Run to Earth | Page 2

him in an American hospital, had taken compassion upon him, and had offered him a free passage home. On the homeward voyage, Joyce Harker had shown himself so handy a personage, that Captain Jernam had declined to part with him at the end of the cruise: and from that time, the wizen little hunchback had been the stalwart seaman's friend and companion. For fifteen years, during which Valentine Jernam and his younger brother, George, had been traders on the high seas, things had gone well with these two brothers; but never had fortune so liberally favoured their trading as during the four years in which Joyce Harker had prompted every commercial adventure, and guided every speculation.
"Four years to-day, Joyce, since I first set eyes upon your face in the hospital at New Orleans," said Captain Jernam, in the confidence of this jovial hour. "'Why, the fellow's dead,' said I. 'No; he's only dying,' says the doctor. 'What's the matter with him?' asked I. 'Home-sickness and empty pockets,' says the doctor; 'he was employed in a gaming-house in the city, got knocked on the head in some row, and was brought here. We've got him through a fever that was likely enough to have finished him; but there he lies, as weak as a starved rat. He has neither money nor friends. He wants to get back to England; but he has no more hope of ever seeing that country than I have of being Emperor of Mexico.' 'Hasn't he?' says I; 'we'll tell you a different story about that, Mr. Doctor. If you can patch the poor devil up between this and next Monday, I'll take him home in my ship, without the passage costing him sixpence.' You don't feel offended with me for having called you a poor devil, eh, Joyce?--for you really were, you know--you really were an uncommonly poor creature just then," murmured the captain, apologetically.
"Offended with you!" exclaimed the factotum; "that's a likely thing. Don't I owe you my life? How many more of my countrymen passed me by as I lay on that hospital-bed, and left me to rot there, for all they cared? I heard their loud voices and their creaking boots as I lay there, too weak to lift my eyelids and look at them; but not too weak to curse them."
"No, Joyce, don't say that."
"But I do say it; and what's more, I mean it. I'll tell you what it is, captain, there's a general opinion that when a man's shoulders are crooked, his mind is crooked too; and that, if his poor unfortunate legs have shrivelled up small, his heart must have shrivelled up small to match 'em. I dare say there's some truth in the general opinion; for, you see, it doesn't improve a man's temper to find himself cut out according to a different pattern from that his fellow-creatures have been made by, and to find his fellow-creatures setting themselves against him because of that difference; and it doesn't soften a poor wretch's heart towards the world in general, to find the world in general harder than stone against him, for no better reason than his poor weak legs and his poor crooked back. But never mind talking about me and my feelings, captain. I ain't of so much account as to make it worth while for a fine fellow like you to waste words upon me. What I want to know is your plans. You don't intend to stop down this way, do you?"
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Because it's a dangerous way for a man who carries his fortune about him, as you do. I wish you'd make up your mind to bank that money, captain."
"Not if I know it," answered the sailor, with a look of profound wisdom; "not if I know it, Joyce Harker. I know what your bankers are. You go to them some fine afternoon, and find a lot of clerks standing behind a bran new mahogany counter, everything bright, and shining, and respectable. 'Can I leave a few hundreds on deposit?' asks you. 'Why, of course you can,' reply they; and then you hand over your money, and then they hand you back a little bit of paper. 'That's your receipt,' say they. 'All right,' say you; and off you sheer. Perhaps you feel just a little bit queerish, when you get outside, to think that all your solid cash has been melted down into that morsel of paper; but being a light-hearted, easy-going fellow, you don't think any more of it, till you come home from your next voyage, and go ashore again, and want your money; when it's ten to one if you don't find your fine new bank shut up, and your clerks and bran-new mahogany counter vanished. No, Joyce, I'll trust