Confessions Of Con Cregan Part 18

"Save him! Save him! She's killing him!" were now heard on every side; but none dared to fire for fear of wounding me, and the terrible rage of the animal deterred all from approaching her. The struggle was now a life-and-death one; and alternately falling and rolling, we fought--I cannot tell how, for the blood blinded me as it came from a wound in my forehead; and I only felt one firm purpose in my heart: "If I fall, she shall not survive me." Several of the sailors came near enough to strike her with their cutla.s.ses; but these wounds only increased her rage, and I cried to them to desist.

"Shoot her! put a bullet through her!" cried Halkett. "Let none dare to shoot her!" cried Sir Dudley, loudly. I just heard these words, as, after a fierce struggle, in which she had seized me by the shoulder, I fell against the bulwark. With a last effort I staggered to my knees, flung open the gangway, and then, with an exertion that to myself seemed my very last on earth, I seized her by the throat and hurled her backwards into the sea. On 'hands and knees I leaned forward to see her as the rapid Gulf-stream, hurrying onward to the ocean, bore her away; and then, as my sight grew fainter, I fell back upon the deck, and believed I was dying.

CHAPTER XI. MEANS AND MEDITATIONS

It was the second evening after my lion adventure, and I was stretched in my hammock in a low, half-torpid state, not a limb nor a joint in all my body that had not its own peculiar pain; while a sharp wound in my neck, and another still deeper one in the fleshy part of my shoulder, had just begun that process called "union,"--one which, I am bound to say, however satisfactory in result, is often very painful in its progress. The slightest change of position gave me intolerable anguish, as I lay, with closed eyes and crossed hands, not a bad resemblance of those stone saints one sees upon old tombstones.

My faculties were clear and acute, so that, having abundant leisure for the occupation, I had nothing better to do than take a brief retrospect of my late life. Such reviews are rarely satisfactory, or rather, one rarely thinks of making them when the "score of the past" is in our favor. Up to this moment it was clear I had gained little but experience; I had started light, and I had acquired nothing, save a somewhat worse opinion of the world and a greater degree of confidence in myself. I had but one way of balancing my account with Fortune, which was by asking myself, "Would I undo the past, if in my power? Would I wish once more to be back in my 'father's mud edifice,' now digging a drain, now drawing an indictment,--a kind of pastoral pettifogger, with one foot in a potato furrow, and the other in petty sessions?" I stoutly said, "No!" a thousand times "no!" to this question.

I could not ask myself as to my preference for a university career, for my college life had concluded abruptly, in spite of me; but still, during my town experiences I saw enough to leave me no regrets at having quitted the muses. The life of a "skip," as the Trinity men have it,--_vice_ gyp., for the Greek word signifying a "vulture,"--is only removed by a thin sheet of silver paper from that of a cabin boy in a collier; copious pummelling and short prog being the first two articles of your warrant; while in some respects the marine has a natural advantage over him on sh.o.r.e. A skip is invariably expected to invent lies "at discretion" for his master's benefit, and is always thrashed when they are either discovered or turn out adverse. On this point his education is perfectly "Spartan;" but, unhappily too, he is expected to be a perfect mirror of truth on all other occasions. This is somewhat hard, inasmuch as it is only in a man's graduate course that he learns to defend a paradox, and support by good reasons what he knows to be false.

Again a "skip" never receives clothes, but is flogged at least once a week for disorders in his dress, and for general untidiness of appearance; this, too, is hard, since he has as little intercourse with soap as he has with conic sections.

Thirdly, a good skip invariably obtains credit for his master at "Foles's" chop-house; while, in his own proper capacity, he would not get trust for a cheese-paring.

Fourthly, a skip is supposed to be born a valet, as some are born poets,--to have an instinctive apt.i.tude for all the details of things he has never seen or heard of before; so that when he applies Warren's patent to French leather boots, polishes silver with a Bath brick, blows the fire with a quarto, and cuts candles with a razor, he finds it pa.s.sing strange that he should be "had up" for punishment. To be fat without food, to be warm without fire, to be wakeful without sleep, to be clad without clothes, to be known as a vagabond, and to pa.s.s current for unblemished honesty, to be praised as a liar, and then thrashed for lying,--is too much to expect at fifteen years of age.

Lastly, as to Betty's I had no regrets. The occupation of horse-boy, like the profession of physic, has no "avenir." The utmost the most aspiring can promise to himself is to hold more horses than his neighbors, as the Doctor's success is to order more "senna." There is nothing beyond these; no higher path opens to him who feels the necessity for an "upward course." It is a ladder with but one round to it! No, no; I was right to "sell out" there.

My steeplechase might have led to something,--that is, I might have become a jockey; but then, again, one's light weight, like a "contralto"

voice, is sure to vanish after a year or two; and then, from the heyday of popularity, you sink down into a bad groom or a fourth-rate tenor, just as if, after reaching a silk gown at the bar, a man had to begin life again as crier in the Exchequer! Besides, in all these various walks I should have had the worst of all "trammels," a patron. Now, if any resolve had thoroughly fixed itself in my mind, it was this: never to have a patron, never to be bound to any man who, because he had once set you on your legs, should regulate the pace you were to walk through a long life. To do this, one should be born without a particle of manhood's spirit,--absolutely without volition; otherwise you go through life a living lie, talking sentiments that are not yours, and wearing a livery in your heart as well as on your back!

