Chapter V (3)

When once on level soil we urged our horses to their utmost speed, and when two hours before sun set we halted to refresh ourselves, it was considered that a space of at least sixty miles divided us from the scene of the morning adventure. Around naught could be seen but the undulating bosom of the Pampas, as the tall, wiry grass that covered its face, bent beneath a slight breeze that fanned our heated temples.

The guides soon cleared a large circular space, for our night’s resting-place, of the parched grass, and a fire being kindled, a cup of coffee, with some dried beef and a few biscuits, revived our wearied frames.

In consequence of the circumstances of the morning, all the horses were retained and made fast to pegs taken from the Spanish saddles of our guides, who carried them for such emergencies.

Our course had lain eastward all day, and the sun was fast sinking to the western horizon, whence we had come, when an exclamation from one of the rancheros, who had risen to see to the perfect security of the horses, drew our attention to a point whither he directed our view, by a motion of the arm. Long and intense was the gaze, but our European eyes could discover nothing, till a telescope was obtained from the traveling case of one of my friends, which soon satisfied us that a large body of horsemen were advancing rapidly along the very track we had come.

It was a moment of deep anxiety—what was to be done? Were we to wait and take the chance of its being a friendly tribe of Indians or travelers? We could not have a chance of escape on the jaded horses we had so hardly tasked during the day, so, from inevitable necessity, we determined, friend or, foe, to await them where we were. Rapid were the preparations made to fight, in case they proved to be enemies. The horses were saddled, some spare arms furnished to the guides, and rifles and pistols being looked to, each man beside his horse, and drawn up in line, we awaited the result. Nearer and nearer they approached; the lower edge of the sun had dipped beneath the horizon, and anxiously we prayed for darkness, when the guides pronounced the advancing party to be strange Indians. Still clear light remained, and onward yet they came. Their very number was appalling; sixty at least were in view, and as they bent forward over their horses, and urged them on, the wild gestures of their arms seemed to announce our doom, and to forewarn us that our bones would bleach on the wild Pampas of Central America.

It was no time, however, for reflection. Their yells sounded in our ears, and they advanced in a dense body within two hundred paces of the position we had taken. Then came a halt, and out from the main body rode a single Indian. The savage strode his horse without saddle or any other appurtenance than a raw hide strap, formed into a bridle, with which he managed his steed. His arms consisted of a bow and arrows, slung across his back, with a long hunting-knife and heavy tomahawk suspended from his belt; his followers were mounted and armed like their chief, none possessing fire-arms.

Slowly he rode forward some hundred yards nearer than his people, till he paused in a position where the rifle of any of the party could have ended his days. But we were in no position to commence hostilities, so we wisely refrained from such a useless sacrifice of life. We still had a hope that the tribe in whose presence we were, formed no part of that whose chief fell in the morning; and, in order to ascertain the fact, one of the guides addressed the chief in a _patois_ of the Indian tongue, but—although the attempt was renewed by the two others, it called forth no response. He still continued calmly gazing at us.

Suddenly, as if actuated by a passing thought, he wheeled his horse round, and joined his followers. Then, indeed, his voice was heard, clear and distinct, and, from his commanding gestures, it was apparent that he exercised supreme sway over the assembled warriors. At his word the crowd dissolved, and keeping without the range of our rifles, they formed a circle around us. It was no time for indecision; so, mounting our horses, we formed a double line, back to back, each man with his rifle or pistols ready. Then, indeed, imagination alone can depict the fierce war-cries that issued from all around us, the rush of horses, and the cloud of arrows that threatened annihilation to all. One of my English companions fell from his horse at the first discharge. We returned the fire with some effect, and, as a last hope, each for himself, dashed fearlessly on the line as they closed upon us.

Darkness was just setting in, so our hope was to escape singly, and make the best of our way back to the hacienda, if successful. The rush was fearful. The bright knives of two enemies, on whom I dashed, glared in my eyes; but fire-arms again proved their superiority: one fell, and the stroke of the other but wounded my horse. Maddened with the pain of the wound it had received, the noble horse I rode plunged forward, and, at a tremendous speed, swept me in a moment beyond reach of a few stray arrows aimed at me.

Still, yet still, I had a chance for my life. I thought of my companions, but darkness hid every thing, beyond the space of a few yards, from my view. On, on I dashed, plunging the long spurs, with which my heels were armed, into the side of my willing steed. I could perceive, by the voices behind, that many were in pursuit, and after a mile or so had been passed over, I clearly discerned the voices gaining on me, and from an occasional stagger of my horse, ascertained, but too truly, that loss of blood was making him faint.

By this time it was completely dark, day having passed away with usual tropical rapidity, and my resolve was made. Throwing myself on my feet, I struck the noble brute that so far had saved me, and abandoned him to his own head. Relieved of my weight, I depended on his keeping on some distance before he could be overtaken by my pursuers. At the same time, placing myself on my face, I trusted to being passed over undiscovered—concealed, as I was, by the long grass. A minute had but elapsed, when at least a score of horsemen rushed past, on either side of me, inflicting no injury, but evidently urging, in the pursuit, their comrades by voice and gesture.

