"If I should board this ship," I asked myself, "where should I go?
whom should I meet? what should I see? Is not this the vessel that
shall carry me to my Europe, my foreign countries, my impossible
India, the Atlantis that I have lost?"
As I sat staring at it I could not but wonder whether Bourne had seen
this sail when he looked upon the water? Does he see such sights every
day, because he lives down here? Is it not perhaps a magic yacht of
his; and does he slip off privately after business hours to Venice,
and Spain, and Egypt, perhaps to El Dorado? Does he run races with
Ptolemy, Philopater and Hiero of Syracuse, rare regattas on fabulous
seas?
Why not? He is a rich, man, too, and why should not a New York
merchant do what a Syracuse tyrant and an Egyptian prince did? Has
Bourne's yacht those sumptuous chambers, like Philopater's galley, of
which the greater part was made of split cedar, and of Milesian
cypress; and has he twenty doors put together with beams of
citron-wood, with many ornaments? Has the roof of his cabin a carved
golden face, and is his sail linen with a purple fringe?
"I suppose it is so," I said to myself, as I looked wistfully at the
ship, which began to glimmer and melt in the haze.
"It certainly is not a fishing smack?" I asked, doubtfully.
No, it must be Bourne's magic yacht; I was sure of it. I could not
help laughing at poor old Hiero, whose cabins were divided into many
rooms, with floors composed of mosaic work, of all kinds of stones
tessellated. And, on this mosaic, the whole story of the Iliad was
depicted in a marvellous manner. He had gardens "of all sorts of most
wonderful beauty, enriched with all sorts of plants, and shadowed by
roofs of lead or tiles. And, besides this, there were tents roofed
with boughs of white ivy and of the vine--the roots of which derived
their moisture from casks full of earth, and were watered in the same
manner as the gardens. There were temples, also, with doors of ivory
and citron-wood, furnished in the most exquisite manner, with pictures
and statues, and with goblets and vases of every form and shape
imaginable."
"Poor Bourne!" I said. "I suppose his is finer than Hiero's, which is
a thousand years old. Poor Bourne! I don't wonder that his eyes are
weary, and that he would pay so dearly for a day of leisure. Dear me!
is it one of the prices that must be paid for wealth, the keeping up a
magic yacht?"
Involuntarily, I had asked the question aloud.
"The magic yacht is not Bourne's," answered a familiar voice. I looked
up, and Titbottom stood by my side. "Do you not know that all Bourne's
money would not buy the yacht?" asked he. "He cannot even see it. And
if he could, it would be no magic yacht to him, but only a battered
and solitary hulk."
The haze blew gently away, as Titbottom spoke and there lay my Spanish
galleon, my Bucentoro, my Cleopatra's galley, Columbus's Santa Maria,
and the Pilgrims' May Flower, an old bleaching wreck upon the beach.
"Do you suppose any true love is in vain?" asked Titbottom solemnly,
as he stood bareheaded, and the soft sunset wind played with his few
hairs. "Could Cleopatra smile upon Antony, and the moon upon Endymion,
and the sea not love its lovers?"
The fresh air breathed upon our faces as he spoke. I might have
sailed in Hiero's ship, or in Roman galleys, had I lived long
centuries ago, and been born a nobleman. But would it be so sweet a
remembrance, that of lying on a marble couch, under a golden-faced
roof, and within doors of citron-wood and ivory, and sailing in that
state to greet queens who are mummies now, as that of seeing those
fair figures, standing under the great gonfalon, themselves as lovely
as Egyptian belles, and going to see more than Egypt dreamed?
The yacht was mine, then, and not Bourne's. I took Titbottom's arm,
and we sauntered toward the ferry. What sumptuous sultan was I, with
this sad vizier? My languid odalisque, the sea, lay at my feet as we
advanced, and sparkled all over with a sunset smile. Had I trusted
myself to her arms, to be borne to the realms that I shall never see,
or sailed long voyages towards Cathay, I am not sure I should have
brought a more precious present to Prue, than the story of that
afternoon.
"Ought I to have gone alone?" I asked her, as I ended.
"I ought not to have gone with you," she replied, "for I had work to
do. But how strange that you should see such things at Staten
Island. I never did, Mr. Titbottom," said she, turning to my deputy,
whom I had asked to tea.
"Madam," answered Titbottom, with a kind of wan and quaint dignity, so
that I could not help thinking he must have arrived in that stray ship
from the Spanish armada, "neither did Mr. Bourne."