“We might have to wait long, and it’s a pity to miss the tide,” said Pomfrett, pushing a paper across the table to him. “There’s the formal quittance in full on behalf of the officers and crew. You are to sign for yourself and the men ashore.”
“Not me; not likely,” returned the other, angry and suspicious. “D’ye think I want a knife in my back? The officers and crew have got to be present at this here dividend, themselves.”
“Please yourself,” said Brandon. “It’s that or nothing. I’m stretching a point as it is, though you mayn’t think it.”
But the matter had to be opened much more at large to the quartermaster before he would sign. In fine, it was the beach for him and his mates, whether or no; the choice lay between full pockets and empty.
So he signed at last, and Pomfrett folded the paper, and buttoned his coat upon the document which was both to set him square with his owners and secure him against any future attempt at blackmailing. The long-boat was loaded with the men’s kit and their booty, and sent ashore with the quartermaster, who was left on the beach to do sentry-go over a king’s ransom until such time as the crew should come along. But, they were happily employed in an ale-house some two miles inland; and we of the Blessed Endeavour never saw those scoundrels any more.
We fetched up in Bristol docks on a clear, frosty evening at sunset, the bells chiming somewhere in the darkling town, with its lights glimmering here and there, and the sky over all jewelled with faint stars. Morgan Leroux was waiting on the quay—Brandon had sent her a letter from Morte Bay—and those two went off together to the house of Brandon Pomfrett the elder. Old Dawkins and I were left to keep each other company; and as we sat upon the deserted deck, where everything was so strangely still and motionless, and looked ashore at the darkness closing down upon the packed houses, a kind of melancholy fell upon us.
“Why, now, shipmate,” says Dawkins, “we had ought to been happy, you and me, not to mention the young turtle-doves yonder; though I reckon them being inexperienced, they think they’re in heaven, having fetched up safe and hearty, and chock-a-block with plunder, too. But we ain’t not to say hilarious, are we now? No, says you, not properly so. Ah, well, things is so, shipmate. I reckon we wants a good rousing supper with plenty liquor, to start us on the Jerusalem tack, shipmate.”
And certainly, when, a little later, we found ourselves seated at the table of Uncle Brandon Pomfrett, not even Mrs A.’s sour countenance could stay our hilarity. Old Dawkins presently found his tongue, getting to his feet and leaning forward on the table in his old way.
“Here’s to you, gentlemen o’ fortune all, and you, ma’am, what’s a lady o’ fortune, by what I hear,” shouts Dawkins, glass in hand. “Gentlemen of fortune all, by the bones of the deep! For if you don’t sail yourselves, you sends us on the account, and ‘there’s many a man gone on this cruise, what never has come back’—ah, many a good seaman! Not a dozen men left, out o’ ninety hands! Ah, it’s you that stays at home is the bold ones, for every man that’s drowned in the deep or cast away, or perished in mortal pain and sickness, or gets shot or stabbed or what not, why, his blood’s at your door. Ah, it is! No wonder you goes to church so frequent, and pipes all hands to prayers twice daily. Lord!” says Dawkins, staring hard at Pomfrett the elder, and turning his little, lighted eyes upon Mrs A., who paled visibly, “as I look at you, lady and gentleman born, I could swear I see the blood a-spotting your white hands. But what cheer! The longest liver takes all, and the chaplain can square the dividend, I reckon. What’s he draw pay and rations for, else?”
There was an uncomfortable silence. If those good ship-owners, Mrs A. and Mr Pomfrett, never heard the truth before, they heard it, then, from Mr Dawkins’s vinous lips. But that gallant seaman, not in the least understanding the situation, kindly relieved our embarrassment by incontinently breaking into song; and the rest of the evening went pleasantly enough, for we told the whole history of our adventures; only suppressing Mr Dawkins’s share in them to the extent of setting our detention in Barbadoes to the sole account of the late Mr Murch.