AN OLD SEA SONG
The noise of the crew as they catted the anchor and made sail must
have waked me more than once, for to this very day I remember
hearing distinctly the loud chorus of a chantey, the trampling of
many feet, the creaking and rattling and calling--the strange jumble
of sounds heard only when a vessel is getting under way. But strange
and interesting though it all was, I must immediately have fallen
asleep again each time, for the memories come back to me like
strange snatches of a vivid dream, broken and disconnected, for all
that they are so clear.
When at last, having slept my sleep out, I woke with no inclination
to close my eyes again, and sat up in my berth, the brig was
pitching and rolling in a heavy sea, and a great wave of sickness
engulfed me, such as I had never experienced. How long it lasted, I
do not know, but at the time it seemed like months and years.
Perhaps, had I been forced to go on deck and work aloft, and eat
coarse sea-food, and meet my sickness like a man, I might have
thrown it off in short order and have got my sea-legs as soon as
another. But coming on board as the owner's nephew, with a stateroom
at my command, I lay and suffered untold wretchedness, now thinking
that I was getting better, now relapsing into agonies that seemed to
me ten times worse than before. Uncle Seth himself, I believe, was
almost as badly off, and Arnold Lamont and Willie MacDougald had a
time of it tending us. Even Arnold suffered a touch of sickness at
first; but recovering from it promptly, he took Uncle Seth and me
in his charge and set Willie jumping to attend our wants, which he
did with a comical alacrity that under other circumstances would
mightily have amused me.
I took what satisfaction I could in being able to come on deck two
days before Uncle Seth would stir from his bunk; but even then I was
good for nothing except to lie on a blanket that Arnold and Willie
spread for me, or to lean weakly against the rail.
But now, as I watched the blue seas through which the keen bow of
the brig, a Baltimore craft of clipper lines, swiftly and smoothly
cut its course, the great white sails, with every seam drawn to a
taut, clean curve by the wind, the occasional glimpses of low land
to the west, and the succession of great clouds that swept across
the blue sky like rolling masses of molten silver, I fell to
thinking in a dull, bewildered way of all that we had left behind.
How long would it be, I wondered, before someone would take charge
of the horses we had left on the wharf in Boston? I could imagine
the advertisement that would appear in the paper, and the questions
of the people, until news should come from Topham of all that had
happened. Who then, I wondered, would get the team?
Well, all that was done with, and we were embarked on our great
adventure. What was to become of us, no human prophet could
foretell.
Cornelius Gleazen, who years before had got over his last attack of
seasickness, welcomed me on deck, with rough good-nature; but
something in his manner told me that, from this time on, in his eyes
I was one of the crowd, no further from his favor, perhaps, than any
of the others, but certainly no nearer it.
To me, so weak from my long sickness that I could scarcely stand
unaided, this came like a blow, even although I had completely lost
my admiration for the man. I had been so sure of his friendly
interest! So confident of my own superiority! As I thought of it, I
slowly came to see that his kindness and flattery had been but a
part of his deep and well-considered plan to work into the
confidence of my uncle; that since he had secured his hold upon Seth
Upham and all his worldly goods, I, vain, credulous youth, might,
for all he cared, sink or swim.
"Well," he would say carelessly, "how's the lad this morning?" And
when I would reply from the depths of my misery, he would respond
briefly, as he strolled away, "Better pull yourself together.
There's work ahead for all hands."
It was not in his words, you understand, that I found indication of
his changed attitude,--he was always a man of careless speech,--but
in his manner of saying them. The tilt of his head, and his trick of
not looking at me when he spoke and when I replied, told me as
plainly as direct speech could have done that, having gained
whatever ends he had sought by flattery, he cared not a straw
whether I came with him or followed my own inclinations to the
opposite end of the earth.
So we sailed, south, until we entered the Straits of Florida. Now we
saw at a distance great scarlet birds flying in a row. Now schools
of porpoises played around us. Now a big crane, speckled brown and
white, alighted on our rigging. Now we passed green islands, now
sandy shoals where the sea rose into great waves and crashed down in
cauldrons of foam. And now we sighted land and learned that it was
Cuba.
All this time I had constantly been gaining strength, and though
more than once we had passed through spells of rough weather, I had
had no return of seasickness. It was natural, therefore, that I
should take an increasing interest in all that went on around me.
