Dutch the Diver: or, A Man's Mistake

“Can you not save his life?” said Dutch. “He should have time to repent.”

“But would he?” said Mr Meldon. “I fear life to him would only be the opportunity to work us all more ill.”

“For heaven’s sake, don’t think of that, man,” cried Dutch. “Have you tried all you could to save him?”

“I have tried all I know,” said the doctor earnestly. “I cannot think of one hour’s lapse of duty.”

“No, no, of course not,” said Dutch, holding out his hand. “I insult you by such a supposition.”

“Miss Studwick is beckoning to you, Mr Meldon,” exclaimed Hester suddenly; and turning they saw her upon her knees evidently in alarm.

“Poor fellow!” muttered the doctor almost in a whisper; but the young couple heard him, and stood watching anxiously, for though John Studwick’s death was expected, they had hoped that he might first reach home.

He had been gazing for quite an hour at the glorious sky, and had apparently been no worse than usual; but now the change had come suddenly, and no one knew it more than he.

For just as Bessy was bending over to speak to him, startled slightly by his lengthened silence, he turned to her and smiled lovingly and tenderly as his thin hand pressed hers.

“Kiss me, Bessy,” he said, in a low, strange voice; and as she gazed at him with dilating eyes, and pressed her lips to his, he said gently, “The doctor!”

It was then that Bessy beckoned anxiously to Mr Meldon, who came hastily across the deck and knelt down, taking the hand feebly stretched out to him.

“Not the pulse, doctor, the palm,” said John Studwick, his face lighting up with a strange unearthly smile.

“I’m not jealous now. Be kind to my darling sister. Good-bye.”

As Bessy burst into a fit of sobbing and lowered her head upon his breast, he laid his hand upon her glossy curls. Then seeing his father bending eagerly over him, he tried to raise his other hand, but it fell back, his lips formed the words “Good-bye” once more; and, as his eyes smiled up in his father’s face, the lines around them gradually hardened, the pupils dilated in a fixed stare, and those who gazed down upon him knew that the spirit had fled to its lasting home.

Story 1-Chapter XXXVIII.

A Puzzling Case

It was about an hour later that the doctor went below to his other patient, to find him lying perfectly still and hardly breathing, so softly his pulsation seemed to rise and fall, while, faithful to his post, Rasp was by his side.

Lauré was evidently sleeping, and, after a brief examination, Mr Meldon turned thoughtfully away, for there were peculiarities in the case which he could not fathom.

As he reached the deck, he was touched on the shoulder, and, turning sharply, he found Rasp behind him.

“Is he going to die to-night, doctor, like t’other poor chap?”

“I can’t say, Rasp,” was the reply. “His case puzzles me. To-night he sleeps so easily that he seems to me better, and as if he were rallying fast.”

“Oh no, he ain’t,” said Rasp, shaking his head oracularly; “that’s the artfulness of his nature. He’s a-dying sharp.”

“How do you know?”

“’Cause I heerd him a muttering to hisself when he thought as I warn’t listening, and then he got talking to hisself in his foreign lingo; and when I came into sight again he began picking at his blanket.”

“May be,” said Mr Meldon, “but all the same, he is certainly better.”

“Yah! stuff!” ejaculated Rasp, as he descended to the cabin. “He’s dying fast, and it’s going to be to-night. I can feel it as plain as can be, poor chap. But he’s an out and out bad ’un, and only got what he deserves.”

Rasp took several pinches of snuff in succession.

“How rum this snuff is to-night,” he muttered, as he settled himself on the locker opposite where Lauré lay, and then proceeded to watch the night through, after refusing the help of Oakum and ’Pollo, both of whom had offered to relieve him, and in the course of half-an-hour he was sleeping heavily.

And so a couple of hours glided away; when, just as all was perfectly silent on board the schooner, and all save the watch on deck slept soundly, Lauré, the Cuban, rose from his simulated sleep, and after a glance at Rasp stole to the locker in which lay his clothes, slipped them on silently, and then made softly for the deck.

It was no tottering walk of a feeble man, but the quick, soft cat-like tread of some one full of life and energy, and bent upon some set design. And so it was; for the time for the execution of the fell purpose upon which his mind had been fixed ever since he had lain there, feeble at first from the shock, but daily growing stronger and meditating revenge, had arrived.

He was too well acquainted with the routine of the schooner not to be fully aware of what he could do, and while the man bent drowsily over the wheel, and Oakum and another were on the look-out in the bows, he took the falls in his hands, and cleverly let the boat on the davits glide down and kiss the softly heaving wave almost without a sound, but not until he had secured the painter to one of the pins, after which he slid down the falls with the activity of a boy, unhooked the boat, and climbed back on deck.

Next he paused to listen for a few moments in the darkness, and then with cat-like step descended into the portion of the vessel which had been set apart for the store connected with the diving apparatus.

It was evident that he had often been here before, as he seemed to know where everything was kept; and after lifting down the large jar of the galvanic battery, which, from the care with which he took it was evidently half-full of acid, he bore it to the steps, and then placing his hand on a particular shelf he took down a canister of dynamite cartridges and placed it against the bulkhead.