When their voices could no longer be heard, I arose from my reclining posture, and struck off at an angle from the course they had gone. I toiled, with difficulty, through the long pampa-grass, encumbered as I was, and had not proceeded more than a couple of miles, when voices again drew near, and I had to conceal myself as before. Once more they passed, but at some distance; and I then concluded they had overtaken my horse, and discovered the escape of its rider. This nerved me to further exertion, as I felt satisfied the strictest search would be made, particularly as I was known to be an Englishman—and in those wild regions that name is almost universally connected with wealth—so that, for the sake of plunder alone, no exertion was likely to be spared to effect my capture.

Onward, therefore, I forced my way, pushing aside the rank, dry herbage, and, attracted by a sudden bright glare, casting my eyes behind, the appalling fact was at once apparent, that the pampas had been fired by the Indians, for the purpose of destroying myself and any others that might have escaped the first onslaught.

To such a number of men as the attacking party consisted of, the firing of the long, dry grass would offer but little danger; for, before so doing, it is the habit of the Indians to clear a large space of the herbage, and every thing that would afford fuel for the flame, in the centre of this a safe retreat could be found until the fire had exhausted itself on all around, leaving nothing but the naked blackened plains. For a single individual there seemed no hope that I could clear by unaided exertions, any such space as would afford a hope of safety; so, in despair, still onward I recklessly rushed.

The night was still and calm; but there the fire was to be seen, extending with fearful rapidity, as the expansion of the air by heat, swept its sparks over the surrounding grass, dry as tinder.

All hope seemed fled. I was apparently doomed to die a fearful death by fire, when, by the aid of the light yielded by the vast blaze, yet distant some miles, I discerned the carcass of the gallant horse who had so lately borne me from amongst my enemies. Further it was useless to fly; the relentless element would soon overtake me; so I determined to make here one more effort for my life.

The animal was dead, and it required but one look to assure me that he bore many marks of tomahawk wounds, inflicted by the Indians in their first moment of disappointment. Beside the body, also, lay a heavy weapon of that kind, and on seeing it, my mode of proceeding, to effect my safety, was resolved on.

With a case-knife I always carried about me, I cut or tore away the herbage and grass for a short distance round the body; but my utmost exertion enabled me only to do this to the extent of a few feet, when the nearer approach of the fire warned me to other things. So small, indeed, was the space thus cleared, that I felt satisfied it would be impossible to exist, without other shelter, when the fire surrounded me. That protection the carcass offered; so, seizing the tomahawk, I rapidly ripped up the body with that and my knife, and tore from the inner part the yet warm entrails.

The few minutes so occupied had brought the fire within a few hundred yards, and, as I crushed myself within the reeking carcass, and covered my exposed limbs with masses of the disgusting offal, I could scarce turn my fascinated sight from the appalling scene.

As far as the eye could extend, on either side, nought was to be distinguished but one bright mass of flame—some twenty feet high—above which hung, in dense clouds, dark black smoke; while, yet higher still, light white vapor floated and rose into the heavens. Around, all was as bright as day, and the long, wiry grass could be even discerned bending before the fearful element, as it advanced to annihilate. No breeze swept over the plains; but yet the fire roared and raged, as if hurled along before the breath of a hurricane. The fleeting instants of suspense that elapsed before the fire reached the spot where I lay, looked almost like long hours. My fate hung in the balance, and uncertainty was worse than death. Years have since passed away, but when lying on my calm and quiet bed, I yet start with alarm: the shadows of the past flit over my memory, and I fancy myself yet awaiting the moment that would enclose me in that fearful flaming sea. The agony of suspense was passed; fire was around, beside, within me, as I swallowed the hot, furnace breath of the atmosphere. Oh, God! my very vitals were dried up, and my brain seemed ready to burst, as my swollen blood-vessels distended to the utmost. Oh, thus to perish!—in the spring of life: friends, home, early days, for an instant crossed my mind Oh! but to die by fire!—frightful, fearful!—“Oh, great God, save me!”

The struggle seemed over; although the fire could not reach my body, covered as it was, yet the intense heat seemed to destroy life, and for a time rendered me insensible. When consciousness returned, the fire was little more than visible on the horizon, and the cold and clammy flesh and entrails pressed upon my burning, parched limbs. A violent thirst actuated me, and in order to allay it, I was reduced to the necessity of cutting a large mass of flesh from the buttock, and sucking the blood and moisture therefrom; till then I could scarce breathe; the heated air I had swallowed so parched and dried up my mouth and throat, that the thick skin peeled off when touched by my tongue.

Revived by my application, once more my thoughts reverted to my position, and the chance of escape. It was improbable that the Indians would make any search over the plains till daylight made such comparatively easy, and up to morning I calculated on safety.

