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Edgar Alfred Bowring - "The Poems of Goethe"

Unknown - "The Ballad of Reading Gaol"

Charles Dickens - "The Battle of Life"

Joseph McCabe - "The Story of Evolution"

The Ebb Tide

R >> Robert Louis Stevenson in collaboration with Lloyde Osbourne >> The Ebb Tide




The captain meanwhile set out rapidly for Attwater's house.
As he went, he considered with himself eagerly, his thoughts
racing. The man had understood, he had mocked them from the
beginning; he would teach him to make a mockery of John
Davis! Herrick thought him a god; give him a second to aim in,
and the god was overthrown. He chuckled as he felt the butt of
his revolver. It should be done now, as he went in. From behind?
It was difficult to get there. From across the table? No, the
captain preferred to shoot standing, so as you could be sure to
get your hand upon your gun. The best would be to summon
Huish, and when Attwater stood up and turned--ah, then
would be the moment. Wrapped in his ardent prefiguration of
events, the captain posted towards the house with his head
down.

'Hands up! Halt!' cried the voice of Attwater.

And the captain, before he knew what he was doing, had
obeyed. The surprise was complete and irremediable. Coming
on the top crest of his murderous intentions, he had walked
straight into an ambuscade, and now stood, with his hands
impotently lifted, staring at the verandah.

The party was now broken up. Attwater leaned on a post,
and kept Davis covered with a Winchester. One of the servants
was hard by with a second at the port arms, leaning a little
forward, round-eyed with eager expectancy. In the open space
at the head of the stair, Huish was partly supported by the other
native; his face wreathed in meaningless smiles, his mind
seemingly sunk in the contemplation of an unlighted cigar.

'Well,' said Attwater, 'you seem to me to be a very twopenny
pirate!'

The captain uttered a sound in his throat for which we have
no name; rage choked him.

'I am going to give you Mr Whish--or the wine-sop that remains of
him,' continued Attwater. 'He talks a great deal when he drinks,
Captain Davis of the Sea Ranger. But I have quite done with
him--and return the article with thanks. Now,' he cried sharply.
'Another false movement like that, and your family will have to
deplore the loss of an invaluable parent; keep strictly still,
Davis.'

Attwater said a word in the native, his eye still undeviatingly
fixed on the captain; and the servant thrust Huish smartly
forward from the brink of the stair. With an extraordinary
simultaneous dispersion of his members, that gentleman
bounded forth into space, struck the earth, ricocheted, and
brought up with his arms about a palm. His mind was quite a
stranger to these events; the expression of anguish that deformed
his countenance at the moment of the leap was probably
mechanical; and he suffered these convulsions in silence; clung
to the tree like an infant; and seemed, by his dips, to suppose
himself engaged in the pastime of bobbing for apples. A more
finely sympathetic mind or a more observant eye might havc
remarked, a little in front of him on the sand, and still quite
beyond reach, the unlighted cigar.

'There is your Whitechapel carrion!' said Attwater. 'And now
you might very well ask me why I do not put a period to you
at once, as you deserve. I will tell you why, Davis. It is
because I have nothing to do with the Sea Ranger and the people
you drowned, or the Farallone and the champagne that you stole.
That is your account with God, He keeps it, and He will settle
it when the clock strikes. In my own case, I have nothing to go
on but suspicion, and I do not kill on suspicion, not even vermin
like you. But understand! if ever I see any of you again, it is
another matter, and you shall eat a bullet. And now take
yourself off. March! and as you value what you call your life,
keep your hands up as you go!'

The captain remained as he was, his hands up, his mouth open:
mesmerised with fury.

'March!' said Attwater. 'One--two--three!'

And Davis turned and passed slowly away. But even as he
went, he was meditating a prompt, offensive return. In the
twinkling of an eye, he had leaped behind a tree; and was
crouching there, pistol in hand, peering from either side of his
place of ambush with bared teeth; a serpent already poised to
strike. And already he was too late. Attwater and his servants
had disappeared; and only the lamps shone on the deserted table
and the bright sand about the house, and threw into the night in
all directions the strong and tall shadows of the palms.

Davis ground his teeth. Where were they gone, the cowards?
to what hole had they retreated beyond reach? It was in vain he
should try anything, he, single and with a second-hand revolver,
against three persons, armed with Winchesters, and who did not
show an ear out of any of the apertures of that lighted and
silent house? Some of them might have already ducked below it
from the rear, and be drawing a bead upon him at that moment from
the low-browed crypt, the receptacle of empty bottles and
broken crockery. No, there was nothing to be done but to bring
away (if it were still possible) his shattered and demorallsed
forces.

