IN WHICH I AM A CAPTIVE
"What ho! Jean Lafitte," said I at length, rousing myself from the old
habit of reverie, of which I had chiefest dread; "and you, Henri
L'Olonnois, scourges of the main, both of you, listen! I have a plan
to put before you, my hearties."
"Say on, Sirrah!" rejoined the younger pirate, so promptly and so
gravely that again I had much to do to refrain from sudden mirth.
"Why then, look ye," I continued. "The sun is sinking beneath the
wave, and the good ship rides steady at her anchor. Meantime men must
eat! and yonder castle amid the forest offers booty. What say ye if we
pass within the wood, and see what we may find of worth to souls bold
as ours?"
"'Tis well!" answered L'Olonnois; and I could see assent in Lafitte's
eyes. In truth I could discover no great preparations for a long
voyage in the open hold of the _Sea Rover_, and doubted not that both
captain and crew by this time were hungry. Odd crumbs of crackers and
an empty sardine can might be all very well at the edge of the
village of Pausaukee (I judged they could have come no greater
distance, some twelve or fifteen miles); but they do not serve for so
long a journey as lies between Pausaukee and the Spanish Main.
They rose as I did, and we passed beyond the clump of tall birches,
along the edge of my mowing meadow, and through the gate which closes
my woodland path--to me the loveliest of all wood-trails, so gentle
and so silent is it always, and so fringed, seasonably, with ferns and
flowers. Thus, presently, we saw the blue smoke rising above my lodge,
betokening to me that my Japanese factotum, Hiroshimi, now had my
dinner under way.
To me, it was my customary abode, my home these three years; but they
beside me saw not the rambling expanse of my leisurely log mansion.
They noted not the overhanging gables, the lattices of native wood. To
them, yonder lay a castle in a foreign land. Here was moat and wall,
then a portcullis, and gratings warded these narrow portals against
fire of musketoon. My pet swallows' nest, demure above my door, to
them offered the aspect of a culverin's mouth; and, as now, I made my
customary approach-call, by which I heralded my return from any
excursion on the stream of an evening, I could swear these invaders
looked for naught less than a swarm of archers springing to the
walls, and the hoarse answer of my men-at-arms back of each guarded
portal. Such is the power of youthful dreaming, such the residuary
heritage of days of high emprise, when life was full of blood and wine
and love, and savored not so wholly of dull commonplace!
But indeed, (or so I presume; for at the moment my own imagination
swept on with theirs) none manned the walls or rattled the chains of
gate and bridge. The saffron Hiroshimi opened the screen door before
us, showing no surprise or interest in my strange companions. Thus we
made easy conquest of our castle. As we entered, there lay before us,
lighted softly by the subdued twilight which filtered through the
surrounding grove, the interior of that home which in three years I
had learned much to love, lonely as it was. Here I now dwelt most of
the time, leaving behind me, as though shut off by a closed door, the
busy scenes of an active and successful life. (I presume I may fairly
speak thus of myself, since there is no one else to speak.)
My pirate companions, suddenly grown shy, stood silent for a moment,
for the time rather at a loss to carry on the play which had been
easier in the open. I heard Jimmy draw a long breath. He was first to
remove his hat. But his companion was quicker to regain his poise,
although for a moment he forgot his pirate speech. "Gee!" said he.
"Ain't this great!"
I doubt if any praise I ever heard in my life pleased me more than
this frank comment; no, not even the kind word and hand-clasp of old
Judge Henderson, what time I won my first cause at law. For this that
lay about me was what I had chosen for my life to-day. I had preferred
this to the career into which my father's restless ambition had
plunged me almost as soon as I had emerged from my college and my
law-school--a career which my own restless ambition had found
sufficient until that final break with Helena Emory, which occurred
soon after the time when my father died; when the news went out that
I, his heir, was left with but a shrunken fortune, and with many debts
to pay; news which I, myself, had promulgated for reasons of my own.
After that, called foolish by all my friends, lamented by members of
my family, forgotten, as I fancy, by most who knew me, I had retired
to this lodge in the wilderness. Here, grown suddenly resentful of a
life hitherto wasted in money-getting alone, I had resolved to spend
the remainder of my days, as beseemed a student and a philosopher.
Having read Weininger and other philosophers, I was convinced that
woman was the lowest and most unworthy thing in the scale of created
things, a thing quite beneath the attention of a thinking man.
