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Keziah Coffin, a novel by Joseph Crosby Lincoln |
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Chapter 16. In Which The Minister Boards The San Jose |
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_ CHAPTER XVI. IN WHICH THE MINISTER BOARDS THE SAN JOSE "Hey, Mr. Ellery!" It was Captain Zeb Mayo who was calling. The captain sat in his antique chaise, drawn by the antique white horse, and was hailing the parsonage through a speaking trumpet formed by holding both his big hands before his mouth. The reins he had tucked between the edge of the dashboard and the whip socket. If he had thrown them on the ground he would still have been perfectly safe, with that horse. "Mr. Ellery, ahoy!" roared Captain Zeb through his hands. The window of Zoeth Peters's house, next door to the Regular church, was thrown up and Mrs. Peters's head, bound with a blue-and-white handkerchief in lieu of a sweeping cap, was thrust forth into the crisp March air. "What is it, Cap'n Mayo?" screamed Mrs. Peters. "Hey?" "Hey?" repeated Captain Zeb, peering round the chaise curtain. "Who's that?" "It's me. Is somebody dead?" "Who's me? Oh! No, Hettie, nobody's dead, though I'm likely to bust a blood vessel if I keep on yellin' much longer. Is the parson to home?" "Hey?" "Oh, heavens alive! I say is--Ha, there you be, Mr. Ellery. Mornin', Keziah." The minister and Mrs. Coffin, the former with a napkin in his hand, had emerged from the side door of the parsonage and now came hurrying down to the gate. "Land of Goshen!" exclaimed the captain, "you don't mean to tell me you ain't done breakfast yet, and it after seven o'clock. Why, we're thinkin' about dinner up to our house." Keziah answered. "Yes," she said, "I shouldn't wonder. Your wife tells me, Zeb, that the only time you ain't thinkin' about dinner is when you think of breakfast or supper. We ain't so hungry here that we get up to eat in the middle of the night. What's the matter? Hettie Peters is hollerin' at you; did you know it?" "Did I know it? Tut! tut! tut! I'd known it if I was a mile away, 'less I was paralyzed in my ears. Let her holler; 'twill do her good and keep her in practice for Come-Outer meetin'. Why, Mr. Ellery, I tell you: Em'lous Sparrow, the fish peddler, stepped up to our house a few minutes ago. He's just come down from the shanties over on the shore by the light--where the wreck was, you know--and he says there's a 'morphrodite brig anchored three or four mile off and she's flyin' colors ha'f mast and union down. They're gettin' a boat's crew together to go off to her and see what's the row. I'm goin' to drive over and I thought maybe you'd like to go along. I told the old lady--my wife, I mean--that I thought of pickin' you up and she said 'twas a good idee. Said my likin' to cruise with a parson in my old age was either a sign that I was hopeful or fearful, she didn't know which; and either way it ought to be encouraged. He, he, he! What do you say, Mr. Ellery? Want to go?" The minister hesitated. "I'd like to," he said. "I'd like to very much. But I ought to work on my sermon this morning." Keziah cut in here. "Cat's foot!" she sniffed. "Let your sermon go for this once, do. If it ain't long enough as it is, you can begin again when you've got to the end and preach it over again. Didama Rogers said, last circle day, that she could set still and hear you preach right over n' over. I'd give her a chance, 'specially if it did keep her still. Keepin' Didama still is good Christian work, ain't it, Zeb?" Captain Mayo slapped his knee. "He, he, he!" he chuckled. "Cal'late you're right, Keziah." "Indeed, I am. I believe it would be Christianity and I KNOW 'twould be work. There! there! run in and get your coat and hat, Mr. Ellery. I'll step across and ease Hettie's mind and--and lungs." She went across the road to impart the news of the vessel in distress to the curious Mrs. Peters. A moment later the minister, having donned his hat and coat, ran down the walk and climbed into the chaise beside Captain Zeb. The white horse, stimulated into a creaky jog trot by repeated slappings of the reins and roars to "Get under way!" and "Cast off!" moved along the sandy lane. During the drive the captain and his passenger discussed various topics of local interest, among them Captain Nat Hammond and the manner in which he might have lost his ship and his life. It was now taken for granted, in Trumet and elsewhere, that Nat was dead and would never be heard from again. The owners had given up, so Captain Zeb said, and went on to enumerate the various accidents which might have happened--typhoons, waterspouts, fires, and even attacks by Malay pirates--though, added the captain, "Gen'rally speakin', I'd ruther not bet on any pirate gettin' away with Nat Hammond's ship, if the skipper was alive and healthy. Then there's mutiny and fevers and collisions, and land knows what all. And, speakin' of trouble, what do you cal'late ails that craft we're goin' to look at