclabber_ and toward the spot at which the _Nupple-duck_ had been

swallowed up--I saw a quantity of what appeared to be wreckage. It

turned out to be some of the stuff that we had thrown overboard under a

misapprehension. The several articles had been compiled and, so to

speak, carefully edited. They were, in fact, lashed together, forming a

raft. On a stool in the center of it--not, apparently navigating it, but

rather with the subdued and dignified bearing of a passenger, sat

Captain Abersouth, of the _Nupple-duck_, reading a novel.

Our meeting was not cordial. He remembered me as a man of literary taste

superior to his own and harbored resentment, and although he made no

opposition to my taking passage with him I could see that his

acquiescence was due rather to his muscular inferiority than to the

circumstance that I was damp and taking cold. Merely acknowledging his

presence with a nod as I climbed abroad, I seated myself and inquired if

he would care to hear the concluding stanzas of "Naseby Fight."

"No," he replied, looking up from his novel, "no, Claude Reginald Gump,

writer of sea stories, I've done with you. When you sank the

_Nupple-duck_ some days ago you probably thought that you had made an

end of me. That was clever of you, but I came to the surface and

followed the other ship--the one on which you escaped. It was I that the

sailor saw from the masthead. I saw him see me. It was for me that all

that stuff was hove overboard. Good--I made it into this raft. It was, I

think, the next day that I passed the floating body of a man whom I

recognized as, my old friend Billy Troutbeck--he used to be a cook on a

man-o'-war. It gives me pleasure to be the means of saving your life,

but I eschew you. The moment that we reach port our paths part. You

remember that in the very first sentence of this story you began to

drive my ship, the _Nupple-duck_, on to a reef of coral."

I was compelled to confess that this was true, and he continued his

inhospitable reproaches:

"Before you had written half a column you sent her to the bottom, with

me and the crew. But _you_--you escaped."

"That is true," I replied; "I cannot deny that the facts are correctly

stated."

"And in a story before that, you took me and my mates of the ship

_Camel_ into the heart of the South Polar Sea and left us frozen dead in

the ice, like flies in amber. But you did not leave yourself there--you

escaped."

"Really, Captain," I said, "your memory is singularly accurate,

considering the many hardships that you have had to undergo; many a man

would have gone mad."

"And a long time before that," Captain Abersouth resumed, after a pause,

more, apparently, to con his memory than to enjoy my good opinion of it,

"you lost me at sea--look here; I didn't read anything but George Eliot

at that time, but I'm _told_ that you lost me at sea in the _Mudlark_.

Have I been misinformed?"