Keziah Coffin Part 46

"Are you sure--" he faltered.

"Sure! Blast it all! I found the log. It ain't been kept for a fortni't, but there's enough. It's smallpox, I tell you. Two men died of it three weeks ago. The skipper died right afterwards. The mate--No wonder them that was left run away as soon as they sighted land. Come on! Do you want to die, too?"

From the poison pit at the foot of the ladder the man in the bunk called once more.

"Water!" he screeched. "Water! Are you goin' to leave me, you d--n cowards?"

"For Heaven sakes!" cried Burgess, clutching the rail, "what's that?"

Ellery answered him. "It's one of them," he said, and his voice sounded odd in his own ears. "It's one of the crew."

"One of the--Down THERE? Has he--"

"Yes, he has."

"Help! help!" screamed the voice shrilly. "Are you goin' to leave me to die all alone? He-elp!"

The minister turned. "Hus.h.!.+" he called, in answer to the voice, "hus.h.!.+

I'll bring you water in a minute. Burgess," he added, "you and the rest go ash.o.r.e. I shall stay."

"You'll stay? You'll STAY? With THAT? You're crazy as a loon. Don't be a fool, man! Come on! We'll send the doctor and somebody else--some one that's had it, maybe, or ain't afraid. I am and I'm goin'. Don't be a fool."

Thoph, from the dory, shouted to know what was the matter. Ellery climbed the ladder to the deck and walked over to the rail. As he approached, Burgess fell back a few feet.

"Thoph," said the minister, addressing the pair in the dory, "there is a sick man down in the forecastle. He has been alone there for hours, I suppose, certainly since his s.h.i.+pmates ran away. If he is left longer without help, he will surely die. Some one must stay with him. You and the rest row ash.o.r.e and get the doctor and whoever else you can. I'll stay here till they come."

Thoph and his companions set up a storm of protest. It was foolish, it was crazy, the man would die anyhow, and so on. They begged the minister to come with them. But he was firm.

"Don't stop to argue," he urged. "Hurry and get the doctor."

"Come on, Charlie," ordered Bill. "No use talkin' to him, he's set. Come on! I won't stay alongside this craft another minute for n.o.body. If you be comin', come."

Burgess, still protesting, clambered over the rail. The dory swung clear of the brig. The rowers settled themselves for the stroke.

"Better change your mind, Mr. Ellery," pleaded Charlie. "I hate to leave you this way. It seems mean, but I'm a married man with children, like the rest of us here, and I can't take no risks. Better come, too. No?

Well, we'll send help quick as the Lord'll let us. By the Almighty!" he added, in a sudden burst, "you've got more s.p.u.n.k than I have--yes, or anybody I ever come across. I'll say that for you, if you are a parson.

Give way, fellers."

The oars dipped, bent, and the dory moved off. The sound of the creaking thole pins shot a chill through Ellery's veins. His knees shook, and involuntarily a cry for them to come back rose to his lips. But he choked it down and waved his hand in farewell. Then, not trusting himself to look longer at the receding boat, he turned on his heel and walked toward the forecastle.

The water b.u.t.ts stood amids.h.i.+ps, not far from the open door of the galley. Entering the latter he found an empty saucepan. This he filled from the cask, and then, with it in his hand, turned toward the black hatchway. Here was the greatest test of his courage. To descend that ladder, approach that bunk, and touch the terrible creature in it, these were the tasks he had set himself to do, but could he?

Vaccination in those days was by no means the universal custom that it now is. And smallpox, even now, is a disease the name of which strikes panic to a community. The minister had been vaccinated when he was a child, but that was--so it seemed to him--a very long time ago. And that forecastle was so saturated with the plague that to enter it meant almost certain infection. He had stayed aboard the brig because the pitiful call for help had made leaving a cowardly impossibility. Now, face to face, and in cold blood, with the alternative, it seemed neither so cowardly or impossible. The man would die anyhow, so Thoph had said; was there any good reason why he should risk dying, too, and dying in that way?