'Huish,' he said, 'come along.'

''S lose my ciga',' said Huish, reaching vaguely forward.

The captain let out a rasping oath. 'Come right along here,'
said he.

''S all righ'. Sleep here 'th Atty-Attwa. Go boar' t'morr','
replied the festive one.

'If you don't come, and come now, by the living God, I'll
shoot you!' cried the captain.

It is not to be supposed that the sense of these words in any
way penetrated to the mind of Hulsh; rather that, in a fresh
attempt upon the cigar, he overbalanced himself and came flying
erratically forward: a course which brought him within reach of
Davis.

'Now you walk straight,' said the captain, clutching him, 'or
I'll know why not!'

''S lose my ciga',' replied Huish.

The captain's contained fury blazed up for a moment. He
twisted Huish round, grasped him by the neck of the coat, ran
him in front of him to the pier end, and flung him savagely
forward on his face.

'Look for your cigar then, you swine!' said he, and blew his
boat call till the pea in it ceased to rattle.

An immediate activity responded on board the Farallone; far
away voices, and soon the sound of oars, floated along the
surface of the lagoon; and at the same time, from nearer hand,
Herrick aroused himself and strolled languidly up. He bent over
the insignificant figure of Huish, where it grovelled, apparently
insensible, at the base of the figure-head.

'Dead?' he asked.

'No, he's not dead,' said Davis.

'And Attwater?' asked Herrick.

'Now you just shut your head!' replied Davis. 'You can do that, I
fancy, and by God, I'll show you how! I'll stand no more of your
drivel.'

They waited accordingly in silence till the boat bumped on
the furthest piers; then raised Huish, head and heels, carried
him down the gangway, and flung him summarily in the bottom.
On the way out he was heard murmuring of the loss of his cigar;
and after he had been handed up the side like baggage, and cast
down in the alleyway to slumber, his last audible expression
was: 'Splen'l fl' Attwa'!' This the expert construed into
'Splendid fellow, Attwater'; with so much innocence had this
great spirit issued from the adventures of the evening.

The captain went and walked in the waist with brief, irate
turns; Herrick leaned his arms on the taffrail; the crew had all
turned in. The ship had a gentle, cradling motion; at times a
block piped like a bird. On shore, through the colonnade of
palm stems, Attwater's house was to be seen shining steadily
with many lamps. And there was nothing else visible, whether
in the heaven above or in the lagoon below, but the stars and
their reflections. It might have been minutes or it might have
been hours, that Herrick leaned there, looking in the glorified
water and drinking peace. 'A bath of stars,' he was thinking;
when a hand was laid at last on his shoulder.

'Herrick,' said the captain, 'I've been walking off my trouble.'

A sharp jar passed through the young man, but he neither
answered nor so much as turned his head.

'I guess I spoke a little rough to you on shore,' pursued the
captain; 'the fact is, I was real mad; but now it's over, and you
and me have to turn to and think.'

'I will NOT think,' said Herrick.

'Here, old man!' said Davis, kindly; 'this won't fight, you
know! You've got to brace up and help me get things straight.
You're not going back on a friend? That's not like you, Herrick!'

'O yes, it is,' said Herrick.

'Come, come!' said the captain, and paused as if quite at a
loss. 'Look here,' he cried, 'you have a glass of champagne. I
won't touch it, so that'll show you if I'm in earnest. But it's
just the pick-me-up for you; it'll put an edge on you at once.'

'O, you leave me alone!' said Herrick, and turned away.

The captain caught him by the sleeve; and he shook him off
and turned on him, for the moment, like a demoniac.

'Go to hell in your own way!' he cried.

And he turned away again, this time unchecked, and stepped
forward to where the boat rocked alongside and ground
occasionally against the schooner. He looked about him. A
corner of the house was interposed between the captain and
himself; all was well; no eye must see him in that last act. He
slid silently into the boat; thence, silently, into the starry
water.

Instinctively he swam a little; it would be time enough to stop
by and by.

The shock of the immersion brightened his mind immediately.
The events of the ignoble day passed before him in a frieze of
pictures, and he thanked 'whatever Gods there be' for that open
door of suicide. In such a little while he would be done with it,
the random business at an end, the prodigal son come home. A
very bright planet shone before him and drew a trenchant wake
along the water. He took that for his line and followed it. That
was the last earthly thing that he should look upon; that radiant
speck, which he had soon magnified into a City of Laputa,
along whose terraces there walked men and women of awful
and benignant features, who viewed him with distant
commiseration. These imaginary spectators consoled him; he told
himself their talk, one to another; it was of himself and his sad
destiny.

