CHAPTER VII
All that day the three boats made excellent progress, for though the wind was but light, the sea was very smooth, and a strong northerly current helped them materially.
As night approached heavy white clouds appeared on the eastern horizon—the precursors of a series of heavy rain squalls, which in those latitudes, and at that season of the year—November to March—are met with almost nightly, especially in the vicinity of the low-lying islands of the Marshall and Caroline Groups.
Then, as the sun set, the plan of murder that was in the hearts of the captain and supercargo began to work. During the day they had been unable to converse freely, for fear of being overheard by the two firemen, but now the time had come for them to act.
In all the boats’ lockers Harvey and Latour had placed a two gallon wicker-covered jar of rum, and presently Hendry hailed Oliver, whose boat was still towing astern. It was the first time that he had taken any notice of the occupants of the other boats since the morning.
“You can give your men some grog if you like, Mr. Oliver,” he said, “and you might as well hail the second mate, and tell him to do the same. I shall have to cast you off presently, as the first rain squall will be down on us, and each boat will have to take care of herself. We are bound to part company until the morning, but I rely on you and the second mate to keep head to wind during the squalls, and stick to the course I have given you between times.”
“Very well, sir.”
Chard took out the rum and filled a half-pint pannikin to the brim.
“Here you are, boys,” said he pleasantly to the two firemen, who looked gloatingly at the liquor; “this will warm you up for the drenching you will get presently.”
The unsuspecting, unfortunate men drank it off eagerly without troubling to add water, and then Chard, who feared that Hendry sober would be too great a coward for the murderous work that was to follow, poured out a stiff dose into another pannikin, and passed it to him. Then he took some himself.
“Pass along that pannikin, boys,” he said; “you might as well have a skinful while you are about it.”
The men obeyed the treacherous scoundrel with alacrity. Like their shipmates who had perished the previous night, they were thoroughly intemperate men, and were only too delighted to be able to get drunk so quickly.
Filling their pannikin, which held a pint, to the brim, Chard poured half of it into his own empty tin, and then passed them both to the men. They sat down together on the bottom boards amidships, and then raised the pannikins.
“Here’s good luck to you, Mr. Chard, and you, skipper.”
“Good luck, men,” replied Hendry, watching them keenly as they swallowed mouthful after mouthful of the fiery stuff, which from its strength was known to the crew of the Motutapu as “hell boiled down to a small half-pint.”
Ten minutes passed, and then as the darkness encompassed the three boats, a sudden puff of wind came from the eastward. Hendry hailed the mate.
“Here’s a squall coming, Mr. Oliver; haul in your painter.”
He cast off the tow line, and Chard lowered the mainsail and jib, the two firemen taking not the slightest notice as they continued to swallow the rum.
In another five minutes the white wall of the hissing rain squall was upon them, and everything was hidden from view. Hendry swung his boat’s head round, and let her drive before it. The other boats, he knew, would keep head on to the squall, and in half an hour he would be a couple of miles away from them.
The captain’s boat drove steadily before the rushing wind, and the stinging, torrential rain soon covered the bottom boards with half a foot of water. Chard took the bailer, and began to bail out, taking no heed of the firemen, who were lying in the water in a drunken stupor, overcome by the rum.
At last the rain ceased, and the sky cleared as if by magic, though but few stars were visible. Chard went on bailing steadily. Presently he rose, came aft, took a seat beside Hendry and looked stealthily into his face.
“Well?” muttered the captain inquiringly, as if he were afraid that the two poor wretches who but a few feet away lay like dead men might awaken.
For the moment Chard made no answer, but putting out his hand he gripped Hendry by the arm.
“Did you hear what Carr and Atkins said?” he asked in a fierce whisper.
Hendry’s sullen eyes gleamed vindictively as he nodded assent.
