|A ship's boat has a flat board running the lengthway and well enough to
sleep on, but from beneath go out ribs which are prominent and sharp. I
awoke with someone jerking and tipping, making my dreams uncomfortable;
and before any waking thought had come he had banged my head on a rib of
the boat, so that I yelled aloud, and thought presently I would get up,
and there would be a fight. But there was none.
The dragging and tipping of the boat stopped, someone lifted the canvas
and pulled me out by the collar. I stood on the fore deck, blinking
in the broad sunlight foolishly, and around me were a group of strange
faces.
“Hi!” said one. “What is it? Take it aft.”
Two men shoved me along before them, till we came down into the cabin,
and there were Cavarly, Morgan, and Calhoun taking breakfast cheerfully.
Surprised they were to see me, and Cavarly not pleased, but Morgan began
to laugh wonderfully, and said I would be the death of him.
“Mark my words, you sinful young oyster. If you don't die first o' the
liver complaint, you'll be the death o' me.”
Cavarly asked how I came to stay aboard.
“Aye,” he said, “you hadn't crossed my mind these twenty-four hours,
tha's a fact.”
I did not like his pointing out that way how unimportant I was, and I
asked boldly where we were going.
“Due east now,” said Cavarly gently. “Why, sonny, we're goin' to dest'oy
commerce down the South Atlantic. You ain't any business here.”
“You're goin' to attack the flag o' your country,” said Morgan, leaning
forward and wrinkling his mouth. I grew very hot in the face and shouted
angrily, “I'm not, either!”
“Yep. You're goin' to perfo'm prodigies o' valour an' implant a tin
sword in the chest o' your uncle.”
“I won't!”
“Yep. You'll come home cove'd with glory an' gore, an' a full-rigged
ship in each pocket, an' be hung at the Fede'al Gove'nment's expense,
the rest o' your relatives attendin' the ce'emony.”
The captain and Calhoun and the two men were laughing loudly, and, not
being able to stay angry to any purpose, I said nothing, and presently
felt more calm, but I thought I would not mind being the death of Dan
Morgan. He drew more amusement from me, and my attacking the flag of the
country, than seemed right.
There was a boy with a green jacket in the school on Willet Street once
who made it plain that he was for States' Rights. I think he did not
know what they were. And we tied a rope around him and his green jacket,
and took off the well-top in the yard, and let him down, so that he
came up very wet, we were that interested in the subject, and most of us
Whigs or Free Soilers, without knowing what these meant either. You do
not have to know what politics mean, or patriotism, or any brave words,
in order to feel strongly about them. But if anyone in Willet Street
had hinted himself able to attack the flag of his country, it would have
been bad for him.
Cavarly looked troubled, and rubbed his forehead with his hand.
“Look here, Ben. I don' like this business.”
“Make him cabin boy,” said Calhoun. “Land him with the first crew we
capture.”
“That's so. I wouldn't like to play it low on the landlord. He's a white
man, your father, Ben, hey? He ain't ve'y penet'ative, sort o' simple.
But he's hones'. My! he's hones'.”
So I became cabin boy on the _Nameless_, as they called the _Octarara_
now, having smeared out the beautifully painted name over the anchor
holes; and I was set to very common jobs, to sweep, to clean, and fetch
and carry gentlemen's meals, quite melancholy at first and disgusted
with my luck. I was possessed of a sense of being loose and anchorless
in the world. I could not feel my bearings after so great a revolution.
As if the sky and the sea were to change places, it might be
questionable in a man's mind whether it were proper to walk on his hands
or his feet. Or, if he enters a strange city with his north and south
wrong, he will not easily make friends with the compass in that place.
Yet they all seemed inclined to make it up to me with good-nature. Gerry
and Still would teach me steering, how to hold the wheel so that the
needle did not waver; to feel the good ship answer the shove of my hand
made me feel as important as the north wind. Calhoun would call me to
come where he sat in the lee of the cabin and talk with him, and while
we talked he would watch me narrowly. Cavarly seemed to have me on
his mind to trouble him, for he had taken a liking to my father--“Not
pene-t'ative, he ain't, Ben, but he's hones'.” And Dan Morgan would
bring his banjo evenings by the cabin windows, and there bellow at the
moon like a sick calf:
"This world is full o' trouble an' sin,
Don' keep me mournin' long!”
But I did not see why a fellow with red cheeks like mine should move him
so to speak of the liver complaint.
Cavarly was sparing coal no longer. The _Nameless_ cut her way eastward,
her black snake of smoke streaming off behind. And, though the wind was
cold and bit the skin of one's face till it felt like sharp medicine in
the mouth, yet the sky continued clear. I liked to watch the foam of the
wake, its infinite bubbling, and the swarthy, rumpled sea, stretching
away all about till the sky came down to it gracefully and both were
clamped together on the horizon. So that during those days, 22d, 23d,
and 24th, if I have counted right, I cannot say that I was in great
despair, though plainly making a false start and not in any way to fame
and fortune.
