“It’s me, Merritt. Come on deck, I want t’ say good bye t’ ye.”
C. B. leaped out of his bunk and hurried after his chum, who drew him to a seat on a spar and said in a hollow strained tone—
“You’re goin’ away to-day, and before eight bells to-night I shall know whether the God you’re so fond of talkin’ about is as good as you say He is. Now don’t be skeered, I ain’t goin’ t’ kill myself, kase why—it’d hurt you. But I know I’m goin’ out as soon as I’ve seen the last of you, an’ I do think I’ve got a good opinion of your God because of knowing that. He knows my life ain’t worth livin’ an’ He’s takin’ it away. If I wasn’t a poor ignorant heathen I’d tell Him how thankful I am, but I guess He’ll know.”
To attempt any description of the talk that ensued until dawn would be an impertinence, for one of the men, though such a Christian as the greatest exponent of Christianity among us might envy, was, in all his ideas and knowledge, simple as a little child, while the other, deeper in darkness than the most debased Pagan, could only see one fact, for such it was to him, that he was to die immediately after the parting. It did not trouble his thoughts for one moment, any more than it would that of the faithful dog who only lives in his master’s life, and dies of a broken heart when that master is removed.
So they sat hand in hand till dawn, they took the five o’clock coffee together, with dim ideas in C. B.’s mind of it being a sort of sacrament, and then as the mate’s loud call of “Turn to” echoed along the decks Merritt simply rose from C. B.’s side and said—
“Good-bye, chum. I’ll be glad to find that what you say is true, an’ that I sh’ll see you again in another life. I don’t understand it, but it sounds good. Now I shall keep out of yer way till yer gone, so good-bye.”
At three o’clock p.m. the skipper was carried from his bunk well wrapped up, and placed in his boat, which was lowered with her gunwale level with the rail for the purpose. C. B. jumped in by his side and stood by to steady him as the boat was lowered. The crew followed and the boat shoved off, but as she did so all hands but one swarmed to the rail and rigging, and gave a round of cheers, at which both the skipper’s and C. B.’s eyes brimmed over. But C. B. noted what Captain Taber did not; that in that crowd of faces Merritt’s did not appear. He was found four hours later in his bunk, dead, without a sign about him to show why he had gone.