WHEREIN WILLIS THE PILOT PROVES "IRREFRAGABLY" THAT EPHEMERIDES DIE OF
CONSUMPTION AND HOME-SICKNESS--THE CANOE AND ITS YOUNG ONES--THE
SEARCH AFTER THE SLOOP--FOUND--THE SWORD-FISH--FLOATING ATOMS--ADMIRAL
SOCRATES.
When they had come within a short distance of the bay, Jack thought he
saw a large black creature moving in the bushes that lined the shore.
"A sea monster!" he cried, levelling his musket; "I discovered it, and
have the right to the first shot."
"No, sir," said Fritz, whose keen eye was a sort of locomotive
telescope, "I object to that, for I do not want you to kill or wound
my canoe."
"Nonsense, it moves."
"Whether it moves or not, we shall all see by and by; but do you not
observe this monster's young ones gambolling by its side?"
"Which proves I am right, unless you mean to say your canoe has been
hatching," and Jack again levelled his rifle.
"Don't fire, it is the hat and jacket of Willis!"
"What!" exclaimed Ernest, "is the Pilot a triton then, that he could
dispense with the canoe?"
"Well, yes, unless the canoe has found its way back of its own accord,
which would indeed make it an intelligent creature."
"The Pilot has evidently reached Shark's Island by swimming, in spite
of surf and breakers--a feat almost without a parallel."
"Bah!" said Ernest, parodying Jack's witticism about the oars, "what
does a pilot care about surf and breakers?"
Strongly moored in a creek of the Jackal River, and protected by a
bluff, forming a screen between it and the sea, the pinnace had in no
way suffered from the storm.
The swell was so violent, that they had a world of trouble in making
the island; as they approached, Willis, who had made a speaking-trumpet
by joining his hands round his mouth, was roaring out alternately,
"starboard," "larboard," "hard-a-port," just as if these terms had
not been Hebrew to the impromptu mariners.
At last, tired of holloaing, "Stop a bit," he said, "I shall find a
quicker way;" with that he threw himself directly into the sea, and
cut through the waves towards them as if his arms had been driven by a
steam engine.
Arrived on board, he gave a vigorous turn to the tiller, laid hold of
the sheet, let out a reef here, took in another there; the pinnace was
soon completely at his command, and behaved admirably; true, she
pitched furiously, and the gunwale was under water at every plunge. He
headed along the coast till the point beyond which Fritz had first
observed the _Nelson_ was fairly doubled; some days before this point
was called Cape Deliverance, it was now, perhaps, about to acquire the
term of Cape Disappointment, but for the moment its future designation
was in embryo.
Leaping on the poop, Willis carefully scanned the horizon as the boat
rose upon the summit of the waves; but seeing nothing, he at last
leapt down again with an expression of rage that, under other
circumstances, would have been irresistibly comic. Abandoning the
direction of the pinnace, he went and sat down on a bulk-head, and
covered his face with his hands, in an attitude of profound
desolation.
"Willis! Willis!" cried Jack, "I shall tell Sophia."
But there was neither the soft voice there, the caressing hand, nor
the sweet fascination of the young girl's presence, and Willis
continued immovable.
Becker saw that his was one of those minds that grew less calm the
more they were urged, and the excitement of which must be permitted to
wear itself out; he therefore beckoned his sons to leave him to his
own reflections.
The wind still blew a gale, and the pinnace pitched heavily; but the
sun was now beginning to break through the masses of lurid cloud, and
the air was becoming less and less charged with vapor.
"I can descry nothing either," said Becker; "and yet this is the
direction the storm must have driven the sloop."
"The sea is very capricious," suggested Fritz.
"True, but not to the extent of carrying a ship against the wind."
"Unfortunately," said Jack, "it is not on sea as on land, where the
slightest indications of an object lost may lead to its discovery; a
word dropped in the ear of a passer-by might put you on the track, but
here it is no use saying, 'Sir, did you not see the _Nelson_ pass this
way?'"
"Fire a shot," said Ernest; "it may perhaps be heard, now that the air
is less humid."
The two-pounder was ready charged; Fritz struck a light and set fire
to a strip of mimosa bark, with which he touched the piece, and the
report boomed across the waters.
Willis raised his head and listened anxiously, but soon dropped it
again, and resumed his former attitude of hopeless despair.
"It may be," said Ernest, "that the _Nelson_ hears our signal, though
we do not hear hers."
"How can that be?" inquired Jack.
"Why, very easily. Sound increases or diminishes in intensity
according as the wind carries it on or retards it."
"What, then, is sound, that the wind can blow it about, most learned
brother?"
