_Chapter Two_
Driven by a southwest wind of the upper air that stirred as yet nobreath here at the island, a cloud moved toward Polaris, and wouldconceal the star a while, and pass on. Ben heard no voice except of thesea, and that unconcerned with him, a hiss and groan of breakers on thebeach, and somewhere, beyond the southern arm of the cove, a largermourning as incoming waves lashed an outlying part of the island's bodyand fell away sighing.
The ketch now named _Diana_ had been careened for scraping, a laborcompleted yesterday, wearisome in the sun. Comfortable again in the deepwater of the cove, she rode at anchor, waiting on sunrise that shouldsummon a breeze, and rouse the man who ruled her (if he ever slept) andsend her out wherever his desire commanded. The tide would be runningfair an hour after dawn.
Her shadow begotten of the May moon stretched long across the stillsurface, in nearness sharply edged, then vague, then melting in theblackness of open water far out. The May moon, approaching the full,would be illuminating the letters on the starboard side. If Ben leanedover the rail he could glimpse the black sprawl of them: DIANA. But BenCory still thought of her as _Artemis_.
This was one private way to keep alive the integrity of a self. Anotherwas to inquire: Where does the self end and the universe begin?...
Manuel was aloft. Manuel loved sleep, and could sleep anywhere, he shylytold Ben once--even at the masthead. But his fawn eyes would likely beopen at present, searching the harmless night. If he drowsed up there,or if Captain Shawn or the second mate Marsh merely imagined he had,Manuel would be whipped, and then obliged to swab away any red dropsthat might have spattered on the sacred deck. A year ago Shawn had beenquite kind to stupid Manuel. That ended after Cornelius Barentsz of thesloop _Schouven_ had been hanged, and Manuel had furtively tried to cutthe body down from the yardarm.
However balmy the weather, however empty and flat the sea, atwenty-four-hour lookout must be kept on the _Diana_: Shawn's law. Evenin harbor the men stood watch and watch, having learned not to grumblein the presence of Captain Shawn, who might seem not to hear the wordsat the time spoken, but would nurse them in his bosom a week or so, andbring them forth and quote them gravely while Ball or Marsh correctedthem with a rope's end. The deck must shine spotless as a duchess'sdrawing room; the brass must be dazzling, the ropes coiled exactly so,and the powder dry.
Judah Marsh and the hunchback mute who possessed no name but Dummy weresomewhere aft, idle as Ben. Marsh never invented work when nothingneeded to be done. This was not from laziness, certainly not from anycharity: human beings were simply not so important to Judah Marsh thathe could derive much joy from dominating them. He executed Shawn'sorders for punishment with satisfaction; the sight of Manuel bleedingdeepened his fixed smile; but he seemed to find no pleasure in orderingbig soft Manuel about and watching him fumble at meaningless tasks.
It was not in nature, Ben thought, that a creature could be devoid ofall common impulses to mirth, compassion, generosity, recognizable lust,interest in his fellow men, and still walk about on two legs; but thereMarsh was, unquestionably spewed up by the human race. Some man musthave begotten the thing, some woman borne it in pain and maybe loved ita while. Marsh would not even eat like a man, but like a peevish dog,gulping the tedious food and returning to his one-eyed vacancy. ForDaniel Shawn Ben had been obliged to learn hatred, a waiting, despairinghatred that even now might hold some tormenting elements of love or atleast of searching. Before the stalking dead man Marsh, Ben could onlyrecoil, watchful, glad that, except for the necessary rule of thestarboard watch, Marsh let him alone.
Ben expected nothing to be required of him till after sunrise when thetide turned. Then it would be up anchor and away, if Shawn's intentionheld. It often changed. Shawn was in no triumph these days, after a yearof frustration and trivial actions with nothing gained.
The tide should turn at about seven bells. The mate's watch would tumbleup early to lend a hand at breaking out the anchor and makingsail--unavoidable since, after a year, the ketch was still woefullyundermanned. As always at such times, the mate Tom Ball would remind themen that better times were coming with the next prize--more hands,better food, another vessel maybe, riches to burn, and best of allprobably a bit of amusement at the expense of the Spaniards and theirwomen, say at Campeachy or Merida. They paid scant attention to thatnoise now when it came from Mr. Ball, though the mere word "money" gaveBall's thick Devon voice a special fruitiness as if the taste of itcomforted him all the way down to the gut. ("Money is the thing, Benboy," he said once with damp and genuine friendliness, pawing amiably atBen's shirt. "Got gold, you got everything, take an older man's word forit--good food, good smocks, safe old age. Gi' me the money, other codscan have the glory." Then finding Ben's stare to be an incomprehensiblecold lance, he grunted with the pained astonishment of a man who wantsto be liked, and spat overside, and pushed his hands against the sidesof his paunch to settle it better on the burdened pelvis, and waddledaway.) Manuel might giggle at Ball's belching oratory, but French Jackwould only shrug without chattering, and Matthew Ledyard'spurple-stained face would freeze into a peculiar quiet. When CaptainShawn said nearly the same thing (without the women and Spaniards),standing tall in his green breeches and green sash, in that favoritespot of his where his left hand could stroke the larboard falconet whilehis other rubbed the copper farthing, they still listened. Or theyseemed to. While pronouncing such words as "our company," "ourenterprise," Shawn's splendid voice could briefly make it seem that themen gathered to hear him were indeed a company of some consequence, andnot a tatterdemalion handful of sharkbait committed to the guidance of alunatic dreamer.
Ben tried to lose himself in the tranquillity of black water out yonder,to make some temporary truce in the private struggle. A battle witharithmetic, in a way: how does one youth steal a vessel from seven grownmen--not counting Manuel, who was rather less than a man?
Ledyard was a man; little Joey Mills had at least a memory of manhood.One or even both might be allies, if there were any way to reachLedyard. But all year long, Ledyard had seldom acknowledged Ben withmore than a grunt, a stare and a turning of the back. He offered noother unkindness; he merely made it plain that Ben's existencedistressed him somehow, while chattering Joey Mills tried to explain toBen that Matthew was a grieving man who meant no harm by it. Ledyard,Ben knew, was deeply involved in Shawn's declaration of war against theworld. Ledyard had shot the mate Hanson and one of the seamen in thetaking of _Artemis_. Ben could imagine how Matthew Ledyard might stillcling to the thought of the new lands in the western sea, and mightforget (sometimes) that if ever he arrived there his own consciencewould arrive there with him, to speak with him in the night and burndown on him in the noonday sun.
Ben had grown acquainted with a saving reasonableness in the verymonotony of shipboard, in the endless daily things that must be done forthe vessel's survival and one's own, without much thought, certainlywithout argument. Not too unlike the labors of a frontier farm--but theearth can be kind, with many shelters for one in extremity. In the opensea you've only to glance over the rail, and understand.
There is another sort of reasonableness in the status of a slave. Maybe,Ben thought, most men accept a little of that status because they must:but when you begin to accept it willingly, you begin to die.
("_Benjamin Cory, I would wait for you a thousand years...._")
After eight bells, breakfast. Hardtack, and stew built on a wild slimyformula unknown to any mortal but French Jack, and a dark tragic fluidthat Jack called _cafe arabique_. The stew originated in Bahaman goatand wild pig, shot by Ledyard and Ball not long ago but too long forcomfort. Nothing remained of the good provisions taken in a midnightraid two months ago on a coastal settlement at Martinique. Shawn mighttry another such raid before long; if not, back to the salt cod.