Of the locality I knew but very little, merely what had been learned from the guides; but of one thing I felt satisfied, that I should be sure to be captured if I attempted to return in the direction of San Jacinto. The guides had stated that for some distance to the southward, many deep gullies, with streams in their beds, ran out for a great distance in the Pampas, many of them in a straight line from the Andes, at the foot of which they commenced. This determined me to strike off in a southerly direction, guided by the stars, and endeavor to reach one of these before daylight would leave any stray Indian to discover me with little difficulty on the blackened, naked plains, where not even a rock for concealment existed.

But when I attempted to walk, I found I could do so with great exertion only; yet it was the last chance, so, abandoning my rifle and all other things of any weight, except my pistols, and a small junk of horse-flesh, I tottered along as I best could. Hour after hour I struggled on; morning came, yet nothing was to be seen but one black, scorched surface, as far as the eye could reach. Not a living thing was in sight, not even the hum of an insect enlivened the atmosphere; all was drear and desolate. Anxiously, from time to time, I glanced around the horizon, but friend and enemy seemed alike absent.

The sun had risen into the heavens, three hours had elapsed since daylight, when my sight was cheered by the distant view of a few shrubs and verdure, which, on a nearer approach, I found to be growing along the far side of a steep, narrow gully, at the bottom of which, as usual, ran a stream. The fire had burned up all on one side, but the water had effectually stopped its progress to the other, so here at last was a good cover afforded me.

The wants of nature were first allayed—I drank long and heartily, and, careless of all reptiles, actually rolled myself, clothes and all, in the bed of the stream. Hunger I did not feel, thirst alone had afflicted me, and in the course of my night’s journey I had sucked the piece of horse flesh till it was as dry as my scorched boots themselves.

No time was lost, when I had revived myself, in following up the course of the creek, now and again ascending to the edge of the plains, to ascertain if pursuers were in sight; but I traveled on, mile after mile, without seeing the glimpse of any living thing on the side whence I had a right to look for the Indians. All that side of the creek or gully bore evident marks of the late conflagration, which in no part extended to the side I was now on.

I was quite uncertain whither I was proceeding; I only felt satisfied that in some days I should reach the neighborhood of the Andes, by pursuing the course I had taken, and there I hoped to find some village or hacienda.

As day declined, however, I felt the calls of nature, and hunger made powerful demands upon me; but I had nothing wherewith to satisfy it. Throughout the day there had not appeared either horses or wild cattle, from which it was to be inferred that they had been driven far from the banks of the creek by the appearance of the fire on one side; so that thus the small chance of being able to surprise and bring down a wild calf, with my pistols, was taken away for the present.

Yet although at least thirty miles of ground were traversed from daylight to sunset, I partook of no nourishment but the cool water beside which I was traveling, and at night, overcome with fatigue, made my bed with some grass I had pulled, beneath an overhanging rock, without tasting food for twenty-four hours, notwithstanding my extreme fatigue during that period.

Long and soundly did I sleep, but the damp, cold air of morning chilled me, and disturbed those slumbers an hour or so before daylight, when, in order to infuse warmth into my limbs, and make some progress on my way, I pursued my path along the bed of the creek, without waiting for the rays of the sun to direct my steps. Again for weary hours, under a burning sun, I struggled on, till about mid-day nature became exhausted from sheer want of food, and I sunk, unable to proceed farther, at the side of the stream.

Starvation stared me in the face, and threatened my existence, with the same certainty the fire had appeared to do such a short time before; neither birds nor beasts showed themselves; roots there were none to be found, and again despair overshadowed my soul, when I observed a large water-snake issue from the stream, and leisurely trail its dark body along toward the crevices of some rocks near at hand. It was the work of a moment to hurl a large stone at it, which broke its spine, and a stroke of a knife finished the matter. I then deprived the animal of its head, in which I was aware any poison it possessed was contained, and collecting a few pieces of dry kindling, of which plenty was scattered along the plain, a fire was soon kindled, and the body of the Pampa snake being broiled, afforded refreshment to the exhausted traveler, such as he never had obtained from the primest eels of fatherland; intense hunger made the food, disgusting at other times, more than palatable on that occasion.

Invigorated by this food, after a short rest I pushed forward, taking with me the remains of the snake, all of which I had cooked in order to prevent the necessity of kindling a fire, the smoke of which might attract the attention of the Indians, if in my vicinity. My caution still continued, and in most convenient spots where the ascent was easy, I still continued to seek the edge of the prairie, and carefully scan its surface. It was during one of these reconnaisances that I first caught sight of a scattered party of Indians, advancing at full speed along the plains, on the other side of the gully, close by its edge. Fortunately I was near to a buffalo track that had been formed by these animals to the water, and along this I crept on all fours, till I had gained some high thick grass, where I stretched myself in complete concealment.