From such flights of fancy, he was aroused by the growing
coldness of the water. Why should he delay? Here, where he
was now, let him drop the curtain, let him seek the ineffable
refuge, let him lie down with all races and generations of men in
the house of sleep. It was easy to say, easy to do. To stop
swimming: there was no mystery in that, if he could do it. Could
he? And he could not. He knew it instantly. He was aware
instantly of an opposition in his members, unanimous and
invincible, clinging to life with a single and fixed resolve,
finger by finger, sinew by sinew; something that was at once he
and not he--at once within and without him;--the shutting of some
miniature valve in his brain, which a single manly thought
should suffice to open--and the grasp of an external fate
ineluctable as gravity. To any man there may come at times a
consciousness that there blows, through all the articulations of
his body, the wind of a spirit not wholly his; that his mind
rebels; that another girds him and carries him whither he would
not. It came now to Herrick, with the authority of a revelation.
There was no escape possible. The open door was closed in his
recreant face. He must go back into the world and amongst men
without illusion. He must stagger on to the end with the pack of
his responsibility and his disgrace, until a cold, a blow, a
merciful chance ball, or the more merciful hangman, should
dismiss him from his infamy. There were men who could commit
suicide; there were men who could not; and he was one who
could not.

For perhaps a minute, there raged in his mind the coil of this
discovery; then cheerless certitude followed; and, with an
incredible simplicity of submission to ascertained fact, he
turned round and struck out for shore. There was a courage in
this which he could not appreciate; the ignobility of his
cowardice wholly occupying him. A strong current set against him
like a wind in his face; he contended with it heavily, wearily,
without enthusiasm, but with substantial advantage; marking his
progress the while, without pleasure, by the outline of the
trees. Once he had a moment of hope. He heard to the southward of
him, towards the centre of the lagoon, the wallowing of some
great fish, doubtless a shark, and paused for a little, treading
water. Might not this be the hangman? he thought. But the
wallowing died away; mere silence succeeded; and Herrick
pushed on again for the shore, raging as he went at his own
nature. Ay, he would wait for the shark; but if he had heard
him coming! . . . His smile was tragic. He could have spat upon
himself.

About three in the morning, chance, and the set of the current,
and the bias of his own right-handed body, so decided it between
them that he came to shore upon the beach in front of
Attwater's. There he sat down, and looked forth into a world
without any of the lights of hope. The poor diving dress of
self-conceit was sadly tattered! With the fairy tale of suicide,
of a refuge always open to him, he had hitherto beguiled and
supported himself in the trials of life; and behold! that also
was only a fairy tale, that also was folk-lore. With the
consequences of his acts he saw himself implacably confronted for
the duration of life: stretched upon a cross, and nailed there
with the iron bolts of his own cowardice. He had no tears; he
told himself no stories. His disgust with himself was so complete
that even the process of apologetic mythology had ceased. He was
like a man cast down from a pillar, and every bone broken. He lay
there, and admitted the facts, and did not attempt to rise.

Dawn began to break over the far side of the atoll, the sky
brightened, the clouds became dyed with gorgeous colours, the
shadows of the night lifted. And, suddenly, Herrick was aware
that the lagoon and the trees wore again their daylight livery;
and he saw, on board the Farallone, Davis extinguishing the
lantern, and smoke rising from the galley.

Davis, without doubt, remarked and recognised the figure on
the beach; or perhaps hesitated to recognise it; for after he had
gazed a long while from under his hand, he went into the house
and fetched a glass. It was very powerful; Herrick had often
used it. With an instinct of shame, he hid his face in his hands.

'And what brings you here, Mr Herrick-Hay, or Mr Hay-Herrick?'
asked the voice of Attwater. 'Your back view from my present
position is remarkably fine, and I would continue to
present it. We can get on very nicely as we are, and if you were
to turn round, do you know? I think it would be awkward.'

Herrick slowly rose to his feet; his heart throbbed hard, a
hideous excitement shook him, but he was master of himself.
Slowly he turned, and faced Attwater and the muzzle of a
pointed rifle. 'Why could I not do that last night?' he thought.

'Well, why don't you fire?' he said aloud, with a voice that
trembled.

Attwater slowly put his gun under his arm, then his hands in
his pockets.

'What brings you here?' he repeated.

'I don't know' ' said Herrick; and then, with a cry: 'Can you
do anything with me?'

'Are you armed?' said Attwater. 'I ask for the form's sake.'

'Armed? No!' said Herrick. 'O yes, I am, too!' And he flung
upon the beach a dripping pistol.

'You are wet,' said Attwater.

