I said, and it was not easy to frame English phrases after so long a sojourn here, “They say you are an Englishman.”
“Aye.”
“So am I also, that has been twenty years on this shore.”
To this he said nothing.
I said, “Are you unwell? Can I give you any aid?”
“I would die, but I cannot. My life is over, yet I live on.”
“Never say you would welcome death, until the moment when death is upon you. Come, brother, let us walk about, and seek the fresh air of the shore.”
“Let me be.”
“The breeze will set your blood coursing again, and restore you to life,” said I.
“Let me be. I have no wish to be restored to life.”
“I beg you, brother—”
“Damn you, let me be!” cried he in a screech-owl cry, that had more pain than anger in it. Spittle flecked his face, and he rose part way from his seat, making claws at me, but he could not rise, and trembling he fell back, huddled, shaking. In a very low voice he said, “D’ye see, I am too weak to stand! And yet I am unable to die. Yet death spurns me.”
“I see that,” said I. And my heart went out for him, for that he was a sorrowful mortal man in dire distress, and it was my Christian duty to comfort him. I pulled over a second chair, and sat beside him, and said, “Let me help you in what way I can, for if one Englishman does not help another here, who will do it for us?”
He looked at me less darkly, and some ease came over him.
“Tell me how you came to this place, friend,” said I.
“By the Portugals,” he replied, “who had me a slave in their galleys five years, and whipped me once until I could no longer walk aright, and then afterward my sight went from me; and they had me in São Tomé, but did not want me there, and dumped me down to die.”
“You have suffered much.”
“I am altogether destroyed at their account. But they had reason to injure me, for I once was a privateer captain, and roved King Philip’s seas and took heavy plunder from his ships, until I was taken in my turn.”
“Ah,” I said, “and I was a privateer once also, though precious little plunder fell to my share. What is your home place?”
“Essex,” said he. “I am of the town of Leigh, that is close by the sea. Do you know it, perchance?”
“Aye,” I said.
And a great shiver did run down my spine at what I had heard from him, and I was half stricken by amaze, and my breath came in sudden ragged bursts out of my pounding bosom; for I did peer close, seeking to discern the outlines of his face beneath the changes the years had worked on him, this being a man not so much older than I, from my very town, and I saw that I did know him, though it was almost outside the scope of belief that this man could be—this man—
“My name,” said he, and though he said it in a scratchy whisper it exploded in my ears like the bombard of an hundred cannon, “My name is Abraham Cocke.”
“Ah, so I thought!”
And for an instant I thought me to strike him dead, as many times I had fancied I would do, if ever I met with that man again. But how strike this feeble ancient villain, that was so ruined by time and adversity already?
“You know of me?” he said.
“You are that great captain,” said I, “that sailed out of the Thames in the April of 1589 with two pinnaces bound for the River de la Plata, that were called the May-Morning and the Dolphin.”
He half rose again, and opened his blind eyes wide, though it availed him naught to do it, for he could see me not.
“You know those ships? You recall that voyage? Who are you? In Jesu’s name, who are you, man?”
“I am Andrew Battell.”
“Andrew Battell?” He said the name quietly, curiously, as someone would who had never heard it before. “Battell? That is a name of Leigh, is it not?”
“Thomas James Battell was my father, and my brothers were the mariners Thomas and Henry and John.”
“Ah. I know those names.”
“And the name of Andrew Battell is unknown to you?”
“It rings in my mind, but I do not place it properly.”
“Nay,” said I, “it is so many years, you surely have forgotten. But we fought together against the Armada, on the Margaret and John.”
“Aye. I remember that ship well.”
“And afterward, you were going with the May-Morning and the Dolphin privateering—”
“Aye.”
“And I was of your crew.”
“It is so long ago, good Andrew.”
“Aye, twenty-one years, this April. And we sailed in African waters first, to São Tomé, even, and then westward, a hard voyage, and much loss. D’ye recall, Captain Cocke?”
“Aye, a hard voyage.”
I shivered with the rage I felt, remembering. “And there was an isle called São Sebastiao, beneath the Tropic of Capricorn, where we were sore hungry. And you did choose a party of men to go ashore for gathering food and water.”
“It was so long ago. I cannot recall. There were so many voyages, so many islands.”
“You did choose a band of sailors, and send them to the isle, and then a party of Indians fell upon them. And slew some of us, and some escaped. But we were lost there on that isle, for that our captain had sailed away without making search for us, and I was among those men, Captain Cocke.”
“Ah,” said he, in a voice from the tomb. “Ah, I do think I recall it slightly, now.”
I put my face near to his and most sternly said, “I recall it more than slightly, for it stole all my life from me, to be marooned there. For I came into the hands of the Portugals, and by June of ‘90 they had me in Angola as a prisoner, and I have been here ever since.”
“Ah. And you are Andrew Battell, of Leigh?”
“The very man.”
“I thought those mariners were dead, that went to the isle for food and water.”
“And never came near to look for us?”
“But if you were dead, why then should we have risked the lives of the others?”
“And if we were not dead? And if we still lived, Captain Cocke, and were to go on into a life of slavery, because that you would not turn about to seek us?”
His face was gray, his head was bowed. His body shook as if with tears, but his cheeks were dry.
I said, “I vowed that if ever I found you I would tear you arm from leg, Cocke, for destroying my life.”
“Aye. Then slay me,” said he bleakly.
“You had my life from me. You sent me into monstrous perils and torments.”
“Slay me, then,” said he again. “It was not my intent, leaving you there. I felt sure you were all of you dead. But it was a sin, a most grievous sin, not to have looked. Slay me.”
He was not afraid. He was pleading for my vengeance.
Ah, then! Strike him now?
“I will not,” said I.
“What is that you tell me?”
Darkly I said, “We are old men, and my life has gone its course, and I think the sands are nearly run out for you. What pleasure is it in killing you now? What revenge? Will it give me back my twenty years, Cocke?”
“For Jesu sake, do it!”
“That I will not.” And I said, “Why are you so eager to die?”
To which he said, “Do you not see me. Blind and broken and feeble as a trampled spider? Why should I live? Ah, you hate me so much that you will punish me by letting me live, is that it, Battell? Aye. Aye, I understand that. I took your life from you, and you punish me by giving me mine. But that is cruel of you, most monstrous cruel.”