55. CHAPTER LV.
DRAWING NIGH TO THE LAST SCENE IN JACKSON'S CAREER.
The closing allusion to Jackson in the chapter preceding,
reminds me of a circumstance—which, perhaps, should
have been mentioned before—that after we had been at
sea about ten days, he pronounced himself too unwell to do
duty, and accordingly went below to his bunk. And here,
with the exception of a few brief intervals of sunning himself
in fine weather, he remained on his back, or seated
cross-legged, during the remainder of the homeward-bound
passage.
Brooding there, in his infernal gloom, though nothing but
a castaway sailor in canvas trowsers, this man was still a
picture, worthy to be painted by the dark, moody hand of
Salvator. In any of that master's lowering sea-pieces, representing
the desolate crags of Calabria, with a midnight
shipwreck in the distance, this Jackson's would have been
the face to paint for the doomed vessel's figure-head, seamed
and blasted by lightning.
Though the more sneaking and cowardly of my shipmates
whispered among themselves, that Jackson, sure of his wages,
whether on duty or off, was only feigning indisposition, nevertheless
it was plain that, from his excesses in Liverpool, the
malady which had long fastened its fangs in his flesh, was
now gnawing into his vitals.
His cheek became thinner and yellower, and the bones
projected like those of a skull. His snaky eyes rolled in red
sockets; nor could he lift his hand without a violent tremor;
while his racking cough many a time startled us from sleep.
Yet still in his tremulous grasp he swayed his scepter, and
ruled us all like a tyrant to the last.
The weaker and weaker he grew, the more outrageous
became his treatment of the crew. The prospect of the
speedy and unshunable death now before him, seemed to
exasperate his misanthropic soul into madness; and as if he
had indeed sold it to Satan, he seemed determined to die
with a curse between his teeth.
I can never think of him, even now, reclining in his bunk,
and with short breaths panting out his maledictions, but I
am reminded of that misanthrope upon the throne of the
world—the diabolical Tiberius at Capreæ; who even in his
self-exile, imbittered by bodily pangs, and unspeakable mental
terrors only known to the damned on earth, yet did not
give over his blasphemies, but endeavored to drag down with
him to his own perdition, all who came within the evil spell
of his power. And though Tiberius came in the succession
of the Cæsars, and though unmatchable Tacitus has embalmed
his carrion, yet do I account this Yankee Jackson
full as dignified a personage as he, and as well meriting his
lofty gallows in history; even though he was a nameless
vagabond without an epitaph, and none, but I, narrate what
he was. For there is no dignity in wickedness, whether in
purple or rags; and hell is a democracy of devils, where all
are equals. There, Nero howls side by side with his own
malefactors. If Napoleon were truly but a martial murderer,
I pay him no more homage than I would a felon.
Though Milton's Satan dilutes our abhorrence with admiration,
it is only because he is not a genuine being, but something
altered from a genuine original. We gather not from
the four gospels alone, any high-raised fancies concerning
this Satan; we only know him from thence as the personification
of the essence of evil, which, who but pickpockets
and burglars will admire? But this takes not from the
merit of our high-priest of poetry; it only enhances it, that
with such unmitigated evil for his material, he should build
up his most goodly structure.
But in historically canonizing on earth the condemned
below, and lifting up and lauding the illustrious damned,
we do but make ensamples of wickedness; and call upon
ambition to do some great iniquity, and be sure of fame.