Shawn had not even considered trying to dispose of that honest cargo ofMr. Kenny's at one of the Caribbean ports where he could have sneaked into bargain with no questions asked. Tom Ball had urge
d him to do so,waving his stumpy arms, his voice climbing to a reckless howl ofdespair. Shawn merely grinned at his copper farthing, and let Tomsputter out like a fat candle, and then remarked that one day soon theymight be most happy to own such a handy supply of dem'd wonderful fish.Ben Cory had never regarded himself as a poet, but he thought sometimesthat if he ever saw home again, there was one original composition thathe could recite to Reuben in a decent glow of authorship. It went likethis:
Old boiled cod. O God!
As for the _cafe arabique_, Captain Shawn had been heard to say that hesupposed Jack made it from a secret crock of hog manure hidden in thehold. Ben more charitably suspected an infusion from scraps of oldleather salvaged maybe on the field of Blenheim.
Red-haired Jack claimed to have fought gloriously there under thebanners of Marshal Tallard until the surrender, when a great light burstaround him, and God told Jack that Louis the Fourteenth was no mortalking but an incarnation of the fiend Asmodeus who cut up little girlsand ate them. Well--Jack could have been at Blenheim; far more likely hewasn't. Peter Jenks, captain in 1705 of the ship _Iris_, had happened onFrench Jack in Barbados, and being in sore need of a cook, had signedhim on, with Jenks' usual massive disregard of authorities andformalities--Jack doubtless had the status of a prisoner of war, but hewas somehow at large on the island, he seemed to be declaring that heknew how to cook, and that was good enough for Jenks. ("I say to datcaptain, I am so big man, so good man, me, I am _coq du village, coq dela paroisse_, me. He say strong, 'You coq?' I say coq, he not knownut'n, nor me not more. I fool, I crazy, me--he big fool, strong crazy,go to hell.")
Somewhere, before then, Daniel Shawn might have known the man. At anyrate French Jack, as well as Ball and the carpenter Ledyard, had been apart of Shawn's conspiracy. When Shawn took _Artemis_ by deceit in broaddaylight, it was French Jack who loomed up behind Peter Jenks with acapstan bar and struck him down.
Ben could still see that--Jenks reeling, clutching at the mizzenmast,missing it and going down--as almost a year ago he had seen it inreality across a gap of shining water, the sunlight of that May sparingBen nothing of it as he writhed at the rope that held him and gnawed thegag in his mouth. Everything had been well planned that day, in theclear Atlantic, the island of Nantucket just over the rim of the world.If Ben had been able to struggle free, a scream of warning would likelyhave done no good: Jenks was down. The strangely methodical skirmishcame to an end with the prim grace of a minuet--but that was no dance,that shifting and interweaving of pigmy man-figures over there in thesunlight. That was plain murder, like the death of Dyckman.... ThenManuel lashed the tiller of the sloop and came to Ben, removing gag andrope, patting his hands, troubled in his soft way by Ben's unhiddenloathing, but grinning with a dazzle of white teeth and explaining: "Issgood, got ship now. All be ver' rich, much gold, much women. You likewomen, boy, so pretty? You like gold?..."
Very shrewdly planned, even to the tarpaulin spread over Ben andcovering him up to the eyes.
The sloop from Harkness' wharf had stolen a long time without lightsthrough the depth of a May night until fog closed in around her. Thenshe crept on most gently, slowly, under mainsail and jib, head on to aleisured march of smooth rollers, her captain aware that _Artemis_ wouldbe fogbound too. Ben had known nothing of that. Ben was asleep.
He woke late that morning, his head throbbing wildly, in the stench of adark hole in a universe which was swaying impossibly back and forth, andfrom side to side too, with a grand inexorable calm. In this pocket ofdimness he found he was alone with a human-like thing that could bob itsmisshapen head, and grin, but not speak. He dimly remembered thiscreature from some faraway evening: it was harmless. Steps led out ofthe cavity to a grayness of daylight. The cavity--oh, it was harmlesstoo, it was the tiny cabin of a sloop, one that Mr. Shawn had been hiredto sail to the Banks for somebody named Harkness, all fair enough. Butwhy, Ben wanted to know, why was she at sea now, and why was his headone great blind snarl of pain? Toward the daylight he reeled, askingquestions. Up in wet salt air, he learned that everything wasgray--under him a gray sliver of deck, above him muttering and sobbingcanvas gray with damp, before him a shaft of gray wood--that was a solidmast, harmless, and he grabbed it frantically to save himself as gravitydropped away from his feet, and he could see all around him one heavinggray of ocean to the end of the world. Behind him a cackling voiceinquired: "Mr. Shawn, sir, Mr. Shawn--be that there thing a sailor?"
"Why, steady as she goes, Joey Mills! I shall make it one, Mother ofGod, and you kissing his boots one day."
Ben forced himself around. In the act he lost the mast somehow, thesloop gravely but mirthfully tossing his feet elsewhere. He fetched upagainst the larboard rail and grasped it with all his power, retching.The cackler was another mass of gray, small, hunched at the tiller, anold man and shriveled, who observed Ben's situation with anuncommunicating, not unfriendly eye, and cackled again and spat astern.
Shawn--the same Shawn and somehow not the same--was coming forward, thegreen coat flapping about him as he swayed with perfect casual ease tothe sloop's leaning and rise and fall. "Your head'll be paining you,Beneen, I know it and sorry I am for it, but without a bit of persuasionyou'd never have consented to come with old Shawn at all, I could seethat, the way I was forced to it entirely. O the poor landside dreamsthat do hold a man, the pull of a hearthstone and the clutch of women!You're free, Beneen--old Shawn hath set you free. Never you mind allthat now. Back below, man dear, and tell Dummy I said to give you a joltof rum. You'll not be standing watch the day. Tomorrow you shall,beginning with the forenoon watch, that'll be eight o'clock of themorning the way you measured time in the old days, man dear, the olddays you was a landsman, but now you go with Shawn, now you go with oldShawn that knows the brave heart of you, and that better than you'll beknowing it yourself, now that's no lie."
The Irishman was virtually singing. It penetrated the whirling agony ofBen's head--a little. He mumbled uncomprehendingly, not understandingwith his brain, but understanding the event in his marrow maybe asclearly as he had ever done in the year since then. Shawn watched him,smiling, firm on the crazy deck like a weighted doll: let the worldswing upside down, that'll stay upright, no fear. "It was the drinks.You drugged me," said Ben, not believing it, praying for denial.
"Ben, go below!" Shawn said that firmly but softly, not unkindly, andmoved away forward in rolling ease, the green back vanishing beyond themainsail, the dark riddle of him immediately replaced by the blackriddle of someone else. This also Ben would not believe, this gauntthing striding aft, its black eye-patch and its frozen smile. With noeffort, the one-eyed man of the Lion Tavern detached Ben's hands fromthe rail. "Captain said go below," said Judah Marsh, and struck him inthe face.
Ben tumbled sprawling into the cabin. There Dummy supported him kindlyand fed him rum. There, presently, Ben understood how Jan Dyckman haddied. He began, a little, to understand why.
The gray haze of that day wore itself out to evening with no questionsanswered except in the privacy of Ben's mind, and those withoutfinality. Rain was falling when he went on deck again. The headache wasreceding, his body learning balance. He could not find the sun thatwould have told him what way the sloop was bound. Now and then Shawnpassed him on the deck as if totally unaware of him. No one indeedacknowledged his existence at all except a bulky black-haired man,smooth-faced and young, who grinned at him in vacuous amiability. Theothers called that man Manuel. But when Ben dared to ask him: "Where arewe bound?" Manuel shrugged and grinned and spread his hands, and shookhis head until Ben feared he might be another mute, and then said atlast: "Rain stop soon."
