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This carefully crafted ebook: "MARDI (Modern Classics Series)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Mardi, and a Voyage Thither details the traveling of an American sailor who abandons his whaling vessel to explore the South Pacific. The center of the story is a romance between the narrator Taji and Yillah, the mysterious blonde who suddenly appears and disappears. We also follow the voyage of the philosopher Babbalanja and his travel companions through the archipelago of Mardi. Beginning as a travelogue, the adventure story gives way to a romance story, which gives way to a philosophical quest. Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. His writing draws on his experience at sea as a common sailor, exploration of literature and philosophy, and engagement in the contradictions of American society in a period of rapid change. His best known works include Typee, a romantic account of his experiences in Polynesian life, its sequel Omoo, and his novel Moby-Dick.
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MARDI (Modern Classics Series)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Volume 1
Chapter 1. Foot In Stirrup
Chapter 2. A Calm
Chapter 3. A King For A Comrade
Chapter 4. A Chat In The Clouds
Chapter 5. Seats Secured And Portmanteaus Packed
Chapter 6. Eight Bells
Chapter 7. A Pause
Chapter 8. They Push Off, Velis Et Remis
Chapter 9. The Watery World Is All Before Them
Chapter 10. They Arrange Their Canopies And Lounges, And Try To Make Things Comfortable
Chapter 11. Jarl Afflicted With The Lockjaw
Chapter 12. More About Being In An Open Boat
Chapter 13. Of The Chondropterygii, And Other Uncouth Hordes Infesting The South Seas
Chapter 14. Jarl’s Misgivings
Chapter 15. A Stitch In Time Saves Nine
Chapter 16. They Are Becalmed
Chapter 17. In High Spirits, They Push On For The Terra Incognita
Chapter 18. My Lord Shark And His Pages
Chapter 19. Who Goes There?
Chapter 20. Noises And Portents
Chapter 21. Man Ho!
Chapter 22. What Befel The Brigantine At The Pearl Shell Islands
Chapter 23. Sailing From The Island They Pillage The Cabin
Chapter 24. Dedicated To The College Of Physicians And Surgeons
Chapter 25. Peril A Peace–Maker
Chapter 26. Containing A Pennyweight Of Philosophy
Chapter 27. In Which The Past History Op The Parki Is Concluded
Chapter 28. Suspicions Laid, And Something About The Calmuc
Chapter 29. What They Lighted Upon In Further Searching The Craft, And The Resolution They Came To
Chapter 30. Hints For A Full Length Of Samoa
Chapter 31. Rovings Alow And Aloft
Chapter 32. Xiphius Platypterus
Chapter 33. Otard
Chapter 34. How They Steered On Their Way
Chapter 35. Ah, Annatoo!
Chapter 36. The Parki Gives Up The Ghost
Chapter 37. Once More They Take To The Chamois
Chapter 38. The Sea On Fire
Chapter 39. They Fall In With Strangers
Chapter 40. Sire And Sons
Chapter 41. A Fray
Chapter 42. Remorse
Chapter 43. The Tent Entered
Chapter 44. Away
Chapter 45. Reminiscences
Chapter 46. The Chamois With A Roving Commission
Chapter 47. Yillah, Jarl, And Samoa
Chapter 48. Something Under The Surface
Chapter 49. Yillah
Chapter 50. Yillah In Ardair
Chapter 51. The Dream Begins To Fade
Chapter 52. World Ho!
Chapter 53. The Chamois Ashore
Chapter 54. A Gentleman From The Sun
Chapter 55. Tiffin In A Temple
Chapter 56. King Media A Host
Chapter 57. Taji Takes Counsel With Himself
Chapter 58. Mardi By Night And Yillah By Day
Chapter 59. Their Morning Meal
Chapter 60. Belshazzar On The Bench
Chapter 61. An Incognito
Chapter 62. Taji Retires From The World
Chapter 63. Odo And Its Lord
Chapter 64. Yillah A Phantom
Chapter 65. Taji Makes Three Acquaintances
Chapter 66. With A Fair Wind, At Sunrise They Sail
Chapter 67. Little King Peepi
Chapter 68. How Teeth Were Regarded In Valapee
Chapter 69. The Company Discourse, And Braid–Beard Rehearses A Legend
Chapter 70. The Minstrel Leads Off With A Paddle–Song; And A Message Is Received From Abroad
Chapter 71. They Land Upon The Island Of Juam
Chapter 72. A Book From The Chronicles Of Mohi
Chapter 73. Something More Of The Prince
Chapter 74. Advancing Deeper Into The Vale, They Encounter Donjalolo
Chapter 75. Time And Temples
Chapter 76. A Pleasant Place For A Lounge
Chapter 77. The House Of The Afternoon
Chapter 78. Babbalanja Solus
Chapter 79. The Center Of Many Circumferences
Chapter 80. Donjalolo In The Bosom Of His Family
Chapter 81. Wherein Babbalanja Relates The Adventure Of One Karkeke In The Land Of Shades
Chapter 82. How Donjalolo, Sent Agents To The Surrounding Isles; With The Result
Chapter 83. They Visit The Tributary Islets
Chapter 84. Taji Sits Down To Dinner With Five–And-Twenty Kings, And A Royal Time They Have
Chapter 85. After Dinner
Chapter 86. Of Those Scamps The Plujii
Chapter 87. Nora–Bamma
Chapter 88. In A Calm, Hautia’s Heralds Approach
Chapter 89. Braid–Beard Rehearses The Origin Of The Isle Of Rogues
Chapter 90. Rare Sport At Ohonoo
Chapter 91. Of King Uhia And His Subjects
Chapter 92. The God Keevi And The Precipice Op Mondo
Chapter 93. Babbalanja Steps In Between Mohi And Yoomy; And Yoomy Relates A Legend
Chapter 94. Of That Jolly Old Lord, Borabolla; And That Jolly Island Of His, Mondoldo; And Of The Fish–Ponds, And The Hereafters Of Fish
Chapter 95. That Jolly Old Lord Borabolla Laughs On Both Sides Of His Face
Chapter 96. Samoa A Surgeon
Chapter 97. Faith And Knowledge
Chapter 98. The Tale Of A Traveler
Chapter 99. “Marnee Ora, Ora Marnee”
Chapter 100. The Pursuer Himself Is Pursued
Chapter 101. The Iris
Chapter 102. They Depart From Mondoldo
Chapter 103. As They Sail
Chapter 104. Wherein Babbalanja Broaches A Diabolical Theory, And, In His Own Person, Proves It
Volume 2
Chapter 1. Maramma
