V. The Unexpected Encounter with the Sea-captain with the Broken
Nose
If our hero had been distracted and bedazed by the first
catastrophe that had befallen, this second and even more dreadful
and violent occurrence appeared to take away from him, for the
moment, every power of thought and of sensation. All that
perturbation of emotion that had before convulsed him he
discovered to have disappeared, and in its stead a benumbed and
blinded intelligence alone remained to him. As he stood in the
presence of this second death, of which he had been as innocent
and as unwilling an instrument as he had of the first, he could
observe no signs either of remorse or of horror within him. He
picked up his hat, which had fallen upon the floor in the first
encounter, and, brushing away the dust with the cuff of his coat
sleeve with extraordinary care, adjusted the beaver upon his head
with the utmost nicety. Then turning, still stupefied as with the
fumes of some powerful drug, he prepared to quit the scene of
tragic terrors that had thus unexpectedly accumulated upon him.
But ere he could put his design into execution his ears were
startled by the sound of loud and hurried footsteps which, coming
from below, ascended the stairs with a prodigious clatter and
bustle of speed. At the landing these footsteps paused for a
while, and then approached, more cautious and deliberate, toward
the room where the double tragedy had been enacted, and where our
hero yet stood silent and inert.
All this while Jonathan made no endeavor to escape, but stood
passive and submissive to what might occur. He felt himself the
victim of circumstances over which he himself had no control.
Gazing at the partly opened door, he awaited for whatever
adventure might next befall him. Once again the footsteps paused,
this time at the very threshold, and then the door was slowly
pushed open from without.
As our hero gazed at the aperture there presently became
disclosed to his view the strong and robust figure of one who was
evidently of a seafaring habit. From the gold braid upon his hat,
the seals dangling from the ribbon at his fob, and a certain
particularity of custom, he was evidently one of no small
consideration in his profession. He was of a strong and powerful
build, with a head set close to his shoulders, and upon a round,
short bull neck. He wore a black cravat, loosely tied into a
knot, and a red waistcoat elaborately trimmed with gold braid; a
leather belt with a brass buckle and hanger, and huge sea-boots
completed a costume singularly suggestive of his occupation in
life. His face was round and broad, like that of a cat, and a
complexion stained, by constant exposure to the sun and wind, to
a color of newly polished mahogany. But a countenance which
otherwise might have been humorous, in this case was rendered
singularly repulsive by the fact that his nose had been broken so
flat to his face that all that remained to distinguish that
feature were two circular orifices where the nostrils should have
been. His eyes were by no means so sinister as the rest of his
visage, being of a light-gray color and exceedingly
vivacious--even good-natured in the merry restlessness of their
glance--albeit they were well-nigh hidden beneath a black bush of
overhanging eyebrows. When he spoke, his voice was so deep and
resonant that it was as though it issued from a barrel rather
than from the breast of a human being.
"How now, my hearty!" cried he, in stentorian tones, so loud that
they seemed to stun the tensely drawn drums of our hero's ears.
"How now, my hearty! What's to-do here? Who is shooting pistols
at this hour of the night?" Then, catching sight of the figures
lying in a huddle upon the floor, his great, thick lips parted
into a gape of wonder and his gray eyes rolled in his head like
two balls, so that what with his flat face and the round holes of
his nostrils he presented an appearance which, under other
circumstances, would have been at once ludicrous and grotesque.
"By the blood!" cried he, "to be sure it is murder that has
happened here."
"Not murder!" cried Jonathan, in a shrill and panting voice. "Not
murder! It was all an accident, and I am as innocent as a baby."
The new-comer looked at him and then at the two figures upon the
floor, and then back at him again with eyes at once quizzical and
cunning. Then his face broke into a grin that might hardly be
called of drollery. "Accident!" quoth he. "By the blood! d'ye see
'tis a strange accident, indeed, that lays two men by the heels
and lets the third go without a scratch!" Delivering himself
thus, he came forward into the room, and, taking the last victim
of Jonathan's adventure by the arm, with as little compunction as
he would have handled a sack of grain he dragged the limp and
helpless figure from where it lay to the floor beside the first
victim. Then, lifting the lighted candle, he bent over the two
prostrate bodies, holding the illumination close to the
lineaments first of one and then of the other. He looked at them
very carefully for a long while, with the closest and most intent
scrutiny, and in perfect silence. "They are both as dead," says
he, "as Davy Jones, and, whoever you be, I protest that you have
done your business the most completest that I ever saw in all of
my life."
Indeed," cried Jonathan, in the same shrill and panting voice,
"it was themselves who did it. First one of them attacked me and
then the other, and I did but try to keep them from murdering me.
This one fell on his knife, and that one shot himself in his
efforts to destroy me."
"That," says the seaman, "you may very well tell to a dry-lander,
and maybe he will believe you; but you cannot so easily pull the
wool over the eyes of Captain Benny Willitts. And what, if I may
be so bold as for to ask you, was the reason for their attacking
so harmless a man as you proclaim yourself to be?"