Manuel was right. Toward evening the drizzle ended, the overhangingclouds receded, and a white ball appeared--low in the sky and standing,as Ben faced the bow, on Ben's right hand. Manuel at that time was atthe helm, and Shawn stood near him, arms folded, disdaining any support.He had been gazing off to the southwest, but now, since the blue-eyedstare had swung around to Ben, Ben asked: "Mr.
Shawn, are we tacking?"
Shawn cocked his head at Manuel in some understanding, and Manuelgrinned. "Now why would we be tacking, Beneen?"
Ben's nerves crackled and snapped. "Don't call me that!"
"I may not then?" Shawn displayed no anger, though Ben had almost hopedfor it. The blue eyes dilated a little, perhaps in hurt, but he did notcease smiling. "Well--well, Cory, why would we be tacking, and a goodlittle westerly breeze on the sta'board quarter that do be sending uswhere we wish to go?"
"And where is that?"
"Why, tomorrow, Cory, I fear you'll see little except water--a greatdeal of it--but you'll see tacking enough if that's your wish, andyou'll be learning something about the handling of sail on small craftin the forenoon watch, I'm hoping, and later. And now and then, mandear, away far off up in the northwest or sometimes due north, you'llfind me a wee blue lump on the horizon--why, so faint and small thatsometimes your eyes will say it's not there at all, but it'll be there.And it'll be there the following day, and maybe the day after that, forwe'll be standing off and on. Now that's a way of waiting, Cory, that'sthe way a vessel must wait if she's in the open waters and biding hertime for a certain thing to happen--it's the way of a hawk in the air,if you like, the way he must move about continually up there in thegreat sky, biding his time for a certain thing to happen." He wascoming to Ben, and his broad hands fell heavy on Ben's shoulders. Theblue stare dilated to black; Ben met it, refusing to shrink away. "Thatblue lump will be an island, Cory, a sprawling island where it happensI've never gone ashore, but I know how it lies. I'm of no mind to gothere on my errand, do you see, because on land--why, on land I'mcompassed about, I have enemies, Mother of God, and some of them areagents of--puh!--Her Majesty Queen Anne."
"What's that you say?"
"Easy, Cory, easy! You have a new allegiance. That I will explain later,not now."
"I have no new allegiance."
"Later, friend, I said. The name of the island is Nantucket. Now sooneror later--on the second, the third day, it doesn't matter--a lovelysmall vessel will put out from Sherburne. We shall speak her, the islandthen being over the horizon."
"I think I understand your meaning," Ben said. "I think I understood itwhen that murderer struck me in the face."
"I'm hoping he did not harm you," said Shawn mildly. The eyes werealtogether black; the smile remained. "No murderer, Ben. He acted atcommand of a certain voice--more of that later too, you wouldn't beunderstanding it now. As for striking you--mere shipboard discipline,Cory. You might be thanking him for that one day, when you've comearound to learning how to obey a captain's orders."
"If I understand your meaning, I will have no part of it."
"Can you walk on water? Swim among the fishes?"
"That's not worth an answer," said Ben, and he heard Manuel suck in hisbreath as if in pain, but would not look his way. "I met you last nightin friendship. I came aboard here, and drank with you as a friendbecause I supposed you to be one. Oh, my brother...."
"Your brother?"
Terror stabbed at Ben, and caution gave him wisdom. He had almost said:"My brother was right, and you no friend." It was possible that some dayShawn would be ashore again, where Reuben was. "Nothing about mybrother," said Ben--"merely that he told me I ought not to set my hearton sailing, as I did. I told you how I had hoped for it, and you knewlast night, you know this moment that I meant it honest--not this, notthis--I say I'll never have no part of it."
"But," said Shawn peacefully, "I must have an answer to what I asked. Doyou wish to live?"
"Yes, like any man. Not at cost of betraying my own people or doing whatmy heart refuses."
"Why, that's very bravely spoken."
"You thought I'd help you take _Artemis_?"
"Oh," said Shawn, and took out the copper coin and frowned at it. "Who'sto know all the whims of a green boy?"
"Whims, Mr. Shawn? Well, not that or any other dirty piracy."
"Oh!" said Shawn again, and held up the coin, turning it about in thegray light. His forehead was damp, perhaps from the spray. "A St.Patrick farthing, Beneen. From Dromore. Sometimes I'm wondering why Ikeep it. Not much there, ha, to make a man think of the green land?...Well, you'll forget you said that--in time, time. Your heart, is it? Andso, do you see, it's your heart I must teach. I must change it, the wayyou'll be breaking the old bonds and will sail with me to the new lands.Time--that's all. The old gray mother'll give you the truth of it, andI'll change your heart."
"That no one can do."
"But I can," said Shawn, and strode away smiling....
_Artemis_ was overtaken on the third day.
The weather shone fair, the winds themselves giving Shawn their favor,mild westerlies holding, shifting on the third day a little toward thenorthwest. The island, as Shawn had said, was a faraway thing, at timesnot visible, reappearing as the blue fragment of a dream. It was earlymorning, and Shawn, fortunate in this too, had tacked well away to thesoutheast of the island when the clean white of new sail first appeared.Shawn needed only a moment's study through his glass. His face, that hadbeen smiling, changed to an ivory stillness, and he took the helm.
_Artemis_, gliding out of Sherburne, had clapped on all sail--jib andtopsail and mainsail bellying taut, her fore-and-aft mizzen a great wingof purpose and of splendor. For her the northwesterly was a followingwind, not her best wind but good enough; her low-slung bowsprit leanedjoyfully to the sparkle of harmless whitecaps, outward bound.
Shawn's little sloop danced about, settling into the long starboardtack; it would intercept the course of _Artemis_--but not until theisland was well below the horizon, and none to observe but the gullsthat still dipped and wheeled above and around _Artemis_, carelessangels in the sun. Shawn gave one order in one roared word: "Judah!"
It must have all been arranged long beforehand. Ben at that moment wastrying to understand a snapped order from Judah Marsh. Trim something orother--he hadn't quite heard or understood, and was undecided whether toobey as he had tried to do yesterday or to choose this time for hopelessrebellion. Startled by that thunder from the helm, he turned his head toglance at Shawn--and was face down on the deck, his hands wrenchedbehind him and bound fast at the wrists. His threshing legs were securedat knees and ankles. The creature Dummy was doing most of this, as Benknew from the moaning slobber at his ear.
He was tied then at the foot of the mast, by back and ankles, legs bentunder him so that he could not lift his knees, a rag jammed in hismouth, a tarpaulin flung over him up to the eyes. He struggled a while,not in hope, merely in refusal to surrender, and dislodged the tarp.Judah Marsh noticed this, and fastened two corners of the canvas behindthe mast. Ben could do nothing then but go limp, trying to lessen thetorture of bent legs and keep the edge of the tarpaulin from slippingagainst his eyelids. He faced the starboard rail. He could glimpse_Artemis_ from time to time as the sloop rolled. She grew larger throughthe morning.
He saw the sloop's dory readied to go overside, long before _Artemis_was in hailing distance, the life aboard her only a motion of midgets.Dummy, swift and excited as an ape, tossed into the dory a broad sheetof canvas. Judah Marsh and dry little Joey Mills climbed into the doryand disappeared. They would be a bundle under a rag; Ben ceased towonder....
"Ahoy the _Artemis_!"
"Hoy!" The answer came back large and brazen over the mild water, Jenkswith his megaphone no midget now but recognizable, massive at the railand calm.
"I'm bearing a message from Mr. John Kenny of Roxbury."
Ben tried to yell. Nothing penetrated the gag--a strangled gurgling thatwould not be audible ten feet away. He gave it up, hearing a part ofJenks' answer: "--'bliged to you. Let me have it."
"A sealed message, sir--must be delivered to you safe hand, says he, noother way. Will you heave to, sir? I'll send me boat and delay you aslittle as I may."
