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- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.842Z
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- 9655
- text
- CHAPTER XLVIII.
A LIVING CORPSE
It was destined that our departure from the English strand, should be
marked by a tragical event, akin to the sudden end of the suicide,
which had so strongly impressed me on quitting the American shore.
Of the three newly shipped men, who in a state of intoxication had been
brought on board at the dock gates, two were able to be engaged at
their duties, in four or five hours after quitting the pier. But the
third man yet lay in his bunk, in the self-same posture in which his
limbs had been adjusted by the crimp, who had deposited him there.
His name was down on the ship’s papers as Miguel Saveda, and for Miguel
Saveda the chief mate at last came forward, shouting down the
forecastle-scuttle, and commanding his instant presence on deck. But
the sailors answered for their new comrade; giving the mate to
understand that Miguel was still fast locked in his trance, and could
not obey him; when, muttering his usual imprecation, the mate retired
to the quarterdeck.
This was in the first dog-watch, from four to six in the evening. At
about three bells, in the next watch, Max the Dutchman, who, like most
old seamen, was something of a physician in cases of drunkenness,
recommended that Miguel’s clothing should be removed, in order that he
should lie more comfortably. But Jackson, who would seldom let any
thing be done in the forecastle that was not proposed by himself,
capriciously forbade this proceeding.
So the sailor still lay out of sight in his bunk, which was in the
extreme angle of the forecastle, behind the _bowsprit-bitts_—two stout
timbers rooted in the ship’s keel. An hour or two afterward, some of
the men observed a strange odor in the forecastle, which was attributed
to the presence of some dead rat among the hollow spaces in the side
planks; for some days before, the forecastle had been smoked out, to
extirpate the vermin overrunning her. At midnight, the larboard watch,
to which I belonged, turned out; and instantly as every man waked, he
exclaimed at the now intolerable smell, supposed to be heightened by
the shaking up the bilge-water, from the ship’s rolling.
“Blast that rat!” cried the Greenlander.
“He’s blasted already,” said Jackson, who in his drawers had crossed
over to the bunk of Miguel. “It’s a water-rat, shipmates, that’s dead;
and here he is”—and with that, he dragged forth the sailor’s arm,
exclaiming, “Dead as a timber-head!”
Upon this the men rushed toward the bunk, Max with the light, which he
held to the man’s face.
“No, he’s not dead,” he cried, as the yellow flame wavered for a moment
at the seaman’s motionless mouth. But hardly had the words escaped,
when, to the silent horror of all, two threads of greenish fire, like a
forked tongue, darted out between the lips; and in a moment, the
cadaverous face was crawled over by a swarm of wormlike flames.
The lamp dropped from the hand of Max, and went out; while covered all
over with spires and sparkles of flame, that faintly crackled in the
silence, the uncovered parts of the body burned before us, precisely
like phosphorescent shark in a midnight sea.
The eyes were open and fixed; the mouth was curled like a scroll, and
every lean feature firm as in life; while the whole face, now wound in
curls of soft blue flame, wore an aspect of grim defiance, and eternal
death. Prometheus, blasted by fire on the rock.
One arm, its red shirt-sleeve rolled up, exposed the man’s name,
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.
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