 | A STORY OF THE SEA. The book of my lady |  |
A STORY OF THE SEA.
Please you to hear it? You will marvel much,
For he that made it hath a mighty power,
Calling up wond'rous forms and images
Art cannot compass.”
It was on a pleasant day in the month of September,
that I received a notification from the captain of a
small vessel, in which my passage for a distant port
had been engaged, apprising me of his intention to
sail immediately. I had been already delayed for
some days, the wind being in our teeth; and, though
still loth, as all young travellers usually are, to leave
home for the first time, the suspense and impatience
from waiting had been such, that the hurrying call had
the effect of something like a pleasurable reprieve
upon my mind, and I instantly obeyed it. A few moments
sufficed to complete my preparations, and in two
hours all hands were on board; and the little swallow-like
packet, under outspread wings, and a clear and
beautiful sky, was rapidly leaving the land. We had
but two passengers beside myself, both equally young,
and equally new to the perils and mysteries of the
sea; and, for a moderately long voyage, the prospects
of enjoyment were rather more limited than was desirable.
We were soon conscious of our mutual dependence,
each of us, to do our little for the common comfort
and gratification. What with striding the narrow
deck, half the time in the way of one another—watching
the land of our birth-place and homes fast receding
from our eyes, and calculating, with many doubts, the
various chances of our voyage—we contrived, as may
be supposed, to get through the first day very amicably,
and with tolerable satisfaction. We were now
fairly at sea. The plane of ocean became rapidly
undulated and more buoyant. Broad swells of water
bore our bark like a shell sportively upon their bosoms,
then sinking with equal suddenness from beneath, left
it to plunge and struggle in the deep hollows, until
borne up by other and succeeding billows. Space and
density, in glorious contrast and comparison, were all at
once before us, in the blue world of vacuity hanging
and stretching above, and the immense, seldom quiet
and murmuring mass spread out below it. The land
no longer met our eyes, though strained and stretched
to the utmost. The clouds came down, and hung
about us, narrowing the horizon to a span, and mingling
gloomily with the surges that kept howling perpetually
around us, growing at each moment more and
more threatening and restless. Not a speck besides
our own little vessel was to be seen amidst that wild
infinity, that, admirably consorted, was at once beneath,
above, around, and about us. Two days went by in
this manner, with scarcely any alteration in the monotonous
character of the prospect. Still the weather
was fine—the clouds that gathered between, formed a
shelter from the intensity of the tropical sun, and, in
But, towards the evening of the third day, there was a
hazy red crown about the sun as he sunk behind the
swell in our front—a curling and increasing motion of
the black waters rushing impetuously forward to the
wild cavern into which he descended—the wind freshened,
and took to itself a melancholy and threatening
tone, as it sung at intervals among the spars and cordage;
and, while it continued of itself, momentarily, to
change its burden, appeared, with a fine mystery, to
warn us of a yet greater change in the aspect and temper
of the dread elements, all clustering around us.
The old seamen looked grave and weather-wise, and
shook their heads sagaciously, when questioned about
the prospect. The captain strode the deck impatiently
and anxiously, giving his orders in a tone that left little
doubt on my mind, of a perfect familiarity, on the part
of the ancient voyageur, with the undeceptive and boding
countenance of sea and sky. Night came on,
travelling hurriedly, and cloaked up in impenetrable
gloom. The winds continued to freshen and increase;
and, but a single star, hanging out like hope, shot a
glance of promise and encouragement through the
pitchy and threatening atmosphere. The prospect was
quite too uncheering to permit of much love, or many
looks on the part of fresh-water seamen. By common
consent, we went below, and, ransacking our trunks,
were enabled to conjure up a pack of cards, with
which, to the no small inconvenience of our captain,
we sought to shut out from thought any association
with the dim and dismal prospect we had just been
contemplating. He did not, it is true, request us to
by his mutterings on the subject. He bade us
beware, for that we were certainly bringing on a storm.
He had seen it tried, very often, he assured us, to produce
such an effect, and he had never known it fail.
