28. CHAPTER XXVIII.
SUSPICIONS LAID, AND SOMETHING ABOUT THE CALMUC.
Though abounding in details full of the savor of reality,
Samoa's narrative did not at first appear altogether satisfactory.
Not that it was so strange; for stranger recitals I
had heard.
But one reason, perhaps, was that I had anticipated a
narrative quite different; something agreeing with my previous
surmises.
Not a little puzzling, also, was his account of having seen
islands the day preceding; though, upon reflection, that
might have been the case, and yet, from his immediately
altering the Parki's course, the Chamois, unknowingly might
have sailed by their vicinity. Still, those islands could form
no part of the chain we were seeking. They must have
been some region hitherto undiscovered.
But seems it likely, thought I, that one, who, according
to his own account, has conducted himself so heroically in
rescuing the brigantine, should be the victim of such childish
terror at the mere glimpse of a couple of sailors in an
open boat, so well supplied, too, with arms, as he was, to
resist their capturing his craft, if such proved their intention?
On the contrary, would it not have been more natural, in
his dreary situation, to have hailed our approach with the
utmost delight? But then again, we were taken for phantoms,
not flesh and blood. Upon the whole, I regarded the
narrator of these things somewhat distrustfully. But he
met my gaze like a man. While Annatoo, standing by,
looked so expressively the Amazonian character imputed to
her, that my doubts began to waver. And recalling all the
little incidents of their story, so hard to be conjured up on the
spur of a presumed necessity to lie; nay, so hard to be conjured
up at all; my suspicions at last gave way. And I
could no longer harbor any misgivings.
For, to be downright, what object could Samoa have, in
fabricating such a narrative of horror—those of the massacre,
I mean—unless to conceal some tragedy, still more
atrocious, in which he himself had been criminally concerned?
A supposition, which, for obvious reasons, seemed
out of the question. True, instances were known to me of
half-civilized beings, like Samoa, forming part of the crews
of ships in these seas, rising suddenly upon their white shipmates,
and murdering them, for the sake of wrecking the
ship on the shore of some island near by, and plundering her
hull, when stranded.
But had this been purposed with regard to the Parki,
where the rest of the mutineers? There was no end to my
conjectures; the more I indulged in them, the more they
multiplied. So, unwilling to torment myself, when nothing
could be learned, but what Samoa related, and stuck to like
a hero; I gave over conjecturing at all; striving hard to
repose full faith in the Islander.
Jarl, however, was skeptical to the last; and never could
be brought completely to credit the tale. He stoutly maintained
that the hobgoblins must have had something or other
to do with the Parki.
My own curiosity satisfied with respect to the brigantine,
Samoa himself turned inquisitor. He desired to know
who we were; and whence we came in our marvelous
boat. But on these heads I thought best to withhold from
him the truth; among other things, fancying that if disclosed,
it would lessen his deference for us, as men superior to himself.
I therefore spoke vaguely of our adventures, and
assumed the decided air of a master; which I perceived
was not lost upon the rude Islander. As for Jarl, and what
he might reveal, I embraced the first opportunity to impress
upon him the importance of never divulging our flight from
the Arcturion; nor in any way to commit himself on that
head: injunctions which he faithfully promised to observe.
If not wholly displeased with the fine form of Samoa,
despite his savage lineaments, and mutilated member, I was
much less conciliated by the person of Annatoo; who, being
sinewy of limb, and neither young, comely, nor amiable, was
exceedingly distasteful in my eyes. Besides, she was a tigress.
Yet how avoid admiring those Penthesilian qualities which
so signally had aided Samoa, in wresting the Parki from its
treacherous captors. Nevertheless, it was indispensable that
she should at once be brought under prudent subjection; and
made to know, once for all, that though conjugally a rebel,
she must be nautically submissive. For to keep the sea
with a Calmuc on board, seemed next to impossible. In
most military marines, they are prohibited by law; no officer
may take his Pandora and her bandbox off soundings.