The heavy clang of Captain Peter Jenks' voice cursed once or twiceamiably for the record, and consented.
Shawn was right. He
delayed _Artemis_ very little indeed.
Her shortened sail holding her to a crawl, the sloop was rolling more.Her rising starboard side would close away Ben's view, and then itseemed to him, not that his own bound body was being moved, his eyesturned in spite of him to the sun and empty sky, but that the sharpbright field of agony across the water had been thrust down, rejectedand overwhelmed: sea and sky would not own it nor allow it. He supposedhe was not quite sane. Then with each contrary roll the vision wouldreturn, plainer than ever, and he was sane enough.
Printed on his memory was a moment when Shawn and Jenks stood togetheron the deck of _Artemis_ in what seemed to be innocent palaver, themegaphone dangling idly from Jenks' hand, while the dory with Dummy atthe oars was sliding astern--and then a roll of the sloop to larboard.Another moment--why, Jenks and Shawn had hardly moved, and Ben couldrecognize fat Tom Ball, and the carpenter Matthew Ledyard--but the doryhad been made fast. Three rats like men were climbing. Surely thehelmsman could see them! Or the red-haired man--yes, but what the devilwas the cook doing on deck at a conference of captains, and withsomething black hanging from his right hand? Another roll tolarboard--the sloop in her whimsy hung there, tormenting him through atime of sunny blindness and no breathing.
Then Ben discovered why the red-haired cook was present. The same glanceembraced the helmsman--anyway a human creature wearing a green kerchiefaround his head such as the helmsman had been wearing--tumblingstrangely from the stem of the beautiful slow-gliding vessel, strikingthe water with no great splash, floating briefly with no struggle as oflife, and disappearing. The sloop rolled to larboard.
Ben in the sunlight could remember Reuben in the red gleam of burninghouses, stricken and condemning himself because he had not prayed. _AndI have not prayed. But--but...._
From the pain in his legs or the beating sun, Ben might have fainted fora while. Later he could recall no more of the dance of death; nothinguntil he was aware of the dory skimming back toward him, no one in itbut Judah Marsh. Manuel came to release him.
Marsh troubled himself with nothing aboard the sloop, not even thesails; his only errand was to bring the dory for Ben and Manuel, andherd them into it with the lash of a word or two. Manuel was obliged todrop Ben into it, his legs being still numb and useless.
An hour later, as _Artemis_ sped southward, the sloop was still visible,yawing this way and that, making poor silly rushes downwind, dropping ina trough and swinging until caught aback. When Ben last glimpsed her, heand Manuel and Dummy were employed in holystoning the deck of _Artemis_,and Manuel laughed to see her, and nudged Dummy so that he might enjoyit too, even though Judah Marsh was standing by with a belt. Verycomical was Mr. Harkness' sloop stumbling about back there, a puzzledpup ordered to go home. Ben could see that. To protest this presentlabor was to receive the buckle end of the belt; Ben could see that sucha cause was not worth a protest--any deck should be made decent, onegranted that. The stains were already browning in the sun, difficult toremove, but Captain Shawn would not gather his crew to hear, approve andsign the articles until that deck was clean....
"We here gathered, who have hereunder set our names, do declareourselves prepared to undertake all such enterprises of discovery as ourCaptain shall design, and all acts of seizure, search, requisition,defense and warfare that may be needful thereto.
"We here and now and forever forswear all allegiance to any crown,republic, dominion, principality on the face of the earth.
"We here and now and forever swear loyalty unto one another, and to ourCaptain obedience in all things, and unto the following laws we doagree:
"1. That man that shall refuse any order of our Captain, or of those to whom he may assign command, shall for a first offending receive Moses' Law, that is forty stripes less one on the bare back; for second offending his punishment shall be as the Captain may direct; but for a third offending he shall suffer present death.
"2. Of prizes taken, the Captain shall have one share and a quarter; the mates, the gunner, the carpenter and the boatswain shall have each one share and one eighth; and every man one share; but that man that shall display devotion beyond the common unto our endeavors, he shall have such additional reward as the Captain may decide.
"3. That man that shall utter blasphemy or foul speech in the presence of the Captain, or suffer any filth or uncleanness to remain on the deck of the vessel or in the hold, shall receive ten stripes.
"4. That man that shall snap his arms, or smoke tobacco in the hold with pipe uncapped, or carry a lit candle without a lanthorn, or strike flint or carry flame within three paces of gunpowder except he be the gunner, shall receive not less than twenty and not more than thirty stripes on the bare back.
"5. That man that shall offer to meddle with a prudent woman without her consent shall suffer the loss of his tongue and both hands, and shall be set adrift, or marooned, as the Captain may direct.
"6. That man that shall secretly bring a lewd woman aboard this or other vessel of our company, with intent she shall remain aboard, the vessel being at sea, shall be bound to his doxy by wrists and ankles and they both be cast into the sea beyond sight of land.
"7. That man that shall be found in liquor during his hours of duty or in the presence of an enemy, shall receive Moses' law for three succeeding days; but for a second offending he shall suffer death.
"8. That man that shall display cowardice in battle shall be hanged by the neck from the yardarm until dead.
"9. That man that shall practise the vice of Sodom or other unnatural lust shall be hanged by the neck from the yardarm in presence of the entire company, his body there to remain for the space of three days, when it shall be quartered and cast into the sea.
"10. If it shall become known that any man, woman or child hath entered aboard this or other vessel of our company as a spy or agent of the Crown of England or any other foreign power, such spy or agent shall be put to death in whatever manner the Captain shall direct; but if such spy or agent be one who hath signed these articles and presented himself to be an honest member of our company, he shall before his dispatch be nailed by the hands to the foremast for the space of five days without meat or drink.
"This shall be your Decalogue," said Daniel Shawn, "and you agreeing.And yet if any man among you be not agreeable, I do not rightly knowwhat we shall do with him the day, seeing I cannot spare a boat, and thedistance to the mainland may be something tedious to the best ofswimmers."
They laughed. All seven, even Judah Marsh, for the dry grunt that camefrom him was certainly meant for a laugh. The laugh of Tom Ball, who hadtaken over the helm during the ceremony, rolled forward like greasybubbles. Ben Cory, an eighth man who stood apart from the group by thelarboard gun and had not been summoned by Shawn to join them, wasreflecting that though the life of his body might continue for a while,the part of it that had known laughter was surely ended; reflecting alsothat his presence here was, in part and obscurely, a result of his ownactions. Drugged and kidnapped, yes, but ever since the morning whenReuben had spoken out against Shawn, some part of Ben had understoodthat his brother was right; another part, swift to deny it, had beenstronger in him at the time, and so--so the drinks in the cabin of thesloop, and the waking.
And so perhaps a man's every act is but in part his own, in part ayielding to the thrust of other forces. And perhaps a man is strong injust so far as his actions may be called his own; and so--little grayJoey Mills had begun to sputter words, no one preventing him--and sowhere is the way where light dwelleth? "Gawd, sir, that part there--Imean----"
"What part, Joey Mills?" Shawn asked that not loudly, and he spread thepaper against the bulk of the mainmast, his left hand restraining itagainst the breeze. Manuel stood by him holding an inkstand and goosequill from the cabin. So much, Ben thought, for the fireside legendsthat such docu
ments were signed with the heart's blood. Or maybe theywere. "Some article you wished to question, Joey Mills?"
"Oh no, sir, nothing like that, sir. I only thought--that there partabout forswearing allegiance--well, sir----"
"You wished it more strongly expressed, belike?"
