_IX.--At Sheerness._
At ten o'clock next morning, after a prodigious breakfast atSheerness, Captain Barker and Captain Runacles (whose wounded armwas slung in a silk kerchief) strolled down to the waterside to havea 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 theblood of Roderick Salt was hardly dry. It cannot be said that theyfelt much sorrow for his fate; for to pity a traitor was a height towhich the faith of this pair of imperfect Christians did not soar.But they uttered no word of exultation, and quickly resumed theirexamination of the deck and hold, discussing this or that rent,debating over every splinter, proving that such and such a groove wasploughed by a ball from such and such an angle, and so on.
From the deck they descended to the long chamber where now row uponrow of battered and deserted benches told of a tragedy more pitifulthan any that can befall men who are free to stand up and fight fortheir lives.
"Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed the little hunchback, standing withhis arms folded and gloomily conjuring up the scene of yesterday;"Jemmy, we must have mown the poor brutes down like swathes of meadowgrass. See here--"
He bent to examine a bench along which a broadening groove ran fromend to end, telling a frightful tale.
But Captain Runacles did not answer. He was standing by a batteredhole in the galley's starboard side and looking down at the floor.A sunbeam fell through the hole and slanted along the planks of theflooring. His eyes were following this sunbeam, and his face waslike a ghost's.
"Jemmy; come and look--here's a whole benchful accounted for at oneswoop." Still Jemmy did not reply. The sunbeam drifting between thebenches before him fell on a little patch of earth--a patch collectedby one of the slaves whose comrades, humouring his whim, had broughthim a handful or two in their pockets whenever they returned fromshore. Upon this patch of earth were sunk the prints of a pair offeet, far apart; and between these footprints glimmered two lines ofgreen, with two other lines uniting them.
They were two lines of pepper-cress, unharmed and fresh as if theygrew in some sheltered garden, open only to the sun and rain. And asCaptain Jemmy looked, the two green lines resolved themselves intotwo words; thus bracketed:
SOPHIA TRISTRAM
"Jemmy--Jemmy, confound you! Do you hear?"
"Yes, yes." Captain Runacles turned suddenly and took his friend bythe 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; andthat's the most important of all."
"Very well, come along, and examine it while I run up to thehospital. Come"--he took the little man's arm--"I won't be gone tenminutes."
"Now, why on earth you've taken this fancy--" began Captain Barker ashe regained the deck. And then he put his hands behind him andstared; for Captain Jemmy was already hurrying away for his life.
It was fifteen minutes before he returned, and the little man washanging over the bows with half his body over the bulwarks and hishead 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 himback. "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 ashore. 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 atSheerness, with his head to the wall, and thirty wounded men oneither side of him, heard in his painless dose a sharp cry, and thena voice that seemed to call him across miles of empty space.
"O! my dear God! Tristram--my son, my son!"
He opened his eyes feebly, smiled, and whispering one word--"Dad!"--sank back into a dreamless slumber.
The Blue Pavilions Page 20