So much had my interest been excited by his face and movement, that I
had not observed the costume of this strange being. He wore a black
hat upon his head. It was not only black, but it was shiny. Even in
the midst of this wonderful scene, I could observe that it had the
artificial newness of a second-hand hat; and, at the same moment, I
was disgusted by the odor of old clothes--very old clothes,
indeed. The mist and my sympathy had prevented my seeing before what a
singular garb the figure wore. It was all second-hand and carefully
ironed, but the garments were obviously collected from every part of
the civilized globe. Good heavens! as I looked at the coat, I had a
strange sensation. I was sure that I had once worn that coat. It was
my wedding surtout--long in the skirts--which Prue had told me, years
and years before, she had given away to the neediest Jew beggar she
had ever seen.
The spectral figure dwindled in my fancy--the features lost their
antique grandeur, and the restless eye ceased to be sublime from
immortal sleeplessness, and became only lively with mean cunning. The
apparition was fearfully grotesque, but the driving ship and the
mysterious company gradually restored its tragic interest. I stopped
and leaned against the side, and heard the rippling water that I could
not see, and flitting through the mist, with anxious speed, the figure
held its way. What was he flying? What conscience with relentless
sting pricked this victim on?
He came again nearer and nearer to me in his walk. I recoiled with
disgust, this time, no less than terror. But he seemed resolved to
speak, and, finally, each time, as he passed me, he asked single
questions, as a ship which fires whenever it can bring a gun to bear.
"Can you tell me to what port we are bound?"
"No," I replied; "but how came you to take passage without inquiry? To
me it makes little difference."
"Nor do I care," he answered, when he next came near enough; "I have
already been there."
"Where?" asked I.
"Wherever we are going," he replied. "I have been there a great many
times, and, oh! I am very tired of it."
"But why are you here at all, then; and why don't you stop?"
There was a singular mixture of a hundred conflicting emotions in his
face, as I spoke. The representative grandeur of a race, which he
sometimes showed in his look, faded into a glance of hopeless and puny
despair. His eyes looked at me curiously, his chest heaved, and there
was clearly a struggle in his mind, between some lofty and mean
desire. At times, I saw only the austere suffering of ages in his
strongly-carved features, and again I could see nothing but the
second-hand black hat above them. He rubbed his forehead with his
skinny hand; he glanced over his shoulder, as if calculating whether
he had time to speak to me; and then, as a splendid defiance flashed
from his piercing eyes, so that I know how Milton's Satan looked, he
said, bitterly, and with hopeless sorrow, that no mortal voice ever
knew before:
"I cannot stop: my woe is infinite, like my sin!"--and he passed into
the mist.
But, in a few moments, he reappeared. I could now see only the hat,
which sank more and more over his face, until it covered it entirely;
and I heard a querulous voice, which seemed to be quarrelling with
itself, for saying what it was compelled to say, so that the words
were even more appalling than what it had said before:
"Old clo'! old clo'!"
I gazed at the disappearing figure, in speechless amazement, and was
still looking, when I was tapped upon the shoulder, and, turning
round, saw a German cavalry officer, with a heavy moustache, and a
dog-whistle in his hand.
"Most extraordinary man, your friend yonder," said the officer; "I
don't remember to have seen him in Turkey, and yet I recognize upon
his feet the boots that I wore in the great Russian cavalry charge,
where I individually rode down five hundred and thirty Turks, slew
seven hundred, at a moderate computation, by the mere force of my
rush, and, taking the seven insurmountable walls of Constantinople at
one clean flying leap, rode straight into the seraglio, and, dropping
the bridle, cut the sultan's throat with my bridle-hand, kissed the
other to the ladies of the hareem, and was back again within our lines
and taking a glass of wine with the hereditary Grand Duke
Generalissimo before he knew that I had mounted. Oddly enough, your
old friend is now sporting the identical boots I wore on that
occasion."
The cavalry officer coolly curled his moustache with his fingers. I
looked at him in silence.