now?" They found a group on the beach discussing that very question. A few fishermen, one or two lobstermen and wreckers, and the lightkeeper were gathered on the knoll by the lighthouse. They had a spyglass, and a good-sized dory was ready for launching. "Where is she, Noah?" asked Captain Zeb of the lightkeeper. "That her off back of the spar buoy? Let me have a squint through that glass; my eyes ain't what they used to be, when I could see a whale spout two miles t'other side of the sky line and tell how many barrels of ile he'd try out, fust look. Takes practice to keep your eyesight so's you can see round a curve like that," he added, winking at Ellery. "She's a brigantine, Zeb," observed the keeper, handing up the spyglass. "And flyin' the British colors. Look's if she might be one of them salt boats from Turk's Islands. But what she's doin' out there, anchored, with canvas lowered and showin' distress signals in fair weather like this, is more'n any of us can make out. She wa'n't there last evenin', though, and she is there now." "She ain't the only funny thing along shore this mornin', nuther," announced Theophilus Black, one of the fishermen. "Charlie Burgess just come down along and he says there's a ship's longboat hauled up on the beach, 'bout a mile 'n a half t'other side the mouth of the herrin' crick yonder. Oars in her and all. And she ain't no boat that b'longs round here, is she, Charlie?" "No, Thoph, she ain't," was the reply. "Make anything out of her, cap'n?" Captain Zeb, who had been inspecting the anchored vessel through the spyglass, lowered the latter and seemed puzzled. "Not much," he answered. "Blessed if she don't look abandoned to me. Can't see a sign of life aboard her." "We couldn't neither," said Thoph. "We was just cal'latin' to go off to her when Charlie come and told us about the longboat. I guess likely we can go now; it's pretty nigh smooth as a pond. You'll take an oar, won't you, Noah?" "I can't leave the light very well. My wife went over to the village last night. You and Charlie and Bill go. Want to go, too, Zeb?" "No, I'll stay here, I guess. The old lady made me promise to keep my feet dry afore I left the house." "You want to go, Mr. Ellery? Lots of room." The minister was tempted. The sea always had a fascination for him and the mystery of the strange ship was appealing. "Sure I won't be in the way?" "No, no! 'course you won't," said Burgess. "Come right along. You set in the bow, if you don't mind gettin' sprinkled once in a while. I'll steer and Thoph and Bill'll row. That'll be enough for one dory. If we need more, we'll signal. Heave ahead." The surf, though low for that season of the year, looked dangerous to Ellery, but his companions launched the dory with the ease which comes of experience. Burgess took the steering oar and Thoph and "Bill," the latter a lobsterman from Wellmouth Neck, bent their broad backs for the long pull. The statement concerning the pondlike smoothness of the sea was something of an exaggeration. The dory climbed wave after wave, long and green and oily, at the top of each she poised, tipped and slid down the slope. The minister, curled up in the bow on a rather uncomfortable cushion of anchor and roding, caught glimpses of the receding shore over the crests behind. One minute he looked down into the face of Burgess, holding the steering oar in place, the next the stern was high above him and he felt that he was reclining on the back of his neck. But always the shoulders of the rowers moved steadily in the short, deep strokes of the rough water oarsman, and the beach, with the white light and red-roofed house of the keeper, the group beside it, and Captain Zeb's horse and chaise, grew smaller and less distinct. "Humph!" grunted Charlie. "What's the matter?" asked Thoph. The steersman, who was staring hard in the direction they were going, scowled. "Humph!" he grunted again. "I swan to man, fellers, I believe she IS abandoned!" "Rubbish!" panted Bill, twisting his neck to look over his shoulder. "'Course she ain't! Who'd abandon a craft such weather's this, and Province-town harbor only three hours' run or so?" "When it comes to that," commented Burgess, "why should they anchor off here, 'stead of takin' her in by the inlet? If there's anybody aboard they ain't showed themselves yet. She might have been leakin', but she don't look it. Sets up out of water pretty well. Well, we'll know in a few minutes. Hit her up, boys!" The rowers "hit her up" and the dory moved faster. Then Burgess, putting his hand to his mouth, hailed. "Ship ahoy!" he roared. "Ahoy!" No reply. "Ahoy the brig!" bellowed Burgess. "What's the matter aboard there? All hands asleep?" Still no answer. Thoph and Bill pulled more slowly now. Burgess nodded to them. "Stand by!" he ordered. "Easy! Way enough! Let her run." The dory slackened speed, turned in obedience to the steering oar, and slid under the forequarter of the anchored vessel. Ellery, looking up, saw her name in battered gilt letters above his head--the