LITMIR.BIZ

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an’ me ever—ever speaks the name o’ Sallie Hannaford.

      “A week later, 38 deg. 26 min. west, 45 deg. 17 min. north, he was—he was hit—”

      V.

      Shifty lays back on his pillows an’ gasps. I thinks it’s the end, but it ain’t. In a minute he begins again.

      “Ame!”

      “Well, what? There ain’t no mur­der in that, far’s I can see. If two deep-water men ain’t got the right to plan up a little shindy, to see who’s got a fair an’ free course fer a skirt, who has?

      “If that’s all you got on your chest, Shifty, you can go easy. I ain’t no sky-pilot nor nothin’, but to the best o’ my jedgment, you’re cleared O. K, papers an’ all A1.”

      “That ain’t all!” he chokes, holdin’ it off by main strength, while the life flickers an’ fades an’ comes agin in his eyes, same as you’ve seed a candle die.

      “That ain’t all—that’s only the beginnin’! So far, all fair an’ open. The—the murder—”

      “Murder, your grandmother! You didn’t bite Tref! You ain’t gave him no hydrophoby! Come, come, Shifty, lay down an’ come round on another tack. Here, I’ll git you a fresh noggin!”

      He holds me back with a grip onta him like an anchor ten foot in the mud.

      “No, no! I had enough, Ame! I’m goin’ under now, any time. Wa­ter’s nigh up to my scuppers, I ain’t goin’ to drift inta the bay an’ go ashore to ray Harbor-master in no stewed condition! You lemme be, now—lemme go middlin’ sober! I—I—”

      “Yes?”

      “Say, Ame, she—”

      “What?”

      “After it was all over, an’ I braced her, know what she done?”

      “No. What?”

      “Blast my hull, if she don’t let out jest one word—‘You?—an’ laugh plumb in my face—an’ then bust inta tears! Tears, so help me—an’ whip out o’ her parlor, where we was settin’ an’ slam the door!

      “She—she was thinkin’ o’ Gash all the time! I never had no look-in at all, not from the start, no way you look at it! Oh—”

      “Come, come, Shifty, this ain’t no time to think of marryin’ or givin’ in marriage. No time to recollect—”

      “It is! Time to recollect the rest o’ that v’yage, when I lost my ’tarnal soul tryin’ to git a wench that wouldn’t ha’ had me, nohow! Time—”

      “How you mean, Shifty? Anythin’ more to it?” I asks, uneasy, fer I’m a parson if I don’t begin to see some kind of a dim glimmer o’ somethin’ cold an’ terrible a-weighin’ on that tortured critter’s soul, somethin’ loomin’ up through the mist, same as a berg on the Banks.

      “How you mean?”

      Shifty, he sort of rares up agin. He grips the Book with one hand. With t’other he vises my flipper till he numbs it.

      “I’m goin’ now, Ame,” says he “Goin’, and not yet saved. Hark!” His words come thick, between wheezes. “Hark now, an’ don’t you stop me, or my damnation be upon you!

      “When Gash was bit, an’ they crowded the Benicia Boy to make port in time fer doctorin’ that’d save him, the devil come to me.

      “That same night he come, an’ I seen him standin’ right there in the fo’c’sle, Ame, an’ his eyes was red as a port-light in a fog.

      “He tells me what to do, so’s I can have Sallie, plain an’ easy. He tells me how to git her, an’ the wad in bank, Mariners’ House an’ all—yes, this here same place where he’s a waitin’ now to grab me, if I don’t git through in time!

      “Plain an’ clear he puts it to me, ‘Shifty,’ says he, ‘Gash is a better man with his dukes than what you be, every time, an’ you know it.

      “‘If he gits to Portland in time, an’ they squirt that dope to him an’ head off this here hydrophoby an’ he gits well, he’ll wallop you to a bleedin’ pulp, over there on the beach at Cushing’s.

      “‘Sallie, she’ll natchally be all sym­pathy an’ interest in him, after his narrer escape,’ says the old boy, ‘an’ that, with the damnation lickin’ he’ll give you, will land you in the lee scup­pers an’ him on the quarterdeck.

      “‘Mark my words,’ says he, grinnin’. ‘They say I can’t tell the truth nohow, but I can, an’ do; an’ you knows it, this time! You’re done for, Shifty,’ says he, ‘that is, if I don’t help you.

      “‘Which I will,’ says he, ‘fair an’ free, an’ no conditions. You do what I say, an’ everything’s yours, Sallie an’ all Pool!’ says he. ‘Can’t you grab a good thing when it’s put right in your fin?’

      “I argyfies with him a little in the fo’c’sle, there. I was settin’ at the table, with the lantern swingin’ in its gimbals overhead, an’ him no further from me than what you be, Ame, so-­fashion.

      “We has some talk, an’ I makes ob­jections. ’Cause, you see, what Gash told me, that time, about misjudgin’ me an’ all—an’ sayin’ I was square—sort of stuck in my gills. But—well—well—”

      “You give in?”

      Shifty groaned.

      “I done that same,” he hiccups. “An’ that night—”

      “That night? Yes?”

      “That night, that very same night, just after two bells o’ the middle watch, I—”

      He coughs somethin’ fierce, an’ I sees blood onta his lips.

      “Shifty! Shifty!” I calls. “Out with it now! You’re ’most to port, old man! Let’s have it, quick, now—you’re ’most saved.”

      “Cargo o’ lumber,” he just barely manages to stammer. “I knowed she couldn’t sink, nohow—”

      “What—what about it?”

      “Carpenter’s chest—bit an’ brace—forehold, out o’ sight—six holes—”

      He kind o’ stiffens out, makes a grab at somethin’ I can’t see, an’ tips over the long-necker. My hair just rises up, as it falls on the floor an’ rolls bump-bump-bump—the bottle, I mean.

      The wind bangs a blind. A puff o’ smoke an’ ashes shoots out o’ the stove inta the room.

      Shifty lets out a bubblin’ yell.

      “I—I bored—bored—”

      Then he falls back, twisted half round.

      VI.

      Come a rap-rap-rappin’ at the door.

      I hauls the patchwork quilt over him, an’ goes to open. As I looks back I sees one bony hand hanging down side o’ the bed. In that grip the Book’s a danglin’.

      “Hello! What the—”

      “Any drinks up here? You ci­der?” It’s Mrs. Hannaford, smiling’.

      “Drinks? No, darn you!” I roars. “Say, you send, git a doctor, coroner, or something quick’s the Lord’ll let you! Shifty, he—”

      She lets out a kind of squeal, an’ skitters off down the hall.

      As I turns back, thinks I to myself, thinks I:

      “Lucky fer you, Sal Hannaford, you don’t know what I know! ’Cause if you did—if you did—!”

AFRICA

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