What, man? Cheer up! The world’s no done; you’ve made a bad start of it but you’ll make a better. Have you had any meat?’
I said I could not look at it: and thereupon he gave me some brandy and water in a tin pannikin, and left me once more to myself.
The next time he came to see me I was lying betwixt sleep and waking. I ached in every limb, and the cords that bound me seemed to be of fire. I had suffered tortures of fear, now from the scurrying of the ship’s rats that sometimes pattered on my very face and from the dismal imaginings that haunt the bed of fever.
The glimmer of the lantern, as a trap opened, shone in like the heaven’s sunlight. The man with the green eyes was the first to descend the ladder, and I noticed that he came somewhat unsteadily. He was followed by the captain. Neither said a word; but the first set to and examined me, and dressed my wound as before, while Hoseason looked me in my face with an odd, black look.
‘Now, sir, you see for yourself,’ said the first: ‘a high fever, no appetite, no light, no meat: you see for yourself what that means. I want that boy taken out of this hole and put in the forecastle,’ said Riach.
‘What ye may want, sir, is a matter of concern to nobody but yoursel’, returned the captain; ‘but I can tell ye that which is to be. Here he is; here he shall bide,’ he added, in a sharper note, and set one foot upon the ladder.
But Mr. Riach caught him by the sleeve.
‘Admitting that you have been paid to do a murder —’ he began.
Hoseason turned upon him with a flash. ‘What’s that?’ he cried. ‘What kind of talk is that?’
‘It seems it is the talk that you can understand,’ said Mr. Riach, looking him steadily in the face.
‘Mr. Riach, I have sailed with ye three cruises,’ replied the captain. ‘In all that time, sir, ye should have learned to know me: I’m a stiff man, and a dour man; but for what ye say the now – fie, fie! – it comes from a bad heart and a black conscience. If ye say the lad will die —’
‘Ay, will he!’ said Mr. Riach.
‘Well, sir, is not that enough?’ said Hoseason. ‘Flit him where ye please!’
Thereupon the captain ascended the ladder; and I, who had lain silent throughout this strange conversation, beheld Mr. Riach turn after him and bow as low as to his knees in what was plainly a spirit of derision. Even in my then state of sickness, I perceived two things: that the mate was touched with liquor and that (drunk or sober) he was like to prove a valuable friend.
Five minutes afterwards my bonds were cut, I was hoisted on a man’s back, carried up to the forecastle, and laid in a bunk on some sea-blankets; where the first thing that I did was to lose my senses.
Here I lay for the space of many days a close prisoner, and not only got my health again, but came to know my companions. They were a rough lot indeed, as sailors mostly are. There were some among them that had sailed with the pirates and seen things it would be a shame even to speak of; some were men that had run from the king’s ships, and went with a halter round their necks, of which they made no secret; and all, as the saying goes, were ‘at a word and a blow’ with their best friends. Yet I had not been many days shut up with them before I began to be ashamed of my first judgment, when I thought they had been unclean beasts. Rough they were, sure enough; and bad, I suppose; but they had many virtues. They were kind when it occurred to them, simple even beyond the simplicity of a country lad like me, and had some glimmerings of honesty.
Among other good deeds that they did, they returned my money, which had been shared among them; and though it was about a third short, I was very glad to get it, and hoped great good from it in the land I was going to. The ship was bound for the Carolinas; In those days of my youth, white men were still sold into slavery on the plantations, and that was the destiny to which my wicked uncle had condemned me.
The cabin-boy Ransome (from whom I had first heard of these atrocities) came in at times from the round-house, where he berthed and served, now nursing a bruised limb in silent agony, now raving against the cruelty of Mr. Shuan. It made my heart bleed; but the men had a great respect for the chief mate, who was, as they said, ‘the only seaman of the whole jing-bang, and none such a bad man when he was sober.’
I did my best in the small time allowed me to make something like a man, or rather I should say something like a boy, of the poor creature, Ransome. But his mind was scarce truly human. He could remember nothing of the time before he came to sea. He had a strange notion of the dry land, picked up from sailor’s stories: that it was a place where lads were put to some kind of slavery called a trade, and where apprentices were continually lashed and clapped into foul prisons. To be sure, I would tell him how kindly I had myself been used upon that dry land he was so much afraid of, and how well fed and carefully taught both by my friends and my parents: and if he had been recently hurt, he would weep bitterly and swear to run away; but if he was in his usual crackbrain humour, or (still more) if he had had a glass of spirits in the round-house, he would deride the notion.
All this time, you should know, the Covenant was meeting continual head-winds and tumbling up and down against head-seas, so that the scuttle was almost constantly shut, and the forecastle lighted only by a swinging lantern on a beam. I was never allowed to set my foot on deck, you can picture to yourselves how weary of my life I grew to be, and how impatient for a change.
And a change I was to get, as you shall hear; but I must first tell of a conversation I had with Mr. Riach, which put a little heart in me to bear my troubles. Getting him in a favourable stage of drink (for indeed he never looked near me when he was sober), I pledged him to secrecy, and told him my whole story.
He declared it was like a ballad; that he would do his best to help me; that I should have paper, pen, and ink, and write one line to Mr. Campbell and another to Mr. Rankeillor; and that if I had told the truth, ten to one he would be able (with their help) to pull me through and set me in my rights.
‘And in the meantime,’ says he, ‘keep your heart up. You’re not the only one, I’ll tell you that. There’s many a man hoeing tobacco over-seas that should be mounting his horse at his own door at home; many and many! And life is all a variorum, at the best. Look at me: I’m a laird’s son and more than half a doctor, and here I am, man-Jack[41] to Hoseason!’
I thought it would be civil to ask him for his story.
He whistled loud.
‘Never had one,’ said he. ‘I like fun, that’s all.’ And he skipped out of the forecastle.
Chapter VIII
The Round-House
One night, about eleven o’clock, a man of Mr. Riach’s watch (which was on deck) came below for his jacket; and instantly there began to go a whisper about the forecastle that ‘Shuan had done for him at last.’ There was no need of a name; we all knew who was meant; but we had scarce time to get the idea rightly in our heads, far less to speak of it, when the scuttle was again flung open, and Captain Hoseason came down the ladder. He looked sharply round the bunks in the tossing light of the lantern; and then, walking straight up to me, he addressed me, to my surprise, in tones of kindness.
‘My man,’ said he, ‘we want ye to serve in the roundhouse. You and Ransome are to change berths. Run away aft with ye.’
Even as he spoke, two seamen appeared in the scuttle, carrying Ransome in their arms; and the ship at that moment giving a great sheer
man-Jack – помощник, слуга
