AFTER the loss of my second only friend, a painful change came over
me. I had risen from the shock of Miss Brentnall's death with an
elasticity which surprised even myself. Partly for the reason that
my constitution was better by several less months of anxiety, grief,
and application to business. Partly because I felt assured that, as
she said, we should some time or other meet again.
'When the Flicker died, I felt that this only thing hitherto left
to love me, could never reäppear. The kind heart of the woman
would beat again; the kind heart of the bird no more forever. And
strangely enough, the whole sorrow that I had passed through for
Miss Brentnall's loss revived, and I went about my day's work
bearing the weight of a two-fold melancholy.
'The first thing that the bird-fancying public knew--indeed almost
the first thing I knew myself, so abstracted, so moody was I--a
paragraph appeared in the morning papers, to the effect that the
celebrated Taxidermist and Aviarian Professor, Orloff Ruricson,
was about to close his business, and make a voyage to Europe, Asia
and Africa, from which parts he hoped to return in two or three
years, with a large and interesting collection of rare animals, to
establish a Natural History Museum.
'I had caused the appearance of this notice myself; but when I
read it, felt quite as surprised by it as any body. In nerve and
mind I was so worn out, that although thoroughly resolved to make
the move, the consolidation of the purpose into such a fixed form
shocked me.
'When the novelty of the idea passed off, I disposed of all my
stock to various amateurs who knew me and had every disposition to
help me by paying large prices. I put the thirty thousand dollars
I was now worth into such a shape that I could get its increase in
regular remittances; packed the bird, the daguerreotype, and a small
wardrobe, and took passage by barque for Genoa.
'At sun-rise one Monday morning, the barque's yawl took me out to
her anchorage. As I went up the ladder at the side, I heard an
opera-air playing on board, and when I reached the deck, the first
thing that met my eyes was an Italian grinder, with his organ and
monkey.
''Is that man going the voyage with us?' I asked the captain.
''Yes, Sir,' he replied; 'but he shan't play without permission
after we get to sea. He's a Genoese, who has made enough in this
country to keep a fruit-stall in his own, and so he's going home.'
'Home! He had a home, and was going to it! I would have handed him
my bank-book--taken his monkey and organ--to be able to say _that_.
'As the tug hitched fast to us and we began walking down toward the
Narrows, I crossed to the other side of the ship, that I might take
a look at the fortunate man.
'Certainly, I said to myself, Fortune _is_ blind. He had a home;
but he was one of the most ill-favored rascals I ever laid my eyes
on. No body would have taken him for a Genoese--the New-Englander
of Italy--rather for a Romanesque cut-throat, or a brigand of the
mountain, who had found his stiletto or his carbine good for only
the slowest kind of shilling and taken to the nimble six-pence of
the hand-organ, on the principle that honesty was the best policy.
You have seen a thousand pen-and-pencil pictures of the fellow, and
need no description of him from me.
'As I stood beside him at the bulwarks, his monkey leapt upon me.
''Pardon, good gentleman,' said the Italian with an abject smirk,
and gave a jerk to the chain that brought back the little animal
flying.
''Never mind that,' said I; 'let him come to me. I am fond of
monkeys: I would like to look at him.'
''As it pleases, then,' replied the Italian, with another smirk, and
loosed the chain again. 'Go, Beppo!'
'Beppo needed no command, but jumped instantly upon my arm and
laid his cheek upon my bosom. As I patted his head, I examined
him curiously, and found him the most beautiful little monkey
in the world. A Marmoset, with a great brown, tender eye like a
gazelle's; a face which varied its expression constantly without
ever degenerating into the brutal leer of the common ape; a winning,
confiding mien of head and hand that was human, childlike; and a
soft coronal of golden fur around his little skull, that added
still more to his baby-like look, giving him the appearance of some
mother's favorite, dressed for a walk in a bonnet of down. I don't
know how I could have been guilty of the folly of becoming attached
to the little fellow, after all the lessons of warning my life had
taught me. But I did take a great fancy to him. Never a day passed
during the whole voyage, in which he did not get many a tit-bit from
my hands. He spent far more of the time with me than with his own
master, and before long obeyed me with a hearty good nature, which
he never thought of showing toward that musical brigand.
