Medusa

by E. H. Visiak

  He told me also about Oratavia (being the chief seaport for trade) and many things beside concerning the island, and the other islands - as the various commodities they vend; some of which I have forgot, the rest omit as being not new, but related by travellers, not necessary to my story.

  CHAPTER VIII -

  Mr Falconer Provides Obadiah

  In taking his departure, Mr. Huxtable made me a promise, that, if I was recovered on the morrow, he would take me ashore to see the town, and, perhaps climb the hill to Laguna. But, however, finding next morning, the fever yet upon me, he said that I was not in a condition to leave my cabin.

  This was a shrewd disappointment to me, for I did feel strong enough, and I am sure that no traveller, returning to his own country after a long absence, could more eagerly expect to go ashore, than I did on this foreign island; which made my bed a burden, and the bright day of tedious long continuance.

  Soon after wakening, I had heard much noise of stamping feet and voices calling on our deck, and it came again three or four hours after; being occasioned by the going and coming of our long-boat to fill our water. The second time, the commotion was longer drawn out, our men putting off first one boat and then another for their excursion ashore. Hearty loud and merry their voices came, with some dancing and tumbling (as it should seem), like boys out of school.

  It passed, and all was silent, save those ordinary sounds of a ship on the sea - the clacking of blocks, and the like- while she lay slowly rolling and heaving at her anchor. Sometimes there came the shuffling sound of footsteps passing overhead; sometimes a hail from some ship that lay near us.

  At last, about sunset, our holiday-makers returned, being as merry every whit, by the noise they made, as at their setting out. Soon after, Mr Huxtable (having come in one of the boats) re-visited me, and declared to my great content, that my pestilential fever was departed.

  “Well, then,” said I when he told me, “can I not immediately rise and go on deck?”

  “Nay,” answered he, with a solemn accent, and a terrible rueful countenance; “For I find you in another sort of fever.”

  “O la!” cried I, “what is that?”

  “A fever of impatience,” said he laughing. “But I will not tease you, Will. I think you will take no harm if you put your cloak on.”

  So, having dressed myself quickly, I was in time to view the island before the light failed.

  It rose up rocky and mountainous; which made the houses at the base appear the smaller and the more uniformly compact. They did look very pleasant, with their white walls and flat ruddy roofs, the small windows appearing in the sunset light to stare over the sea; two larger buildings - being the convents - and the church giving them countenance.

  While I turned my eyes to observe a ship that lay near us (for there were several in the road, both large and small), glancing upon the main deck, I observed that Obadiah Moon was recovered from his ailment (whatever it was); and handsomely recovered too, as it should seem, for he stood in vehement dispute with some of our men.

  Whereupon, forgetful of Mr Huxtable’s admonishment to keep myself out of his way, I went to see what it was. Obadiah was in a regular passion presently, dancing up and down, and beating the air with his clenched fist; a spectacle of malignity to yoke (methought) with that admonitory object of foolishness which the Captain presented when he was in his rages. But there are those so weak-headed as rather to emulate a choleric constitution: let them choose whether they will be ridiculous like the Captain, or like Obadiah - nay, like to my grandfather - venomously malign.

  The occasion of Obadiah’s ill-temper, as I learnt presently, was that one of his shipmates had failed to buy him a parcel of salted fish in the town, having agreed to perform this piece of service when he lay in his hammock unable to go ashore with the rest. But his wrath had been handsomely stirred up; for besides the inclination they had to hectoring or bear-baiting - which is natural to Englishmen, especially the meaner sort - these seamen were somewhat merry, no doubt, from the entertainment they had found in some tippling-house ashore; nor was the Captain, or Mr Huxtable, aloft to have moderated their wild spirits. Only Mr Falconer stood on the poop, where I saw him appearing dark and gaunt against the crimson west, and the red lantern which was just kindled at the stern.

  But while Obadiah stood brawling and raging, protesting that it was lack of fish for victual had made him sick (though he had complained to Mr Huxtable of his arm), and that, if had not expected to be provided by his messmate, he would have cast a fish-line over the gunnel and perhaps taken something, I observed Mr Falconer was descending one of the poop-ladders, and wondered if he would, on this occasion, interpose; and indeed, it was time that someone should; for, after thrusting his hand once or twice in his belt for his sailor’s knife, the crazy furious creature now held it in his hand, while he looked glaring round on his mates, who, with altered faces, all stepped a pace or two back from him. Indeed, they were like to have been dangerously embroiled, had not the mate, having crossed the quarter-deck at this juncture, called to them.

  “What is the matter?” said he, with his shrill lugubrious voice.

  “Matter?” cried the boatswain warmly. “Matter and enough! Here be this crazy mad fellow a-proffering to murder us, and all for a matter (save the mark!) of a paltry parcel of fish. I near split my midriff with laughing till he pulled out his knife, the crazy loon!”

  “Moon,” said Mr Falconer in his lugubrious voice, “Come hither! I have somewhat to say to you.”