"Well, sir, you see, sir----"
"Ah, I have it!" Shawn beamed in a great glow of generous satisfaction."You're not the big man, Joey Mills, though sure it's the heart of agamecock under your old hide, so do you make yourself the greater bycoming forward now and being first to sign, ha? Come, Joey! Let mebehold your handwrite plain and large!"
Ben noticed no tremor in the grimy fist. That might have been becauseJoey Mills clutched the quill like a rope, his whole arm toiling in thegrave task of shaping the letters, his tongue protruding from clampedlips, his brows a cat's cradle of distress, while Shawn's right armspread kindly over his sparrowy shoulders. "There, sir! And now,sir----"
"Whisht, man!--time to speak of all things, but now you've signed, andhappy am I to have your pledged word in writing, but now, man dear, youmust step aside for others."
Joey Mills gave it up and stumbled away, his glance meeting Ben's ratherwildly. He seemed almost to be imploring Ben, of all people, forsomething or other, an impression soon blotted out by a weaklyapologetic chuckle. As Joey Mills then scuttled aft to relieve Tom Ballat the helm, Ben thought of Jesse Plum....
Matthew Ledyard the carpenter, last to join the group, had stalkedforward--from the captain's cabin, Ben thought--and had halted,demoralized with astonishment at sight of Ben. Ben had supposed Ledyardwas murdered with the others, yet there he stood in the sunlight, gauntface flushed to the eyes under the broad birthmark, lips moving withoutwords. Shawn had drawn him aside for a word or two that seemed to calmhim. He had listened to the articles with a sleepwalker's gaze atnothing, and now was the second to sign, shaking his head afterward likea man who hopes to understand something sometime but cannot do so in thepresent.
After him came Manuel and Dummy and French Jack, these three guided byShawn's hand to make their marks, and he wrote their names for them withamiable flourishes. Tom Ball then signed, a remarkable lightness anddelicacy in his fat fingers.
Judah Marsh wrote slowly but steadily with a savage gouging, his writinga pattern of cutlass gashes. Shawn took the quill from him, regardingthe point in sorrow and the man who had nearly ruined it. Some currentof understanding was flowing between them, no affection in it and nomirth. Shawn signed his name, handsome and large and bold, pocketed thefolded paper, and flung the quill dartwise over the side. "Stay as yoube, men," he said--"we'll choose the watches presently." He jerked hishead for Ben to follow him, and went forward to the bow, leaning thereidly at the rail, the wind at his back. "Cory, I did not require you tosign. Men go with me of their own will, one way or another."
"And so I'm to go overboard?"
"You seem not to be shaking.... I've not been so instructed."
"Instructed?--I don't understand you."
"Never mind. Time, time."
"We are strangers, Mr. Shawn, who never met before. You could haveforced my hand to take the quill, maybe. I'd never sign such a thing anyother way, and I will not serve you on this venture." Shawn's face didnot change. "Are the others all dead?"
Shawn watched the ocean in the south. "Several died and no help for it,"he said quietly. "Peter Jenks lives--not harmed, I dare say. A thickskull. He'll share my cabin for a while at least."
"Share----"
Shawn laughed, not musically but almost soundlessly, a thing Ben had notseen him do before. "Under restraint, Ben. Like all good vessels,_Artemis_, who must now be named _Diana_, carries irons for malefactors.I have had Chips staple a chain in the floor of the cabin for the legirons. Unpleasant, but I'm obliged to question Mr. Jenks in certainparticulars. Then no doubt he can be released."
"Released to go overside."
"Time, Ben, time. And so you will not serve me?"
"I will not."
"I like that stubborn will. Mother of God, what a power of strength itmight be when you're a man!... Ben, those fellas back there, they areservants. Good men--chose 'em with much thought--but servants, cattle.You are not as they."
"If I did you any service aboard this vessel of Mr. Kenny's I'd be nobetter than they are."
But it seemed impossible for Ben to make Shawn angry. The man continuedstrangely gentle and reflective in all he said. "I grant I may have doneMr. Kenny some harm, but he's a wealthy man." About to protest that Mr.Kenny would be so no longer with _Artemis_ lost, Ben held his peace. "Ido regret it. If you will not serve me--as yet--perhaps you will servethe ketch? A vessel hath many needs, Mr. Cory. An idle or unskillfulhand may do her much harm, come tempest or other misfortune. You cannotexpect to share in any prizes----"
"Do you fancy I ever would?"
"Shall we hope to soften this Puritan virtue to some degree?"
But Shawn was not at all angry. "I say, you cannot share in prizes, butwhile aboard you will be fed and clothed like the others, and for thisperhaps you might make some return in labor, if only for _Artemis'_sake?"
"I suppose I must, as a captive slave, if I wish to live. But I will dono act of piracy, I will do no violence to anyone except in defense ofmy life, and I will escape you when I can. I believe any slave has thatprivilege."
"Then I'll require of you no act of violence, only the labor of aforemast hand--can I say more? You have my word on it. And tell mesomething--have you ever spoken in this fashion to any man before?"
"I never did. I never had cause."
"Knowing quite well that by a lift of my finger I could have you put todeath? Human life is nothing to these men, you know. And there'll bemuttering a-plenty because you haven't signed."
"Knowing that, of course."
Shawn's hand swung out and gripped Ben's upper arm, not with intentionalcruelty, Ben guessed, but he could feel the nerves of his forearm goingnumb. "Ben, Ben, do you not also hear a voice, sometimes behind yourshoulder as it were?--saying now for instance, 'Resist old Shawn, resisthim even if you die for it!'" Shawn shook him impatiently. "Is there notsuch a voice?"
"I don't understand you."
"Tell me the truth!"
"I hear my own mind--heart, conscience, whatever you wish to call it. Itserves me as well as it may, and I listen to it."
"Strange! You are not a believer, I think? Do you pray?"
"I haven't truly prayed since my father and mother were murdered.... Isnot conscience enough?"
Shawn released him and sighed and turned away. "You spoke of slavery.Ah, Beneen, don't you see, all this is but prologue? I serve a greatend. I spoke to you of the western sea and the new lands, and I did seethe thought strike fire in you, don't try to deny it. Why, I'd not go onthe account, nor meddle with this rabble, nor do violence to anyone, ifI could help it. Mother of God, two or three fine ships, a handful ofbrave men, say fifty, sixty--it needs no more. We need no women--we'lltake us native women in the new lands and raise up a new breed of men,and they shall be like gods. You must see it, Beneen, the way I have nochoice?"
"I do see--as my father and my mother taught me, as I learned from mytutor and my great-uncle, and above all from my brother, whoseunderstanding is better than mine--I do see, Mr. Shawn, that you cannotserve a good end by evil means."
"Ochone!--a Puritan indeed but very young, now that's no lie. I knowthat talk, that doctrine, Ben, know it of old, a stick to beat the youngand no truth in it, and so I deny it altogether."
"I will affirm it while I live. Damnation, Mr. Shawn, it's no article offaith, only a plain observation any man can make. Your great end lies inthe future, but the future grows from the present. The evil you do inthe present can only generate evil in the future and not the good endyou dream of."
"Puritan and philosopher! Now I have seen flowers growing from adunghill."
"They grow from the seed of other flowers and would do so in commonground. The dunghill itself only makes a
stink."
"Feeds them, does it not?"
"I dare say nothing's purely good or purely evil. What's good in thedunghill feeds them, the rest is a stink."
"Damn the thing, blind and stubborn as you are, I like you, Ben Cory....Do you play chess?"
"A little."
"I found a set of men in the cabin. We must play now and then."
"If you like...."
"Nothing left then, Beneen, of the friendship I hoped there was betweenthee and me?"
"I don't know how to answer that. I don't see how there can befriendship if one man enslaves another, if one man does what anothermust hate and reject."