Chapter 2. They Land
Chapter 3. They Pass Through The Woods
Chapter 4. Hivohitee Mdcccxlviii
Chapter 5. They Visit The Great Morai
Chapter 6. They Discourse Of The Gods Of Mardi, And Braid–Beard Tells Of One Foni
Chapter 7. They Visit The Lake Of Yammo
Chapter 8. They Meet The Pilgrims At The Temple Of Oro
Chapter 9. They Discourse Of Alma
Chapter 10. Kohl Tells Of One Ravoo, And They Land To Visit Revaneva, A Flourishing Artisan
Chapter 11. A Nursery–Tale Of Babbalanja’s
Chapter 12. Landing To Visit Hivohitee The Pontiff, They Encounter An Extraordinary Old Hermit; With Whom Yoomy Has A Confidential Interview, But Learns Little
Chapter 13. Babbalanja Endeavors To Explain The Mystery
Chapter 14. Taji Receives Tidings And Omens
Chapter 15. Dreams
Chapter 16. Media And Babbalanja Discourse
Chapter 17. They Regale Themselves With Their Pipes
Chapter 18. They Visit An Extraordinary Old Antiquary
Chapter 19. They Go Down Into The Catacombs
Chapter 20. Babbalanja Quotes From An Antique Pagan; And Earnestly Presses It Upon The Company, That What He Recites Is Not His, But Another’s
Chapter 21. They Visit A Wealthy Old Pauper
Chapter 22. Yoomy Sings Some Odd Verses, And Babbalanja Quotes From The Old Authors Right And Left
Chapter 23. What Manner Of Men The Tapparians Were
Chapter 24. Their Adventures Upon Landing At Pimminee
Chapter 25. A, I, and O
Chapter 26. A Reception Day At Pimminee
Chapter 27. Babbalanja Falleth Upon Pimminee Tooth And Nail
Chapter 28. Babbalanja Regales The Company With Some Sandwiches
Chapter 29. They Still Remain Upon The Rock
Chapter 30. Behind And Before
Chapter 31. Babbalanja Discourses In The Dark
Chapter 32. My Lord Media Summons Mohi To The Stand
Chapter 33. Wherein Babbalanja And Yoomy Embrace
Chapter 34. Of The Isle Of Diranda
Chapter 35. They Visit The Lords Piko And Hello
Chapter 36. They Attend The Games
Chapter 37. Taji Still Hunted, And Beckoned
Chapter 38. They Embark From Diranda
Chapter 39. Wherein Babbalanja Discourses Of Himself
Chapter 40. Of The Sorcerers In The Isle Of Minda
Chapter 41. Chiefly Of Sing Bello
Chapter 42. Dominora And Vivenza
Chapter 43. They Land At Dominora
Chapter 44. Through Dominora, They Wander After Yillah
Chapter 45. They Behold King Bello’s State Canoe
Chapter 46. Wherein Babbalanja Bows Thrice
Chapter 47. Babbalanja Philosophizes, And My Lord Media Passes Round The Calabashes
Chapter 48. They Sail Round An Island Without Landing; And Talk Round A Subject Without Getting At It
Chapter 49. They Draw Nigh To Porpheero; Where They Behold A Terrific Eruption
Chapter 50. Wherein King Media Celebrates The Glories Of Autumn, The Minstrel, The Promise Of Spring
Chapter 51. In Which Azzageddi Seems To Use Babbalanja For A Mouth–Piece
Chapter 52. The Charming Yoomy Sings
Chapter 53. They Draw Nigh Unto Land
Chapter 54. They Visit The Great Central Temple Of Vivenza
Chapter 55. Wherein Babbalanja Comments Upon The Speech Of Alanno
Chapter 56. A Scene In Tee Land Of Warwicks, Or King–Makers
Chapter 57. They Hearken Unto A Voice From The Gods
Chapter 58. They Visit The Extreme South Of Vivenza
Chapter 59. They Converse Of The Mollusca, Kings, Toad–Stools And Other Matters
Chapter 60. Wherein, That Gallant Gentleman And Demi–God, King Media, Scepter In Hand, Throws Himself Into The Breach
Chapter 61. They Round The Stormy Cape Of Capes
Chapter 62. They Encounter Gold–Hunters
Chapter 63. They Seek Through The Isles Of Palms; And Pass The Isles Of Myrrh
Chapter 64. Concentric, Inward, With Mardi’s Reef, They Leave Their Wake Around The World
Chapter 65. Sailing On
Chapter 66. A Flight Of Nightingales From Yoomy’s Mouth
Chapter 67. They Visit One Doxodox
Chapter 68. King Media Dreams
Chapter 69. After A Long Interval, By Night They Are Becalmed
Chapter 70. They Land At Hooloomooloo
Chapter 71. A Book From The “Ponderings Of Old Bardianna”
Chapter 72. Babbalanja Starts To His Feet
Chapter 73. At Last, The Last Mention Is Made Of Old Bardianna; And His Last Will And Testament Is Recited At Length
Chapter 74. A Death–Cloud Sweeps By Them, As They Sail
Chapter 75. They Visit The Palmy King Abrazza
Chapter 76. Some Pleasant, Shady Talk In The Groves, Between My Lords Abrazza And Media, Babbalanja, Mohi, And Yoomy
Chapter 77. They Sup
Chapter 78. They Embark
Chapter 79. Babbalanja At The Full Of The Moon
Chapter 80. Morning
Chapter 81. L’ultima Sera
Chapter 82. They Sail From Night To Day
Chapter 83. They Land
Chapter 84. Babbalanja Relates To Them A Vision
Chapter 85. They Depart From Serenia
Chapter 86. They Meet The Phantoms
Chapter 87. They Draw Nigh To Flozella
Chapter 88. They Land
Chapter 89. They Enter The Bower Of Hautia
Chapter 90. Taji With Hautia
Chapter 91. Mardi Behind: An Ocean Before
PREFACE
Table of Contents
Not long ago, having published two narratives of voyages in the Pacific, which, in many quarters, were received with incredulity, the thought occurred to me, of indeed writing a romance of Polynesian adventure, and publishing it as such; to see whether, the fiction might not, possibly, be received for a verity: in some degree the reverse of my previous experience.
This thought was the germ of others, which have resulted in Mardi.
New York, January, 1849.
VOLUME 1
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
FOOT IN STIRRUP
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We are off! The courses and topsails are set: the coral-hung anchor swings from the bow: and together, the three royals are given to the breeze, that follows us out to sea like the baying of a hound. Out spreads the canvas — alow, aloft-boom-stretched, on both sides, with many a stun’ sail; till like a hawk, with pinions poised, we shadow the sea with our sails, and reelingly cleave the brine.
