The Complete Short Stories and Sketches of Stephen Crane

by Stephen Crane

  Now I had been careless about one thing. I esteem myself as a thoughtful person but in contriving my receptacle for whiskey and soda, I had taken no thought of a possible effect upon the camel. The chief orator of the day was bestowing his ringing eloquence upon us, and the vast crowd was breathlessly intent upon each word when I heard shouts of alarm and amazement from the crowd; and upon turning my eyes toward the middle of the uproar I perceived my camel making his way toward the speaker’s stand. He was smiling with an expression of foolish good nature and his legs were spraddling out in his drunken attempt to keep himself erect. The chief orator of the day cut a burning sentence in the middle, gave a shriek whoop and fell backwards, disappearing amid the crash of lumber and the tearing of bunting.

  As near as I remember now it was the first time I had seen a clergyman climb a tree. I was astonished at their agility. It seemed but a moment before the trees were black with clergymen. The band fled in a body leaving a broad wake of musical instruments. My agitation had been so extreme that I was not capable of following events with my usual clearness but presently I seemed to be alone with the camel and the cornerstone. When I indignantly approached the brute I found him munching the bass drum which a thoughtless bandsman had failed to take with him. From the trees above me resounded cries and moans. The committee of well-known citizens who escorted me and the camel over the frontier on the evening of that same day courteously informed me that they only carried their shotguns as a protection against the cold night air.

  1891?

  * By permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Hitherto unpublished.

  DAN EMMONDS*

  As soon as my father set foot in America he became a very great success, and it was not long before he sent for my mother and me. I was very glad to get to New York and I became a fine man in a very little time, occupying myself in the saloon and in other gentlemanly amusements. But in truth my father never extremely admired me for some reason or another. “You should have been the son of a big brewer, Dan,” he often said to me. “A poor little saloon keeper like me is dazzled by you. However, the business is coming on, and I hope one day to be able to maintain you properly.”

  At last I conducted some affairs for my father in a particularly clever manner and upon learning of it he declared that it was a great pity it was no longer the fashion to send youths out as cabin boys so that sea captains might give them instruction and that he much feared he would have to pay my fare on some distant voyage in order that his commercial ventures might have opportunity to get strong again. I told him at once that I regarded a sea voyage as a fine thing in an educational way and no doubt I would return greatly benefited. I had always a great passion for the sea.

  My father looked upon my acquiescence with suspicion, and for a long time I could see him debate in regard to the wisdom of sending me. “By the paper,” said he, “there’s some opportunity for mischief here. I must examine it further.”

  At last, however, I conducted some more business for my father, and at its conclusion he said he had no doubt but that a sea voyage would be a great thing. Accordingly he obtained for me a passage on the ship Susan L. Terwilleger, which was about to begin a long voyage to Melbourne. The time up to my going on board was without incident save when my father detected two cases of sherry and one of port in my baggage. Having taken them in charge he parted from me with a tender smile.

  For two or three hours, I occupied myself in bidding farewell to New York harbor which in the morning light was a broad gold cloth. As I hung upon the rail I occasionally turned to watch the captain and the mates who were motioning and swearing in all directions until no one knew his own business. Up in front, a crowd of ragged sailors were running this way and that way and hauling into view a number of dirty sails.

  At last after great labor we got the ship out to the breeze and Sandy Hook was no more than a little strip of sand. It was then the sails began to drag the ship forward and the old thing reeled and swayed. I discovered that I was afloat on what has always been called the deep blue sea.

  I need not weary you with any details of the first part of the voyage excepting to say that the captain’s rum and tobacco were good, and he was a first-class companion with a bottle between him and me. We became great philosophers and conversed deeply upon many things that were not usually understood, cocking up our legs and puffing and letting the ship go to ruin.

  But when we were almost to Australia there came a terrible storm and our ship got the worst beating at the hands of the sea that has happened since Robinson Crusoe’s ships used to sail up and down mountains. Salt water surged on the deck here and there and from side to side until it was all I could do to keep my mouth from getting full of it. I hung near the captain’s rum and prayed for land. As for the officers and crew, they were greatly frightened. They swathed themselves in oil clothes, and went about bawling at each other when only six feet apart. They could only console themselves with thinking of what they might tell of it afterward.

  The great wind blew the poor helpless vessel for many miles in one direction, and then blew it violently in another. In truth the wind never paused to reflect where to hurl us, but merely hurled us in all directions until the captain did not know whether he was upon his own quarter-deck or in his father’s barnyard on the old farm in Connecticut, of which he had often told me. And as for me, I might have been standing on my head in the middle of the main street of Dublin for all I knew to the contrary. The quantity of rum I consumed makes me ashamed to think of it.

  “Captain,” said I, “I’m no great hand at courage, and I particularly request you will not allow the ship to founder before I have at least two hours steady work at the bottle.”

  “Drink fast, my lad,” the captain replied. “It is a good thing you have not the head of my old friend Jerry Martin of Portland who required four days of hard lifting at the glass before he could grow indifferent to the death of his second wife whom he disliked exceedingly. Drink fast or you will leave behind you that which will be a hard thing to leave in any such senseless tub as this.”

