“‘How do I know? And it in his bunk—under the mattress in his bunk.’
“‘That’s all right. And whose bunk was it before Dan Spring got it? Another Dan’s, warn’t it— Dan Powell’s? And didn’t he leave the mattress behind him when he left this vessel, trip before last? Didn’t he? And warn’t Dan Powell just the kind of a man that’d do a thing like that, and not Dan Spring, my own cousin? And so that’s the bottom of it? Nineteen souls gone because you thought—just thought only—that one of them was fooling you. And for a woman that warn’t worth Dan Spring’s little finger. That’s the truth, George Hoodley. But if you’d been brought up different, if you’d studied to understand the good side of people, instead of the other side, and how to get the best of them and to make money out of them and save it, you both might’ve come safe out of it. But you warn’t that kind. ’Twarn’t in your blood, nor in none of your people. Wrong’s wrong— I got nothing to say about that—but human nature’s human nature. Why should you expect, George Hoodley, to get the fine things in life? Why warn’t you content with money? You’d earned that. What had you to offer a handsome young woman that liked a good time? What had you, even supposing she was the kind you could trust—anything that women love? Not a blessed thing. You’ve spent your life with about one idea in your head, and that idea had nothing to do with being pleasant or kind to others, or good to anybody but yourself. Miles away from the kind of thing that women love were you all the time. You come to nigh fifty year of age—you, with your hard face and hard mouth, and eyes like— God! like a dead fish’s eyes to-night, no less—don’t you know that whoever was going to marry you warn’t going to for love? You had a right to marry some lean old sour-mouthed spinster with a little money like yourself. What made you think that beauty and love was for you? But even in marrying you thought to make a good bargain—and got fooled. And by the daughter of a man of your own kind, too. D’y’ s’pose her father didn’t know? God help you, George Hoodley, ’twas him hooked you—’twas him made the good bargain, not you. Why, before ever you married her ’twas common talk she warn’t the girl for any man to trust. But what good is it to talk of that now? Nineteen men gone, for I don’t count you—you’re no man. You’re a— But I won’t say it. Lord, but I’m tempted to choke you where you stand. Only when I think of those fine men—and poor Dan Spring——”
“‘Dan Spring? Don’t tell me ’twarn’t Dan Spring, the——’
“‘Hold up,’ I says to that—‘hold up, or close as we both are to death now and soon to go, I’ll choke you where you stand— I’ll send you to your God, or to the devil, with the print of my fingers around your turkey gobbler’s throat, if you say aught of Dan. Dan was my own kind and I knew him. Whatever faults he had—and maybe he had some—it warn’t in the heart of Dan Spring to undervalue good women, or to mix with married women of any kind, let alone the wife of a man he was to go ship-mate with. No, sir, not if he didn’t have a wife and children of his own—wife and children that’ll have to suffer all their lives because of you, and never know what brought it all about. But years from now they’ll still be without food and clothing because of you. When I think of it, George Hoodley, I misdoubt they’d count it against me in the other world, where we’ll both be soon with the others, if I was to take you by the throat and wind my fingers around your windpipe, and choke and choke and squeeze and squeeze you till your tongue came out and your eyes popped, and your face got blue and then black, and you——’
“He drew back against the lockers and put his hands before his face. ‘Martin, Martin, don’t!’ he said; for, in truth, I all but had hold of him in spite of myself.
“‘I’m not going to,’ I said. ‘I have enough already to account for. There’s two or three things I wish I hadn’t done, and maybe if I sent you to death a few minutes sooner than you’re going, I’d be sorry for it, too, later on. I’m going on deck now. This vessel won’t last much longer. She’s breaking as it is—and up to our chests in water here now.’
“Well, all the time we were below the big seas never let up. Some of her outside planks were working loose from their frames when I left him to go on deck again. Her deck planking, too, was coming apart. I almost fell into her hold when I was coming out of the forec’s’le. I didn’t know what to do quite, but climbed up on toward her bow at last, hanging on where I could, dodging seas and the loose bits of wreck they were carrying with them. At the knight-heads I looked around and ahead. Astern and to either side ’twas nothing but rocks and the white sea beating over them. Ahead I could make out a wall of rock— I guessed where I was—to the west’ard of Canso, off Whitehead. I knew that coast, and a bad coast it was. Up on the bowsprit, crawling out with the help of the footropes and the stops hanging down and the wreck of the jib and stays, I began to think I had a chance—if I could only live till the daylight that was coming on. I climbed farther out. Hard work it was, and I soon cast off my boots. At the end of the bowsprit I got a better look. A dozen feet away was the ledge with a chance for a footing. If a man could jump that—but what man could, from a vessel’s bowsprit? But now and then, perhaps every minute or so, the bowsprit, under a more than average big sea, lifted and sagged a little nearer the cliff. At the right time a man might make the leap, I thought. But if he missed? I looked down with the thought and saw nothing but rocks and a white boiling below. ‘If you miss, Martin,’ I said to myself, ‘maybe you’ll live five seconds, maybe ten—but more likely maybe you’d keep clear of being mashed to jelly for just about a wink of your eye.’ And ’twas enough to make a man wink his eyes just to look at the white boiling hell beneath. I cast off my oilskin jacket while I was thinking of it, and then my oil pants. After that went my jersey, flannel shirt, and trousers. I meant to have a good try at it, anyway.
“Looking back before I should leap, who did I see but the Skipper. In the noise of the sea I had not heard him. He, too, had cast off his boots and was even then unbuttoning his oilskins. He must’ve known I was watching him, for he said, ‘Don’t throw me off, Martin—don’t!’
“‘Who’s going to?’ I asked.
“‘That’s right—don’t. Give me a chance now, Martin.’