He thought of a great many things and of many people as he stood by the hatchway, waiting; among others, he thought of his housekeeper, Keziah Coffin. And, somehow, the thought of her, of her pluck, and her self-sacrifice, were the very inspirations he needed. "It's the duty that's been laid on me," Keziah had said, "and it's a hard one, but I don't run away from it." He began to descend the ladder.

The sick man was raving in delirium when he reached him, but the sound of the water lapping the sides of the saucepan brought him to himself.

He seized Ellery by the arm and drank and drank. When at last he desisted, the pan was half empty.

The minister laid him gently back in the bunk and stepped to the foot of the ladder for breath. This made him think of the necessity for air in the place and he remembered the little window. It was tightly closed and rusted fast. He went up to the deck, found a marlin spike, and, returning, broke the gla.s.s. A sharp, cold draught swept through the forecastle, stirring the garments hanging on the nails.

An hour later, two dories b.u.mped against the side of the San Jose. Men, talking in low tones, climbed over the rail. Burgess was one of them; ashamed of his panic, he had returned to a.s.sist the others in bringing the brigantine into a safer anchorage by the inlet.

Dr. Parker, very grave but businesslike, reached the deck among the first.

"Mr. Ellery," he shouted, "where are you?"

The minister's head and shoulders appeared at the forecastle companion.

"Here I am, doctor," he said. "Will you come down?"

The doctor made no answer in words, but he hurried briskly across the deck. One man, Ebenezer Capen, an old fisherman and ex-whaler from East Trumet, started to follow him, but he was the only one. The others waited, with scared faces, by the rail.

"Get her under way and insh.o.r.e as soon as you can," ordered Dr. Parker.

"Ebenezer, you can help. If I need you below, I'll call."

The minister backed down the ladder and the doctor followed him. Parker bent over the bunk for a few moments in silence.

"He's pretty bad," he muttered. "Mighty little chance. Heavens, what a den! Who broke that window?"

"I did," replied Ellery. "The air down here was dreadful."

The doctor nodded approvingly. "I guess so," he said. "It's bad enough now. We've got to get this poor fellow out of here as soon as we can or he'll die before to-morrow. Mr. Ellery," he added sharply, "what made you do this? Don't you realize the risk you've run?"

"Some one had to do it. You are running the same risk."

"Not just the same, and, besides, it's my business. Why didn't you let some one else, some one we could spare--Humph! Confound it, man! didn't you know any better? Weren't you afraid?"

His tone rasped Ellery's shaken nerves.

"Of course I was," he snapped irritably. "I'm not an idiot."

"Humph! Well, all right; I beg your pardon. But you oughtn't to have done it. Now you'll have to be quarantined. And who in thunder I can get to stay with me in this case is more than I know. Just say smallpox to this town and it goes to pieces like a smashed egg. Old Eb Capen will help, for he's had it, but it needs more than one."

"Where are you going to take--him?" pointing to the moaning occupant of the bunk.

"To one of the empty fish shanties on the beach. There are beds there, such as they are, and the place is secluded. We can burn it down when the fuss is over."

"Then why can't I stay? I shall have to be quarantined, I know that. Let me be the other nurse. Why should anyone else run the risk? I HAVE run it. I'll stay."

Dr. Parker looked at him. "Well!" he exclaimed. "Well! I must say, young man, that you've got--Humph! All right, Mr. Ellery; I'm much obliged."

CHAPTER XVII

IN WHICH EBENEZER CAPEN IS SURPRISED

Before sunset that afternoon the San Jose was anch.o.r.ed behind the point by the inlet. The fis.h.i.+ng boats changed moorings and moved farther up, for not a single one of their owners would trust himself within a hundred yards of the stricken brigantine. As soon as the anchors were dropped, the volunteer crew was over side and away, each of its members to receive a scolding from his family for taking such a risk and to have his garments sulphur-smoked or buried. Charlie Burgess, whose wife was something of a Tartar, observed ruefully that he "didn't take no comfort 'round home nowadays; between the smell of brimstone and the jawin's 'twas the hereafter ahead of time."