The Grain Ship. Morgan Robertson

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СКАЧАТЬ rat that got too close; but as for killing them all this way, it was beyond any chance. There were too many, and they ran too fast. Before the six men had died, others had been bitten, and one had felt the teeth of a maddened shipmate. So the terrible game continued; we had only seven men before the mast now, and the carpenter and sailmaker had to drop their work and stand watch, while the steward quit being a steward to cook for those that were left.

      "The man at the wheel had heard me arguing with the mate about making port, and, counting upon my sympathy, had prevailed upon the others forward to insist upon it. Well, you know the feeling of an officer up against mutiny. No matter what the provocation, he must put the mutiny down; so, when the men came aft, they found me with the mate, and dead against them. We called their bluff, drove them forward at the muzzles of our guns, and promised them relief from all work except handling sail if they would take the ship to Queenstown. They agreed, because they could not do anything else, and the mutiny was over. But my conscience bothered me later on; for if I had joined them, some lives might have been saved. Even though the mate was a big, courageous Irish-American half again as heavy as myself, he could not have held out against me with the crew at my back. But, you see, it would have been mutiny, and mutiny spells with a big M to a man that knows the law.

      "Before we reached the Bay of Biscay every man forward, including the carpenter, sailmaker, and steward, had been bitten, either by a mad rat or a mad shipmate, and was more or less along on the way to convulsions and death. The decks, rails, and rigging, the tops, crosstrees, and yards, swarmed with rats darting along aimlessly biting each other, and going on, frothing at their little mouths, and squeaking in pain. By this time all thought of handling the ship was gone from us. The mate and I took turns at steering, and keeping our eyes open for a sail. But a curious thing about that passage is that from the time we dropped the Farallones, off 'Frisco, we did not speak a single craft in all that long four months of sailing. Once in a while a steamer's smoke would show up on the horizon, and again a speck that might be a sail would heave in sight for an hour or so; but nothing came near us.

      "The mate and I began to quarrel. We had heeled ourselves with pistols against a possible assault of some frenzied sailor, but there was strong chance that we might use these playthings on each other. I upbraided the mate for not putting in to St.-Louis, and he got back at me for advising him against putting in to Montevideo. It was not an even argument, for the first sailor had not been bitten at the time I advised him. But it resulted in bad feeling between us. We kept our tempers, however, and kept the maddened men away from us until they died, one by one; then, with the wheel in beckets, and the ship steering herself before the wind, we hove the bodies overboard. There was no funeral service now; we had become savages.

      "'Well,' said the mate, as the last body floated astern, 'that's done. Take your wheel. I'm going to sleep.'

      "'Look out,' I said, grimly, 'that it's not your last.'

      "'What do you mean?' he asked, eying me in an ugly way. 'Do you strike sleeping men?'

      "'No; but rats bite sleeping men,' I answered. 'And understand, Mr. Barnes, I'd rather you'd live than die, so that I may live myself. With both alive and one awake a passing ship could be seen and signaled. With one dead and the other asleep, a ship might pass by. I shall keep a lookout.'

      "'Oh, that's all, is it? Well, if that's all, keep your lookout.' His ugly disposition still held him. He went down, and I steered, keeping a sharp lookout around; for I knew that up in the bay there were sure chances of something coming along. But nothing appeared, and before an hour had passed, Mr. Barnes was up, sucking his wrist, and looking wildly at me.

      "'My God, Draper,' he said, 'I've got it! I killed the rat, but he's killed me.'

      "'Well, Mr. Barnes,' I said, as he strode up to me, 'I'm sorry for you; but what do you want?—what I would want in your place?—a bullet through the head?'

      "'No, no.' He sucked madly at his wrist, where showed the four little red spots.

      "'Well, I'll tell you, Barnes. You've shown antagonism to me, and you're likely to carry it into your delirium when it comes. I'll not shoot you until you menace me; then, unless I am too far gone myself, I'll shoot you dead, not only in self-defense, but as an act of mercy.'

      "'And you?' he rejoined. 'You—you—you are to live and get command of the ship?'

      "'No,' I answered, hotly. 'I can't get command. I'm not certificated. I want my life, that's all.'

      "He left me without another word, and stamped forward. Rats ran up his clothing, reaching for his throat, but he brushed them off and went on, around the forward house, and then aft to me.

      "'Draper,' he said, in a choked voice, 'I've got to die. I know it. I know it as none of the men knew it. And it means more to me.'

      "'No, it doesn't. Life was as sweet to them as to you or the skipper.'

      "'But I've a Master's license. All I wanted was my chance, and I thought my chance had come. Draper, if I'd taken this ship into port I'd have been a hero and obtained my command.'

      "'So, that's your cheap way of looking at it, is it?' I answered, as I hove on the wheel and kicked rats from underfoot. 'A hero by the toll of twenty-four deaths. Down off the river Plate I didn't realize the horror of all this. Off St.-Louis I did, and advised you. You withstood, to be a hero. Well, I'm sorry for you, that's all.'

      "A big rat jumped from the wheel-box at this moment, climbed my clothing, and had reached my chest before I knocked it off with my fist.

      "'You see, Barnes, the rat does not know, and I did not kill it. But you do know, and I shall hasten your death with a bullet if you approach me. It will not be murder, nor manslaughter. It will be an act of mercy; but I cannot do it now. See how I feel?'

      "'Oh, God!' he shrieked, running away from me. He reached the break of the poop, then turned and came back.

      "'Got your gun on you, Draper? Kill me now; kill me, and have it over with. I'm down and done for. There's nothing more for me.'

      "I refused; and yet I know that with regard to that man's mental agony for the next few days, culminating in the first physical symptoms of unrest, fever, and thirst, I should have obeyed his request. He was doomed, and knew it. And he was a madman from mental causes before the physical had produced effects, even though the disease ran its course quickly in him. On the third day he was raving of a black-eyed woman who kept a candy store in Boston, and who had promised to marry him when he obtained command.

      "I got out a bottle of bromide from the medicine chest and induced Barnes to take a good dose of it. He drank about half a teacup of it, and in an hour was asleep. Then, clad in boots and mittens, with a sailor's clothes-bag over my head, I went aloft and lashed myself in the mizzentopmast crosstrees, where I obtained about six hours' sleep, which I needed badly. Barnes was worse when I came down; three more rats had bitten him, he declared, and he begged me to shoot him. It never occurred to him to do the job himself, and I couldn't suggest it to him.

      "'Well, Draper,' he said at last, 'I'm going, and I know it. Now, if you escape, sometime you'll be in Boston. Will you take the street-car out the Boston Road, and at Number 24 Middlesex Place drop in and say a few words to that woman? Call her Kate, and say we were shipmates, and I told you to. Tell her about this, and that I thought of her, and didn't want to die because of her. Tell her, will you, Draper?'

      "'Barnes, I promise,' I said. 'I will hunt up or write to that woman if I get ashore. I'll tell her all about it. Now, go and lie down.'

      "But he couldn't lie down; and when the СКАЧАТЬ