by Mark Twain
"Drop down by me, sir -- I mustn't shout. There -- now you're all right." Then he said sorrowfully, "I reckon we've got to take it again."
"Take what?"
"The pledge."
"Why?"
"Did you see that thing go by?"
"What
thing?"
"A
man. "
"No. What of it?"
"This is four times that I've seen it; and the mate has seen it, and so has the captain. Haven't you ever seen it?"
"I suppose not. Is there anything extraordinary about it?"
"Extra- or dinary? Well, I should say! "
"How is it extraordinary?"
He said in an awed voice that was almost like a groan, "Like this, for instance: you put your hand on him and he ain't there. "
"What do you mean, Turner?"
"It's as true as I'm sitting here, I wish I may never stir. The captain's getting morbid and religious over it, and says he wouldn't give a damn for ship and crew if that thing stays aboard."
"You curdle my blood. What is the man like? Isn't it just one of the crew, that you glimpse and lose in the dark?"
"You take note of this: it wears a broad slouch hat and a long cloak. Is that a whaler outfit? I'll ask you. A minute ago I was as close to him as I am to you; and I made a grab for him, and what did I get? A handful of air, that's all. There warn't a sign of him left.''
"I do hope the pledge will dispose of it. It must be a work of the imagination, or the crew would have seen it."
"We're afraid they have. There was a deal of whispering going on last night in the middle watch. The captain dealt out grog, and got their minds on something else; but he is mighty uneasy, because of course he don't want you or your family to hear about that man, and would take my scalp if he knew what I'm doing now; and besides, if such a thing got a start with the crew, there'd be a mutiny, sure."
"I'll keep quiet, of course; still, I think it must be an output of imaginations overstrung by the strange fishes you think you saw; and I am hoping that the pledge --"
"I want to take it now. And I will."
"I'm witness to it. Now come to my parlor and I'll give you a cup of hot coffee and
--"
"Oh, rny goodness, there it is again! . . . It's gone. . . . Lord, it takes a body's breath. It's the jimjams I've got -- I know it for sure. I want the coffee; it'll do me good. If you could help me a little, sir -- I feel as weak as Sabbath grog."
We groped along the sleety deck to my door and entered, and there in the bright glare of the lamps sat (as I was half-expecting) the man of the long cloak and the slouch hat, on the sofa -- my friend the Superintendent of Dreams. I was annoyed, for a moment, for of course I expected Turner to make a jump at him, get nothing, and be at once in a more miserable state than he already was. I reached for my cabin door and closed it, so that Alice might not hear the scuffle and get a fright. But there wasn't any.
Turner went on talking, and took no notice of the Superintendent. I gave the Superintendent a grateful look; and it was an honest one, for this thing of making himself visible and scaring people could do harm.
"Lord, it's good to be in the light, sir," said Turner, rustling comfortably in his yellow oilskins. "It lifts a person's spirits right up. I've noticed that these cussed jimjam blatherskites ain't as apt to show up in the light as they are in the dark, except when you've got trouble in your attic pretty bad." Meantime we were dusting the snow off each other with towels. "You're mighty well fixed here, sir -- chairs and carpets and rugs and tables and lamps and books and everything lovely, and so warm and comfortable and homey; and the roomiest parlor I ever struck in a ship, too. Land, hear the wind, don't she sing! And not a sign of motion! Rip goes the sleet again! -- ugly, you bet! And here?
Why, here it's only just the more cosier on account of it. Dern that jimjam, if I had him in here once I bet you I'd sweat him. Because I don't mind saying that I don't grab at him as earnest as I want to, outside there, and ain't as disappointed as I ought to be when I don't get him; but here in the light I ain't afraid of no jimjam."
It made the Superintendent of Dreams smile a smile that was full of pious satisfaction to hear him. I poured a steaming cup of coffee and handed it to Turner and told him to sit where he pleased and make himself comfortable and at home; and before I could interfere he had sat down in the Superintendent of Dream's lap! -- no, sat down through him. It cost me a gasp, but only that, nothing more. The Superintendent of Dream's head was larger than Turner's, and surrounded it, and was a transparent spirit-head fronted with a transparent spirit-face; and this latter smiled at me as much as to say give myself no uneasiness, it is all right. Turner was smiling comfort and contentment at me at the same time, and the double result was very curious, but I could tell the smiles apart without trouble. The Superintendent of Dream's body enclosed Turner's, but I could see Turner through it, just as one sees objects through thin smoke.
