The Cruise of the Mary Rose | Page 8

I
hope to escape without bloodshed. Again Golding shouts out, "Fire,
lads! fire! Why keep back the men from firing? We shall all be
murdered." Urged by his example, the men fire a volley among the
surrounding savages. With fearful howls those grasping the boat let go;
others fall back killed; the mass rush in terror up the beach. We escape
into deep water, two or three arrows sticking in the arms of our men
and in the sides of the boat. Golding cries out for vengeance; and the
men fire till every savage has disappeared.
We return on board. It strikes me that we cannot appear very well
favoured in the sight of these poor savages. I say as much that day at
dinner to the captain. He is a man of few words.
"You are right, John; the next comers will suffer," he remarks.
"That matters nought to us," says Phineas Golding. "We shall not come
here again."
"Scant kindness to the next comers; as scant as that we have showed
the natives," I observe.
"We must all look out for ourselves in these seas," says the captain. "It
will be our own fault if we are at any time caught unawares. Remember

that, Master Harvey."
I make no answer, for the captain does not bear contradiction. The first
mate, Golding, and the doctor, keep always well with him. So do I, for
this reason: I heard him once say, "That John Harvey needs keeping
under." On that, I resolved, as far as it should lie in my power, to keep
myself under--to do my duty, and give him no occasion to find fault.
Thus far I have succeeded--but not always with ease; for Simon Fuller
has had uncontrolled power as a sea captain for many a long year, often
over rogues and vagabonds, whom fear alone will keep in order, so he
fancies. I have heard say that the rule of kindness will work wonders. I
have never seen it tried as I could desire, but I find that the worst of our
ship's company obey me more readily than they do James Festing, and
yet the first mate is an older, and, I truly believe, a better seaman than I
am. I speak quietly to the lads, eschew oaths, and never handle a rope's
end in wrath. He swears loudly, and uses both.
I was called forward to see Tom Collis, the poor fellow who was
wounded in the boat. The surgeon can do nothing for him, he says, and
I see that the man's countenance is marked by death's hand. Around us,
as I sit by him, we hear laughter, and oaths, and gross talking. Collis is
suffering great agony. "Mercy! mercy!" he shrieks out. "To die thus--
no time for repentance, with hideous crimes weighing down my soul!"
Sometimes he raves, and says things which make my blood run cold;
but I talk quietly to him, and he grows calmer. I tell him in few words
of that simple plan God in His gracious mercy arranged before the
world began, by which sinners even great as he might be saved. He
drinks in every word. I tell him how the loving Jesus came on earth to
live as a man a life of suffering, that men might understand that He
knows how they suffer; that He was tempted, that they might feel
assured He pities, and will help them when they are tempted; that He
was crucified,--made a sacrifice, that He might take their sins on His
shoulders; that His blood was shed that it might wash away the sins of
all who trust in it, and look to Him; that He was buried, and rose again,
that He might conquer death, and show that all who follow Him must
conquer too; and that He ascended up on high, that He might present all
who place their faith in Him washed from their sins pure and undefiled

before the throne of God.
"But all that could not be done for such a wretch as me," says Collis.
"If God would let me live, I might repent, and lead a different sort of
life, and do all sorts of things to please Him; and then perchance He
might think me more fit for heaven."
"Oh, my dear shipmate," I say, "don't think of such folly. You could
never do anything to make you more fit for heaven than you now are,
vile, sinful, guilty wretch as you may be."
I then read to him how the Israelites, bit by the fiery serpents in the
wilderness, were saved from death and cured by looking at the brazen
serpent held up by Moses. And then I read about the thief on the cross,
and then I say:
"Just look