by John Gardner
“Quickly, as if in fear of losing his nerve, in fear of another instant’s change of purpose—at the same time drawing his second pistol (but it was a joke, all of it, his last, most spectacular theater trick, and we his dupes, except that, finally, Swami Havananda was leveling with us)—Wilkins aimed and fired, and the Captain’s head flew open. The rest of him did not move, not so much as a twitch, but sat calm as a dead Tibetan, listening. There was no blood. Ngugi and I jerked our heads in amazement. The Captain’s head was full of springs and coils, and tubing for letting out smoke when he puffed on his heavy black pipe. A walking puppet, huge ventriloquist’s dummy—Wilkins’ own creation, or, rather, Swami Havananda’s. Even the blood on his beard was false—more trickery. Whim indeed! Then it came to me:
“ ‘Jeremiah!’ I shouted. ’That’s who old Flint is! No wonder he was always at the Captain’s side!’ It was all clear as day to me now, at last—Jeremiah’s wild excitement when he went with the Captain to visit other ships (no mean feat, that trick he played on them, just to keep his hand in—though he came back with sacks filled with money, his collection). ‘The devil!’ I whispered as the thing came still clearer, ‘why the God damned arrogant maniac!’ Wilkins must have known that, I understood then, must have suffered for years Flint’s icy scorn, and must have hated him. At last he’d gotten even, had slashed what little heart Flint had left by raping poor Miranda.
“But Wilkins said, ‘Devil! Ye make me laugh. Poor weak, slavish mortal, poor dupe, that’s old Flint. He’s hunted all his life for some holiness past magic. That’s what brought him here, out to the region of the Vanishing Isles. Oh, his power’s magnificent, no doubt about that, and his cynicism’s the highest quality, I can tell ye from long experience.’ He sneered. ‘It’s true he had a feeling it might be a hoax, and partly he came from professional interest: If somebody’s tricking him, his arrogance demands that he spy out who. But at bottom he came here believing, sir. Fact. Gullible and desperate as only the greatest magicians can be. “Surely not everything’s mere illusion!” cried he. He made men his slaves with his bunkum religion (“Ghost of Hiram Billings, speak!” Har, har!), but religion it was, in the end, that undid him.
“He gave me a wink. ‘Flint murdered the Captain ‘fore we ever come aboard, and the Captain’s poor foolish daughter too. I assisted him, of course; and assisted him again when certain crewmen found out, God rest their souls.’
“He was about to squeeze the trigger and dispatch himself— for no earthly reason, so far as I could see. Little as I liked him, I was horrified, sweating. My mind raced, and it occurred to me to say: ’Wilkins, where’s he now?—the blind man, Flint.’ (Miranda had asked that in the cabin, I remembered—‘Where’s Jeremiah?’ in terror but hiding to the last his identity. Cunning past cunning, a thousand times more wily than any Indian.)
“ ‘Blind, ye think?’ says Wilkins. ‘You’ll see who’s blind! Tell him when ye see him I was busy to the last. Faithful assistant, manufacturer of tricks. Can a man become one with the universe, undo the separation that makes sinners of us all? Impossible, ye say. Yet, behold, I seem to!’
“ ‘Not shoot!’ Ngugi shouted, and leaped at him, but not fast enough. Wilkins’ face exploded, dark blood in the bandanna, and it was over, the repercussion still booming, deafening, in our ears. The Jerusalem’s tragedy was finished, or just begun. I could suddenly see things far away, like the mind of a tree. Miranda in her cabin sat up in the lingering twilight, knowing, and believing like all of us the thing was her fault—overweening lunatics, all of us—and screamed, and the scream like a lightning bolt slammed down on us and we looked up, chilled. Back in Nantucket the two old men, sly practical jokers, looked startled, went ashen, but the next instant couldn’t remember what it was that had startled them. ‘Yer move,’ said Tobias Cook, though he wasn’t certain of it, and frowned at the old worn checkers as black as midnight and red as blood.
“Wilkins lay bleeding, motionless, above him the ventriloquist’s dummy he’d built, blown faceless, at his shoulder on the bulkhead the crudely carved but ornate memorial of some mortal presumably dead long since, returned to the universe (as Tibet’s book tells), paroled forever from Discipline, word full of hardness: A. G. P. We carried up Wilkins’ body and lowered it away.