"You're very bitter, boy."
"I don't possess my own life, if it can be destroyed at your whim, alift of your finger. I think his life is all any man owns. I thinkthat's cause for bitterness, Shawn. I refused as soon as I understood,the first day. There've been three nights when you could have stood into shore and let me swim for it." Shawn laughed a little, silently. "Iknow--you couldn't have me spreading word of you. And it's true, Iwould have done so at once."
Shawn said slowly: "I could not destroy your life, I think. I spoke asif I might, only in hope of persuading you, opening your eyes. I keepyou with me for the same reason, now that's no lie. The friendshipabides in me, though you've turned against me. And now you have my wordon this: when I have won my little fleet, and my men, and am ready forthe regions where none will follow me, I will be finding some means toset you free, and you still unwilling to go with me. I'll put you aboardsome other ship, or leave you in a foreign port if I can. You have myword on it--yet I think you may go with me. And for the present I do beasking nothing of you but a seaman's labor, no violence. No violence,Beneen."
Ben knew somehow that, even in that moment, when brown stains were stillvisible on the deck in spite of all the scrubbing and washing down,Shawn's sorrow at Ben's rejection of him was quite real, quite honestand deep, and so was his belief that Ben's mind would change and that hehimself could change it. A most divided man, who could condemn war andpractice it. One could picture him sheltering a fallen nestling in hishand, while his heel pressed on the bloody corpse of one of his ownbreed. But Ben was forced to understand after a while that such insanedivision is not, by most men, called insanity. They call it necessity.
For a year now, Shawn had kept his word. No violence was required ofBen. When action approached, as it did hardly more than a dozen times inthe whole year, Ben was tied, not cruelly, down in the forecastle, andsaw only the aftermath.
It seemed to Ben now as he watched the tropic glory of the Maymoon--this fading slowly, for morning was not far away--that it was trueenough, as was said in the Book of Proverbs: _For as he thinketh in hisheart, so is he_--and maybe, Ben speculated, any madman is merely onewho believes a thing which the one who names him mad is forced to call alie.
Shawn's blunders in chess were of a curious kind. Ben could beat him asa rule, with effort, and Shawn took it graciously except for acompulsion to curse at his own mistakes. Ben was reminded each time(but did not say) how Reuben could have given the man a handicap of arook or better and still have beaten him in fourteen or fifteen moves.Shawn would prepare a good enough attack--squatting by the board in thesunlight of the quarterdeck, on days of small wind when the _Diana_ heldan even keel and no work needed to be done--and he would be cheerful inthe beginning, a little excited, humming in his teeth, moving his pieceswith a mirthful flourish. One could not think of him then as anythingbut a kindly, humorous, thoughtful man, almost a young man, a man onholiday. But in the decisive moment, when he must push through theattack or be damned to it, the humming would cease, the copper farthingwould appear in his fingers, and Shawn would either abandon the attackfor some meaningless scrimmage in another part of the field, or make oneof his blatant errors--a piece left hanging unprotected, a recklesssacrifice gaining nothing. After that, Ben's limited knowledge wassufficient to demolish him. Daniel Shawn would never seem to understandjust how this had happened, and Ben did not tell him.
The _Diana_ won no big prizes in that year of prowling up and down theCaribbean. True, she was woefully undermanned, reason enough for riskingno lives on anything less than a flat certainty. All the same (saidJudah Marsh in Ben's hearing), John Quelch would not have chased aFrench sloop for three days and then turned tail merely because thelittle rascal put about in despair and uncovered a gun she shouldn'thave possessed. Shawn heard that too, and stared blankly at Marsh,rubbing the coin, until Marsh turned away; but Shawn turned away too,without a reply.
There were braver occasions, such as the breathless evening in July whenthe sloop _Schouven_ died. That was an open battle with everythingrisked. Tied securely in the stifling forecastle, Ben could hear as muchfor himself--the coughing thunder above him of the _Diana's_ larboardgun, presently a distant animal howling, a banging of small arms, apiercing squeal like a stuck pig that was French Jack's war cry. WhenBen was released to come on deck the _Schouven_ was already afire, the_Diana_ leaving her behind in the gathering night. Tom Ball and Dummyand Jack were gaudily bleeding from minor wounds, but the _Diana_ hadlost nothing. She had won about fifty pounds in silver, a month'sprovisions, a little long-tailed black monkey and a man--a tall, gray,soft-spoken scoundrel, Cornelius Barentsz, who was even then scrawlinghis name on the _Diana's_ articles with Shawn's blessing. The terrifiedmonkey clung frantically to Dummy and found a friend....
Ben saw little of Barentsz, who spoke almost no English and was assignedto Mr. Ball's watch, relieving French Jack of his occasional double dutyfor a week or so until Barentsz was hanged. Ben never altogetherunderstood that. The execution was carried out with no ceremony in thesilent hours of the first watch, when Ben was asleep below. Manuel atthat time was serving on the larboard watch, and Joey Mills on Marsh'swatch with Ben; the two changed places after the hanging, at the requestof Mr. Ball, who said he didn't wish to be tempted to do violence to thedirty Portagee when the ketch was so short-handed. It was MatthewLedyard, in one of his rare impulses to communication, who snarlinglyexplained the incident to Ben. Barentsz had been discovered in thedarkness of the first watch trying to embrace poor giggling weakwittedManuel like a woman. The articles of the _Diana_ were specific. A weeklater, though, after the body had been disposed of in the mannerprescribed, Shawn asked in the middle of a chess game: "Do you know thetrue reason why that Dutchman was hanged?" And he set down a Bishopwhere it could not legally go.
"The piece can't be played there," said Ben.
"Ha?" Shawn stood abruptly and pushed the board aside with his foot."Devil with the game, my mind's not on it." He had already made hisblunder. "You heard my question?"
"I can't say I know the true reason for anything you do."
"I did not hang him, Ben. His destiny hanged him. Nor I don't make muchof poor Manuel trying to cut the body down, for 'tis Manuel's destiny toremain weak in the wits and no harm in him, except he may be used forharm by others. But--ah well, 'tis true enough what I told the men, Idid find Barentsz so, and I'll have no such Devil's foulness under mycommand, now that's no lie. But"--he glanced about the sunny deck, whereno one else was in earshot--"there was another reason, one I didn'twish the men to know. On second thought--on further instruction--itdoesn't matter. You may even tell them if you see fit." He waited, thesilence forcing Ben to look up at him at last. "It might be of especialimportance to you, Ben Cory, to know that I know Barentsz's true reasonfor coming aboard my ketch."
"His reason! He was brought aboard a captive, that or be drowned."
"That was the seeming," said Shawn, rubbing his coin, looking gravelydown with the sun behind him, his eyes all black. "Yet Barentsz couldhave gone with the others. They thought (not understanding the end Iserve) that I would give them a boat. But no, this Barentsz chose tomake a show of favoring my enterprise, so to deceive me and get himselfaboard my ketch. Then soon enough, hearing what he muttered under hisbreath, I understood why."
"I could make nothing of what he tried to
say in English."
"That's no matter."
"Do you speak Dutch?"
"Enough."
"Well?"
"You wouldn't care to say 'Well, sir?' or 'Well, Captain?'"
"Well, Shawn?"
"How you do play with your own life, the way it might be a thing of novalue!"
"While I'm a slave it's of no value," said Ben, knowing that this wasnot at all true.
"Mother of God, it's your very impudence that saves you. If you werewhat I've sometimes feared you might be, your conversation would not beso. You'd be sly, I think. You'd try to please me, I think, and not spitback at me like a little wildcat.... Well--Cornelius Barentsz was anagent, and that in the service of Queen Anne of England."
"I don't believe it."
