The Complete Short Stories and Sketches of Stephen Crane

by Stephen Crane

  “I understand you,” said the young philosopher.

  The Strong Man ran off into the night. The little men of the valley clapped their hands in ecstasy and terror. “Ah! ah! what a battle will there be!”

  The Strong Man went into his own hills and gathered there many great rocks and trunks of trees. It was strange to see him erect upon a peak of the mountains and hurling these things at the moon. He kept the air full of them.

  “Fat moon, come closer,” he shouted. “Come closer, and let it be my knife against your knife. Oh, to think that we are obliged to tolerate such an old, fat, stupid, lazy, good-for-nothing moon. You are ugly as death, while I—Oh, moon, you stole my beloved, and it was nothing, but when you stole my beloved and laughed at me, it became another matter. And yet you are so ugly, so fat, so stupid, so lazy, so good-for-nothing. Ah, I shall go mad! Come closer, moon, and let me examine your round, gray skull with this club.”

  And he always kept the air full of great missiles.

  The moon merely laughed, and said: “Why should I come closer?”

  Wildly did the Strong Man pile rock upon rock. He built him a tower that was the father of all towers. It made the mountains appear to be babes. Upon the summit of it he swung his great club and flourished his knife.

  The little men in the valley far below beheld a great storm, and at the end of it they said: “Look, the moon is dead.” The cry went to and fro on the earth: “The moon is dead!”

  The Strong Man went to the home of the moon. She, the sought one, lay upon a cloud, and her little foot dangled over the side of it. The Strong Man took this little foot in his two hands and kissed it. “Ah, beloved!” he moaned, “I would rather this little foot was upon my dead neck than that the moon should ever have the privilege of seeing it.”

  She leaned over the edge of the cloud and gazed at him. “How dusty you are! Why do you puff so? Veritably, you are an ordinary person. Why did I ever find you interesting?”

  The Strong Man flung his knife into the air and turned back toward the earth. “If the young philosopher had been at my elbow,” he reflected, bitterly, “I would doubtless have gone at the matter in another way. What does my strength avail me in this contest?”

  The battered moon, limping homeward, replied to the Strong Man from the Hills: “Aye, surely. My weakness is in this thing as strong as your strength. I am victor with my ugliness, my age, my stoutness, my laziness, my good-for-nothingness. Woman is woman. Men are equal in everything save good fortune. I envy you not.”

  July, 1897

  [The Pocket Magazine, Vol. 4, pp. 144–152.]

  FLANAGAN AND HIS SHORT

  FILIBUSTERING ADVENTURE

  I

  “I have got twenty men at me back who will fight to the death,” said the warrior to the old filibuster.

  “And they can be blowed, for all me,” replied the old filibuster. “Common as sparrows—cheap as cigarettes. Show me twenty men with steel clamps on their mouths, with holes in their heads where memory ought to be, and I want ’em. But twenty brave men merely? I’d rather have twenty brave onions.”

  Thereupon the warrior removed sadly, feeling that no salaams were paid to valor in these days of mechanical excellence.

  Valor, in truth, is no bad thing to have when filibustering; but many medals are to be won by the man who knows not the meaning of “pow-wow,” before or afterward. Twenty brave men with tongues hung lightly may make trouble rise from the ground like smoke from grass because of their subsequent fiery pride, whereas twenty cow-eyed villains who accept unrighteous and far-compelling kicks as they do the rain of heaven may halo the ultimate history of an expedition with gold, and plentifully bedeck their names, winning forty years of gratitude from patriots, simply by remaining silent. As for the cause, it may be only that they have no friends or other credulous furniture.

  If it were not for the curse of the swinging tongue, it is surely to be said that the filibustering industry, flourishing now in the United States, would be pie. Under correct conditions, it is merely a matter of dealing with some little detectives whose skill at search is rated by those who pay them at a value of twelve or twenty dollars each week. It is nearly axiomatic that normally a twelve-dollar-per-week detective cannot defeat a one-hundred-thousand-dollar filibustering excursion. Against the criminal, the detective represents the commonwealth; but in this other case he represents his desire to show cause why his salary should be paid. He represents himself merely, and he counts no more than a grocer’s clerk.

