It was the same wherever he went. The old sea-boots on the shelf of the seaport’s slop-shop danced a jig on some ship far at sea; the oilskins swelled to visionary limbs as sailormen opened their bearded mouths and climbed aloft, singing the chanteys that he could distinctly hear as he placed his ear to the shop’s dirty window!
The silk, blue-fringed chemise hanging on a nail by the oil lamp clung, as he gazed, to the limbs of some laughing girl; fingers travelling down the yellow keys of the second-hand piano mysteriously strummed out some melody that told of the briefness of life, youth and beauty. This poetical weakness was a veritable Old Man of the Sea on his back. But still, he was no fool, and, like most of his type, he could be strong where most men are weak.
As he turned round and looked on the desolate scene, and stared at the sunset out at sea, his face expressed an emotion that words cannot describe. The parrots rose in a glittering cloud as he stood their meditating, gazing on the small burial ground that he had suddenly stumbled across. It was where a few white men had been buried on the lonely beach-side, miles from the township. The crosses of coral stone were sunken very deep, the names nearly oblitered. “What a godforsaken, tragic place,” he muttered as he read:
TO THE MEMORY OF
BILL LARGO, BOATSWAIN
DIED JUNE 3RD 1860
SPEARED BY HEAD-HUNTERS IN TRYING TO SAVE SHIP’S
COOK—THIS STONE IS RAISED BY THE CREW
OF THE S.S. “SALAMANDER” BOUND
FOR CALLAO