The Ebb-Tide
| The Ebb-Tide | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Robert Louis Stevenson Lloyd Osbourne |
| Country | Scotland |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Adventure novel |
| Publisher | Heinemann |
| Publication date | 1894 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| ISBN | NA |
The Ebb-Tide. A Trio and a Quartette (1894) is a short novel written by Robert Louis Stevenson and his stepson Lloyd Osbourne. It was published the same year Stevenson died.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The story opens by introducing three destitute beggars in the port of Papeete on Tahiti. They are Herrick, a failed English businessman; Davis, an American sea captain disgraced by the loss of his last ship; and Huish, a dishonest Cockney of various employments.
One day an off-course schooner carrying a cargo of champagne from San Francisco to Sydney arrives in port, its officers having been killed by smallpox. With no-one else willing to risk infection, the U.S. consul employs Davis to take over the ship for the remainder of its voyage. He carries the other two men along with a plan to steal the ship and navigate it to Peru, where they will sell the cargo and vessel and disappear with the money.
Once at sea, Davis and Huish start drinking the cargo and spend almost all of their time intoxicated. Herrick, whose conscience is severely troubled by the plan but feels he has no other way to escape poverty, is left alone to manage the ship and three native crew members, despite having no seafaring experience.
However, several days later the would-be thieves discover they have themselves been victims of a fraud: most of the cargo is not champagne but merely bottles of water. Evidently the shipper and the previous captain had intended to sink the ship deliberately and claim the full value of the "champagne" on insurance.
Even worse, the now-sober Captain Davis discovers that due to his rushed preparations for departure, and his drunken wastage, the ship is not carrying enough food to reach Peru, or anywhere else except the port they started from, where they would surely be imprisoned for their actions.
Just then they sight an unknown island, where they discover an upper-class Englishman named Attwater. Attwater, a devout Christian, has been harvesting pearls here for many years with the help of a several dozen native workers, all except four of whom have recently also died of smallpox.
The three men hatch a new plan to kill Attwater and take his pearls, but Herrick's guilt-stricken demeanour and Huish's drunken ramblings soon betray them. Attwater and his servants force them back onto the ship at gunpoint. Unable to live with himself, Herrick jumps overboard and tries to drown himself. Failing even in this, he swims to the shore and throws himself on Attwater's mercy.
The next day, Huish proposes a final plan which shocks even the unscrupulous Davis: they will go to meet Attwater under a flag of truce, and Huish will disable him by throwing acid in his face. However, Attwater is suspicious, realises what is going on, and shoots Huish dead. He appears to be about to kill Davis as well, but forgives him, saying "go, and sin no more".
A short epilogue set two weeks later shows the surviving men preparing to leave the island as Attwater's own ship approaches. Davis is now repentant and fervently religious to an almost crazed degree, and urges the atheist Herrick to join him in his faith.
[edit] Analysis
The lengthy voyage of the stolen ship has been described as "a microcosm of imperialist society, directed by greedy but incompetent whites, the labour supplied by long-suffering natives who fulfil their duties without orders and are true to the missionary faith which the Europeans make no pretence of respecting".[1]
The strange and memorable character of Attwater, ruthlessly violent while talking always of Jesus' forgiveness, who alternately repels and fascinates the other characters, reflects Stevenson's own conflicted feelings about Christianity.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Roslyn Jolly, "Introduction" in Robert Louis Stevenson: South Sea Tales (1996)
[edit] External links
- The Ebb-Tide, at Internet Archive (scanned books color illustrated original editions)
- The Ebb-Tide at Project Gutenberg (plain text and HTML)