'Yes, I am wet,' said Herrick. 'Can you do anything with me?'

Attwater read his face attentively.

'It would depend a good deal upon what you are,' said he.

'What I am? A coward!' said Herrick.

'There is very little to be done with that,' said Attwater. 'And
yet the description hardly strikes one as exhaustive.'

'Oh, what does it matter?' cried Herrick. 'Here I am. I am
broken crockery; I am a burst drum; the whole of my life is
gone to water; I have nothing left that I believe in, except my
living horror of myself. Why do I come to you? I don't know;
you are cold, cruel, hateful; and I hate you, or I think I hate
you. But you are an honest man, an honest gentleman. I put
myself, helpless, in your hands. What must I do? If I can't do
anything, be merciful and put a bullet through me; it's only a
puppy with a broken leg!'

'If I were you, I would pick up that pistol, come up to the
house, and put on some dry clothes,' said Attwater.

'If you really mean it?' said Herrick. 'You know they--we--they .
. . But you know all.'

'I know quite enough,' said Attwater. 'Come up to the house.'

And the captain, from the deck of the Farallone, saw the two
men pass together under the shadow of the grove.



Chapter 11. DAVID AND GOLIATH

Huish had bundled himself up from the glare of the day--his
face to the house, his knees retracted. The frail bones in the
thin tropical raiment seemed scarce more considerable than a
fowl's; and Davis, sitting on the rail with his arm about a stay,
contemplated him with gloom, wondering what manner of
counsel that insignificant figure should contain. For since
Herrick had thrown him off and deserted to the enemy, Huish,
alone of mankind, remained to him to be a helper and oracle.

He considered their position with a sinking heart. The ship
was a stolen ship; the stores, either from initial carelessness
or ill administration during the voyage, were insufficient to
carry them to any port except back to Papeete; and there
retribution waited in the shape of a gendarme, a judge with a
queer-shaped hat, and the horror of distant Noumea. Upon that
side, there was no glimmer of hope. Here, at the island, the
dragon was roused; Attwater with his men and his Winchesters
watched and patrolled the house; let him who dare approach it.
What else was then left but to sit there, inactive, pacing the
decks--until the Trinity Hall arrived and they were cast into
irons, or until the food came to an end, and the pangs of famine
succeeded? For the Trinity Hall Davis was prepared; he would
barricade the house, and die there defending it, like a rat in a
crevice. But for the other? The cruise of the Farallone, into
which he had plunged only a fortnight before, with such golden
expectations, could this be the nightmare end of it? The ship
rotting at anchor, the crew stumbling and dying in the scuppers?
It seemed as if any extreme of hazard were to be preferred to so
grisly a certainty; as if it would be better to up-anchor after
all, put to sea at a venture, and, perhaps, perish at the hands
of cannibals on one of the more obscure Paumotus. His eye roved
swiftly over sea and sky in quest of any promise of wind, but
the fountains of the Trade were empty. Where it had run yesterday
and for weeks before, a roaring blue river charioting clouds,
silence now reigned; and the whole height of the atmosphere
stood balanced. On the endless ribbon of island that stretched
out to either hand of him its array of golden and green and
silvery palms, not the most volatile frond was to be seen
stirring; they drooped to their stable images in the lagoon like
things carved of metal, and already their long line began to
reverberate heat. There was no escape possible that day, none
probable on the morrow. And still the stores were running out!

Then came over Davis, from deep down in the roots of his
being, or at least from far back among his memories of
childhood and innocence, a wave of superstition. This run of ill
luck was something beyond natural; the chances of the game
were in themselves more various; it seemed as if the devil must
serve the pieces. The devil? He heard again the clear note of
Attwater's bell ringing abroad into the night, and dying away.
How if God . . . ?

Briskly, he averted his mind. Attwater: that was the point.
Attwater had food and a treasure of pearls; escape made possible
in the present, riches in the future. They must come to grips,
with Attwater; the man must die. A smoky heat went over his
face, as he recalled the impotent figure he had made last night
and the contemptuous speeches he must bear in silence. Rage,
shame, and the love of life, all pointed the one way; and only
invention halted: how to reach him? had he strength enough?
was there any help in that misbegotten packet of bones against
the house?

His eyes dwelled upon him with a strange avidity, as though
he would read into his soul; and presently the sleeper moved,
stirred uneasily, turned suddenly round, and threw him a
blinking look. Davis maintained the same dark stare, and Huish
looked away again and sat up.

'Lord, I've an 'eadache on me!' said he. 'I believe I was a bit
swipey last night. W'ere's that cry-byby 'Errick?'

'Gone,' said the captain.

