A Whaleman's Wife

by Frank Thomas Bullen

With one glance at the boat fore and aft and a satisfied noting of the little darkness on the water which betokened the coming breeze, Rube obeyed, and stooped to the Captain’s side. As soon as he did so he saw to his horror that the stickiness they had both felt during the darkness was blood; the skipper had been wounded in many places, and his blood, aided by the salt water, had congealed upon him and stopped its own flow, or he would have been dead long before.

‘Ma’am,’ said Rube unsteadily, ‘I’ll dew my best fur the Cap’n, but, as yew k’n see, that isn’t much. He’s badly cut, an’ I daren’t interfere with his hurts ’cause at present they’ve stopped bleedin’, and if I tech him an’ start ’em agen I mayn’t be able to stanch th’ flow then. Pity I got nothin’ t’ give him but a little soak biscuit an’ water. P’raps you’ll take a little yewrself, ma’am, at the same time t’ keep up yewr strength and courage.’

The ghost of a smile flickered for a second about her white lips, and she said simply, ‘Thank you. You are very kind. What shall I call you?’

He answered shortly, with a tightening at the heart, ‘My name’s Rube, ma’am—at least, that’s what I get usually. Call me thet, if ye don’t mind.’

And then he busied himself with the preparation of the simple meal, measuring crumb and drop as if each represented so many minutes of life, and deciding that, as for himself, he could go a much longer time yet before encroaching upon the small stock which must suffice for them all. The breeze freshening, he set the sail again, and, hauling the boat’s head as near the wind as she would lie, found that she would make about E.N.E. on the starboard tack—by guess, that is, for there was no compass in the boat. And this course he chose, not because he knew whither it would lead them, but because he saw that it was taking them well away from those accursed isles, of whose very name and whereabouts he was ignorant. And having got the boat so easily trimmed that by lashing the tiller at a certain angle she would steer herself, coming up and falling off just as if a hand was at the helm, he turned his attention again to the skipper and his wife, finding that the former had returned to a reasonable appreciation of his surroundings and was quietly taking the biscuit pap from Priscilla’s fingers. His filmy eyes lighted upon Reuben, and he said in low but clear tones:

‘Ah! yew never gut thet floggin’ I promised ye. Wall, I doan’ know as I’m sorry thet yew missed it. I guess I ben a pretty hard case ever sence I gut a chance t’ be, ’n’ I don’t believe I ever ben sorry fur anything I ever done befo’. I felt mad, but not sorry—no, never. ’N’ I thought I’d go some day jest like that. ’N’ now I kain’t. Pris’ (turning to his wife with sudden energy), ‘I want yew t’ fergive me—I’ve done y’ a power of harm. I ben an awful brute t’ ye. Wut I ben t’ th’ men don’ matter—that’s wut they’re aboard fur—but yew ben good t’ me, ’n’ I ben a devil t’ yew. Naow I’m a-dyin’, ’n’ I don’ care a plunk fer thet, but I’d like y’ t’ know I’m sorry fur wut I done t’ ye. Ez fur this galoot, I don’t know who he is er wut he is, ’n’ ef I a-hed my way with him he’d a-hed a pretty tough time, but I do b’lieve he ain’t half bad. Kiender soft mebbe fur all he’s so big an’ hefty, but I think he’ll put ye through in shape. An’ ——’ But then the voice suddenly melted into a few unintelligible sounds, and again the skipper’s head sank on to his wife’s lap and he was silent in another swoon. Rube looked at him helplessly for a moment, then, reflecting that the best thing for him would be to concentrate his mind upon the only thing he could do—viz., the handling of the boat—he stepped thoughtfully back to the tiller, and cast his eye first over the boat herself, then all around. She was going sweetly along, unguided, like a creature of intelligence, and as if she needed no human intervention, so, satisfied of this, Rube busied himself in making everything within her as neat and ship-shape as possible. Having done all he could at this, he counted their treasured biscuit, felt the weight of the water supply, and looked inquiringly at Priscilla, holding up the little wooden beaker or piggin with one hand and pointing to the keg with the other. But Priscilla, moistening her parched lips as well as she could, shook her head, giving a meaning glance at the little bucket wherein he had soaked the biscuit of which she and the Captain had been partaking, to show him that there was still some left.

