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- 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 coruscating 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.
CHAPTER XLIX.
CARLO
There was on board our ship, among the emigrant passengers, a
rich-cheeked, chestnut-haired Italian boy, arrayed in a faded,
olive-hued velvet jacket, and tattered trowsers rolled up to his knee.
He was not above fifteen years of age; but in the twilight pensiveness
of his full morning eyes, there seemed to sleep experiences so sad and
various, that his days must have seemed to him years. It was not an eye
like Harry’s tho’ Harry’s was large and womanly. It shone with a soft
and spiritual radiance, like a moist star in a tropic sky; and spoke of
humility, deep-seated thoughtfulness, yet a careless endurance of all
the ills of life.
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