His terrors brought us the very amusement for which
he was unwilling we should look to such devilish enginery
as a pack of cards. We had not needed this,
to convince us that the seaman was rather more given
to superstition than well comported with the spirit of
the age. He was a Connecticut man, thoroughly imbued
with blue laws, Cotton Mather, &c. and all the
tales of demonology and witchcraft, ever conceived or
hatched in that most productive of all countries in the
way of notions. He lectured us freely and frequently
upon his favourite topic, on which much familiarity had
even made him eloquent. We encouraged him in his
failings, and derived our sport from its indulgence.
Believing fervently himself every syllable he uttered,
he could not understand our presumption in doubting,
as we sometimes did, many of the veracious and marvellous
legends of New England and the “Sound,”
which he volunteered for our edification; and when at
length, convinced of the utter impossibility of overthrowing
what, no doubt, he conceived the heresy
of our scepticism, he appeared to resign himself to the
worst of fates. He evidently regarded each of us as a
Jonah, not less worthy of the water and whale than his
prototype of old; and, I make not the slightest question,
would have tumbled us all overboard, without a
solitary scruple, should the helm refuse to obey, or the
masts go by the board. His stories, however, I am
also, however our philosophy might be supposed
to laugh at the matter, had a greater influence
upon all of us than we were willing to admit to one
another. Upon me, in particular, the impression produced
was peculiar in its character. Not that, for a
single moment, I could persuade myself, or be persuaded
by others, that the mere playing of any game
whatever could bring down upon us the wrath of heaven,
or “hatch a fiendish form upon the deep,” but
naturally disposed to live and breathe only in an “element
of fiction and fantastic change,” I drank in every
thing savouring of the marvellous with an earnest and
yielding spirit. He seemed to have been born and to
have lived all his life in a “witch element.” He had
stories, filled and worked by this principle, of every
section of the world in which he had sojourned or travelled.
Had seen the old boy himself, in the shape of
a black pigeon, in a squall off the capes of Delaware;
and once, on the night of the twenty-seventh June, had
himself counted the phantom ships of the British fleet,
under Sir Peter Parker, as they were towed over the
bar of Charleston, in South Carolina, to the attack of
Fort Moultrie. What seemed to vex him most of these
things was, that the Carolinians, whom he pronounced
a most obstinate and unteachable race, refused to believe
a word of the matter.
But his favourite legend, and that which he believed
as honestly as the best authenticated passage in Scripture,
was that of the flying Dutchman, who was driven
out of the German ocean; and in process of time, and
for some such offence, was doomed to a like travail
had seen more than once, and on one occasion had
nearly suffered by speaking him. It was only by dint
of good fortune and bad weather that he escaped unseen
by that dreadful voyageur, to be noticed by whom is
peril of storm, and wreck, and utter destruction. It
was of this dangerous sail he had now to warn us. We
were told that this sea, and almost the very portion
which we now travelled, was that in which the Dutchman,
at this season, usually sojourned for the exercise,
with more perfect freedom, of his manifold vagaries—a
power being given to him, according to our worthy
captain, for the due and proper punishment of those
who, when his spirit was abroad upon the waters, dared
to palter and trifle in idle games, sport and buffoonery.
The voyager evidently apprehended much; and, as the
gale freshened, his countenance grew more gloomy,
and his words more importunate in reference to those
levities and sports which we had fallen into. To pacify
him we forbore, and were compelled to refer to other
resources for the recreation we required at such a time.
There were three of us, and we told our several stories.
The youngest of our trio was young indeed. He was
tall, slender, graceful; eminently beautiful, a highly
intelligent mind, and a finely wrought and susceptible
spirit. He was deeply in love, truly devoted to the
young maiden; and the short time contemplated to
elapse before they should again meet, was one of great
and bitter privation. Becoming intimate from the circumstances
of our situation, and probably from certain
innate sympathies, we learned all these particulars from
his own lips. He described the charms of his mistress,
and fears, and prospects; and, in turn, we were equally
communicative. His name was Herbert.
