Redburn: Chapter 48

Chapter 48

A LIVING CORPSE

It was destined that our departure from the English strand, should be
marked by a tragical event, akin to the sudden end of the suicide, which
had so strongly impressed me on quitting the American shore.

Of the three newly shipped men, who in a state of intoxication had been
brought on board at the dock gates, two were able to be engaged at their
duties, in four or five hours after quitting the pier. But the third man
yet lay in his bunk, in the self-same posture in which his limbs had
been adjusted by the crimp, who had deposited him there.

His name was down on the ship's papers as Miguel Saveda, and for Miguel
Saveda the chief mate at last came forward, shouting down the
forecastle-scuttle, and commanding his instant presence on deck. But the
sailors answered for their new comrade; giving the mate to understand
that Miguel was still fast locked in his trance, and could not obey him;
when, muttering his usual imprecation, the mate retired to the
quarterdeck.

This was in the first dog-watch, from four to six in the evening. At
about three bells, in the next watch, Max the Dutchman, who, like most
old seamen, was something of a physician in cases of drunkenness,
recommended that Miguel's clothing should be removed, in order that he
should lie more comfortably. But Jackson, who would seldom let any thing
be done in the forecastle that was not proposed by himself, capriciously
forbade this proceeding.

So the sailor still lay out of sight in his bunk, which was in the
extreme angle of the forecastle, behind the bowsprit-bitts--two stout
timbers rooted in the ship's keel. An hour or two afterward, some of the
men observed a strange odor in the forecastle, which was attributed to
the presence of some dead rat among the hollow spaces in the side
planks; for some days before, the forecastle had been smoked out, to
extirpate the vermin overrunning her. At midnight, the larboard watch,
to which I belonged, turned out; and instantly as every man waked, he
exclaimed at the now intolerable smell, supposed to be heightened by the
shaking up the bilge-water, from the ship's rolling.

"Blast that rat!" cried the Greenlander.

"He's blasted already," said Jackson, who in his drawers had crossed
over to the bunk of Miguel. "It's a water-rat, shipmates, that's dead;
and here he is"--and with that, he dragged forth the sailor's arm,
exclaiming, "Dead as a timber-head!"

Upon this the men rushed toward the bunk, Max with the light, which he
held to the man's face.

"No, he's not dead," he cried, as the yellow flame wavered for a moment
at the seaman's motionless mouth. But hardly had the words escaped,
when, to the silent horror of all, two threads of greenish fire, like a
forked tongue, darted out between the lips; and in a moment, the
cadaverous face was crawled over by a swarm of wormlike flames.

The lamp dropped from the hand of Max, and went out; while covered all
over with spires and sparkles of flame, that faintly crackled in the
silence, the uncovered parts of the body burned before us, precisely
like phosphorescent shark in a midnight sea.

The eyes were open and fixed; the mouth was curled like a scroll, and
every lean feature firm as in life; while the whole face, now wound in
curls of soft blue flame, wore an aspect of grim defiance, and eternal
death. Prometheus, blasted by fire on the rock.

One arm, its red shirt-sleeve rolled up, exposed the man's name,
tattooed in vermilion, near the hollow of the middle joint; and as if
there was something peculiar in the painted flesh, every vibrating
letter burned so white, that you might read the flaming name in the
flickering ground of blue.

"Where's that d--d Miguel?" was now shouted down among us from the
scuttle by the mate, who had just come on deck, and was determined to
have every man up that belonged to his watch.

"He's gone to the harbor where they never weigh anchor," coughed
Jackson. "Come you down, sir, and look."

Thinking that Jackson intended to beard him, the mate sprang down in a
rage; but recoiled at the burning body as if he had been shot by a
bullet. "My God!" he cried, and stood holding fast to the ladder.

"Take hold of it," said Jackson, at last, to the Greenlander; "it must
go overboard. Don't stand shaking there, like a dog; take hold of it, I
say! But stop"--and smothering it all in the blankets, he pulled it
partly out of the bunk.

A few minutes more, and it fell with a bubble among the phosphorescent
sparkles of the damp night sea, leaving a coruscating wake as it sank.

This event thrilled me through and through with unspeakable horror; nor
did the conversation of the watch during the next four hours on deck at
all serve to soothe me.

But what most astonished me, and seemed most incredible, was the
infernal opinion of Jackson, that the man had been actually dead when
brought on board the ship; and that knowingly, and merely for the sake
of the month's advance, paid into his hand upon the strength of the bill
he presented, the body-snatching crimp had knowingly shipped a corpse on
board of the Highlander, under the pretense of its being a live body in
a drunken trance. And I heard Jackson say, that he had known of such
things having been done before. But that a really dead body ever burned
in that manner, I can not even yet believe. But the sailors seemed
familiar with such things; or at least with the stories of such things
having happened to others.

For me, who at that age had never so much as happened to hear of a case
like this, of animal combustion, in the horrid mood that came over me, I
almost thought the burning body was a premonition of the hell of the
Calvinists, and that Miguel's earthly end was a foretaste of his eternal
condemnation.

Immediately after the burial, an iron pot of red coals was placed in the
bunk, and in it two handfuls of coffee were roasted. This done, the bunk
was nailed up, and was never opened again during the voyage; and strict
orders were given to the crew not to divulge what had taken place to the
emigrants; but to this, they needed no commands.

After the event, no one sailor but Jackson would stay alone in the
forecastle, by night or by noon; and no more would they laugh or sing,
or in any way make merry there, but kept all their pleasantries for the
watches on deck. All but Jackson: who, while the rest would be sitting
silently smoking on their chests, or in their bunks, would look toward
the fatal spot, and cough, and laugh, and invoke the dead man with
incredible scoffs and jeers. He froze my blood, and made my soul stand
still.

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