67. CHAPTER LXVII.
WHITE-JACKET ARRAIGNED AT THE MAST.
When with five hundred others I made one of the compelled
spectators at the scourging of poor Rose-Water, I little
thought what Fate had ordained for myself the next day.
Poor mulatto! thought I, one of an oppressed race, they
degrade you like a hound. Thank God! I am a white. Yet
I had seen whites also scourged; for, black or white, all my
shipmates were liable to that. Still, there is something in
us, somehow, that, in the most degraded condition, we snatch
at a chance to deceive ourselves into a fancied superiority to
others, whom we suppose lower in the scale than ourselves.
Poor Rose-Water! thought I; poor mulatto! Heaven send
you a release from your humiliation!
To make plain the thing about to be related, it needs to
repeat what has somewhere been previously mentioned, that
in tacking ship every seaman in a man-of-war has a particular
station assigned him. What that station is, should be
made known to him by the First Lieutenant; and when the
word is passed to tack or wear, it is every seaman's duty to be
found at his post. But among the various numbers and stations
given to me by the senior Lieutenant, when I first came
on board the frigate, he had altogether omitted informing me
of my particular place at those times, and, up to the precise
period now written of, I had hardly known that I should have
had any special place then at all. For the rest of the men,
they seemed to me to catch hold of the first rope that offered,
as in a merchantman upon similar occasions. Indeed, I subsequently
discovered, that such was the state of discipline—
in this one particular, at least—that very few of the seamen
could tell where their proper stations were, at
tacking or
wearing.
“All hands tack ship, ahoy!” such was the announcement
made by the boatswain's mates at the hatchways the morning
after the hard fate of Rose-Water. It was just eight bells—
noon, and springing from my white jacket, which I had spread
between the guns for a bed on the main-deck, I ran up the
ladders, and, as usual, seized hold of the main-brace, which
fifty hands were streaming along forward. When main-top-sail
haul! was given through the trumpet, I pulled at this
brace with such heartiness and good-will, that I almost flattered
myself that my instrumentality in getting the frigate
round on the other tack, deserved a public vote of thanks, and
a silver tankard from Congress.
But something happened to be in the way aloft when the
yards swung round; a little confusion ensued; and, with anger
on his brow, Captain Claret came forward to see what
occasioned it. No one to let go the weather-lift of the main-yard!
The rope was cast off, however, by a hand, and the
yards, unobstructed, came round.
When the last rope was coiled away, the Captain desired
to know of the First Lieutenant who it might be that was
stationed at the weather (then the starboard) main-lift. With
a vexed expression of countenance the First Lieutenant sent
a midshipman for the Station Bill, when, upon glancing it
over, my own name was found put down at the post in question.
At the time I was on the gun-deck below, and did not
know of these proceedings; but a moment after, I heard the
boatswain's mates bawling my name at all the hatchways,
and along all three decks. It was the first time I had ever
heard it so sent through the furthest recesses of the ship, and
well knowing what this generally betokened to other seamen,
my heart jumped to my throat, and I hurriedly asked Flute,
the boatswain's-mate at the fore-hatchway, what was wanted
of me.
“Captain wants ye at the mast,” he replied. “Going to
flog ye, I guess.”
“What for?”
“My eyes! you've been chalking your face, hain't ye?”
“What am I wanted for?” I repeated.
But at that instant my name was again thundered forth by
the other boatswain's mate, and Flute hurried me away, hinting
that I would soon find out what the Captain desired of me.
I swallowed down my heart in me as I touched the spar-deck,
for a single instant balanced myself on my best centre,
and then, wholly ignorant of what was going to be alleged
against me, advanced to the dread tribunal of the frigate.
As I passed through the gangway, I saw the quarter-master
rigging the gratings; the boatswain with his green bag
of scourges; the master-at-arms ready to help off some one's
shirt.
Again I made a desperate swallow of my whole soul in me,
and found myself standing before Captain Claret. His flushed
face obviously showed him in ill humor. Among the group
of officers by his side was the First Lieutenant, who, as I
came aft, eyed me in such a manner, that I plainly perceived
him to be extremely vexed at me for having been the innocent
means of reflecting upon the manner in which he kept up
the discipline of the ship.
“Why were you not at your station, sir?” asked the Captain.
“What station do you mean, sir?” said I.
It is generally the custom with man-of-war's-men to stand
obsequiously touching their hat at every sentence they address
to the Captain. But as this was not obligatory upon
me by the Articles of War, I did not do so upon the present
occasion, and previously, I had never had the dangerous honor
of a personal interview with Captain Claret.