With some of the sailors I established myself on friendly terms,
although others seemed to suspect me of attempting to patronize
them; and thanks to the tutelage of Captain North, I made myself
familiar with the duties of the crew and with the more common
evolutions of a sailing ship. But in all that voyage only one thing
came to my notice that gave any suggestion of what was before us,
and that suggestion was so vague that at the time I did not suspect
how significant it was.
In the first dog watch one afternoon, the carpenter, who had a good
voice and a good ear for music, got out his guitar and, after
strumming a few chords, began to sing a song so odd that I set my
mind on remembering it, and later wrote the words down:
"Old King Mungo-Hungo-Ding
A barracoon he made,
And sold his blessed subjects to
A captain in the trade.
And when his subjects all were gone,
Oh, what did Mungo do?
He drove his wives and daughters in
And traded for them, too."
He sang it to a queer tune that caught my feet and set them
twitching, and it was no surprise to see three or four sailors begin
to shuffle about the deck in time to the music.
As the carpenter took up the chorus, they, too, began to sing softly
and to dance a kind of a hornpipe; but, I must confess, I was
surprised to hear someone behind me join in the singing under his
breath. The last time when I had heard that voice singing was in the
village church in Topham, and unless my memory serves me wrong, it
then had sung that good hymn:--
"No, I shall envy them no more, who grow profanely great;
Though they increase their golden store, and shine in robes of state."
It was Cornelius Gleazen, who, it appeared, knew both words and tune
of the carpenter's song:--
"Tally on the braces! Heave and haul in time!
Four and twenty niggers and all of them was prime!
Old King Mungo's daughters, they bought our lasses rings.
Heave now! Pull now! They never married kings."
They sang on and on to the strumming of the guitar, while all the
rest stood around and watched them; and when they had finished the
song, which told how King Mungo, when he had sold his family as well
as his subjects, made a raid upon his neighbors and was captured in
his turn and, very justly, was himself sold as a slave, Cornelius
Gleazen cried loudly, "_Encore! Encore!_" and clapped his hands,
until the carpenter, with a droll look in his direction, again began
to strum his guitar and sang the song all over.
As I have said, at the time I attributed little significance to
Cornelius Gleazen's enthusiasm for the song or to the look that the
carpenter gave him. But when I saw Captain North staring from one to
the other and realized that he had seen and heard only what I had, I
wondered why he wore so queer an expression, and why, for some time
to come, he was so grave and stiff in his dealings with both Gleazen
and Uncle Seth. Nor did it further enlighten me to see that Arnold
Lamont and Captain North exchanged significant glances.
So at last we came to the mouth of Havana harbor, and you can be
sure that when, after lying off the castle all night, we set our
Jack at the main as signal for a pilot, and passed through the
narrow strait between Moro Castle and the great battery of La
Punta, and came to anchor in the vast and beautiful port where a
thousand ships of war might have lain, I was all eyes for my first
near view of a foreign city.
On every side were small boats plying back and forth, some laden
with freight of every description, from fresh fruit to nondescript,
dingy bales, others carrying only one or two passengers or a single
oarsman. There were scores of ships, some full of stir and activity
getting up anchor and making sail, others seeming half asleep as
they lay with only a drowsy anchor watch. On shore, besides the
grand buildings and green avenues and long fortifications, I could
catch here and there glimpses of curious two-wheeled vehicles, of
men and women with bundles on their heads, of countless negroes
lolling about on one errand or another, and, here and there, of men
on horseback. I longed to hurry ashore, and when I saw Uncle Seth
and Neil Gleazen deep in conversation, I had great hopes that I
should accomplish my desire. But something at that moment put an end
for the time being to all such thoughts.
Among the boats that were plying back and forth I saw one that
attracted my attention by her peculiar manoeuvres. A negro was
rowing her at the command of a big dark man, who leaned back in the
stern and looked sharply about from one side to the other. Now he
had gone beyond us, but instead of continuing, he came about and
drew nearer.
He wore his hair in a pig-tail, an old fashion that not many men
continued to observe, and on several fingers he wore broad gold
rings. His face was seamed and scarred. There were deep cuts on
cheek and chin, which might have been either scars or natural
wrinkles, and across his forehead and down one cheek were two white
lines that must have been torn in the first place by some weapon or
missile. His hands were big and broad and powerful, and there was a
grimly determined air in the set of his head and the thin line of
his mouth that made me think of him as a man I should not like to
meet alone in the dark.
From the top of his round head to the soles of his feet, his whole
body gave an impression of great physical strength. His jaws and
chin were square and massive; his bull neck sloped down to great
broad shoulders, and his deep chest made his long, heavy arms seem
to hang away from his body. As he lay there in the stern of the
boat, with every muscle relaxed, yet with great swelling masses
standing out under his skin all over him, I thought to myself that
never in all my life had I seen so powerful a man.
