Michael, Brother of Jerry

by Jack London

  CHAPTER XIV

  Early next morning, the morning watch of sailors, whose custom was tofetch the day's supply of water for the galley and cabin, discovered thatthe barrels were empty. Mr. Jackson was so alarmed that he immediatelycalled Captain Doane, and not many minutes elapsed ere Captain Doane hadrouted out Grimshaw and Nishikanta to tell them the disaster.

  Breakfast was an excitement shared in peculiarly by the Ancient Marinerand Dag Daughtry, while the trio of partners raged and bewailed. CaptainDoane particularly wailed. Simon Nishikanta was fiendish in hisdescriptions of whatever miscreant had done the deed and of how he shouldbe made to suffer for it, while Grimshaw clenched and repeatedly clenchedhis great hands as if throttling some throat.

  "I remember, it was in forty-seven--nay, forty-six--yes, forty-six," theAncient Mariner chattered. "It was a similar and worse predicament. Itwas in the longboat, sixteen of us. We ran on Glister Reef. So named itwas after our pretty little craft discovered it one dark night and lefther bones upon it. The reef is on the Admiralty charts. Captain Doanewill verify me . . . "

  No one listened, save Dag Daughtry, serving hot cakes and admiring. ButSimon Nishikanta, becoming suddenly aware that the old man was babbling,bellowed out ferociously:

  "Oh, shut up! Close your jaw! You make me tired with your everlasting'I remember.'"

  The Ancient Mariner was guilelessly surprised, as if he had slippedsomewhere in his narrative.

  "No, I assure you," he continued. "It must have been some error of mypoor old tongue. It was not the _Wide Awake_, but the brig _Glister_.Did I say _Wide Awake_? It was the _Glister_, a smart little brig,almost a toy brig in fact, copper-bottomed, lines like a dolphin, a sea-cutter and a wind-eater. Handled like a top. On my honour, gentlemen,it was lively work for both watches when she went about. I was super-cargo. We sailed out of New York, ostensibly for the north-west coast,with sealed orders--"

  "In the name of God, peace, peace! You drive me mad with your drivel!"So Nishikanta cried out in nervous pain that was real and quivering. "Oldman, have a heart. What do I care to know of your _Glister_ and yoursealed orders!"

  "Ah, sealed orders," the Ancient Mariner went on beamingly. "A magicphrase, sealed orders." He rolled it off his tongue with unction. "Thosewere the days, gentlemen, when ships did sail with sealed orders. And assuper-cargo, with my trifle invested in the adventure and my share in thegains, I commanded the captain. Not in him, but in me were reposed thesealed orders. I assure you I did not know myself what they were. Notuntil we were around old Cape Stiff, fifty to fifty, and in fifty in thePacific, did I break the seal and learn we were bound for Van Dieman'sLand. They called it Van Dieman's Land in those days . . . "

  It was a day of discoveries. Captain Doane caught the mate stealing theship's position from his desk with the duplicate key. There was a scene,but no more, for the Finn was too huge a man to invite personalencounter, and Captain Dome could only stigmatize his conduct to arunning reiteration of "Yes, sir," and "No, sir," and "Sorry, sir."

  Perhaps the most important discovery, although he did not know it at thetime, was that of Dag Daughtry. It was after the course had been changedand all sail set, and after the Ancient Mariner had privily informed himthat Taiohae, in the Marquesas, was their objective, that Daughtry gailyproceeded to shave. But one trouble was on his mind. He was not quitesure, in such an out-of-the-way place as Taiohae, that good beer could beprocured.

  As he prepared to make the first stroke of the razor, most of his facewhite with lather, he noticed a dark patch of skin on his forehead justbetween the eyebrows and above. When he had finished shaving he touchedthe dark patch, wondering how he had been sunburned in such a spot. Buthe did not know he had touched it in so far as there was any response ofsensation. The dark place was numb.

  "Curious," he thought, wiped his face, and forgot all about it.

  No more than he knew what horror that dark spot represented, did he knowthat Ah Moy's slant eyes had long since noticed it and were continuing tonotice it, day by day, with secret growing terror.

  Close-hauled on the south-east trades, the _Mary Turner_ began her longslant toward the Marquesas. For'ard, all were happy. Being only seamen,on seamen's wages, they hailed with delight the news that they were boundin for a tropic isle to fill their water-barrels. Aft, the threepartners were in bad temper, and Nishikanta openly sneered at CaptainDoane and doubted his ability to find the Marquesas. In the steerageeverybody was happy--Dag Daughtry because his wages were running on and afurther supply of beer was certain; Kwaque because he was happy wheneverhis master was happy; and Ah Moy because he would soon have opportunityto desert away from the schooner and the two lepers with whom he wasdomiciled.

  Michael shared in the general happiness of the steerage, and joinedeagerly with Steward in learning by heart a fifth song. This was "Lead,kindly Light." In his singing, which was no more than trained howlingafter all, Michael sought for something he knew not what. In truth, itwas the _lost pack_, the pack of the primeval world before the dog evercame in to the fires of men, and, for that matter, before men built firesand before men were men.

  He had been born only the other day and had lived but two years in theworld, so that, of himself, he had no knowledge of the lost pack. Formany thousands of generations he had been away from it; yet, deep down inthe crypts of being, tied about and wrapped up in every muscle and nerveof him, was the indelible record of the days in the wild when dimancestors had run with the pack and at the same time developed the packand themselves. When Michael was asleep, then it was that pack-memoriessometimes arose to the surface of his subconscious mind. These dreamswere real while they lasted, but when he was awake he remembered themlittle if at all. But asleep, or singing with Steward, he sensed andyearned for the lost pack and was impelled to seek the forgotten way toit.

  Waking, Michael had another and real pack. This was composed of Steward,Kwaque, Cocky, and Scraps, and he ran with it as ancient forbears had ranwith their own kind in the hunting. The steerage was the lair of thispack, and, out of the steerage, it ranged the whole world, which was the_Mary Turner_ ever rocking, heeling, reeling on the surface of theunstable sea.

  But the steerage and its company meant more to Michael than the merepack. It was heaven as well, where dwelt God. Man early invented God,often of stone, or clod, or fire, and placed him in trees and mountainsand among the stars. This was because man observed that man passed andwas lost out of the tribe, or family, or whatever name he gave to hisgroup, which was, after all, the human pack. And man did not want to belost out of the pack. So, of his imagination, he devised a new pack thatwould be eternal and with which he might for ever run. Fearing the dark,into which he observed all men passed, he built beyond the dark a fairerregion, a happier hunting-ground, a jollier and robuster feasting-halland wassailing-place, and called it variously "heaven."

  Like some of the earliest and lowest of primitive men, Michael neverdreamed of throwing the shadow of himself across his mind and worshippingit as God. He did not worship shadows. He worshipped a real andindubitable god, not fashioned in his own four-legged, hair-coveredimage, but in the flesh-and-blood image, two-legged, hairless,upstanding, of Steward.