A STRICKEN DEMON
It has been a frequent matter of remark, not merely by myself, but by
all the writers with whom I have conversed who have ever interviewed
old sailors on the subject of their experiences, how difficult it is
for the latter to tell what they have seen. Their memories are most
keen, but the mighty happenings they have witnessed seem to overwhelm
their simple vocabulary, and they will suddenly break off in the
midst of a splendid tale, and, holding up their hands in a gesture of
despair, cry out, ‘Oh, God, if I _could_ only tell ye what I’ve seen!’
I am led to think that perhaps it is this felt inability to do justice
to the memory of what they have really seen that has often made sailors
possessed of vivid imaginations invent magnificent lies, rushing by
some curious mental paradox into the opposite extreme, from the sober
recital of fact to an absurdly extravagant invention of fiction.
But be that as it may, there can be no doubt that even those who have
been most successful in the attempt to transport their readers to
the scenes which they themselves have witnessed, are often touched
by the same feeling of inability, as the grandeur of the scenes they
would fain depict flashes through their minds. They sit with poised
pen--present, indeed, as to the body at their desks, but in spirit, by
some unexplainable mystery, away back amid the surroundings of those
former years, going through it all again. And thus they sit waiting,
waiting, prisoners of hope, until relief comes in some commonplace word
or thought, and the pen is re-started, to run perchance glibly enough
until again arrested in like manner.
These reflections irresistibly arise as I recall similar scenes to the
one which I would now describe: that splendid silken circle of sea and
dome of sky just commencing to palpitate with the glories of the new
day; those low, tender ranges of softest cloud like carelessly piled
heaps of snowy down, with sober grey bases almost parallel with the
horizon, and summits blushing sweetly with all the warm tints of the
coming sun; through the eternal concave overhead running tremulous
sprays of liveliest colour throbbing and changing incessantly on their
background of deep violet, from which the modest stars are quietly
fading before the advent of morning. Across the mirror-like surface
of the ocean great splashes of colour come and go in never-ending
progression, although there be never a cloud from which they may be
reflected and their pure hues come direct from the impalpable ether
around. And in the centre of it all, grating at first upon the mind
as the only discordant note in the harmony otherwise reigning, is a
ship surrounded by the greasy, mutilated carcasses of her spoil--that
spoil which was so recently fulfilling the exhortation of that glorious
hymn, ‘O ye whales, and all that move in the waters, bless ye the
Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever.’ What a hideous scene of
squalor it does appear, to be sure! Great shapeless masses of flesh
and fat and bone, huge clots of black blood, an undefinable odour of
death--for the time has not yet come for corruption to defile air as
well as sea--and in the midst of it all, fiercely toiling, hacking,
thrusting, tearing, yelling, blaspheming, are the slayers. From every
pore the ship exudes oil warm from the body, at every roll a new extent
of ‘sleeky’ water is thrust out from her slimy sides. Gradually, as the
space in her main-hold known as the blubber-room becomes filled up, the
limited area on deck is piled with the masses of blubber, and the oil
which exudes from them fills up the carefully caulked decks and at each
wallowing roll she makes rises against the bulwarks, which are almost
as impervious as the deck itself. So inside, outside, half-way up the
mainmast, she reeks with blood and grease, while the water all around
is a seething mass of silent voracity. From who knows how far away the
hungry denizens of the deep sea have hastened to the feast, summoned by
some unerring sense, of which we know nothing at all. No one, as far as
I know, has ever attempted to compute the number of the host of sharks
alone which surround a whaleship while she secures her spoil; so I
shall not try. It would be only a wild guess, after all, for they come
and go incessantly in utmost haste, and as far as the eye can see the
water is aboil with their strugglings to secure at least some portion
of the great feast.
Of the other deep-sea citizens present I can say little. They are to be
seen of course, but only occasionally, for this feast is peculiarly the
shark’s great opportunity, and it is no easy matter for any other fish
to displace him. In the air, the hungry self-invited guests may be few
or many, according to the position of the ship. In the North Atlantic
birds are far less plentiful than they are in the South, for some
reason which I have never been able to find out, and consequently in
this great scene of spoliation which I am now attempting to limn there
were only about a dozen or twenty ’gulls.’
