roadstead crowded with craft; here the mulberry groves. Here the
sparkling sapphire sea; here the turf blazing with poppies; here the
quiet pine road to Damascus; here the forests, excellent with cedars.
Here the twisting unexpected streets. Here his own quiet house, with the
courtyard and its fountain. Here the hum of the bazaars, here the
_ha-ha_ of the donkey boys, here the growling camels. Here the rugs on
the wall; here the little orange-trees. Here the two negress servants,
clean, efficient. Here color, and peace, and passion. Here Fenzile....
And this damned wrestler from Aleppo must go and spoil it all.
§ 4
He might have shipped with one of the great American clippers racing
around Cape Hope under rolling topsails, and become in his way as well
known as Donald Mackay was, who built and mastered the _Sovereign of the
Seas_, with her crew of one hundred and five, four mates and two
boatswains. He might have had a ship like Phil Dumaresq's _Surprise_,
that had a big eagle for her figurehead. He might have clipped the
record of the _Flying Cloud_, three hundred and seventy-four miles in
one day, steering northward and westward around Cape Horn. He might have
had a ship as big as the _Great Republic_, the biggest ship that ever
took the seas. He might have had one of the East Indiamen, and the state
of an admiral. He might have had one of the new adventurers in steel and
steam.
But fame and glory never allured him, and destiny did not call him to be
any man's servant. He was content to be his own master with his own
ship, and do whatsoever seemed to him good and just to do. If they
needed him and his boat anywhere, he would be there. When they needed
boats to America, he was there. But if they didn't need him, he was not
the one to thrust himself. Let destiny call.
Success, as it was called, was a thing of destiny. When destiny needed a
man, destiny tapped him on the shoulder. Failure, however, was a man's
own fault. There was always work to do. And it was up to every man to
find his work. If there was no room for him in a higher work it was no
excuse for his not working in a lower plane. There would be no failures,
he thought, if folk were only wise. If a man came a cropper in a big
way, it was because he had rushed into a work before Destiny, the
invisible infallible nuncio of God, had chosen her man. Or because he
was dissatisfied, ambition and ability not being equal. Or because he
was lazy.
Always there was work to do, as there was work for him now. Clouds of
sail and tubby steamboats went the crowded tracks of the world's waters,
not to succor and help but for gain of money. And Lesser Asia was
neglected, now that the channel of commerce to the States was opened
wide. Syria needed more than sentimental travelers to the Holy Land. It
needed machinery for its corn-fields and its mines. It needed prints and
muslins from the Lancashire looms. It needed rice and sugar. And it had
more to give than a religious education. Fine soap and fruit and wine
and oil and sesame it gave, golden tobacco, and beautiful craftmanship
in silver and gold, fine rugs from Persia. Brass and copper and
ornamental woodcarving from Damascus, mother of cities; walnuts, wheat,
barley, and apricots from its gardens and fields. Wool and cotton, gums
and saffron from Aleppo, and fine silk embroidery.
Others might race past Java Head to China for tea and opium. Others
might make easting around the Horn to the gold-fields of California.
Others might sail up the Hooghly to Calicut, trafficking with mysterious
Indian men. Others might cross to the hustle and welter of New York,
young giant of cities, but Campbell was content to sail to Asia Minor.
He brought them what they needed and they sent color and rime to prosaic
Britain, hashish to the apothecaries, and pistachios from Aleppo,
cambric from Nablus and linen from Bagdad, and occasionally for an
antiquary a Damascene sword that rang like a silver bell.
For others the glory and fame to which destiny had called them. For
others the money that they grubbed with blunted fingers from the
dross-heaps of commerce. But for Campbell what work he could do, well
done--and Lesser Asia ...
§ 5
Of all the seas he had sailed it seemed to Shane that Mediterranean had
more color, more life, more romance than any. Not the battles round the
Horn, not the swinging runs to China, not the starry southern seas had
for him the sense of adventure that Mediterranean had. Mediterranean was
not a sea. It was a home haven, with traditions of the human house. Here
Sennacherib sailed in the great galleys the brown Sidonian shipwrights
had made for him. Here had been the Phenicians with their brailed
squaresail. Here had been the men of Rhodes, sailors and fighters both.