Whether the Indians were a portion of the party who had attacked us I was not aware, but they seemed to take but a cursory view of the creek as they passed rapidly along; they did not at all descend to its bed; so I was in no danger of having my trail discovered. I could hear the tramp of the horses as they swept along over the blackened, parched ground; but I did not dare attempt to get a near view of them, lest their keen vision should detect my lurking-place. When they had some time passed, cautiously I arose, and scanned the horizon, to discover if any straggling child of the wilderness was yet in view; but it appeared the wearied traveler was alone in the scene.

My journey was renewed, but this time along the edge of the plain, as I feared lest the Indians might suddenly come up when I should not perceive their approach from the bed of the creek.

Another night, another day was passed, during which my only food was the remains of the snake I had grilled. The gully gradually increased in width, and a diverging branch of it, on the northern side, had intercepted the progress of the fire in that direction; so again, on both sides of the gully, nothing was to be discerned but the long waving grass of the plains, with, as I left the scene of the conflagration behind, occasional herds of wild cattle, and horses, which frequently allowed a near approach before they fled.

On the fourth day I succeeded in surprising and shooting a young buffalo, which, with many others, was standing in the water of the stream, to endeavor to preserve themselves from the myriads of flies and musquetoes that filled the air, and inflicted their stings without cessation. Although brought down by the first shot, yet I saw considerable danger from the remainder of the herd, who charged me, and I only saved myself by taking refuge on the summit of some steep rocks, in the side of the cliffs, which the enraged animals could not reach. A second shot dispersed the herd, and they fled up the side of the gully and across the plains till out of sight; whilst some thin steaks, cut from the flank of the prize I had obtained, fully rewarded success. When broiled and washed down with pure clear water, they satisfied appetite, and strengthened my frame for further exertion.

Taking some beef with me, I pursued my weary journey, yet my spirits did not fail; although at times my weary limbs flagged, hope was mine, and that buoyancy of feeling, and presence of mind, which had conducted me through so many trying scenes, never forsook me on this occasion for a moment.

On the morning of the eighth day, I had reached a position close under one of the spurs of the Andes, and was following up a track that I had fallen across, and which I imagined might lead to some village, when my ears were saluted with the pleasing sound of mule bells.

Joyous, indeed, were then my thoughts, and when in a few minutes I joined a party of muleteers, conveying hides and tallow to the small town of San Julianna, my thanks were many and fervent to that Supreme Being who had preserved me through many dangers.

Having a few specie dollars about me, I procured every assistance from the party I had so providentially fallen in with, and afterward journeyed on to the town whither they were bound. Here, having obtained what ready money I required on one of my St. Jago letters of credit, I procured assistance, and set forward to the hacienda, where all my troubles had commenced.

On the way, at another hacienda, I fell in with two of the rancheros, both suffering from severe wounds received in our action with the Indians, but who nevertheless had escaped by the speed of their horses, and the neglect of all pursuit beyond a short distance, by the Indians, who seemed to have turned all their exertions toward securing the Europeans of the party. The other two rancheros, the guides, and my two companions, had not been heard of, and were supposed, as I myself had been, to have been killed in the attack, or to have perished in the flames.

A subsequent visit to the spot, and the calcined remains of seven bodies, satisfied me that my friends were no more; the Indians who had fallen seemed to have been removed, and all that now points out the scene of that bloody deed, is the raised mound that covers those of our party who there fell.

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[3] Bentley’s Miscellany.

* * * * *

TO ONE AFAR.

BY ESTELLE ANNA LEWIS.

This lovely morn—this lovely morn,
Ah! whither are thy footsteps straying—
Beneath what bowers of blooming thorn,
Art thou, in pensive mood, delaying?

This lovely morn—this lovely morn,
Ah! whither do thy bright thoughts wander?
What absent loved one dost thou mourn?
On what blessed image dost thou ponder?

This lovely morn, when all is fair,
And beautiful as Eden’s bowers,
Why have I not thy tender care,
Thy smiles to cheer the lonely hours?

Why have I not thy kisses warm?
Why am I not beside thee walking,
And leaning on thy doating arm,
While all the woods, of love are talking?

But here, alone, I sit and kiss
Thine image, with the tears upstarting,
And watch, afar, my dream of bliss,
Like mirage of the waste, departing.

* * * * *

THE MASTER’S MATE’S YARN.

BY H. MILNOR KLAPP.

In the year 18—, just as the U. S. frigate Constitution was about leaving Leghorn on a cruise, a large Italian ship arrived from Genoa, stripped of every thing valuable by a piratical schooner in the Gulf of Spezzia. Two English men-of-war and a Frenchman were lying in port at the time, and obtaining all the information they could from the master and crew of the plundered vessel, all four set sail on the same day in search of the daring marauder. Her usual fortune, however, attended the American frigate, for, on the morning of the fourth day after leaving port, she fell in with the fellow off the northern point of the Island of Sardinia; and after a long chase—in which the schooner was considerably cut up, the wind dying away to a calm—her capture was at last effected by the boats. After removing the remainder of her crew, a breeze sprung up at daylight, and the Constitution and her prize made all sail for the bay of Naples.