By the way, this self-same appellative, Pandora, has been
bestowed upon vessels. There was a British ship by that
name, dispatched in quest of the mutineers of the Bounty.
But any old tar might have prophesied her fate. Bound
home she was wrecked on a reef off New South Wales.
Pandora, indeed! A pretty name for a ship: fairly smiting
Fate in the face. But in this matter of christening ships of
war, Christian nations are but too apt to be dare-devils.
Witness the following: British names all.—The Conqueror,
the Defiance, the Revenge, the Spitfire, the Dreadnaught,
the Thunderer, and the Tremendous; not omitting the
Etna, which, in the Roads of Corfu, was struck by lightning,
coming nigh being consumed by fire from above. But
almost potent as Moses' rod, Franklin's proved her salvation.
With the above catalogue, compare we the Frenchman's;
quite characteristic of the aspirations of Monsieur:
—The Destiny, the Glorious, the Magnanimous, the Magnificent,
the Conqueror, the Triumphant, the Indomitable, the
Intrepid, the Mont-Blanc. Lastly, the Dons; who have
ransacked the theology of the religion of peace for fine names
for their fighting ships; stopping not at designating one of
their three-deckers, The Most Holy Trinity. But though,
at Trafalgar, the Santissima Trinidada thundered like
Sinai, her thunders were silenced by the victorious cannonade
of the Victory.
And without being blown into splinters by artillery, how
many of these Redoubtables and Invincibles have succumbed
to the waves, and like braggarts gone down before hurricanes,
with their bravadoes broad on their bows.
Much better the American names (barring Scorpions,
Hornets, and Wasps;) Ohio, Virginia, Carolina, Vermont.
And if ever these Yankees fight great sea engagements—
which Heaven forefend!—how glorious, poetically speaking,
to range up the whole federated fleet, and pour forth a
broadside from Florida to Maine. Ay, ay, very glorious
indeed! yet in that proud crowing of cannon, how shall the
shade of peace-loving Penn be astounded, to see the mightiest
murderer of them all, the great Pennsylvania, a very
namesake of his. Truly, the Pennsylvania's guns should
be the wooden ones, called by men-of-war's-men, Quakers.
But all this is an episode, made up of digressions. Time
to tack ship, and return.
Now, in its proper place, I omitted to mention, that
shortly after descending from the rigging, and while Samoa
was rehearsing his adventures, dame Annatoo had stolen
below into the forecastle, intent upon her chattels. And
finding them all in mighty disarray, she returned to the
deck prodigiously excited, and glancing angrily toward Jarl
and me, showered a whole torrent of objurgations into both
ears of Samoa.
This contempt of my presence surprised me at first; but
perhaps women are less apt to be impressed by a pretentious
demeanor, than men.
Now, to use a fighting phrase, there is nothing like boarding
an enemy in the smoke. And therefore, upon this first
token of Annatoo's termagant qualities, I gave her to understand—craving
her pardon—that neither the vessel nor
aught therein was hers; but that every thing belonged to
the owners in Lahina. I added, that at all hazards, a stop
must be put to her pilferings. Rude language for feminine
ears; but how to be avoided? Here was an infatuated
woman, who, according to Samoa's account, had been repeatedly
detected in the act of essaying to draw out the
screw-bolts which held together the planks. Tell me;
was she not worse than the Load-Stone Rock, sailing by
which a stout ship fell to pieces?
During this scene, Samoa said little. Perhaps he was
secretly pleased that his matrimonial authority was reinforced
by myself and my Viking, whose views of the proper
position of wives at sea, so fully corresponded with his own;
however difficult to practice, those purely theoretical ideas of
his had hitherto proved.
Once more turning to Annatoo, now looking any thing but
amiable, I observed, that all her clamors would be useless;
and that if it came to the worst, the Parki had a hull that
would hold her.
In the end she went off in a fit of the sulks; sitting down
on the windlass and glaring; her arms akimbo, and swaying
from side to side; while ever and anon she gave utterance
to a dismal chant. It sounded like an invocation to
the Cholos to rise and dispatch us.