“Well, they mean it—if we are fools enough to give them the chance of doing it. And by God, Louis, I tell you that it means hanging for us both; if not hanging, imprisonment for life in Darlinghurst Gaol. We shot the niggers, right enough, and every man of the crew of the Motutapu, from Oliver down to Carr’s servant, will go dead against us.”
He paused a moment. “This has happened at a bad time for us, Louis. Two years ago Thorne, the skipper of the Trustful, labour schooner, his mate, second mate, boatswain and four hands were cast for death for firing into native canoes in the New Hebrides. And although none of them were hanged they are rotting in prison now, and will die in prison.”
“I know,” answered the captain in a whisper. “Thorne was reprieved and got a life-sentence, the other chaps got twenty-one years.”
“And I tell you, Louis, that if you and I face a jury we shall stand a worse chance than Jim Thorne and his crowd did. The whole crew will go dead against us, and swear there was no attempt to mutiny—that girl and her servant too, and Jessop as well. Jessop would give us away in any case over the cause of the fire, if he said nothing else. It’s their lives or ours.”
“What is it to be?” muttered Hendry, drawing the steer oar inboard, and putting his eager, cruel eyes close to Chard’s face.
“This is what it must be. You and I, Louis, will be ‘the only survivors of the “Motutapu” which took fire at sea. All hands escaped in the three boats, but only the captain’s boat, containing himself and the supercargo, succeeded in reaching Ponapé after terrible hardships. The mate’s and second mate’s boats, with all their occupants, have undoubtedly been lost.’ That is what the newspapers will say, Louis, and it will be quite true, as all those in the other boats will perish. By sunrise tomorrow none of the ship’s company but you and I must be alive.”
“How are we going to do it?”
“Wait till nearly daylight, and then we can get within range of them, and pick them off one by one, if there is a good breeze. If there is no wind and we cannot keep going, we must put it off for the time. There’s two hundred and thirty Winchester and Snider cartridges in that handkerchief—I’ve counted them—and we can make short work of them.”
“What about these fellows?” said Hendry, inclining his head towards the drunken firemen.
“They go first. They must go overboard in the next squall, which will be upon us in a few minutes. Take another drink, Louis, and don’t shake so, or—” and Chard grasped Hendry by the collar and spoke with sudden fury—“or by God, I’ll settle you first, and do the whole thing myself!”
“I’ll do it, Sam; I’ll do it.”
Again the hissing rain and the hum of the squall was upon them as the ocean was blotted out from view.
“Now,” said Chard—“quick.” They sprang forward together, lifted the unconscious men one by one, and threw them over the side.
“Run up the jib,” said Hendry hoarsely; “let us get further away.”
“You rotten-hearted Dutch cur,” and Chard seized the captain by the beard with his left hand and clenched his right threateningly, “brace yourself up, or I’ll ring your neck like a fowl’s, and send you overboard after them. Think of your wife and family—and of the hangman’s noose dangling between you and them.”
Throughout the night the rain squalls swept the ocean at almost hourly intervals, with more or less violence, but were never of long enough duration to raise more than a short, lumpy sea, which quickly subsided.
About an hour before dawn, however, a more than usually heavy bank formed to windward, and Harvey, with Huka and the other natives, could see that there was more wind in it than would be safe for the mate’s boat, which was deep in the water, owing to the number of people in her. Oliver agreed with them that they should tranship three or four of their number into the second mate’s boat.
“Better be sure than sorry, Carr,” he said; “can any one of you see Mr. Atkin’s boat?”
Nothing could be seen or heard of her until a boat lantern was hoisted on an oar by Oliver, and a few seconds after was responded to by Atkins soaking a piece of woollen cloth in rum, wrapping it round the point of a boathook, and setting it alight. Its flash revealed him half a mile away to leeward. Hendry and Chard, who by this time were quite three miles distant, saw the blazing light, and the latter wondered what it meant.