Why do we hear such tirades about the ingrat.i.tude of men, who, being once a.s.sisted by others,--their inferiors in everything save gold,--soar above the low routine of toadyism, and rise into personal independence?

Let us remember that the contract was never a fair one, and that a whole life's degradation is a heavy sum to pay for a dinner with his Grace, or a cup of tea with her Highness. "My Lord," I am aware, thinks differently; and it is one of the very pleasant delusions of his high station to fancy that little folk are dependent upon him,--what consequence they obtain among their fellows by his recognition in public, or by his most careless nod in the street. But "my Lord" does not know that this is a paper currency that represents no capital, that it is not convertible at will, and is never a legal tender; and consequently, as a requital for actual _bona fide_ services, is about as honest a payment as a flash note.

It was no breach of my principle that I accepted Sir Dudley's offer. Our acquaintance began by my rendering him a service; and I was as free to leave him that hour, and, I own, as ready to do so, if occasion permitted, as he could be to get rid of me; and it was not long before the occasion presented itself for exercising these views.

As I lay thus, ruminating on my past fortunes, Halkett descended the steerage-ladder, followed by Felborg, the Dane; and, approaching my hammock, held a light to my face for a few seconds. "Still asleep?" said Halkett. "Poor boy! he has never awoke since I dressed his wound this morning. I 'm sure it's better; so let us leave him so."

"Ay, ay," said the Dane, "let him sleep; bad tidings come soon enough, without one's being awoke to hear them. But do you think he 'll do it?"

added he, with lower and more anxious tone.

"He has said so; and I never knew him fail in his promise when it was a cruel one."

"Have you no influence over him, Halkett? Could you not speak for the boy?"

"I have done all I could,--more than perhaps it was safe to do. I told him I could n't answer for the men, if he were to shoot him on board; and he replied to me short, 'I 'll take the fellow ash.o.r.e with me alone; neither you nor they have any right to question what you are not to witness.'"

"Well, when I get back to Elsinore, it's to a prison and heavy irons I shall go for life, that's certain; but I 'd face it all rather than live the life we've done now for twenty months past."

"Hush! speak low!" said the other. "I suppose others are weary of it as well as you. Many a man has to live a bad life just because he started badly."

"I 'm sorry for the boy!" sighed the Dane; "he was a bold and fearless fellow."

"I am sorry for him too. It was an evil day for him when he joined us.

Well, well, what would he have become if he had lived a year or two on board!"

"He has no father nor mother," said the Dane, "that's something. I lost mine, too, when I was nine years old; and it made me the reckless devil I became ever after. I was n't sixteen when the crew of the 'Tre-Kroner'

mutinied, and I led the party that cut down the first lieutenant. It was a moonlight night, just as it might be now, in the middle watch, and Lieutenant Oeldenstrom was sitting aft, near the wheel, humming a tune.

I walked aft, with my cutla.s.s in one hand, and a pistol in the other; but just as I stepped up the quarter-deck my foot slipped, and the cutla.s.s fell with a clank on the deck.

"'What's that?' cried the lieutenant.

"'Felborg, sir, mate of the watch,' said I, standing fast where I was.

'It's shoaling fast ahead, sir.'

"'D--n!' said he, 'what a coast!'

"'Could n't you say a bit of something better than that?' said I, getting nearer to him slowly.

"'What do you mean?' said he, jumping up angrily; but he was scarce on his legs when he was down again at his full length on the plank, with a bullet through his brain, never to move again!"

"There, there, avast with that tale; you've told it to me every night that my heart was heavy this twelvemonth past. But I 've hit on a way to save the lad,--will you help me?"

"Ay, if my help does n't bring bad luck on him; it always has on every one I befriended since--since--"

"Never mind that. There 's no risk here, nor much room for luck, good or bad." He paused a second or two, then added,--

"I 'm thinking we can't do better than shove him ash.o.r.e on the island yonder."

"On Anticosti!" said Felborg, with a shudder.

"Ay, why not? There's always a store of biscuit and fresh water in the log-houses, and the cruisers touch there every six or seven weeks to take people off. He has but to hoist the flag to show he 's there."

"There's no one there now," said the Dane.

"No. I saw the flag-staff bare yesterday; but what does that matter? A few days or a few weeks alone are better than what's in store for him here."

"I don't think so. No! Beym alia Deyvelm! I 'd stand the bullet at three paces, but I 'd not meet that negro chap alone."

"Oh, he's dead and gone this many a year," said Halkett. "When the 'Rodney' transport was wrecked there, two years last fall, they searched the island from end to end, and could n't find a trace of him. They were seven weeks there, and it's pretty clear if he were alive--"

"Ay, just so,--if he were alive!"

"Nonsense, man! You don't believe those yarns they get up to frighten the boys in the cook's galley?"

"It's scarce mercy, to my reckoning," said Felborg, "to take the lad from a quick and short fate, and leave him yonder; but if you need my help, you shall have it."

"That's enough," said Halkett; "go on deck, and look after the boat.

None of our fellows will betray us; and in the morning we 'll tell Sir Dudley that he threw himself overboard in the night, in a fit of frenzy.

He'll care little whether it's true or false."

"I say, Con--Con, my lad," said Halkett, as soon as the other had mounted the ladder. "Wake up, my boy; I've something to tell you."

"I know it," said I, wishing to spare time, which I thought might be precious; "I've been dreaming all about it."

"Poor fellow, his mind is wandering," muttered Halkett to himself.