"Speaking of boots," he resumed, "I don't remember to have told you of
that little incident of the Princess of the Crimea's diamonds. It was
slight, but curious. I was dining one day with the Emperor of the
Crimea, who always had a cover laid for me at his table, when he said,
in great perplexity, 'Baron, my boy, I am in straits. The Shah of
Persia has just sent me word that he has presented me with two
thousand pearl-of-Oman necklaces, and I don't know how to get them
over, the duties are so heavy.' 'Nothing easier,' replied I; 'I'll
bring them in my boots.' 'Nonsense!' said the Emperor of the
Crimea. 'Nonsense! yourself,' replied I, sportively: for the Emperor
of the Crimea always gives me my joke; and so after dinner I went over
to Persia. The thing was easily enough done. I ordered a hundred
thousand pairs of boots or so, filled them with the pearls; said at
the Custom-house that they were part of my private wardrobe, and I had
left the blocks in to keep them stretched, for I was particular about
my bunions. The officers bowed, and said that their own feet were
tender,--upon which I jokingly remarked that I wished their
consciences were, and so in the pleasantest manner possible the
pearl-of-Oman necklaces were bowed out of Persia, and the Emperor of
the Crimea gave me three thousand of them as my share. It was no
trouble. It was only ordering the boots, and whistling to the infernal
rascals of Persian shoe-makers to hang for their pay."
I could reply nothing to my new acquaintance, but I treasured his
stories to tell to Prue, and at length summoned courage to ask him why
he had taken passage.
"Pure fun," answered he, "nothing else under the sun. You see, it
happened in this way:--I was sitting quietly and swinging in a cedar
of Lebanon, on the very summit of that mountain, when suddenly,
feeling a little warm, I took a brisk dive into the Mediterranean. Now
I was careless, and got going obliquely, and with the force of such a
dive I could not come up near Sicily, as I had intended, but I went
clean under Africa, and came out at the Cape of Good Hope, and as
Fortune would have it, just as this good ship was passing. So I
sprang over the side, and offered the crew to treat all round if they
would tell me where I started from. But I suppose they had just been
piped to grog, for not a man stirred, except your friend yonder, and
he only kept on stirring."
"Are you going far?" I asked.
The cavalry officer looked a little disturbed. "I cannot precisely
tell," answered he, "in fact, I wish I could;" and he glanced round
nervously at the strange company.
"If you should come our way, Prue and I will be very glad to see you,"
said I, "and I can promise you a warm welcome from the children."
"Many thanks," said the officer,--and handed me his card, upon which I
read, _Le Baron Munchausen_.
"I beg your pardon," said a low voice at my side; and, turning, I saw
one of the most constant smokers--a very old man--"I beg your pardon,
but can you tell me where I came from?"
"I am sorry to say I cannot," answered I, as I surveyed a man with a
very bewildered and wrinkled face, who seemed to be intently looking
for something.
"Nor where I am going?"
I replied that it was equally impossible. He mused a few moments, and
then said slowly, "Do you know, it is a very strange thing that I have
not found anybody who can answer me either of those questions. And yet
I must have come from somewhere," said he, speculatively--"yes, and I
must be going somewhere, and I should really like to know something
about it."
"I observe," said I, "that you smoke a good deal, and perhaps you find
tobacco clouds your brain a little."
"Smoke! Smoke!" repeated he, sadly, dwelling upon the words; "why, it
all seems smoke to me;" and he looked wistfully around the deck, and I
felt quite ready to agree with him.
"May I ask what you are here for," inquired I; "perhaps your health,
or business of some kind; although I was told it was a pleasure
party?"
"That's just it," said he; "if I only knew where we were going, I might
be able to say something about it. But where are you going?"
"I am going home as fast as I can," replied I warmly, for I began to
be very uncomfortable. The old man's eyes half closed, and his mind
seemed to have struck a scent.
"Isn't that where I was going? I believe it is; I wish I knew; I think
that's what it is called, Where is home?"
And the old man puffed a prodigious cloud of smoke, in which he was
quite lost.
"It is certainly very smoky," said he, "I came on board this ship to
go to--in fact, I meant, as I was saying, I took passage for--." He
smoked silently. "I beg your pardon, but where did you say I was
going?"
Out of the mist where he had been leaning over the side, and gazing
earnestly into the surrounding obscurity, now came a pale young man,
and put his arm in mine.
"I see," said he, "that you have rather a general acquaintance, and,
as you know many persons, perhaps you know many things. I am young,
you see, but I am a great traveller. I have been all over the world,
and in all kinds of conveyances; but," he continued, nervously,
starting continually, and looking around, "I haven't yet got abroad."
"Not got abroad, and yet you have been everywhere?"
"Oh! yes; I know," he replied, hurriedly; "but I mean that I haven't
yet got away. I travel constantly, but it does no good--and perhaps
you can tell me the secret I want to know. I will pay any sum for
it. I am very rich and very young, and, if money cannot buy it, I will
give as many years of my life as you require."