  I obeyed the captain’s order until it was a matter of indifference to me if the ship turned handsprings and, as a matter of truth, that is what she did presently. Six sailors were spilled to starboard at one lurch. Their screams were so dreadful to me that I ran for the cabin. I was resolved to do great things, only the captain and all three of the mates were there before me.

  When night came it was as if a black cloth had been thrown over a dog and the convulsions of our poor ship was a dreadful thing. We were blind with the spray, and drenched to the skin, and we felt that if we all died presently it would relieve us from a great anxiety. The captain himself said that anyhow we should have been drowned hours before, speaking from the standpoint of a scientific seaman. Some of the men came near us and the second-mate, who was an old officer of the navy, was quite civil to them. It was then I made up my mind that the hour of our destruction was at hand.

  Sure enough at that moment our ship gave a great groaning cry and flew into a thousand pieces. I remember that the flashing white waves looked like teeth when they swallowed me. I sank over two hundred feet in the sea, and I reflected upon twenty ways in which I might have conducted my father’s business in New York. When I thrust my head out of water there was nothing to be seen of ship nor companions. However, a hen coop that had been lashed to the galley flew past me on a high wave, and I had sufficient wit left in me to grasp the slats.

  I need not describe to you how fearfully the storm raged nor how hard I clung to the hen coop. Eventually the winds abated, and I saw that I was alone upon the sea with no company but the hen coop and the dead body of a pig named Bartholomew, who had been a great favorite with the ship’s cook.

  I propelled the coop with great difficulty over to the floating body of the pig, for I thought that if the coop failed me, I could use the pig, and if the pig disappeared, I would still have the coop. Anything was better than being left out there with nothing.
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  Presently the sun broke clear and mild from the clouds with a great air of innocence as if he had never been gone when the captain wanted him, and I saw a fair blue streak on the horizon which I knew to be land. “It’s just as I expected,” I said out loud. “But here’s the point—I don’t know how to get to you, miserable undiscovered country that you are.”

  I first tried pushing the coop away from the pig, and then dragging the pig up and so on, but I soon tired of this mode of traveling, for the pig lay like a block of marble in the water, and I despaired of reaching the island in less than nine years. But it was at this moment that I descried a small boat, something like a fishing smack, skimming over the water quite near to me. It had been previously hidden by the huge waves, for it was so low in the water that I couldn’t have perceived a lighthouse many feet away.

  I set up a great howl when I discovered the smack and she went in stays with a shiver and shake as if my cry from the sea had startled half the life out of her. She came toward me then like a bird, and it was not long before I could see a row of heads hanging over the side, staring at me and conversing. The craft was so well sailed that she pulled up within ten feet of me, and lay with her nose to the wind as quiet as my own hen coop. The men in her were all copper as a doorplate, and had straight black hair, very peculiar. Some of them that I saw running were dressed in little kilts.

  We eyed each other for a minute and then, sure as I am alive, they of a sudden burst into cheers and began to hug each other for joy. I was too amazed to speak. You would have thought they had found a diamond floating upon the water. I did not suppose I was truly the reason of their celebration until they dragged me over the side, and fairly went into convulsions over me.

  I began to think how to treat these strange people, for I knew that I must pay my respects to everything I could see, and be very circumspect and wise upon all religious matters. So, as soon as I could get enough liberty I bowed politely to them and said: “The height of good living to you all, gentlemen, and may you know that there is nothing I admire so much as I do you. First of all, I pay my respects to your old venerable king if you have one; if not, to your beautiful maiden queen and to the aged high priest with the long whiskers, if there be such among you. I wish you to know that I am a man of peace and am arrived here against my wishes and with no plan of any kind against you. I beseech you to observe that my only object in coming here is to get away again as soon as possible. More power be with me. But, above all, gentlemen—and now heed me closely here—I am a man of great liberality in religious matters, and am willing to worship anything from fire and the sun to a large stone kitten if it will be a comfort to the people of the country. Furthermore I am a quiet and modest citizen of the city of New York, and have no desire to hobnob with your king nor your queen, nor your high priests for that matter, as it breeds trouble in countries of this kind. If you have a small detached house with a bit of a garden, maybe, in the outskirts of your beautiful white city, I would pay what rent I am able, and try to live at peace with those about me until I can regain my own country. May the light of the sun illumine the faces of your clay gods when they look at you—that is to say, if you have clay gods. If you have not, I can only say that what you do have must needs be right in my opinion, since you are enlightened citizens of this great country while I am only a citizen of New York City, and not up to the average when there.”

  This was a pretty neat speech, and it was not until the conclusion of it that I began to wonder whether a man of them understood me. However, when I looked at them, they were all smiling in clear delight, and I could see that my eloquence had been no less than music to them. They lay back as if they had just been listening to me playing on a harp.

  I was a trifle bewildered by such great appreciation. “What’s this,” said I to myself. “This might do me harm. They will never part with me if I turn out to be a valuable popular amusement.”

  I reflected for a time and they all sat around like images waiting for me to speak. Finally I saw there was no good in pondering. I must wait until the situation came out more. So I sat there.

