Richard Cary interrupted this impromptu elegy and beckoned the chief officer outside to say:
“All hands will go ashore that can be spared from duty, Mr. Duff. Clean clothes—make them look as smart as you can. At ten o’clock this forenoon.”
“At four bells, sir?”
“Yes, at four bells. It seems appropriate. Have the bell tolled during the burial service.”
“Right, Captain Cary. Let me tell you, though, the prickles ran up and down my back when the man on watch banged out four bells at six o’clock this morning. If it’s all the same to you, I won’t have four bells struck after to-day.”
“I am not very anxious to hear it myself, Mr. Duff. And so you heard it last night when I did? The bell actually rang itself? Did you look at the clock?”
“I looked at the clock with my two eyes as big as onions,” earnestly answered Mr. Duff. “It was eighteen minutes after nine. I had come on deck after saying good-night to the chief engineer. Charlie was fussing and cussing some because his leg hurt him, and he was missing all the excitement. Dong-dong—dong-dong, went the silly old bell, and I walked as far as the bridge to bawl out the anchor watch. Nobody was near the bell. Says I to myself, one of those Colombians has an extra drink under his belt and is skylarkin’ to get a rise out of me.
“I stood there looking at the shack of a fo’castle we knocked together and the bell hanging in the frame on top of it. I’m a son-of-a-gun if the bell didn’t ring again. I was as flustered as a woman with a mouse in her petticoats. I had heard the yarn—why Señor Bazán insisted on fetching this old relic along. Well, sir, I was froze to the deck like a blasted dummy, my mouth wide open, and I’m a liar if she didn’t hammer out four bells again. Three times is out, says I, and something is due to happen. It did. That infernal explosion made my teeth rattle. From here it looked as if old Cocos Island had split herself wide open. I was never so thankful in my life as when you showed up on the beach with all hands accounted for except poor Ramon Bazán. That was his own private signal the bell tapped off, as I figure it.”
“And you examined the bell?” asked Cary. “I haven’t had a chance to look it over.”
“Yes, sir. I made myself go for’ard and I climbed on the roof. I laid on my back and felt inside of this spooky bell. It was a brave deed, Captain Cary. Please enter it in the log that Bradley Duff was meritorious. The tongue of the bell is hung on a swivel bolt and there is a lot of play in it, due to wear and corrosion. The ship was rolling last night, a strong breeze blowing straight into the bay and considerable ground swell. The tongue might possibly have swung to strike the rim of the bell, but it never happened before, not even in that gale off the Colombian coast. That’s all I can say, sir, and I have to believe it or admit that I’ve gone clean dotty.”