The evening after we passed the Straits of Bonifacio, a difficulty occurred between two of the elder midshipmen, which, but for the timely interference of an old master’s mate, a great favorite in the ship, would have inevitably resulted in an exchange of shots on the first convenient occasion. The parties were bosom friends and near relatives, which, of course, made the matter more difficult to adjust; however, the mate was able to effect it, as, from some circumstances attending his own history, he had more influence with them both than any other man on board. In some untoward affair, long before he entered the service, he himself had killed his man, and although he never spoke of the encounter, it was believed by the mess that he bitterly regretted its occurrence. He had been unusually grave and quiet after the capture of the schooner, which was more noticed, for the reason that, in general, he was as ready-witted, frank-spoken a fellow as ever felt salt spray on his cheek. The truth was, he was one of that unfortunate class of seamen who, well-connected and educated with care, have, nevertheless, spent the best of their days alternately in ship’s forecastles and drinking-shops, after having run upon some rock or other in their youth. It is a matter of notoriety that there are too many such men to be found afloat, but the peculiarity in Miller’s case was, that at some period of his wild life he must have mustered resolution enough to overcome his passion for strong drink. To have seen him on the decks of the frigate, or at the mess, you would never have suspected that he had once sunk so low in the scale of creation, had you not been better informed by that sort of malice which is ever ready to hiss on the track of an altered man. As it was, I may mention that he had entered the navy through the hawse-hole and worked his way up to a master’s mate’s berth, where, of course—according to the rigid rules of the service—he stuck. Great confidence was reposed in him by the quarter-deck, and not one of the mids but would have shared the last dollar of his pay, or fought to the last gasp for old Harry, if he had ever needed a friend at a pinch. His fine, off-hand way, and thorough seamanship, made him a great favorite with the men, as was once rather awkwardly shown when some trouble occurred in another frigate, on a former cruise. In fact, there was a degree of kindliness about the man, which, combined with his good looks and weatherly qualities, was well calculated to make him a general favorite—to say nothing of a tinge of romance which, it seemed, neither Neptune nor Bacchus could entirely wash out of him. No officer in the ship had the same dashing way of laying a boat along-side in a rough sea, or was better qualified to take charge of the deck on a sudden emergency; and although you might have heard nothing of him before this cruise, you soon felt compelled to yield the palm of seamanship to him, when you once caught his quick, unembarrassed glance, or heard his deep voice answering the quarter-deck on a dark night, in a squall, with a clear ring in its pitch, which the men used to say was worth a dozen trumpets. With all this, you felt that he ought to have been something more than a mere master’s mate, never doubting by his ways that he had commanded crafts of some sort in his time. The truth was, that he had abused or slighted his opportunities; though having been well brought up, not all the wear and tear of a hard life in every part of the globe, together with the slough which he had waded through, could prevent the thing from shining out. Apart from his seamanship—of that class which embraced all varieties of crafts and services—he possessed a knowledge of books, and a strength of imagination, which made you wonder still more at the subordinate post he held in the ship. As Guy Willful, one of our mess, afterward expressed himself—“though we all knew Harry Miller to be a gentleman, it was not until that blessed night when I knocked little Dick Afterblock into the lee-scuppers, that we found out the pinch of diamond-dust in the mate’s composition.”

On the evening in question, after seeing the two friends shake hands, the party had seated themselves quietly round the mate, who had offered to spin a yarn that should last out the watch, when a voice from the forecastle sung out, that there was a large whale close aboard of the ship. Sure enough, there he was, close under the main chains, sending up a succession of regular old-fashioned spouts, for all the world, the true originals of those which every reflective reader will remember to have once viewed with wonder and awe among the prints of his spelling-book. These were attended by loud respiratory sounds, which were heard fore and aft the deck.

Old Ironsides was jogging along before a lazy wind, which barely kept the sails asleep; and the whale, after again expelling the vitiated air from his blow-holes, having nothing more attractive to engage his attention at the time, from a feeling of fellowship perhaps, kept way with the ship. Some old heads on the forecastle soon hailed him for “a finner,” bound on his travels to the Ionian sea, and forthwith predicted, at the peril of their eyes, that we should see him “down flukes” and off on a wind, before another bell had gone. There was little sea running at the time, and the moon shining fairly on his track gave us some idea of his gigantic proportions, which, to tell the truth, these same veritable Tritons were in nowise disposed to curtail. However, it was agreed among the mids, debating the matter in council with the mate, that from his broad flukes to the small triangular fin on the ridge of his back, and thence, from his spout-holes to the arch of his lower jaw, he ran not less than an hundred feet. It was also estimated that he would outweigh a drove of, at least, two hundred fat oxen. His age, they unanimously declared, was a question to be left to the learned professors. Even the bearded Nestors of the forecastle, wise as mermen in aught appertaining to the sea—albeit they claimed him for an old acquaintance—did not pretend to settle that point. He might have been fourscore-and-ten, or he might have blown brine from his nostrils, coasting undiscovered shores, long before the grand cruise of Columbus.