It was interesting and pretty.
Turner tasted his coffee and set the cup down in front of him with a hearty: "Now I call that prime! 'George, it makes me feel the way old Cap'n Jimmy Starkweather did, I reckon, the first time he tasted grog after he'd been off his allowance three years. The way of it was this. It was there in Fairhaven by New Bedford, away back in the old early whaling days before I was born; but I heard about it the first day I was born, and it was a ripe old tale then, because they keep only the one fleet of yarns in commission down New Bedford way, and don't ever restock and don't ever repair. And I came near hearing it in old Cap'n Jimmy's own presence once, when I was ten years old and he was ninety-two; but I didn't, because the man that asked Cap'n Jimmy to tell about it got crippled and the thing didn't materialize. It was Cap'n Jimmy that crippled him. Land, I thought I sh'd die! The very recollection of it --"
The very recollection of it so powerfully affected him that it shut off his speech and he put his head back and spread his jaws and laughed himself purple in the face.
And while he was doing it the Superintendent of Dreams emptied the coffee into the slop bowl and set the cup back where it was before. When the explosion had spent itself Turner swabbed his face with his handkerchief and said, "There -- that laugh has scoured me out and done me good; I hain't had such another one -- well, not since I struck this ship, now that's sure. I'll whet up and start over."
He took up his cup, glanced into it, and it was curious to observe the two faces that were framed in the front of his head. Turner's was long and distressed; the Superintendent of Dream's was wide, and broken out of all shape with a convulsion of silent laughter. After a little, Turner said in a troubled way, "I'm dumm'd if I recollect drinking that."
I didn't say anything, though I knew he must be expecting me to say something.
He continued to gaze into the cup a while, then looked up wistfully and said, "Of course I must have drunk it, but I'm blest if I can recollect whether I did or not. Lemme see. First you poured it out, then I sat down and put it before me here; next I took a sup and said it was good, and set it down and begun about old Cap'n Jimmy -- and then -- and then --"
He was silent a moment, then said, "It's as far as I can get. It beats me. I reckon that after that I was so kind of full of my story that I didn't notice whether I --" He stopped again, and there was something almost pathetic about the appealing way in which he added, "But I did drink it, didn't I? You see me do it -- didn't you?"
I hadn't the heart to say no.
"Why, yes, I think I did. I wasn't noticing particularly, but it seems to me that I saw you drink it -- in fact, I am about certain of it."
I was glad I told the lie, it did him so much good, and so lightened his spirits, poor old fellow.
"Of course I done it! I'm such a fool. As a general thing I wouldn't care, and I wouldn't bother anything about it; but when there's jimjams around the least little thing makes a person suspicious, you know. If you don't mind, sir -- thanks, ever so much."
He to
ok a large sup of the new supply, praised it, set the cup down -- leaning forward and fencing it around with his arms, with a labored pretense of not noticing that he was doing that -- then said:
"Lemme see -- where was I? Yes. Well, it happened like this. The Washingtonian Movement started up in those old times, you know, and it was Father Matthew here and Father Matthew there and Father Matthew yonder -- nothing but Father Matthew and temperance all over everywheres. And temperance societies?
There was millions of them, and everybody joined and took the pledge. We had one in New Bedford. Every last whaler joined -- captain, crew and all. All down to old Cap'n Jimmy. He was an old bach, his grog was his darling, he owned his ship and sailed her himself, he was independent, and he wouldn't give in. So at last they gave it up and quit pestering him. Time rolled along, and he got awful lonesome. There wasn't anybody to drink with, you see, and it got unbearable. So finally the day he sailed for Bering Strait he caved, and sent in his name to the society. Just as he was starting, his mate broke his leg and stopped ashore and he shipped a stranger in his place from down New York way. This fellow didn't belong to any society, and he went aboard fixed for the voyage.
