35. CHAPTER XXXV.
In order to a complete revelation, I must needs once
again discourse of Annatoo and her pilferings; and to what
those pilferings led. In the simplicity of my soul, I fancied
that the dame, so much flattered as she needs must have
been, by the confidence I began to repose in her, would now
mend her ways, and abstain from her larcenies. But not
so. She was possessed by some scores of devils, perpetually
inciting her to mischief on their own separate behoof, and
not hers; for many of her pranks were of no earthly advantage
to her, present or prospective.
One day the log-reel was missing. Summon Annatoo.
She came; but knew nothing about it. Jarl spent a whole
morning in contriving a substitute; and a few days after, pop,
we came upon the lost article hidden away in the main-top.
Another time, discovering the little vessel to “gripe” hard
in steering, as if some one under water were jerking her
backward, we instituted a diligent examination, to see what
was the matter. When lo; what should we find but a
rope, cunningly attached to one of the chain-plates under the
starboard main-channel. It towed heavily in the water.
Upon dragging it up—much as you would the cord of a
ponderous bucket far down in a well—a stout wooden box
was discovered at the end; which opened, disclosed sundry
knives, hatchets, and ax-heads.
Called to the stand, the Upoluan deposed, that thrice he
had rescued that identical box from Annatoo's all-appropriating
clutches.
Now, here were four human beings shut up in this little
oaken craft, and, for the time being, their interests the same.
What sane mortal, then, would forever be committing thefts,
without rhyme or reason. It was like stealing silver from
one pocket and decanting it into the other. And what might
it not lead to in the end?
Why, ere long, in good sooth, it led to the abstraction of
the compass from the binnacle; so that we were fain to substitute
for it, the one brought along in the Chamois.
It was Jarl that first published this last and alarming
theft. Annatoo being at the helm at dawn, he had gone to
relieve her; and looking to see how we headed, was horror-struck
at the emptiness of the binnacle.
I started to my feet; sought out the woman, and ferociously
demanded the compass. But her face was a blank;
every word a denial.
Further lenity was madness. I summoned Samoa, told
him what had happened, and affirmed that there was no
safety for us except in the nightly incarceration of his spouse.
To this he privily assented; and that very evening, when
Annatoo descended into the forecastle, we barred over her
the scuttle-slide. Long she clamored, but unavailingly.
And every night this was repeated; the dame saying her
vespers most energetically.
It has somewhere been hinted, that Annatoo occasionally
cast sheep's eyes at Jarl. So I was not a little surprised
when her manner toward him decidedly changed. Pulling
at the ropes with us, she would give him sly pinches, and
then look another way, innocent as a lamb. Then again,
she would refuse to handle the same piece of rigging with
him; with wry faces, rinsed out the wooden can at the
water cask, if it so chanced that my Viking had previously
been drinking therefrom. At other times, when the
honest Skyeman came up from below, she would set up a
shout of derision, and loll out her tongue; accompanying all
this by certain indecorous and exceedingly unladylike gestures,
significant of the profound contempt in which she held
him.
Yet, never did Jarl heed her ill-breeding; but patiently
overlooked and forgave it. Inquiring the reason of the
dame's singular conduct, I learned, that with eye averted,
she had very lately crept close to my Viking, and met with
no tender reception.
Doubtless, Jarl, who was much of a philosopher, innocently
imagined that ere long the lady would forgive and
forget him. But what knows a philosopher about women?
Ere long, so outrageous became Annatoo's detestation of
him, that the honest old tar could stand it no longer, and
like most good-natured men when once fairly roused, he was
swept through and through with a terrible typhoon of passion.
He proposed, that forthwith the woman should be
sacked and committed to the deep; he could stand it no
longer.
Murder is catching. At first I almost jumped at the
proposition; but as quickly rejected it. Ah! Annatoo:
Woman unendurable: deliver me, ye gods, from being shut
up in a ship with such a hornet again.
But are we yet through with her? Not yet. Hitherto
she had continued to perform the duties of the office assigned
her since the commencement of the voyage: namely,
those of the culinary department. From this she was now
deposed. Her skewer was broken. My Viking solemnly
averring, that he would eat nothing more of her concocting,
for fear of being poisoned. For myself, I almost believed,
that there was malice enough in the minx to give us our
henbane broth.
But what said Samoa to all this? Passing over the
matter of the cookery, will it be credited, that living right
among us as he did, he was yet blind to the premeditated
though unachieved peccadilloes of his spouse? Yet so it
was. And thus blind was Belisarius himself, concerning
the intrigues of Antonina.
Witness that noble dame's affair with the youth Theodosius;
when her deluded lord charged upon the scandalmongers
with the very horns she had bestowed upon him.
Upon one occasion, seized with a sudden desire to palliate
Annatoo's thievings, Samoa proudly intimated, that the lady
was the most virtuous of her sex.
But alas, poor Annatoo, why say more? And bethinking
me of the hard fate that so soon overtook thee, I almost
repent what has already and too faithfully been portrayed.
