“Don’t say that,” answered Tom. “I ain’t learned to say much, but one thing I’m certain of, that in the Bible forgiveness is promised to all.”
“How, now? Forgiveness for me? No, lad, I’m too bad for that.”
“Listen,” said Tom, and getting the tattered Bible we had found in the dead man’s hut on Ring Island, he read to Bristol Bob the glorious promises of the Christian religion, and also prayed with him, Bill and I kneeling down with him and joining in the prayers.
After we had finished, Bristol Bob said he felt happier, and trusted that he indeed had found mercy, and asked again for water to drink. But when Tom held a pannikin to his mouth, he was seized with a convulsive shuddering, and dashed it away.
We tried to pour some into his mouth, but all our efforts were fruitless, and we had, after some time, to give up the attempt.
“I know what it is, boys,” said poor Bob. “I’ve seen a many die from these arrow wounds. I don’t know what it is, whether it’s the poison of the bone arrow or what, but it’s an awful death. I may have a short time during which I can speak, and I will tell you all I can how to get away.”
The poor fellow now told us of his magazine, of his visit to which during the night he had neither remembrance nor idea, and said that, besides the powder in the two boxes, we should find some beads and corals of considerable value, a small bag of pearls, and about seventy pounds in money. This, he told us, we could keep for ourselves; and then, as soon as he was dead, he begged us to bury him out at sea, so that he could not be dug up and eaten; and that done, he advised us to get away to Leviji as quick as we could. He also said that we were to trust none of the natives, not even Calla, with our plans; but if we had to employ any one, that it should be Bos’n, who he said he thought was the best man on the islands.
While he was speaking, he was often interrupted by convulsive attacks, which at last became so continuous and so bad that he could no longer talk. Of the scene of horror that ensued while he was wrestling with the frightful disease of tetanus, or lockjaw, I will say nothing—the remembrance of it is even now too dreadful to me; but when, an hour before sunset, he died, we all felt that it was a happy release.
In his storeroom we found some canvas and needles, and as soon as his body was cold, Tom set to work and sewed him up in a seaman’s shroud, and lashed some heavy rocks to his feet to sink his body to the bottom of the sea.
Before all was ready, the night had nearly passed, and we lay down to rest for a while, intending, as soon as we woke, to carry the dead body down to the Escape, and, paddling her out into the bay, commit it to the deep, in accordance with the wishes Bristol Bob had expressed while still able to speak.