Cavarly's idea was to go east a bit, and then turn sharply south, to
fall in the track of commerce between the Northern cities and South
America, Cape Horn, and the Indian Ocean, in this manner to escape the
pursuit he expected would follow him, and pick up prizes in seas where
there was little likelihood of interference.
The 25th of February broke with a great white mist everywhere, clinging
to the sea in a feathery, sticky way. The ship had turned, and was going
due south, not at full speed any longer, but quite leisurely.
Calhoun called me where he sat against the rail that morning, tipping
his chair and smoking, and then fell to asking how I liked things, and
how I would get home from foreign parts. He said:
“It seems to me, if I were you, I shouldn't care for South America.
Seems to me I'd prefer the United States most anywhere. But you haven't
the choice, have you? That's a pity.”
“No, I haven't,” I said gloomily, and did not thank him for putting in
me troubles and wishes that were of no use.
The deck now was empty, except for Still at the wheel some distance
away. Cavarly was forward, and Morgan somewhere below. Calhoun went on
in a quiet, even tone:
“That's a pity. But a man can't tell, you know, till he's thought it
over, can he? Why, I heard once of a fellow that wanted to go to San
Francisco in a ship that was bound from Honolulu round the Horn. That
didn't seem good judgment. And yet he went to 'Frisco all right. How?
Well, it was this way. He sort of thought it over.”
He smoked thoughtfully a moment, then put his hand in his pocket, took
out a piece of iron three inches long, and looked at it as if it had
been his watch, lying in the palm of his hand.
“He sort of thought it over. 'Now,' he says, 'here's the fact: a ship
always sails by the needle in the compass. The way she depends on that
measly little thing is pathetic. If she wants to go south, she goes
opposite the needle. If she wants to go east or west or anyhow, she goes
at proper angles with that needle. It's singular, it's pathetic, but
it's true,' says the fellow I'm telling you of. 'Now,' he says, 'this
ship wants to go south, and she sails against the needle. Now, it stands
to reason, if I point that piece of ironmongery west, this ship'll sail
east, and that's 'Frisco. Don't it?' he says. 'Why not?' Well, sir, he
went over that again, and maybe three or four times, and the more he
thought it over the more it appeared to be correct. And what did he do?
Did he stick a pin into the little thing? Not he. He persuaded it. He
argued with it according to its nature. He thought the best way to treat
things was according to their nature. He took a magnet, which is a piece
of iron--um--something like this one--it happened to look like this
one. A magnet is a piece of iron, as you might say, with a ghost in it,
something sticky in its vitals. He got a chance to hold the wheel by
himself. He put that magnet into the binnacle on the little shelf under
the compass, on the right side of the needle, just half-way round the
circle. Course, if he'd wanted to go west instead of east, say, such
a direction as from here to the United States, he'd have put it on the
left side corresponding. Well, sir, that magnet, such was the stickiness
of its vitals, it pulled the business end of the needle around plumb
over it, and there it stayed. Then this fellow I'm telling you of, he
put the ship about, taking caution not to disturb anyone, taking great
caution, because he thought it wouldn't be right to disturb anyone, and
pointed her for 'Frisco. And that needle kept on telling a yarn that
would have made a keg of nails blush. Yes, sir, it lied steady for
twenty-four days without turning a hair--wet weather it was, or misty,
like this--till they brought up on the coast of California, and the
fellow I'm telling you of, well, he sloped. Course, if a ship's going
south, and a man can't help himself, he can't. But this fellow sort of
thought it over, and it seemed to him, the needle being a good liar and
the sun not coming out to mess things, that there wasn't any real need
of his going to the Horn. That was his opinion.”
A moment later I was standing alone by the rail and staring blankly
after Calhoun, where he strolled slowly forward and grew dim in the
mist. The little piece of black iron had got into my hand. It was no
more than three inches long and sharp at the corners. The only sounds
about the misty ship were the slow shoving of the engines below, and
Still at the wheel whistling.
I wondered at Calhoun, that singular man, and wondered at this business
altogether which I was in. For Cavarly and Morgan had played their great
trick, and here was Calhoun tricking them, and how should I know what he
might be doing with me, he a man so full of stratagem. I thought there
would be no way of telling that, and I had better play the part that
seemed to be laid out for me; but I felt very lonely and troubled, and
not cheerful, not as I used to in setting off fire crackers behind Mr.
Hooley, though that was considered perilous enough.
I went up to Still, thinking to fall into talk with him indifferently,
but my throat was gaspy and choked in an odd way. Still's pipe was out,
and he wanted me to go forward and fetch him his plug.
“Oh!” I said, with my knees shaking disgracefully, “you go, and let me
hold the wheel.”
“Hardly, Bennie, hardly. An' you learnin' seaman's duty o' me that way!”
Some footsteps were coming along the deck, and I thought the chance was
gone; but it was Calhoun.
“I can steer good. Honest, Still. You see.”
“Don't mind that,” said Still apologetically to Calhoun, “but 'twouldn't
be right to leave him alone, sir.”
“I'll stay here,” said Calhoun.
“Ve'y good, sir.”
He hurried away. Calhoun sat down, with his back to me and his feet
braced on the rail.
