The Tragedy of Ida Noble

by William Clark Russell

"Ask him no questions yet," exclaimed one of the others. "Let him have meat, dry clothes, and sleep, and he will rally. Ay! he will rally, for he has a lively look."

The effect of the brandy was magical. It clarified my sight as though some friendly hand had swept a cobweb from each eyeball. It filled my body with strong pulses, and enabled me to hold my head erect. But by this time the negro boy had reappeared with a plate of cold boiled beef and a dish of biscuit, and I fell to—eating with the animal-like rage of starvation. I devoured every scrap that was set before me, and then with a steady hand raised and drained a second glass of grog that had been mixed by the man with the foreign accent. And now I felt able to converse.

"Gentlemen," said I, making a staggering effort to bow to them, "I thank you from the bottom of my heart for rescuing me from a horrible death. I thank you gentlemen for this bitterly-needed refreshment."

"You are soaked to the skin," said the man with the foreign accent. "You will tell us your story when you are dry and comfortable. Captain Dopping, you can lend this poor man some dry linen and clothes?"

"Ay!" responded the other, in his coarse determined voice. "Are ye able to stand?"

"I think so," I replied.

I rose, but observing that I faltered, he came round to where I was swaying, grasped me by the arm and led me to a little cabin alongside the door through which the negro boy had emerged. In this cabin were two shallow bunks or sleeping-shelves, one on top of the other. The room was lighted by a circular port-hole, and by what is called a bull's-eye—a piece of thick glass let into the deck overhead. My companion rummaged a locker, and tossing a number of garments into the lower bunk, bade me take my pick and shift myself and then turn in, and, saying this in a harsh, fierce way, he withdrew.

I removed my wet clothes, and grateful beyond all expression was the comfort of warm dry apparel to my skin, that for more than twelve hours had been soaked with rain and steeped in brine. I then stretched my length in the lower sleeping-shelf, and, after putting up a prayer of gratitude for my deliverance, closed my eyes and in a few minutes fell asleep.

I slept until about three o'clock in the afternoon. On waking I found the interior bright with sunshine. I lay for a little, thinking and taking a view of the cabin. My faculties, refreshed by sleep, were sharp in me. I could remember clearly and realize keenly. The disaster which had befallen me was a great professional blow. It had deprived me of my ship, and robbed me of an appointment I had been forced to wait some tedious months to obtain. With the ship had gone all my clothes, all my effects, everything, in short, I possessed in the wide world, saving a few pounds which I had left in a bank at home. The Ocean Hanger was bound on a voyage that would keep her away from England for two years and a half, perhaps three years; so that for, let me say, three years all that I owned in the world, saving my few pounds, would be as utterly lost to me as though it had gone to the bottom.

While I thus lay musing, the door of the berth opened, and the red-headed man—Captain Dopping—entered. Having my eyes clear in my head now, I immediately observed that he was a freckled, red-haired, staring man, with big protruding moist blue eyes and scarlet whiskers; all of his front teeth but two or three were gone, and the gaps in his gums gave his face, when he parted his lips, the grin of a skull.