I HEARD the clatter of the scissors escaping from his hand, noted the perilous heave of his whole person over the edge of the bunk after them, and then, returning to my first purpose, pursued my course on the deck.The sparkle of the sea filled my eyes.It was gorgeous and barren, monotonous and without hope under the empty curve of the sky.The sails hung motionless and slack, the very folds of their sagging surfaces moved no more than carved granite.The impetuosity of my ad-vent made the man at the helm start slightly.Ablock aloft squeaked incomprehensibly, for what on earth could have made it do so? It was a whistling note like a bird's.For a long, long time I faced an empty world, steeped in an infinity of silence, through which the sunshine poured and flowed for some mysterious purpose.Then I heard Ransome's voice at my elbow.
"I have put Mr.Burns back to bed, sir."
"You have."
"Well, sir, he got out, all of a sudden, but when he let go the edge of his bunk he fell down.He isn't light-headed, though, it seems to me.""No," I said dully, without looking at Ransome.
He waited for a moment, then cautiously, as if not to give offence: "I don't think we need lose much of that stuff, sir," he said, "I can sweep it up, every bit of it almost, and then we could sift the glass out.
I will go about it at once.It will not make the breakfast late, not ten minutes.""Oh, yes," I said bitterly."Let the breakfast wait, sweep up every bit of it, and then throw the damned lot overboard!"The profound silence returned, and when Ilooked over my shoulder, Ransome--the intelli-gent, serene Ransome--had vanished from my side.The intense loneliness of the sea acted like poison on my brain.When I turned my eyes to the ship, I had a morbid vision of her as a floating grave.Who hasn't heard of ships found floating, haphazard, with their crews all dead? I looked at the seaman at the helm, I had an impulse to speak to him, and, indeed, his face took on an expectant cast as if he had guessed my intention.But in the end I went below, thinking I would be alone with the greatness of my trouble for a little while.But through his open door Mr.Burns saw me come down, and addressed me grumpily: "Well, sir?"I went in."It isn't well at all," I said.
Mr.Burns, reestablished in his bed-place, was concealing his hirsute cheek in the palm of his hand.
"That confounded fellow has taken away the scissors from me," were the next words he said.
The tension I was suffering from was so great that it was perhaps just as well that Mr.Burns had started on his grievance.He seemed very sore about it and grumbled, "Does he think I am mad, or what?""I don't think so, Mr.Burns," I said.I looked upon him at that moment as a model of self-possession.I even conceived on that account a sort of admiration for that man, who had (apart from the intense materiality of what was left of his beard) come as near to being a disembodied spirit as any man can do and live.I noticed the pre-ternatural sharpness of the ridge of his nose, the deep cavities of his temples, and I envied him.He was so reduced that he would probably die very soon.Enviable man! So near extinction--while I had to bear within me a tumult of suffering vitality, doubt, confusion, self-reproach, and an in-definite reluctance to meet the horrid logic of the situation.I could not help muttering: "I feel as if I were going mad myself."Mr.Burns glared spectrally, but otherwise wonderfully composed.
"I always thought he would play us some deadly trick,"he said, with a peculiar emphasis on the HE.
It gave me a mental shock, but I had neither the mind, nor the heart, nor the spirit to argue with him.My form of sickness was indifference.The creeping paralysis of a hopeless outlook.So Ionly gazed at him.Mr.Burns broke into further speech.
"Eh! What! No! You won't believe it? Well, how do you account for this? How do you think it could have happened?""Happened?" I repeated dully."Why, yes, how in the name of the infernal powers did this thing happen?"Indeed, on thinking it out, it seemed incompre-hensible that it should just be like this: the bottles emptied, refilled, rewrapped, and replaced.A sort of plot, a sinister attempt to deceive, a thing re-sembling sly vengeance, but for what? Or else a fiendish joke.But Mr.Burns was in possession of a theory.It was simple, and he uttered it solemnly in a hollow voice.
"I suppose they have given him about fifteen pounds in Haiphong for that little lot.""Mr.Burns!" I cried.
He nodded grotesquely over his raised legs, like two broomsticks in the pyjamas, with enormous bare feet at the end.
"Why not? The stuff is pretty expensive in this part of the world, and they were very short of it in Tonkin.And what did he care? You have not known him.I have, and I have defied him.He feared neither God, nor devil, nor man, nor wind, nor sea, nor his own conscience.And I believe he hated everybody and everything.But I think he was afraid to die.I believe I am the only man who ever stood up to him.I faced him in that cabin where you live now, when he was sick, and Icowed him then.He thought I was going to twist his neck for him.If he had had his way we would have been beating up against the Nord-East mon-soon, as long as he lived and afterward, too, for ages and ages.Acting the Flying Dutchman in the China Sea! Ha! Ha!""But why should he replace the bottles like this?"...I began.
"Why shouldn't he? Why should he want to throw the bottles away? They fit the drawer.
They belong to the medicine chest."
"And they were wrapped up," I cried.
"Well, the wrappers were there.Did it from habit, I suppose, and as to refilling, there is always a lot of stuff they send in paper parcels that burst after a time.And then, who can tell? I suppose you didn't taste it, sir? But, of course, you are sure....""No," I said."I didn't taste it.It is all over-board now."
Behind me, a soft, cultivated voice said: "I have tasted it.It seemed a mixture of all sorts, sweet-ish, saltish, very horrible."
