Jack had piled quite a bit of cargo well above high water-mark, and was sweating heartily. He thought of how' nicely a cold beer would go down about now, and happily it was that he remembered having let one down upon a string into the deep, deep waters of the Cove: the surface was warmed by the sun, but the depths.
He took hold of the string and, suddenly, he was on his knees, in a shaking spasm of chill which racked his whole body.
“Why, Mr. Limekiller,” the medical officer had said, some w'hile back, when he was asked, “yes, I can prescribe you an antimalarial drug, but I advise against it. You see, malaria has been almost stamped out here, and, even if you should get it, we can fix you up in a few days — whereas, should you get bad reactions or side-effects from the medicine itself, it might take months.
So here he was, miles and miles from any human being, and it had to be here and now that he suddenly came dowm with it.
He was on his knees, head bent, and he was looking down into the greeny depths of the cove, a few feet away. Something was down there, something manlike and wdiite. Something which slow', now, began to rise towards the surface, slowly turning as it did so. It was the body of the man in the mist, the man in the longboat: he had fallen overboard, he had drowned, and his body had drifted ashore. here.
The drowned face turned his way and looked at him — or appeared to — and the drowned face. But wait, but wait! Do the faces of men who have drowned change expression before one’s very eyes? Do drowned bodies clutch one side with one hand? Do the faces of drowned men suddenly change as though their mouths were open and screaming, down way below the water? And, most horrid of alclass="underline" do drow’ned men bleed.?
By and by somebody hailed him. He had been half-sitting, halflying against the pile of planks. “Mr. Limekiller! I di recognize you boat, sah. Teenk me come ashore, ahsk hoew' de day — Eh, Mr. Jock. You sick, mon? Sick?”
“Think I just had an attack of malaria,’’Jack mumbled. The chill was gone, the fever hadn’t come. He just felt very, very bad. Who was this, now, with the familiar voice. He peered out of his halfclosed eyes.
“Eh, Jock, me gweyn fetch you some-teeng good!. Bide a bit!” As though there were anywhere for Limekiller to stray off to! In a minute the man was back. Harlow the Hunter, that was who he was. In his hand he had a bottle with a bunch of. “Ah! right, noew, Jock, dis naught but rum with country verba steep een eet. Suppose you tehk some. Ah lee’ swallow. Eh?”
Whatever kind of country herb the twigs were, they had given a bitter taste to the rum: but that was okay. Anything was okay. He w'asn’t alone now:. He took a sip. He took another sip. He put the bottle down, and thanked the man for it.
Harlow looked in his eyes. “Very odd, Jock. You wyes not yellow ah-tahl! Cahn’t be malaria. No sah. Muss be some-teeng else.” Limekiller felt he could let the diagnosis wait. “What are you doing down around here, Harlow? I thought all the Baymen south of King Town w'ere ferrying stuff to Pine Tree Creek… or else holed up in Port Caroline.”
Harlow looked puzzled. “Mon, I no care for keep no ferry schedule. Hahv w: ahn lee’ cave oet in de Welshmahn C’yes, I juss be oet dere husking coconut, mehbe wahn week, mon. Ahnd what you mean, ‘hole up in Port Caroline’? What you mean, mon?”
Jack took another dram of the infusion. “I mean, oh, you know. God. The Jack O’Lantern. The, the Flying Dutchman —” But Harlow at once shook his head, vigorously. Negatively. The Colony of British Hidalgo was small. And its population was small. It was, nevertheless, a place with diversity: the little room of infinite riches, in a way. Even its folklore was not of one piece of fabric.
“What you mean, Flying Dutchmon, mon? What you mean, Jock, Flying Dutch-mon? Ees no such teeng, Jock. No, mon, e’s no such teeng. Eet ees ah Eng-leesh-mon! Eet ees Coptain Blood, mon! Ahn he ahl wayrs hahv een he’s hahnd ah mahp, mon. Ah chart, mon. Becahs he seeking someteeng, mon, Jock. But what he seek, mon, he cahn nev-ah fine! He seeking salvation, mon. He glahry in hees chart, mon. But what say de Laard? De Laard say, ‘Lef heem who weel glahry, lef heem glahry een dees: Dot I am de Laard who mehk Heaven ahn Ort, mon.’”
There was, of course, no drowned body in the Cove.
Nor anywhere else to be seen.
As long as Harlow had no idea of Jack’s particular reason for talking about it, he talked about it a lot, all the while insisting that Limekiller sit still while he himself stacked and stashed. “Ah, Jock, me nevah hear of no Coptain Blood who steal de Kingjewels frahm London Tow-ah, like you say. Ahn ahs fah de cinema, mon, dot feelm, weet Errol Fleen! Why, dey hahv de fox ahl rahng, mon. Ahl rahng. Why, me di lahf aht de feelm!”
A faint scent of something sweet came on the breeze. Spice- seed, perhaps. Limekiller felt a good deal better already. “What were the facts, then, Harlow?”
“Why, de fox, Jock: Foct ees, de bloody cop-tain he di sail under a corse, true, fah true. He corsed, ahl right. You know dot? Ahl right. But you no di know why God corse heem, why de Laard God fi corse heem. Fi why? Becahs, mon, he lef dem heeden teenk he God mon. Dem heeden sovvage, dey di teenk he God, mon: ahn he lef dem teenk so. Dis wah de nature ahv hees seen, mon. De Laard say — nah true, Jock? Nah true? — 'Dow sholt hahv no oddah God befah ME,’ mon. So he DOM, mon. De Cop-tain Blood, de Bloody Mon, de DOM, mahn, teel ahl etornity. Een de lahs day, he weel fine forgeevness. He weel fine morcy. not teel den. Not teel den. Teel den, Jock, he muss sail de Seven Sea, mon, wid he side ahl tarn w’open, wid he side ahl bleed-deeng. Becahs he deny hees Laard, mon, ond so he muss bare de same wound mon, becahs —”
Limekiller said, remembering, “But the Captain’s wound was a larger one than that. It’s larger than the wound of a spear-thrust.”
Harlow had two planks on his shoulders. He stood absolutely still for a moment. Then he said, “Hoew you know dees, Jock, mon?”
Jack said, “Because I’ve seen him. Once, yesterday, at sea. And once, today. Right here. I mean. ” He pointed towards the shore, “right there.
Harlow set down his planks. Slowlv. Slowly. Bv accident or by design, the shadows took the form of a cross. And then he did something which seemed to Limekiller, then and thenafter, to be — considering — a very brave thing.
He sat down next to Limekiller, and he put his arm around him.
Very well. They had been mistaken, up there at Port Caroline. It was not the Jack O’Lantern, who sailed at night. It was instead Bloody Man, Captain Blood, who sailed by day. Who sailed by dav, appearing from time to time, often in his longboat, sometimes walking the sand, sometimes merely standing at the water’s edge: but always, alwavs, with his hand pressed to his side and his face a face of pain and agony. Always, that is, except when he took his hand away. And showed his bloody, gaping wound.
If these visitations, these apparitions, followed anything resembling a regular schedule, then Harlow the Hunter did not know of it. He did know, however… or, anyway, he had anyway heard it said, that at any given season of his re-appearance, he show'ed up, first, in the south. and then, slowly headed north.