“They have parted company, I think,” said Hendry, “and as the mate’s boat is too deep I daresay he wants Atkins to take some of his people before this big squall comes down. It’s going to be an ugly fellow this, and we’ll have to drive again. I wish it would swamp ‘em both. The sharks would save us a lot of trouble then.”
As quickly as possible Oliver paddled down to Atkins, and Harvey, Latour, Huka, and another native got into the second mate’s boat.
“We’ll have to run before this, Atkins,” said the mate, alluding to the approaching squall; “it will last a couple of hours or more by the look of it. Are you very wet, Miss Remington?”
“Very, Mr. Oliver,” answered the girl, with a laugh; “but I don’t mind it a bit, as the rain is not cold. I am too old a ‘sailor man’ to mind a wetting. Are you all quite well? I can’t see your face, Mr. Studdert, nor yours, Mr. Morrison, it is so dark. Oh, Mr. Studdert, I wish I had one of your cigarettes to smoke.”
“I wish I had one to give you, miss,” answered the pale-faced young engineer. “A pipe is no to my liking, but I fear me I’ll have to tackle one in the morning.”
Alas, poor Studdert, little did he know that the morning, now so near, was to be his last.
“Goodbye for the present, Miss Remington,” called out Oliver as the boats again separated. “Take good care of her, Harvey, and of yoursels too. He’ll be getting an attack of the shakes in the morning, miss, after all this wetting. Give him plenty of rum, my dear, whether he likes it or not. You’re a plucky little lady, and next to having you in my own boat I am glad to see you with Atkins. Cheer up, lads, one and all; we’ll have the sun out in another hour.”
Half an hour later both boats were driving before the fury of the squall, and the crews had to keep constantly bailing, for this time the violence of the wind was such that, despite the most careful steering of the two officers, large bodies of water came over amidships, and threatened to swamp the boats.
When dawn came the sky was again as clear as it had been on the previous morning, and Atkins stood up and looked for the captain’s and mate’s boats.
“There they are, Harvey,” and he pointed to the westward; “the skipper is under sail, and making back towards Oliver. Well, that’s one thing about him, dog as he is—he’s a thorough sailor man, and is standing back to take Oliver in tow again.”
At this time the captain’s boat was about three miles distant from that of the second mate, and Oliver’s between the two, but much nearer to Hendry and Chard’s than to Atkins’s. She was under both mainsail and jib, and as the sea was again very smooth was slipping through the water very quickly under a now steady breeze, as she stood towards the mate’s boat.
As the red sun burst from the ocean Atkins told the crew to cease pulling for a few minutes and get something to eat. The men were all in good humour, though they yet meant to wreak their vengeance on Chard and Hendry for the murder of their shipmates. The wounded man who had been put in Oliver’s boat they knew had also died, and this had still further inflamed them. But for the present they said nothing, but ate their biscuit and tinned beef in cheerful silence, after waiting for Tessa and Maoni to begin. Huka, their recognised leader, and Malua, Harvey’s servant, had both assured them that the captain and Chard would be brought to punishment, but this assurance was not satisfactory to the majority of them. One of them, the big Manhikian who had helped Latour to rescue Tessa and Maoni from their cabin, was a brother of the man who had just died from his wounds in Oliver’s boat, and he had, during the night, promised his shipmates to take his own and give them their utu (revenge) before the boats reached Ponapé.
“Turn to again, boys,” said Atkins presently, as soon as the men had satisfied their hunger; “we must catch up to the others now.”
The natives bent to their oars again, and sent the boat along at a great rate, when suddenly Harvey heard the sound of firearms. He stood up and looked ahead.
“Good God!” he cried, “look there, Atkins! The captain and Chard are firing into Oliver’s boat!”
Even as he spoke the repeated crackling of Winchester rifles could be heard, and the mate’s boat seemed to be in great confusion, and her occupants were paddling away from their assailants, who, however, were following them up closely at a distance of about fifty yards.
“Pull, men, pull! For God’s sake, lay into it! The captain and firemen are murdering Mr. Oliver and his party.”