During its progress, as during the hunting, Priscilla sat on the top
of the after-house motionless under the influence of some horrible
fascination which she could not resist. She watched the lithe form of
her saturnine husband as, leaning over the rail of the cutting-stage,
he dealt blow after blow at the black and white masses beneath him,
or occasionally varied his labours by a sidelong thrust which severed
some thieving shark’s head from its body. But she noted that while
he appeared to be doing more than any other member of the crew, his
physical efforts never interfered with his mental energies in the
oversight of his men. He seemed to know where every man was, and what
he was, or ought to be, doing. An incessant stream of orders, threats,
and cursings poured from his throat, which was apparently of brass,
since it never got hoarse. The only physical sign of his vocal labours
was the foam with which his raven-black beard was flecked.
Utterly brutal, utterly callous and heartless as she now knew her
husband to be, she could not withhold from him a silent tribute of
admiration for his powers of command and organisation, and for his
courage. She felt shuddering pity for the poor men, who, against
the most urgent calls of Nature to rest their tortured limbs, went
fiercely toiling on as if only by that means could they avert sudden,
violent death. Once or twice she gave vent to a low moan of compassion
as she saw the Captain leap inboard with a tiger-like spring and fall
upon some man whom his eagle eye had detected lagging behind the
others, assailing him with the utmost ferocity by knocking him down,
jumping on him, kicking him as if determined to do him to death. Again
and again she turned to go, overcome by the horror of these constantly
recurring scenes, but she could not: she was compelled to remain and
witness them while powerless to help and unable even to pray that God
would have mercy upon these poor wretches upon whom man--at least her
man--had none.
What man has done, man can and will do unless restrained by powerful
laws, and what was done amid such scenes as I am recalling was
gentleness itself when compared with what went on aboard the galleys
of ancient days--scenes which no modern writer has dared, or would
dare, to put comprehensively into print. For even on board a whaler,
where one man embodied all the law or justice obtainable by anybody,
the blessed influences of Christianity in the modifying of cruelty were
felt, and things were thus not nearly as bad as they might have been;
nay, they were only in exceptional cases as bad as I have represented.
This fact, I think, deserves special emphasis, because it goes to show
that the majority of men in command of these ships, knowing full well
that they were never likely to be called to account for any cruelties
they might commit in the name of discipline, yet abstained from
exercising their autocratic power, or only used it when it became
undoubtedly necessary that they should do so.
Gradually the mighty task drew to its close. One by one the vast
carcasses were cut adrift and floated away, each the centre of a
writhing mass of hungry creatures fiercely fighting for places at the
feast, which, great as it was, seemed but a trifle compared with the
host of candidates for it. One by one the huge square ‘cases’ were hove
up alongside and their bland contents ladled out into the tanks below.
But when the last but one was being emptied, as it hung, a weight of
some twenty tons, suspended from the cutting-in falls, Captain Da Silva
went to the waist, and, leaning up against the case, looked down to see
whether or not the precious spermaceti was draining away from some cut
in its walls, as he suspected it was. As he did so the ship rolled ever
so slightly, and without any warning the massive chain slings which
held the case aloft tore out. It fell like an avalanche descending,
a big flap of ‘white horse’ or head integument curling round the
Captain’s body and whirling him after it into the fathomless depths. It
was so terribly sudden that Priscilla was momentarily stunned, but with
returning breath she uttered a wild cry of terror and fell fainting,
her overwrought condition of nerves unable to bear this last great
shock. For one moment the crew also stood like statues, but ere one
could count five, the third mate and second boat-steerer had leaped
into the sea after their commander, although they knew (none better)
of the swarming sharks and the many other reasons why they should be
unsuccessful. But all traces of him had vanished, and realising that
not only were they most dangerously situated, but that they could
see better from above, they climbed on deck again with all the speed
they might, reaching it at the same moment as Captain Da Silva’s head
appeared on the other side above the rail.
