April 25th. — Taking the deposition of sailors yesterday, in a case of alleged ill-usage by the officers of a vessel, one of the witnesses was an old seaman of sixty. In reply to some testimony of his, the captain said, “You were the oldest man in the ship, and we honored you as such.” The mate also said that he never could have thought of striking an old man like that. Indeed, the poor old fellow had a kind of dignity and venerableness about him, though he confessed to having been drunk, and seems to have been a mischief-maker, what they call a sea-preacher, — promoting discontent and grumbling. He must have been a very handsome man in his youth, having regular features of a noble and beautiful cast. His beard was gray; but his dark hair had hardly a streak of white, and was abundant all over his head. He was deaf, and seemed to sit in a kind of seclusion, unless when loudly questioned or appealed to. Once he broke forth from a deep silence thus, “I defy any man!” and then was silent again. It had a strange effect, this general defiance, which he meant, I suppose, in answer to some accusation that he thought was made against him. His general behavior throughout the examination was very decorous and proper; and he said he had never but once hitherto been before a consul, and that was in 1819, when a mate had illused him, and, “being a young man then, I gave him a beating,” — whereupon his face gleamed with a quiet smile, like faint sunshine on an old ruin. “By many a tempest has his beard been shook”; and I suppose he must soon go into a workhouse, and thence, shortly, to his grave. He is now in a hospital, having, as the surgeon certifies, some ribs fractured; but there does not appear to have been any violence used upon him aboard the ship of such a nature as to cause this injury, though he swears it was a blow from a rope, and nothing else. What struck me in the case was the respect and rank that his age seemed to give him, in the view of the officers; and how, as the captain’s expression signified, it lifted him out of his low position, and made him a person to be honored. The dignity of his manner is perhaps partly owing to the ancient mariner, with his long experience, being an oracle among the forecastle men.
May 3d. — It rains to-day, after a very long period of east-wind and dry weather. The east-wind here, blowing across the island, seems to be the least damp of all the winds; but it is full of malice and mischief, of an indescribably evil temper, and stabs one like a cold, poisoned dagger. I never spent so disagreeable a spring as this, although almost every day for a month has been bright.
Friday, May 11th. — A few weeks ago, a sailor, a most pitiable object, came to my office to complain of cruelty from his captain and mate. They had beaten him shamefully, of which he bore grievous marks about his face and eyes, and bruises on his head and other parts of his person: and finally the ship had sailed, leaving him behind. I never in my life saw so forlorn a fellow, so ragged, so wretched; and even his wits seemed to have been beaten out of him, if perchance he ever had any. He got an order for the hospital; and there he has been, off and on, ever since, till yesterday, when I received a message that he was dying, and wished to see the Consul; so I went with Mr. Wilding to the hospital. We were ushered into the waiting-room, — a kind of parlor, with a fire in the grate, and a centre-table, whereon lay one or two medical journals, with wood engravings; and there was a young man, who seemed to be an official of the house, reading. Shortly the surgeon appeared, — a brisk, cheerful, kindly sort of person, whom I have met there on previous visits. He told us that the man was dying, and probably would not be able to communicate anything, but, nevertheless, ushered us up to the highest floor, and into the room where he lay. It was a large, oblong room, with ten or twelve beds in it, each occupied by a patient. The surgeon said that the hospital was often so crowded that they were compelled to lay some of the patients on the floor. The man whom we came to see lay on his bed in a little recess formed by a projecting window; so that there was a kind of seclusion for him to die in. He seemed quite insensible to outward things, and took no notice of our approach, nor responded to what was said to him, — lying on his side, breathing with short gasps, — his apparent disease being inflammation of the chest, although the surgeon said that he might be found to have sustained internal injury by bruises. he was restless, tossing his head continually, mostly with his eyes shut, and much compressed and screwed up, but sometimes opening them; and then they looked brighter and darker than when I first saw them. I think his face was not at any time so stupid as at his first interview with me; but whatever intelligence he had was rather inward than outward, as if there might be life and consciousness at a depth within, while as to external matters he was in a mist. The surgeon felt his wrist, and said that there was absolutely no pulsation, and that he might die at any moment, or might perhaps live an hour, but that there was no prospect of his being able to communicate with me. He was quite restless, nevertheless, and sometimes half raised himself in bed, sometimes turned himself quite over, and then lay gasping for an instant. His woollen shirt being thrust up on his arm, there appeared a tattooing of a ship and anchor, and other nautical emblems, on both of them, which another sailor-patient, on examining them, said must have been done years ago. This might be of some importance, because the dying man had told me, when I first saw him, that he was no sailor, but a farmer, and that, this being his first voyage, he had been beaten by the captain for not doing a sailor’s duty, which he had had no opportunity of learning. These sea-emblems indicated that he was probably a seaman of some years’ service.
While we stood in the little recess, such of the other patients as were convalescent gathered near the foot of the bed; and the nurse came and looked on, and hovered about us, — a sharp-eyed, intelligent woman of middle age, with a careful and kind expression, neglecting nothing that was for the patient’s good, yet taking his death as coolly as any other incident in her daily business. Certainly, it was a very forlorn deathbed; and I felt — what I have heretofore been inclined to doubt — that it might, be a comfort to have persons whom one loves, to go with us to the threshold of the other world, and leave us only when we are fairly across it. This poor fellow had a wife and two children on the other side of the water.
At first he did not utter any sound; but by and by he moaned a little, and gave tokens of being more sensible to outward concerns, — not quite so misty and dreamy as hitherto. We had been talking all the while — myself in a whisper, but the surgeon in his ordinary tones — about his state, without his paying any attention. But now the surgeon put his mouth down to the man’s face and said, “Do you know that you are dying?” At this the patient’s head began to move upon the pillow; and I thought at first that it was only the restlessness that he had shown all along; but soon it appeared to be an expression of emphatic dissent, a negative shake of the head. He shook it with all his might, and groaned and mumbled, so that it was very evident how miserably reluctant he was to die. Soon after this he absolutely spoke. “O, I want you to get me well! I want to get away from here!” in a groaning and moaning utterance. The surgeon’s question had revived him, but to no purpose; for, being told that the Consul had come to see him, and asked whether he had anything to communicate, he said only, “O, I want him to get me well!” and the whole life that was left in him seemed to be unwillingness to die. This did not last long; for he soon relapsed into his first state, only with his face a little more pinched and screwed up, and his eyes strangely sunken. And lost in his head; and the surgeon said that there would be no use in my remaining. So I took my leave. Mr. Wilding had brought a deposition of the man’s evidence, which he had clearly made at the Consulate, for him to sign, and this we left with the surgeon, in case there should be such an interval of consciousness and intelligence before death as to make it possible for him to sign it. But of this there is no probability.
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