  But Obadiah, turning about, with a knife in his hand, answered only with a villainous curse; while his small, dark, beady eyes appeared to gleam with a venomous lustre. The rest looked eager on, some grinning with such complacent and malicious curious countenances as conjured in my mind a different, yet like, spectacle; and I beheld, a moment, not those swarthy gazing seamen, but that crew of jeering school boys which stood tormenting me in Dr Thompson’s Academy.

  But, fixing his eyes steadfastly on Obadiah, Mr Falconer said, with the same tone:

  “I have provided you your salted fish.”

  At this strange surprising utterance, the men at first stared, and then, looking one upon another, burst out laughing. But Obadiah was quite appeased; and, stepping toward Mr Falconer, while he returned his knife to his belt, he said humbly:

  “Thank’e, sir, thank’e. I be much beholden to you; and so is - and so” (said he, after a stop) “is my poor innards also.”

  “Ay, you makes game o’ me, messmates,” said he, turning himself about, “but, if you was plagued in your innards, as I am, after eating of flesh, you would be as fain, I’ll warrant you, not to go a lacking for your victual of fish. Howbeit, I bears no ill-will, nor grudges, for all your laughter. And have ye took in good store for me, Mr Falconer?”

  “Store enough,” answered the mate, standing gauntly up, while his eyes turned from side to side. “I shall give it to you when you go below.”

  Hereupon, he immediately betook himself away, stepping slow along the deck; while the men, gathering around Obadiah again, noisily uttered their surprise and laughter, recreating and sharpening their horny wit; which now he seemed not to mind, but took all in good part. But, as they had the less reason, on this account, to fear the sharp resentment of his knife, so, on the other side, he afforded them the less sport.

  For a space they continued in it; while the sun set and darkness fell, a purple reflection tincturing the clouds above the lofty island with a kind of rueful and tragical brightness, which made a strange theatre for the comic scene. But soon, being weary of such a tractable object (the Captain in the meantime having come aloft), they desisted and began to disperse.

  Soon after Mr Huxtable, standing at the cabin door, called to me to come and get me in out of the night air, lest I should take cold after my distemper.

  I passed in after him through the alley-way into the great cabin, whence the took me into the state-room, being on the starboard side, where he slept.


  The first thing I remarked on entering in, was those pictures of a beautiful lady and a little child that I have described in Chapter IV, which were hung up by the wall over against his bed. He had a pen in his hand, and, upon a small table that stood beside his bed-head, there lay a manuscript book set open.

  As he did not say anything concerning that extravagant business of Obadiah and our men, I concluded that he had been too much occupied with writing to take notice of it. Neither did I speak of it, being unwilling he should know how carelessly I had slighted his bidding to keep myself out of Obadiah’s way. I assured myself that it was but a trifling foolish matter, not worth his hearing; yet, when he told me, pointing with his finger to the manuscript-book, that he was just inditing his journal, in which he omitted nothing that fell out which was anyways beyond the ordinary, I was troubled with some reproaching doubts; which I conquered by telling myself that I would acquaint him some other time.

  I was much taken with the form and look of his writing, which raised a desire of emulation in me. This was of serviceable effect to my narrative; for it brought me into the habitude of writing, causing me to set down, on some occasions, the substance of things that has passed.

  I asked if he designed to publish his journal in a book, like Captain Dampier. He answered that he might consider of it if our voyage proved specially remarkable, or afforded any curious or profitable discoveries, but that this was not his principal end in writing, which was to keep his mind employed.

  A mournful, afflicted look came into his eyes when he spoke this, recalling to my mind that sign of sorrow I read deep graven into his countenance at my first meeting with him in the kitchen of the farm. But, as if he would divert his thoughts from some lamentable topic, he immediately began a discourse on the uses and instruction of writing, which he called the pastime of noble minds. “For ordinary men,” said he, “like to children with their playthings, are busied with material things, but the writer with spiritual things.”

  Thus the time passed until supper. Rising up at the sound of the bell, Mr Huxtable put his journal-book away in a drawer, together with some papers that he had left upon his locker (for he was a man that could not endure any disorder, and liked to have all things trim and handsome about him); and we went and sat down with the Captain and Mr Falconer, who were just entered in.

  ’Twas but a dull supper-party; Mr Huxtable holding silent most part of the time, with a heavy brow and a brooding mind; and, though once or twice he endeavoured to rouse himself and essayed a merry word, ’twas but a flash in the pan (as the saying is); Mr Falconer, as usual, speaking but in brief replies; and the Captain was occupied sufficiently with the diligence of eating and drinking. Anon, however, he began to discourse of his grand acquaintance and relations (as he thought them), his wonted topic whenever he found, or could make a way, to wind into it; as thus:

  The Captain (setting down his cup and turning his head affably towards Mr Huxtable): “Sir, I was very sorry not to go ashore with you to-day, for I should have had the honour to present you to the Governor.”

  Mr Huxtable: “I did not know, sir, that you were acquainted with the Governor.”

  The Captain: “Nay, sir, I am not myself acquainted with him; but my cousin is his familiar friend, and is accustomed to dine with him whenever his ship lies off the town.”