For a few moments all who witnessed his rising stared with starting
eyes at what they deemed to be his wraith, but his hoarse voice, full
of anger, roused them instantly from their brief lethargy. ‘Naouw,
then, whutye all gapping at, like a lot er ---- suckers’s y’air. Git
along wi’ thet work, ’relse I’ll be ’mong ye in mighty short order,
naouw I’m telling ye.’ And each man sprang to his task as does a
mettled horse when the lash falls unexpectedly across his flanks. And
Captain Da Silva strode off muttering maledictions. Perhaps it was all
the formula of thanksgiving which he knew: certainly no word of praise
for the miracle of his escape out of the very jaws of death crossed
his lips. He had been carried down by that long sliver of skin which
had enwrapped him and held him tightly bound to the mighty mass of the
case until he felt as if his head were a boiler under a full pressure
of steam. But as the ‘case’ sank, by some mysterious influence it
spun round, or rather revolved, for its motion was but slow, and in
doing so it unwound the clinging band from the skipper’s body. Never
having lost his presence of mind, and being as nearly amphibious as the
rest of his island countrymen, he sprang upward to the surface, just
grazing the bilge on the opposite side of the ship to that from which
he had descended, and grasping a bight of the main sheet which dangled
invitingly alongside, he swung himself aboard, ready and alert to
resume the tyranny he loved.
The whole affair of his departure and return had been so dramatically
sudden that Captain Da Silva was in his cabin shouting for Priscilla
to give him dry garments before she had recovered from her swoon. His
angry demands brought the trembling steward at his best gait. To his
breath-bated inquiry the skipper shouted:
‘Whar’s Mrs. Da Silva, yew black beast; whar’s my wife?’
‘Please, sah, de madam’s done gone swounded, an’ I ain’t can fotch ’er
to yit. I----’
But flinging him aside as if he had been a bundle of rags, the skipper
rushed on deck to where Priscilla was sitting up wearily passing a
hand over her dazed eyes and wondering what strange thing had befallen
her. He seized her arm roughly, and in tones of deepest scorn demanded
what sort of ---- game she called this? Was he to wait in his wet
clothes while she lolled about on deck playing the (more unsavoury
adjectives) fool? Mechanically she staggered to her feet, and, like
some unreasoning but faithful animal, tottered towards the cabin. I
doubt if she would have been surprised had her husband accelerated her
progress by a kick, to such a numbness of brain had she come. But she
did his bidding, accepted all his blasphemous grumbling, and made no
sign. For she was, in the fullest sense of that much-abused brace of
words, heart-broken. Her spirit was crushed, never to awake again as it
had been; her love was dead, and only patient, animal-like obedience
remained. Did any compunction arise in the man’s mind for what he had
done to that trusting, loving woman? Those who think so little know
the capacity of man for cruelty. A grim smile lit up his diabolically
handsome features as he noted her quiet performance of his commands,
and although he said no word it was easy to see with what fiendish
pleasure he realised this new proof of his power to rule others with a
rod of iron.
Without pausing to do more than glance at his injuries--one long
black and green bruise which wound twice round his body, and another
extending from his right thigh to his heel, with the skin broken in
many places--he hastily dressed himself in dry clothes and, without
casting another glance at the submissive figure of his wife, rushed
on deck. Fortunately for all of them, the crew were working hard
to secure the masses of junk (solid pieces, each several tons in
weight, cut from the whale’s head), lashing jaw-bones, clearing away
try-works, getting up mincing-machine and tricing up gear out of the
way of the all-pervading grease. He cast one comprehensive, scowling
glance around, which deepened in its frown when he found no cause of
complaint, and at once assumed sole command. For the next hour his
orders flew like volleys of musketry, spurring on the almost spent men
to give up the last ounce of their strength. And then suddenly, as
if God had taken pity on those hapless men, the tyrant’s indomitable
strength and pluck gave out together, and he sank to the deck moaning
feebly, ‘Take me below, ---- ye, take me below.’ Even with what seemed
the last breath he needs must curse those upon whom he was now utterly
dependent for all his wants.