Here the Greek penteconters with their sails and rigging of purple and
black. Here the Cypriotes had sailed under the lee of the islands Byron
loved and where Sappho sang her songs like wine and honey, sharp wine
and golden honey. Here had the Roman galleys splashed and here the great
Venetian boats set proud sail against the Genoese. Here had the
Lion-heart sailed gallantly to Palestine. Here had Icarus fallen in the
blue sea. Here had Paul been shipwrecked, sailing on a ship of
Andramyttium bound to the coast of Asia, crossing the sea which is off
Cilicia and Pamphylia, and trans-shipping at Myra. How modern it all
sounded but for the strange antique names.
"And when we had sailed slowly many days"--only a seaman could feel the
pathos of that--"and scarce were come over against Cnidus, the wind not
suffering us, we sailed under Crete, over against Salmone;
"And, hardly passing it, came unto a place which is called The Fair
Havens--"
Was Paul a sailor, too, Campbell often wondered? The bearded Hebrew,
like a firebrand, possibly epileptic, not quite sane, had he at one time
been brought up to the sea? "Sirs," he had said, "I perceive that this
voyage will be with hurt and much damage, not only of the lading and
ship, but also of our lives." There spoke a man who knew the sea--not a
timid passenger. But the master of the ship thought otherwise and yet
Paul was right. And then came "a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon."
And that was the Levanter of to-day, Euraquilo, they call it--hell let
loose. Then came furious seas, and the terrors of a lee shore; the
frapping of the ship and the casting overboard of tackle, the
jettisoning of freight--
"And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small
tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken
away." Somehow the absolute fidelity of the sea-life of the story went
to Campbell's heart, and the figure of Paul the mariner was clearer than
the figure of Paul the Apostle.
"Howbeit, we must be cast upon a certain island.
"But when the fourteenth night was come, as we were driven up and down
in Adria, about midnight the shipmen deemed that they drew near to some
country--"
The intuition of seamanship. The flash. How modern! Oh, Paul lived in
that sea. His ghost and memory were forever there, as were the ghosts of
the Lion-heart; and of Sappho, singer of songs; and of the stout
Phenician sailing men; and of the doges of Venice, lovers and husbands
of the sea. On the tideless Mediterranean beauty still abided, as
nowhere else; would abide, when nowhere else--
Would it, though? Would it abide anywhere? A pang came into Campbell's
heart. Off Finisterre he had been passed by Robert Steel of Greenock's
_Falcon_, every sail drawing, skysails and moonrakers set, a pillar of
white cloud she seemed, like some majestic womanhood. And while boats
like the _Fiery Cross_ and the _Falcon_ tore along like greyhounds,
there were building tubby iron boats to go by steam. The train was
beating the post-chaise with its satiny horses, the train that went by
coal one dug from the ground. And even now de Lesseps and his men were
digging night and day that the steamboat might push the proud clipper
from the seas. Queer! Would there come a day when no topgallants drew?
And the square-rigged ships would be like old crones gathering fagots on
an October day. And what would become of the men who built and mastered
great racing ships? And would the sea itself permit vile iron and smudgy
coal to speck its immaculate bosom? Must the sea, too, be tamed like a
dancing bear for the men who are buying and selling? It seemed
impossible.
But the shrewd men who trafficked said it must be so. They were spending
their money on de Lesseps's fabulous scheme. And the shrewd men never
spent money without a return. They would conquer.
Poor sea of the Vikings! Poor sea of the Lion-heart and of the Sappho of
the songs! Poor sea of Admiral Columbus! Poor sea to whom Paul made
obeisance! Sea of Drake and sea of Nelson, and sea of Philip of Spain.
Poor sea whom the great doges of Venice wed with a ring of gold! Christ!
If they could only bottle you, they would sell you like Holland gin!
§ 6
He had figured his work. He had figured his field. It seemed to him that
this being done life should flow on evenly as a stream. But there were
gaps of unhappiness that all the subtle sailing of a ship, all the
commerce of the East, all the fighting of the gales could not fill.
