John Bloundelle-Burton - Across the Salt Seas

"Phew!" said the captain of La Mouche Noire , as he came up to me where I paced the deck by the after bittacle. "Phew! It is a devil in its death agonies. What has the man seen and known? Fore Gad! he makes me shudder!"

Then he spat to leeward-because he was a sailor; also, because he was a sailor, he squinted into the compass box, then took off his leather cap and wiped the warm drops from his forehead with the back of his hand.

"Death agonies!" I said. "So! it is coming to that. From what? Drinking, old age, or-"

"Both, and more. Yet, when I shipped him at Rotterdam, who would have thought it! Old and reverend-looking, eh, Mr. Crespin? White haired-silvery. I deemed him some kind of a minister-yet, now, hearken to him!"

And as he spoke he went to the hatchway, bent his head and shoulders over it, and beckoned me to come and do likewise; which gesture I obeyed.

Then I heard the old man's voice coming forth from the cabin where they had got him, the door of it being open for sake of air, because, in this tossing sea, the ports and scuttles were shut fast-heard him screaming, muttering, chuckling and laughing; calling of healths and toasts; dying hard!

"The balustrades!" he screamed. "Look to them. See! Three men, their hands stretched out, peering down into the hall; fingers touching. God!" – he whispered this, yet still we heard-"how can dead men stand thus together, gazing over, glancing into dark corners, eyes rolling? See how yellow the mustee's eyes are! But still, all dead! Dead! Dead! Dead! Yet there they stand, waiting for us to come in from the garden. Ha! quick-the passado-one-two-in-out-good! through his midriff. Ha! Ha! Ha!" and he laughed hideously, then went on: "The worms will have a full meal. Or" – after a pause, and hissing this: "Was he dead before? Hast run a dead man through?"

"Like this all day long," the captain muttered in my ear, "from the dawn. And now the sun is setting; see how its gleams light up the hills inland. God's mercy! I hope he dies ere long. I want not his howlings through my ship all night. Mr. Crespin," and he laid his hand on my arm, "will you go down to him, to service me? You are a gentleman. Maybe can soothe him. He is one, too. Will you?"

I shrugged my shoulders and hitched my sea cloak tighter round me; then I said:

"To do you a service-yes. Yet I like not the job. Still, I will go," and I put my hand on the brass rail to descend. Then, as I did so, we heard him again-a-singing of a song this time. But what a song! And to come from the dying lips of that old, white-haired, reverend-looking man! A song about drinkings and carousings, of girls' eyes and lips and other charms, which he should have thought no more of for the past two score years! and killing of men, and thievings and plunder. Then another change, orders bellowed loudly, as though he trod on deck-commands given to run out guns-cutlasses to be ready. Shrieks, whooping and huzzas!

"He has followed the sea some time in his life," the captain whispered as I descended the companion steps. "One can tell that. And I thought him a minister!"

I nodded, looking up at him as I went below, then reached the open door of the cabin where the man lay.

He was stretched out upon his berth, the bedding all dishevelled and tossed beneath him, with, over it, his long white hair, like spun flax, streaming. His coat alone of all his garments was off, so that one saw the massive gold buttons to his satin waistcoat; could observe, too, the richness of his cravat, the fineness of his shirt. His breeches, also, were of satin, black like his waistcoat-the stuff of the very best; his buckles to them gold; his shoes fastened with silver latchets. That he was old other things than his hair showed-the white face was drawn and pinched with age, the body lean and attenuated, the fingers almost fleshless, the backs of his hands naught but sinews and shrivelled skin. And they were strange hands, too, for one to gaze upon; white as the driven snow, yet with a thickness at the tips of the fingers, and with ill-shapen, coarse-looking nails, all seeming to say that, once, in some far off time, those hands had done hard, rough work.

By the side of the berth, upon one of the drawers beneath it, pulled out to make a seat, there squatted a mulatto-his servant whom he had brought on board with him when we took him into the ship in the Maas. A mulatto, whose brown, muddy looking eyeballs rolled about in terror, as I thought, of his master's coming death, and made me wonder if they had given his distempered brain that idea of the "mustee's yellow eyes," about which he had been lately shrieking. Yet, somehow, I guessed that 'twas not so.

"How is 't with him now?" I asked the blackamoor, seeing that his master lay quiet for the time being; "is this like to be the end?"

"Maybe, maybe not," the creature said in reply. "I have seen him as far gone before-yet he is alive."

"How old is he?"

"I know not. He says he has seventy years."

"I should say more," I answered. Then I asked: "Who is he?"

"The captain has his name."

"That tells nothing. When he is dead he will be committed to the sea unless we reach Cadiz first. And he has goods," casting my eye on two chests, one above the other, standing by the cabin bulkhead. "They will have to be consigned somewhere. Where is he going?"

"To Cadiz."

"Ha! Well, so am I. He is English?"

"Yes-he is English."

'Twas evident to me that this black creature meant to tell nothing of his master's affairs-for which there was no need to blame him-and I desisted from my enquiries. For, in truth, this old man's affairs were not my concern. If he died he would be tossed into the sea, and that would be the end of him. And if he did not die-why still 'twas no affair of mine. I was but a passenger, as he was.

Therefore, I turned me on my heel to quit the cabin, when, to my astonishment, nay, almost my awestruck wonderment, I heard the old man speaking behind me as calmly as though there were no delirium in his brain nor any fever whatever. Perhaps, after all, I thought, 'twas but the French brandy and the Geneva he had been drinking freely of since we took him on board, and which he brought with him in case bottles, that had given him his delirium, and that the effect was gone now with his last shriekings and ravings.

But that which caused most my wonderment was that he was speaking in the French-which I had very well myself.

"What brings you here, Grandmont?" he asked, his eyes, of a cold grey, fixed on me.

"So," thinks I, "you are not out of your fever yet, to call me by a name I never heard of." But aloud, I answered:

"I have taken passage the same as you yourself. And we travel the same road-toward Cadiz."

Meanwhile the negro was a-hushing of him-or trying to-saying: "Master, master, you wander. Grandmont is not here. This gentleman is not he"; and angered me, too, even as he said it, by a scornful kind of laugh he gave, as though to signify: "Not anything like him, indeed."

But the old man took no heed of him-pushing him aside with a strength in the white coarse hand which you would not have looked to see in one so spent-and leaned a little over the side of the berth, and went on:

"Have you heard of it, yet, Grandmont?"

Not knowing what to do, nor what answer to make, I shook my head-whereon he continued: "Nineteen years of age now, if a day. Four years old then-two hundred crowns' worth of good wood burnt, – all burnt-a mort o' money! But we have enough left and to serve, 'tis true. A plenty o' money-though 'tis soaked in blood. Nineteen years old, and like to be a devil-like yourself, Grandmont!"