The seamen uttered a shout of rage, and made the boat leap through the water as now, in addition to the sharp crackle of the Winchesters, they heard the heavier report of a Snider, and Harvey, jumping up on the after whaleback, and steadying himself with one hand on Atkins’s shoulder, saw that only two or three of Oliver’s crew were now paddling—the rest had been shot down.
“We’ll never get there in time, Atkins,” he cried, “unless we can hit those who are firing. It’s Chard and the skipper! Let Huka steer.”
In a few seconds the change was effected. Huka took the steer-oar, two of the after-oars were double-banked, and Atkins and Harvey sprang forward with their Sniders, and began firing at the captain’s boat, though at a range which gave them little chance of hitting her. Every moment, however, the distance was decreasing, and the two men fired steadily and carefully. But the Winchesters still cracked for another five minutes. Then the fire from the captain’s boat ceased as a shot from Atkins’s rifle smashed into her amidships. She was suddenly put before the wind, and then Chard came aft, and began firing at the approaching boat with his Snider, in the hope of disabling her, so that he and his fellow-murderer (now that their plan of utterly destroying all the occupants of both boats had been so unexpectedly frustrated) might escape.
But the work of slaughter in which he had just been engaged and the rolling of the boat, together with the continuous hum of bullets overhead, made his aim wild, and neither the second mate’s boat nor any of its people were hit, and she swept along to the rescue.
CHAPTER VIII
An exclamation of horror burst from Harvey as the boat, with its panting crew, dashed up alongside that of the chief mate.
“For God’s sake, Tessa, do not look!” he cried hoarsely.
For the half-sunken boat was a shambles, and of her nine occupants only three were alive—the second steward Jessop, Morrison, and Oliver himself. The latter lay in the stern sheets with a bullet hole through his chest, and a smashed hip; he had but just time to raise his hand in mute farewell to Harvey and Atkins, and then breathed his last.
Morrison, whose spine was broken by a Winchester bullet, but who was perfectly conscious, was at once lifted out and placed in Atkins’s boat, and Tessa, with the tears streaming down her pale face, and trying hard to restrain her sobs, pillowed his old, grey head upon Atkins’s coat. Then Jessop, who was evidently still in agony from his broken ribs, one of which, so Morrison said in a faint voice, had, he thought, been driven into his lungs, was placed beside him.
Poor Studdert and the five native seamen were dead, some of them having received as many as five or six bullet wounds. Studdert himself had been shot through the head, and lay for’ard with his pale face upturned to the sky, and his eyes closed as if in a peaceful sleep.
The boat had been pierced in several places below the water-line by Snider bullets, and by the time Morrison and Jessop had been removed, and Harvey and Atkins had satisfied themselves that the other seven men in her were dead, she was nearly full of water—not the clear, bright water of the ocean alone, but water deeply stained with the blood of the murdered men.
“We must cast off,” said Atkins in a low voice, “we can do no more.”
As he spoke a bullet from Chard’s Snider struck the water about thirty yards away, and springing up, he seized his own rifle again.
Huka placed his hand on the officer’s arm, and then turned to Harvey and spoke in Samoan, gravely and with solemn emphasis, though his brown cheeks were wetted with tears.
“Let us take no heed of the bullets that come. Here be six dead men whose souls have gone to God for judgment. Let us pray for them.”
Atkins, his blazing eyes fixed on the captain’s boat, from which every few seconds a bullet came humming overhead, or striking the water within a few yards, laid down the rifle and took off his cap.
“Go ahead, Huka. You’re a better Christian than me. Sling out a prayer for these poor chaps as quick as you can. We can’t bury them in a decent, shipshape fashion.”
Two men stepped into the sinking, shot-torn boat, and then Huka stood up amidships among his comrades, with bowed head, and his hands crossed upon his great naked chest. He prayed in Samoan.