XXVII
“There was no breeze. It was the eighteenth day of that eerie calm. The smell of land lay all around us. We waited for change, any kind of change. Even that maelstrom we’d heard about would be better than this endless hovering. As for Flint, we hunted the devil in vain. We dared not hope that he’d discovered some means of abandoning us— preferably Wilkins’ way, and Kaskiwah’s. But we saw no sign of him, and no sign he’d been into the galley biscuits. We were not easy in our minds, for all that. I was certain now that Miranda wasn’t merely asleep in the ordinary sense of asleep. She was listening, and what could she be listening to but Flint? We searched the ship from top to bottom, again and again. Not a trace. We worried on.
“On the eighteenth day of the calm, as I say, black Ngugi and I stood on deck, waiting, listening for wind. The plan was changed now, barring accident. We’d steer for home as soon as the sky remembered us. Icebergs glinted in a circle around us, and the water was full of a strange music, choral, like the singing of sunken angels.
“ ‘Whales,’ Ngugi said.
“His head was tipped. He was listening the way men who love symphonies listen. ‘Mighty singers,’ Ngugi said. ‘No one believes but those who have heard. Have many songs, all with many parts. They sing to live, like the Negro, someday like the white man.’ The ship was ringing like a violin.
“ ‘What are they singing?’
“ ‘Joy,’ he said. ‘Sorrow.’
“I studied him. ‘Then how can you kill them?’
“He touched his lip as if the question had troubled his mind before, then smiled, slightly baffled. ‘How else come hear them? Everything very expensive, this world.’ I couldn’t help but think of Mr. Poe’s Ligeia.
“We listened. Whatever else might be true or merely imagined on this ship of absurdities, it was true that the whales were singing— to each other and to us, or so it seemed. On the other hand, it was also true that there were huge white birds on the yardarms. I could see straight through them. I felt some word tugging at me, deep in my mind, demanding my attention. And then, suddenly, Ngugi touched my shoulder. I smelled it myself the same instant. Fire.
“We flew to the deck but we couldn’t reach Miranda before she’d set the second blaze, candle in tribute to her father’s grand purpose, Death or Absolute Vision among the Vanishing Isles. She was in the same torn rags, her flesh still horribly bruised and swollen. She seemed drugged, or sleepwalking—perhaps drawn to this cruel last trick by some telepathic command from Flint. Ngugi seized her arms and gave a cry of anger and frustration like a child’s as she scratched and bit him. He threw her down on the deck; we heard the thud of bone. The aft sails and mainsail were sheets of yellow flame.
“ ‘Cut ‘em off,’ I shouted. “Save the masts and yards or we’ll never see Nantucket!’ Already they were going up the rigging, slashing at the ties, leaping and swinging from the yards like gibbons, the burning sails sagging, collapsing towards the deck. If the flames reached our cargo of oil and wax we’d last about three seconds. There was no possibility of shouting out orders against the roar of the fire. But they knew. You don’t sit a whole year on a ship full of whale oil and fail to guess what a spark might accomplish. They were there, reaching up with their bare, dark hands, all hatches closed, my lordless crew, and no sooner had the burning sail crashed down than over they went with it, a dozen seamen, down into the ice-cold sea to swim it away from us. So the masts stood bare, dangling rope, and every stay was smoking.
“ ‘Woman!’ said Ngugi, bright tears on his cheeks. Then, to the others: ‘We find more sail.’ They turned instantly to search the ship for something to make sail of, but before they’d gone a step they were stopped by a voice
booming, ’Stay where ye be!’ We turned like one man, and there on the poopdeck, where a minute ago there’d been no one at all, stood Luther Flint in all his grim, satanic glory. He looked as he’d looked in his theater days, great gleaming triumphant stovepipe hat and majestic tailcoat, his arms reaching out like an orchestra conductor’s—except that his hair was wild as a rooster’s and as icy white as snow. ‘Get him!’ I shouted, ’get him while there’s time!’ But it was already too late.
“ ‘Cover Upchurch, lads,’ cries old Flint, and behind my left shoulder comes the voice of none other than Swami Havananda, that is, Wilkins, that we’d buried in the sea: ‘He’s covered, sir,’ and he lets out as evil a laugh as was ever yet heard on earth. I couldn’t catch my breath.
