HAVE killed a man because he disagreed with me.
Anything more futile it is hard to imagine in cold blood, for by killing him I have proved nothing. He still holds his view. I know it because I have spoken to him since, and he still laughs at me, though softly, compassionately, not as he laughed on that night when the absurdity happened.
Perhaps I am mad, but you shall judge. In any case, that is of no great importance, for by the time you read this, my confession—if, indeed, it is ever read—I shall have ceased to encumber the earth.
He was young, and strong, and filled with that terrible self-assurance of youth that sets an older man's teeth on edge. During his short term of tuition in the schools of the South there was nothing that he had not learned to do better (in theory) than a man of fifty years' experience; and obstinate But I must not let myself go. It is my duty to set down here precisely what happened, without prejudice, without feeling even, if that were possible. Yet as I write my pulse quickens—I will wait a little. It is unfair to him to continue at present.
Here on this reef off the Queensland coast there are unbelievable quantities of fish. Even I have never seen so many, nor of such brilliant colouring. It is possible to wade into the tepid water and catch them with the hand. I have caught hundreds to-day, for lack of something better to do—and set them free; for I will have no more blood on my hands, even that of a fish. Besides, what is the use? There is no drinking water here, nothing but blinding sunlight, a ridge of discoloured coral cleaving the blue mirror of the sea like a razor edge, and myself—a criminal perched upon it as upon a premature scaffold.
But I have overlooked the pickle bottle. It came to me floating, not quite empty, and corked against the flies, just as he and I had left it after the last meal. When the wreck sank, it must have risen from the fo'castle table and up through the hatch—it is curious that nothing else should rise—and it occurred to me that by its aid, and that of the little notebook with pencil attached which I always carry, it would be possible to set my case before the world. I must continue, or there may not be time to say all.
I am what they call an old man on Thursday Island, for none but blacks live to any age in the neighbourhood of this sun-baked tile on the roof of Australia. But I come of Old Country stock, and blood will tell.
I have mixed little with others, preferring the society of my only child, a daughter, to the prattlers and drinkers of a small equatorial community. Perhaps I have been too circumscribed, too isolated from my fellow-creatures. I only know that until he came I was content. My small weather-board house ashore, the ketch in which I brought sandalwood from the mainland coast, were my twin worlds. In each all things were conducted according to my wishes—according, rather, to the methods I had evolved from long experience, and that their merits were borne out by results none could deny.
The house, with its small, well-tended garden, was the best on Thursday Island. My daughter, dutiful and intelligent, managed it according to my wishes, so that it ran like a well-oiled mechanism. And the ketch—that was my inviolable domain. Above and below decks, although only a twenty-ton cargo-carrier, she would have put many a yacht to shame. There was nothing superfluous, nothing lacking. Everything aboard had its place and its use; that is how I contrived to work her single-handed for nearly ten years.
They called me a curmudgeon and a skinflint, but I could afford to smile. My cargoes were not so large as theirs, and took longer to gather, but while they were eating into their profits by paying wages and shares to lazy crews, mine came solely to myself, and never in all those years did I have a mishap. Trust an owner to look after his craft, say I, and trust none other.
Then, as I have said, he came. How he gained entrance I have never known, but he had a way with him, that boy, and when one evening I returned from a trip, he was sitting on the verandah with Doris. She was evidently embarrassed.
"This is Mr. Thorpe, father," she said, and went in to prepare the supper, which was late for the first time that I could remember.
"Indeed?" said I, and remained standing, a fact that Thorpe appeared to overlook, for he reseated himself with all the assurance in life.
"Yes," he said in a manner that I believe is called "breezy," "that is my name, Captain Brent, and I'm pleased to make your acquaintance. Have you had a good trip?"
"Passable," said I. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I must go in and change."