So away we sailed, and left her; drifting, drifting on; a garden spot for barnacles, and a playhouse for the sharks.
“Look there,” said Jackson, hanging over the rail and coughing—“look there; that’s a sailor’s coffin. Ha! ha! Buttons,” turning round to me—“how do you like that, Buttons? Wouldn’t you like to take a sail with them ’ere dead men? Wouldn’t it be nice?” And then he tried to laugh, but only coughed again. “Don’t laugh at dem poor fellows,” said Max, looking grave; “do’ you see dar bodies, dar souls are farder off dan de Cape of Dood Hope.”
“Dood Hope, Dood Hope,” shrieked Jackson, with a horrid grin, mimicking the Dutchman, “dare is no dood hope for dem, old boy; dey are drowned and d .... d, as you and I will be, Red Max, one of dese dark nights.”
“No, no,” said Blunt, “all sailors are saved; they have plenty of squalls here below, but fair weather aloft.”
“And did you get that out of your silly Dream Book, you Greek?” howled Jackson through a cough. “Don’t talk of heaven to me—it’s a lie—I know it—and they are all fools that believe in it. Do you think, you Greek, that there’s any heaven for _you?_ Will they let _you_ in there, with that tarry hand, and that oily head of hair? Avast! when some shark gulps you down his hatchway one of these days, you’ll find, that by dying, you’ll only go from one gale of wind to another; mind that, you Irish cockney! Yes, you’ll be bolted down like one of your own pills: and I should like to see the whole ship swallowed down in the Norway maelstrom, like a box on ’em. That would be a dose of salts for ye!” And so saying, he went off, holding his hands to his chest, and coughing, as if his last hour was come.
Every day this Jackson seemed to grow worse and worse, both in body and mind. He seldom spoke, but to contradict, deride, or curse; and all the time, though his face grew thinner and thinner, his eyes seemed to kindle more and more, as if he were going to die out at last, and leave them burning like tapers before a corpse.
Though he had never attended churches, and knew nothing about Christianity; no more than a Malay pirate; and though he could not read a word, yet he was spontaneously an atheist and an infidel; and during the long night watches, would enter into arguments, to prove that there was nothing to be believed; nothing to be loved, and nothing worth living for; but every thing to be hated, in the wide world. He was a horrid desperado; and like a wild Indian, whom he resembled in his tawny skin and high cheek bones, he seemed to run amuck at heaven and earth. He was a Cain afloat; branded on his yellow brow with some inscrutable curse; and going about corrupting and searing every heart that beat near him.