After all there was nothing difficult about it. I slipped the little
black iron to its place, in the binnacle, to the left of the compass. It
went in too far, so that the needle swung to east by south, and I had
to pull the iron back. The needle lay trembling at right angles with the
ship, and I began to turn the wheel nervously.
“The fellow I was telling you of,” remarked Calhoun without looking
around, “he took his time, so as not to disturb anyone. He didn't
fidget. He kept his eye on the compass, counted eight points, and turned
the wheel back.”
The ship swung softly and steadily; the needle crept from point to
point, till the quarter was covered. Still came along the deck, looming
in the mist and puffing his pipe.
“Hold her steady, Bennie,” he said. “Seaman's duty.”
And there was nothing in the white sea-fog to betray; Calhoun's back was
as non-committal as the fog; the little black iron with its ghost inside
it lay on the shelf in the binnacle silently too.
But the ship, slipping along through the fog so quietly, with so much
misunderstanding aboard her, seemed to me something uncanny. I felt as
if we were under a spell, and afterwards as if all the seamen looked at
me oddly, wondering that so chubby-cheeked a boy should dare interfere
with a ship's compass; and, when Morgan would call me “a sinful oyster
who would be the death of him,” I longed to tell him what a mixed man he
was, with no cause to joke at all. Sometimes Cavarly's remorse at having
to drop me at some distant port would give me a twist of conscience in
return.
On the third day--that would be the 28th--the fog turned to a soaking
rain, and after that the wind rose in the northwest, which Cavarly took
for southwest. On the 1st of March we crossed a steamer going east--or
north, as Cavarly thought. It looked like a passenger steamer. He
thought it could not be American in the waters where he supposed
himself, and going in that direction, and so let it pass.
The morning of the 2d broke with the gale still blowing but the rain had
ceased. A large, double-funnelled something was coming down our wake, a
dusky spot in the gray half-daylight far away, with two towers of black
smoke over her.
There was trouble on the _Nameless_ when the stranger was made out by
the growing light to be a cruiser, nearly large enough to carry the
Nameless for a long boat, and with the starred and striped flag floating
overhead.
There is an odd thing about that flag, when you meet it on the high seas
and the wind is blowing hard--namely, that of all flags I know it is
the most alive, when the wind blows, the most eager and keen, with the
stripes flowing and darting like snakes, and the stars seeming to dance
with the joy of excitement. So that there is none better to go into
battle, or come down the street when the fifes are piping ahead; but if
you want something to signify peace and quiet, you would be as well off
with not such bristling stars and fewer stripes, for the stars will leap
and the stripes show their energy wherever the wind blows.
The Nameless did not alter her course, but got up steam and plunged on
with great thumping and thunder of engines. The cruiser seemed hardly to
be gaining. I noticed Calhoun on the roof of the cabin looking forward,
and wondered if we were near land. I think Calhoun must have somehow
kept the bearings and known where we were, for the lookout cried “Land!”
at near eleven o'clock. Cavarly took it for the Bermudas at first,
but probably knowing the Bermudas to have a high, rocky coast, he came
forward and scanned the shore a long time through his glass silently.
It seemed to be a low-lying, sandy shore, with little growth, if any.
Through a glass you could make out the great surf piling upon it, white
and dangerous. I went on the roof of the cabin, and Calhoun told me
softly those were the banks of the Carolinas, meaning that low belt,
outlying along the coast, a breakwater of sand pressed up by the sea,
with quiet waters commonly within.
The ship turned to the quarter and headed south.
By twelve another spot of black smoke rose on the edge of the sea, and
this was from the south. In half an hour it was made out to be another
cruiser, smaller, and floating the striped flag.
Cavarly walked the deck, gripping his hands, and his face seemed to grow
gray and lined with the pain of his thoughts.
He ordered the men to be called aft, and spoke, standing by the cabin
door.
“I'm not sayin' what that shore is. I don' know, not me. We lost our
bearings. It looks to me mighty cur'ous. But I'm sayin' there's no
Yankee's goin' to capture my ship. _Nameless_ she is, an' _Nameless_ she
goes. I'm goin' to beach her.”
Someone cried, “Beach her, cap'n. We're in it.”
After that, as it seemed to me, there was nothing but roar and tumult,
with moments passing like seconds, till the cruise of the _Nameless_
ended. I remember a shell from one of the cruisers that skipped along
the water beside us--like those flat stones we used to throw slanting
into the East River--and burst with a crack and spatter of spray just
ahead. I remember how the surf towered and bubbled and roared at the
ship's bows, and how I was cast headlong on the deck when she grounded.
They fired her too near the powder, and she blew up before the last had
left, and one of the boats foundered in the surf.
I remember how bitterly the men worked, drawing the other boats over the
sand hills, a quarter of a mile it might be, to the water within. The
cruisers lay off shore, not daring to lower boats for the high seas and
surf. But the strangest sight to me was the six drowned men, lying in
the wash, and among them with his lips pursed out, as if amused and
smiling up into the wild sky, that singular man, Dan Morgan. For he
looked as if he liked it well enough, lying dead in the wash of the sea,
and thought it odd at any rate that Bennie Cree should have been the
death of him.