Cap'n Jimmy was out three solid years; and all the whole time he had the spectacle of that mate whetting up every day and leading a life that was worth the trouble; and it nearly killed him for envy to see it. Made his mouth water, you know, in a way that was pitiful. Well, he used to get out on the peak of the bowsprit where it was private, and set there and cuss. It was his only relief from his sufferings. Mainly he cussed himself; but when he had used up all his words and couldn't think of any new rotten things to call himself, he would turn his vocabulary over and start fresh and lay into Father Matthew and give him down the banks; and then the society; and so put in his watch as satisfactory as he could. Then he would count the days he was out, and try to reckon up about when he could hope to get home and resign from the society and start in on an all-compensating drunk that would make up for lost time. Well, when he was out three thousand years -- which was his estimate, you know, though really it was only three years -- he came rolling down the home stretch with every rag stretched on his poles.
Middle of winter, it was, and terrible cold and stormy. He made the landfall just at sundown and had to stand watch on deck all night of course, and the rigging was caked with ice three inches thick, and the yards was bearded with icicles five foot long, and the snow laid nine inches deep on the deck and hurricanes more of it being shoveled down onto him out of the skies. And so he plowed up and down all night, cussing himself and Father Matthew and the society, and doing it better than he ever done before; and his mouth was watering so, on account of the mate whetting up right in his sight all the time, that every cuss word come out damp, and froze solid as it fell, and in his insufferable indignation he would hit it a whack with his cane and knock it a hundred yards, and one of them took the mate in the mouth and fetched away a rank of teeth and lowered his spirits considerable. He made the dock just at early breakfast time and never waited to tie up, but jumped ashore with his jug in his hand and rushed for the society's quarters like a deer. He met the seckatary coming out and yelled at him, ‘I’ve resigned my membership! I give you just two minutes to scrape my name off your log, d'ye hear?'
"And then the seckatary told him he'd been blackballed three years before --
hadn't ever been a member! Land, I can't hold in, it's coming again!"
He flung up his arms, threw his head back, spread his jaws, and made the ship quake with the thunder of his laughter, while the Superintendent of Dreams emptied the cup again and set it back in its place. When Turner came out of his fit at last he was limp and exhausted, and sat mopping his tears away and breaking at times into little feebler and feebler barks and catches of expiring laughter. Finally he fetched a deep sigh of comfort and satisfaction, and said, "Well, it does do a person good, no mistake --
on a voyage like this. I reckon --"
His eye fell on the cup. His face turned a ghastly white.
"By God she's empty again!"
He jumped up and made a sprawling break for the door. I was frightened; I didn't know what he might do -- jump overboard, maybe. I sprang in front of him and barred the way, saying, "Come, Turner, be a man, be a man! don't let your imagination run away with you like this;" and over his shoulder I threw a pleading look at the Superintendent of Dreams, who answered my prayer and refilled the cup from the coffee urn.
"Imagination you call it, sir! Can't I see -- with my own eyes? Let me go -- don't stop me -- I can't stand it, I can't stand it!"
"Turner, be reasonable -- you know perfectly well your cup isn't empty, and hasn't been."
That hit him. A dim light of hope and gratitude shone in his eye, and he said in a quivery voice, "Say it again -- and say it's true. Is it true? Honor bright -- you wouldn't deceive a poor devil that's --"
"Honor bright, man, I'm not deceiving you -- look for yourself."
Gradually he turned a timid and wary glance toward the table; then the terror went out of his face, and he said humbly, "Well, you see, I reckon I hadn't quite got over thinking it happened the first time, and so maybe without me knowing it, that made me kind of suspicious that it would happen again, because the jimjams make you untrustful that way; and so, sure enough, I didn't half-look at the cup, and just jumped to the conclusion it had happened." And talking so, he moved toward the sofa, hesitated a moment, and then sat down in that figure's body again. "But I'm all right, now, and I'll just shake these feelings off and be a man, as you say."
The Superintendent of Dreams separated himself and moved along the sofa a foot or two away from Turner. I was glad of that; it looked like a truce. Turner swallowed his cup of coffee; I poured another; he began to sip it, the pleasant influence worked a change, and soon he was a rational man again, and comfortable. Now a sea came aboard, hit our deckhouse a stunning thump, and went hissing and seething aft.
