Cates—[Groaning.] I’m sick! [Incoherently.] Can’t—report for duty—this watch. [With a shout.] Water!
Bartlett—[Contemptuously.] Ye dog! Give him a hand, Horne.
Horne—[Putting a hand under his shoulder.] Up, man! We’re to signal the schooner. There’ll be water on board o’ her—barrels of it!
Cates—[Aroused, scrambles to his feet, violently shaking off Horne’s hand.] Water aboard o’ her! [His staring eyes catch the schooner’s sails on the horizon. He breaks into a staggering run and disappears down toward the beach, right rear, waving his arms wildly and shouting.] Ahoy! Ahoy! Water! [Horne walks out quickly after him.] [Left alone, Bartlett, after a quick glance around, sinks on his knees beside the chest and shoves both hands into it. From the chest comes a metallic clink as he fingers the pieces in his hands gloatingly.] Ye’re safe now! There’s none to tell left livin’! He’s dead—damn him!—that lied about ye. And ye’ll rest safe here till I come back for ye! [In a dreaming tone, his eyes fixed before him in an ecstatic vision.] No more whalin’ on the dirty seas! Rest to home! Gold! I’ve been dreamin’ o’ it all my life! Aye—we’ll rest now, Sarah! Your father be a rich man, Nat and Sue! [Shaking himself—savagely.] Ye fool! What drivel be ye talkin’? Loosin’ your senses, be ye? Time ye was picked up! Lucky! [He shoves down the lid and places the chest in the hole. He pushes the sand in on top of it, whispering hoarsely.] Lay safe, d’ye hear. For I’ll be back for ye! Aye—in spite of hell I’ll dig ye up again! [The voices of Horne and Jimmy can be heard from the distance shouting as
[The Curtain Falls]
ACT TWO
Scene—Interior of an old boat-shed on the wharf of the Bartlett place on the California coast. In the rear, a double doorway looking out over the end of the wharf to the bay with the open sea beyond. On the left, two windows, and another door, opening on the dock. Near this door, a cot with blankets and a pillow without a slip. In the center, front, a table with a bottle and glasses on it, and three cane-bottomed chairs. On the right, a fishing dory. Here and there about the shed all sorts of odds and ends pertaining to a ship—old anchors, ropes, tackle, paint-pots, old spars, etc.
It is late afternoon of a day six months later. Sunlight filters feebly through the stained, cobwebby window panes.
As the curtain rises, Bartlett and Silas Horne are discovered. Horne is in working clothes of paint-stained dungaree. If his sufferings on the island have left any marks on his dry wizened face, they are undiscoverable. In Bartlett, however, the evidence is marked. His hair has turned white. There are deep hollows under his cheek-bones. His jaw and tight-lipped mouth, express defiant determination, as if he were fighting back some weakness inside himself, a weakness found in his eyes, which have something in them of fear, of a wishing to avoid other eyes. He is dressed much the same as when on the island. He sits by the table, center, his abstracted gaze bent on the floor before him.