48. CHAPTER XLVIII.
It was destined that our departure from the English
strand, should be marked by a tragical event, akin to the
sudden end of the suicide, which had so strongly impressed
me on quitting the American shore.
Of the three newly shipped men, who in a state of intoxication
had been brought on board at the dock gates, two
were able to be engaged at their duties, in four or five hours
after quitting the pier. But the third man yet lay in his
bunk, in the self-same posture in which his limbs had been
adjusted by the crimp, who had deposited him there.
His name was down on the ship's papers as Miguel Saveda,
and for Miguel Saveda the chief mate at last came forward,
shouting down the forecastle-scuttle, and commanding his
instant presence on deck. But the sailors answered for their
new comrade; giving the mate to understand that Miguel
was still fast locked in his trance, and could not obey him;
when, muttering his usual imprecation, the mate retired to
the quarter-deck.
This was in the first dog-watch, from four to six in the
evening. At about three bells, in the next watch, Max the
Dutchman, who, like most old seamen, was something of a
physician in cases of drunkenness, recommended that Miguel's
clothing should be removed, in order that he should lie more
comfortably. But Jackson, who would seldom let any thing
be done in the forecastle that was not proposed by himself,
capriciously forbade this proceeding.
So the sailor still lay out of sight in his bunk, which was
in the extreme angle of the forecastle, behind the bowsprit
bitts—two stout timbers rooted in the ship's keel. An hour
or two afterward, some of the men observed a strange odor
in the forecastle, which was attributed to the presence of
some dead rat among the hollow spaces in the side planks;
for some days before, the forecastle had been smoked out, to
extirpate the vermin overrunning her. At midnight, the
larboard watch, to which I belonged, turned out; and instantly
as every man waked, he exclaimed at the now intolerable
smell, supposed to be heightened by the shaking up
of the bilge-water, from the ship's rolling.
“Blast that rat!” cried the Greenlander.
“He's blasted already,” said Jackson, who in his drawers
had crossed over to the bunk of Miguel. “It's a water-rat,
shipmates, that's dead; and here he is”—and with that, he
dragged forth the sailor's arm, exclaiming, “Dead as a timber-head!”
Upon this the men rushed toward the bunk, Max with
the light, which he held to the man's face.
“No, he's not dead,” he cried, as the yellow flame
wavered for a moment at the seaman's motionless mouth.
But hardly had the words escaped, when, to the silent horror
of all, two threads of greenish fire, like a forked tongue,
darted out between the lips; and in a moment, the cadaverous
face was crawled over by a swarm of worm-like flames.
The lamp dropped from the hand of Max, and went out;
while covered all over with spires and sparkles of flame, that
faintly crackled in the silence, the uncovered parts of the
body burned before us, precisely like a phosphorescent shark
in a midnight sea.
The eyes were open and fixed; the mouth was curled like
a scroll, and every lean feature firm as in life; while the
whole face, now wound in curls of soft blue flame, wore an
aspect of grim defiance, and eternal death. Prometheus,
blasted by fire on the rock.
One arm, its red shirt-sleeve rolled up, exposed the man's
name, tattooed in vermilion, near the hollow of the middle
joint; and as if there was something peculiar in the painted
flesh, every vibrating letter burned so white, that you might
read the flaming name in the flickering ground of blue.
“Where's that d—d Miguel?” was now shouted down
among us from the scuttle by the mate, who had just come
on deck, and was determined to have every man up that
belonged to his watch.
“He's gone to the harbor where they never weigh anchor,”
coughed Jackson. “Come you down, sir, and look.”
Thinking that Jackson intended to beard him, the mate
sprang down in a rage; but recoiled at the burning body as
if he had been shot by a bullet. “My God!” he cried, and
stood holding fast to the ladder.
“Take hold of it,” said Jackson, at last, to the Greenlander;
“it must go overboard. Don't stand shaking there,
like a dog; take hold of it, I say! But stop”—and smothering
it all in the blankets, he pulled it partly out of the bunk.
A few minutes more, and it fell with a bubble among the
phosphorescent sparkles of the damp night sea, leaving a
corruscating wake as it sank.
This event thrilled me through and through with unspeakable
horror; nor did the conversation of the watch during
the next four hours on deck, at all serve to soothe me.
But what most astonished me, and seemed most incredible,
was the infernal opinion of Jackson, that the man had been
actually dead when brought on board the ship; and that
knowingly, and merely for the sake of the month's advance,
paid into his hand upon the strength of the bill he presented,
the body-snatching crimp had knowingly shipped a corpse
on board of the Highlander, under the pretense of its being
a live body in a drunken trance. And I heard Jackson say,
that he had known of such things having been done before.
But that a really dead body ever burned in that manner, I
can not even yet believe. But the sailors seemed familiar
with such things; or at least with the stories of such things
having happened to others.
For me, who at that age had never so much as happened
to hear of a case like this, of animal combustion, in the
horrid mood that came over me, I almost thought the burning
body was a premonition of the hell of the Calvinists,
and that Miguel's earthly end was a foretaste of his eternal
condemnation.
Immediately after the burial, an iron pot of red coals was
placed in the bunk, and in it two handfuls of coffee were
roasted. This done, the bunk was nailed up, and was never
opened again during the voyage; and strict orders were
given to the crew not to divulge what had taken place to
the emigrants: but to this, they needed no commands.
After the event, no one sailor but Jackson would stay
alone in the forecastle, by night or by noon; and no more
would they laugh or sing, or in any way make merry there,
but kept all their pleasantries for the watches on deck. All
but Jackson: who, while the rest would be sitting silently
smoking on their chests, or in their bunks, would look toward
the fatal spot, and cough, and laugh, and invoke the
dead man with incredible scoffs and jeers. He froze my
blood, and made my soul stand still.