He moved his hands convulsively, and his hair was wet upon his
forehead. He was very handsome in that mystic light, but his eye
burned with eagerness, and his slight, graceful frame thrilled with
the earnestness of his emotion. The Emperor Hadrian, who loved the boy
Antinous, would have loved the youth.
"But what is it that you wish to leave behind?" said I, at length,
holding his arm paternally; "what do you wish to escape?"
He threw his arms straight down by his side, clenched his, hands, and
looked fixedly in my eyes. The beautiful head was thrown a little
back upon one shoulder, and the wan faced glowed with yearning desire
and utter abandonment to confidence, so that, without his saying it, I
knew that he had never whispered the secret which he was about to
impart to me. Then, with a long sigh, as if his life were exhaling, he
whispered,
"Myself."
"Ah! my boy, you are bound upon a long journey."
"I know it," he replied mournfully; "and I cannot even get started. If
I don't get off in this ship, I fear I shall never escape." His last
words were lost in the mist which gradually removed him from my view.
"The youth has been amusing you with some of his wild fancies, I
suppose," said a venerable man, who might have been twin brother of
that snowy-bearded pilot. "It is a great pity so promising a young man
should be the victim of such vagaries."
He stood looking over the side for some time, and at length added,
"Don't you think we ought to arrive soon?"
"Where?" asked I.
"Why, in Eldorado, of course," answered he.
"The truth is, I became very tired of that long process to find the
Philosopher's Stone, and, although I was just upon the point of the
last combination which must infallibly have produced the medium, I
abandoned it when I heard Orellana's account, and found that Nature
had already done in Eldorado precisely what I was trying to do. You
see," continued the old man abstractedly, "I had put youth, and love,
and hope, besides a great many scarce minerals, into the crucible, and
they all dissolved slowly, and vanished--in vapor. It was curious, but
they left no residuum except a little ashes, which were not strong
enough to make a lye to cure a lame finger. But, as I was saying,
Orellana told us about Eldorado just in time, and I thought, if any
ship would carry me there it must be this. But I am very sorry to find
that any one who is in pursuit of such a hopeless goal as that pale
young man yonder, should have taken passage. It is only age," he said,
slowly stroking his white beard, "that teaches us wisdom, and
persuades us to renounce the hope of escaping ourselves; and just as
we are discovering the Philosopher's Stone, relieves our anxiety by
pointing the way to Eldorado."
"Are we really going there?" asked I, in some trepidation.
"Can there be any doubt of it?" replied the old man. "Where should we
be going, if not there? However, let us summon the passengers and
ascertain."
So saying, the venerable man beckoned to the various groups that were
clustered, ghost-like, in the mist that enveloped the ship. They
seemed to draw nearer with listless curiosity, and stood or sat near
us, smoking as before, or, still leaning on the side, idly gazing. But
the restless figure who had first accosted me, still paced the deck,
flitting in and out of the obscurity; and as he passed there was the
same mien of humbled pride, and the air of a fate of tragic grandeur,
and still the same faint odor of old clothes, and the low querulous
cry, "Old clo!' old clo'!"
The ship dashed on. Unknown odors and strange sounds still filled the
air, and all the world went by us as we flew, with no other noise than
the low gurgling of the sea around the side.
"Gentlemen," said the reverend passenger for Eldorado, "I hope there
is no misapprehension as to our destination?"
As he said this, there was a general movement of anxiety and
curiosity. Presently the smoker, who had asked me where he was going,
said, doubtfully:
"I don't know--it seems to me--I mean I wish somebody would distinctly
say where we are going."
"I think I can throw a light upon this subject," said a person whom I
had not before remarked. He was dressed like a sailor, and had a
dreamy eye. "It is very clear to me where we are going. I have been
taking observations for some time, and I am glad to announce that we
are on the eve of achieving great fame; and I may add," said he,
modestly, "that my own good name for scientific acumen will be amply
vindicated. Gentlemen, we are undoubtedly going into the Hole."
"What hole is that?" asked M. le Baron Munchausen, a little
contemptuously.
"Sir, it will make you more famous than you ever were before," replied
the first speaker, evidently much enraged.
"I am persuaded we are going into no such absurd place," said the
Baron, exasperated.
The sailor with the dreamy eye was fearfully angry. He drew himself up
stiffly and said:
"Sir, you lie!"