  Presently they turned the boat and headed for the island. She flew like a duck, with those coppery fellows dancing for joy, and seeming anxious to tell their friends. “Well,” said I to myself, as the island in front began to grow large, “here you are, my boy, with nothing to back you, now that you have left Bartholomew and the chickens. Devil knows what kind of a stew you will make for these grinning barbarians.” I was greatly frightened. “Good fortune be with you, Bartholomew,” said I addressing the distance. “You are better off than I am indeed, if I am going to be killed after taking this long troublesome voyage.”

  1891?

  [March, 1896]

  * By permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Hitherto unpublished.

  FOUR MEN IN A CAVE*

  LIKEWISE FOUR QUEENS, AND A SULLIVAN COUNTY HERMIT

  The moon rested for a moment on the top of a tall pine on a hill.

  The little man was standing in front of the campfire making orations to his companions.

  “We can tell a great tale when we get back to the city if we investigate this thing,” said he, in conclusion.

  They were won.

  The little man was determined to explore a cave, because its black mouth had gaped at him. The four men took lighted pineknots and clambered over boulders down a hill. In a thicket on the mountainside lay a little tilted hole. At its side they halted.

  “Well?” said the little man.

  They fought for last place, and the little man was overwhelmed. He tried to struggle from under by crying that if the fat, pudgy man came after, he would be corked. But he finally administered a cursing over his shoulder and crawled into the hole. His companions gingerly followed.

  A passage, the floor of damp clay and pebbles, the walls slimy, green-mossed, and dripping, sloped downward. In the cave atmosphere the torches became studies in red blaze and black smoke.

  “Ho!” cried the little man, stifled and bedraggled, “let’s go back.” His companions were not brave. They were last. The next one to the little man pushed him on, so the little man said sulphurous words and cautiously continued his crawl.

  Things that hung seemed to be on the wet, uneven ceiling, ready to drop upon the men’s bare necks. Under their hands the clammy floor seemed alive and writhing. When the little man endeavored to stand erect the ceiling forced him down. Knobs and points came out and punched him. His clothes were wet and mud-covered, and his eyes, nearly blinded by smoke, tried to pierce the darkness always before his torch.

  “Oh, I say, you fellows, let’s go back!” cried he. At that moment he caught the gleam of trembling light in the blurred shadows before him.

  “Ho!” he said, “here’s another way out.”

  The passage turned abruptly. The little man put one hand around the corner, but it touched nothing. He investigated and discovered that the little corridor took a sudden dip down a hill. At the bottom shone a yellow light.

  The little man wriggled painfully about and descended feet in advance. The others followed his plan. All picked their way with anxious care. The traitorous rocks rolled from beneath the little man’s feet and roared thunderously below him. Lesser stones, loosened by the men above him, hit him on the back. He gained a seemingly firm foothold and, turning half-way about, swore redly at his companions for dolts and careless fools. The pudgy man sat, puffing and perspiring, high in the rear of the procession. The fumes and smoke from four pine-knots were in his blood. Cinders and sparks lay thick in his eyes and hair. The pause of the little man angered him.

  “Go on, you fool,” he shouted. “Poor, painted man, you are afraid!”

  “Ho!” said the little man, “come down here and go on yourself, imbecile!”

  The pudgy man vibrated with passion. He leaned downward. “Idiot—!”

  He was interrupted by one of his feet which flew out and crashed into the man in front of and below him. It is not
well to quarrel upon a slippery incline when the unknown is below. The fat man, having lost the support of one pillar-like foot, lurched forward. His body smote the next man, who hurtled into the next man. Then they all fell upon the cursing little man.

  They slid in a body down over the slippery, slimy floor of the passage. The stone avenue must have wibble-wobbled with the rush of this ball of tangled men and strangled cries. The torches went out with the combined assault upon the little man. The adventurers whirled to the unknown in darkness. The little man felt that he was pitching to death, but even in his convolutions he bit and scratched at his companions, for he was satisfied that it was their fault. The swirling mass went some twenty feet and lit upon a level, dry place in a strong, yellow light of candles. It dissolved and became eyes.

  The four men lay in a heap upon the floor of a gray chamber. A small fire smoldered in a corner, the smoke disappearing in a crack. In another corner was a bed of faded hemlock boughs and two blankets. Cooking utensils and clothes lay about, with boxes and a barrel.

  Of these things the four men took small cognizance. The pudgy man did not curse the little man, nor did the little man swear in the abstract. Eight widened eyes were fixed upon the center of the room of rocks.

  A great, gray stone, cut squarely like an altar, sat in the middle of the floor. Over it burned three candles in swaying tin cups hung from the ceiling. Before it, with what seemed to be a small volume clasped in his yellow fingers, stood a man. He was an infinitely sallow person in the brown-checked shirt of the plows and cows. The rest of his apparel was boots. A long gray beard dangled from his chin. He fixed glinting, fiery eyes upon the heap of men and remained motionless. Fascinated, their tongues cleaving, their blood cold, they arose to their feet. The gleaming glance of the recluse swept slowly over the group until it found the face of the little man. There it stayed and burned.