He quickly noticed my omission of the homage usually rendered
him, and instinct told me, that to a certain extent, it
set his heart against me.
“What station, sir, do you mean?” said I.
“You pretend ignorance,” he replied; “it will not help
you, sir.”
Glancing at the Captain, the First Lieutenant now produced
the Station Bill, and read my name in connection with
that of the starboard main-lift.
“Captain Claret,” said I, “it is the first time I ever heard
of my being assigned to that post.”
“How is this, Mr. Bridewell?” he said, turning to the
First Lieutenant, with a fault-finding expression.
“It is impossible, sir,” said that officer, striving to hide his
vexation, “but this man must have known his station.”
“I have never known it before this moment, Captain Claret,”
said I.
“Do you contradict my officer?” he returned. “I shall
flog you.”
I had now been on board the frigate upward of a year, and
remained unscourged; the ship was homeward-bound, and in
a few weeks, at most, I would be a freeman. And now, after
making a hermit of myself in some things, in order to avoid
the possibility of the scourge, here it was hanging over me for
a thing utterly unforeseen, for a crime of which I was as utterly
innocent. But all that was as naught. I saw that my case
was hopeless; my solemn disclaimer was thrown in my teeth,
and the boatswain's mate stood curling his fingers through
the cat.
There are times when wild thoughts enter a man's heart,
when he seems almost irresponsible for his act and his deed.
The Captain stood on the weather-side of the deck. Sideways,
on an unobstructed line with him, was the opening of the lee-gangway,
where the side-ladders are suspended in port. Nothing
but a slight bit of sinnate-stuff served to rail in this opening,
which was cut right down to the level of the Captain's
feet, showing the far sea beyond. I stood a little to windward
of him, and, though he was a large, powerful man, it
was certain that a sudden rush against him, along the slanting
deck, would infallibly pitch him headforemost into the
ocean, though he who so rushed must needs go over with him.
My blood seemed clotting in my veins; I felt icy cold at the
tips of my fingers, and a dimness was before my eyes. But
through that dimness the boatswain's mate, scourge in hand,
loomed like a giant, and Captain Claret, and the blue sea seen
through the opening at the gangway, showed with an awful
vividness. I can not analyze my heart, though it then stood
still within me. But the thing that swayed me to my purpose
was not altogether the thought that Captain Claret was
about to degrade me, and that I had taken an oath with my
soul that he should not. No, I felt my man's manhood so
bottomless within me, that no word, no blow, no scourge of
Captain Claret could cut me deep enough for that. I but
swung to an instinct in me—the instinct diffused through all
animated nature, the same that prompts even a worm to turn
under the heel. Locking souls with him, I meant to drag
Captain Claret from this earthly tribunal of his to that of
Jehovah, and let Him decide between us. No other way could
I escape the scourge.
Nature has not implanted any power in man that was not
meant to be exercised at times, though too often our powers
have been abused. The privilege, inborn and inalienable, that
every man has, of dying himself, and inflicting death upon another,
was not given to us without a purpose. These are the
last resources of an insulted and unendurable existence.
“To the gratings, sir!” said Captain Claret; “do you
hear?”
My eye was measuring the distance between him and the
sea.
“Captain Claret,” said a voice advancing from the crowd.
I turned to see who this might be, that audaciously interposed
at a juncture like this. It was the same remarkably
handsome and gentlemanly corporal of marines, Colbrook, who
has been previously alluded to, in the chapter describing killing
time in a man-of-war.
“I know that man,” said Colbrook, touching his cap, and
speaking in a mild, firm, but extremely deferential manner;
“and I know that he would not be found absent from his station,
if he knew where it was.”
This speech was almost unprecedented. Seldom or never
before had a marine dared to speak to the Captain of a frigate
in behalf of a seaman at the mast. But there was something
so unostentatiously commanding in the calm manner of
the man, that the Captain, though astounded, did not in any
way reprimand him. The very unusualness of his interference
seemed Colbrook's protection.
Taking heart, perhaps, from Colbrook's example, Jack Chase
interposed, and in a manly but carefully respectful manner, in
substance repeated the corporal's remark, adding that he had
never found me wanting in the top.
Captain Claret looked from Chase to Colbrook, and from
Colbrook to Chase—one the foremost man among the seamen,
the other the foremost man among the soldiers—then all round
upon the packed and silent crew, and, as if a slave to Fate,
though supreme Captain of a frigate, he turned to the First
Lieutenant, made some indifferent remark, and saying to me
you may go, sauntered aft into his cabin; while I, who, in
the desperation of my soul, had but just escaped being a murderer
and a suicide, almost burst into tears of thanksgiving
where I stood.
