Then old Tom Ryegate came staggering up, boo-hooing like a great baby. He wrung Frenchy’s hand; gave his daughter a slobbering kiss; and broke out into a whole rigmarole of how pleased he was to see her made an honest woman, by God, and married to a gentleman she could respeck and look up to. The girl herself might have been dead, for all the attention she paid to him or any one; but for Frenchy’s enfolding arm, I believe she would have fallen to the ground, for she was stony white, and shaking in a kind of chill. I could hear her teeth chatter, while Frenchy haggled with the pastor, and the trader went on with his endless gabble.
We all moved out of the church together, old Tom Ryegate stumbling along in the rear, making very poor weather of it in the dark. All at once he went sprawling over something, and we could hear him cursing to himself as he tried to get on his legs again.
“Now’s our chance, gentlemen all,” cried the captain, and off we set running for the beach, old Tom’s voice growing fainter and fainter in our rear. We tumbled pell-mell into the boat that was waiting for us, and shoved off into deep water amid a hullabaloo of laughter and cheers. Far behind us we could still hear the old fellow calling and swearing, and even when we drew up under the bark, I thought I could yet detect the faint echo of his voice. All this time Elsie herself had made no sound, and had submitted like a terror-stricken child to be led where Frenchy wished. But when she felt her feet on the gangway ladder, and saw above her head the tangled yards and rigging of the ship, she must have realised all at once what fate had in store for her, for she uttered a shuddering cry and began to sob. I stood up in the boat; I tried to say something of what I felt; I remember I called Frenchy a damned villain, and us no better for helping him.
“Stop that row!” cried the captain, giving me a punch in the ribs that made me gasp and turn sick. “I won’t have a word spoken against Mr. or Mrs. Bonnichon, and if I catch you at it again, you young whelp, I’ll lick you within an inch of your life. I won’t allow a mischief-maker on my ship, nor a dirty scandal-monger. Just you remember that, young gentleman.”
I went up the gangway in silence, humiliated and rebellious, to spend a sleepless night in plans of revenge. My heart seemed to burst with a sense of my powerlessness, and I turned and turned on my pillow in a fever. The morning found us beating up against a stiff trade-wind and a heavy sea, and at breakfast the captain had more than once to leave the table in order to see us through a squall. He and Old Bee were the only persons at that meal except myself, but neither commented on Frenchy’s absence or said a word about the events of yesterday. Indeed, I don’t think they exchanged three remarks in all, and these were about the weather. I could not help gazing from time to time at the door of Frenchy’s state-room; and once, in so doing, I encountered the captain’s baleful eye. I looked away hastily, and, I am ashamed to add, I trembled. Frenchy made no appearance at lunch, but towards three o’clock of the afternoon I saw him steal stealthily out and get a bottle of whisky and some biscuits, and then close his door again on our little world. I was struck afresh with his gross, evil look, and shrank, as one might from a wild beast, at the very sight of him.
The second day passed much as the first, though it found us lying better up to windward. Frenchy still kept away from the table, and I used to stare at his closed state-room door with an awful curiosity. My two companions were, if anything, more glum and uncommunicative than ever; and when I tried to draw out Babcock I found that his mouth also had been sealed. He would give me only snapping answers, and was painfully ill at ease in my presence. Lum had scalded himself twice in the galley, and was in no conversational mood; and when I tried to unbosom myself to him he cut me short with the remark that “white men were all same devil.”
We ran into Lascom in the morning of the third day, and by ten o’clock were at anchor off the settlement. Babcock at once hoisted out eight or nine tons of Frenchy’s stuff, most of it food for his year’s sojourn on the island, together with a lot of mess pork and biscuits for the Kanakas; and all hands were busy getting it into the whale-boat alongside. The captain and Old Bee were sitting side by side on the top of the house, the latter with a pocket full of papers and a portfolio desk across his knee. They were laughing together, and Mins was holding the ink-bottle in one hand. Lum was standing at the break of the poop, peeling potatoes and watching his bread, which was spread out on the hatch to rise. I could not stay still, but kept moving about in a state of frightful agitation, for I knew that Elsie and the Frenchman must soon appear.
Suddenly I heard a half-smothered oath, the shattering of glass, the rapid patter of naked feet. I turned, and there was Elsie Ryegate poised on the ship’s rail, her black hair flying to the wind, her bare arms outspread. She was over like a flash, and her feet had barely touched the water when Frenchy leaped after her. We all shouted and ran aft, the crew whooping like a pack of boys. The girl headed as straight as an arrow for the shore, but she had not swum twenty strokes before Frenchy was panting and blowing close behind her. Seeing, apparently, that she could not hope to escape, she turned and seemed to resign herself to capture. But as Frenchy tried to seize her by the hair, she swiftly threw both her arms round his neck, and with a tragic look of exultation she sank with him below.
Down, down they went, the puddled green water showing them vaguely beneath the surface, sometimes with a ghastly distinctness, sometimes with strange distortions of feature and limb. They rose at last, still struggling, still drowning each other, the girl’s arms clinched round the man’s neck, he spluttering horribly and trying to strike at her with his fist. Spellbound, we saw them sink again, their convulsed faces almost touching, their bodies writhing in agony. Mins let out a great roar and darted for the life-belt; there was a rush forward to cast off the whaler in which Frenchy’s stuff was being lightered; Old Bee screamed out, “Jump! jump!” to our boatswain, who was looking on transfixed, pointing madly at the bubbles that kept rising to the surface. Johnny made one step aft, and was just on the point of vaulting over the rail when Lum caught him squarely round the waist and held him like a vise. There was a short, violent struggle between them, and the Chinaman went down with a crash under the Kanaka. But by the time the latter was on his feet again the moment for his services had passed, for Frenchy’s body, still locked in Elsie Ryegate’s arms, drifted lifeless under our quarter. The captain pointed at it with an awe-stricken finger, and signalled the whale-boat where to pull.
The girl’s corpse was thrown on an old sail in the waist, and left there, naked and dripping, for the crew to gape at; while Frenchy was borne off by the captain, who, with streaming tears, worked over him for an hour in the trade-room. When Lum and I had recovered our wits, we drew the poor drowned creature into the galley, put hot bottles to her feet, rubbed her icy body with our hands, and held her up between us to the blazing fire. Lum blew into her mouth, worked her arms up and down, and exhausted a thousand ingenuities to call her back to life; but the little looking-glass he held so persistently to her lips remained to the end untarnished by a breath. We were compelled at last—though God knows how reluctantly—to give up all hope; and laying her gently in the Chinaman’s berth, we covered her beautiful face. Then I took occasion to ask Lum why he had prevented Johnny from diving overboard—Johnny who was a powerful swimmer and certain to have saved them.