Within him somewhere was a space, in his heart, in his head, somewhere,
a ring, a pit of emotion--how, where, why he could not express. It just
existed. And this was filled at times with concentration on his work, at
times with plans of the future and material memories of the past or
thoughts of ancient shipmates, of his Uncle Robin. It was like a house,
that space was, with a strange division of time, that corresponded not
with time of day, but with recurrent actions, memories, moods. There
would be the bustle of his work, and that seemed to be morning. There
would be the planning of future days, and that seemed like an
afternoon, of sunshine; and there would be memories, as of old
shipmates, as of Uncle Robin--God rest his dear soul; as of Alan Donn
with his hearty cursing, his hearty laugh. And that was like an evening
with golden candle-light and red fire burning. And then would come the
quietness of night, all the bustle, all the plans, all the memories
gone. The fire out, the rooms empty. And in the strange place somewhere
within would come a strange lucidity, blue and cold and absolute as the
stars, and into that place would walk, as players stalk upon the stage,
each of three ghosts.
The first was his mother, who was dead, an apparition of chilling
terror. From afar she beheld him with eyes that were queerly inimical.
She had done nothing to him, nor he anything to her. She had done
nothing for him, nor he for her. Between them was nothing. When she had
died he had felt nothing, and that was the tragedy. No tears, no relief,
nothing. She had carried him in her womb, born him, suckled him; and he
had always felt he had been unwelcome. There had been no hospitality in
her body; just constraint. She had had no welcome for the little guest
of God; her heart had been hard to him and he at her breasts. Nothing
common to them in life, and now joined through the horrible significant
gulf of death. She could be with him always now, being dead. But where a
man's mother should come to him smilingly, with soft hands, with wisdom
and comfort passing that of life, she came with terrible empty eyes. He
could see her gaunt profile, her black brows. She was like an engraving
he had once seen of the witch Saul had used at En-dor, to call up
Samuel, who was dead. She had the same awful majesty, the same utter
loneliness.
"You gave me nothing in life. In death give me peace," he would cry. But
she stayed until it suited her to go, as she would have done in life.
Her haunted, haunting eyes ...!
And there would come another ghost, the ghost of the girl he had married
and he a boy--fourteen years ago. It was strange how he could remember
her--her red hair, her sullen mouth, her suspicious eyes. Her shoulders
drooped a little; there was no grace to her stance. She complained
against something, but she did not accuse him. He had married her, and
she had married him, and she had died. That was all there was to it. And
though she had sorrowed his younger days, yet he felt very kindly to
her. There she was, with her sullen mouth, her drooping shoulders,
complaining. "Life is so short, and there was so little to it, and
others have so much," she seemed to say. "I had a right to have my man
and a place in the country, the like of other girls, but all I got was
you. And death at the end of a short year. Wasn't it hard, och, wasn't
it so!" And he had to comfort her. "It was nobody's fault, Moyra. It
just happened. We were awfully young." But her lips were still sullen,
her eyes suspicious as she went away. "A short life and a bitter one. A
hard thing surely!" When she left him there was a sigh of relief. Poor
girl!
And the third ghost was hardly a presence, but an absence, or a presence
so intangible that it was worse than an absence. Claire-Anne, who was
dead, whom he had--made dead, whom he had taken it upon himself to set
free. For a year after he had left Marseilles she had seemed to be
always with him, closer in spirit, now she was dead, than she had ever
been in flesh and spirit when alive. A part of him she seemed always to
be. Always there, in the quiet cabin, on the heeling decks, on the solid
shore. And the long thoughts of him seemed to be conversation with her,
on strange beautiful things, on strange terrible things, on the common
commodity of life.... And then one day she left him....
He was coming into Southampton Water and waiting for the pilot's cutter
from the Solent, one bright July morning. And all the Solent was dotted
with sails, the snowy sails of great yachts and the cinnamon sails of
small ones. Little fishing-craft prowled near the shore. And afar off,
in fancy, he could see the troops of swans, and the stalking herons. The
pilot's cutter plowed toward him, her deep forefoot dividing the water
like a knife. Immense, vibrant beauty. And he felt, as always, that
Claire-Anne was by him, her dark understanding presence, her clear Greek
face, her little smile.
"In a minute now we will come into the wind and lower a boat,
Claire-Anne." And a shock of surprise came over him. She was not there.
It was as though he had been talking with his back turned to some one,
and turning around found they weren't there. For an instant he felt as
if he had lost somebody overboard. And then it came to him that water,
earth, material hazards were nothing to her any more. She had gone
somewhere for a moment. And he turned to greet the pilot as he swung
aboard.
"She will come back," he thought.... But she never came back. Once or
twice or maybe three times, a month, six months, and ten months later,
he felt her warm lover-like presence near him. "Claire-Anne! Is it you,
Claire-Anne?" And she was gone again. Something that had hovered,
fluttered, kissed, and flown away. Never again!