The storm increased, and with so much violence,
that we were fain to go upon the deck, impatient of our
restraint below, though by no means secure, even with
ropes and bulwarks, and a tenacious grasp above. I shall
never forget the awful splendour, the fearful, the gorgeous
magnificence of that prospect. In the previous ten
minutes the gale had increased to a degree of violence
that would not permit us to hang out a rag of sail, and
the vessel, under her bare poles, was driving down upon
and through the black and boiling waters. Nothing
was now to be seen but the great deeps, the vast and
ponderous bulk and body of which groaned with its
own huge and ungovernable labours. Horrible abysses
opened before us, monstrous and ravenous billows rushed
after us in awful gambols. Mountains gathering
upon mountains, clustering and clashing together, threw
up from the dreadful collision tall and spiry columns of
white foam, that keeping their position for a few seconds
would rush down towards us, like some god of the sea,
bestriding the billows, and directing their furies for our
destruction. Under such impulses we drove on, with
a recklessness fully according with the dread spirit that
presided over the scene; now darting through the
waters, occasionally rushing beneath them, then emerging
and throwing off the spray, that shone upon the
black and terrific picture, in a contrast as grotesque
as the tinsel ornaments upon the robe of a tyrant, in
the thick of a battle, or at the execution of thousands.
On a sudden our course was arrested by a mountain of
through the impediment, however, with a fearful energy.
Another sea came on, which we shipped, and
the bark reeled without power beneath the stroke. I
was thrown from my feet, and seized with difficulty by
the side, the water rushing in volumes over me. Again
she sprung up and righted, but with a shock that again
lost me the possession of my hold. At that moment a
shriek of agony rushed through my senses; and immediately
beside me a passenger, one of my companions,
torn from his hold, was swept over the side, into the
unreturning ocean. He passed but a foot from me, in
his progress to the deep. How terrible was his cry of
death—it will never pass out of my memory. He
grasped desperately at my arm as he approached me.
He would have dragged me with him to death, but I
shrunk back; and his look—the gleam of his eye—its
vacantly horrible expression will never leave me. The
vessel rushed on, unheeding; and I saw him borne by
the waves buoyantly for many yards in her wake before
he sunk. He called upon Heaven, and the winds
howled in his ears, and the waters mocked his supplications.
Down he went, with one husky cry that the
seas stifled; and the agony was over. That cry brought
a chilling presentiment to my heart. Despair was in it
to all. Though I seemed to live under a like influence,
there was a degree of strange recklessness even in
our scrupulous captain, for which I could not, and indeed
did not seek to account. I felt assured we could
not long survive. Our vessel groaned and laboured
fearfully; her seams opened, and the waters came bubbling
and hissing in, as if impatient of their prey. Still
the buoyancy of the billows, and aiding her in keeping
afloat. But, amidst all this rage and tumult, this strife
of warring and vexed elements, there was yet one moment
in which they were under an universal calm; one
awful moment afforded, seemingly by the demon who
had roused the tempest, that we might be enabled adequately
to comprehend our situation. The feeling in
this extremest moment was the same with all on board,
with no exception; and one unanimous prayer went up
to heaven.
It was but a moment. The winds and the waves
went forth with redoubled violence and power. There
seemed an impelling tempest from every point of the
compass. Suddenly, a broad and vivid flash of lightning
illuminated the black and boiling surges; lingering
upon them sufficiently long to give us a full glance
of the scene. Immediately in our course, came on a
large and majestic vessel. She had no sails, but pursued
a path directly in the teeth of the tempest. She
came down upon us with the swiftness of an eagle.
Her decks were bare, as if swept by a thousand seas—
we were right in her path—there was no veering, no
change of course—no hope. The voice of the captain
rose above the tempest—it had a horror which the
storm itself lacked. It spoke of the utter despair
which was the feeling with all of us alike. “The flying
Dutchman,” was all he could say, ere the supposed
phantom was over us. I felt the shock—a single crash
—and crew, cargo, vessel, all—were down, crushed
and writhing beneath its superior weight, struggling
with and finally sinking beneath the exulting waters.
us—gone, gone! no trace of her progress, except
our broken fragments—our sinking hopes.
