“Who be you?” I asked, not believing that my ears heard English from a
native negro.
He leaned back with his hands on his hips and laughed at my
astonishment.
“You know Bednal Green,[9] Jack?”
[9] Bethnal Green, now in the limits of London.
Bednal Green? Aye, Green’s the name and green’s the word. Green! Oh,
for the leaves, the grass, the young buds of spring; just one handful
of those was worth more than all of those yellow sands, glaring waters
and banana skies! Bednal Green! The very word--the name--was like cold
water on a gritted tongue! Bednal Green! Aye, had I the choice between
the eating room of the “White Duck” Tavern and the palace of the Grand
Mogul across the water in India, there would be no bargaining. Did I
know Bednal Green!
“Aye,” said I, “very well.”
“You have ale at him White Duck?”
Ale at the White Duck--the very place that was running in my mind! I
knew then that I was dreaming; that I was out of my head and that I
would surely soon die. Verily I had drunk ale in the White Duck; drunk
it often of winter mornings when Mistress Brown, in a clean apron, kept
the coal fire bright in the grate, and the carters from the country,
leaving their wains outside, came stamping in, blowing upon their
finger tips and shouting the gossip of the frozen roads. I lost myself
in a sort of swoon.
When I came back to my senses I was lying in the old hut of a
fisherman, and the big black fellow was fanning my head with a bundle
of broad leaves. He must have carried me in from the beach; an easy
job, for I was all skin and bones, and he was a giant.
When he saw me open my eyes he bade me fear nothing, that I was in his
house and the people of the place would do me no harm. He said that I
might call him Jim.
Jim nursed me like I was a baby; he gave me food and drink; he tried to
keep me cool at noon and warm at night, and all without pay, for not
one penny piece of my few remaining coins would he take. His was just a
heart of good will. And in between whiles he told me the strange story
of his life.
He had gone to England from Africa on a British ship a long time before
and had made his dwelling in London, particularly in this suburb
of Bednal Green, where he turned his hand to one thing and another
wherever there was need of a man of strength. At length, being of the
mind to go to sea again, he had left England in the ship _Rochester_--I
knew her very well--bound for the Indies.
But off Guinea they fell into a sea fight with a Frenchman, and
were very hardly pressed, their enemy having more guns and men than
they. Resolving to make a struggle to the finish, the captain of the
_Rochester_--probably to keep his men from fleeing--ordered Jim to cut
the longboat adrift from the stern of the ship. Jim went beyond his
orders, for after cutting the rope he stayed in the boat and made off
with it under cover of the gun smoke.
He had not got a mile away when with a great noise the _Rochester_
blew up, her powder having exploded by accident. He made his way to
Guinea and from there, on one ship and another, he had slowly worked
his way to this place of Joanna, where he had a mind to settle himself
among the native people.
“Why,” said I, “are you so kind to me?”
To this he replied that he had a kindness for plain sailormen; that
they suffered much on their ships at the hands of hard masters, and
many had, out of their little, often supplied his wants.
For eight weeks black Jim thus cared for me,--a poor, forlorn, marooned
seaman, and a sailor’s blessing rests upon him. I owe him my life.
At the end of that time he came one day into the hut and said that a
ship was standing in. He had brought my strength up so that I could now
walk a little, and I went out into the sunshine and there, sure enough,
was a ship,--and it was the ship of Mr. Every. He had evidently come
again for water.
Here then was a puzzle for me. Should I go back to him or stay with the
good Jim and his people? I am an Englishman and not an African; I would
be home again. Jim could not come down to the beach for fear of being
taken as a slave, but he and the natives fled back into the island. I
bade him good-by with all my heart,--the only friend I was to find in
thousands of watery miles.
Mr. Every was down at the boats.
“Hallo, old May,” he said. “We thought you must be dead by now; that
the sickness had taken you. You must have been born to be hanged!”