This done he felt along the shelf to where, days before, he had placed a large reel of thin silk-covered wire, and tying it to the loop of metal in one of the cartridges, he backed slowly out of the cabin, unwinding the wire as he went till he reached the deck, where he continued his way to the side, and lowered the reel into the boat.

The next thing was the awkward jar of the battery; but his plans had all been made, and with a piece of cord he lowered it down carefully, raising it again and again until he felt that it rested safely in the bottom of the boat.

Water was already there, and provisions that he had been storing up for days; and now the first sound that had left his lips escaped in the form of a low demoniacal chuckle as, lightly raising himself upon the bulwark, he sat there for a moment, and he shook his fist in the direction of the cabin.

“Curse you!” he muttered. “You thought to outwit me, but you did not know your enemy. Sink! perish with the silver that carries you down, for revenge is sweet even at such a cost.”

He swung himself down by the ropes hanging from one of the davits, and there felt that he had outwitted himself for the boat was not beneath his feet, and he was getting nearly exhausted by his efforts.

“I shall have to let go,” he muttered; “and in the darkness I shall never reach the boat again.”

He swung himself to and fro, and struggled hard to reach the boat, but though he nearly touched it each time, he was never near enough to trust himself to lose his hold, and with the perspiration running down his face, and his hair bristling with horror, he began to thoroughly realise that his long rest in bed had weakened him terribly. The thought was horrible now that he had been brought face to face with it – that he who had been so careful in laying his plans for the destruction of others had been caught in his own trap, and was himself called upon to die. The idea was terrible. He was not fit to die. When roused by his passions to fight desperately, he could, perhaps, have faced death with a certain amount of manly composure, but now swinging at the end of this rope, to hold on till he could cling no longer, and then plunge suddenly into the sea to feel the black rushing and thundering waters close over his head – it was too horrible to be borne.

He made a desperate struggle to get his legs up, and cling with them to the rope, but his strength was gone, and he only weakened himself, and hanging now at the full stretch of his arms, feeling, as the sinews of his wrists seemed ready to crack, that any moment he must leave go, he —

The thought was too horrible. He could not face death; sooner must he shriek for help and forego his revenge – anything to be saved.

His lips parted, and he tried to yell loudly, but a harsh gurgle was all that came now from his dry throat. He tried again and again, but horror had paralysed him, and he could do nothing but pant hoarsely like one in a nightmare, and believe that, after all, this was but some fearful dream from which he would awaken, as he often had before, bathed with perspiration, and shivering with dread.

At last he tried to close his starting eyes, and hide from his distorted vision the horrible resemblance of the davit above him to the gallows, as he swung to and fro by the rope. But even this relief was denied him, for it seemed as if the whole muscular strength of his body was condensed in his arms, by which he clung to the fall, and power had left him to perform any other act than that of clinging for life. The deadly sense of terror increased, and with men at either end of the vessel ready to come to his help – men who, by the slightest effort of will, could have saved him – he felt he must die. He would have called them to his help now regardless of the exposure of his plans, but it was too late: he could do no more than hold on, and wait till he fell.

No torture could possibly have been greater than that felt by this wretch as he softly swung to and fro within a few inches of the safety he had provided, and yet unable to reach it. A thousand thoughts rushed through his brain, but they were mostly regrets that he had been unable to compass his revenge; that he had neglected his opportunities when he might have made himself the master of Hester, seeing how thoroughly he had her in his power, and his bared teeth glistened in the darkness as a wave curled and, splashing against the side of the schooner, sent forth a phosphorescent flash.

And now he told himself that it was all over; he must die unrevenged, unable to make a single struggle, for the last moments had come, his muscles were relaxing, the sense of terror was growing more dull, and he must fall. His eyes were staring straight up at the davit, now black above his head, just faintly seen through the darkness, and it seemed more than ever the instrument of his death as the slipping rope for a moment scorched his hands, his eyes convulsively closed as the strain on the muscles of his arms ceased, and he fell.

But not to plunge into the black waters beneath him, and only a few feet from where he had hung, for the wave that curled against the side, and with its phosphorescent glare shewn his distorted features, swept the boat beneath his feet, and he sank all of a heap in the bows, to lie there motionless as the boat rose and fell. For he was utterly prostrate, and it was some minutes before he could realise that he was still alive.

When, however, by slow degrees the feeling came upon him that he was safe, no thanks rose to his cracked, dry lips, but a smile of malignant satisfaction, for revenge was still open to him, and as soon as he could recover himself somewhat, he might put his plan into execution.

For fully half-an-hour Lauré lay there crouching in the bows of the boat waiting for the strength that would enable him to achieve his nefarious ends, while the watch hung drowsily over the bulwarks, and those below slept peacefully, in ignorance of the horrible fate that was in store.

At last, like some deadly monster uncoiling its folds, the Cuban began to move, and his first attempt was to reach a bottle of spirits, from whose gurgling throat he drank with avidity, the potent fluid giving him the restoration he sought. Then as the blood began to tingle in his veins, he sat up, looked round, and gently chafed his benumbed arms.