San Jose. "Stand by, Thoph!" shouted Charlie. "S'pose you can jump and grab her forechains? Hold her steady, Bill. Now, Thoph! That's the time!" Thoph had jumped, seized the chains, and was scrambling aboard. A moment later he appeared at the rail amidships, a rope in his hand. The dory was brought alongside and made fast; then one after the other the men in the boat climbed to the brig's deck. "Ahoy!" yelled Burgess. "All hands on deck! tumble up, you lubbers! Humph! She is abandoned, sure and sartin." "Yup," assented Bill. "Her boats are gone. See? Guess that explains the longboat on the beach, Charlie." "Cal'late it does; but it don't explain why they left her. She ain't leakin' none to speak of, that's sure. Rides's light's a feather. Christmas! look at them decks; dirty hogs, whoever they was." The decks were dirty, and the sails, sloppily furled, were dirty likewise. The brig, as she rolled and jerked at her anchor rope, was dirty--and unkempt from stem to stern. To Ellery's mind she made a lonesome picture, even under the clear, winter sky and bright sunshine. Thoph led the way aft. The cabin companion door was open and they peered down. "Phew!" sniffed Burgess. "She ain't no cologne bottle, is she? Well, come on below and let's see what'll we see." The cabin was a "mess," as Bill expressed it. The floor was covered with scattered heaps of riff-raff, oilskins, coats, empty bottles, and papers. On the table a box stood, its hinged lid thrown back. "Medicine chest," said Burgess, examining it. "And rum bottles aplenty. Somebody's been sick, I shouldn't wonder." The minister opened the door of one of the little staterooms. The light which shone through the dirty and tightly closed "bull's-eye" window showed a tumbled bunk, the blankets soiled and streaked. The smell was stifling. "Say, fellers," whispered Thoph, "I don't like this much myself. I'm for gettin' on deck where the air's better. Somethin's happened aboard this craft, somethin' serious." Charlie and Bill nodded an emphatic affirmative. "Hadn't we better look about a little more?" asked Ellery. "There's another stateroom there." He opened the door of it as he spoke. It was, if possible, in a worse condition than the first. And the odor was even more overpowering. "Skipper's room," observed Burgess, peeping in. "And that bunk ain't been slept in for weeks. See the mildew on them clothes. Phew! I'm fair sick to my stomach. Come out of this." On deck, in the sunlight, they held another consultation. "Queerest business ever I see," observed Charlie. "I never--" "I see somethin' like it once," interrupted Bill. "Down in the Gulf 'twas. I was on the old Fishhawk. Eben Salters's dad from over to Bayport skippered her. We picked up a West Injy schooner, derelict, abandoned same as this one, but not anchored, of course. Yeller jack was the trouble aboard her and--Where you bound, Thoph?" "Goin' to take a squint at the fo'castle," replied Theophilus, moving forward. The minister followed him. The fo'castle hatchway was black and grim. Ellery knelt and peered down. Here there was practically no light at all and the air was fouler than that in the cabin. "See anything, Mr. Ellery?" asked Thoph, looking over his shoulder. "No, I don't see anything. But I thought--" He seemed to be listening. "What did you think?" "Nothing. I--" "Hold on! you ain't goin' down there, be you? I wouldn't. No tellin' what you might find. Well, all right. I ain't curious. I'll stay up here and you can report." He stepped over and leaned against the rail. Bill came across the deck and joined him. "Where's Charlie?" asked Thoph. "Gone back to the cabin," was the answer. "Thought likely he might find some of her papers or somethin' to put us on the track. I told him to heave ahead; I didn't want no part of it. Too much like that yeller-jack schooner to suit me. What's become of the parson?" Thoph pointed to the open hatch. "Down yonder, explorin' the fo'castle," he replied. "He can have the job, for all me. Phew! Say, Bill, what IS this we've struck, anyhow?" Ellery descended the almost perpendicular ladder gingerly, holding on with both hands. At its foot he stopped and tried to accustom his eyes to the darkness. A room perhaps ten feet long, so much he could make out. The floor strewn, like that of the cabin, with heaps of clothing and odds and ends. More shapes of clothes hanging up and swaying with the roll of the brig. A little window high up at the end, black with dirt. And cavities, bunks in rows, along the walls. A horrible hole. He took a step toward the center of the room, bending his head to avoid hitting the fo'castle lantern. Then in one of the bunks something stirred, something alive. He started violently, controlled himself with an effort, and stumbled toward the sound. "What is it?" he whispered. "Who is it? Is anyone there?" A groan answered him. Then a voice, weak and quavering, said: "Gimme a drink! Gimme a drink! Can't none of you God-forsaken devils give me a drink?" He stooped over the bunk. A man was