“O Jehovah, who holdeth the great sea in the hollow of Thy hand, we commit to its depths these the bodies of our shipmates who have been slain. O Father’, most just and most merciful, let them become of Thy kingdom. Amen.”
Then, one by one, the bodies of Studdert and of the five natives were dropped overboard by the two seamen as reverently as circumstances permitted, and in silence broken only by the suppressed sobbing of the two girls.
Such stores as were in poor Oliver’s boat were next taken out, and then the wrecked and bloodstained craft was cast adrift and left to fill.
As the second mate grasped the haft of the steer-oar again another shot from the captain’s boat fell some distance ahead.
“He’s running away from us as fast as he can,” said Harvey; “look, he’s hauled up a couple of points!”
“Ay, so he has. And our short Sniders won’t carry any further than the one he’s firing with, so we have no chance of hitting him, I’m afraid. However, just let us try. How many Sniders have we?”
“Seven.”
“Avast pulling, lads. We’ll give him a parting shot together. Maybe we might drop a bullet into him. Get out the other five Sniders, Harvey; the Winchesters are no use at such a range.”
The boat was swung broadside on, and the two white men and five natives fired a volley together. Tessa stood up on the after-thwart, and watched through Atkin’s glasses; the heavy bullets all fell short.
“Never mind, lads,” said Atkins. “God Almighty ain’t going to let those two men escape. Now, Harvey, what about ourselves? What is it to be? Ponape, or the nearest land?”
“The nearest land, tor Gawd’s sake,” sobbed Jessop. “I ain’t got long to live, and for Christ’s sake don’t chuck me overboard to be chawed up by the sharks like a piece o’ dead meat.”
“Man,” said a faint voice beside him, “ye’re ower particular, I’m thinking. And it would be a verra hungry shark that wad hae the indecency to eat such a puir chicken-hearted creature as yourself, ye miserable cur! Are ye no ashamed to be whining before the two lasses?”
It was the dying Morrison who spoke. Tessa bent over him. “Do not be angry with him,” she whispered, “he is in great agony.”
“Ay, I hae no doubt he’s in verra great pain; but ye see, my dear, I’m auld and crotchety, and the creature’s verra annoying wi’ his whining and moaning and fearsome blasphemy.”
Tessa, who knew as well as the brave old man knew himself that he was dying, placed her soft hand on his rugged brow in silent sympathy; he looked up at her with a cheerful smile.
Harvey and Atkins consulted. Ponapé was between four and five hundred miles distant, a long voyage for a deeply-laden boat without a sail. Two hundred miles to the westward was Pikirami Atoll (the “Greenwich Island” of the charts), and a hundred and eighty miles north of that was Nukuor, the most southerly of the vast archipelago of the Caroline Islands.
“I don’t know what is best for us to do, Atkins,” said the trader. “At this time of the year we can count upon every night being such as it was last night, perhaps a great deal worse; and we must either turn tail to the squalls or put out a sea anchor and drift. This means that we’ll make no headway at all at night time, and be set steadily to the westward, and out of our course for Ponapé. If we had a sail it would be right enough, as we could lay up for there—within a couple of points anyway. But we have no sail, and willing as the men are to pull, it will be terribly exhausting.”
Atkins nodded. “Just so, Mr. Carr. If, as you say, we had a sail it would be different. Without one it may take us a fortnight or more to get to Ponapé.”
“Quite. Now on the other hand, Pikirami Lagoon lies less than a hundred and fifty miles dead to leeward of us. It is low, but I don’t think we shall miss it if we steer W. by S., as on the south end there is a coral mound about a hundred feet high. If we do miss it we can steer south for New Ireland; we can’t miss that if we tried to, and would get there sooner than we could reach Ponapé. Then there is another advantage in our making for Pikirami—we can run before the night squalls, and the harder they blow the better it will be for us—we’ll get there all the sooner.”