"Oh, that's the ticket," said Turner, "the dumm'dest weather that ever I went pleasure-excursioning in. And how did it get aboard? You answer me that: there ain't any motion to the ship. These mysteriousnesses -- well, they just give me the cold shudders. And that reminds me. Do you mind my calling your attention to another peculiar thing or two? On conditions as before -- solid secrecy, you know."
"I'll keep it to myself. Go on."
"The Gulf Stream's gone to the devil!"
"What do you mean?"
"It's the fact, I wish I may never die. From the day we sailed till now, the water's been the same temperature right along, I'll take my oath. The Gulf Stream don't exist any more; she's gone to the devil."
"It's incredible, Turner! You make me gasp."
"Gasp away, if you want to; if things go on so, you ain't going to forget how for want of practice. It's the wooliest voyage, take it by and large -- why, look here! You are a landsman, and there's no telling what a landsman can't overlook if he tries. For instance, have you noticed that the nights and days are exactly alike, and you can't tell one from tother except by ieeping tally?"
"Why, yes, I have noticed it in a sort of indifferent general way, but --"
"Have you kept a tally, sir?"
"No, it didn't occur to me to do it."
"I thought so. Now you know, you couldn't keep it in your head, because you and your family are free to sleep as much as you like, and as it's always dark, you sleep a good deal, and you are pretty irregular, naturally. You've all been a little seasick from the start -- tea and toast in your own parlor here -- no regular time -- order it as each of you pleases. You see? You don't go down to meals -- they would keep tally for you. So you've lost your reckoning. I noticed it an hour ago."
"How?"
"Well, you spoke of tonight. It ain't tonight at all; it's just noon, now."
"The fact is, I don't believe I have often thought of it's being day, since we left.
I've got into the habit of considering it night all the time; it's the s
ame with my wife and the children."
"There it is, you see. Mr. Edwards, it's perfectly awful; now ain't it, when you come to look at it? Always night -- and such dismal nights, too. It's like being up at the pole in the winter-time. And I'll ask you to notice another thing: this sky is as empty as my sou'wester there."
"Empty?"
"Yes, sir. I know it. You can't get up a day, in a Christian country, that's so solid black the sun can't make a blurry glow of some kind in the sky at high noon -- now can you?"
"No, you can't."
"Have you ever seen a suspicion of any such a glow in this sky?"
"Now that you mention it, I haven't."
He dropped his voice and said impressively, "Because there ain't any sun. She's gone where the Gulf Stream twineth."
"Turner! Don't talk like that."
"It's confidential or I wouldn't. And the moon. She's at the full -- by the almanac she is. Why don't she make a blur? Because there ain't any moon. And moreover -- you might rake this on-completed sky a hundred year with a dragnet and you'd never scoop a star! Why? Because there ain't any. Now then, what is your opinion about all this?"
"Turner, it's so gruesome and creepy that I don't like to think about it -- and I haven't any. What is yours?"
He said, dismally, "That the world has come to an end. Look at it yourself. Just look at the facts. Put them together and add them up, and what have you got? No Sable Island; no Greenland; no Gulf Stream; no day, no proper night; weather that don't jibe with any sample known to the Bureau; animals that would start a panic in any menagerie, chart no more use than a horseblanket, and the heavenly bodies gone to hell! And on top of it all, that jimjam that I've put my hand on more than once and he warn't there -- I'll swear it. The ship's bewitched. You don't believe in the jim, and I've sort of lost faith myself, here in the bright light; but if this cup of coffee was to --"
The cup began to glide slowly away, along the table. The hand that moved it was not visible to him. He rose slowly to his feet and stood trembling as if with an ague, his teeth knocking together and his glassy eyes staring at the cup. It slid on and on, noiseless; then it rose in the air, gradually reversed itself, poured its contents down the Superintendent's throat -- I saw the dark stream trickling its way down through his hazy breast -- then it returned to the table, and without sound of contact, rested there. The mate continued to stare at it for as much as a minute; then he drew a deep breath, took up his sou'wester, and without looking to the right or the left, walked slowly -- out of the room like one in a trance, muttering, "I've got them -- I've had the proof."