So, inert, all his great energy vanished, and his wiry limbs hanging
limply as loose ropes’ ends, he was borne below to his bunk, his
appearance in this guise startling Priscilla again, but arousing in
her now no such feelings as those with which she had witnessed his
disappearance over the rail so short a time before. With quiet dignity
she directed the bearers where to lay him, thanked them, and dismissed
them. Then, left alone with the man for whom she had given up her
life, and more than her own life, had she but known, she went about
the duty of attendance upon him methodically, carefully, but with no
more feeling than if he had been an utter stranger. All that she could
do for him she did, but of affection in her ministrations there was no
trace. Presently with a feeling of relief, such as usually accompanies
the successful conclusion of a difficult task, she saw him pass from
coma to sleep, heard him breathe naturally, and watched the ghastly
pallor of his face give place to its healthy olive hue. Then she took
some needlework and sat down by his side, ready to attend upon him when
he woke, determined to do her very utmost for him dutifully, and hoping
to make faithful service take the place of the love she knew she would
never feel for him again.
Perhaps I may be pardoned for anticipating criticism here by a word
or two. I know well that women can, and do, show love of the deepest,
truest, holiest kind for men who not merely speak to them harshly, but
beat, starve, or ill-treat them in every way. But Priscilla was not
one of these women. It may be, too, that her love for Ramon Da Silva
was not love in the best sense of the word, but merely a hurricane
gust of passion that for a season had changed the whole surface of
her being, while leaving unruffled the great depths below. I do not
know, nor do I care to dogmatise, but of this I am sure--that there
are many Priscillas about, worthy of all the love of a good man, and
fully capable of returning it, whose love, calmly, thoughtfully given,
would be changed into utter dislike and contempt for the once loved
one if they should have the misfortune to discover him to be cruel or
disgusting. And for one I dare not say that they are therefore in any
way worthy of blame, or are not perfectly true and lovable women.
Now ensued a period of calm satisfaction for all hands, tempered only
by the knowledge that it would soon come to an end. The exceedingly
heavy toil of mincing the blubber, boiling down the oil, storing it in
casks, and disposing those casks in easily accessible positions about
the decks, went on without intermission, but quietly. Every man worked
as if the knowledge of his tyrant’s impotence, for a time at any rate,
had supplied him with an incentive. But the Captain was suffering utter
torment below. Ordinarily he was quite wanting in what we vaguely
speak of as nerves: he worried about nothing. Now, however, his great
strength entirely gone from him, knowing how large a task was in hand
on deck, and knowing, too, how glad was every man on board that he,
their despot, was helpless, he raged and fumed, and thereby retarded
his recovery greatly. But for those who came in contact with him, this
time was a terrible one. His poor wife and the negro steward lived in
utter terror of him, although physically he was powerless to do them
harm.
Perhaps it may be thought that too severe a description of this man
has been given, and that thereby some injustice has been done to men
generally. But if so, I would like to ask objectors whether they have
never had the misfortune to know anybody, not necessarily a man, who
would, given the opportunity have behaved quite as badly as Captain
Da Silva. God knows, I have no wish to libel any of my fellow men or
women, but I am absolutely certain that but for the grace of God, the
sweet influences of Christianity, there are very few of us who can be
trusted with absolute power over our fellows. And if any doubt were
possible, surely the records of the National Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Children would dispel it. The sight of helplessness does
in some infernal way seem to generate in many minds an irresistible
desire to inflict suffering upon the helpless. And it needs all our
faith in God, as well as all our recollection of the tender love that
fills so many hearts, to keep us from feeling that mankind in general
is possessed by all those attributes which we have agreed to consider
as the characteristics of Satan. Of course, like all other qualities,
cruelty needs special opportunities for its full development as well as
a deliberate cultivation. And for this reason I have never been able to
understand why so many otherwise level-headed people should object to
corporal punishment for the perpetrators of cruelty, since it is almost
invariably the case that cruel people are most tenderly solicitous
for the care of their own susceptibilities to pain. Exceptions there
are to this rule, of course, and Captain Da Silva was one. No amount
of corporal punishment would have deterred him from being again the
merciless monster he was by nature, given fitting opportunity; for
he, as I have already endeavoured to point out, had an almost Chinese
disregard of personal suffering. But even he was certainly no worse for
the tasting in his own proper person of some of the pains he was wont
to bestow lavishly upon others.
