THE END OF THE DIAMOND SHIP.

Dr. Fabos turns his Eyes toward England.

I suppose that I slept a few hours at the dead of night; but certainly I was awake again shortly after the sun had risen, and upon the bridge with Larry, as curious a man as any in the southern hemisphere that morning. Remember in what a situation I had left the Diamond Ship, the problems that remained unsolved upon her decks, the distress of her crew, the trials and judgments that awaited them ashore, the sure death prepared for them upon the high seas. All this the fog had veiled from our reckoning last night; but the day dawned clear and sunny; the curtain had been lifted; the whole picture stood there asking our pity, and in some measure our gratitude. Had we any longer a duty toward the honest men yonder—if honest men there could by any possibility be; or did other claims call us imperiously back to England and our homes, to tell the story where all the world might hear it? These were the questions which Larry and I discussed together, as we stood on the bridge that sunny morning and focussed our glasses upon the distant ship. Should we abandon her or return? Frankly, I knew not where our duty lay. The problem presented possibilities so awful that I shrank from them.

“There are women aboard there, Larry,” I would say.

And he would answer as often:—

“There are men aboard here, sir, with wives and little children waiting for them at home.”

“We could stand by them, Larry,” I put it to him. “If they come to reason, we should do all that is humanly possible for their wounded, and those who are deserving our pity.”

“You cannot stand by them, sir—you have not a pound of coal to waste. Mr. Benson says he will have all his work cut out to get us to the Azores as it is. We shall look pretty if we imitate them and drift about here till Doomsday. And we haven’t any music on board, sir. We must go dancing to our own complaints. Have you thought of that, doctor?”

“God knows,” said I mournfully. “There they are, sickness and fever and death on board—women at the mercy of ruffians, the ship drifting helplessly, the dock waiting for them in any honest port, little chance of making any port at all. What is a seaman to do—where does his simple duty lie? Answer those questions, and I will begin to agree with you. We are men and must play a man’s part. Tell me, I repeat, where our duty lies and we will do it.”

I will do Larry the justice to say that when he had made up his mind upon a given course, he rarely turned from it. His own crew were justly dearer to him than any ship-load of criminals drifting in an unmanageable hulk upon the Atlantic Ocean. And the logic of his case was, I suppose, unanswerable.

“Doctor,” he said, “if your brother lay dying, would you call first upon him or the son of your neighbour who had hurt himself running away from the police? You ask me where our duty lies, and I’ll tell you in a word. It lies to Miss Joan first of all—to see that the shadow of this trouble never falls upon her childish face again. And after that, it is a duty to the brave men who have served you so well, to them and their homes and those who are dear to them. Yonder ship is as well off as we are, and in many ways better. She is now in the track of mail steamers bound to the Argentine, and will quickly fall in with help. If you board her again, they will cut your throat for a certainty, and try to board us when that is done. Leave them to the justice of Almighty God. Their destiny is in other hands. That is wisdom and duty together.”

I knew that he was right, and yet I will confess that I surrendered to his judgment with reluctance. There is an unwritten law of the sea that no sailor in distress shall be deserted, however just or merited his fate may be. We could take the honest fellows from the ship, I would persist, and do all humanly possible for those who were sick. It would be a reproach to me afterwards, I feared, a memory of a day neither altogether glorious nor altogether merciful. As to the great hulk herself, my glass showed her decks clearly, but did not discover any signs of life upon them. Just as I had left her drifting at the mercy of wind and current, so now did she lie sagging in the troughs of the rollers, a piteous spectacle of impotency and despair. The very sails upon her masts were torn and ragged as though long neglected by a seaman’s hand. No smoke issued from her funnel; the boats had been taken up; I could espy no commander upon her bridge nor discern that brisk grouping of the hands upon the fo’castle which bespeaks a voyage. She might have been a phantom ship, a sea vision conjured up by dreamers—and such I could almost believe her.

“At least, Larry,” said I, “we will take another look at her if you please. Miss Joan is sleeping, I imagine. She will know nothing of this, and the men are not to suppose that I am unmindful of what I owe to them. Let us learn, if we can, what is happening over yonder—then we shall turn homewards with lighter hearts. Even our miserly Benson will not tell me that we have not coal enough for such a diversion.”

He had no reasonable objection to offer to this—and, to be plain, our v............