M. le Baron Munchausen took it in very good part. He smiled and held
out his hand:
"My friend," said he, blandly, "that is precisely what I have always
heard. I am glad you do me no more than justice. I fully assent to
your theory: and your words constitute me the proper historiographer
of the expedition. But tell me one thing, how soon, after getting into
the Hole, do you think we shall get out?"
"The result will prove," said the marine gentleman, handing the
officer his card, upon which was written, _Captain Symmes_. The
two gentlemen then walked aside; and the groups began to sway to and
fro in the haze as if not quite contented.
"Good God," said the pale youth, running up to me and clutching my
arm, "I cannot go into any Hole alone with myself. I should die--I
should kill myself. I thought somebody was on board, and I hoped you
were he, who would steer us to the fountain of oblivion."
"Very well, that is in the Hole," said M. le Baron, who came out of
the mist at that moment, leaning upon the Captain's arm.
"But can I leave myself outside?" asked the youth, nervously.
"Certainly," interposed the old Alchemist; "you may be sure that you
will not get into the Hole, until you have left yourself behind."
The pale young man grasped his hand, and gazed into his eyes.
"And then I can drink and be happy," murmured he, as he leaned over
the side of the ship and listened to the rippling water, as if it had
been the music of the fountain of oblivion.
"Drink! drink!" said the smoking old man. "Fountain! fountain! Why, I
believe that is what I am after. I beg your pardon," continued he,
addressing the Alchemist. "But can you tell me if I am looking for a
fountain?"
"The fountain of youth, perhaps," replied the Alchemist.
"The very thing!" cried the smoker, with a shrill laugh, while his
pipe fell from his mouth, and was shattered upon the deck, and the old
man tottered away into the mist, chuckling feebly to himself, "Youth!
youth!"
"He'll find that in the Hole, too," said the Alchemist, as he gazed
after the receding figure.
The crowd now gathered more nearly around us.
"Well, gentlemen," continued the Alchemist, "where shall we go, or,
rather, where are we going?"
A man in a friar's habit, with the cowl closely drawn about his head,
now crossed himself, and whispered:
"I have but one object. I should not have been here if I had not
supposed we were going to find Prester John, to whom I have been
appointed father confessor, and at whose court I am to live
splendidly, like a cardinal at Rome. Gentlemen, if you will only agree
that we shall go there, you shall all be permitted to hold my train
when I proceed to be enthroned as Bishop of Central Africa."
While he was speaking, another old man came from the bows of the ship,
a figure which had been so immoveable in its place that I supposed it
was the ancient figure-head of the craft, and said in a low, hollow
voice, and a quaint accent:
"I have been looking for centuries, and I cannot see it. I supposed we
were heading for it. I thought sometimes I saw the flash of distant
spires, the sunny gleam of upland pastures, the soft undulation of
purple hills. Ah! me. I am sure I heard the singing of birds, and the
faint low of cattle. But I do not know: we come no nearer; and yet I
felt its presence in the air. If the mist would only lift, we should
see it lying so fair upon the sea, so graceful against the sky. I fear
we may have passed it. Gentlemen," said he, sadly, "I am afraid we may
have lost the island of Atlantis for ever."
There was a look of uncertainty in the throng upon the deck.
"But yet," said a group of young men in every kind of costume, and of
every country and time, "we have a chance at the Encantadas, the
Enchanted Islands. We were reading of them only the other day, and the
very style of the story had the music of waves. How happy we shall be
to reach a land where there is no work, nor tempest, nor pain, and we
shall be for ever happy."
"I am content here," said a laughing youth, with heavily matted
curls. "What can be better than this? We feel every climate, the music
and the perfume of every zone, are ours. In the starlight I woo the
mermaids, as I lean over the side, and no enchanted island will show
us fairer forms. I am satisfied. The ship sails on. We cannot see but
we can dream. What work or pain have we here? I like the ship; I like
the voyage; I like my company, and am content."
As he spoke he put something into his mouth, and, drawing a white
substance from his pocket, offered it to his neighbor, saying, "Try a
bit of this lotus; you will find it very soothing to the nerves, and
an infallible remedy for home-sickness."
"Gentlemen," said M. le Baron Munchausen, "I have no fear. The
arrangements are well made; the voyage has been perfectly planned, and
each passenger will discover what he took passage to find, in the Hole
into which we are going, under the auspices of this worthy Captain."