'One sunny afternoon, when we were three weeks out, the captain, the
grinder and myself stood upon the forecastle-deck, trying to make
out a sail just visible on the horizon ahead of us. As usual, Beppo
was cutting his pranks about me. For a moment he would sit demurely
on my shoulder and hold his tail to his eye in mimicry of the
captain's eye-glass. A second more, and he would be sitting in the
fore-top. The next, and he came sliding down a halliard to his old
perch. These antics interfered with our look-out, and I put my hand
into my pocket to feel for something which might keep him still.
Finding neither prune, nor nut, nor string, but only the purse which
I always carried there, I drew it out and opened it, to look for a
copper. As I committed this incautious act, I saw the eyes of the
Italian cast a sidelong, sly glance at the gold that shone there,
and I shut the clasp with an uncomfortable sense of having been
very silly. At the same moment, he stole away, like a cat, to the
fore-stays, and pretended to be more earnestly interested than any
of us in the sail.
'The nights grew still warmer and warmer as we sailed on. The cabin
became so close, that I ordered the steward to bring my mattress
upon deck, and usually slept there under a shawl, unless we had rain.
'I had lain down at about half-past eleven, upon one night in
particular, utterly fatigued, sick at heart, despairing. As the
tall masts nodded past the stars--the stars rather than the masts
seemed moving--and in my heart I believed that even heaven itself
was not permanent; that all things flickered and danced, and passed
away as earthly hope had passed from my heart; nothing was fixed,
certain, and to be striven for. Finally, I only wished to sleep.
'Let me die this temporary death of slumber,' said I; 'there is
happiness therein, and therein only.' I was more of a Lord Byron at
that instant; more of a moral desperado; less of a Thomas Carlyle, a
Goethe, sanguine Yankee, who believes that the best way to get rid
of misery is to suffer and _work out_, if you fall, always to fall
on your feet and _scramble out_, than I had ever been in my life,
Messrs. Tryon and Bonenfant! So, said I, let me go to sleep.
'Would you believe it, that confounded little Beppo would not hear
of such a thing! Over my face this minute, over my legs the next;
now tumbling down on my breast from a line; now, as the sailors say,
working Tom Cox's traverse, up one hatchway and down the other, past
my side.
'I could not get a wink of sleep. I tossed and I tumbled; I swore
and I grumbled. I called Beppo to me, and for the first time without
success.
'I was just about going after Luigi, his master, when I saw that
person creeping to me in the shadow of the mizzen-mast. By the high
cove of the after-hatch, I was quite hid from the stern, and the
only person who happened to be there, the second mate, could see
Luigi no more than me.
'At that instant the monkey gave me a tweak of the hair that nearly
made me scream out, and then ran away noiselessly forward. Luigi
crept on and on. As he drew nearer, I could perceive a stiletto in
his hand. Its blade gleamed faintly now and then in the star-light,
so indistinctly that at first it seemed like a trailing white ribbon.
'I did not believe his first intention was to kill me. That would
have been absurd as well as cruel. So I lay still and let him come
close. I feigned myself fast asleep and snored heavily.
'He knelt at my side, and holding the knife over my heart with one
hand, felt with the other in my pocket. Still I slept away for dear
life. He found the purse: drew it out with a slow, gentle motion,
and crept forward again on his hands and knees, thanking his saints
in a whisper. I was on his back before he could turn around. He was
lithe, but he was feeble, and I had him pinioned, prone upon his
face, with the purse in his hand and the thanksgiving in his mouth,
while it was yet only half-changed to a curse. Thus I forced from
him both the stiletto and the purse, and threw the one over-board at
the same time that I returned the other to my pocket. Then I arose,
and we stood up face to face.
''Shall I have you hanged at the yard-arm in half-an-hour?' was my
first question.
'The Italian looked me full in the face, his olive cheeks were like
chalk, his lips quivered, but he did not speak. And then, as if
suddenly understanding the cause of his failure, he ran forward to
the fore-stay, where the marmoset was clinging and chattering.
