Hard Cash Part 122

_For_ RICHARD HARDIE,

NOAH SKINNER.

L. 14,010: 12: 6.

A stately foot came up the stair, but no one heard it. All were absorbed in the strange weird sight, and this great stroke of fate; or of Providence.

"This is yours, I reckon," said Fullalove, and handed the receipt to Edward. "No, no!" said Compton. "See: I've just found a will, bequeathing all he has in the world, with his blessing, to Miss Julia Dodd. These sovereigns are yours, then. But above all, the paper: as your legal adviser, I insist on your taking it immediately. Possession is nine points. However, it is actually yours, in virtue of this bequest."

A solemn pa.s.sionless voice seemed to fall on them from the clouds,

"No; it is Mine."

MY story must now return on board the _Vulture._ Just before noon, the bell the half hours are struck on was tolled to collect the ship's company; and soon the gangways and booms were crowded, and even the yards were manned with sailors, collected to see their shipmate committed to the deep. Next came the lieutenants and midshipmen and stood reverently on the deck: the body was brought and placed on a grating. Then all heads being uncovered below and aloft, the chaplain read the solemn service of the dead.

Many tears were shied by the rough sailors, the more so that to most of them, though not to the officers, it was now known that poor Billy had not always been before the mast, but had seen better days, and commanded vessels, and saved lives; and now he had lost his own.

The service is the same as ash.o.r.e, with this exception: that the words "We commit his body to the ground, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," &c., are altered at sea, thus: "We commit his body to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body, when the sea shall give up her dead; and the life of the world to come." At these words the body is allowed to glide off the grating into the sea. The chaplain's solemn voice drew near those very words, and the tears of pity fell faster; and Georgie White, an affectionate boy, sobbed violently, and shivered beforehand at the sullen plunge that he knew would soon come, and then he should see no more poor Billy who had given his life for his.

At this moment the captain came flying on deck, and jumping on to a gun, cried sharply, "Avast! Haul that body aboard."

The sharp voice of command cut across the solemn words and tones in the most startling way. The chaplain closed his book with a look of amazement and indignation: the sailors stared, and for the first time did not obey an order. To be sure it was one they had never heard before. Then the captain got angry, and repeated his command louder, and the body was almost jerked in board.

"Carry him to my cabin; and uncover his face."

By this time nothing could surprise Jackey Tar. Four sailors executed the order promptly.

"Bosen, pipe to duty."

While the men were dispersing to their several stations, Captain Bazalgette apologised to the chaplain, and explained to him and to the officers. But I give his explanation in my own words. Finding the ship quiet, the purser went to the captain down below, and asked him coolly what entry he should make in the ship's books about this William Thompson, who was no more William Thompson than he was. "What do you mean?" said the captain. Then the purser told him that Thompson's messmates, in preparing him last night for interment, had found a little bag round his neck, and inside it, a medal of the Humane Society, and a slip of paper written on in a lady's hand; then they had sent for him; and he had seen at once that this was a mysterious case: this lady spoke of him as her husband, and skipper of a merchant vessel.

"What is that?" roared the captain, who hitherto had listened with scarce half an ear.

"Skipper of a merchant vessel, sir, as sure as you command her majesty's frigate _Vulture:_ and then we found his shirt marked with the same name as the lady's."

"What was the lady's name?"

"Lucy Dodd; and David Dodd is on the shirt."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?" cried the captain.

"Didn't know it till last night."

"Why it is twelve o'clock. They are burying him."

"Yes, sir."

"Lucy would never forgive me," cried the captain. And to the purser's utter amazement he clapped on his c.o.c.ked hat, and flew out of the cabin on the errand I have described.

He now returned to the cabin and looked: a glance was enough: there lay the kindly face that had been his friend man and boy.

He hid his own with his hands, and moaned. He cursed his own blindness and stupidity in not recognising that face among a thousand. In this he was unjust to himself. David had never looked _himself_ till now.

He sent for the surgeon, and told him the whole sad story: and asked him what could be done. His poor cousin Lucy had more than once expressed her horror of interment at sea. "It is very hot," said he; "but surely you must know some way of keeping him till we land in New Zealand: curse these flies; how they bite!"

The surgeon's eyes sparkled; he happened to be an enthusiast in the art of embalming. "Keep him to New Zealand?" said he contemptuously, "I'll embalm him so that he shall go to England looking just as he does now--by-the-by, I never saw a drowned man keep his colour so well before--ay, and two thousand years after that, if you don't mind the expense."

"The expense! I don't care, if it cost me a year's pay. I think of nothing but repairing my blunder as far as I can."

The surgeon was delighted. Standing over his subject, who lay on the captain's table, he told that officer how he should proceed. "I have all the syringes," he said; "a capital collection. I shall inject the veins with care and patience; then I shall remove the brain and the viscera, and provided I'm not stinted in a.r.s.enic and spices----"

"I give you carte blanche on the purser: make your preparations, and send for him. Don't tell me how you do it; but do it. I must write and tell poor Lucy I have got him, and am bringing him home to her--dead."

The surgeon was gone about a quarter of an hour; he then returned with two men to remove the body, and found the captain still writing his letter, very sorrowful: but now and then slapping his face or leg with a hearty curse as the flies stung him.

The surgeon beckoned the men in softly, and pointed to the body for them to carry it out.

Now, as he pointed, his eye, following his finger, fell on something that struck that experienced eye as incredible: he uttered an exclamation of astonishment so loud that the captain looked up directly from his letter; and saw him standing with his finger pointing at the corpse, and his eyes staring astonishment "What now?" said the captain, and rose from his seat.

"Look! look! look!"

The captain came and looked, and said he saw nothing at all.

"The fly; the fly!" cried the surgeon.

"Yes, I see one of them has been biting him; for there's a little blood trickling. Poor fellow."

"A dead man can't bleed from the small veins in his skin," said the man of art. "He is alive, captain, he is alive, as sure as we stand here, and G.o.d's above. That little insect was wiser than us; he is alive."

"Jackson, don't trifle with me, or I'll hang you at the yard-arm.

G.o.d bless you, Jackson. Is it really possible? Run some of you, get a mirror: I have heard that is a test."

"Mirror be hanged. Doctor Fly knows his business."

All was now flutter and bustle: and various attempts were made to resuscitate David, but all in vain. At last the surgeon had an idea.

"This man was never drowned at all" said he: "I am sure of it. This is catalepsy. He may lie this way for a week. But dead he is not. I'll try the douche." David was then by his orders stripped and carried to a place where they could turn a waterc.o.c.k on him from a height: and the surgeon had soon the happiness of pointing out to the captain a slight blush on David's skin in parts, caused by the falling water. All doubts ceased with this: the only fear was lest they should shake out the trembling life by rough usage. They laid him on his stomach, and with a bellows and pipe so acted on the lungs, that at last a genuine sigh issued from the patient's breast. Then they put him in a warm bed, and applied stimulants; and by slow degrees the eyelids began to wink, the eyes to look more mellow, the respiration to strengthen, the heart to beat: "Patience, now," said the surgeon, "patience, and lots of air."

Patience was rewarded. Just four hours after the first treatment, a voice, faint but calm and genial, issued from the bed on their astonished ears, "Good morning to you all."

They kept very quiet. In about five minutes more the voice broke out again, calm and sonorous--

"Where is my money--my fourteen thousand pounds?"

These words set them all looking at one another: and very much puzzled the surgeon: they were delivered with such sobriety and conviction.

"Captain," he whispered, "ask him if he knows you."