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Doctor Luke of the Labrador, a novel by Norman Duncan |
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Chapter 24. The Beginning Of The End |
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_ CHAPTER XXIV. The BEGINNING of The END From this sad tangle we were next morning extricated by news from the south ports of our coast--news so ill that sentimental tears and wishes were of a sudden forgot; being this: that the smallpox had come to Poor Luck Harbour and was there virulently raging. By noon of that day the doctor's sloop was underway with a fair wind, bound south in desperate haste: a man's heart beating glad aboard, that there might come a tragic solution of his life's entanglement. My sister and I, sitting together on the heads of Good Promise, high in the sunlight, with the sea spread blue and rippling below--we two, alone, with hands clasped--watched the little patch of sail flutter on its way--silently watched until it vanished in the mist. "I'm not knowin'," my sister sighed, still staring out to sea, "what's beyond the mist." "Nor I." 'Twas like a curtain, veiling some dread mystery, as an ancient tragedy--but new to us, who sat waiting: and far past our guessing. "I wonder what we'll see, dear," she whispered, "when the mist lifts." "'Tis some woeful thing." She leaned forward, staring, breathing deep, seeking with the strange gift of women to foresee the event; but she sighed, at last, and gave it up. "I'm not knowin'," she said. We turned homeward; and thereafter--through the months of that summer--we were diligent in business: but with small success, for Jagger of Wayfarer's Tickle, seizing the poor advantage with great glee, now foully slandered and oppressed us. * * * * * Near midsummer our coast was mightily outraged by the sailings of the Sink or Swim, Jim Tall, master--Jagger's new schooner, trading our ports and the harbours of the Newfoundland French Shore, with a case of smallpox in the forecastle. We were all agog over it, bitterly angered, every one of us; and by day we kept watch from the heads to warn her off, and by night we saw to our guns, that we might instantly deal with her, should she so much as poke her prow into the waters of our harbour. Once, being on the Watchman with my father's glass, I fancied I sighted her, far off shore, beating up to Wayfarer's Tickle in the dusk: but could not make sure, for there was a haze abroad, and her cut was not yet well known to us. Then we heard no more of her, until, by and by, the skipper of the Huskie Dog, bound north, left news that she was still at large to the south, and sang us a rousing song, which, he said, had been made by young Dannie Crew of Ragged Harbour, and was then vastly popular with the folk of the places below. "T' save the folk that dreads it,
* * * * * He was only a lad, but, doubtless, rated a man; and he was now sadly woebegone--starved, shivering, bruised by the rocks and breaking water from which he had escaped. We got him into the cozy forecastle, clapped him on the back, put him in dry duds; and, then, "Come, now, lads!" cried Billy Lisson, the hearty skipper of the Greased Lightning, "don't you go sayin' a word 'til I brew you a cup o' tea. On the Harbourless Shore, says you? An' all hands lost? Don't you say a word. Not one!" The castaway turned a ghastly face towards the skipper. "No," he whispered, in a gasp, "not one." "Not you!" Skipper Billy rattled. "You keep mum. Don't you so much as mutter 'til I melts that iceberg in your belly." "No, sir." Perchance to forestall some perverse attempt at loquacity, Skipper Billy lifted his voice in song--a large, rasping voice, little enough acquainted with melody, but expressing the worst of the rage of those days: being thus quite sufficient to the occasion. "T' save the folk that dreads it,
"Was we?" asked Skipper Billy. "By God," he roared, "we is!" "My God!" Docks whispered, staring deep into the skipper's eyes, "they was goin' t' hang the skipper!" There was not so much as the drawing of a breath then to be heard in the forecastle of the Greased Lightning. Only the wind, blowing in the night--and the water lapping at the prow--broke the silence. "Skipper Billy, sir," said Docks, his voice breaking to a whimper, "was they goin' t' hang the crew? They wasn't, was they? Not goin' t' hang un?" "Skipper t' cook, lad," Skipper Billy answered, the words prompt and sure. "Hang un by the neck 'til they was dead." "My God!" Docks whined. "They was goin' t' hang the crew!" "But we isn't cotched un yet." "No," said the boy, vacantly. "Nor you never will." The skipper hitched close to the table. "Lookee, lad," said he, leaning over until his face was close to the face of Docks, "was you ever aboard the Sink or Swim?" "Ay, sir," Docks replied, at last, brushing his hair from his brow. "I was clerk aboard the Sink or Swim two days ago." For a time Skipper Billy quietly regarded the lad--the while scratching his beard with a shaking hand. "Clerk," Docks sighed, "two days ago." "Oh, was you?" the skipper asked. "Well, well!" His lower jaw dropped. "An' would mind tellin' us," he continued, his voice now touched with passion, "what's come o' that damned craft?" "She was lost on the Harbourless Shore, sir, with all hands--but me." "Thank God for that!" "Ay, thank God!" Whereupon the doctor vaccinated Docks. _ |
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