'I hurried after him. Catching him by the shoulder, I whispered in
his ear: 'If one hair of Beppo's head is hurt, _you_ are a dead man
before you can say your prayers. You came after my money. You are
a villain, but you shall have it--two gold pieces, ten dollars, at
least--if you sell him to me on the spot. Is Beppo mine, on these
conditions? If he isn't, I will arouse the crew, and you shall
dangle aloft before the next watch is set. Yes or no?'
''You shall have the monkey,' replied the Italian, with another of
his infernal smirks. 'You shall have him, but the gentleman will not
find him good fortune.'
'The devil take you and your fortune! If he brings me no better
fortune than you deserve--and for the same reason--I shall wish,
and not wait, to die.' So I brought the monkey aft, and made Luigi
acknowledge him mine, while I counted out the ten dollars, in the
presence of the second mate.
'After that night, warm as it might be, you will readily believe
that I slept in the cabin. Beppo nestled by me, occupying as much of
the berth as his little form required; and I declare to you, that
had he needed it all I would have given it to him, and stretched
myself on the floor, so warm an affection had I for the creature who
had saved my money: possibly my life.
'At that time, perhaps you will say because I was young and
visionary, I often believed that Beppo knew what he had been the
means of doing for me. At this day I shall be still insaner in
your eyes, for I hold that he was not only the _means_, but the
intentional _agent_. I must stop. I am forerunning my story.
'It was amazing how I improved as soon as I had something to love!
I became so strong, so hearty, that I was quite ashamed to think of
having abandoned America for my health; and meditated going back
with the barque's return voyage. Nothing but the presence on board
of that cursed Luigi prevented my spirits from being better than
since I could remember.
'We reached Genoa, and anchored in Quarantine. My trunk was on deck,
and in all respects I was ready to go ashore. Already the infernal
Italian had taken his seat in the health-officer's boat; and, with
his elbow resting on his organ, looked up at me over the gunwale.
Beppo, for very joy of seeing land again, had climbed clear to the
main truck, and was chattering audibly as he whisked his tail.
''All ready, Beppo!' I cried: 'come down, boy!'
'In his haste at hearing my voice, as he tumbled head over heels
down the main shrouds, for the first time in my life that I ever
saw a monkey do such a thing, he missed his hold on a ratline, and
tumbled into the water of the harbor. I sprang to the side, and
called to the oarsmen of the boat:
''Save that monkey, and you shall have--whatever you ask!' Fool!
I was talking English, and every man of them was an Italian! A
language I had some understanding of, but could not speak.
''What says the gentleman?' asked one of the boat-crew, in his own
tongue.
'And then I heard that olive-skinned brigand wretch, the
organ-grinder, reply to the speaker: 'He says the beast who fell
overboard is sick of the small-pox, and you must not touch him.'
'As he made this answer he turned around to me with one of his
diabolical smirks, kissed his hand to me, spit at the drowning
Beppo, then asked me blandly: 'Did I not tell the good gentleman
his buying would be bad fortune? Are we settled of accounts, good
gentleman?'
'I to hear this! I to look over the side; hear my last friend
screaming his poor wordless agony; see him look up at me with
that supplicating child's eye of his; see him fighting the water
despairingly with his little unlearned hands, then go down in a
bubbling circle out of sight; I who could not swim a stroke!
'The captain, seeing my distress, humanely put his own boat after
the poor creature. With the boat-hook a sailor brought him up after
he had gone down for the last time. And thus they laid him on the
deck at my feet. I lifted him up; his child eyes were closed, and
the golden crown of his fur lay matted and dripping over them. I
tried to warm him in my bosom. I laid my hand on his heart: it had
stopped.
'Beppo was dead. The Marmoset whom nature had given, only of all, to
love the man!
'And I went into Quarantine at Genoa, once more alone in the world.'
'Ciel! and vat you do vith zat cursed Italian?'
'I? Nothing. Ten years afterward I saw him rowing in the galleys at
Marseilles. He knew me; I knew him. He smirked as of old, but with
such very visible teeth that I was glad he was chained; and passed
on without even asking the overseer his crime.