We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [79]
He fell silent, and again for a moment I thought that he'd died. His eyes were closed.
"And then they discovered a new and better enemy," I said out loud, but I was talking to myself as much as to him.
Jack Lewis opened up his eyes and gave me a reproachful look, as though I'd just reminded him of something unpleasant.
"Some idiot sold them guns and ruined my business." He snarled and attempted to spit on the deck, but what came out was blood. "I had a good operation running there. It could have carried on for years. They got someone they could fight, and kill, and eat. And I got the pearls. And then that bastard turns up."
"Who?" I asked.
"None of your business." He spat more blood. "Get me another glass."
I poured him another whiskey and held it to his lips. He coughed, and the whiskey trickled down his lower lip and mingled with the blood, which was now flowing in a constant stream. He sighed.
"You'll inherit all this. A bag of pearls and a ship. A good start for a young sailor. More than you deserve."
I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to take charge of this ship, which, regardless of what her owner said, was nothing but a blackbirder. Nor would I touch the pearls. Their pink sheen put me in mind not of grains of sand, but of dried blood.
I said nothing. Though I had no respect for Jack Lewis, I respected the hole in his chest. He was dying, and you owe the dying your attention.
"Paradise," he mumbled. "A paradise complete with everything, including enemies, ready to kill you." He glanced at the Kanaks and bared his yellow teeth. Blood was seeping out between them. "The moment your back's turned, they'll stick a knife in it. They can see me lying here. And they've met Jim. If they didn't know it before, they know it now: white men can die too."
Jack Lewis closed his eyes again and sighed. He didn't move, and after a while I realized that he was never going to open them again. Despite those last words of warning, which echoed in my ears, there was no way that I could keep his death a secret from the Kanaks.
I couldn't keep him on board, so I went down to his cabin to look for something to wrap his body in before surrendering it to the sea. A flag was what I had in mind, but I couldn't find one, so I took an unused strip of canvas. His shirtfront was soaked with blood, but I had no way of sending him overboard in clean clothes, and no urge to touch his body, with its sticky blood. So there he lay, wrapped in canvas bound by a piece of rope. A life had ended—though hardly a beautiful one, in my opinion. I didn't know much about Jack Lewis, but I knew enough not to mourn his death.
I summoned the Kanaks, and together we eased Jack Lewis over the rail. He bobbed up and down in our wake for a while. And then he sank. No sharks circled his body before it went under. He'd regarded his fellow human beings as no more than meat on a butcher's slab, and I had no idea if he'd been a Christian, but I did him the honor of folding my hands and reciting the Lord's Prayer.
I said the words in Danish. The Kanaks watched in silence. When they saw me fold my hands, they folded theirs too. I interpreted this as a gesture of respect, toward me as much as the deceased. I was their captain now. What they thought beyond that, I had no clue. Their dark, blue-tattooed faces gave nothing away. Was this the start of another Kealakekua Bay? Would the fate that Jack Lewis escaped befall me instead? Would they tear me to pieces, eat my heart, and smoke my head over an open fire? I wanted to hide in my cabin while I went through