Sarah Brooks - My Fire Opal, and Other Tales

For Gravesend, this was, indeed, a gracious time. No more craving for human tenderness, less thirst for that tempting poison, which had lured his unguarded sense in the old, cabin-boy days, when the busy steward had unwisely permitted him to drain the spirit-glasses. The pernicious taste thus engendered in the child had, alas! grown with his growth, and, at times, had even overmastered the strong man. In Samson's might, as we are told, there was but a single flaw; yet, there , Delilah found him weak as the weakest. So it was with our sailor, and hence, at irregular intervals, there were decidedly black days in the otherwise clean life of John Gravesend.

The Ohio , bound for China, in due time cast anchor at Canton. Jack and Will had got leave to go ashore together. And there it was that John Gravesend's demon took possession of him. Through all that long afternoon of drunken riot, Will (sorely astonished and dismayed) never once left this frenzied creature. And when Jack had run his mad muck, and, laboriously piloted back to the ship, had at last been persuaded to get into his berth, where he lay, safe, but brutish and insensate, the lad cast himself wearily upon the cabin floor and had a good long, sobbing cry – like the child that he was – the single-hearted, loving child, whose faith in a human soul had been rudely shocked and shaken. On the morrow, Jack was himself again. A trifle dull and heavy-eyed, yet the same old, kind, and sober fellow. That night in their watch the friends talked it all over. Jack retained no distinct consciousness of yesterday's wild doings. After drinking more heavily than he meant, or ought, he had fancied that the crowd had set upon him, and, with spinning head, he had rushed incontinently upon the crowd , and knew no more until he awoke next morning in his own snug berth, with Will yet sleeping wearily upon the hard floor. And now, with Ferguson's hand in his own warm clasp, Gravesend vowed no more to touch, taste, or handle, the unclean thing; and, through all that perilous fortnight in port, he never once broke his vow.

Again the Ohio cast anchor. It was in Boston Harbor, and on a May-day evening. Will Ferguson and John Gravesend went ashore together. The month had, this year, come smiling in, and juvenile Boston had paraded in muslin and greenery to its heart's content. Upon the Common, there still lingered a breath of the May-day festivitiy. A balmy south wind stirred among the new-leaved trees, – a delicious murmuring wind, prophesying violets, jonquils, and endless forthcoming spring delights.

On such bewitching, yet enervating nights, riotous young blood leaps hotly through quickened pulses, and, for the hour, to live in the sweet, sensuous present is enough; the soul craves no higher good. Will Ferguson, thus far, had developed no taste for that reckless youthful procedure, apologetically termed "the sowing of wild oats."

A long sea voyage, and its consequent social limitations, had, however, quickened in the boy a legitimate youthful craving for fun and frolic, and, what with the witchery of this May night, the coming to port, the rapturous thought of home, mother, and that glad greeting of pretty Kate Benson to-morrow at Springfield, he was, as he laughingly averred, "chock full of happiness, and on hand for any sort of a lark." In the heyday of the hour he had not all forgotten that black day at Canton, and had, within himself, resolved to "hold on hard whenever he smelt mischief for Jack."

Sauntering idly into North Street, the pair were abruptly brought to a stand by the gay twang of a violin. "A fiddle; and a waltz!" This set Will's merry feet going; and while he shuffled, boy-fashion, on the sidewalk, a smiling personage, issuing from the door of a certain edifice having over its entrance the sprightly designation of "Dance House," with an "Hullo, there, my hearties!" begged them "Come in a while, and see the fun."

Now, Jack Gravesend was quite aware that in a dance-house "the fun" is of a questionable character. That within it is "the way to hell going down to the chambers of death," and, being a man of clean kernel, he had no lascivious affinity with a dance-house; but here was Will eagerly curious. He liked to humour the lad; and (truth must be told) he, himself, on this May night, was somewhat morally unbraced. Thus it was that, lured on by the merry music, and the cordial solicitations of the doorway panderer, the two crossed the threshhold of this evil place. Bacchus, be it known (no less than Venus and Terpsichore), presides over the festivities of the dance-house, and Will Ferguson, soon weary of the "fun," which was in no wise to his liking, found, to his dismay, that Jack Gravesend was weakly succumbing to the fascinations of the "Jolly God." Unable to coax him from the place, he lingered on, inwardly bemoaning his own inquisitive folly; yet resolved, let what would come, to see Jack well out of the scrape. It was not in John Gravesend's nature to do a thing by halves. Whatsoever he did, was done heartily, and mightily; and, having determined to drink, he drank , until – ah, well! the bestial orgies of a Circean herd are not things for description, albeit they are nightly enacted in the dance-houses of our own metropolis.

It was broad day. Jack Gravesend awoke. He rubbed his eyes, and looked curiously about him. Where was he? Strange! He couldn't have turned in here . He got up, and shook himself wide awake. Two villanous-looking men, having risen from two neighbouring beds, were doing likewise. "Hullo, shipmates!" said Jack, now fairly on his feet; "lend a hand here, and tell me where I am."

The two burglars – for such they were – being well-posted in the leading particulars of his arrest, glanced knowingly at each other, and smirked with sinister significance peculiarly aggravating to Jack, and burglar number one remarked to his associate, "Golly, Bill; he is a green one! Wants to know where he is ! do you twig, Bill? Why, my fine tar, you're in the lock-up, to be sure."

"In the lock-up !" said Jack; "and how in thunder came I here?"

" Brung here, of course," responded his informant, "'t ain't a road folks gin'ally travels on their own account, eh, Bill?" Bill assenting, with a prodigious wink, Jack propounded a third query: "And what the deuce may I be here for ?"

" Here for?" responded the garrulous ruffian. "Thunderin' black job, my cove! Got drunk last night, and killed a man!"

" Killed a man!" groaned Jack, his eyes dilating, and his flesh creeping with sudden horror. "Killed a man ! My God! what will Will Ferguson say?"

"Ferguson? Bill – Bill Ferguson," growled the other burglar. "By jiminy, Tom! he wants to know what Bill Ferguson'll say! Precious little , I'm thinkin'; he's about said his say! Why, grampus, Bill Ferguson's the very indentercal chap you've done for!"

Officer L – long remembered a cry that woke the echoes of the lock-up on that May morning. It might have been the yell of a hunted thing at bay, the outcry of a mortal in fierce extremity, the despairing wail of a hell-tormented soul.

Turning the key in the lock of No. 17, he hastily entered that apartment. On the floor, face downward, lay a man.

"Cove in a fit," explained the facetious Tom. "Bill, here, jes' let on 'bout the killin', an' he gin a howl an' went off in a jiffy."

Officer L – was humane. Good men, thank God! fill many of these humble places of authority. Silencing the bold ruffian, he bade the pair help raise the senseless form and adjust it on the rude cot. This done, he smoothed the tossed hair, wiped the foam from the purple lips, and chafed the great brown hands as helpfully as if they had been little "May's," the dear sick lamb of his own pretty flock. At length, the convulsive throes ceased, and consciousness returned to the stricken man.