  But the pride of the successful filibuster often smites him and his cause like an axe, and men who have not confided in their mothers go prone with him. It can make the dome of the Capitol tremble, and incite the senators to overturning benches. It can increase the salaries of detectives who could not detect the location of a pain in the chest. It is a wonderful thing, this pride.

  Filibustering was once such a simple game. It was managed blandly by gentle captains and smooth and undisturbed gentlemen who at other times dealt in law, soap, medicine, and bananas. It was a great pity that the little cote of doves in Washington was obliged to rustle officially, and naval men were kept from their berths at night, and sundry custom house people got wiggings, all because the returned adventurer powwowed in his pride. A yellow-and-red banner would have been long since smothered in a shame of defeat if a contract to filibuster had been let to some admirable organization like one of our trusts.

  And yet the game is not obsolete; it is still played by the wise and the silent—men whose names are not display-typed and blathered from one end of the country to the other.

  There is in mind now a man who knew one side of a fence from the other side when he looked sharply. They were hunting for captains then to command the first vessels of what has since become a famous little fleet. One was recommended to this man, and he said: “Send him down to my office, and I’ll look him over.” He was an attorney, and he liked to lean back in his chair, twirl a paper knife, and let the other fellow talk.

  The seafaring man came, and stood, and appeared confounded. The attorney asked the terrible first question of the filibuster to the applicant. He said, “Why do you want to go?”

  The captain reflected, changed his attitude three times, and decided ultimately that he didn’t know. He seemed greatly ashamed. The attorney, looking at him, saw that he had eyes that resembled a lambkin’s eyes.

  “Glory?” said the attorney at last.

  “No-o,” said the captain.

  “Pay?”

  “No-o; not that so much.”

  “Think they’ll give you a land grant when they win out?”

  “No; never thought.”

  “No glory. No immense pay. No land grant. What are you going for, then?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” said the captain, with his glance on the floor, and shifting his position again. “I don’t know. I guess it’s just for fun, mostly.” The attorney asked him out to have a drink.

  When he stood on the bridge of his outgoing steamer, the attorney saw him again. His shore meekness and uncertainty were gone. He was clear-eyed and strong, aroused like a mastiff at night. He took his cigar out of his mouth, and yelled some sudden language at the deck.

  This steamer had about her a quality of unholy medieval disrepair which is usually accounted the principal prerogative of the United States revenue marine. There is many a seaworthy icehouse if she was a good ship. She swashed through the seas as genially as an old wooden clock, burying her head under waves that came only like children at play, and on board it cost a ducking to go from anywhere to anywhere.

  The captain had commanded vessels that shore people thought were liners; but when a man gets the ant of desire-to-see-what-it’s-like stirring in his heart, he will wallow out to sea in a pail. The thing surpasses a man’s love for his sweetheart. The great tank steamer Thunder Voice had long been Flanagan’s sweetheart, but he was far happier off Hatteras watching this wretched little portmanteau boom down the slan
t of a wave.

  The crew scraped acquaintance, one with another, gradually. Each man came ultimately to ask his neighbor what particular turn of ill fortune or inherited deviltry caused him to try this voyage. When one frank, bold man saw another frank, bold man aboard, he smiled, and they became friends. There was not a mind on board the ship that was not fastened to the dangers of the coast of Cuba, and taking wonder at this prospect and delight in it. Still, in jovial moments they termed each other accursed idiots.

  At first there was some trouble in the engine room, where there were many steel animals, for the most part painted red and in other places very shiny, bewildering, complex, incomprehensible to any one who don’t care, usually thumping, thumping, thumping, with the monotony of a snore.

  It seems that this engine was as whimsical as a gas-meter. The chief engineer was a fine old fellow with a gray mustache; but the engine told him that it didn’t intend to budge until it felt better. He came to the bridge and said: “The blamed old thing has laid down on us, sir.”