I have said that I was scarce beyond thirty years of age. Even so, I
found myself already old; and like any true philosopher, I resolved to
make myself young. As hitherto I had had no boyhood, I determined to
achieve a boyhood for myself. Studying myself, I discovered that I had
rarely smiled; so I resolved to find somewhat to make me smile. The
great realm of knowledge, widest and sweetest of all empires for a
man, lay before me alluringly when I entered upon my business career;
and so interested was I in my business and my books that only by
chance had I met the woman who drove me out of both. A boy I had never
been; nay, nor even a youth. I had always been old. True, like others
of my station, I had owned my auto cars, my matched teams--owned them
now, indeed--but I had never owned a dog. So, when I came hither with
ample leisure, perhaps my chief ambition was a deliberate purpose to
encompass my deferred boyhood. Thus I had built this house of logs
which now--with a surprised and gratifying throb of my heart I learned
it--appealed to the souls of real boys. It was the castle where I
dreamed; and now it was the palace of their dreams also. I felt, at
least, that I had succeeded. My heart throbbed in a new way, very
foolish, yet for some reason suddenly enjoyable.
My house was all of logs and had no decorations of paint or tapestry
within. Its only arras was of the skins of wild beasts--of the African
lion and leopard, the zebra, many antelopes. The walls were hung with
mounted heads--those of the moose, the elk, the bighorn, most of the
main trophies of my own land and to these, through my foreign hunting,
I had added heads of all the great trophies of Africa and Asia as
well. A splendid pair of elephant tusks stood in a corner. A fine head
of the sheep of Tibet, _ovus poli_--and I prize none of my trophies
more, unless it be the fine robe of the Chinese mountain tiger--looked
full front at us from above the fireplace. My rod racks, and those
which supported my guns and rifles, were here and there about the
room. The whole gave a jaunty atmosphere to my home. I had gone
soberly about the business of sport; and in these days, that can be
practised most successfully by a man with much leisure and unstinted
means.
My books lay about everywhere, also, books which perhaps would not
have appealed to all. My copies of the Vedas, many works on the
Buddhist faith, and translations from Confucius, lay side by side
with that Bible which we Christians have almost forgot. Here, too,
stood my desk with its cases of preserved mosquitoes--for this year I
was studying mosquitoes as an amusement. I had collected all the
mosquito literature of the world, and my books, in French, German and
English, lay near my great microscope. I had passed many happy hours
here in the oblivion of mental concentration, always a delight with
me, now grown almost a necessity if I were to escape the worst of all
habits, that of introspection and self-pity.
My piano and my violins also were in full sight; for the world of
music, as well as the world of sport and youth, I was deliberately
opening for myself, also in exchange for that closed world of affairs
which I had abandoned. Indeed, all manners of the impedimenta of a
well-to-do Japanese-cared-for bachelor were in evidence. To me, each
object was familiar and was cherished. I had never felt need to
apologize to any gentleman for my quarters or their contents--or to
any woman, for no woman had ever seen my home. I may admit that,
contrary to the belief of some, I was a rich man, far richer that I
had need or care to be; and since it was not due to my own ability
altogether nor in response to any real ambition of my own, I know I
will be pardoned for simply stating the truth. My one great ambition
in life was to forget; but if that might be best obtained in sport, in
study, or amid the gentle evidences of good living, so much the
better. Many men had called my father, stern and masterful man that he
was, a robber, a thief, a pirate--in great part, I suspect, in envy
that they themselves had not attained a like stature in similar
achievement. But no one had ever called his son a pirate--until now!
It made me oddly happy.
I ought to have been happy here all these years, able to do precisely
what I liked; but sometimes I felt myself strangely alone in the
world. I was always silent and apparently cold--though really, let me
whisper--only shy. Sometimes, even here, I found myself a trifle sad.
It is difficult to be a boy when one starts at thirty; especially
difficult if one has always been rather old and staid.
I tell all these things to explain that keen pleasure, that swift
exultation, that rush of the blood to my cheeks, which I felt when I
saw that my house and my way of life met the approval of real boys.
Pirates, too!
Swift, therefore, fell once more the magic curtain of romance. I heard
a strange voice, my own voice, saying: "Enter then, my bold mates, and
let us explore this castle which we have conquered." Yes, illusion
floated in through the windows on the pale light of the evening. This
was a castle we had taken; and the detail that I chanced to own it was
neither here nor there.
"Prisoner," began L'Olonnois sternly--he was usually spokesman, if not
always leader--"Prisoner, your life is spared for the time. Lead on!
Attempt to play us false, and your blood shall be spilled upon the
deck!"
"It shall be so," I answered. "And if I do not give you the best meal
you have had to-day, then indeed let my life's blood stain the deck."
So saying, I nodded to Hiroshimi to serve the dinner.