_ CHAPTER XV. I HAVE SOME TALK WITH A MURDERER
At first--the dead-light being fast over the port, and the state-room in darkness save for the little light which came in from the dusky cabin, and my own person in the doorway making it darker still--I was sure of nothing there. But presently I made out a biggish heap of some sort in the lower berth, and then that the heap was a man lying with his back toward me and his face turned to the ship's side.
The noise of my footsteps must have roused him, either from sleep or from the stupor that his hurts had put him in: for while I stood looking at him his body moved a little, and then his head turned slowly and in the shadows I caught the glint of his open eyes. What little light there was being behind me, all that he could see--and that but in black outline--was the figure of a tall man looming in the doorway; but instantly at sight of me he let off a yell as sharp as though I had run a knife into him, and then he covered his head all up with the bedclothes and lay kicking and shaking as though he were in deadly fear. I myself was so upset by his outburst, and by the half-horror that came to me at sight of his spasms of terror, that I stood for a moment or so silent; but in one way satisfied, since it was evident that this poor scared wretch could not possibly do me harm. Just as I was about to speak to him, hoping to soothe him a little, he pushed the bedclothes down from over his eyes and took another look at me--and straightway yelled again, and then cried out at me: "Go away, damn you! Go away, damn you! You're dead! You're dead, I tell you! Do you want me to kill you all over again, when I've done it once as well as I know how?" And with that he fell to kicking again, and to shouting out curses, and to letting off the most dreadful shrieks and cries--until suddenly a gasping choking checked him, and he lay silent and still.
Then the notion came to me that he took me for the dead man up on deck; I being about the dead fellow's size and build, and therefore looking very like him as I stood there with the light behind me and the shadows too deep for him to make out my face. And so, to ease his mind and get him quiet--and this was quite as much for my own sake as for his, for his wild fear was strangely horrible to witness--I spoke to him, asking him if he were badly hurt and if I could help him; and at the sound of my voice he gave a long sigh, as though of great relief, and in a moment said: "Who the devil are you, anyway? I thought you was Jack--come back after my killin' him to have another round with me. Is Jack true dead?"
"If you mean the man on deck," I answered, "he is true dead--as dead as any man can be with a cut straight through his heart."
He gave another sigh of relief, as though what I told him was a real comfort to him; and in a moment he said: "Well, that's a good job, and I'm glad of it. He's killed me, too, I reckon; but I'm glad I got in on him first an' fixed him fur his damn starin' at me. Now he's dead I guess he won't stare at me no more." He was silent for nearly a minute, and then he added: "Jest get me a drink, won't you? I'm all burnin' up inside. There's water in th' jug out there. An' put a good dash of gin in it--there's gin out there, too."
I got him some water from the jug on the cabin table, but when he tasted it and found that it was water only he began to swear at me for leaving out the gin; and when I added the gin--thinking that he probably was so used to strong drink as really to need a little to put some life into him--he took off the whole glassful at a gulp and asked for more.
I told him to wait for another drink until I should have a look at his hurts and see what I could do to better them; for, while hanging seemed to be what he deserved, I had a natural desire to ease the pain that was racking him--as I could tell by the gasps and groans which he was giving and by the sharp motions which he made.
"Jest shet your head an' gimme some more drink," he said in a surly way. "Jack's give me a dose that'll settle me, an' lookin' at me won't do no good--'cause there's nothin' to be done. He's ripped me up, Jack has, an' no man can live long that way. All I can do is to die happy--so it's a good thing there's lots of gin. You'll find a kag of it over there in th' fur corner. Me an' Jack filled it from th' spirit room yesterday, afore our fuss begun."
But I stuck out that I must have a look at his hurts first, and managed to open the dead-light--which luckily had not been screwed tight--and so had some light in the room; and in the end, finding that I would not give him a drink otherwise, he let me have my way. But I had only to take a glance over him to see that what he said about the other man having settled him was true enough; for he was cut in a dozen places savagely, and had one desperate slash--which had laid him all open about the waist--from which alone he was certain to die in a very little while.
There was nothing for me to do, and I did not know what was best to say to him; and while I was casting about in my mind to comfort him a little, for his horrible hurts could not but stir my pity, he settled the matter for both of us in his own way--grunting out that he guessed I'd found he knew what he was talking about, and then asking for more gin.
This time I gave it to him, and gave it to him strong--being certain that he was past hurting by it, and hoping that it might deaden his pain. And presently, when he asked for another drink, I gave him that too.
The liquor did make him easier, and it raised his spirits so much that he fell to swearing quite cheerfully at the man Jack who had given him his death--and seemed to feel a good deal better for freeing his mind that way. And after a while he began of his own accord to tell me about the wreck that he had passed through, and about what had come after it--only stopping now and then to ask for more gin-and-water, and gulping it down with such satisfaction that I gave him all he cared to have. Indeed, it was the only thing that I could do to ease him, and I knew that no matter how much he drank the end shortly would be the same.