Just as Rube was wondering what he could do next for her comfort, and his own satisfaction, there was a commotion in the water alongside, and with a series of sharp taps against the sides and bottom of the boat, half-a-dozen large flying-fish fell into her in their hurried rush upwards from the onslaught of a big albacore, which went sweeping past with one of their late comrades thwartwise in his mouth. In a moment Rube had gathered the welcome little wanderers together and hidden them all out of the sun’s rays but one. This he cleaned with the utmost delicacy and filleted, cutting the fillets into dainty narrow strips. With half-a-dozen of them balanced on his knife-blade, he approached Priscilla, who had been watching him languidly, saying, ‘Here, ma’am, is suthin’ that’ll dew yew and the skipper both good. It’s cool and moist, an’ ef yew shet yew eyes fur a minit yew’ll be surprised haow easy yew can take it. Thousan’s of people prefer it this way t’ cooked. ’N’ I’ll dry some fur ye then, only it ain’t so good fur ye because of its makin’ y’ thirsty, an’ water’s none too plentiful.’ With utmost docility she roused herself, took the tender looking strips, and put one of them to her husband’s cracked lips. His mouth opened mechanically and his jaws moved, but he had no power to swallow, and his breath began to come and go laboriously. Putting one hand under his head, she beckoned Rube with the other, whispering, ‘Is he dying? Can’t you do anything for him?’

With a fervent petition for aid to do the right thing, for wisdom to see it, Rube stepped to her side and took the Captain’s weight off Priscilla’s arm upon his own. There was, even to a man with as little experience of death as Rube’s, but scanty room to doubt that Captain Da Silva was going to his account. And then, incredible as it may seem to most of us, this simple-minded Christian man, forgetting all else but the pitiable plight of the sufferer before him, actually burst suddenly into earnest prayer that he might be spared—if only for a little while—spared to repent of the evil done and intended. But as he prayed he was conscious of something, he knew not what, driving into his mind the certainty that his prayer was not to be granted. That Ramon Da Silva had done all the direct ill he was to be allowed to do. Rube’s voice ceased, the skipper’s eyes opened, glazed and fixed, his lower jaw dropped heavily, and he was dead. Catching Priscilla’s eyes fixed earnestly upon his face, Reuben said solemnly, ‘He’s dead, ma’am, and the rest is with God.’ ‘May God have mercy upon him now,’ she replied.

Until the evening scarcely another word was spoken by either of them, both busy with their own thoughts. But just before sunset, Rube said questioningly, ‘We kain’t do no good, and may do much harm, by keeping the body any longer: d’ you mind my offering up a prayer an’ committin’ it to th’ deep?’ She answered humbly, ‘Do what you think is right—I am willing. God knows I have every confidence in you.’ So Rube sank upon his knees on the thwart, and with bowed head commended the dead man to the mercy of the Merciful. Then he rose, and with a sudden heave of his great shoulders, lifted the piece of clay; there was a sullen splash, an eddy, and all that was mortal of Ramon Da Silva had disappeared for ever from human sight.

With an unutterable sense of relief Reuben turned to the business of living, and bringing forth his little store of filleted fish and a handful of broken biscuits gently pressed Priscilla to eat. She at once commenced to try, only stipulating that he should also take something, for she felt sure that, since the catastrophe, at any rate, he had not broken his fast. He gravely acceded to her wish and began to eat, but had only taken two or three mouthfuls when he laid down the morsel he was conveying to his lips, put both hands to his face, and, his huge body shaken as with ague, burst into a tempest of sobs. Priscilla watched him in awe-stricken silence, until she, too, moved beyond bearing by such a passion in this quiet, self-possessed man, began to weep. But as soon as she did, Rube, by a tremendous effort, regained command of himself and began in tenderest fashion to speak such comforting words to her as his close acquaintance with the Source of all comfort had given him possession of. But be it noted, neither his consolation nor Priscilla’s distress had any reference to their present desperate condition whatever. That apparently gave them no uneasiness. These tears of Priscilla’s were due to reaction, to self-pity perhaps a little, but principally were an evidence of the passing away of an awful bondage. Such tears as a prisoner might shed on first emerging from a loathsome captivity in an underground dungeon into the blessed light of Heaven—free.