'Well, well,' she said, 'let us forgive and forget,' and--for there was
no restraint upon the movements of the woman--she moved toward the side,
where they were lifting the manacled prisoners on board. Jensen was in
the first batch, but not the first to be brought on board, and he
carried himself sullenly, with his eyes cast down, and seemed to notice
nothing as he was brought up on the deck. The prisoners were so securely
bound that no especial guard was placed over them during the process of
taking them from the boats, and so, before I was aware of it, Barbara
had slipped by me and between the Dutch sailors, and was by Jensen's
side. For the moment I thought that she had come to carry out her
promise of forgiveness; but Jensen lifted his face, and I saw it, and
saw that it was writhed with a great horror and a great fear. And then I
saw her lift her hand, and saw a knife in her hand, and the next moment
she had driven it once and twice into his breast by the heart, and
Jensen dropped like a log, and his blood ran over the deck. Then she
turned to me, and her face was as red as fire, and she cried out,
'Forgive and forget!' and so drove the knife into her own body and fell
in her turn. It was all done so swiftly that there was no time for
anyone to lift a hand to interfere, and when we came to lift them up
they were both dead. This was the end of that beautiful woman, and this
the end of Cornelys Jensen. He should have lived to be hanged; it was
too good a death for him to die by her hand; but I can understand how it
seemed to her hot blood and her wronged womanhood that she could only
wash out her shame by shedding her wronger's blood. May Heaven have
mercy upon her!
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE LAST OF THE SHIP
It was many a weary month before we saw Sendennis again, but we did see
it again. For Captain Marmaduke was so dashed by the untoward results of
his benevolence and the failure of his scheme that he saw nothing better
to do than to turn homeward, after mending his fortunes by the sale of
the greater part of his Dutch plantations. A portion, however, he set
apart and made over as a settlement for the remnant of the colonists,
who, having got so far, had no mind to turn back, and as an asylum for
the wretched women. With the aid of the Dutchmen we got the Royal
Christopher off her reef and made shift to tow her into harbourage at
Batavia, and there Captain Amber sold her and bought another vessel,
wherein we made the best of our way back to England, with no further
adventures to speak of. At Sendennis I had the joy to find my mother
alive and well, and the wonder to find that my birth-place seemed to
have grown smaller in my absence, but was otherwise unchanged.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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