But whence, and whither wend ye, mariners?
We sail from Ravavai, an isle in the sea, not very far northward from the tropic of Capricorn, nor very far westward from Pitcairn’s island, where the mutineers of the Bounty settled. At Ravavai I had stepped ashore some few months previous; and now was embarked on a cruise for the whale, whose brain enlightens the world.
And from Ravavai we sail for the Gallipagos, otherwise called the Enchanted Islands, by reason of the many wild currents and eddies there met.
Now, round about those isles, which Dampier once trod, where the Spanish bucaniers once hived their gold moidores, the Cachalot, or sperm whale, at certain seasons abounds.
But thither, from Ravavai, your craft may not fly, as flies the sea-gull, straight to her nest. For, owing to the prevalence of the trade winds, ships bound to the northeast from the vicinity of Ravavai are fain to take something of a circuit; a few thousand miles or so. First, in pursuit of the variable winds, they make all haste to the south; and there, at length picking up a stray breeze, they stand for the main: then, making their easting, up helm, and away down the coast, toward the Line.
This round-about way did the Arcturion take; and in all conscience a weary one it was. Never before had the ocean appeared so monotonous; thank fate, never since.
But bravo! in two weeks’ time, an event. Out of the gray of the morning, and right ahead, as we sailed along, a dark object rose out of the sea; standing dimly before us, mists wreathing and curling aloft, and creamy breakers frothing round its base. — We turned aside, and, at length, when day dawned, passed Massafuero. With a glass, we spied two or three hermit goats winding down to the sea, in a ravine; and presently, a signal: a tattered flag upon a summit beyond. Well knowing, however, that there was nobody on the island but two or three noose-fulls of runaway convicts from Chili, our captain had no mind to comply with their invitation to land. Though, haply, he may have erred in not sending a boat off with his card.
A few days more and we “took the trades.” Like favors snappishly conferred, they came to us, as is often the case, in a very sharp squall; the shock of which carried away one of our spars; also our fat old cook off his legs; depositing him plump in the scuppers to leeward.
In good time making the desired longitude upon the equator, a few leagues west of the Gallipagos, we spent several weeks chassezing across the Line, to and fro, in unavailing search for our prey. For some of their hunters believe, that whales, like the silver ore in Peru, run in veins through the ocean. So, day after day, daily; and week after week, weekly, we traversed the self-same longitudinal intersection of the self-same Line; till we were almost ready to swear that we felt the ship strike every time her keel crossed that imaginary locality.
At length, dead before the equatorial breeze, we threaded our way straight along the very Line itself. Westward sailing; peering right, and peering left, but seeing naught.
It was during this weary time, that I experienced the first symptoms of that bitter impatience of our monotonous craft, which ultimately led to the adventures herein recounted.
But hold you! Not a word against that rare old ship, nor its crew. The sailors were good fellows all, the half, score of pagans we had shipped at the islands included. Nevertheless, they were not precisely to my mind. There was no soul a magnet to mine; none with whom to mingle sympathies; save in deploring the calms with which we were now and then overtaken; or in hailing the breeze when it came. Under other and livelier auspices the tarry knaves might have developed qualities more attractive. Had we sprung a leak, been “stove” by a whale, or been blessed with some despot of a captain against whom to stir up some spirited revolt, these shipmates of mine might have proved limber lads, and men of mettle. But as it was, there was naught to strike fire from their steel.
There were other things, also, tending to make my lot on ship-board very hard to be borne. True, the skipper himself was a trump; stood upon no quarter-deck dignity; and had a tongue for a sailor. Let me do him justice, furthermore: he took a sort of fancy for me in particular; was sociable, nay, loquacious, when I happened to stand at the helm. But what of that? Could he talk sentiment or philosophy? Not a bit. His library was eight inches by four: Bowditch, and Hamilton Moore.
And what to me, thus pining for some one who could page me a quotation from Burton on Blue Devils; what to me, indeed, were flat repetitions of long-drawn yams, and the everlasting stanzas of Black-eyed Susan sung by our full forecastle choir? Staler than stale ale.
Ay, ay, Arcturion! I say it in no malice, but thou wast exceedingly dull. Not only at sailing: hard though it was, that I could have borne; but in every other respect. The days went slowly round and round, endless and uneventful as cycles in space. Time, and time-pieces; How many centuries did my hammock tell, as pendulum-like it swung to the ship’s dull roll, and ticked the hours and ages. Sacred forever be the Areturion’s fore-hatch — alas! sea-moss is over it now — and rusty forever the bolts that held together that old sea hearth-stone, about which we so often lounged. Nevertheless, ye lost and leaden hours, I will rail at ye while life lasts.
Well: weeks, chronologically speaking, went by. Bill Marvel’s stories were told over and over again, till the beginning and end dovetailed into each other, and were united for aye. Ned Ballad’s songs were sung till the echoes lurked in the very tops, and nested in the bunts of the sails. My poor patience was clean gone.
But, at last after some time sailing due westward we quitted the Line in high disgust; having seen there, no sign of a whale.
But whither now? To the broiling coast of Papua? That region of sun-strokes, typhoons, and bitter pulls after whales unattainable. Far worse. We were going, it seemed, to illustrate the Whistonian theory concerning the damned and the comets; — hurried from equinoctial heats to arctic frosts. To be short, with the true fickleness of his tribe, our skipper had abandoned all thought of the Cachalot. In desperation, he was bent upon bobbing for the Right whale on the Nor’-West Coast and in the Bay of Kamschatska.
To the uninitiated in the business of whaling, my feelings at this juncture may perhaps be hard to understand. But this much let me say: that Right whaling on the Nor’-West Coast, in chill and dismal fogs, the sullen inert monsters rafting the sea all round like Hartz forest logs on the Rhine, and submitting to the harpoon like half-stunned bullocks to the knife; this horrid and indecent Right whaling, I say, compared to a spirited hunt for the gentlemanly Cachalot in southern and more genial seas, is as the butchery of white bears upon blank Greenland icebergs to zebra hunting in Caffraria, where the lively quarry bounds before you through leafy glades.
