The Mohammedan’s curse had been thorough and, so it began to seem as the voyage went on, of some effect, but he had forgotten one thing. Whatever went wrong, whatever accident, small or great, befell the ship on her race across the Atlantic, the wind never failed. The very sprites, afreets and genie known to Arab fancy seemed to sit in the hollow of the sail and lend strength with their blowing to the lusty trade winds. Lines parted, tackle jammed, and sails carried away, but still the wind held. The oldest but ablest seaman, he who had not believed in Gibraltar when he saw it, fell from a yard and was picked up with a broken knee. A falling block, dropping from a height to the deck below, crushed, in its passage, the shoulder of another sailor. But still the wind held and still the ship cut the South-Atlantic rollers like an arrow. Seven days, eight days, nine days—they were halfway across, and excitement had begun to run breathlessly high.
At the end of the ninth day, while the West Wind was wallowing in a cross sea, it was discovered that the water casks had broken loose from their lashings, that two of them were crushed, others injured, and that the greater portion of their precious water had leaked away.
“Then we have need to make port all the more quickly,” Captain Reynolds said grimly, and stood by in person while, to each man including himself, the meager allowance for each day was measured out.
The one who fared worst upon the voyage was the old Chinaman. He suffered hideously from sea-sickness for the first few days, although he made shift to stagger on deck, to haul at ropes and to give such service as his feeble strength allowed. When the water failed, he seemed, somehow, to be suffering far more than any of the rest. On the second day after the mishap to the casks, he came to the captain’s cabin, utterly refusing to be driven away. With trembling yellow hands he drew the pine tree from beneath his rags and set it on the table.
“After I die,” he requested calmly, “will you not in justice see that my share of water still goes to keeping my ancestors’ tree alive?”
It seemed that his whole allowance of drinking water had been poured into the pot, since he preferred to perish himself rather than permit his great treasure to droop and wither.
Humphrey argued and commanded, but to no purpose. The Chinaman merely shook his head obstinately and vowed by all his gods that he would not drink while his tree was thirsty. At last, however, a compromise was made. The little pine was to remain on the Captain’s table and every day, in Humphrey’s presence, the Chinaman was to drink half his allowance of water and pour the other half upon the dry roots.
“If you can keep alive on that, your tree should also,” Humphrey said; “there is no other way to do.”
Still muttering protests that his tree would die, the old man crawled away. Humphrey stood looking silently at the little pine tree, so fresh and vigorous in spite of its hundred years. He took the water that had been set upon his table and drank half of it at one gulp, for he had just come below and the hot quarterdeck was a thirsty place. Then he paused a moment, the half-empty cup in his hand.
“I am a soft-hearted fool,” he muttered and poured what was left on the dry earth of the porcelain pot.