"It is a result of the compression of the air, that from its
elasticity extends and expands, and which causes a sort of trembling
or undulation, similar to that which is observed in water when a stone
is thrown into it."
"And you may add," said Becker, "that bodies striking the air excite
sonorous vibrations in this fluid; thus it rings under the lash that
strikes it with violence, and whistles under the rapid impulsion of a
switch: it likewise becomes sonorous when it strikes itself with force
against any solid body, as the wind when it blows against the cordage
of ships, houses, trees, and generally every object with which it
comes in contact."
"I can understand," replied Jack, "how this sonorous effect is
produced on the particles of air in immediate contact with the object
struck; but how this sound is propagated, I do not see."
"Very likely; but still it travels from particle to particle, in a
circle, at the rate of three hundred and forty yards in a second."
"Three hundred and forty yards in a second!" said Willis, who was
beginning by degrees to recover his self-possession. "Well, that is
what I should call going a-head."
"And by what sort of compasses has this speed been measured, Master
Ernest?"
"The first accurate measurement, Master Jack, was made at Paris in
1738. There are there two tolerably elevated points, namely,
Montmartre and Montlhéry--the distance between these, in a direct
line, is 14,636 _toises_. Cannons were fired during the night, and the
engineers on one of the elevations observed that an interval of
eighty-six seconds and a half elapsed between the flash and the report
of a cannon fired on the other."
"That half-second is very amusing," said Jack laughing; "if there had
been only eighty or eighty-six net, one might still be permitted to
entertain some doubts; but eighty-six and a half admits nothing of the
kind. But why not three-quarters or six-eighths, they would do as
well?"
"What is more natural than to reckon the fraction, if we are desirous
of obtaining absolute precision? Is six months of your time of no
value? Are thirty minutes more or less on the dial of your watch of no
signification to you?"
"Your brother is perfectly right, Jack; you are not always successful
in your jokes."
"Other experiments have been made since then," continued Ernest, "and
the results have always been the same, making allowances for the wind,
and a slight variation that is ascribed to temperature."
"To confirm the accuracy of this statement, the speed of light would
have to be taken into consideration."
"True; but the velocity of light is so great, that the instant a
cannon is fired the flash is seen."
"Whatever the distance?"
"Yes, whatever the distance. Bear in mind that the rays of the sun
only require eight minutes to traverse the thirty-four millions of
leagues that extend between us and that body. Hence it follows that
the time light takes to travel from one point to another on the earth
may be regarded as _nil_."
"That is something like distance and speed," remarked Willis, "and may
be all right as regards the sun, but I should not be disposed to admit
that there are any other instances of the same kind."
"Very good, Master Willis; and yet the sun is only a step from us in
comparison to the distance of some stars that we see very distinctly,
but which are, nevertheless, so remote, that their rays, travelling at
the same rate as those of the sun, are several years in reaching us."
Willis rose abruptly, whistling "the Mariner's March," and went to
join Fritz, who was steering the pinnace.
At this _naïve_ mark of disapprobation on the part of the Pilot,
Becker, Ernest, and Jack burst involuntarily into a violent peal of
laughter.
"Laugh away, laugh away." said Willis; "I will not admit your
calculations for all that."
The sky had now assumed an opal or azure tint, the wind had gradually
died away into a gentle breeze, the waves were now swelling gently and
regularly, like the movements of the infant's cradle that is being
rocked asleep. Never had a day, opening in the convulsions of a
tempest, more suddenly lapsed into sunshine and smiles: it was like
the fairies of Perrault's Tales, who, at first wrapped in sorry rags,
begging and borne down with age, throw off their chrysalis and appear
sparkling with youth, gaiety, and beauty, their wallet converted into
a basket of flowers, and their crutch to a magic wand.
"Father" inquired Fritz, "shall we go any farther?"
Since the weather had calmed down, and there was no longer any
necessity for exertion, the expedition had lost its charm for the
young man.
"I think it is useless; what say you, Willis?"
"Ah," said the latter, taking Becker by the hand, "in consideration of
the eight days' friendship that connects you even more intimately with
Captain Littlestone than my affection for him of twenty years'
standing, keep still a few miles to the east."
"If the sloop has been driven to a distance by the storm, and is
returning towards us, which is very likely, I do not see that we can
be of much use."
"But if dismasted and leaky?"
"That would alter the case, only I am afraid the ladies will be uneasy
about us."
"But they were half prepared, father."
"Jack is right," added Fritz, whose energies were again called into
play by the thought of the _Nelson_ in distress; "let us go on."
"Besides, on the word of a pilot, the sea will be very calm and gentle
for some time to come: there is not the slightest danger."
