9. CHAPTER IX.
THE WATERY WORLD IS ALL BEFORE THEM.
At sea in an open boat, and a thousand miles from
land!
Shortly after the break of day, in the gray transparent
light, a speck to windward broke the even line of the horizon.
It was the ship wending her way north-eastward.
Had I not known the final indifference of sailors to such
disasters as that which the Arcturion's crew must have
imputed to the night past (did not the skipper suspect the
truth) I would have regarded that little speck with many
compunctions of conscience. Nor, as it was, did I feel in
any very serene humor. For the consciousness of being
deemed dead, is next to the presumable unpleasantness of
being so in reality. One feels like his own ghost unlawfully
tenanting a defunct carcass. Even Jarl's glance
seemed so queer, that I begged him to look another way.
Secure now from all efforts of the captain to recover
those whom he most probably supposed lost; and equally
cut off from all hope of returning to the ship even had
we felt so inclined; the resolution that had thus far nerved
me, began to succumb in a measure to the awful loneliness
of the scene. Ere this, I had regarded the ocean as
a slave, the steed that bore me whither I listed, and whose
vicious propensities, mighty though they were, often proved
harmless, when opposed to the genius of man. But now,
how changed! In our frail boat, I would fain have built
an altar to Neptune.
What a mere toy we were to the billows, that jeeringly
shouldered us from crest to crest, as from hand to hand lost
souls may be tossed along by the chain of shades which enfilade
the route to Tartarus.
But drown or swim, here's overboard with care! Cheer
up, Jarl! Ha! ha! how merrily, yet terribly, we sail!
Up, up—slowly up—toiling up the long, calm wave; then
balanced on its summit a while, like a plank on a rail; and
down, we plunge headlong into the seething abyss, till arrested,
we glide upward again. And thus did we go.
Now buried in watery hollows—our sail idly flapping; then
lifted aloft—canvas bellying; and beholding the furthest
horizon.
Had not our familiarity with the business of whaling
divested our craft's wild motions of its first novel horrors,
we had been but a rueful pair. But day-long pulls after
whales, the ship left miles astern; and entire dark nights
passed moored to the monsters, killed too late to be towed
to the ship far to leeward:—all this, and much more, accustoms
one to strange things. Death, to be sure, has a
mouth as black as a wolf's, and to be thrust into his jaws
is a serious thing. But true it most certainly is—and I
speak from no hearsay—that to sailors, as a class, the grisly
king seems not half so hideous as he appears to those who
have only regarded him on shore, and at a deferential distance.
Like many ugly mortals, his features grow less
frightful upon acquaintance; and met over often and sociably,
the old adage holds true, about familiarity breeding
contempt. Thus too with soldiers. Of the quaking recruit,
three pitched battles make a grim grenadier; and he who
shrank from the muzzle of a cannon, is now ready to yield
his mustache for a sponge.
And truly, since death is the last enemy of all, valiant
souls will taunt him while they may. Yet rather, should
the wise regard him as the inflexible friend, who, even
against our own wills, from life's evils triumphantly relieves
us.
And there is but little difference in the manner of dying.
To die, is all. And death has been gallantly encountered
by those who never beheld blood that was red, only its light
azure seen through the veins. And to yield the ghost
proudly, and march out of your fortress with all the honors
of war, is not a thing of sinew and bone. Though in
prison, Geoffry Hudson, the dwarf, died more bravely than
Goliah, the giant; and the last end of a butterfly shames
us all. Some women have lived nobler lives, and died
nobler deaths, than men. Threatened with the stake,
mitred Cranmer recanted; but through her fortitude, the
lorn widow of Edessa stayed the tide of Valens' persecutions.
'Tis no great valor to perish sword in hand, and
bravado on lip; cased all in panoply complete. For even
the alligator dies in his mail, and the swordfish never surrenders.
To expire, mild-eyed, in one's bed, transcends the
death of Epaminondas.