Now he leaned forward and murmured something to the negro, who with
a stroke of his oars deftly brought the boat under the stern of the
Adventure and held her there. Then the man, smiling slightly, amazed
me by calling in a voice so soft and gentle and low that it seemed
almost effeminate: "Neil Gleazen! Neil Gleazen!"
The effect on Cornelius Gleazen was startling almost beyond words.
Springing up and staring from one side to the other as if he could
not believe his ears, he roared furiously: "By the Holy! Molly
Matterson, where are you?"
Then the huge bull of a man, speaking in that same low, gentle
voice, said; "So you know me, Neil?"
"Know you? I'd know your voice from Pongo River to Penzance,"
Gleazen replied, whirling about and leaning far over the taffrail.
The big man laughed so lightly that his voice seemed almost to
tinkle. "You're eager, Neil," he said. Then he glanced at me and
spoke again in a language that I could not understand. At the time I
had no idea what it was, but since then I have come to know
well--too well--that it was Spanish.
And all the time my uncle stood by with a curiously wistful
expression. It was as if he felt himself barred from their council;
as if he longed to be one of them, hand in glove, and yet felt that
there was between him and them a gap that he could not quite bridge;
as if with his whole heart he had given himself and everything that
was his, as indeed he had, only to receive a cold welcome.
Remembering how haughtily Uncle Seth himself had but a little while
ago regarded the good people of Topham, how seldom he had expressed
even the very deep affection in which he held me, his only sister's
only son, I marveled at the simple, frank eagerness with which he
now watched those two; and since anyone could see that of him they
were thinking lightly, if at all, I felt for him a pang of sympathy.
For a while the two talked together. Now they glanced at me, now at
the others. I am confident that they told no secrets, for of course
there was always the chance that some of us might speak the tongue,
too. But that they talked more freely than they would have talked in
English, I was very confident.
At last Gleazen said, "Come aboard at all events."
Instead of going around to the chains, the big man whom Gleazen had
hailed as Molly Matterson stood up in the boat, crouched slightly,
and leaping straight into the air, caught the taffrail with one
hand. Gracefully, easily, he lifted himself by that one hand to the
rail, placed his other hand upon it, where his gold rings gleamed
dully, and lightly vaulted to the deck.
I now saw better what a huge man he was, for he towered above us
all, even Neil Gleazen, and he seemed almost as broad across the
chest as any two of us.
He gently shook hands with Uncle Seth and Captain North, to whom
Gleazen introduced him, again glanced curiously at the rest of us,
and then stepped apart with Gleazen and Uncle Seth. I could hear
only a little of what they said, and the little that I did hear was
concerned with unfamiliar names and mysterious things.
I saw Arnold Lamont watching them, too, and remembering how they had
talked in a strange language, I wished that Arnold might have
appeared to know what they had been saying. Well as I thought I knew
Arnold, it never occurred to me that he might have known and, for
reasons of his own, have held his tongue.
Of one thing I was convinced, however; the strange talk that was now
going on was no such puzzle to Captain Gideon North as to me. The
more he listened, the more his lips twitched and the more his frown
deepened. It was queer, I thought, that he should appear to be so
quick-tempered as to show impatience because he was not taken into
their counsel. He had seemed so honest and fair-minded and generous
that I had not suspected him of any such pettiness.
Presently Gleazen turned about and said loudly, "Captain North, we
are going below to have a glass of wine together. Will you come?"
The captain hesitated, frowned, and then, as if he had suddenly made
up his mind that he might as well have things over soon as late,
stalked toward the companionway.
Twenty minutes afterward, to the amazement of every man on deck, he
came stamping up again, red with anger, followed by Willie
MacDougald, who was staggering under the weight of his bag. Ordering
a boat launched, he turned to Uncle Seth, who had followed him and
stood behind him with a blank, dismayed look.
"Mr. Upham," he said, "I am sorry to leave your vessel like this,
but I will not, sir, I will not remain in command of any craft
afloat, be she coasting brig or ship-of-the-line, where the owner's
friends are suffered to treat me thus. Willie, drop my bag into the
boat."
And with that, red-faced and breathing hard, he left the Adventure
and gave angry orders to the men in the boat, who rowed him ashore.
But it was not the last that we were to see of Gideon North.
[Illustration]
III
A LOW LAND IN THE EAST
[Illustration]