Now, this most unforeseen determination on the part of my captain to measure the arctic circle was nothing more nor less than a tacit contravention of the agreement between us. That agreement needs not to be detailed. And having shipped but for a single cruise, I had embarked aboard his craft as one might put foot in stirrup for a day’s following of the hounds. And here, Heaven help me, he was going to carry me off to the Pole! And on such a vile errand too! For there was something degrading in it. Your true whaleman glories in keeping his harpoon unspotted by blood of aught but Cachalot. By my halidome, it touched the knighthood of a tar. Sperm and spermaceti! It was unendurable.
“Captain,” said I, touching my sombrero to him as I stood at the wheel one day, “It’s very hard to carry me off this way to purgatory. I shipped to go elsewhere.”
“Yes, and so did I,” was his reply. “But it can’t be helped. Sperm whales are not to be had. We’ve been out now three years, and something or other must be got; for the ship is hungry for oil, and her hold a gulf to look into. But cheer up my boy; once in the Bay of Kamschatka, and we’ll be all afloat with what we want, though it be none of the best.”
Worse and worse! The oleaginous prospect extended into an immensity of Macassar. “Sir,” said I, “I did not ship for it; put me ashore somewhere, I beseech.” He stared, but no answer vouchsafed; and for a moment I thought I had roused the domineering spirit of the sea-captain, to the prejudice of the more kindly nature of the man.
But not so. Taking three turns on the deck, he placed his hand on the wheel, and said, “Right or wrong, my lad, go with us you must. Putting you ashore is now out of the question. I make no port till this ship is full to the combings of her hatchways. However, you may leave her if you can.” And so saying he entered his cabin, like Julius Caesar into his tent.
He may have meant little by it, but that last sentence rung in my ear like a bravado. It savored of the turnkey’s compliments to the prisoner in Newgate, when he shoots to the bolt on him.
“Leave the ship if I can!” Leave the ship when neither sail nor shore was in sight! Ay, my fine captain, stranger things have been done. For on board that very craft, the old Arcturion, were four tall fellows, whom two years previous our skipper himself had picked up in an open boat, far from the farthest shoal. To be sure, they spun a long yarn about being the only survivors of an Indiaman burnt down to the water’s edge. But who credited their tale? Like many others, they were keepers of a secret: had doubtless contracted a disgust for some ugly craft still afloat and hearty, and stolen away from her, off soundings. Among seamen in the Pacific such adventures not seldom occur. Nor are they accounted great wonders. They are but incidents, not events, in the career of the brethren of the order of South Sea rovers. For what matters it, though hundreds of miles from land, if a good whale-boat be under foot, the Trades behind, and mild, warm seas before? And herein lies the difference between the Atlantic and Pacific:— that once within the Tropics, the bold sailor who has a mind to quit his ship round Cape Horn, waits not for port. He regards that ocean as one mighty harbor.
Nevertheless, the enterprise hinted at was no light one; and I resolved to weigh well the chances. It’s worth noticing, this way we all have of pondering for ourselves the enterprise, which, for others, we hold a bagatelle.
My first thoughts were of the boat to be obtained, and the right or wrong of abstracting it, under the circumstances. But to split no hairs on this point, let me say, that were I placed in the same situation again, I would repeat the thing I did then. The captain well knew that he was going to detain me unlawfully: against our agreement; and it was he himself who threw out the very hint, which I merely adopted, with many thanks to him.
In some such willful mood as this, I went aloft one day, to stand my allotted two hours at the mast-head. It was toward the close of a day, serene and beautiful. There I stood, high upon the mast, and away, away, illimitably rolled the ocean beneath. Where we then were was perhaps the most unfrequented and least known portion of these seas. Westward, however, lay numerous groups of islands, loosely laid down upon the charts, and invested with all the charms of dream-land. But soon these regions would be past; the mild equatorial breeze exchanged for cold, fierce squalls, and all the horrors of northern voyaging.
I cast my eyes downward to the brown planks of the dull, plodding ship, silent from stem to stern; then abroad.
In the distance what visions were spread! The entire western horizon high piled with gold and crimson clouds; airy arches, domes, and minarets; as if the yellow, Moorish sun were setting behind some vast Alhambra. Vistas seemed leading to worlds beyond. To and fro, and all over the towers of this Nineveh in the sky, flew troops of birds. Watching them long, one crossed my sight, flew through a low arch, and was lost to view. My spirit must have sailed in with it; for directly, as in a trance, came upon me the cadence of mild billows laving a beach of shells, the waving of boughs, and the voices of maidens, and the lulled beatings of my own dissolved heart, all blended together.
Now, all this, to be plain, was but one of the many visions one has up aloft. But coming upon me at this time, it wrought upon me so, that thenceforth my desire to quit the Arcturion became little short of a frenzy.
CHAPTER 2
A CALM
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Next day there was a calm, which added not a little to my impatience of the ship. And, furthermore, by certain nameless associations revived in me my old impressions upon first witnessing as a landsman this phenomenon of the sea. Those impressions may merit a page.
To a landsman a calm is no joke. It not only revolutionizes his abdomen, but unsettles his mind; tempts him to recant his belief in the eternal fitness of things; in short, almost makes an infidel of him.
At first he is taken by surprise, never having dreamt of a state of existence where existence itself seems suspended. He shakes himself in his coat, to see whether it be empty or no. He closes his eyes, to test the reality of the glassy expanse. He fetches a deep breath, by way of experiment, and for the sake of witnessing the effect. If a reader of books, Priestley on Necessity occurs to him; and he believes in that old Sir Anthony Absolute to the very last chapter. His faith in Malte Brun, however, begins to fail; for the geography, which from boyhood he had implicitly confided in, always assured him, that though expatiating all over the globe, the sea was at least margined by land. That over against America, for example, was Asia. But it is a calm, and he grows madly skeptical.
To his alarmed fancy, parallels and meridians become emphatically what they are merely designated as being: imaginary lines drawn round the earth’s surface.
The log assures him that he is in such a place; but the log is a liar; for no place, nor any thing possessed of a local angularity, is to be lighted upon in the watery waste.
At length horrible doubts overtake him as to the captain’s competency to navigate his ship. The ignoramus must have lost his way, and drifted into the outer confines of creation, the region of the everlasting lull, introductory to a positive vacuity.
Thoughts of eternity thicken. He begins to feel anxious concerning his soul.
The stillness of the calm is awful. His voice begins to grow strange and portentous. He feels it in him like something swallowed too big for the esophagus. It keeps up a sort of involuntary interior humming in him, like a live beetle. His cranium is a dome full of reverberations. The hollows of his very bones are as whispering galleries. He is afraid to speak loud, lest he be stunned; like the man in the bass drum.