Then Harvey went on to say that at Piki-rami—which he knew well—they would meet with a friendly reception from the few natives who inhabited two islets out of the thirty which formed the atoll. Twice every year the place was visited by a small German trading schooner from Blanche Bay, in New Britain, and possibly, he thought, they might either find her there loading a cargo of copra; or, if not, they could wait for her. In the latter case he would on Tessa’s behalf charter the vessel to take them all to Ponapé, for her father’s name and credit were well known from one end of the Pacific to the other, and there would be no difficulty in making terms with the master.
Atkins agreed willingly to Harvey’s suggestions, for he well knew the great risks that would attend the attempt to reach Ponapé under such circumstances as were theirs; and the native crew, much as they wished to pursue the captain and wreak their vengeance upon him and the supercargo, readily acquiesced in Harvey’s plan of steering for Pikirami Lagoon in when he pointed out to them the difficulties and dangers that lay before them by making for Ponapé, or, indeed, any other island of the Caroline Group.
“And those men there,” said Harvey, speaking in Samoan, and pointing to the captain’s boat, which was now more than a mile distant, “cannot escape punishment for their crimes; for is not this the word of God: ‘Thou shalt do no murder’? And those two men have done murder, and God will call them to account.”
Roka, the big Manhikian native, whose brother had been killed, answered for himself and his comrades in the same tongue.
“Ay, that is true. But yet it is hard that I, whose brother’s blood is before my eyes and the smell of it in my nostrils, cannot see these men die. How can we tell, master, that men will judge them for their crimes? They are sailing away, and may reach some country far distant, and so be safe.”
Harvey partly assented. “They may escape for a time, Roka, but not for long. Rest assured of that.”
Then a tot of rum was served out to each man, and the boat’s head put W. by S. for Pikirami Lagoon, while Tessa and Maoni set to work under Atkins’s directions to sew together some odd pieces of calico and navy blue print, which Latour the steward had fortunately thrust into the sack containing the firearms. When it was completed it made a fairly sized squaresail, which could always be used during light winds.
The captain’s boat had disappeared from view, when Jessop the second steward beckoned to Harvey to come to him.
“Ask the young lady to go for’ard, mister, will you?” he said, turning his haggard eyes upon the trader’s face. “I feel as ‘ow I’m goin’, an’ I said I would make a clean breast of it. But I don’t want ‘er to ‘ear; do ye twig, mister, though I’ll tell you and Mr. Hatkins?”
Harvey nodded, and whispered to Tessa to go for’ard. “The poor little beggar is dying, Tessa, and has something to tell me.”
Tessa and Maoni went for’ard and sat down under the shade of the newly-made mainsail, which was hoisted upon an oar with a bamboo yard. There they were quite out of hearing of the vile confession of Jessop’s complicity with Chard and the captain made by the wretched man, who was now sinking fast, and knew that his hours were numbered, for, as Morrison had surmised, one of his lungs was fatally injured. And when he had finished the low-spoken tale of his villainy even the rough-natured Atkins was filled with pity when he saw how the poor wretch was suffering, both physically and mentally.
“You’ve done right, Jessop, in telling us this; it’ll be all the better for you when you have to stand before the Almighty, won’t it, Mr. Carr?”
“Yes, indeed, Jessop,” said Harvey kindly; “and I wish we could do something to alleviate your pain, poor fellow!”
“Never mind, sir. You’re a gent if ever there was one, and you ‘as taken away a lot o’ the pain I’ve ‘ad in me ‘eart by forgivin’ me. And perhaps the young lady will just let me tell ‘er I’m sorry, and give me ‘er ‘and before I go.”
Atkins beckoned to Tessa, who came quickly aft and knelt beside the dying man, who looked into her soft, sympathetic face longingly yet fearfully.
“I’m a bad lot, miss, as Mr. Carr will tell you when I’m dead. It was me that give you and Monny the drugged coffee, and I want you to forgive me, an’ give me your ‘and.”
