On two planks nailed together, and apparently resigned and still under the folds of the Union Jack with a white border, James Wait, carried aft by four men, was deposited slowly, with his feet pointing at an open port. A swell had set in from the westward, and following on the roll of the ship, the red ensign, at half-mast, darted out and collapsed again on the grey sky, like a tongue of flickering fire; Charley tolled the bell; and at every swing to starboard the whole vast semi-circle of steely waters visible on that side seemed to come up with a rush to the edge of the port, as if impatient to get at our Jimmy. Every one was there but Donkin, who was too ill to come; the Captain and Mr. Creighton stood bareheaded on the break of the poop; Mr. Baker, directed by the master, who had said to him gravely: -- ‘You know more about the prayer book than I do,’ came out of the cabin door quickly and a little embarrassed. All the caps went off. He began to read in a low tone, and with his usual harmlessly menacing utterance, as though he had been for the last time reproving confidentially that dead seaman at his feet. The men listened in scattered groups; they leaned on the fife rail, gazing on the deck; they held their chins in their hands thoughtfully, or, with crossed arms and one knee slightly bent, hung their heads in an attitude of upright meditation. Wamibo dreamed. Mr. Baker read on, grunting reverently at the turn of every page. The words, missing the unsteady hearts of men, rolled out to wander without a home upon the heartless sea; and James Wait, silenced forever, lay uncritical and passive under the hoarse murmur of despair and hopes.
Two men made ready and waited for those words that send so many of our brothers to their last plunge. Mr. Baker began the last passage. ‘Stand by.’ muttered the boatswain. Mr. Baker read out:‘ To the deep,’ and paused. The men lifted the inboard end of the planks, the boatswain snatched off the Union Jack, and James Wait did not move. -- ‘Higher,’ muttered the boatswain angrily. All the heads were raised; every man stirred uneasily, but James Wait gave no sign of going. In death and swathed up for all eternity, he yet seemed to hang on to the ship with the grip of an undying fear.
‘Higher! Lift!’ whispered the boatswain fiercely. --‘He won't go,’ stammered one of the men shakily, and both appeared ready to drop everything. Mr. Baker waited, burying his face in the book, and shuffling his feet nervously. All the men looked profoundly disturbed, from their midst a faint humming noise spread out --Page 119
growing louder.....‘Jimmy!’ cried Belfast in a wailing tone, and there was a second of shuddering dismay.
‘Jimmy, be a man!’ he shrieked passionately.
Every mouth was wide open, not an eyelid winked. He stared wildly, twitching all over; he bent his body forward like a man peering at an horror. ‘Go, Jimmy! -- Jimmy, go! Go!’ His fingers touched the head of the body and the grey package started reluctantly to, all at once, whizz off the lifted planks with the suddenness of a flash of lightning. The crowd stepped forward like one man; a deep Ah -- h -- h! came out vibrating from the broad chests. The ship rolled as if relieved of an unfair burden; the sails flapped. Belfast, supported by Archie, gasped hysterically; and Charley, who anxious to see Jimmy's last dive, leaped headlong on the rail, was too late to see anything but the faint circle of a vanishing ripple.
Mr. Baker, perspiring abundantly, read out the last prayer in a deep rumour of excited men and fluttering sails. ‘Amen!’he said in an unsteady growl, and closed the book.
‘Square the yards!’ thundered a voice above his head. All hands gave a jump; one or two dropped their caps; Mr.
Baker looked up surprised. The master, standing on the break of the poop, pointed to the westward. ‘Breeze coming,’ he said, ‘square the yards. Look alive, men!’ Mr. Baker crammed the book hurriedly into his pocket. -- ‘Forward there -- let go the foretack!’ he hailed joy fully bareheaded and brisk; ‘Square the foreyard, you port-watch!’ -- ‘Fair wind -- fair wind,’ muttered the men going to the braces. -- ‘What did I tell you?’ mumbled old Singleton, flinging down coil after coil with hasty energy; ‘I knowed it! -- he's gone, and here it comes.’It came with the sound of a lofty and powerful sigh. The sails filled, the ship gathered way, and the waking sea began to murmur sleepily of home to the ears of men.
That night, while the ship rushed foaming to the Northward before a freshening gale, the boatswain unbosomed himself to the petty officers' berth: -- ‘The chap was nothing but trouble,’he said, ‘from the moment he came aboard -- d'ye remember --that night in Bombay? Been bullying all that softy crowd -- cheeked the old man -- we had to go fooling all over a half-drowned ship to save Page 120him. Dam' nigh a mutiny all for him -- and now the mate abused me like a pickpocket for forgetting to dab a lump of grease on them planks. So I did, but you ought to have known better too, than to leave a nail sticking up -- hey, Chips?’ ‘And you ought to have known better than to chuck all my tools overboard for 'im, like a skeary greenhorn,’retorted the morose carpenter. ‘Well -- he's gone after 'em now,’he added in an unforgiving tone. ‘On the China Station, I remember once, the Admiral he says to me....’ began the sailmaker.
A week afterwards the Narcissus entered the chops of the Channel.