But more than all else is the consciousness of his utter helplessness. Succor or sympathy there is none. Penitence for embarking avails not. The final satisfaction of despairing may not be his with a relish. Vain the idea of idling out the calm. He may sleep if he can, or purposely delude himself into a crazy fancy, that he is merely at leisure. All this he may compass; but he may not lounge; for to lounge is to be idle; to be idle implies an absence of any thing to do; whereas there is a calm to be endured: enough to attend to, Heaven knows.
His physical organization, obviously intended for locomotion, becomes a fixture; for where the calm leaves him, there he remains. Even his undoubted vested rights, comprised in his glorious liberty of volition, become as naught. For of what use? He wills to go: to get away from the calm: as ashore he would avoid the plague. But he can not; and how foolish to revolve expedients. It is more hopeless than a bad marriage in a land where there is no Doctors’ Commons. He has taken the ship to wife, for better or for worse, for calm or for gale; and she is not to be shuffled off. With yards akimbo, she says unto him scornfully, as the old beldam said to the little dwarf:—“Help yourself”
And all this, and more than this, is a calm.
CHAPTER 3
A KING FOR A COMRADE
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At the time I now write of, we must have been something more than sixty degrees to the west of the Gallipagos. And having attained a desirable longitude, we were standing northward for our arctic destination: around us one wide sea.
But due west, though distant a thousand miles, stretched north and south an almost endless Archipelago, here and there inhabited, but little known; and mostly unfrequented, even by whalemen, who go almost every where. Beginning at the southerly termination of this great chain, it comprises the islands loosely known as Ellice’s group; then, the Kingsmill isles; then, the Radack and Mulgrave clusters. These islands had been represented to me as mostly of coral formation, low and fertile, and abounding in a variety of fruits. The language of the people was said to be very similar to that or the Navigator’s islands, from which, their ancestors are supposed to have emigrated.
And thus much being said, all has been related that I then knew of the islands in question. Enough, however, that they existed at all; and that our path thereto lay over a pleasant sea, and before a reliable Trade-wind. The distance, though great, was merely an extension of water; so much blankness to be sailed over; and in a craft, too, that properly managed has been known to outlive great ships in a gale. For this much is true of a whale-boat, the cunningest thing in its way ever fabricated by man.
Upon one of the Kingsmill islands, then, I determined to plant my foot, come what come would. And I was equally determined that one of the ship’s boats should float me thither. But I had no idea of being without a companion. It would be a weary watch to keep all by myself, with naught but the horizon in sight.
Now, among the crew was a fine old seaman, one Jarl; how old, no one could tell, not even himself. Forecastle chronology is ever vague and defective. “Man and boy,” said honest Jarl, “I have lived ever since I can remember.” And truly, who may call to mind when he was not? To ourselves, we all seem coeval with creation. Whence it comes, that it is so hard to die, ere the world itself is departed.
Jarl hailed from the isle of Skye, one of the constellated Hebrides. Hence, they often called him the Skyeman. And though he was far from being piratical of soul, he was yet an old Norseman to behold. His hands were brawny as the paws of a bear; his voice hoarse as a storm roaring round the old peak of Mull; and his long yellow hair waved round his head like a sunset. My life for it, Jarl, thy ancestors were Vikings, who many a time sailed over the salt German sea and the Baltic; who wedded their Brynhildas in Jutland; and are now quaffing mead in the halls of Valhalla, and beating time with their cans to the hymns of the Scalds. Ah! how the old Sagas run through me!
Yet Jarl, the descendant of heroes and kings, was a lone, friendless mariner on the main, only true to his origin in the sea-life that he led. But so it has been, and forever will be. What yeoman shall swear that he is not descended from Alfred? what dunce, that he is not sprung of old Homer? King Noah, God bless him! fathered us all. Then hold up your heads, oh ye Helots, blood potential flows through your veins. All of us have monarchs and sages for kinsmen; nay, angels and archangels for cousins; since in antediluvian days, the sons of God did verily wed with our mothers, the irresistible daughters of Eve. Thus all generations are blended: and heaven and earth of one kin: the hierarchies of seraphs in the uttermost skies; the thrones and principalities in the zodiac; the shades that roam throughout space; the nations and families, flocks and folds of the earth; one and all, brothers in essence — oh, be we then brothers indeed! All things form but one whole; the universe a Judea, and God Jehovah its head. Then no more let us start with affright. In a theocracy, what is to fear? Let us compose ourselves to death as fagged horsemen sleep in the saddle. Let us welcome even ghosts when they rise. Away with our stares and grimaces. The New Zealander’s tattooing is not a prodigy; nor the Chinaman’s ways an enigma. No custom is strange; no creed is absurd; no foe, but who will in the end prove a friend. In heaven, at last, our good, old, white-haired father Adam will greet all alike, and sociality forever prevail. Christian shall join hands between Gentile and Jew; grim Dante forget his Infernos, and shake sides with fat Rabelais; and monk Luther, over a flagon of old nectar, talk over old times with Pope Leo. Then, shall we sit by the sages, who of yore gave laws to the Medes and Persians in the sun; by the cavalry captains in Perseus, who cried, “To horse!” when waked by their Last Trump sounding to the charge; by the old hunters, who eternities ago, hunted the moose in Orion; by the minstrels, who sang in the Milky Way when Jesus our Saviour was born. Then shall we list to no shallow gossip of Magellans and Drakes; but give ear to the voyagers who have circumnavigated the Ecliptic; who rounded the Polar Star as Cape Horn. Then shall the Stagirite and Kant be forgotten, and another folio than theirs be turned over for wisdom; even the folio now spread with horoscopes as yet undeciphered, the heaven of heavens on high.
Now, in old Jarl’s lingo there was never an idiom. Your aboriginal tar is too much of a cosmopolitan for that. Long companionship with seamen of all tribes: Manilla-men, Anglo–Saxons, Cholos, Lascars, and Danes, wear away in good time all mother-tongue stammerings. You sink your clan; down goes your nation; you speak a world’s language, jovially jabbering in the Lingua–Franca of the forecastle.
True to his calling, the Skyeman was very illiterate; witless of Salamanca, Heidelberg, or Brazen–Nose; in Delhi, had never turned over the books of the Brahmins. For geography, in which sailors should be adepts, since they are forever turning over and over the great globe of globes, poor Jarl was deplorably lacking. According to his view of the matter, this terraqueous world had been formed in the manner of a tart; the land being a mere marginal crust, within which rolled the watery world proper. Such seemed my good Viking’s theory of cosmography. As for other worlds, he weened not of them; yet full as much as Chrysostom.
