University of Virginia Library

93. CHAPTER XCIII.

And now that the white jacket has sunk to the bottom of
the sea, and the blessed Capes of Virginia are believed to be
broad on our bow—though still out of sight—our five hundred
souls are fondly dreaming of home, and the iron throats
of the guns round the galley re-echo with their songs and hurras—what
more remains?

Shall I tell what conflicting and almost crazy surmisings
prevailed concerning the precise harbor for which we were
bound? For, according to rumor, our Commodore had received
sealed orders touching that matter, which were not to
be broken open till we gained a precise latitude of the coast.
Shall I tell how, at last, all this uncertainty departed, and
many a foolish prophecy was proved false, when our noble
frigate—her longest pennant at her main—wound her
stately way into the innermost harbor of Norfolk, like a plumed
Spanish Grandee threading the corridors of the Escurial toward
the throne-room within? Shall I tell how we kneeled
upon the holy soil? How I begged a blessing of old Ushant,
and one precious hair of his beard for a keepsake? How
Lemsford, the gun-deck bard, offered up a devout ode as a
prayer of thanksgiving? How saturnine Nord, the magnifico
in disguise, refusing all companionship, stalked off into the
woods, like the ghost of an old Calif of Bagdad? How I
swayed and swung the hearty hand of Jack Chase, and nipped
it to mine with a Carrick bend; yea, and kissed that noble
hand of my liege lord and captain of my top, my sea-tutor
and sire?

Shall I tell how the grand Commodore and Captain drove

off from the pier-nead? How the Lieutenants, in undress,
sat down to their last dinner in the ward-room, and the Champagne,
packed in ice, spirted and sparkled like the Hot Springs
out of a snow-drift in Iceland? How the Chaplain went off
in his cassock, without bidding the people adieu? How shrunken
Cuticle, the Surgeon, stalked over the side, the wired skeleton
carried in his wake by his cot-boy? How the Lieutenant
of Marines sheathed his sword on the poop, and, calling
for wax and a taper, sealed the end of the scabbard with his
family crest and motto—Denique Cælum? How the Purser
in due time mustered his money-bags, and paid us all off
on the quarter-deck—good and bad, sick and well, all receiving
their wages; though, truth to tell, some reckless, improvident
seamen, who had lived too fast during the cruise, had little or
nothing now standing on the credit side of their Purser's accounts?

Shall I tell of the Retreat of the Five Hundred inland;
not, alas! in battle-array, as at quarters, but scattered broad-cast
over the land?

Shall I tell how the Neversink was at last stripped of spars,
shrouds, and sails—had her guns hoisted out—her powder-magazine,
shot-lockers, and armories discharged—till not one
vestige of a fighting thing was left in her, from furthest stem
to uttermost stern?

No! let all this go by; for our anchor still hangs from our
bows, though its eager flukes dip their points in the impatient
waves. Let us leave the ship on the sea—still with the land
out of sight—still with brooding darkness on the face of the
deep. I love an indefinite, infinite background—a vast, heaving,
rolling, mysterious rear!

It is night. The meagre moon is in her last quarter—that
betokens the end of a cruise that is passing. But the stars
look forth in their everlasting brightness—and that is the everlasting,
glorious Future, forever beyond us.

We main-top-men are all aloft in the top; and round our
mast we circle, a brother-band, hand in hand, all spliced together.

We have reefed the last top-sail; trained the last
gun; blown the last match; bowed to the last blast; been
tranced in the last calm. We have mustered our last round
the capstan; been rolled to grog the last time; for the last
time swung in our hammocks; for the last time turned out
at the sea-gull call of the watch. We have seen our last
man scourged at the gangway; our last man gasp out the
ghost in the stifling Sick-bay; our last man tossed to the
sharks. Our last death-denouncing Article of War has been
read; and far inland, in that blessed clime whitherward our
frigate now glides, the last wrong in our frigate will be remembered
no more; when down from our main-mast comes our
Commodore's pennant, when down sinks its shooting stars
from the sky.

“By the mark, nine!” sings the hoary old leadsman, in the
chains. And thus, the mid-world Equator passed, our frigate
strikes soundings at last.

Hand in hand we top-mates stand, rocked in our Pisgah
top. And over the starry waves, and broad out into the
blandly blue and boundless night, spiced with strange sweets
from the long-sought land—the whole long cruise predestinated
ours, though often in tempest-time we almost refused to
believe in that far-distant shore—straight out into that fragrant
night, ever-noble Jack Chase, matchless and unmatchable
Jack Chase stretches forth his bannered hand, and, pointing
shoreward, cries: “For the last time, hear Camoens,
boys!”