The Blue Pavilions Part 42

He and his fellows, therefore, without further examination, did but unchain the slaves and then fling them over. It was sufficient that the body neither spoke nor cried.

Tristram's comrades, it is true, were in no doubtful plight. The hand of death had impressed them beyond chance of mistake. They were thrown over limb by limb.

Tristram's was the only body that remained entire, and to all appearance he too was dead. Now, he had been chained by the left leg, in which (as we have said) he was severely wounded. The keeper, not knowing that the chain had been blown away, grasped this leg in his hand, felt for the ring and tried to wrench it open.

Fortunately he tugged so l.u.s.tily and inflicted so sharp a pang in the wounded limb that Tristram opened his eyes and sobbed with the anguish of it. The fellow let go his grasp.

Then, suddenly perceiving what their intention had been, the poor youth screamed out at the top of his voice:

"Please do not throw me over. I'm not dead yet!"

Upon this they carried him to a small chamber in the hold and tossed him down among a heap of groaning wounded, upon a cable made up into a rouleau, perhaps the hardest bed on which a sick man can lie. About him were stretched indiscriminately petty officers, sailors, soldiers, and slaves. The air could reach this den only through a scuttle about two feet square, and the heat and stench were therefore something intolerable. A surgeon was at work among the sufferers. Reaching Tristram at length, he stopped the bleeding of his wounds with a little spirits of wine. He had no bandages; nor did he come again to see if his patient were dead or alive.

But, indeed, our hero was past caring for this, and when he regained consciousness after a third swoon it was to find himself in other hands.

For the pursuing English, aided by the wind (which had s.h.i.+fted a little farther to the northward), had swept down upon the galleys and taken them, with their prize, and were now towing them triumphantly into Sheerness.

IX.-At Sheerness.

At ten o'clock next morning, after a prodigious breakfast at Sheerness, Captain Barker and Captain Runacles (whose wounded arm was slung in a silk kerchief) strolled down to the waterside to have a look at the strange vessels they had so obstinately defied. They explored with especial care the unfortunate L'Heureuse, visiting first the Commodore's cabin, upon the boards of which the blood of Roderick Salt was hardly dry. It cannot be said that they felt much sorrow for his fate; for to pity a traitor was a height to which the faith of this pair of imperfect Christians did not soar. But they uttered no word of exultation, and quickly resumed their examination of the deck and hold, discussing this or that rent, debating over every splinter, proving that such and such a groove was ploughed by a ball from such and such an angle, and so on.

From the deck they descended to the long chamber where now row upon row of battered and deserted benches told of a tragedy more pitiful than any that can befall men who are free to stand up and fight for their lives.

"Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed the little hunchback, standing with his arms folded and gloomily conjuring up the scene of yesterday; "Jemmy, we must have mown the poor brutes down like swathes of meadow gra.s.s. See here-"

He bent to examine a bench along which a broadening groove ran from end to end, telling a frightful tale.

But Captain Runacles did not answer. He was standing by a battered hole in the galley's starboard side and looking down at the floor. A sunbeam fell through the hole and slanted along the planks of the flooring. His eyes were following this sunbeam, and his face was like a ghost's.

"Jemmy; come and look-here's a whole benchful accounted for at one swoop." Still Jemmy did not reply. The sunbeam drifting between the benches before him fell on a little patch of earth-a patch collected by one of the slaves whose comrades, humouring his whim, had brought him a handful or two in their pockets whenever they returned from sh.o.r.e. Upon this patch of earth were sunk the prints of a pair of feet, far apart; and between these footprints glimmered two lines of green, with two other lines uniting them.

They were two lines of pepper-cress, unharmed and fresh as if they grew in some sheltered garden, open only to the sun and rain. And as Captain Jemmy looked, the two green lines resolved themselves into two words; thus bracketed:

SOPHIA TRISTRAM

"Jemmy-Jemmy, confound you! Do you hear?"

"Yes, yes." Captain Runacles turned suddenly and took his friend by the arm. "Yes-I see-very curious. Now let's go."

"You're in a great hurry."

"Yes, I want to go up and have a look at the wounded in hospital."

"Why, what's taken you? We haven't looked at the beak yet; and that's the most important of all."

"Very well, come along, and examine it while I run up to the hospital. Come"-he took the little man's arm-"I won't be gone ten minutes."

"Now, why on earth you've taken this fancy-" began Captain Barker as he regained the deck. And then he put his hands behind him and stared; for Captain Jemmy was already hurrying away for his life.

It was fifteen minutes before he returned, and the little man was hanging over the bows with half his body over the bulwarks and his head twisted to get a better view of the formidable beak.

"Jack!"

"Oh, you're back. I say, just lean over here-"

"Jack!" Captain Runacles caught him by the coat-tails, and tore him back. "Now listen; you're not to speak; you're not to ask questions; you're not to open your mouth. You've just to come-that's all."

He took the little man and hurried him ash.o.r.e. He was breathless; but he ran Captain Barker over the gang-plank like a charging bull.

"One moment, Jemmy-Jemmy! Damme I will ask-!"

"Ask away, then-and wait for the answer!"

And so it happened that Tristram, stretched in the hospital at Sheerness, with his head to the wall, and thirty wounded men on either side of him, heard in his painless dose a sharp cry, and then a voice that seemed to call him across miles of empty s.p.a.ce.

"O! my dear G.o.d! Tristram-my son, my son!"

He opened his eyes feebly, smiled, and whispering one word-"Dad!"- sank back into a dreamless slumber.

CHAPTER XV.

BACK AT THE BLUE PAVILIONS.

Four weeks afterwards Tristram was put into a boat and taken up to London, whence after two days' rest he was removed by easy stages home to Harwich.

At the gate of Captain Barker's pavilion he pa.s.sed into the care of Dr. Beckerleg, who put him to bed at once and dared him to get up. As he was borne up the garden-path Sophia peeped through a c.h.i.n.k of the little blue door; and got not another glimpse of her lover for another six weeks.

It was a soft and sunny morning in October month when Dr. Beckerleg, having given his patient leave to dress and set foot outside the door for the first time, stepped down into the garden to seek the two captains and send them upstairs to help the invalid.

As he opened the front-door a searching odour caused him to pause in the porch and sniff. He traced this odour round to the back of the house, and there found Captain Barker, Captain Runacles and Narcissus Swiggs. Between them they had managed to clear the garden of an enormous crop of weeds, of which they were now making a bonfire. Behind the thick and yellowish coils of smoke Dr. Beckerleg could just discern the forms of the two captains. By their gestures they seemed to be engaged in an acrimonious discussion. Narcissus, little heeding, stolidly poked the bonfire with a charred stake.

"I will not!" said Captain Runacles.

"But I say that you shall!" said Captain Barker.

"The lad is yours, and yours only."

"He is yours also."

"By a cast of dice you won him."

"By law he was given back to you."