Ah, Jarl! an honest, earnest Wight; so true and simple, that the secret operations of thy soul were more inscrutable than the subtle workings of Spinoza’s.
Thus much be said of the Skyeman; for he was exceedingly taciturn, and but seldom will speak for himself.
Now, higher sympathies apart, for Jarl I had a wonderful liking; for he loved me; from the first had cleaved to me.
It is sometimes the case, that an old mariner like him will conceive a very strong attachment for some young sailor, his shipmate; an attachment so devoted, as to be wholly inexplicable, unless originating in that heart-loneliness which overtakes most seamen as they grow aged; impelling them to fasten upon some chance object of regard. But however it was, my Viking, thy unbidden affection was the noblest homage ever paid me. And frankly, I am more inclined to think well of myself, as in some way deserving thy devotion, than from the rounded compliments of more cultivated minds.
Now, at sea, and in the fellowship of sailors, all men appear as they are. No school like a ship for studying human nature. The contact of one man with another is too near and constant to favor deceit. You wear your character as loosely as your flowing trowsers. Vain all endeavors to assume qualities not yours; or to conceal those you possess. Incognitos, however desirable, are out of the question. And thus aboard of all ships in which I have sailed, I have invariably been known by a sort of thawing-room title. Not — let me hurry to say — that I put hand in tar bucket with a squeamish air, or ascended the rigging with a Chesterfieldian mince. No, no, I was never better than my vocation; and mine have been many. I showed as brown a chest, and as hard a hand, as the tarriest tar of them all. And never did shipmate of mine upbraid me with a genteel disinclination to duty, though it carried me to truck of main-mast, or jib-boom-end, in the most wolfish blast that ever howled.
Whence then, this annoying appellation? for annoying it most assuredly was. It was because of something in me that could not be hidden; stealing out in an occasional polysyllable; an otherwise incomprehensible deliberation in dining; remote, unguarded allusions to Belles–Lettres affairs; and other trifles superfluous to mention.
But suffice it to say, that it had gone abroad among the Areturion’s crew, that at some indefinite period of my career, I had been a “nob.” But Jarl seemed to go further. He must have taken me for one of the House of Hanover in disguise; or, haply, for bonneted Charles Edward the Pretender, who, like the Wandering Jew, may yet be a vagrant. At any rate, his loyalty was extreme. Unsolicited, he was my laundress and tailor; a most expert one, too; and when at meal-times my turn came round to look out at the mast-head, or stand at the wheel, he catered for me among the “kids” in the forecastle with unwearied assiduity. Many’s the good lump of “duff” for which I was indebted to my good Viking’s good care of me. And like Sesostris I was served by a monarch. Yet in some degree the obligation was mutual. For be it known that, in sea-parlance, we were chummies.
Now this chummying among sailors is like the brotherhood subsisting between a brace of collegians (chums) rooming together. It is a Fidus–Achates-ship, a league of offense and defense, a copartnership of chests and toilets, a bond of love and good feeling, and a mutual championship of the absent one. True, my nautical reminiscenses remind me of sundry lazy, ne’er-do-well, unprofitable, and abominable chummies; chummies, who at meal times were last at the “kids,” when their unfortunate partners were high upon the spars; chummies, who affected awkwardness at the needle, and conscientious scruples about dabbling in the suds; so that chummy the simple was made to do all the work of the firm, while chummy the cunning played the sleeping partner in his hammock. Out upon such chummies!
But I appeal to thee, honest Jarl, if I was ever chummy the cunning. Never mind if thou didst fabricate my tarpaulins; and with Samaritan charity bind up the rents, and pour needle and thread into the frightful gashes that agonized my hapless nether integuments, which thou calledst “ducks;"— Didst thou not expressly declare, that all these things, and more, thou wouldst do for me, despite my own quaint thimble, fashioned from the ivory tusk of a whale? Nay; could I even wrest from thy willful hands my very shirt, when once thou hadst it steaming in an unsavory pickle in thy capacious vat, a decapitated cask? Full well thou knowest, Jarl, that these things are true; and I am bound to say it, to disclaim any lurking desire to reap advantage from thy great good nature.
Now my Viking for me, thought I, when I cast about for a comrade; and my Viking alone.
CHAPTER 4
A CHAT IN THE CLOUDS
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The Skyeman seemed so earnest and upright a seaman, that to tell the plain truth, in spite of his love for me, I had many misgivings as to his readiness to unite in an undertaking which apparently savored of a moral dereliction. But all things considered, I deemed my own resolution quite venial; and as for inducing another to join me, it seemed a precaution so indispensable, as to outweigh all other considerations.
Therefore I resolved freely to open my heart to him; for that special purpose paying him a visit, when, like some old albatross in the air, he happened to be perched at the foremast-head, all by himself, on the lookout for whales never seen.
Now this standing upon a bit of stick 100 feet aloft for hours at a time, swiftly sailing over the sea, is very much like crossing the Channel in a balloon. Manfred-like, you talk to the clouds: you have a fellow feeling for the sun. And when Jarl and I got conversing up there, smoking our dwarfish “dudeens,” any sea-gull passing by might have taken us for Messrs. Blanchard and Jeffries, socially puffing their after-dinner Bagdads, bound to Calais, via Heaven, from Dover. Honest Jarl, I acquainted with all: my conversation with the captain, the hint implied in his last words, my firm resolve to quit the ship in one of her boats, and the facility with which I thought the thing could be done. Then I threw out many inducements, in the shape of pleasant anticipations of bearing right down before the wind upon the sunny isles under our lee.
He listened attentively; but so long remained silent that I almost fancied there was something in Jarl which would prove too much for me and my eloquence.
At last he very bluntly declared that the scheme was a crazy one; he had never known of such a thing but thrice before; and in every case the runaways had never afterwards been heard of. He entreated me to renounce my determination, not be a boy, pause and reflect, stick to the ship, and go home in her like a man. Verily, my Viking talked to me like my uncle.
But to all this I turned a deaf ear; affirming that my mind was made up; and that as he refused to accompany me, and I fancied no one else for a comrade, I would go stark alone rather than not at all. Upon this, seeing my resolution immovable, he bluntly swore that he would follow me through thick and thin.
Thanks, Jarl! thou wert one of those devoted fellows who will wrestle hard to convince one loved of error; but failing, forthwith change their wrestling to a sympathetic hug.
But now his elderly prudence came into play. Casting his eye over the boundless expanse below, he inquired how far off were the islands in question.
“A thousand miles and no less.”