He ceased, and silence fell upon the ship's company. Still on we
swept; it seemed a weary way. The tireless pedestrians still paced to
and fro, and the idle smokers puffed. The ship sailed on, and endless
music and odor chased each other through the misty air. Suddenly a
deep sigh drew universal attention to a person who had not yet spoken.
He held a broken harp in his hand, the strings fluttered loosely in
the air, and the head of the speaker, bound with a withered wreath of
laurels, bent over it.
"No, no," said he, "I will not eat your lotus, nor sail into the
Hole. No magic root can cure the home-sickness I feel; for it is no
regretful remembrance, but an immortal longing. I have roamed farther
than I thought the earth extended. I have climbed mountains; I have
threaded rivers; I have sailed seas; but nowhere have I seen the home
for which my heart aches. Ah! my friends, you look very weary; let us
go home."
The pedestrian paused a moment in his walk, and the smokers took their
pipes from their mouths. The soft air which blew in that moment
across the deck, drew a low sound from the broken harp-strings, and a
light shone in the eyes of the old man of the figure-head, as if the
mist had lifted for an instant, and he had caught a glimpse of the
lost Atlantis.
"I really believe that is where I wish to go," said the seeker of the
fountain of youth. "I think I would give up drinking at the fountain
if I could get there. I do not know," he murmured, doubtfully; "it is
not sure; I mean, perhaps, I should not have strength to get to the
fountain, even if I were near it."
"But is it possible to get home?" inquired the pale young man. "I
think I should be resigned if I could get home."
"Certainly," said the dry, hard voice of Prester John's confessor, as
his cowl fell a little back, and a sudden flush burned upon his gaunt
face; "if there is any chance of home, I will give up the Bishop's
palace in Central Africa."
"But Eldorado is my home," interposed the old Alchemist.
"Or is home Eldorado?" asked the poet, with the withered wreath,
turning towards the Alchemist.
It was a strange company and a wondrous voyage. Here were all kinds
of men, of all times and countries, pursuing the wildest hopes, the
most chimerical desires. One took me aside to request that I would not
let it be known, but that he inferred from certain signs we were
nearing Utopia. Another whispered gaily in my ear that he thought the
water was gradually becoming of a ruby color--the hue of wine; and he
had no doubt we should wake in the morning and find ourselves in the
land of Cockaigne. A third, in great anxiety, stated to me that such
continuous mists were unknown upon the ocean; that they were peculiar
to rivers, and that, beyond question, we were drifting along some
stream, probably the Nile, and immediate measures ought to be taken
that we did riot go ashore at the foot of the mountains of the
moon. Others were quite sure that we were in the way of striking the
great southern continent; and a young man, who gave his name as
Wilkins, said we might be quite at ease for presently some friends of
his would come flying over from the neighboring islands and tell us
all we wished.
Still I smelled the mouldy rigging, and the odor of cabbage was strong
from the hold.
O Prue, what could the ship be, in which such fantastic characters
were sailing toward impossible bournes--characters which in every age
have ventured all the bright capital of life in vague speculations and
romantic dreams? What could it be but the ship that haunts the sea for
ever, and, with all sails set, drives onward before a ceaseless gale,
and is not hailed, nor ever comes to port?
I know the ship is always full; I know the gray-beard still watches at
the prow for the lost Atlantis, and still the alchemist believes that
Eldorado is at hand. Upon his aimless quest, the dotard still asks
where he is going, and the pale youth knows that he shall never fly
himself. Yet they would gladly renounce that wild chase and the dear
dreams of years, could they find what I have never lost. They were
ready to follow the poet home, if he would have told them where it
lay.
I know where it lies. I breathe the soft air of the purple uplands
which they shall never tread. I hear the sweet music of the voices
they long for in vain. I am no traveller; my only voyage is to the
office and home again. William and Christopher, John and Charles sail
to Europe and the South, but I defy their romantic distances. When the
spring comes and the flowers blow, I drift through the year belted
with summer and with spice.
With the changing months I keep high carnival in all the zones. I sit
at home and walk with Prue, and if the sun that stirs the sap quickens
also the wish to wander, I remember my fellow-voyagers on that
romantic craft, and looking round upon my peaceful room, and pressing
more closely the arm of Prue, I feel that I have reached the port for
which they hopelessly sailed. And when winds blow fiercely and the
night-storm rages, and the thought of lost mariners and of perilous
voyages touches the soft heart of Prue, I hear a voice sweeter to my
ear than that of the syrens to the tempest-tost sailor: "Thank God!
Your only cruising is in the Flying Dutchman!"