The Cruise of the Mary Rose | Page 8

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 to Jesus in that way. Feel that you are bitten by sin, helpless, and dying, and deserving of death; and He says to you, as He said to the thief on the cross, `To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.'--`Thy sins are forgiven thee.'"
"What, sir!" exclaims Collis, "you don't mean to