The Nigger of the Narcissus | Page 9

to be slapped on the back and to hear flattering whispers:--"He ain't afeard, he'll give sport to 'em, see if he don't.... Reg'lar Punch and Judy show.... Did ye see the mate start at him?... Well! Damme, if I ever!..." The last man had gone over, and there was a moment of silence while the mate peered at his list.--"Sixteen, seventeen," he muttered. "I am one hand short, bo'sen," he said aloud. The big west-countryman at his elbow, swarthy and bearded like a gigantic Spaniard, said in a rumbling bass:--"There's no one left forward, sir. I had a look round. He ain't aboard, but he may, turn up before daylight."--"Ay. He may or he may not," commented the mate, "can't make out that last name. It's all a smudge.... That will do, men. Go below."
The distinct and motionless group stirred, broke up, began to move forward.
"Wait!" cried a deep, ringing voice.
All stood still. Mr. Baker, who had turned away yawning, spun round open-mouthed. At last, furious, he blurted out:--"What's this? Who said 'Wait'? What...."
But he saw a tall figure standing on the rail. It came down and pushed through the crowd, marching with a heavy tread towards the light on the quarterdeck. Then again the sonorous voice said with insistence:--"Wait!" The lamplight lit up the man's body. He was tall. His head was away up in the shadows of lifeboats that stood on skids above the deck. The whites of his eyes and his teeth gleamed distinctly, but the face was indistinguishable. His hands were big and seemed gloved.
Mr. Baker advanced intrepidly. "Who are you? How dare you..." he began.
The boy, amazed like the rest, raised the light to the man's face. It was black. A surprised hum--a faint hum that sounded like the suppressed mutter of the word "Nigger"--ran along the deck and escaped out into the night. The nigger seemed not to hear. He balanced himself where he stood in a swagger that marked time. After a moment he said calmly:--"My name is Wait--James Wait."
"Oh!" said Mr. Baker. Then, after a few seconds of smouldering silence, his temper blazed out. "Ah! Your name is Wait. What of that? What do you want? What do you mean, coming shouting here?"
The nigger was calm, cool, towering, superb. The men had approached and stood behind him in a body. He overtopped the tallest by half a head. He said: "I belong to the ship." He enunciated distinctly, with soft precision. The deep, rolling tones of his voice filled the deck without effort. He was naturally scornful, unaffectedly condescending, as if from his height of six foot three he had surveyed all the vastness of human folly and had made up his mind not to be too hard on it. He went on:--"The captain shipped me this morning. I couldn't get aboard sooner. I saw you all aft as I came up the ladder, and could see directly you were mustering the crew. Naturally I called out my name. I thought you had it on your list, and would understand. You misapprehended." He stopped short. The folly around him was confounded. He was right as ever, and as ever ready to forgive. The disdainful tones had ceased, and, breathing heavily, he stood still, surrounded by all these white men. He held his head up in the glare of the lamp--a head vigorously modelled into deep shadows and shining lights--a head powerful and misshapen with a tormented and flattened face--a face pathetic and brutal: the tragic, the mysterious, the repulsive mask of a nigger's soul.
Mr. Baker, recovering his composure, looked at the paper close. "Oh, yes; that's so. All right, Wait. Take your gear forward," he said.
Suddenly the nigger's eyes rolled wildly, became all whites. He put his hand to his side and coughed twice, a cough metallic, hollow, and tremendously loud; it resounded like two explosions in a vault; the dome of the sky rang to it, and the iron plates of the ship's bulwarks seemed to vibrate in unison, then he marched off forward with the others. The officers lingering by the cabin door could hear him say: "Won't some of you chaps lend a hand with my dunnage? I've got a chest and a bag." The words, spoken sonorously, with an even intonation, were heard all over the ship, and the question was put in a manner that made refusal impossible. The short, quick shuffle of men carrying something heavy went away forward, but the tall figure of the nigger lingered by the main hatch in a knot of smaller shapes. Again he was heard asking: "Is your cook a coloured gentleman?" Then a disappointed and disapproving "Ah! h'm!" was his comment upon the information that the cook happened to be a mere white man. Yet, as they went all