“Yes,” answered Martin. “The nakhuda and another Arab hoisted him aboard and we laid him on the deck, out of the sun, with his head propped up. There were only minutes left, with nothing to do but magic; so I rubbed his wrists and whispered the Lord’s Prayer to him. It sounded all right on that blistering deck, or must have done so, for Sali kept smiling and repeating the words—the sound of the words after me.... ‘Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.’ ... Then his face changed—I saw it coming. He spoke thinly to the nakhuda, who knelt down and cut the string around the boy’s neck which held this amulet.” Martin pointed to the charm on his finger. “Sali took it, and with that hopeless, sweet trust glazed on his eyes forever, held it out to me that death-like second before death.”
Martin cleared his throat and looked down at the grass.
After watching him for a moment Rio said quietly, “That’s the last time I’ll ever ask about a ring. I done it once before, and I ought to know better.”
“What happened?” asked Martin.
Rio took his time, and scanned the harbor before he spoke.
“I shipped out of Liverpool,” he said at last, “because I had to once, on a vessel bound for the Solomon Islands. My watch partner looked like a Limey, but he was a shanty Irishman from Philadelphia. I never could quite make ’im out. We had two hours in Lisbon on the trip South, and he give a kid two bits American to get off a spittoon in a Portugee gin mill. He told me it made him nervous, seein’ a boy sit like that. Well, we had some sour wine and some biscuits before I seen his ring. It was a wide gold band on his left middle finger, and somehow I asked him about it. He grinned and looked pretty sick; but he said it was for Maud. I took another drink and lit up a cigarette because I couldn’t see no woman with him. He called himself ‘Philadelphia Dick,’ but the city would’ve killed ’im for it, since he was the ugliest bastard I ever seen, with a skin like tripe and a red eyelid that hung down like a lantern over his left eye. He knowed I didn’t believe that Maud stuff, and that damned eyelid dropped down like he was laughin’ at me, while he chewed on a biscuit with the ring wigglin’ all the time under his Harp nose.
“We sailed, soon after, for undetermined cargo on the Solomon’s. Every man of us got fed up after we got there, for it was ‘lay to, and wait for orders.’ We had the ship so clean she ached, and finally we got shore-leave. The second engineer hammered me out a barb and Chips fixed an ironwood shaft for me, so I had a good harpoon to try on the bass and some red trout I seen around there. Philadelphia Dick grinned and looked sick again when he heard I was goin’ fishin’; but he and a couple of other sailors come along.
“It was a small atoll I picked near the mainland; so we rolled up our pants and waded to the belt of coral to have a look at the lagoon. The water was still; but all the fish I could see was small for my spear. One of the boys though, who was standin’ between me and Dick, slapped me on the arm and reached quick for the harpoon; and then I could see the water break a ways out, and a turtle come up from the shallows. It was a big one—about three hundred pounds—and we all got down on our knees and stayed quiet, except Philadelphia Dick. He stood there with his jaw droppin’ and his skin turnin’ so red that his loose eyelid hung down, limp and white, like a blossom.
“The turtle waded up pretty slow, takin’ its own damned way like they always do, till the guy that had my spear seen it was time. He jumped up and run toward the creature, raisin’ his arm to let the turtle have it through the eye. But he never made it,” Rio added slowly. “Philadelphia Dick hit him in the cheek and then in the nose, which broke so we could all hear it snap—even the damned turtle, who crawled on up like nothin’ had happened. Well, we stood there like a bunch of god-damned fools, like the guy who’d been clipped, while the turtle come on till she stood right in front of Philadelphia Dick. By God!—they watched each other till it made us feel in the way somehow, and we got the hell out of there. Once, the guy with the bloody face turned round and looked back at Dick and the turtle. ‘She took his eye, Rio,’ he said to me, funny-like. And I said, ‘Yeah—that’s Maud.’ ‘Maud?’ he said, still lookin’ funny, and we went back to the ship.
“Philadelphia Dick didn’t come back that night; but a native brought ’im alongside the next mornin’ and he come up the Jacob’s ladder like a snake. The Chinee cook seen ’im first and turned green. For Dick’s eyelid was down to his cheek like it had been sewed there, and his good eye was too cold for a man. But the worst thing was the look of his Irish nose that had been tilted up for thirty-five years—till then—but that had bent overnight into a hook as sharp as the creature’s we was all thinkin’ of. By the mercy of God, we sailed that evenin’ for Sarawak. Philadelphia Dick was at the steam winch when I seen ’im last; but five minutes later nobody could find ’im on the ship. When we got to Borneo the Devil himself must’ve reversed our sailing orders; for we was sent back to the Solomons, though the sailors hadn’t no stomach for it, I can tell you. The galley boy, more scared than silly, said somethin’ about Maud, and got the back of the hand from one of the men. Most of us, though, took this jinx along with the bugs and the sour bread; but we was all steppin’ like the Chief’s cat when we hove to about the place where Philadelphia Dick had jumped ship. We was all by the rail expectin’ somethin’, and we got it. A couple of turtles drifted in about midships and out of the long green we watched two beaks come up. One was Maud, the other a stranger. The god-damned Chinee cook yelled out and pointed. I seen the fella—a wide blue turtle with a heavy, forward shell. He scratched Maud (who looked pretty wise) with his right flipper and lifted the other one at us. The damned Chinee yelled again and we seen why; for there was a gold band like a barrel hoop, high up on that blue turtle’s port leg, where no human hand could’ve put it.” Rio stopped.