She had become to him in death much more real than she had ever been in
life. In life she had been dynamic, a warm, multicolored, perfumed
cloud. In death she was static. All the tumult of material things gone,
he had a vision of her clear as a line drawing. And he had come to
depend on her so much. In difficulty of thought he would say: "Is this
right, Claire-Anne?" And her answer would come: "Yes, Shane!" Or
possibly when some matter of trade or conduct seemed dubious, not
quite--whatever it was, her voice would come clear as a bell. "You
mustn't, Shane. It isn't right. It isn't like you to be small." It might
have been conscience, but it sounded like Claire-Anne. And oftentimes in
problems, she would say: "I don't know, Shane. I don't quite know." And
he would say, "We must do our best, Claire-Anne."
Well, she was gone. And he thought to himself: What do we know of the
destiny of the dead? They, too, must have work, missions to perform. The
God he believed in--the wise, firm, and kindly God--might have said:
"Claire-Anne, he'll be all right now. At any rate he'll have to work out
the rest for himself. Leave that. I want you to--" And she had gone.
That was one majestic explanation, but at times it seemed to him that no
matter what happened in the world, or superworld, yet she must be in
touch with him. "Set me, as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thine
arm," cried the prince's daughter, "for love is strong as death." If she
loved him she must love him still.
It suddenly occurred to him that the fault was not occult, but a matter
of spiritual deterioration in himself. To be in harmony with the lonely
dead there must be no dross about the mind. The preoccupations of
routine, the occasional dislikes of some stupid ship's officer, or
boatswain, the troubles about cargo--this, that, the other pettinesses
might cloud his eye as a mist clouds a lens. There came to him the
memory of a translation from some Chinese poet he had heard somewhere,
in some connection:
How am I fallen from myself! For a long time now
I have not seen the prince of Chang in my dreams.
He decided he would clear and make ready the quiet sweet place in his
heart, the room of ghosts, so that she might come and dwell there. But
induce the spiritual mood of the quiet October evening much as he could,
yet she never came again.
From his mind now there faded the memory of her face, the memory of her
hands, the memory of her voice even. With every week, with every month,
with the year, she was gone. Like a lost thought, or a lost bar of
music, she was gone. She had been there, but she was gone. The loss was
a terrible one. To lose one who was alive was much. But to lose one who
was dead was unbelievable, horrible ... to lose the sun ... forever....
He decided he could go back to the Prado of Marseilles, where first he
had met her, where she would of all places have kept a tryst with him.
There was no risk. The folk of the sea come and go so easily, so
invisibly, and French law bothers itself little about the killing of a
woman of evil repute.... One of the risks of the trade, they would say.
Even had there been a risk he would have gone. He went.
It was a dark night, a night of wind with the waves lashing the shore. A
night of all nights to keep a tryst with a dead woman. Immense privacy
of darkness and howling winds and lashing waves. With awe he went there,
as a shaken Catholic might enter a cathedral, dubious of the mystery of
the eucharist, expecting some silent word, some invisible sign from the
tabernacle.... He went with bowed head....
She never came.
He concentrated until all faded away, even the night, the wind, the
insistent waters. He might have been standing on a solitary rock in an
infinite dark sea, to which there was no shore. Asking, pleading,
willing for her.... But she never came....
And it suddenly became inevitable to him that she would not come; and
slowly, as a man comes slowly out of a drug into consciousness, he came
back into the world of lights and laughter and sodden things. And
turning on his heel without a look, he went away....
He never called to her again.... He thought over her often enough, and
she had never been real, he decided. His mother and his wife had been
real. They were their own dimensions. But she was something he had made
in his head, as an author may create a character. She was a
hallucination. And she had never been with him after death; that had
been a mirage in the hinterland of the mind.
And he asked: Who was she, anyway? She was a woman who said she loved
him, might even have believed it. Women under stress believe so many
things. A little anger, a little passion, a little melancholy, and
things resolve themselves into so many differences of color and line.
And what standard of truth is there? Suppose he were to tell any man of
the world of the occurrence, and to ask who she was, what she was, and
what he had been to her. They would have said it was simple. She was a
harlot of Marseilles, and he was her _amant de coeur_. But the beauty
of it! he would have objected. All the beauty was in yourself. Or as
they would have put it: All imagination!