“ ‘You with the bone in your nose, put yer hands on yer head,’ Flint tells Ngugi, and Wolff’s voice comes from close to the black harpooner: ‘You heard ’im.’
“My rabble of a crew was staring all around, confounded and shuddering at those voices of deadmen from the empty air. On the deck Miranda was beaming, triumphant and crazy as a loon, as if it was her eyes she’d set on fire. Meanwhile, Flint’s voice is mournfully intoning, ‘Yer sleepy, very sleepy …’ and he’s swinging his eyes from man to man, and it comes to me by heaven he’s out to Mesmerize the pack of us, and it’s working, too: I can see them weakening, slouching a little, tipping their heads like a man that’s beginning to hear the mumble of a dream. He swings his evil eye on me now, and he strains so hard his eyeballs bulge. Beside him on the poopdeck stands my friend the white bird, shaking his head, looking weary and disgusted. It strikes me that Flint looks a little perplexed. He’s overstraining, as if meeting some curious resistance. And at last, of course, it comes to me what his trouble is. He can’t decide which eye to look in!
“ ‘Very sleepy… sleepy…’ says Luther Flint.
“ ‘The devil in hell I am,’ says I. Which is true, it strikes me; I’m wide awake, old wall-eyed John, though I’m the only one left, all the others are standing there like statues with clothes on—including (it comes to me) Miranda.
“ ‘It ain’t working, Doctor,’ says Wilkins’ ghost.
“ ‘Then kill him,’ says Flint, just as cool as can be.
“ ‘No!’ shouts I, and my mind all the sudden is busy as thunder with pictures of those sailors being axed on the head. I go down on my knees like the Englishman. ‘I’ll do what ye like, sir. Ye don’t need to put me in a Mesmerized state. The fact is, I’m Mesmerized already, been Mesmerized for years. I’ve learned to, you might say, compensate—act normal, don’t ye know, though in fact I’m a walking deadman. God’s truth. It happened one night in Philadelphia—’
“ ‘Hush yer tongue!’ says Flint.
“ ‘Yessir. Yer wish is my command, sir.’ Crying like a baby.
“Now Flint drops his arms down, and slowly he pulls his right hand over, still scowling like a grizzly bear, and rubs his chin.
“ ‘I still say kill him,’ says Wilkins, at my back.
“The bird’s still shaking his head, disgusted.
“ ‘A point to consider,’ says Flint, still scowling, ‘is, a fellow as quick with his tongue as young Upchurch might be useful if a man could just depend on him.’
“ ‘I’m yer servant!’ I cry, and I wring my hands, crawling toward him on my knees. The bird’s still shaking his head, sometimes rolling his eyes up as if praying for patience. I think about it, meanwhile bawling, ‘Let me be yer disciple! I’m an eager learner and devoted heart and soul to yer daughter—if I have yer approval, that is.’
“ ‘Yer a good groveler,’ says Flint, and gives a nod. ‘Yer a real professional.’
“The big white bird is getting furious now, moving back and forth like a parrot on a perch, and I strain to read his mind. It pops into my head: There IS no Wilkins. Flint’s throwing his voice. My eyes widen and the bird spreads his wings out. I thought ye’d never guess! thinks he, and I read it.
“I’m weightless, suddenly. As free as the bird. I can rush the old man—big as he is, he’s no match for me. I’m already tensed to do it when I think: On the other hand, for most of my life I’ve been walking around scared to death of him, and now suddenly he’s a humbug, an impotent old goof hardly better than the puppet he scared me with before. My heart fills with joy and I can’t resist.
“ ‘I’ll work hard, sir!’ I say, and crawl toward him some more. ‘I’ll shine yer shoes and brush yer top-hat and feed the pigeons and rabbits, and I’ll learn to play blackjack for when you need some amusement, or chess, if ye prefer, if ye’ve the patience to teach me.’ But then I hesitate.
