“Did not I tell you to stow Galloon away?”
“So I did, master.”
“Why is he perishing out yonder then, you villain?”
I turned my back and walked aft.
CHAPTER XXV.
AURORA ENTERTAINS US.
I’ll not swear I did not feel the loss of the dog more than I felt the death of Greaves. Should I be ashamed to own it? The captain’s death I had long expected; it came without suddenness, it brought no astonishment. But the loss of Galloon happened in a breath. He was here, and then he was gone. He had gathered a human significance from my long association with him, my spoken reveries to which he seemed to listen, loving of eye and patient. For days and nights I was haunted by the thoughts of him, swimming round and round in that dark sea. He swam well, and I say that it was long an agony to think of him struggling out in that foaming water.
The lad Jimmy was broken hearted. So crushed was he that I had no heart to deal with him for indirectly causing the dog’s death. For days he’d snatch minutes at a time to stand at the rail just where the plank had rested, just where Galloon had sprung overboard, and there he’d gaze astern with his face working and his eyes bubbling. The men let this maudlin behavior pass without jeering. They reckoned him half an idiot. Yet the chap’s grief went deep. He was alone in the world, and had nothing to love. Greaves had been kind to him, but he could not love the captain as he loved the captain’s dog. Galloon had been his friend. Often used the lad to talk to him as a negro talks to a monkey or a pig. They’d lie together on deck, and had slept together, and now the dog was gone the boy’s heart ached. He looked around him: there was no friend; he sent his fancies ashore and found himself alone there.
On the morning following Greaves’ funeral I took possession of his cabin. I spent a couple of hours in overhauling his papers, for I could not bring myself to believe that he had been without a relative in the world, Tulp excepted. I could not realize such a thing as a man without a relation in the whole blessed wide world. Yet I found nothing to tell me that Greaves had not been alone. I carefully stowed his papers away with his clothes and other effects. To whom belonged his little property—his clothes, his books, his nautical instruments, and the like, together with a bag of thirty odd guineas and a quantity of English silver? To whom, I say? To Tulp?
I found nothing to connect Greaves with a home, with relatives, with friends—no miniature, no lock of hair, no memorial of ribbon or bauble. Never once had he hinted at any love passage. He’d speak of woman with coldness, though with respect, as the child of a woman. Had you walked him through King Solomon’s seraglio he’d have seen nothing worth choosing. Well, the yeast that had hissed to the plunge of his shape was his tombstone. He was bred a sailor, he had lived the life of a sailor, and was now gone the way of a sailor; yea, and true even in death was he unto the traditions of the sailor—for he had received the last toss, the sea had swallowed him up, and no man could swear that his name was as he had styled himself, nor affirm with conviction whose son he was.
When I had made an end with the captain’s papers and effects I put on my cap, buttoned up my pea-coat, and went on deck. It was blowing a strong, fair wind. The brig still wore the canvas she had carried throughout the night. The sea ran high, it was much freckled with foam, and its frothing brows shone out like a hard light against the cold dark-green vapor to windward.