The Burning Ship
Originally published in
Collier's Weekly, 1898
"Indeed," cried Jonathan, in the same shrill and panting voice, "it was themselves who did it. First one of them attacked me and then the other, and I did but try to keep them from murdering me. This one fell on his knife, and that one shot himself in his efforts to destroy me."
"That," says the seaman, "you may very well tell to a dry-lander, and maybe he will believe you; but you cannot so easily pull the wool over the eyes of Captain Benny Willitts. And what, if I may be so bold as for to ask you, was the reason for their attacking so harmless a man as you proclaim yourself to be?"
"That I know not," cried Jonathan; "but I am entirely willing to tell thee all the circumstances. Thou must know that I am a member of the Society of Friends. This day I landed here in Kingston, and met a young woman of very comely appearance, who intrusted me with this little ivory ball, which she requested me to keep for her a few days. The sight of this ball—in which I can detect nothing that could be likely to arouse any feelings of violence—appears to have driven these two men entirely mad, so that they instantly made the most ferocious and murderous assault upon me. See! wouldst thou have believed that so small a thing as this would have caused so much trouble?" And as he spoke he held up to the gaze of the other the cause of the double tragedy that had befallen. But no sooner had Captain Willitts's eyes lighted upon the ball than the most singular change passed over his countenance. The color appeared to grow dull and yellow in his ruddy cheeks, his fat lips dropped apart, and his eyes stared with a fixed and glassy glare. He arose to his feet and, still with the expression of astonishment and wonder upon his face, gazed first at our hero and then at the ivory ball in his hands, as though he were deprived both of reason and of speech. At last, as our hero slipped the trifle back in his pocket again, the mariner slowly recovered himself, though with a prodigious effort, and drew a deep and profound breath as to the very bottom of his lungs. He wiped, with the corner of his black-silk cravat, his brow, upon which the sweat appeared to have gathered. "Well, messmate," says he, at last, with a sudden change of voice, "you have, indeed, had a most wonderful adventure." Then with another deep breath: "Well, by the blood! I may tell you plainly that I am no poor hand at the reading of faces. Well, I think you to be honest, and I am inclined to believe every word you tell me. By the blood! I am prodigiously sorry for you, and am inclined to help you out of your scrape.
"The first thing to do," he continued, "is to get rid of these two dead men, and that is an affair I believe we shall have no trouble in handling. One of them we will wrap up in the carpet here, and t'other we can roll into yonder bed curtain. You shall carry the one and I the other, and, the harbor being at no great distance, we can easily bring them thither and tumble them overboard, and no one will be the wiser of what has happened. For your own safety, as you may easily see, you can hardly go away and leave these objects here to be found by the first comer, and to rise up in evidence against you."
This reasoning, in our hero's present bewildered state, appeared to him to be so extremely just that he raised not the least objection to it. Accordingly, each of the two silent, voiceless victims of the evening's occurrences was wrapped into a bundle that from without appeared to be neither portentous nor terrible in appearance.
Thereupon, Jonathan shouldering the rug containing the little gentleman in black, and the sea captain doing the like for the other, they presently made their way down the stairs through the darkness, and so out into the street. Here the sea captain became the conductor of the expedition, and leading the way down several alleys and along certain by-streets—now and then stopping to rest, for the burdens were both heavy and clumsy to carry—they both came out at last to the harbor front, without anyone having questioned them or having appeared to suspect them of anything wrong. At the waterside was an open wharf extending a pretty good distance out into the harbor. Thither the captain led the way and Jonathan followed. So they made their way out along the wharf or pier, stumbling now and then over loose boards, until they came at last to where the water was of a sufficient depth for their purpose. Here the captain, bending his shoulders, shot his burden out into the dark, mysterious waters, and Jonathan, following his example, did the same. Each body sank with a sullen and leaden splash into the element, where, the casings which swathed them becoming loosened, the rug and the curtain rose to the surface and drifted slowly away with the tide.
As Jonathan stood gazing dully at the disappearance of these last evidences of his two inadvertent murders, he was suddenly and vehemently aroused by feeling a pair of arms of enormous strength flung about him from behind. In their embrace his elbows were instantly pinned tight to his side, and he stood for a moment helpless and astounded, while the voice of the sea captain, rumbling in his very ear, exclaimed, "Ye bloody, murthering Quaker, I'll have that ivory ball, or I'll have your life!"