  “Who was on duty?” roared the captain.

  “The second, sir.”

  “Why didn’t he call you?”

  “Don’t know, sir.” Later the stokers had occasion to thank the stars that they were not second engineers.

  The Foundling was soundly thrashed by the waves for loitering, while the captain and the engineers fought the obstinate machinery. During this wait on the sea, the first gloom came to the faces of the company. The ocean is wide, and a ship is a small place for the feet, and an ill ship is worriment. Even when she was again under way, the gloom was still upon the crew. From time to time men went to the engine room doors and, looking down, wanted to ask questions of the chief engineer, who slowly prowled to and fro and watched with careful eye his red-painted mysteries. No man wished to have a companion know that he was anxious, and so questions were caught at the lips. Perhaps none commented save the first mate, who remarked to the captain, “Wonder what the bally old thing will do, sir, when we’re chased by a Spanish cruiser?”

  The captain merely grinned. Later he looked over the side and said to himself with scorn: “Sixteen knots! sixteen knots!—sixteen hinges on the inner gates of Hades! Sixteen knots! Seven is her gait, and nine if you crack her up to it.”

  There may never be a captain whose crew can’t sniff his misgivings. They scent it as a herd scents the menace far through the trees and over the ridges. A captain that does not know that he is on a foundering ship sometimes can take his men to tea and buttered toast twelve minutes before the disaster; but let him fret for a moment in the loneliness of his cabin, and in no time it affects the liver of a distant and sensitive seaman. Even as Flanagan reflected on the Foundling, viewing her as a filibuster, word arrived that a winter of discontent had come to the stokeroom.

  The captain knew that it requires sky to give a man courage. He sent for a stoker, and talked to him on the bridge. The man, standing under the sky, instantly and shamefacedly denied all knowledge of the business. Nevertheless, a jaw had presently to be broken by a fist because the Foundling could only steam nine knots and because the stokeroom has no sky, no wind, no bright horizon.

  When the Foundling was somewhere off Savannah a blow came from the northeast, and the steamer, headed southeast, rolled like a boiling potato. The first mate was a fine officer, and so a wave crashed him into the deckhouse and broke his arm. The cook was a good cook, and so the heave of the ship flung him heels over head with a pot of boiling water and caused him to lose interest in everything save his legs. “By the piper!” said Flanagan to himself, “this filibustering is no trick with cards.”

  Later there was more trouble in the stokeroom. All the stokers participated save the one with a broken jaw, who had become discouraged. The captain had an excellent chest development. When he went aft roaring, it was plain that a man could beat carpets with a voice like that one.

  II

  One night the Foundling was off the southern coast of Florida and running at half-speed toward the shore. The captain was on the bridge. “Four flashes at intervals of one minute,” he said to himself, gazing steadfastly toward the beach. Suddenly a yellow eye opened in the black face of the night, and looked at the Foundling, and closed again. The captain studied his watch and the shore. Three times more the eye opened, and looked at the Foundling, and closed again. The captain called to the vague figures on the deck below him. “Answer it.” The flash of a light from the bow of the steamer displayed for a moment in golden color the crests of the in-riding waves.

  The Foundling lay to, and waited. The long swells rolled her gracefully, and her two stub masts, reaching into the darkness, swung with the solemnity of batons timing a dirge. When the ship had left Boston she had been as encrusted with ice as a Dakota stagedriver’s beard; but now the gentle wind of Florida softly swayed the lock on the forehead of the coatless Flanagan, and he lit a new cigar without troubling to make a shield of his hands.

  Finally a dark boat came plashing over the waves. As it came very near, the captain leaned forward, and perceived that the men in her rowed like seamstresses, and at the same time a voice hailed him in bad English. “It’s a dead sure connection,” said he to himself.