  Mr Huxtable: “Well, sir, I should have been glad to have pleasured you by waiting upon the Governor with you.”

  The Captain (warmly): Pleasured me, sir? Pleasured me, say you? Sir, give me leave, I do always humbly endeavour to follow a precept of my ingenious kinsman, Mr William Andrews, Justice of the Peace for the County of Dorset, who, as you are probably aware, is the author of a volume of apophthegms. He that doth acknowledge no one better than himself (says he) can scarce know anybody worse, and a Governor is a Governor, by my estimation.”

  Mr Huxtable: “Aye, sir, very like.”

  This answer of Mr Huxtable, uttered, as it was, with a careless, listless accent, put the Captain into a fuming choler, which he vented obliquely upon Mr Falconer, with some contemptuous expressions glancing upon his conduct of our men, implying that the chief reason for his not going ashore was, that, if the Governor had asked him to sup with him (as, in all likelihood, as he supposed, he would have done), he should have been absent when our men returned on board the ship, and then, in the merry temper they were in after regaling themselves ashore, they might have occasioned some disorder.

  But Mr Huxtable replied not at all to this; and the mate, rising from his chair after his vacant manner, with that strange, black, slant shifting of his eyes, betook himself from the cabin.

  Neither was the discourse, thus fallen in the midst, picked up; for Mr Huxtable now rose also, plucking me by the arm; and I followed him out, leaving the Captain to his wine, sipping glum.

  CHAPTER IX -

  Some Remarkable Adventures: The Author Arrives at in Pernambuc

  The wind rose in the night, blowing from the N.E. and growing stormy, made our berth dangerous. Early in the morning accordingly, all things being now in readiness for our departure, we sailed, with a great stress in weighing anchor, hastening out all we could in a great tumbling sea.

  The Captained designed next for Pernambuco; and we ran away right before the wind (being the N.E. Trade), at the rate of nine or ten miles an hour, all that day and night; and, though it slackened on the day following, ’twas but to become the more constant, like a runner fallen into a steady pace: so, with brisk gales and fair weather, we went on towards the south-east.

  In this time I was much diverted by the flying-fish, that came fluttering like birds (indeed they looked much like swallows) about our bows, and at night about our poop-lantern.1. The first time I saw them, there came a strange remote, and yet, nonetheless, lively recollection into my mind, as if I had seen them before; and perhaps I had, when (as I have related in Chapter I) in my early childhood I was aboard my father’s ship in his West India voyages.

  Sometimes one or two fell on our deck and were eagerly taken by our men; for they are firm,well-tasted fish, much resembling dry herring. Once I observed Obadiah to take up one of them, that, unperceived by the rest, had gotten under the long-boat, and conceal it behind him; and, having stayed where he was until the deck was clear, he did bear it off instead of delivering it to the cook, as he ought to have done; as if the barbarous creature was willing to devour it undressed. I acquainted Mr Huxtable this uncouth particular; but he only laughed, saying that Obadiah had sure been born under the sign Pisces.

  Five or six days after our departure from Santa Cruz, we passed by the Cape Verde Islands at the instance of about three leagues; but night was fallen, and all we saw was the flames issuing forth from the top of the island of Fogo, being a volcano. I did view this spectacle (Mr Huxtable having allowed me to stay up to see it) with wonder and delight, and a kind of awe, my imagination being ever powerfully taken by a volcano, and wished that the mountain itself had been visible. But Mr Huxtable, when I imparted to him my desire, told me, that, if it had been, the flames which by night may be seen a great way off at sea, would not have been visible.

  "And who shall tell," added he, “that it is not likewise with our souls ? which are themselves a kind of volcanoes and islands. Let your thoughts “(said he solemnly), “feed on such pure and such combustible fuel as engenders not vapours nor sulphurous smoke, that may well appear by day, but ethereal flames.”

  In all this time - I mean, since our departure from Santa Cruz - our men had an easy life: no pulling and dragging of the yards; for days on end, scarce need to stir a brace.

  They had idled the time away, casting dice, and the like; but Mr Huxtable, to amuse and raise their thoughts, often discoursed in a company with them on the main-deck; and ’twas really surprising how apt he found some of them, holding dialogues with them, as it were a Socrates at sea.

  Not all, however, attended these discourses; and some (of whom was Obadiah) did covertly scoff, and,
like foolish schoolboys, had turned all to laughter if they dared. Sometimes that ancient seaman whom I have told you of, left his pious reading and sat him down among the company, looking attentively and gravely on, with his gentle shining gaze like a benediction.

  As for me, I own, I made but an infrequent auditor, being drawn more powerfully elsewhere; for Mr Falconer rigged his little ships, squatted down under the break of the poop, and I delighted to observe him. Nay, he told me wonderful strange tales while I sat by his side; which seemed always to be of others’ adventures, never of his; nor did he ever relate any passage of his life’s history. He spake but as a voice in the air; which, in one way, as if they were told by their actors, did make his narratives the more enthralling to me; as if I listened to a voice within me that yet proceeded from without.