"And what if there were?" replied Fritz.
"Well, Willis, I shall give up the pinnace to you till dark," said
Becker, "and may God guide us; we shall return to-night, so as to
arrive at Rockhouse early in the morning."
"Hurrah for the captain!" cried Willis, throwing a cap into the air.
The evolutions of a cap, thrown up towards the sky or down upon the
ground, were very usual modes with Willis of expressing his joy or
sorrow.
This homage rendered to Becker, he hastened to let a reef out of the
sheet, and the pinnace, for a moment at rest, redoubled its speed,
like post-horses starting from the inn-door under the combined
influence of a cheer from the postillion and a flourish of the whip.
"There is a cockle-shell that skips along pretty fairly," said Willis;
"but it wants two very important things."
"What things?"
"A caboose and a nigger."
"A caboose and a nigger?"
"Yes, I mean a pantry and a cook; a gale for breakfast is all very
well, one gets used to it, it is light and easily digested; but the
same for dinner is rather too much of a good thing in one day."
"I observed your thoughtful mother hang a sack on one of your
shoulders, which appeared tolerably well filled--where is it?"
"Here it is," said Jack, issuing from the hatchway; "here are our
stores: a ham, two Dutch cheeses, two callabashes full of Rockhouse
malaga, and there is plenty of fresh water in the gourds; with these,
we have wherewithal to defy hunger till to-morrow."
"Capital!" said Willis.
This time, however, a cap did not appear in the air, as the last one
had not been seen since the former ovation.
"Let us lay the table," said Jack, arranging the coils of rope that
crowded the deck. "Well, you see, Willis, we want for nothing on board
the pinnace, not even a what-do-you-call-it?"
"A caboose, Master Jack."
"Well, not even a caboose."
"Quite true; and if the _Nelson_ were in the offing, I would not
exchange my pilot's badge for the epaulettes of a commodore; but,
alas! she is not there."
"Cheer up, Willis, cheer up; one is either a man or one is not. What
is the good of useless regrets?"
"Very little, but it is hard to be yard-armed while absent at my time
of life--and afterwards--your health, Mr. Becker."
"That would be hard at any age, Willis; but I rather think it has not
come to that yet."
"When it has come to it, there will be very little time left to talk
it over."
"Did you not say, brother, that the _Nelson_ might hear our signals
without our hearing hers? If so, there is a chance for Willis yet."
"Certainly, Jack, because she has the wind in her favor to act as a
speaking-trumpet, whilst we had it against us acting as a deafener."
"Is there any other influence that affects sound besides the wind?"
"Yes, I have already mentioned that temperature has something to do
with it. Sound varies in intensity according to the state of the
atmosphere. If, for example, we ring a small bell in a closed vessel
filled with air, it has been observed that, as the air is withdrawn by
the pump, the sound gradually grows less and less distinct."
"And if a vacuum be formed?"
"Then the sound is totally extinguished."
"So, then," objected Willis, "if two persons were to talk in what you
call a vacuum, they would not hear each other?"
"Two persons could not talk in a vacuum," replied Ernest.
"Why not?"
"Because they would die as soon as they opened their mouths."
"Ah, that alters the case."
"If, on the contrary, a quantity of air or gas were compressed into a
space beyond what it habitually held, then the sound," continued
Ernest, "would be more intense than if the air were free."
"In that case a whisper would be equal to a howl!"
"You think I am joking, Willis; but on the tops of high mountains,
such as the Himalaya and Mont Blanc, where the air is much rarified,
voices are not heard at the distance of two paces."
"Awkward for deaf people!"
"Whilst, on the icy plains of the frozen regions, where the air is
condensed by the severe cold, a conversation, held in the ordinary
tone, may be easily carried on at the distance of half a league."
"Awkward for secrets!"
"And how does sound operate with regard to solid bodies?" inquired
Jack.
"According to the degree of elasticity possessed by their veins or
fibres."
"Explain yourself."
"That is, solid bodies, whose structure is such that the vibration
communicated to some of their atoms circulates through the mass, are
susceptible of conveying sound."
"Give us an instance."
"Apply your ear to one end of a long beam, and you will hear
distinctly the stroke of a pin's head on the other; whilst the same
stroke will scarcely be heard through the breadth of the wood."
"So that, in the first case, the sound runs along the longitudinal
fibres where the contiguity of parts is closer, than when the body is
taken transversely?"
"Just so."
"And across water?"
"It is heard, but more feebly."
For some time Fritz had been closely observing with the telescope a
particular part of the horizon, when all at once he cried, "This time
I see him distinctly; he is bearing down upon us."
