“Suddenly, helping in a shore barge, I went down as if somebody had fetched me a clout ’pon top the head; an’, when I came to, there was doctor from shore an’ the dowl to pay. ’Twas days afore I could get about, an’ my ship couldn’t wait, an’ no work for me nowhere ’cept odd jobs. Then they told me I was a D.B.S., which means a Distressed British Seaman, an’ I found as I’d have to wait for next steamer that comed to ship me off. But I weren’t very down-daunted ’bout it, for, since I’d seen the size of the earth, I’d growed bigger in the mind a bit, an’ I ate my food an’ smoked my pipe an’ thanked God that I was alive to try again.
“Then, trapesing about one afternoon, footsore like and tired of trying to get something to do on the sugar estates, I climbed over a wall into a bit of shade, an’ sat me down under some cocoa trees to rest. I confess I did get over a wall, which is a thing you can’t often do without making trouble except on old Dartymoor. An’ there I was with the mountains around—all covered to their topmost spurs wi’ wonnerful forest, and the Caribbean Sea stretched blue as blue underneath. Such a jungle of trees an’ palms laced together with flowering vines as you’ve never dreamed of. Trumpet flowers, an’ fire-red flamboyants, an’ huge cactuses, an’ here an’ there a lightning-blasted, gert tree towering stark white above all the living green. An’ king-birds an’ humming-birds twinkling about in the air like women’s rings an’ brooches, an’ lizards so big as squirrels a-scampering upon the ground, an’ tree-frogs in the trees, an’ fireflies spangling the velvet-black nights. An’ no dimpsy light, neither at dawn nor even, for the moment sun be down ’tis night, an’ moment he be up again ’tis morning. You can see un climb straight out o’ the sea as if he was rolling up a ladder.
“I sat there in the shade, an’ at my very hand what should I find but a ripe pomegranate? ’Tis a fruit as you folks haven’t met with outside the Bible, I reckon, yet a real thing, an’ very nice to them as like it. Packed tight wi’ seeds, the colour of the heather, wi’ a bitter-sweet taste to it as be very refreshing to the throat. Such a fruit I picked without ‘by your leave,’ an’ chewed at un, an’ looked at the butivul blue sea down-under, an’ talked to myself out loud, as my manner always was.
“‘Well, Bob Bates,’ I sez, ‘you be most tired o’ caddling about doing nought, ban’t you? Still, you’m a lucky chap, whether or no; for a live D.B.S. be a sight better’n a dead cabin-boy. ’Twill larn ’e to treat the sun less civil. Don’t do for to cap to him in these parts. But you keep up your heart an’ trust in the Lord, as Mistley told ’e. He’ll look to ’e for sartain in His own time.’
“Then I heard a curious ristling alongside in the bush, an’ catched sight of a pair o’ cat-like eyes on me. ’Course I knowed there wasn’t no savage beasts there, but I didn’t know as there mightn’t be savage men, an’ I was going to get back over thicky wall an’ run for it. But too late. They was human eyes, wi’ a human nose atop an’ a human moustache under, but a very comical fashion of face an’ a queerer than ever I’d seen afore or have since.
“’Tis hard for me to call home exactly what Matthew Damian looked like then, for ’tis above thirty year ago, an’ that man filled my eye every day, winter an’ summer, for twenty years. Yet, though he looks different now, with all I know behind my mind’s eye as I see him, then he ’peared mighty strange, wild an’ shaggy. A face like a round shot he had, but a terrible deep jaw under the ear. A little chin, round eyes—grey-green—an’ ears standing sharp off a close-cropped head, wi’ hair pepper-an’-salt colour. A huge, tall man, an’ his beard was cut to his chin, an’ his moustache stuck out like a bush five inches to port an’ starboard. Well, I was mortal feared, for I’d never seen nothing like un outside a nightmare; yet his voice was so thin as a boy’s, an’ piped like a reed in his thick throat. He had the nigger whine, too—as I dare say you may mark on my tongue now, after my ears have soaked in it so long.
“He stared an’ I stared. Then he spoke. ‘You come along with me,’ he said in a Frenchy sort of English.
“‘Why for?’ I said; then I thought I seed his eyes ’pon the pomegranate. ‘Very sorry, sir, if this here be yours,’ I said; ‘but I’m baggered if a chap can tell what be wild an’ what ban’t on this here ridicklous island. ’Tis like a gentleman’s hothouse broke loose,’ I said to un.
“‘No matter about that,’ he said.
“‘I can give ’e my knife,’ I told un, ‘if you must have payment; but that be all I’ve got in the world ’cept the things I stand up in, an’ I’d a deal rather keep it.’