John Holdsworth, Chief Mate

by William Clark Russell

“Johnson,” said Holdsworth, “mix some rum and water in that pannikin and give it to him with a biscuit.”

The actor took both, staring first at the pannikin, then at the biscuit.

“Gentlemen!” he cried, with his wild smile, “I am Timon of Athens, sour, crusty, and” ... he stopped with a laugh. “But before his mind went, he pledged his friends, standing thus:—‘Here’s to you—dogs!’” He flung the contents of the pannikin at Holdsworth, and dashed the vessel into the boat; “and with this, I feed the winds!” and he hurled the biscuit into the sea.

“Seize him!” shrieked Holdsworth, noticing a quick movement on the actor’s part. The men sprang forward, but too late to catch him. He leaped on to the thwart and bounded overboard with a peal of laughter, ere you could have cried “Hold!” and vanished under the crest of a wave that was breaking at the moment under the boat.

“See!” cried the General; “he has come to the surface! There is his head! He may be saved yet!”

But the boat was foaming through the water at six or seven knots an hour; the sea was still so lively that to broach her to would have been to capsize her in an instant.

“We cannot save him!” exclaimed Holdsworth, bitterly, grasping the situation at once; and kept the boat’s head doggedly away.

Those who watched the drowning man, saw him, a mere dot, on the tumbling waters, heaved high on the summit of a wave, with both his arms upraised; then down he sank into the trough of the sea, the next wave boiled over him, and they beheld him no more.

The General covered his face with his hands and wept aloud. The widow was so sick and faint with the horror of the scene, that she leaned back, white and motionless, with her eyes closed. Johnson came aft and put some rum to her lips, which revived her, and then she began to weep silently, casting shuddering backward glances at the sea, and hugging her boy to her passionately. She had become, during the night, the very ghost of her former self; her complexion was ashen, her eyes hollow, her countenance gaunt with a hard, weird look of old age upon it. Holdsworth noticed that her dress was wet with salt water and clung to her legs; but this it was impossible to remedy. Infinite pity smote him as he gazed from her to her child, and he handed her a biscuit, entreating her to eat it. The boy ate his allowance quickly; but even out of him something of the youthfulness and freshness of his infancy had passed; a perception of their danger and misery appeared to have visited him; and he clung to his mother’s side, holding her dress with one hand whilst he ate the biscuit, and gazing about him with puzzled eyes, in which was mixed up a strong expression of terror.

The impression produced by the sudden and tragical death of the actor was more lasting on the widow and the General than on the sailors, who were too sensible of their own peril to find more than a passing occasion of horror in the scene they had witnessed. They and Holdsworth ate a biscuit apiece and drank their allowance of water mixed with rum; but the General turned, with an expression of loathing in his face, from the food, and Mrs. Tennent could not be induced to eat more than a few mouthfuls. Both drank of the water.