"Who? the sloop?" cried Willis, starting up and letting fall the glass
he had in his hand.
"What an extraordinary pace! he bounds into the air, then plumps into
the water, then leaps up again, just like an India-rubber ball, that
touches the ground only to take a fresh spring!"
"Impossible, Master Fritz; the _Nelson_ tops the waves honestly and
gallantly; but as to leaping into the air, she is a little too bulky
for that."
"Ah, poor Willis, it is not the _Nelson_ that is under my glass at
present, but an enormous fish, ten or twelve feet in length."
"Oh, how you startled me!"
"Father! Ernest! prepare to fire! Jack, the harpoon! he is coming this
way."
Fritz stood at the stern of the pinnace, his rifle levelled, following
with his eyes the movements of the monster; when within reach, he
fired with so much success and address that he hit the creature on the
head. It then changed its course, leaving behind a train of blood.
"Let us after him, Willis; quick!"
The Pilot turned the head of the pinnace, and Jack immediately threw
his harpoon.
"Struck!" cried he joyfully.
By the hissing of the line, and then the rapid impulsion of the
pinnace, it was felt that the monster had more strength than the craft
and its crew together.
Ernest and his father fired at the same time; the ball of the former
was lost in the animal's flesh, that of the latter rebounded off a
horny protuberance that armed the monster's upper lip.
Fritz had time to recharge his rifle; he levelled it a second time,
and the ball went to join the former; but, for all that, the pinnace
continued to cleave the water at a furious rate.
Becker seized an axe and cut the rope.
"Oh, father, what a pity! such a splendid capture for our museum of
natural history!"
"It is a sword-fish, children; a monster of a dangerous species, and
of extreme voracity. If, by way of reciprocity, the fish have a museum
at the bottom of the sea, they will have some fine specimens of the
human race that have become the prey of this creature; and it may be
that we were on the way to join the collection."
"Did you observe the formidable dentilated horn?"
"It is by means of this horn or sword, from which it takes its name,
that it wages a continual war with the whale, whose only mode of
escape is by flourishing its enormous tail; but the sword-fish, being
very agile, easily avoids this, bounds into the air as Fritz saw it
doing just now, then, falling down upon its huge adversary, pierces
him with its sword."
"By the way, talking about the whale," said Jack, "all naturalists
seem agreed, and we ourselves are convinced from our own observation,
that its throat is very narrow, and that it can only swallow molluscs,
or very small fishes--what, in that case, becomes of the history of
Jonah?"
"It is rather unfortunate," replied Becker, "that the whale has been
associated with this miracle. There is now no possibility of
separating the whale from Jonah, or Jonah from the whale; yet, in the
Greek translation of the Chaldean text, there is _Ketos_--in the
Latin, there is _Cete_--and both these words were understood by the
ancients to signify a fish of enormous size, but not the whale in
particular. The shark, for example, can swallow a man, and even a
horse, without mangling it."
"I have heard," said Jack, "of navigators who have landed on the back
of a whale, and walked about on it, supposing it a small island."
"There is nothing impossible about that," observed Willis.
"One thing is certain, that we had just now within reach a sea monster
who has carried off four leaden bullets in his body without seeming to
be in the least inconvenienced by them; on the contrary, he seemed to
move all the quicker for the dose."
"Life is a very different thing with those fellows than with us. The
carp is said to live two hundred years, and it is supposed that a
whale might live for ten centuries if the harpoon did not come in the
way to shorten the period."
"Ah!" exclaimed Willis, with a sigh that might have moved a train of
waggons, "these fellows have no cares."
"And the ephemeride, that dies an instant after its birth, do you
suppose that it dies of grief?"
"Who knows, Master Jack?"
"The ephemeride does not die so quickly as you think," said Becker;
"it commences by living three years under water in the form of a
maggot. It afterwards becomes amphibious, when it has a horny
covering, on which the rudiments of wings may be observed. Then, four
or five months after this first metamorphosis, generally in the month
of August, it issues from its skin, almost as rapidly as we throw off
a jacket; attached to the rejected skin are the teeth, lips, horns,
and all the apparatus that the creature required as a water insect;
then it is no sooner winged, gay, and beautiful, than, as you observe,
it dies--hence it is called the day-fly, its existence being
terminated by the shades of night."
"I was certain of it," said Willis.
"Certain of what?"
"That it died of grief at being on land. When one has been accustomed
to the water, you see, under such circumstances life is not worth the
having."