“With a fair trade breeze, then, and a boat sail, that is a good twelve days’ passage, but calms and currents may make it a month, perhaps more.” So saying, he shook his old head, and his yellow hair streamed.
But trying my best to chase away these misgivings, he at last gave them over. He assured me I might count upon him to his uttermost keel.
My Viking secured, I felt more at ease; and thoughtfully considered how the enterprise might best be accomplished.
There was no time to be lost. Every hour was carrying us farther and farther from the parallel most desirable for us to follow in our route to the westward. So, with all possible dispatch, I matured my plans, and communicated them to Jarl, who gave several old hints — having ulterior probabilities in view — which were not neglected.
Strange to relate, it was not till my Viking, with a rueful face, reminded me of the fact, that I bethought me of a circumstance somewhat alarming at the first blush. We must push off without chart or quadrant; though, as will shortly be seen, a compass was by no means out of the question. The chart, to be sure, I did not so much lay to heart; but a quadrant was more than desirable. Still, it was by no means indispensable. For this reason. When we started, our latitude would be exactly known; and whether, on our voyage westward, we drifted north or south therefrom, we could not, by any possibility, get so far out of our reckoning, as to fail in striking some one of a long chain of islands, which, for many degrees, on both sides of the equator, stretched right across our track.
For much the same reason, it mattered little, whether on our passage we daily knew our longitude; for no known land lay between us and the place we desired to reach. So what could be plainer than this: that if westward we patiently held on our way, we must eventually achieve our destination?
As for intervening shoals or reefs, if any there were, they intimidated us not. In a boat that drew but a few inches of water, but an indifferent look-out would preclude all danger on that score. At all events, the thing seemed feasible enough, notwithstanding old Jarl’s superstitious reverence for nautical instruments, and the philosophical objections which might have been urged by a pedantic disciple of Mercator.
Very often, as the old maxim goes, the simplest things are the most startling, and that, too, from their very simplicity. So cherish no alarms, if thus we addressed the setting sun —“Be thou, old pilot, our guide!”
CHAPTER 5
SEATS SECURED AND PORTMANTEAUS PACKED
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But thoughts of sextants and quadrants were the least of our cares.
Right from under the very arches of the eyebrows of thirty men — captain, mates, and crew — a boat was to be abstracted; they knowing nothing of the event, until all knowledge would prove unavailing.
Hark ye:
At sea, the boats of a South Sea-man (generally four in number, spare ones omitted,) are suspended by tackles, hooked above, to curved timbers called “davits,” vertically fixed to the ship’s sides.
Now, no fair one with golden locks is more assiduously waited upon, or more delicately handled by her tire-women, than the slender whale-boat by her crew. And out of its element, it seems fragile enough to justify the utmost solicitude. For truly, like a fine lady, the fine whale-boat is most delicate when idle, though little coy at a pinch.
Besides the “davits,” the following supports are provided Two small cranes are swung under the keel, on which the latter rests, preventing the settling of the boat’s middle, while hanging suspended by the bow and stern. A broad, braided, hempen band, usually worked in a tasteful pattern, is also passed round both gunwales; and secured to the ship’s bulwarks, firmly lashes the craft to its place. Being elevated above the ship’s rail, the boats are in plain sight from all parts of the deck.
Now, one of these boats was to be made way with. No facile matter, truly. Harder than for any dashing young Janizary to run off with a sultana from the Grand Turk’s seraglio. Still, the thing could be done, for, by Jove, it had been.
What say you to slyly loosing every thing by day; and when night comes, cast off the band and swing in the cranes? But how lower the tackles, even in the darkest night, without a creaking more fearful than the death rattle? Easily avoided. Anoint the ropes, and they will travel deftly through the subtle windings of the blocks.
But though I had heard of this plan being pursued, there was a degree of risk in it, after all, which I was far from fancying. Another plan was hit upon; still bolder; and hence more safe. What it was, in the right place will be seen.
In selecting my craft for this good voyage, I would fain have traversed the deck, and eyed the boats like a cornet choosing his steed from out a goodly stud. But this was denied me. And the “bow boat” was, perforce, singled out, as the most remote from the quarter-deck, that region of sharp eyes and relentless purposes.
Then, our larder was to be thought of; also, an abundant supply of water; concerning which last I determined to take good heed. There were but two to be taken care of; but I resolved to lay in sufficient store of both meat and drink for four; at the same time that the supplemental twain thus provided for were but imaginary. And if it came to the last dead pinch, of which we had no fear, however, I was food for no man but Jarl.
Little time was lost in catering for our mess. Biscuit and salt beef were our sole resource; and, thanks to the generosity of the Areturion’s owners, our ship’s company had a plentiful supply. Casks of both, with heads knocked out, were at the service of all. In bags which we made for the purpose, a sufficiency of the biscuit was readily stored away, and secreted in a corner of easy access. The salt beef was more difficult to obtain; but, little by little, we managed to smuggle out of the cask enough to answer our purpose.
As for water, most luckily a day or two previous several “breakers” of it had been hoisted from below for the present use of the ship’s company.
These “breakers” are casks, long and slender, but very strong. Of various diameters, they are made on purpose to stow into spaces intervening between the immense butts in a ship’s hold.
The largest we could find was selected, first carefully examining it to detect any leak. On some pretense or other, we then rolled them all over to that side of the vessel where our boat was suspended, the selected breaker being placed in their middle.
Our compendious wardrobes were snugly packed into bundles and laid aside for the present. And at last, by due caution, we had every thing arranged preliminary to the final start. Let me say, though, perhaps to the credit of Jarl, that whenever the most strategy was necessary, he seemed ill at ease, and for the most part left the matter to me. It was well that he did; for as it was, by his untimely straight-forwardness, he once or twice came near spoiling every thing. Indeed, on one occasion he was so unseasonably blunt, that curiously enough, I had almost suspected him of taking that odd sort of interest in one’s welfare, which leads a philanthropist, all other methods failing, to frustrate a project deemed bad; by pretending clumsily to favor it. But no inuendoes; Jarl was a Viking, frank as his fathers; though not so much of a bucanier.
CHAPTER 6
EIGHT BELLS
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The moon must be monstrous coy, or some things fall out opportunely, or else almanacs are consulted by nocturnal adventurers; but so it is, that when Cynthia shows a round and chubby disk, few daring deeds are done. Though true it may be, that of moonlight nights, jewelers’ caskets and maidens’ hearts have been burglariously broken into — and rifled, for aught Copernicus can tell.
The gentle planet was in her final quarter, and upon her slender horn I hung my hopes of withdrawing from the ship undetected.