Tessa looked wonderingly at Harvey, who bent towards her and whispered a few words. In an instant she took Jessop’s hand between both of hers.
“Poor Jessop,” she said softly, “I forgive you freely, and I do hope you will get better soon.”
He looked at her with dimmed, wistful eyes. “Thank you, miss. You’re very kind to a cove like me. Will you ‘old me ‘and a bit longer, please.”
Early in the afternoon, as the boat slipped lazily over the gentle ocean swell, he died. And though Atkins and Harvey would have liked to have acceded to his last wishes to be buried on shore, stern necessity forbade them so doing, for they knew not how long it would be ere they reached Pikirami; and so at sunset his body was consigned to the deep.
For the rest of that day, and during the night, when the white rain squalls came with a droning, angry hum from the eastward and drenched the people with a furious downpour, flattening the heaving swell with its weight, the boat kept steadily on her course; and, but for the shadow of death which hourly grew darker over poor Morrison, the voyagers would have talked and laughed and made light of their sodden and miserable surroundings. Morrison himself was the most cheerful man in the boat, and when Atkins and Harvey rigged an oilskin coat over him to keep the rain from his face at least he protested as vigorously as he could, saying that he did not mind the rain a bit, and urging them to use it to protect “the two lassies” from the blinding and deafening downpour.
Dawn at last.
The misty sea haze lifted and scattered before the first breath of the gentle breeze, a blood-red sun leapt from the shimmering water-line to windward; a frigate bird and his mate swept swiftly through the air from the westward to view the dark spot upon the ocean two thousand feet below, and day had come again.
Tessa had the engineer’s old, grey head pillowed on her lap. Harvey held his right hand, and Atkins, who knew that the end was near, had taken off his soddened cap, and bent his face low over the haft of the steer-oar.
“Do you feel any pain, Mr. Morrison?” asked Tessa, as she stroked the old man’s face, and tried to hide her tears.
“Well, I wouldna be for saying no, and I wouldna be for saying yes, my dearie,” replied the brave old fellow; “I’m no complaining aboot mysel’, but I’d like to see ye ‘saft and warm,’ as we Scots say, instead of sitting here wi’ my auld, greasy head in your lap, and your ain puir body shivering wi’ cauld. Gie me your hand, Harvey Carr… and yours too, Miss Remington.... May God guide ye both together; and you too, Atkins, for ye are a guid sailor man, and a honest one, too. And if ye can get to this lagoon in time—ye know what I mean—ye’ll pit my auld bones under God’s earth and no cast me overboard?”
Atkins was beside him in a moment. “Brace up, Morrison, old man, you’re a long way off dead yet,” he said, with rough sympathy.
“Nay, Atkins, I’m verra near… verra near. But I hae no fear. I’m no afraid of what is to come; because I hae a clean sheet o’ my life to show to the Almighty—I’m no like that puir devil Jessop. Harvey man, listen to me. Long, long ago, when I was a bairn at my mother’s knee, I read a vairse of poetry which has never come to my mind till now, when I’m verra near my Maker, I canna repeat the exact words, but I think it goes like this,” he whispered,
“‘He who, from zone to zone, Guides o’er the trackless main the sea-bird’s flight, In the long way that I must tread alone Will guide my steps aright.’”
“May God guide us all as He guides the sea-bird, and as He has guided you,” said Tessa sobbingly, as she pressed her lips to his cheek.
Morrison took her hand and held it tightly,
“God help and bless ye, lassie. May ye and Harvey never see the shadow of a sorrow in your lives. Atkins, ye’ll tak’ guid care to remember that there is a hundred and sixty-three pounds due to me frae Hillingdon and MacFreeland, and that if ye do not care to take it yoursel’, it must go to auld John Cameron, the sailors’ parson in Sydney. Ye hae ony amount of witnesses to hear what I’m now telling ye. I’m no for being long wi’ ye, and I dinna want yoursel’ nor auld Jock Cameron to be robbed.”