Picked up at Sea / The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek

by John C. Hutcheson

The first mate, one of the most active of men, had, the instant he reached the deck, set to work to relieve the ship, but as he was casting loose the lee braces from the cleats the lurch of the sail caught him, and at the same moment the main-topgallant mast with all its belongings coming down with a run, he was stunned for a second by some portion of the falling gear, and before he could recover his balance or take hold of anything to save himself by, was carried overboard with the wreck.

At nearly the same precise instant the boy darted out of the cabin aft, just ahead of the skipper and Mr Rawlings, as if impelled by some unfathomable instinct, and bounding right to the spot where Seth was being swept away to destruction, clutched hold of the seaman’s collar with one hand, and one end of the topsail-halliards with the other as they hung over the side, and there he remained, swaying to and fro, partly in the water and partly out, holding on with the strength of his single arm in a manner that no one would have thought a man, much less a boy, could do—and neither man nor boy, except one bred to the sea!

Seth saw it all, though no one else noticed the action, even amidst the conflicting emotions which passed rapidly through his mind at the moment of his infinite peril, just as a man falling from a cliff and expecting death every instant has the exact appearance of each foot of his rapid descent photographed on his brain. He saw the distended startled blue eyes of the boy, the light brown hair standing almost erect, the white bandage round his forehead, the blood on his face; but he could not tell nor think where he came from, and supposed, as he said afterwards, that he was an angel come to save him—and he would regard him as such all his life long!

“I’m darned if he warn’t,” he repeated, when the captain laughed when Seth mentioned his sensations at the time and detailed his thoughts, “fur he came just in the nick of time to grip holt o’ me; and if he hadn’t ben thaar I guess it ’ud a ben all sockdolagar with Seth, I does! He must have got what ye call a call, that he must! Guess you’d a thought him a angel, if you’d been in this child’s shoes!”

And so the crew all agreed when they heard from the steward Jasper his account of how the boy had started out of the captain’s cot, where he had him in a sound sleep, and came out of the cabin straight to help Seth—the negro’s version of the story losing nothing, it need hardly be mentioned, through his telling it with much pantomimic action, and his frequent affirmation, “Golly, massa, I tell you for true!”

Mr Rawlings considered that the boy had been awakened by the crash of the water pooping the ship and the bleeding bursting out again from his wound, both of which recalled some fleeting thoughts, probably, of the shipwreck in which he had temporarily lost his reason. But the men would not hear of this at all, ascribing Seth’s rescue to some supernatural foresight on the part of poor “Sailor Bill,” as the boy was unanimously dubbed, and looked on thenceforth with the same respectful, pitying care with which the Indians regard any imbecile person, by everybody on board, from the cook Josh—another negro like Jasper, of whom he was intensely jealous, calling him, on the principle of “the pot and the kettle,” a “nigerant puss-proud black fellow”—up to the captain, who, to tell the truth, shared some of the superstitious regard of the men for their protégé!

For the poor boy had, without doubt, lost his senses. He neither spoke, nor laughed, nor cried, nor was any perceptible emotion of pleasure or pain displayed by him under any circumstances.

He did not once arouse from the lethargy that seemed to press down upon his brain again after he had so fortunately and so wonderfully come to the assistance of Seth Allport.

One thing, however, was noticeable in him afterwards, and that was, that from that moment he appeared to attach himself to the seaman, just as a dog attaches himself to some master whom he elects for himself, and was never easy out of Seth’s sight, following him everywhere about the ship, except at night, when he slept in the cabin.

Seth Allport, talking it over with the skipper and Mr Rawlings, gave a scientific explanation from his medical lore. He said that Sailor Bill’s mental affliction was due to some psychological effect, which would wear away in time, and probably completely disappear if the boy had to undergo a shock precisely similar to that which had caused it. But, as neither he nor any one else knew what that shock was, of course they could not expedite Sailor Bill’s cure, nor do anything, save make him the dumb pet of the ship.