'Ashore?' cried Huish. 'Oh, I say! I'd 'a gone too.'

'Would you?' said the captain.

'Yes, I would,' replied Huish. 'I like Attwater. 'E's all right;
we got on like one o'clock when you were gone. And ain't his
sherry in it, rather? It's like Spiers and Ponds' Amontillado! I
wish I 'ad a drain of it now.' He sighed.

'Well, you'll never get no more of it--that's one thing,' said
Davis, gravely.

"Ere! wot's wrong with you, Dyvis? Coppers 'ot? Well, look at me!
I ain't grumpy,' said Huish; 'I'm as plyful as a canary-bird, I
am.'

'Yes,' said Davis, 'you're playful; I own that; and you were
playful last night, I believe, and a damned fine performance you
made of it.'

"Allo!' said Huish. "Ow's this? Wot performance?'

'Well, I'll tell you,' said the captain, getting slowly off the
rail.

And he did: at full length, with every wounding epithet and
absurd detail repeated and emphasised; he had his own vanity
and Huish's upon the grill, and roasted them; and as he spoke,
he inflicted and endured agonies of humiliation. It was a plain
man's masterpiece of the sardonic.

'What do you think of it?' said he, when he had done, and
looked down at Huish, flushed and serious, and yet jeering.

'I'll tell you wot it is,' was the reply, 'you and me cut a
pretty dicky figure.'

'That's so,' said Davis, 'a pretty measly figure, by God! And,
by God, I want to see that man at my knees.'

'Ah!' said Huish. "Ow to get him there?'

'That's it!' cried Davis. 'How to get hold of him! They're four
to two; though there's only one man among them to count, and
that's Attwater. Get a bead on Attwater, and the others would
cut and run and sing out like frightened poultry--and old man
Herrick would come round with his hat for a share of the pearls.
No, SIR! it's how to get hold of Attwater! And we daren't even
go ashore; he would shoot us in the boat like dogs.'

'Are you particular about having him dead or alive?' asked
Huish.

'I want to see him dead,' said the captain.

'Ah, well!' said Huish, 'then I believe I'll do a bit of
breakfast.'

And he turned into the house.

The captain doggedly followed him.

'What's this?' he asked. 'What's your idea, anyway?'

'Oh, you let me alone, will you?' said Huish, opening a bottle
of champagne. 'You'll 'ear my idea soon enough. Wyte till I
pour some chain on my 'ot coppers.' He drank a glass off, and
affected to listen. ''Ark!' said he, ''ear it fizz. Like 'am
fryin', I declyre. 'Ave a glass, do, and look sociable.'

'No!' said the captain, with emphasis; 'no, I will not! there's
business.'

'You p'ys your money and you tykes your choice, my little
man,' returned Huish. 'Seems rather a shyme to me to spoil your
breakfast for wot's really ancient 'istory.'

He finished three parts of a bottle of champagne, and nibbled
a corner of biscuit, with extreme deliberation; the captain
sitting opposite and champing the bit like an impatient horse.
Then Huish leaned his arms on the table and looked Davis in the
face.

'W'en you're ready!' said he.

'Well, now, what's your idea?' said Davis, with a sigh.

'Fair play!' said Huish. 'What's yours?'

'The trouble is that I've got none,' replied Davis; and wandered
for some time in aimless discussion of the difficulties in
their path, and useless explanations of his own fiasco.

'About done?' said Huish.

'I'll dry up right here,' replied Davis.

'Well, then,' said Huish, 'you give me your 'and across the
table, and say, "Gawd strike me dead if I don't back you up."'

His voice was hardly raised, yet it thrilled the hearer. His face
seemed the epitome of cunning, and the captain recoiled from it
as from a blow.

'What for?' said he.

'Luck,' said Huish. 'Substantial guarantee demanded.'

And he continued to hold out his hand.

'I don't see the good of any such tomfoolery,' said the other.

'I do, though,' returned Huish. 'Gimme your 'and and say the
words; then you'll 'ear my view of it. Don't, and you won't.'

The captain went through the required form, breathing short,
and gazing on the clerk with anguish. What to fear, he knew
not; yet he feared slavishly what was to fall from the pale lips.

'Now, if you'll excuse me 'alf a second,' said Huish, 'I'll go
and fetch the byby.'

'The baby?' said Davis. 'What's that?'

'Fragile. With care. This side up,' replied the clerk with a
wink, as he disappeared.

He returned, smiling to himself, and carrying in his hand a
silk handkerchief. The long stupid wrinkles ran up Davis's brow,
as he saw it. What should it contain? He could think of nothing
more recondite than a revolver.

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