Ah, Annatoo!
In order to a complete revelation, I must needs once again discourse of
Annatoo and her pilferings; and to what those pilferings led. In the
simplicity of my soul, I fancied that the dame, so much flattered as
she needs must have been, by the confidence I began to repose in her,
would now mend her ways, and abstain from her larcenies. But not so.
She was possessed by some scores of devils, perpetually her to mischief
on their own separate behoof, and not less for many of her pranks were
of no earthly advantage to her, present or prospective.
One day the log-reel was missing. Summon Annatoo. She came; but knew
nothing about it. Jarl spent a whole morning in contriving a
substitute; and a few days after, pop, we came upon the lost: article
hidden away in the main-top.
Another time, discovering the little vessel to “gripe” hard in
steering, as if some one under water were jerking her backward, we
instituted a diligent examination, to see what was the matter. When lo;
what should we find but a rope, cunningly attached to one of the
chain-plates under the starboard main-channel. It towed heavily in the
water. Upon dragging it up—much as you would the cord of a ponderous
bucket far down in a well—a stout wooden box was discovered at the end;
which opened, disclosed sundry knives, hatchets, and ax-heads.
Called to the stand, the Upoluan deposed, that thrice he had rescued
that identical box from Annatoo’s all-appropriating clutches.
Now, here were four human beings shut up in this little oaken craft,
and, for the time being, their interests the same. What sane mortal,
then, would forever be committing thefts, without rhyme or reason. It
was like stealing silver from one pocket and decanting it into the
other. And what might it not lead to in the end?
Why, ere long, in good sooth, it led to the abstraction of the compass
from the binnacle; so that we were fain to substitute for it, the one
brought along in the Chamois.
It was Jarl that first published this last and alarming theft. Annatoo
being at the helm at dawn, he had gone to relieve her; and looking to
see how we headed, was horror-struck at the emptiness of the binnacle.
I started to my feet; sought out the woman, and ferociously demanded
the compass. But her face was a blank; every word a denial.
Further lenity was madness. I summoned Samoa, told him what had
happened, and affirmed that there was no safety for us except in the
nightly incarceration of his spouse. To this he privily assented; and
that very evening, when Annatoo descended into the forecastle, we
barred over her the scuttle-slide. Long she clamored, but unavailingly.
And every night this was repeated; the dame saying her vespers most
energetically.
It has somewhere been hinted, that Annatoo occasionally cast sheep’s
eyes at Jarl. So I was not a little surprised when her manner toward
him decidedly changed. Pulling at the ropes with us, she would give him
sly pinches, and then look another way, innocent as a lamb. Then again,
she would refuse to handle the same piece of rigging with him; with wry
faces, rinsed out the wooden can at the water cask, if it so chanced
that my Viking had previously been drinking therefrom. At other times,
when the honest Skyeman came up from below, she would set up a shout of
derision, and loll out her tongue; accompanying all this by certain
indecorous and exceedingly unladylike gestures, significant of the
profound contempt in which she held him.
Yet, never did Jarl heed her ill-breeding; but patiently overlooked and
forgave it. Inquiring the reason of the dame’s singular conduct, I
learned, that with eye averted, she had very lately crept close to my
Viking, and met with no tender reception.
Doubtless, Jarl, who was much of a philosopher, innocently imagined
that ere long the lady would forgive and forget him. But what knows a
philosopher about women?
Ere long, so outrageous became Annatoo’s detestation of him, that the
honest old tar could stand it no longer, and like most good-natured men
when once fairly roused, he was swept through and through with a
terrible typhoon of passion. He proposed, that forthwith the woman
should be sacked and committed to the deep; he could stand it no
longer.
Murder is catching. At first I almost jumped at the proposition; but as
quickly rejected it. Ah! Annatoo: Woman unendurable: deliver me, ye
gods, from being shut up in a ship with such a hornet again.
But are we yet through with her? Not yet. Hitherto she had continued to
perform the duties of the office assigned her since the commencement of
the voyage: namely, those of the culinary department. From this she was
now deposed. Her skewer was broken. My Viking solemnly averring, that
he would eat nothing more of her concocting, for fear of being
poisoned. For myself, I almost believed, that there was malice enough
in the minx to give us our henbane broth.
But what said Samoa to all this? Passing over the matter of the
cookery, will it be credited, that living right among us as he did, he
was yet blind to the premeditated though unachieved peccadilloes of his
spouse? Yet so it was. And thus blind was Belisarius himself,
concerning the intrigues of Antonina.
Witness that noble dame’s affair with the youth Theodosius; when her
deluded lord charged upon the scandal-mongers with the very horns she
had bestowed upon him.
Upon one occasion, seized with a sudden desire to palliate Annatoo’s
thievings, Samoa proudly intimated, that the lady was the most virtuous
of her sex.
But alas, poor Annatoo, why say more? And bethinking me of the hard
fate that so soon overtook thee, I almost repent what has already and
too faithfully been portrayed.