"That I know not," cried Jonathan; "but I am entirely willing to
tell thee all the circumstances. Thou must know that I am a
member of the Society of Friends. This day I landed here in
Kingston, and met a young woman of very comely appearance, who
intrusted me with this little ivory ball, which she requested me
to keep for her a few days. The sight of this ball--in which I
can detect nothing that could be likely to arouse any feelings of
violence--appears to have driven these two men entirely mad, so
that they instantly made the most ferocious and murderous assault
upon me. See! wouldst thou have believed that so small a thing as
this would have caused so much trouble?" And as he spoke he held
up to the gaze of the other the cause of the double tragedy that
had befallen. But no sooner had Captain Willitts's eyes lighted
upon the ball than the most singular change passed over his
countenance. The color appeared to grow dull and yellow in his
ruddy cheeks, his fat lips dropped apart, and his eyes stared
with a fixed and glassy glare. He arose to his feet and, still
with the expression of astonishment and wonder upon his face,
gazed first at our hero and then at the ivory ball in his hands,
as though he were deprived both of reason and of speech. At last,
as our hero slipped the trifle back in his pocket again, the
mariner slowly recovered himself, though with a prodigious
effort, and drew a deep and profound breath as to the very bottom
of his lungs. He wiped, with the corner of his black silk cravat,
his brow, upon which the sweat appeared to have gathered. "Well,
messmate," says he, at last, with a sudden change of voice, "you
have, indeed, had a most wonderful adventure." Then with another
deep breath: "Well, by the blood! I may tell you plainly that I
am no poor hand at the reading of faces. Well, I think you to be
honest, and I am inclined to believe every word you tell me. By
the blood! I am prodigiously sorry for you, and am inclined to
help you out of your scrape.
"The first thing to do," he continued, "is to get rid of these
two dead men, and that is an affair I believe we shall have no
trouble in handling. One of them we will wrap up in the carpet
here, and t'other we can roll into yonder bed-curtain. You shall
carry the one and I the other, and, the harbor being at no great
distance, we can easily bring them thither and tumble them
overboard, and no one will be the wiser of what has happened. For
your own safety, as you may easily see, you can hardly go away
and leave these objects here to be found by the first-comer, and
to arise up in evidence against you."
This reasoning, in our hero's present bewildered state, appeared
to him to be so extremely just that he raised not the least
objection to it. Accordingly, each of the two silent, voiceless
victims of the evening's occurrences were wrapped into a bundle
that from without appeared to be neither portentous nor terrible
in appearance.
Thereupon, Jonathan shouldering the rug containing the little
gentleman in black, and the sea-captain doing the like for the
other, they presently made their way down the stairs through the
darkness, and so out into the street. Here the sea-captain became
the conductor of the expedition, and leading the way down several
alleys and along certain by-streets--now and then stopping to
rest, for the burdens were both heavy and clumsy to carry--they
both came out at last to the harbor front, without any one having
questioned them or having appeared to suspect them of anything
wrong. At the water-side was an open wharf extending a pretty
good distance out into the harbor. Thither the captain led the
way and Jonathan followed. So they made their way out along the
wharf or pier, stumbling now and then over loose boards, until
they came at last to where the water was of a sufficient depth
for their purpose. Here the captain, bending his shoulders, shot
his burden out into the dark, mysterious waters, and Jonathan,
following his example, did the same. Each body sank with a sullen
and leaden splash into the element where, the casings which
swathed them becoming loosened, the rug and the curtain rose to
the surface and drifted slowly away with the tide.
As Jonathan stood gazing dully at the disappearance of these last
evidences of his two inadvertent murders, he was suddenly and
vehemently aroused by feeling a pair of arms of enormous strength
flung about him from behind. In their embrace his elbows were
instantly pinned tight to his side, and he stood for a moment
helpless and astounded, while the voice of the sea-captain,
rumbling in his very ear, exclaimed: "Ye bloody, murthering
Quaker, I'll have that ivory ball, or I'll have your life!"
These words produced the same effect upon Jonathan as though a
douche of cold water had suddenly been flung over him. He began
instantly to struggle to free himself, and that with a frantic
and vehement violence begotten at once of terror and despair. So
prodigious were his efforts that more than once he had nearly
torn himself free, but still the powerful arms of his captor held
him as in a vise of iron. Meantime, our hero's assailant made
frequent though ineffectual attempts to thrust a hand into the
breeches-pocket where the ivory ball was hidden, swearing the
while under his breath with a terrifying and monstrous string of
oaths. At last, finding himself foiled in every such attempt, and
losing all patience at the struggles of his victim, he endeavored
to lift Jonathan off of his feet, as though to dash him bodily
upon the ground. In this he would doubtless have succeeded had he
not caught his heel in the crack of a loose board of the wharf.
Instantly they both fell, violently prostrate, the captain
beneath and Jonathan above him, though still encircled in his
iron embrace. Our hero felt the back of his head strike violently
upon the flat face of the other, and he heard the captain's skull
sound with a terrific crack like that of a breaking egg upon some
post or billet of wood, against which he must have struck. In
their frantic struggles they had approached extremely near the
edge of the wharf, so that the next instant, with an enormous and
thunderous splash, Jonathan found himself plunged into the waters
of the harbor, and the arms of his assailant loosened from about
his body.
The shock of the water brought him instantly to his senses, and,
being a fairly good swimmer, he had not the least difficulty in
reaching and clutching the cross-piece of a wooden ladder that,
coated with slimy sea-moss, led from the water-level to the wharf
above.
After reaching the safety of the dry land once more, Jonathan
gazed about him as though to discern whence the next attack might
be delivered upon him. But he stood entirely alone upon the
dock--not another living soul was in sight. The surface of the
water exhibited some commotion, as though disturbed by something
struggling beneath; but the sea-captain, who had doubtless been
stunned by the tremendous crack upon his head, never arose again
out of the element that had engulfed him.
The moonlight shone with a peaceful and resplendent illumination,
and, excepting certain remote noises from the distant town not a
sound broke the silence and the peacefulness of the balmy,
tropical night. The limpid water, illuminated by the resplendent
moonlight, lapped against the wharf. All the world was calm,
serene, and enveloped in a profound and entire repose.
Jonathan looked up at the round and brilliant globe of light
floating in the sky above his head, and wondered whether it were,
indeed, possible that all that had befallen him was a reality and
not some tremendous hallucination. Then suddenly arousing himself
to a renewed realization of that which had occurred, he turned
and ran like one possessed, up along the wharf, and so into the
moonlit town once more.