Now, making a tranquil passage across the ocean, we kept at this time what are called among whalemen “boatscrew-watches.” That is, instead of the sailors being divided at night into two bands, alternately on deck every four hours, there were four watches, each composed of a boat’s crew, the “headsman” (always one of the mates) excepted. To the officers, this plan gives uninterrupted repose —“all-night-in,” as they call it, and of course greatly lightens the duties of the crew.
The harpooneers head the boats’ crews, and are responsible for the ship during the continuance of their watches.
Now, my Viking being a stalwart seaman, pulled the midship oar of the boat of which I was bowsman. Hence, we were in the same watch; to which, also, three others belonged, including Mark, the harpooner. One of these seamen, however, being an invalid, there were only two left for us to manage.
Voyaging in these seas, you may glide along for weeks without starting tack or sheet, hardly moving the helm a spoke, so mild and constant are the Trades. At night, the watch seldom trouble themselves with keeping much of a look-out; especially, as a strange sail is almost a prodigy in these lonely waters. In some ships, for weeks in and weeks out, you are puzzled to tell when your nightly turn on deck really comes round; so little heed is given to the standing of watches, where in the license of presumed safety, nearly every one nods without fear.
But remiss as you may be in the boats-crew-watch of a heedless whaleman, the man who heads it is bound to maintain his post on the quarter-deck until regularly relieved. Yet drowsiness being incidental to all natures, even to Napoleon, beside his own sentry napping in the snowy bivouac; so, often, in snowy moonlight, or ebon eclipse, dozed Mark, our harpooneer. Lethe be his portion this blessed night, thought I, as during the morning which preceded our enterprise, I eyed the man who might possibly cross my plans.
But let me come closer to this part of my story. During what are called at sea the “dog-watches” (between four o’clock and eight in the evening), sailors are quite lively and frolicsome; their spirits even flow far into the first of the long “night-watches;” but upon its expiration at “eight bells” (midnight), silence begins to reign; if you hear a voice it is no cherub’s: all exclamations are oaths.
At eight bells, the mariners on deck, now relieved from their cares, crawl out from their sleepy retreats in old monkey jackets, or coils of rigging, and he to their hammocks, almost without interrupting their dreams: while the sluggards below lazily drag themselves up the ladder to resume their slumbers in the open air.
For these reasons then, the moonless sea midnight was just the time to escape. Hence, we suffered a whole day to pass unemployed; waiting for the night, when the star board-quarter-boats’-watch, to which we belonged, would be summoned on deck at the eventful eight of the bell.
But twenty-four hours soon glide away; and “Starboleens ahoy; eight bells there below;” at last started me from a troubled doze.
I sprang from my hammock, and would have lighted my pipe. But the forecastle lamp had gone out. An old sea-dog was talking about sharks in his sleep. Jarl and our solitary watch-mate were groping their way into their trowsers. And little was heard but the humming of the still sails aloft; the dash of the waves against the bow; and the deep breathing of the dreaming sailors around.
CHAPTER 7
A PAUSE
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Good old Arcturion! Maternal craft; that rocked me so often in thy heart of oak, I grieve to tell how I deserted thee on the broad deep. So far from home, with such a motley crew, so many islanders, whose heathen babble echoing through thy Christian hull, must have grated harshly on every carline.
Old ship! where sails thy lone ghost now? For of the stout Arcturion no word was ever heard, from the dark hour we pushed from her fated planks. In what time of tempest, to what seagull’s scream, the drowning eddies did their work, knows no mortal man. Sunk she silently, helplessly, into the calm depths of that summer sea, assassinated by the ruthless blade of the swordfish? Such things have been. Or was hers a better fate? Stricken down while gallantly battling with the blast; her storm-sails set; helm manned; and every sailor at his post; as sunk the Hornet, her men at quarters, in some distant gale.
But surmises are idle. A very old craft, she may have foundered; or laid her bones upon some treacherous reef; but as with many a far rover, her fate is a mystery.
Pray Heaven, the spirit of that lost vessel roaming abroad through the troubled mists of midnight gales — as old mariners believe of missing ships — may never haunt my future path upon the waves. Peacefully may she rest at the bottom of the sea; and sweetly sleep my shipmates in the lowest watery zone, where prowling sharks come not, nor billows roll.
By quitting the Arcturion when we did, Jarl and I unconsciously eluded a sailor’s grave. We hear of providential deliverances. Was this one? But life is sweet to all, death comes as hard. And for myself I am almost tempted to hang my head, that I escaped the fate of my shipmates; something like him who blushed to have escaped the fell carnage at Thermopylae.
Though I can not repress a shudder when I think of that old ship’s end, it is impossible for me so much as to imagine, that our deserting her could have been in any way instrumental in her loss. Nevertheless, I would to heaven the Arcturion still floated; that it was given me once more to tread her familiar decks.
CHAPTER 8
THEY PUSH OFF, VELIS ET REMIS
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And now to tell how, tempted by devil or good angel, and a thousand miles from land, we embarked upon this western voyage.
It was midnight, mark you, when our watch began; and my turn at the helm now coming on was of course to be avoided. On some plausible pretense, I induced our solitary watchmate to assume it; thus leaving myself untrammeled, and at the same time satisfactorily disposing of him. For being a rather fat fellow, an enormous consumer of “duff,” and with good reason supposed to be the son of a farmer, I made no doubt, he would pursue his old course and fall to nodding over the wheel. As for the leader of the watch — our harpooner — he fell heir to the nest of old jackets, under the lee of the mizzen-mast, left nice and warm by his predecessor.
The night was even blacker than we had anticipated; there was no trace of a moon; and the dark purple haze, sometimes encountered at night near the Line, half shrouded the stars from view.
Waiting about twenty minutes after the last man of the previous watch had gone below, I motioned to Jarl, and we slipped our shoes from our feet. He then descended into the forecastle, and I sauntered aft toward the quarter-deck. All was still. Thrice did I pass my hand full before the face of the slumbering lubber at the helm, and right between him and the light of the binnacle.
Mark, the harpooneer, was not so easily sounded. I feared to approach him. He lay quietly, though; but asleep or awake, no more delay. Risks must be run, when time presses. And our ears were a pointer’s to catch a sound.
To work we went, without hurry, but swiftly and silently. Our various stores were dragged from their lurking-places, and placed in the boat, which hung from the ship’s lee side, the side depressed in the water, an indispensable requisite to an attempt at escape. And though at sundown the boat was to windward, yet, as we had foreseen, the vessel having been tacked during the first watch, brought it to leeward.