"The day-fly," continued Becker, "is an epitome of those men who
spend a life-time hunting after wealth and glory, and who perish
themselves at the moment they reach the pinnacle of their ambitious
desires. Whence I conclude, my dear children, that there are nothing
but beginnings and endings of unhappiness in this world, and that true
felicity is only to be hoped for in another sphere."
"What a curious series of transformations! First an aquatic insect,
next amphibious, then throwing away the organs for which it has no
further use, and becoming provided with those suited to its new
state!"
"Yes, my dear Fritz; and yet those complicated and beautiful
operations of Nature have not prevented philosophers from asserting
that the world resulted from _floating atoms_, which, by force of
combination, and after an infinity of blind movements, conglomerate
into plants, animals, men, heaven, and earth."
"I am only a plain sailor," said Willis "yet the eye of a worm teaches
me more than these philosophers seem to have imagined in their
philosophy."
"Such a system could only have originated in Bedlam or Charenton."
"No, Ernest, it is the system of Epicurus and Lucretius. Without going
so far back, there are a thousand others quite as ridiculous, with
which it is unnecessary to charge your young heads."
"All madmen are not in confinement, and it may be that Epicurus and
Lucretius had arrived at those limits of human reason, where genius
begins in some and folly in others."
"It is not that, Fritz; but if men, says Malebranche somewhere,[A] are
interested in having the sides of an equilateral triangle unequal, and
that false geometry was as agreeable to them as false philosophy, they
would make the problems equally false in geometry as in morality, for
this simple reason, that their errors afford them gratification,
whilst truth would only hurt and annoy them."
"Very good," observed Willis; "this Malebranche, as you call him, must
have been an admiral?"
"No, Willis, nothing more than a simple philosopher, but one of good
faith, like Socrates, who admitted that what he knew best was, that he
knew nothing."
The sun had gradually disappeared in the midst of purple tinged
clouds, leaving along the horizon at first a fringe of gold, then a
simple thread, and finally nothing but the reflection of his rays,
sent to the earth by the layers of atmosphere,[B] like the adieu we
receive at the turning of a road from a friend who is leaving us.
There was a festival in the sky that night; the firmament brought out,
one by one, her circlet of diamonds, till the whole were sparkling
like a blaze of light; the pinnace also left a fiery train in her
wake, caused partly by electricity and partly by the phosphorescent
animalculae that people the ocean.
"Willis," said Becker, "I leave it entirely to you to decide the
instant of our return."
The Pilot changed at once the course of the boat, without attempting
to utter a word, so heavy was his heart at this unsuccessful
termination of the expedition.
"It will be curious," observed Fritz, "if we find the _Nelson_, on our
return, snugly at anchor in Safety Bay."
"I have a presentiment," said Jack; "and you will see that we have
been playing at hide-and-seek with the _Nelson_."
Willis shook his head.
"Are there not a thousand accidents to cause a ship to deviate from
her route?"
"Yes, Master Ernest, there are typhoons, and the waterspouts of which
I spoke to you before. In such cases, ships often deviate from their
route, but generally by going to the bottom."
Willis concluded this sentence with a gesture that defies description,
implying annihilation.
"Remember Admiral Socrates, Willis," said Jack; "_what I know best is,
that I know nothing_, and avow that God has other means of
accomplishing his decrees besides typhoons and waterspouts."
"My excellent young friends, I know you want to inspire me with hope,
as they give a toy to a child to keep it from crying, and I thank you
for your good intentions. Now, for three days you have, so to speak,
had no rest, and I insist on your profiting by this night to take some
repose; and you also, Mr. Becker; I am quite able to manage the
pinnace alone."
"Yes providing you do not play us some trick, like that of this
morning, for instance."
"All stratagems are justifiable in war. Master Ernest had fair warning
that I had an idea to work out. Besides, a prisoner, when under
hatches, has the right to escape if he can: under parole, the case is
quite different."
"Well, Willis, if you give me your simple promise to steer straight
for New Switzerland, and awake me in two hours to take the bearings--"
"I give it, Mr. Becker."
The three Greenlanders then descended into the hold, for tropical
nights are as chilly as the days are hot, and Becker, rolling himself
up in a sail, lay on deck.
In less than five minutes they were all fast asleep, and Willis paced
the deck, his arms crossed, and mechanically gazing upon a star that
was mirrored in the water.
"Several years to come to us, and that at the rate of seventy thousand
leagues a second--that is _a little_ too much."
Then he went to the rudder, his head leaning upon his breast, and
glancing now and then with distracted eye at the course of the boat,
buried in a world of thought, sad and confused, doubtless beholding in
succession visions of the _Nelson_, of Susan, and of Scotland.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] "Search after Truth," book ix.
[B] The twilight is entirely owing to this.