Only two persons wished him speedily well, and for obvious reasons.
They were his personal attendants. The chief mate, whose business
brought him below periodically to report progress, always had to summon
up all his courage to face his suffering chief, always returned to
upper air again acutely conscious of relief, although he was a man of
great ability and resource, and, moreover, had the comforting knowledge
that under his (comparatively) mild rule the work was slipping along
on greased wheels. But (and this is one of the peculiarly subtle
depravities of some natures) he could not help feeling that his
commander’s irritation at his own helplessness was in no way lessened
by the knowledge that affairs were going on quite smoothly without his
interference--that, in fact, it would have been in some measure an
alleviation of his sufferings could he have known that, bereft of his
oversight, matters were at sixes and sevens. And each time the mate
came to report, and gave him the bland information that all was going
as well as possible, the men were working with a will, the weather
continued fine, and the blubber was yielding most richly, the skipper
was instant in cross-examination on every detail, apparently in the
hope that he might somehow find occasion to vent his long pent-up
spleen upon someone else beside his wife and the negro steward.
Nothing transpired, however, to gratify him, and at the end of the
sixth day from his accident the mate reported all oil barrelled
and half of it stowed; that the crew were busy now with lye and
sand cleaning up; that the mastheads were manned, and---- But right
in the middle of his flow of words came the most thrilling cry of
‘Blo-o-o-o-w.’ The mate stopped in the middle of a word and looked
round listeningly. But his skipper, maddened almost beyond endurance
at the knowledge of his own helplessness, and that his subordinates
would now have an opportunity of showing their capabilities without
any overlordship of his, hurled at the listening mate one long yell
of profanity which had the effect of sending the latter scampering
rabbit-wise up the tortuous cuddy stairs on deck.
Fortunately for Priscilla, the raging emotions of her husband,
conjoined with his bodily weakness, had the effect of rendering him
utterly helpless both in mind and body. For a while she busied herself
quietly in such necessary attentions as she was able to render, then,
hearing as in some realistic dream the weird tumult on deck, and
feeling her own utter loneliness, she did that which is, thank God,
open to us all, if in varying degrees. She lifted her tired heart to
God, remembering with a bitter pang of repentance the many perfunctory
repetitions of ‘Our Father’ she had performed; a remembrance which
brought a host of others in its wake. The quiet times of family worship
she had yawned over behind her hand, the glorious words of Holy Writ
passing her then unlistening ears like meaningless jargon, the tender
father who had never given her a harsh word during her recollection
of him, the faithful, plodding mother, whom she had forsaken at the
lightest word of a stranger, and the dog-like devotion of---- But no;
_that_ thought must not be encouraged. From her uneasy seat she slid
to her knees, and from her overloaded heart poured forth her unspoken
prayers--not for deliverance, but for strength, for peace of mind, for
knowledge how to do and say the right thing and word at the right time.
And as the subtle communications passed between that suffering heart
and the Centre of all Solace, the blessed dew of peace descended upon
her spirit, and she felt that the victory was won, for the present at
any rate.
Meanwhile, though unheeded by her, the uproar on deck had reached its
climax, then suddenly ceased, and a profound silence reigned. She
sat, listening intently, but in nowise alarmed: she felt past all
that. Until presently a comical black head, with wide white eyeballs,
protruded from the state-room door. Its glance, fearfully questing,
caught hers, and in reply to her whispered inquiry came a murmur:
‘Dey’s awl goen away, Mistis; on’y me an’ de cook, carpenter an’ cooper
an’ shipkeepers am lef’. But it looks laik a mighty fine school of spam
whales dey’s onter, an’ ef dey gets um may be de skipper please, an’t
it?’