“ ‘There’s just one thing,’ I say, and crawl toward him some more. I stretch one arm up pitifully and I make my fingertips tremble. ‘It’s not for me to say, but if ye mean to make me yer lifelong slave, you ought to win me, seems to me. It would make me more valuable, so to speak. Ye should win me fair and square, by yer own honest wits, and not by these magical powers—yer command of deadmen. Send away the ghosts, and let us contend in some honest test of ingenuity, as long as it ain’t chess.’
“Flint smiled—a terrible thing to see. Without hesitation, he said, ? chess game, or nothing.’
“I widen my eyes. ‘Chess, sir?’ I say. I look terrified, pitiful. ‘Chess is a difficult business, I understand.’
“ ‘Chess or nothing, my friend. Only dumb farmers give even odds.’ He smiles, benevolent, and puts a point on his mustache.
“I ponder the question, and at last I bring out, ‘I don’t think lightly of my cunning, as ye know. Show me the moves and I believe that even in chess I might stand some chance against you.’
“ ‘Done!’ says Flint, and with a snap of his fingers brings Miranda to. She blinks her eyes. I have a curious feeling she’s faking it, never was asleep at all. As for the rest of them, they stand there asleep like a field full of horses in October. She opens one eye wide now, with a befuddled look, and, remembering her ragged half-nakedness, she covers her bosom with her hands and turns away.
“Her embarrassment touches me, makes a fool of me, and I suddenly blurt out: ‘Since yer taking such advantage, let us raise the stakes higher, so if I win, by some fluke, I win big, just the same as you would.’
“Dr. Flint cocks his eyebrow, puts his hands on his hips.
“ ‘Say if I beat you—by some miracle—I win … Miranda.’ ”
“ ‘Never!’ cries Flint’s daughter, with a horrified look.
“He glances at her. She’s misshapen as a gnome, lumpy as a kitten that’s been mauled by a dog. It tickles his fancy. ‘Done, my boy.’ He smiles, looking sly. ‘Yer a mighty confident young fellow, seems to me. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear ye were secretly acquainted with the game.’
“ ‘I’m a whiz at checkers, sir, that much I’ll say.’
“Dr. Flint gives once more his benevolent smile.
“So off we go to the Captain’s cabin where the chessboard stands waiting, and we seat ourselves, Miranda peeking out from behind the door. What she’s thinking is more than I can say, but one thing’s certain: Whatever it is she thinks of me, it stands to reason she’s looking at her daddy with brand new eyes. He’d trade her away to captivity for a chessgame—his own daughter!—after all she’s done for him! The door’s behind Flint’s back; he can’t see her look. I muse on it, pretending I’ve got all my attention on the moves he’s explaining, and it comes to me she might not be wholly opposed to being traded into Upchurch captivity. Flint asks me, sly, if I follow the explanation. He’s been purposely confusing. I fumble with the pieces, show my ignorance. She watches me, whether in delight or alarm I’ve no sure way of telling. He explains again, more confusing than before. The ship lies as still as the solid land. At last, I allow I’m ready. With minimal chicanery, I happen to draw white. Perspiring, fingers trembling, I begin the game. Quick as you please we’ve played six moves each.
“Then, like a wild man, Flint leaps up. ‘That’s no game of a
beginner!’ he bellows. ‘You’ve opened with the damn King’s Indian!!!’
“ ‘Ambushed!’ cries Miranda, and her face goes wild.
“The old man went white, reaching over toward me. Before I could move, he had his hands around my throat. I pulled away from him, yelping—his hands on my throat were like seething fire—and I raised my fists to defend myself but, alas, no need! Before my flabbergasted eyes—God’s own truth—his face went from chalky white to yellow, from yellow to a terrible, blood-dark red. Sweat came washing in rivers from his forehead, his eyes squeezed shut, his temples bulged, and all of a sudden he was smoking like a pile of old rags, and belching steam. The room filled solid with unearthly stench, and before I could even cry out, he was on fire, a great black furnace on legs, flaming, the top-hat sending up smoke and bits of soot like a railroad-engine chimney.
“ ‘Spontaneous combustion!’ I gasped, and in horror turned my face away. But even as I did so, I leaped toward him, knowing by instinct what I had to do. I tore down a curtain to shield myself, then hugged the bubbling, curdling mass, dragged it through the hatch and across the deck to the rail and pushed it over. It sank into the ocean with a snaky hiss. The sailors on the deck below me slept on.