lying in it, crumpled into a dreadful heap. He stooped lower, looked, and saw the man's face. There was a shout from the deck, or, rather, a yell. Then more yells and the sound of running feet. "Mr. Ellery!" screamed Burgess, at the hatchway. "Mr. Ellery, for the Almighty's sake, come up here! Come out of that this minute. Quick!" The minister knew what was coming, was sure of it as he stepped to the foot of the ladder, had known it the instant he saw that face. "Mr. Ellery!" shrieked Burgess. "Mr. Ellery, are you there?" "Yes, I'm here," answered the minister, slowly. He was fighting with all his might to keep his nerves under control. His impulse was to leap up those steps, rush across that deck, spring into the dory and row, anywhere to get away from the horror of that forecastle. "Come up!" called Burgess. "Hurry! It's the smallpox! The darned hooker's rotten with it. For God sakes, come quick!" He ran to the rail, yelling order to Bill and Thoph, who were frantically busy with the dory. Ellery began to climb the ladder. His head emerged into the clean, sweet air blowing across the deck. He drew a breath to the very bottom of his lungs. Then from behind and below him came the voice again. "Gimme a drink!" it wailed. "Gimme a drink of water. Ain't one of you cussed swabs got decency enough to fetch me a drink? I'm dyin' for a drink, I tell you. I'm dyin'!" The minister stood still, his feet on the ladder. The three men by the rail were working like mad, their faces livid under the sunburn and their hands trembling. They pushed each other about and swore. They were not cowards, either. Ellery knew them well enough to know that. Burgess had, that very winter, pulled a skiff through broken ice in the face of a wicked no'theaster to rescue an old neighbor whose dory had been capsized in the bay while he was hauling lobster pots. But now Burgess was as scared as the rest. Thoph and Bill sprang over the rail into the boat. Burgess turned and beckoned to Ellery. "Come on!" he called. "What are you waitin' for?" The minister remained where he was. "Are you sure--" he faltered. "Sure! Blast it all! I found the log. It ain't been kept for a fortni't, but there's enough. It's smallpox, I tell you. Two men died of it three weeks ago. The skipper died right afterwards. The mate--No wonder them that was left run away as soon as they sighted land. Come on! Do you want to die, too?" From the poison pit at the foot of the ladder the man in the bunk called once more. "Water!" he screeched. "Water! Are you goin' to leave me, you d--n cowards?" "For Heaven sakes!" cried Burgess, clutching the rail, "what's that?" Ellery answered him. "It's one of them," he said, and his voice sounded odd in his own ears. "It's one of the crew." "One of the--Down THERE? Has he--" "Yes, he has." "Help! help!" screamed the voice shrilly. "Are you goin' to leave me to die all alone? He-elp!" The minister turned. "Hush!" he called, in answer to the voice, "hush! I'll bring you water in a minute. Burgess," he added, "you and the rest go ashore. I shall stay." "You'll stay? You'll STAY? With THAT? You're crazy as a loon. Don't be a fool, man! Come on! We'll send the doctor and somebody else--some one that's had it, maybe, or ain't afraid. I am and I'm goin'. Don't be a fool." Thoph, from the dory, shouted to know what was the matter. Ellery climbed the ladder to the deck and walked over to the rail. As he approached, Burgess fell back a few feet. "Thoph," said the minister, addressing the pair in the dory, "there is a sick man down in the forecastle. He has been alone there for hours, I suppose, certainly since his shipmates ran away. If he is left longer without help, he will surely die. Some one must stay with him. You and the rest row ashore and get the doctor and whoever else you can. I'll stay here till they come." Thoph and his companions set up a storm of protest. It was foolish, it was crazy, the man would die anyhow, and so on. They begged the minister to come with them. But he was firm. "Don't stop to argue," he urged. "Hurry and get the doctor." "Come on, Charlie," ordered Bill. "No use talkin' to him, he's set. Come on! I won't stay alongside this craft another minute for nobody. If you be comin', come." Burgess, still protesting, clambered over the rail. The dory swung clear of the brig. The rowers settled themselves for the stroke. "Better change your mind, Mr. Ellery," pleaded Charlie. "I hate to leave you this way. It seems mean, but I'm a married man with children, like the rest of us here, and I can't take no risks. Better come, too. No? Well, we'll send help quick as the Lord'll let us. By the Almighty!" he added, in a sudden burst, "you've got more spunk than I have--yes, or anybody I ever come across. I'll say that for you, if you are a parson. Give way, fellers." The oars dipped, bent, and the dory moved off. The sound of the creaking thole pins shot a chill through Ellery's veins. His knees shook, and involuntarily a cry for them to come back rose to his lips. But he