"It doesn't matter. You haven't my ways of discovering truth. But nowthat you know I know this, will there be any particular thing you wishto tell me, Ben Cory?"
"No, Shawn."
"If you be what I devoutly pray you are, you've nothing to fear even inyour impudence. But those who betray me I do not forgive."
Ben knew--and had known for some time, he supposed--that he was in thepresence of madness, whatever that is. It seemed not to be the simple,half-supernatural thing that the common speech heard in Ben's childhoodhad made of it. Shawn did not rave or babble or foam at the mouth; henever acted as one possessed of a devil ought to act, and besides, arethere any devils? If so, what are they, and how was one who had livedthree years with the calm skepticism of John Kenny to believe in them?One remembered Reuben snorting and gurgling and sometimes cursing overCotton Mather's _Wonders of the Invisible World_, and then reading withgreater joy the burlesque of it written by the merchant Robert Calef ofBoston, whom Uncle John admired. Never mind about devils.
Ben knew his own life could end at any moment. At that time, however, hehad already lived three months with the nearness of sudden death--hisown defiance, he sometimes thought, the sheerest bluff. Like living inthe same den with a tiger who, for his own reasons, has so far refrainedfrom destroying you. You can cringe and shiver for only a limited time;then it becomes tiresome, and you must look after your own occasions ofeating and sleeping and waking no matter what the tiger does. Anddoubtless a tiger is more likely to pounce on a creature that cringesthan on one who spits back at him. And in spitting back, in turning hisface directly toward the lightning and to hell with the consequences,Ben had found, no doubt of it, a hot pleasure as definite, almost askeen as in the surging moments when Clarissa had loved him.
Shawn played few chess games with Ben after that day, appearing to loseinterest in them. He seemed to Ben to be changing in some gradual,obscure fashion--more aloof, more silent except for the occasionalfurious monologue after some ship had been sighted, and followed awhile, and then allowed to slip away over the horizon because Shawn'svoice told him the moment was not ripe and his forces not sufficient.Several times Shawn had robbed small interisland vessels--trivialoccasions when Ben was not tied below but allowed to remain on deck withManuel and Dummy and the monkey. The _Diana_ swooped down on thesehelpless chickens like the wrath of God, but having taken what littlethey held of provisions and valuables, and having learned that no manaboard them was willing or worthy to go with him, Shawn showedcontemptuous mercy and let them depart unharmed. What they could tell,he said, was no threat to him--he had already satisfied himself, afterthe pursuit by the frigate _Dread_, that the _Diana_ could outrunanything afloat.
Vessels in the _Diana's_ class or larger were always too well manned ortoo well armed, or sighted too near the land or in the presence of othershipping, or simply rejected by the inner voice. Something--("I amcompassed about," said Shawn--"compassed about")--something was alwaysnot quite right.
Shawn spent more and more time in the cabin, where Ben had not beenallowed to go the whole year long.
There was an October afternoon of aching sunlight in the waters offGrenada, when Ben noticed a thick scattering of silver at Shawn'stemples and wondered how long it could have been there....
No one entered that locked cabin except Shawn, who kept its key and oneother key on a cord at his neck, and Judah Marsh, and Joey Mills. Millsentered it only long enough to carry in food and fetch out the pail ofslops. Since no one was ever of a mind to question Shawn or Marsh, Benand the others (even Tom Ball) relied on Joey Mills for news of PeterJenks. Mills did not much enjoy talking on the subject.
It was ever the same, Mills said. Jenks was there, and alive; but whatthe Captain wanted of him was beyond the imagination of an old man who'dbeen brought up Godfearing in Gloucester. Jenks' ankles were closetogether in irons; Ledyard had stapled the chain of the irons to thefloor and nailed a plank over the staple so that nothing less than acrowbar would ever tear it loose. The chain was long enough to allowJenks to lie in his bunk or sit at the stationary bench by the built-intable. When the ketch was careened for cleaning, Mills said, the OldMan must be obliged to lie braced against the side boards of hisbunk--never speaking a word. Nothing movable was allowed within Jenks'reach except a light wooden food tray that Mills pushed to him by a longstick, and the slop bucket, managed with the same stick, and a leatherflask of rum. Under Shawn's strictest orders, Mills observed all theprecautions one might with a chained bear. Jenks laughed at thatsometimes, Mills said--but spoke not a word. He had not once touched therum; Mills was certain of it. The flask lay in a corner, some motion ofthe vessel having dislodged it from the table where Shawn had tossed it.It still lay within Jenks' reach: Mills doubted if he even looked at it.And the leather had turned green on the outside with tropic mold.
Shawn actually slept in that cabin, the door locked. Beside the bunkacross the cabin from the one Jenks used, Ledyard had built a heavywooden screen, and after that Ledyard also had been forbidden the place.The screen, Mills supposed, would keep the chained bear from hurling hisbucket at Shawn while Shawn slept--if Shawn ever slept....
The May moon sank into a grayness of horizon cloud behind the island,then sank altogether, lost out of the night, and with its passing theshadow of the _Diana_ vanished into the black immensity of the sea.Under the blackness that spread above him like another sea bearing afoam of stars, Ben stood in a loneliness complete, feeling nothing for atime but the loyal secret motion of his own heart and the noise of oceannot concerned with him. He was waiting: waiting at least for the gradualfading of the dark that must soon begin in the lower sky, maybe forsomething more. That light would come in its time, over the open watersin the east, pouring upward, compelling the sea of blackness to aluminous change and then dissolving it away. But what is morning to aslave?
Why, nothing. Nothing unless in some way the light can grow within theslave as well as upon the world where he drags out his captivity.
I have been too passive, Ben thought, and that for much too long a time.Defiant, yes, and maybe brave enough, but in a child's way, to no realpurpose. For that first month or so I may have had some excuse--I wasdazed; I had never dreamed any such thing could happen, to me. But sincethen, no excuse for drifting, letting things happen. There must havebeen something I could have done.
Oh, and passive, too passive by far, a long time before that evening inthe cabin of the sloop. Drifting, letting things happen instead oftaking a hand in forcing them to happen. Maybe a child is compelled tothat. But childhood ended--when? Did not Reuben at fifteen discover apurpose?
He will have turned sixteen a few days ago, and I not there; anddoubtless he believes I am dead.
Faith surely imagines I am dead, she who said with her lips at my earthat she would wait for me a thousand years.
There must have been something I could do....
Dry logic of arithmetic asserted itself and Ben noted it. I don't _know_how one youth steals a ketch from seven grown men. But....
By the contemptuous assent of Daniel Shawn himself, I still possess theknife my father gave me. He gave me also a word: _readiness...._
The stars weakened; some of them were gone. The sk
y, no sea of blacknessnow, became a paleness and then a glory. Shadows acquired weight andrelief, substance and sharpness in the transfiguration of daylight--therail under Ben's hand no pallid blur but familiar with every spot andimperfection of the polished wood. The headland out yonder at thesouthern arm of the cove, a looming dullness not long ago, became thegray hand of a giant, then green, then manifest jungle, a fragment ofsolid earth, and the lonely red flare of the sun burst free in silenceover the rim of the world. Clouds hung high in the west; none lingeredover there on the morning side to obscure the birth, and at the momentof completion a light sweet wind tranquilly arrived, a northeasterlybreeze, cooling Ben's face, roving across the island, waking in the barecordage a music of morning and perhaps of spring.
_There must be something I can do...._
"Mr. Hibbs, was Reuben uncertain what time he would come home?"