Mr. Willful, the reefer before referred to, took occasion to indulge in a lofty flight of fancy, as he announced his adherence to the opinion which measured the creature’s days by the scale of centuries.

“And I,” squeaked another, fresh from school, “whatever anguish of spirit it may cost me—‘sink or swim’—I avow myself of the same faith with the honorable gentleman whose eloquence has electrified the ears of these venerable sheet-anchor-men.”

“Come,” said Dick Afterblock, reseating himself on the spars, “keep a small helm, you featherheads, and let’s hear Mr. Miller’s yarn.”

The master’s mate was standing in the moonlight, seeming to watch the freakish light, as it danced far away in the whale’s smooth wake, or wandered among the barnacles on its rough noddle—or peered dubiously into the wide curvature of its nostrils—or showed the living eye on the crest of the weltering wave, twenty feet from where you looked to find it—or rode triumphantly on its flukes, or upon the ridge of its back-fin. You might have seen, then, by the stern, abstracted look of the man’s face, that his mind was busy with something, which you felt it was like groping in the dark to attempt to fathom. Then, as the midshipman spoke, the old weatherly look came back, slowly though, as if it cost him a struggle; and after a thoughtful turn or two on the deck, reseating himself upon the spars, he commenced—

“I was once, gentlemen,” he said, “cruising near Cape Musseldon, in command of an armed grab, in the service of the Sultan of Muscat, when, one squally morning, in a part of the Persian Gulf where the navigation is particularly intricate, we fell in with a large whale-ship, showing American colors. When we first made her out she had one boat down, waiting, apparently, for the whales to come up.

“Those seas were then famous feeding-grounds for the white whale, and although we felt sure there was a shoal close by, some wonder was expressed in the grab, at the boldness of the Yankee skipper, in sending his men off in the face of the fresh squall then rising over the land. However, as we neared her the shoal rose, and they fastened. We could see him lower another boat, which pulled to leeward of the ship, when the squall struck the grab, and we lost sight of them all at once. The weather continued rough for several days, with fog and rain, and although I felt great anxiety for the safety of the ship and her boats, as we were almost embayed by banks and shoals, I heard nothing of their fate, until sometime after my arrival at Muscat.”

Here the mate paused and walked to the rail to take another look at the finner, still close aboard, heading with the proud old frigate, and blowing away, from time to time, or lifting his sharp back half out, as if he had a notion to speak us. You could see the white spray, mingled with condensed air and mucus from his seething nostrils, rising, in two divergent branches, straight up from the shifting gleam of the soft swells, into the clear moonlight, from whence it faded, before you could wink an eyelid, into the greenish mass of foam to leeward of his track, between him and the ship. Two bells struck a moment after, and as the clang died away in the lee rigging, and your ear caught again the natural sounds of the craft, making her way through the water, the mate returned to his place and resumed.

“I was so thoroughly disgusted with the illiberal manner in which the British officers had acted in a late expedition against the pirates of the Gulf, and with the servility of Syed Seeyd bin Sultan, himself, to the agents of the East India Company, that I resigned my commission in his service when the cruise was up, and had already taken passage in a merchant dow, for Zanzibar, when the very whaleman I had seen in the Gulf, came into the cove of Muscat to recruit, and changed my plans in an unexpected way.

“I had been on the water that morning, in company with an Arab chief of high rank, following in the wake of Muscat Tom, a large finback, which haunted the harbor, coming in regularly at sunrise, and making an offing at night, for fear that the current, which sets in shore at certain seasons, might catch him asleep. He was as tame as a bull of the pastures, and we used to arouse ourselves watching the fishermen paddling after him, to pick up the fish which he killed, as he drove through shoal after shoal—his mouth gaping like the after-hatchway, and the pouch under his jaw as full as a herring-net. Had he lived in the old days, they had certainly set up his shrine and paid adoration to him, as he scared away the sharks from the harbor, and did no mischief, beyond the playful capsizing of a boat when it pressed somewhat too closely on his track. There is no doubt, gentlemen, that the ancients would have made a very respectable sea-god of him.

“It was rather a curious sight to see him lying at rest in the cove, spouting the brine in air, with the sun blazing on his back, while his gray pellucid eye moved sluggishly after you, as your boat shot past the angle of his jaws; or, stranger still, to watch him scooping up the affrighted fish in his bone-net, while the brine poured off of his enormous lips in two seething streams; and once and awhile, if you managed the thing right, you might catch a glimpse of his immense tongue, behind the long hairy slabs of bone, licking his prey down by the scores. It made me feel rather antediluvianish, at times, I confess.

“However, as soon as we made out the starred flag at half-mast, in the offing, we left Tom to follow his game, and Halil, spreading out his turban to catch the breeze, while I plied the oars, we were speedily under her counter—a huge, lumbering ship of eight hundred tons, with six boats at the cranes, and ten short twelves mounted on a side, as a defence against the Toassemes. She was very deep, being full of sperm oil to the grindstone-tub; and although she was, as I hinted before, all in a lump, yet as her skipper had knocked his lubberly tryworks to pieces, set up his rigging, and crossed his lighter spars, besides giving her a fresh lick of tar and paint, she looked, as the Scotch quarter-master said of the fellow we fell in with off the Western Isles, ‘just no that bad, for a tallow-strainer.’