choked it down and waved his hand in farewell. Then, not trusting himself to look longer at the receding boat, he turned on his heel and walked toward the forecastle. The water butts stood amidships, not far from the open door of the galley. Entering the latter he found an empty saucepan. This he filled from the cask, and then, with it in his hand, turned toward the black hatchway. Here was the greatest test of his courage. To descend that ladder, approach that bunk, and touch the terrible creature in it, these were the tasks he had set himself to do, but could he? Vaccination in those days was by no means the universal custom that it now is. And smallpox, even now, is a disease the name of which strikes panic to a community. The minister had been vaccinated when he was a child, but that was--so it seemed to him--a very long time ago. And that forecastle was so saturated with the plague that to enter it meant almost certain infection. He had stayed aboard the brig because the pitiful call for help had made leaving a cowardly impossibility. Now, face to face, and in cold blood, with the alternative, it seemed neither so cowardly or impossible. The man would die anyhow, so Thoph had said; was there any good reason why he should risk dying, too, and dying in that way? He thought of a great many things and of many people as he stood by the hatchway, waiting; among others, he thought of his housekeeper, Keziah Coffin. And, somehow, the thought of her, of her pluck, and her self-sacrifice, were the very inspirations he needed. "It's the duty that's been laid on me," Keziah had said, "and it's a hard one, but I don't run away from it." He began to descend the ladder. The sick man was raving in delirium when he reached him, but the sound of the water lapping the sides of the saucepan brought him to himself. He seized Ellery by the arm and drank and drank. When at last he desisted, the pan was half empty. The minister laid him gently back in the bunk and stepped to the foot of the ladder for breath. This made him think of the necessity for air in the place and he remembered the little window. It was tightly closed and rusted fast. He went up to the deck, found a marlin spike, and, returning, broke the glass. A sharp, cold draught swept through the forecastle, stirring the garments hanging on the nails. An hour later, two dories bumped against the side of the San Jose. Men, talking in low tones, climbed over the rail. Burgess was one of them; ashamed of his panic, he had returned to assist the others in bringing the brigantine into a safer anchorage by the inlet. Dr. Parker, very grave but businesslike, reached the deck among the first. "Mr. Ellery," he shouted, "where are you?" The minister's head and shoulders appeared at the forecastle companion. "Here I am, doctor," he said. "Will you come down?" The doctor made no answer in words, but he hurried briskly across the deck. One man, Ebenezer Capen, an old fisherman and ex-whaler from East Trumet, started to follow him, but he was the only one. The others waited, with scared faces, by the rail. "Get her under way and inshore as soon as you can," ordered Dr. Parker. "Ebenezer, you can help. If I need you below, I'll call." The minister backed down the ladder and the doctor followed him. Parker bent over the bunk for a few moments in silence. "He's pretty bad," he muttered. "Mighty little chance. Heavens, what a den! Who broke that window?" "I did," replied Ellery. "The air down here was dreadful." The doctor nodded approvingly. "I guess so," he said. "It's bad enough now. We've got to get this poor fellow out of here as soon as we can or he'll die before to-morrow. Mr. Ellery," he added sharply, "what made you do this? Don't you realize the risk you've run?" "Some one had to do it. You are running the same risk." "Not just the same, and, besides, it's my business. Why didn't you let some one else, some one we could spare--Humph! Confound it, man! didn't you know any better? Weren't you afraid?" His tone rasped Ellery's shaken nerves. "Of course I was," he snapped irritably. "I'm not an idiot." "Humph! Well, all right; I beg your pardon. But you oughtn't to have done it. Now you'll have to be quarantined. And who in thunder I can get to stay with me in this case is more than I know. Just say smallpox to this town and it goes to pieces like a smashed egg. Old Eb Capen will help, for he's had it, but it needs more than one." "Where are you going to take--him?" pointing to the moaning occupant of the bunk. "To one of the empty fish shanties on the beach. There are beds there, such as they are, and the place is secluded. We can burn it down when the fuss is over." "Then why can't I stay? I shall have to be quarantined, I know that. Let me be the other nurse. Why should anyone else run the risk? I HAVE run it. I'll stay." Dr. Parker looked at him. "Well!" he exclaimed. "Well! I must say, young man, that you've got--Humph! All right, Mr. Ellery; I'm much obliged." _ |
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