What a snare it all was, and what was truth? How much better off a man
was if he had never anything to do with them, and yet....
A world of men, there would be something lacking! Friends he had in
plenty, men would help him, as a ship stands by another ship at sea.
Friends to talk to, of ships and sports, of ports and politics; but when
one left them, one was left by one's self. And all the subtleties of
mind came again like a cloud of wasps. To each man his own problem of
living. To each man to decide his own escape from himself.
"And the Lord God said: It is not good that the man should be alone--"
the Hebrew chronicler had imagined. No, it was not good. It was
terrible. After the day's work was done, after the pleasant evenings of
friends, then came the terror of the shadows. Unreal they might be, but
they hurt more than real things did. Unless one sank into the
undignified oblivion of drink, there was no escape. Shadows came.
Acuter than the tick of a watch, they were there, the cold mother with
the haunting eyes, the dead wife with the sullen mouth, visible as
stars. And empty as air was the space Claire-Anne should have occupied,
with her clear-cut beautiful features, her understanding eyes. Three
ghosts, and the ghost that was missing was the most terrible ghost of
all ... He could not stand them any more.... He must not be alone....
§ 7
He could not marry a Christian of the East, they were such an
unspeakably treacherous race. He could not marry a Jewess, for about
each one of the nation there seemed to be an awesome destiny, a terrible
doom or an ultimate majesty blinding human eyes; a wall, so high that it
was terrible.... He could not marry a Moslem woman, for that would mean
acceptance of Islam. And though Islam was very fine, very clean, and
Campbell believed in resignation, and acknowledged there was no god but
God, as the crypticism was, yet the Scots-Irish honesty of him would not
accept Mohammed as the prophet of God. It would be like putting
Bonaparte above the Lord Buddha. A faith is a very solemn thing and not
to be approached lightly. To accept a faith publicly, the tongue in the
cheek, was the sin of insincerity and rank dishonesty, having committed
which no man should hold up his head. And moreover Moslem women were
queer things. For centuries they had been held to be a little more
beautiful than a flower, a little less valuable, less personal than a
fine horse. Being told that for centuries, they had come to believe it,
and believing one's self to be particular leads one to become it. Moslem
women, no!
He had become familiar with the Druses around Beirut. There was
something in the hard independent tribesmen that reminded him of the
Ulster Scot. Aloof, unafraid, inimical, independent, with a strain of
mysticism in them, they were somehow like the glensmen of Antrim. Fairly
friendly with the Moslems, contemptuous of the Latin Christians,
impatient of dogma, they might have been the Orangemen of Syria. Their
emirs had a great dignity and a great simplicity, like an old-time
Highland chief. They acknowledged God, but after that their faith ran
into esoteric subtleties of nature-worship, which they kept to the
initiates among themselves.... And the common run of them had strange
legends, as that in a mountain bowl of China lived tribe on tribe of
Druses, and that one day these of Syria and of China would be reunited
and conquer the world.... They were very dignified men, and muscular....
Their women had the light feet of gazelles ... One only saw their sweet
low foreheads, their cinnamon hands.... They claimed they were
Christians sometimes, and other times they said they were Moslems, but
the truth no stranger knew.... A secret sect, like the ancient
Assassins, who had the Old Man of the Mountain for their king.... With
them dwelt beauty and terror and the glamour of hidden things....
To Shane they were very kindly. They recognized him for a mountain man
born, and for an honest man. They could not understand him, as a
Christian, seeing he took no part in Greek or Latin politics. They
decided he must have some faith of his own.... He did them some kindness
of errands, and they were very hospitable to him....
In '61, after the massacres, when the tribesmen were preparing to
retreat to the mountain of the Druses, he returned to find Syria
occupied by the troops of Napoleon III and to hear that his friend
Hamadj Beg of Deir el Kour was dead in the war.... He went to condole
with the family.... Arif Bey, Hamadj's brother, was preparing to retreat
toward Damascus....
"Arif Bey," Campbell suddenly said, "also this, I seek a wife."
"Yes." The grizzled Druse scratched his head, and looked at him keenly.
"I am making Lebanon my home; therefore I don't want a wife of my
country. There is no people sib to me here but the Druse people....
Would a Druse woman marry me?"
"I--I see nothing against it."