It was dusk when they brought him aboard, still gripping his hatchet. He was breathing, but the life was almost out of him. He was carried below, and they did what they could for him, and he was still alive when I turned in after writing what I considered a very solemn and arresting passage in my journal. I do not reproduce that passage. It seems like betraying the confidence of a well-meaning boy who seldom felt deeply on such matters, and still more seldom gave utterance to thoughts of the kind when he had them. To me it would seem much on the same order as publishing love-letters—to be ridiculed. But the passage in my journal is funny, while it brings tears to my eyes as I remember my feelings as I wrote it.
When I got on deck in the morning I saw the four Kanakas gathered about the sailmaker, who was just finishing the job of sewing up a long bundle done up in a piece of old canvas. It was the body of the man we had rescued the evening before. He had died in the night without regaining consciousness. He was a Kanaka, but beyond that one evident fact we never knew who he was, or what ship he came from, for by the time we got back to New Bedford so many things had happened that the incident had slipped from our minds. Many things slip from the minds of sailors in that way, and are recalled only in the course of recounting some yarn, as I am doing.
The four Kanakas were chanting an improvised song, the Admiral singing each verse, which he seemed to be making up as he went along, and the other three joining in the chorus. The singing was soft and seemed weird to me, for I had never before heard Kanaka singing. There were a great many verses, and the singing continued long after the sailmaker had got through and gone. Then the captain and other officers came, and the crew was mustered, and we all stood with uncovered heads while the captain read a very short service—or prayer, I don’t know which—from a prayer book. The service took about a minute, and then they tipped up the plank and shot the body into the sea just as the sun was coming up out of it. I was at the rail, and I caught the red gleam of sunlight on the canvas as the bundle fell, making a crimson streak through the air; it struck the water, throwing the spray high, and disappeared from our sight, and it was as if that man had never been. The ceremony over, and the body, shrouded in canvas, plunging downward through the depths of ocean, the crew put on their hats or caps and went about their business, promptly forgetting the whole matter. But I have reason to believe that the sharks did not forget, and I doubt whether that bundle ever reached bottom.
That afternoon we sighted a sail rising to the southeast. It had the look of a ship or a brig, for all we could see at first was the dim outline of square topsails; but presently the upper parts of her lower sails had risen from the sea, and they were fore-and-aft sails unmistakably. There could be but one vessel which answered that description, and that was the Annie Battles. Captain Nelson showed a curious mixture of relief and disappointment. He smiled and swore softly, and I was tempted to run and find Peter Bottom, but I did not. It was exactly what he had expected.
I remember there was a flock of petrels near the ship at the time, and my attention was divided between watching them and watching the Battles. She was running close-hauled, at which she was very good; and she got abeam of us, and very near, before I noticed that she had a brand-new foretopmast. Mr. Baker and the captain, of course, had seen it long before. Mr. Baker now turned to the captain.
“We got out of it,” he said, “better than she did.”
Captain Nelson nodded. There was a big young fellow standing near the wheel of the Battles, and looking hard at us. Mr. Baker said it was Captain Coffin. I was surprised, for, except for his size, he looked too young to be captain of anything. He was as big as my father, and seemed much like him, pleasant and easy-going and competent. He waved his hand to Captain Nelson.
“Just wanted to make sure you were all right,” he shouted.
Captain Nelson grinned. “Much obliged,” he answered. “All shipshape. Did n’t even lose a to’gallan’mast.”
Coffin laughed at that. “Nor a sail either, I suppose,” he retorted, pointing at our topsail yard. Some of the crew were on it at that moment, bending a new foretopsail.