Caybigan

by James Hopper

As mysteriously as it had been raised, the rope dropped softly till its end touched the water. When Burke, dripping, sprang on deck, a heavy silence was upon the boat, broken only by the hoarse breathing of the sleepers, spread about in limp attitudes like the dead upon the battlefield.

A few days later, as he took up the demijohn in which he kept his drinking water, brought distilled from shore, he found the cork askew. He was always careful to shut the vessel hermetically, and a sudden suspicion made him turn the demijohn over and pour its contents out upon the deck. The water gurgled out, and when the vessel was empty Jerry found a little piece of cloth sticking to the inside of the gullet. He drew it out, and an icy shiver ran up his spine. He held in his hand a little square of red and yellow calico. The last cholera victim of the Bonita, a woman, had worn a sarong of red and yellow calico.

He threw the demijohn overboard, and when he had obtained a new one from shore he slept against it at night.

Burke began to observe his crew, and this gave him little satisfaction. Beneath the oriental passiveness, malevolence was boiling. His orders, it is true, were obeyed; but it was with heaviness of movement and dulness of eye; and in the periods of rest, sullen, squatting groups formed, that broke out in whisperings and oblique looks, to be scattered usually by the bowing, smirking, oily Chino, Tionko. And of all the ominous signs, there was none that displeased Burke more than the behaviour of the Chino—this evident eagerness to save the face of things, to glaze over the dark working beneath with a serene surface.

They were on one of these periods of immunity from disease which drew all nerves tense. Three days had passed, then four; they entered upon the fifth. Twenty-four hours more would set the Bonita free from the iron clutches of the quarantine. That day was a bad one. The solidarity in misfortune that had bound the unfortunates of the lorcha broke into a ferocious individualism. All work ceased that morning. The population of the Bonita divided into groups; these segregated more and more as the day advanced, till finally each man was squatting alone, with glaring threat in his eyeballs. God help the one who should come down; the execration of the whole boat was already focussed upon him.

At last the brazen day melted into the purple evening and night came, with a trembling crescent of moon in the sky and a horizon vibrating in sheet lightning. Burke prepared himself for what was likely to be his last night of vigil. He lit a lantern and began pacing to and fro to keep awake, usually an easy thing for him to do. Toward midnight, he stopped and leaned against the mainmast, gazing at the weird flashing of light at the horizon. Insensibly he went asleep. His head fell on his breast, his legs sagged beneath him, and he slid softly down till he sat upon the deck, his back against the mast.

Suddenly he found himself sitting bolt upright, all his faculties stiffened in alarm. The turbulent fancies of his slumber had merged into something tense and sharp as reality, and his ears still rang with low moans, a scurry of feet, and a strangled cry. Now that he was fully awake, however, the night was heavy with silence, only the tide bubbling and tinkling and crooning along the flanks of the boat. He lay back a moment, but his senses had been too acutely wrung, and, picking up the lantern, he walked forward.

Everything was quiet. Indistinct forms were stretched about the deck, and the breathing of the sleepers rhythmed the silence. Near the anchor, Burke recognised Tionko. The Chino's chest was rising and falling in deep, regular movement; he moaned inarticulately as Burke bent over him with his lantern.

Burke was turning away when, in the movement, the light of the lantern fell upon the rope up which he had clambered on the night of the first mysterious attack against him. Although not used any more, it had been left hanging over the side, and now, as Burke's eyes fell upon it, in the glare of the light, it was all a-tremble and a-thrill, like a live thing. Mumbling sleepily about the strength of the tide, Burke gave it a pull. A resistance met him, as that of a line with a fish hooked at the end. Puzzled, he went over the side, holding to the bulwark and bending down as far as he could, and then, as he gave another tug, two thin arms clutching the rope, and then a livid face, bobbed up slowly into the pale moonlight.

Burke let himself down, his feet against the side, his left hand grasping the rope. He bent down, his right hand caught a handful of hair, and he drew up on it. Taking the loose end of the rope, he passed it beneath both limp arms, then, holding it between his teeth, he clambered back to the deck and pulled the whole body up. He sent the rays of his lantern into the face, and recognised it as that of a young boy of the lorcha.