"Yes--late, I think, Charity. There was something--a cutting for thestone to be precise, and the patient living somewhere near Cambridge.You know he goes with Mr. Welland on nearly all the visits now. On thisoccasion, I understand, he's to aid with the surgery, holdinginstruments I suppose, or whatever--the which maketh me ill only tocontemplate it, but when I saw Ru this morning he was cool as youplease, and quite unmoved, and cracked a joke or two that I'm sure Mr.Kenny was able to hear and enjoy. I dare say the doctor is right, thatto visit the sick in all their trials will provide a learning not to bewon from the best of books. Yet I wish it did not mean that he mustneglect his other studies."
"Perhaps he'll come back to them one day."
"Ay--'tis absurd of me, but I feel in a manner cheated. There was somuch more I had hoped to teach him--nay, I dare say any teacher is afool, seeing only his small island of knowledge, forgetting how wide isthe world beyond it. Can you stay the night, my dear?"
"Yes. Kate's most kind, allowing me to share her bed. I fear I'm aplague to her, I'm that restless, but she says not."
"I believe there's another bed in the attic that we could bring down, ifshe wishes."
"Ben's?"
"Oh, no! That hath remained in Reuben's room--their room, I'd rathersay. I don't know that Reuben ever said anything of it, but--you canimagine no one of us would suggest taking it out."
"Of course. I spoke something foolish. I do so often."
"Not at all. It is--may I say this, Charity?--a blessing, that you docome to us here. In this house we are, all but Reuben--oh, how shall Isay it?--old, dusty, something discouraged perhaps. There was so much ofyouth and gaiety, the which we took for granted when we had it, when Benwas here, the two of them alway in some harmless commotion orother--why, merely to hear them talk together was--was.... What are yousewing, Charity? Something for the--for what I believe fair young maidsdo call a bride chest?"
"I am no-way fair, Mr. Hibbs. And--honestly now, doth this appear to youlike an item of female apparel?"
"Oh! Marry it don't, now you hold it up--you had it bunched under yourhand so I couldn't see."
"A nightshirt of Mr. Kenny's, and I only trust I may mend this hole soit won't chafe him. He wears them out in the back, you see, lying onthem constantly, and--oh, the fidgeting that's all he's able to do. Ipray you, Mr. Hibbs, would you sit the other side of the lamp? You're inperil of my elbow, besides shutting off the light."
"Of course--clumsy of me.... How deftly your little hands do work atwhatever they find, Charity!... _Te spectem, suprema mihi cum venerithora...._"
"I sew very badly, Mr. Hibbs, and I have no Latin."
"Forgive me. I think, though, you sew excellent well."
"Ha!"
"'Twas only a line of Tibullus that cometh now and then to my mind. _Etteneam moriens deficiente manu...._ I never read Tibullus with the boys.Not altogether suited, I felt, to their time of life. And yet sometimes,as in those particular lines, my dear, he is quite innocent, indeedexpressing sentiments appropriate to a man of honorable feeling. 'MayI'--(saith Tibullus, my dear)--'may I look on thee when cometh my lasthour, and may I hold thy hand as I sink dying!'"
"I must tell Kate this one is nearly past mending, but if she'll make apattern for me I believe I could follow it in my blundering fashion. Heought to have a change of them for every day. I know a place on SudburyStreet where they have better material than this, and cheap."
"I recall some other lines from the same poem--_me mea paupertas vitatraducat inerti, dum meus adsiduo luceat igne focus...._ 'Let the humblefortune that is proper to me lead me through a quiet way of life, ifonly my hearth may glow with an unfailing fire!' You'd suppose that thesentiment of an aging man, wouldn't you? And yet they tell thatTibullus, he died young.... Charity...."
"Yes, Mr. Hibbs?"
"Charity, having spent, I must admit, very nearly twentyyears--beginning, let us say, with the year I commenced study atHarvard, the which was the thirteenth year of my life--having spent somuch time, I say, in what would seem, to some, a most arid employment,namely the cultivation of the abstract, the exploration (tentative,limited by the frailty of mine own poor powers) of the borders ofphilosophy--having spent thus much time in--shall I call it, perhaps, asanctuary of loneliness?--not altogether unrewarding, you understand;not without the consolation of the poets; not without an occasionalsatisfaction, like unto discovery, within the region of the inquiry:nevertheless, out of such loneliness--out of----"
"Sir----"
"Nay, forgive me, Charity, I'm most clumsy with words, and could neverspeak bold and plain what's in my mind, the which plain speaking I domuch admire to discover in others, but let me essay it. Having spent, Isay, almost twenty years, yes, almost a full score in the--I must callit the dust of scholarship, save the mark--one may then, suddenly as itwere, look out as through the window of a study, let us say, and observethat outside this not altogether despicable refuge there is--oh, springperhaps, as it is even now, my dear--and one may presume to hope thatone hath not remained so long out of the world, nor grown so old, butthat--but that----"
"Mr. Hibbs, I pray you----"
"Not so old but that perhaps one who is truly at the very brightestbeginning of the springtime might find--might find in one's matureryears--oh, nothing like the call of youth to youth, my God! but--but....You have not known how I--how since you began coming here in so muchkindness--I think you have not known----"
"Mr. Hibbs, I must speak too, and I pray you say no more till I havedone. The sentiments you express, the which--oh _bother_! There goes mythread again and I wasn't even pulling at it, they needn't to make it somiserable weak, do they? The sentiments--look, Mr. Hibbs: when we movedto Dorchester last autumn, I found there a place on the shore, justbeyond reach of the high tides, a pretty place, a kind of--what was ityou said?--a sanctuary of loneliness, at any rate I made it one. Therocks hide it from the house, from the land; 'tis like a roomoverlooking the open waters, where all the ships from the south mustpass when they come in for the harbor, and I go there--oh, whenever Imay. My mother thinks I'm looking for seashells or other such employmentsuited to children, and so I do bring in any pretty ones I find--andthen throw them away secret-like, la, to make room for more--why, I'm adeceiving small beast, Mr. Hibbs, learned deception young, marry did I,I often wonder that anyone can put up with me. Well--even last winter,if it wasn't outright storming, I'd bundle up in my coat and go outthere. The rocks break the wind. You can look a long way out.... I toldReuben about this. He understood--well, of course he did. One expectsunderstanding from Reuben, I don't quite know why."
"I am not certain that I myself understand you, Charity."
"I must say more then?... But perhaps you will tell me, as my motherwould, that at my years I can know nothing of love, and yet I do....Sometimes I'll see a sail that looks from a distance like the _Artemis_.But I watch any sail that appears, because--because who can say whatmanner of ship it will be that brings him home?--and now you areweeping, but Mr. Hibbs, I never intended----"
"Nay, I--am not. The fireplace a'n't drawing properly--I'll push theselogs further back."
<
br /> "I am a beast."
"Hush!... I think he will come home, Charity--older, as you are, butwhat you saw in him will not be greatly changed.... But I may be yourgray-headed counselor, and--friend?"
"Of course. You aren't gray."
"Soon enough."
"What is it, Mr. Hibbs--what _is_ it that doth compel one to--eh, asthey say, to give away the whole heart to another? I would be better, Iwould be happier, I suppose, if I...."
"I could wish for mine own sake that I knew the answer to that. Why,Charity, it seems we love where we must and no help for it."
"I remember I was not happy, very far from it, a year and more ago, whenI was a silly child, had not even met him, indeed had none to lovebut--oh, poor Sultan. Clarissa of course, but it seems to me I neverknew I loved her until I lost her, only took her for granted likesunlight until the day she was no longer there."
"Sultan?"
"Don't you remember Sultan, Mr. Hibbs? Why, the child I was would neverforgive your forgetting Sultan. He died, very fat and ancient, soonafter we moved to Dorchester. It was the sea air, my mother said. I weptlike a fountain. But I think it was some while before then that I hadceased to feel like a child."