  At sea, to load two hundred thousand rounds of rifle ammunition, seven hundred and fifty rifles, two rapid-fire field guns with a hundred shells, forty bundles of machetes, and a hundred pounds of dynamite, from yawls, and by men who are not born stevedores, and in a heavy ground swell, and with the searchlight of a United States cruiser sometimes flashing like lightning in the sky to the southward, is no business for a Sunday school class. When at last the Foundling was steaming for the open, over the gray sea, at dawn, there was not a man of the forty come aboard from the Florida shore, nor of the fifteen sailed from Boston, who was not glad, standing with his hair matted to his forehead with sweat, smiling at the broad wake of the Foundling and the dim streak on the horizon which was Florida.

  But there is a point of the compass in these waters which men call the northeast. When the strong winds come from that direction they kick up a turmoil that is not good for a Foundling stuffed with coal and war stores, In the gale which came, this ship was no more than a drunken soldier.

  The Cuban leader, standing on the bridge with the captain, was presently informed that of his men thirty-nine out of a possible thirty-nine were seasick. And in truth they were seasick. There are degrees in this complaint, but that matter was waived between them. They were all sick to the limits. They strewed the deck in every posture of human anguish; and when the Foundling ducked and water came sluicing down from the bows, they let it sluice. They were satisfied if they could keep their heads clear of the wash; and if they could not keep their heads clear of the wash, they didn’t care. Presently the Foundling swung her course to the southeast, and the waves pounded her broadside. The patriots were all ordered below decks, and there they howled and measured their misery one against another. All day the Foundling plopped and foundered over a blazing bright meadow of an ocean whereon the white foam was like flowers.

  The captain on the bridge mused and studied the bare horizon. “Hell!” said he to himself, and the word was more in amazement than in indignation or sorrow. “Thirty-nine seasick passengers, the mate with a broken arm, a stoker with a broken jaw, the cook with a pair of scalded legs, and an engine likely to be taken with all these diseases, if not more! If I get back to a home port with a spoke of the wheel gripped in my hands, it’ll be fair luck!”

  There is a kind of corn whiskey bred in Florida which the natives declare is potent in the proportion of seven fights to a drink. Some of the Cuban volunteers had had the forethought to bring a small quantity of this whiskey aboard with them; and being now in the fireroom and seasick, and feeling that they would not care to drink liquor for two or three years to come, they gracefully tendered their portions to the stokers. The stokers accepted these gifts without avidity, but with a certain earnestness of manner.

  As they wer
e stokers and toiling, the whirl of emotion was delayed, but it arrived ultimately and with emphasis. One stoker called another stoker a weird name; and the latter, righteously inflamed at it, smote his mate with an iron shovel, and the man fell headlong over a heap of coal, which crashed gently, while piece after piece rattled down upon the deck.

  A third stoker was providentially enraged at the scene, and assailed the second stoker. They fought for some moments, while the seasick Cubans sprawled on the deck watched with languid, rolling glances the ferocity of the scuffle. One was so indifferent to the strategic importance of the space he occupied that he was kicked in the shins.

  When the second engineer came to separate the combatants, he was sincere in his efforts, and he came near to disabling them for life.

  The captain said, “I’ll go down there and——”

  But the leader of the Cubans restrained him. “No, no,” he cried; “you must not. We must treat them like children, very gently, all the time, you see, or else when we get back to a United States port they will—what you call—spring?—yes, spring the whole business. We must—jolly them. You see?”

  “You mean,” said the captain, thoughtfully, “they are likely to get mad and give the expedition dead away when we reach port again, unless we blarney them now?”

  “Yes, yes,” cried the Cuban leader; “unless we are so very gentle with them they will make many troubles afterward for us in the newspapers, and then in court.”

  “Well, but I won’t have my crew——” began the captain.

  “But you must,” interrupted the Cuban. “You must. It is the only thing. You are like the captain of a pirate ship. You see? Only you can’t throw them overboard like him. You see?”

  “Hum,” said the captain, “this here filibustering business has got a lot to it when you come to look it over.”

  He called the fighting stokers to the bridge, and the three came, meek and considerably battered. He was lecturing them soundly, but sensibly, when he suddenly tripped a sentence and cried: “Here! Where’s that other fellow? How does it come he wasn’t in the fight?”