“I offered my services to pilot her in to a berth, and we were civilly received by her skipper, who, to tell the truth, was not exactly the man I expected to find on the weather side of her quarter-deck.

“You must figure to yourselves, gentlemen, a long-sparred, well-built, Spanish-looking personage, dressed in a blue frock-coat, and spotless drilling pantaloons, and a sombrero as big round as the capstan-head, shading his dark face—the strip of crape round his hat fixing your eye at once, in connection with the ensign at half-mast, until you found that, besides losing a boat’s crew on the day we saw her in the Gulf, his wife, who had made the voyage with him, had slipped over the stern one night in a calm, and been drowned, in spite of every effort to save her. The man’s features, though somewhat roughened by continual exposure, and blackened by the sun, were as regular as if cut out of stone by some master hand, from the broad brow and aquiline nose, to the square jaw and finely modelled chin, fringed by a beard as glossy and wavy as our first captain’s of the maintop. Every thing about him contrasted oddly enough with his ragged and slovenly crew, and the patched and greasy canvas over his head, until you would almost have sworn, from his mustache, the eye-glass at his button-hole, and the narrow strip of black ribbon, which fell across the snowy mouth of his watch-fob, that he was some whimsical Monsieur on his travels in the East. There was a courteous ease in his address, and a silver twang in his voice, which indicated, rather unpleasantly, that in spite of the bit of crape and the mourning flag, Captain Catherton had banished black care from his end of the ship. Somehow or other, I felt, after the first ten minutes’ interview, that there was a lurking devil behind his smile, sweet as it was, and, with all his civil chaff, it was precious little he would have done to serve me in my wish to reach home, had he not chanced to want a mate to suit his purposes, in place of the man that was lost in the boat.

“As soon as he discovered that I had commanded the grab, he at once pressed me to take the chief officer’s berth, remarking of the other five, that he would hardly trust them in charge of the deck, with the cargo he had under hatches.

“To tell the truth, I was glad of the chance at the time; for, besides that the place was too hot for a Ghebir—the thermometer standing at midnight at 110° on the forecastle of the grab, then lying off the mouth of the passage between Muscat Island and the main land—I was anxious to leave the coast before a conspiracy, which I knew was forming to dethrone the Sultan, should explode. The cholera, too, was sweeping off the Arabs like flies, and in the very thick of it I had my life twice attempted on shore, for naught that I could conjecture, except that I had peremptorily refused to join the plot. So, as you may suppose, thinking to be on the open seas in a few days, I stepped into the mate’s place at once.

“I found the people at odds with the captain, and all at sixes and sevens about the missing boat, which some of them seemed to think Catherton had lost by design. However, the more words I heard flying up the forecastle scuttle, the more I felt inclined at first to set this down as mere sea-babble, together with some story about Mrs. Catherton’s death, which I could not get hold of for a spell.

“You see, the fellows had been hard at work on the last cruise, cutting in and trying out to their hearts’ content, as the skipper had been very fortunate in finding white whales among the islands of the Gulf, where I have seen immense shoals of them myself going in among the passages to feed upon the eight-armed squids, which the pearl-divers, at some of the fisheries, dread almost as much as the sharks. The Tartar’s boats had been very successful, and now that the ship was full and the anchor down, her crew were resolute to make amends for their precious outlay of labor, regular whaleman fashion, by grumbling at every thing abaft, and getting up an occasional quarrel with the boat-steerers—deeming it otherwise a hardship to turn out to their meals, or to a game of cards on their chest-lids.

“In fact they were altogether—excepting the second mate, the old carpenter, and a few old sea-dogs—as green a set as ever stared at an island of weed; and perfect torture it was, Mr. Afterblock, to see the lubbers crawl out of the forecastle to make a voyage to the scuttle-butt, or a long cruise, like so many tortoises, fore and aft the deck. Two score and more of young, able-bodied men they were, to be sure, strong enough, I dare say, to tow a raft of whales alongside in any latitude. But the mischief of the thing was, that instead of the oil getting into their joints and making them supple, it seemed to have soddened brain and limb, until it fairly went against your stomach to ask them a question, or to call them aft to hoist up a boat to the cranes. Of course I did not expect them to equal our dying top-men, or the nimble Arabs from Darra, of whom my crew were mostly composed in the grab—especially as the mates hardly knew enough to put the ship about. But, after having been twenty months at sea, I did look for them to know one end of the ship from the other; and considering the heat of the weather and the number of desperate wretches roaming in the harbor, it was not too much, you’ll allow, to have them keep anchor-watch, or to wash down decks at daybreak.”