As well as I could make out from his rambling talk, the storm that had wrecked him had happened about three months earlier: a tremendous burst of tempest that had sent everything to smash suddenly, and had washed the captain and first and second officers overboard--they all being on the bridge together--and three or four of the crew as well. At the same time the funnel was carried away, and such a deluge of water got down to the engine-room that the fires were drowned. This brought the engineers on deck and the coal-passers with them; and the coal-passers--"a beach-combin' lot," he called them--led in breaking into the spirit-room, and before long pretty much all the men of the crew were as drunk as lords. What happened after that for a while he did not know; but when he got sober enough to stagger up on deck he found the man Jack there--who also had just come up after sleeping off his drunk below somewhere--and they had the ship to themselves. The others might have found a boat that would float and tried their luck that way, or they might have been washed overboard. He didn't know what had become of them, and he didn't care. Then the hulk had taken to drifting slowly, and at the end of a month or so had settled into the berth where I found her; and since then the two of them had known that all chance of their getting back into the world again was gone.
"At first I didn't mind it much," he went on, "there bein' lashins to eat aboard, an' more to drink than me an' Jack ever'd hoped to get a show at in all our lives. But pretty soon Jack he begun to be worryin'. He'd get drunk, an' then he'd set an' stare at me like a damn owl--jest a-blinkin' and a-blinkin' his damn eyes. You hev no idee, ontil it's done to you, how worryin' it is when a drunken man jest sets an' stares at you fur hours together in that fool way. I give Jack fair warnin' time and agen when he was sober that I'd hurt him ef he kep' on starin' at me like that; but then he'd get drunk agen right off, an' at it he'd go. I s'pose I wouldn't 'a' minded it in a ornary way an' ashore, or ef we'd had some other folks around. But here we was jest alone--oh, it was terr'ble how much we was alone!--an' Jack more'n half the time like a damn starin' owl, till he a-most druv me wild."
"An' Jack said as how I was onbearable too. _He_ said it was me as stared at him--the damn fool not knowin' that I was only a-tryin' to squench his beastly owlin' by lookin' steady at him; an' he said he'd settle me ef I kep' on. An' so things went like that atween us fur days an' days--and all th' time nothin' near us but dead ships with mos' likely dead men fillin' 'em, an' him an' me knowin' we'd soon got to be dead too. An' the stinks out of th' rotten weed, and out of all th' rotten ships whenever a bit of wind breezed up soft from th' s'uthard over th' hull mess of 'em, was horrider than you hev any idee! Gettin' drunk was all there was lef' fur us; and even in gettin' drunk there wasn't no real Christian comfort, 'cause of Jack's damn owlin' stares."
"I guess ef anybody stared steady at you fur better'n three months you'd want to kill him too. Anyway, that's how I felt about it; an' I told Jack yesterday--soon as he waked up in th' mornin', an' while he was plumb sober--that ef he didn't let up on it I'd go fur him sure. An' that fool up an' says it was me done th' starin', and I'd got to stop it or he'd cut out my damn heart--an' them was his very words. An' by noon yesterday he was drunker'n a Dutchman, an' was starin' harder'n ever. An' he kep' at it all along till sunset, an' when we come down into th' cabin to get supper he still was starin'; and after supper--when we mought 'a' been jest like two brothers a-gettin' drunk together on gin-an'-water--he stared wust of all."
"Nobody could 'a' stood it no longer--and up I gets an' goes fur him, keepin' my promise fair an' square. At fust we jest punched each other sort o' friendly with our fists, but after a while Jack give me a clip that roused my dander and I took my knife to him; an' then he took his knife to me. I don't remember jest all about it, but I know we licked away at each other all over th' cabin, an' then up through th' companion-way, an' then all over th' deck--me a-slicin' into him an' him a-slicin' into me all th' time. And at last he got this rippin' cut into me, an' jest then I give him a jab that made him yell like a stuck pig an' down he fell. I knowed he'd done fur me, but somehow I managed to work my way along th' deck an' to get down here to my bunk, where I knowed I'd die easier; an' then things was all black fur a while--ontil all of a sudden you comes along, and I sees you standin' in the door there, an' takes you fur Jack's ghost, an' gets scared th' wust kind. But he's not doin' no ghost racket, Jack ain't. I've settled him an' his damn owl starin'--and it's a good job I have. Gimme some more gin."
And then, having taken the drink that I gave him, he rolled over a little--so that he lay as I found him, with his face turned away from me--and for a good long while he did not speak a word. _