"Hardly, I fancy," said I impatiently, "with the old Yankee sunk and our party ashore, half of them dead, some of them buried, the others——"
"Don't go on so, Jones. Those men may not have been pirates. Sometimes people pretend they are pi——"
"Don't split hairs, Captain. I think if a Britisher or an American should capture them, and knew what they done, they would give them a short shrift. I can't see how you can be so unimpressed with our dreadful situation."
I looked up at the Skipper and saw the tears welling over from his eyes.
"Don't scold me, Jones," he said in a broken voice. "God knows I can't see my way clear to anything! Tell me what you think best, and I'll do it."
I saw that the old man's nerve was gone, and I suspected that with it had departed some of the good judgment for which he had been noted, I had heard, in years gone by. Had I started from Coenties Slip with the ship, I should have remonstrated with him, if possible, for taking a young girl on so hazardous a voyage; but I had joined the ship at Martinique, my own vessel having been lost off that island in a hurricane, of which more another time. The Captain had quarreled with his Mate, he had deserted, and I had taken the job, and glad to get it, too. My surprise was great when I found Miss Archer on board. I had always been pessimistic about her presence there, and now something like what I had anticipated had happened, and here was I left to care for a Captain who was broken and old, and a young girl of my own nation, for whose welfare I found that I cared more than was good for my peace of mind, and a boy who was of no use except to give us an occasional laugh, and a Bo's'n who went off into strange, mysterious attacks, and talked at such times miles over my head, as well as his own—a sublimated Bo's'n, who, though entirely illiterate in his normal moments, in attacks such as I have described spoke like a professor; who one moment was soaring in the skies, and raving of things spiritual and supernatural, and the next moment was talking like the veriest old Jacky that ever came out of a forecastle. I, too, was feeling upset with all that we had gone through, but I must keep my courage up if we were to escape from that accursed island.
"Jones, what do you say to rowing back up along the beach and seeing if those fellows are alive? We ought to bury them decently if they have died since yesterday." The Skipper seemed suddenly to have developed a fancy for the rôle of Chaplain. Having tasted the pleasure of being in close communication with Heaven, on a confidential footing, so to speak, with Providence, the apologist and recommender of the dead of his crew, he hated to give up the job. I have noticed the same sort of frenzy in my wife at times. She (to speak mildly) used to dissipate, at certain seasons, in church meetings, going to Wednesday evening and Friday evening meetings, to noon prayer meetings, and three times to church.
On Sundays many's the time I've walked the floor with little Adoniah Schuyler second, while she was listening to Reverend Vandenwater thunder hell and damnation at the unrepentant. She has come in with an uplifted look on her face and an air of holy calm, which assured me that the next world held no place for such degenerates as myself. The Reverend Vandenwater demanded all her time and attention for the "Refuge for the Progeny of the Bondsman." But the Reverend Vandenwater disappeared with the funds of the Refuge, and she has not dissipated so extensively since. I used to tell her when she talked about the love of the Lord that it was spelled with a "V," which at times created a coolness in the family. But I have digressed.
I told the Skipper that I thought we had been enjoying ourselves long enough away from the camp, and that we should now return as soon as possible. As I spoke, I rested for a moment on my oars and turned my head in the direction of the camp.
"Strange!" said I; "there's no one on the beach." The Skipper stood up in the boat.