“I wish, Mr. Miller,” said Dicky, “that we had a few of the slowest of ’em here. Green’s nigh to blue; and the higher you mount up in a squall, the sooner you’ve got to come down. Why, the lubbers would have blessed the service to their dying days, for making men of them.”

“Ay,” resumed the master’s mate, “I’ve seen the same thing again and again. However, the captain, who spent most of his time on shore, at the house of an old Parsee merchant, to whom he had letters from some port where he had touched in the Persian Gulf, checked me more than once, intimating that it was best to let them have their own way, until we got into the open seas again, which, he said—although I saw no indications of it—would be in a few days, as soon as he had finished some business which he had with the old Parsee. He had seemed all along to have something deeper in his eye, and, in fact, told me in confidence, the very next evening, that he had been offered a large sum in hand to land at a small port a short distance from Muscat, a beautiful Circassian slave of the Sultan’s, named Zuma, and the departure of the ship was only delayed until the woman could make her escape from the castle. This gave me some uneasiness, as I had heard that Zuma had passed from the old Parsee’s household into that of the Sultan; and apart from the difficulty of baffling the black eunuch who had charge of Syed Seeyd’s harem, I dreaded being involved in the plot I have alluded to, to depose that monarch in favor of his cousin, whose father Seeyd had put to death with his own hand at some castle near Rostak. Moreover, I had good reasons for knowing that my friend, the Arab chief, Halil ben Hamet, who was deeply engaged in the conspiracy, was the favorite lover of Zuma. However, as it was Catherton’s affair, of course I could do nothing but look about me the sharper, and see all ready to go to sea at the shortest warning.”

At this moment some one interrupted the mate by calling out that the whale was off at last.

“Something must have _gallied_ him,” said the man; “yonder he goes, head out, like a channel-packet steaming against wind.”

“It was Darby Rattlesnake’s hanged ugly figure-head,” observed the gruff captain of the forecastle, who was standing within ear-shot of the group—“d—n me, if he be’n’t ugly enough to shear the whole coast of Greenland.”

Having thus seriously hurt the feelings of the honest old tar, who was quietly looking out to windward, the petty officer winked at his fellows, screwing his own mahogany visage, polished as it was by the moonlight, into a miniature maelstrom of wrinkles, which commenced at the caverns of his fierce, pertinacious eyes, and wriggled gradually off at the tail of his beard.

The mate started up just in time to catch a glimpse of the whale’s back, with the flukes in full play, and a long line of white water behind it. He was going at a tremendous pace straight in the wind’s eye, and, while the mate followed him with his eye, suddenly plunged sheer down where the dazzle was brightest; and before the man could draw a second breath, had disappeared. It was impossible to say what had started him; but the old seamen declared that these large solitary whales always steer a course as duly as a ship; and that, having satisfied himself that the frigate was the Old Ironsides, and nothing else, he was now only making up for lost time, in resuming his course. For my part, I thought it possible that, as he wallowed on his side, or raised his head from the hollow of a swell, his eye might have caught a glimpse of the canvas with the moonlight on it, as he was at one time so close to the ship’s side, that a smart harpooner might have darted an iron into his back from the chains. Be that as it may, off he was, and as Miller turned from gazing on his long dim track, and the stir created by his sudden disappearance sank, an unusual degree of quiet seemed to settle down from aloft, over rigging, spars, boats and batteries, and indeed over every spot of light and shade on the frigate’s deck. In the midst of this you could plainly hear the murmur of voices in the tops, and an occasional flap of the lighter duck, as some loftier sail stirred and was at rest again, like a living thing in a dream—while every shadowy port and silent gun on the spar-deck, appeared for the time, by the soft witchery of moonlight, the abode of peaceful repose.

The fact was, the breeze was gradually failing from aloft, and we were going to have a flat calm, as was easy to see from the hazy look of the sky where the land lay, and the sluggish heaves of the sea, growing shorter and shorter, as if to put us in mind of the far-famed bay to which we were bound; while, as you thought of this, something of the “_dolce far niente_” came over you, and walking across the deck to glance at the pirate schooner to leeward, it became difficult to connect the view with the stirring scenes of the chase, until the eye, aided by the night-glass, distinguished the ragged white streaks in the side of the prize, and turning round again, you saw the sentry at the dark hatchway, listening, as he shifted arms, to the groans which rose, as it seemed, from the very depths of the ship.

“There were only a few antique-looking dows,” continued the mate, “the grab-brig and one Arab man-of-war moored in the gap where we lay, which, in my opinion—melted out of me, as I may say—is the hottest place in the round world in the same parallel of latitude; being shut in by a wall of glaring granite—two hundred feet high—on one hand, and a rampart of rough rocks—rising high above the Tartar’s royal truck—on the other. You hardly felt a breath of air come on deck when you might; and it really seemed to grow hotter and hotter, as the disease spread in the town; the sky, all the time, like glowing steel by day, and so clear and close at night, that you turned away from the stars and the sickening light of the moon, longing, as you panted for breath, for the least mutter of thunder.

“However, it was some comfort that as yet the disease had not boarded the craft.