There had been no time for preparation or for
prayer. The fatal stranger had gone clean over, or,
indeed through us; and, though sinking myself, it appeared
to me that I could see her keel, with a singular
facility of optical penetration, cutting the green mountains
behind me, with the velocity of an arrow. Around
me, scattered and sinking with myself, I beheld the
fragments of our vessel, together with the struggling
atoms of our crew and company. Among these, floating
near me, on a spar, I recognised the fair and melancholy
features of young Herbert, the passenger,
whose love affair I have already glanced at. I felt myself
sinking, and seized upon him convulsively. The
spar upon which he rested veered round, and, grasping
it firmly, I raised my body to the surface. He felt conscious
of its inadequacy to the task of supporting both
of us, and strove to divert its direction from me. But
in vain. Neither of us could prove capable of much,
if any generosity on such an occasion, and at such a
time. Our grasp became more firm; and, while death
and desolation and a nameless horror enveloped every
thing in which we were the sole surviving occupants,
we were enemies, deadly and avowed enemies—we,
who had exchanged vows of the warmest friendship—
to whom our several hopes and prospects had been unfolded
with a confidence the most pure and unqualified
—we sought each other's destruction, as the only hope
in which our own lives could repose. He appealed to
me with tears—spoke of the young girl who awaited
both surviving, if I would swim off to a neighbouring
spar which he strove to point out to me. But I saw
no spar; I felt that he strove to deceive me, and I became
indignant with his hypocrisy. What was his love
to me? I laughed with a fierce fury in his face. I
too had loves and hopes, and a wild ambition, and I
swore that I would not risk further a life so precious in
so many ways.
The waters seemed to comprehend our situation—a
swell threw us together, and our grasp was mutual.
My hand was upon his throat with the gripe and energy
of despair; his arms, in turn, would about my body.
I strangled him. I held on, till all his graspings, all his
struggles, and every pulsation, had entirely ceased.
My strength, as if in close correspondence and sympathy
with the spirit that prompted me, seemed that of a
demon. In vain did he struggle. Could he hope to
contend with the fiend of self, that nerved and corded
every vein and muscle of my body? Fool that he was,
but such was not his thought. He uttered but a single
name—but a brief word—through all our contest.
That name was the young girl's, who had his pledges
and his soul—that word was one of prayer for her and
her happiness; and I smiled scornfully even in our
grapple of death, at the pusillanimity of his boyish
heart. I had aspirations, too, and I mocked him with
the utterance of ambitious hopes. I told him of my
anticipated triumphs; I predicted my own fame and
future glory, and asked him the value of his worthless
life, in comparison with mine. He had but one answer
to all this, and that consisted in the repetition of
and invigorated my hate. Had he utterred but one
ambitious desire—had he been stimulated by one
single dream of glory or of greatness, I had spared his
life. But there was something of insolence in the humility
of his aim that provoked my deepest malignity.
I grappled him more firmly than ever, and withdrew
not my grasp, until, by a flash of lightning, I beheld
him blacker than the wild waters dashing around us.
I felt the warm blood gush forth upon my hands and
arms from his mouth and nostrils, and he hung heavily
upon me. Would the deed had not been done.
Would I might have restored him; but the good spirit
came too late for his hope and for my peace. I shrunk
from my victim. I withdrew my grasp—not so he.
The paroxysm of death had confirmed the spasmodic
hold, which, in the struggle, he had taken of my body.
My victory was something worse than defeat. It was
not merely death—it was the grave and its foul associations—its
spectres and its worms, and they haunt
me for ever.
We were supported by the buoyancy of the ocean
alone, while under the violence of its dread excitements;
and I felt assured that the relaxation to repose
of the elements, would carry us both down together.
Vainly did I struggle to detach myself from his grasp.
Freed from one hand, the other would suddenly clasp
itself about my neck, with a tenacity only increased by
every removal. His face was thrust close into mine—
the eyes lit up by supernatural fires glaring in my own;
while the teeth, chattering in the furious winds, kept up
a perpetual cry of death—death—death—until I was
as loudly in concert with the storm. Fortunately,
however, I had but little time for the contemplation of
these terrors. The agony of long suspense was spared
me. The storm was over. The spar on which I
floated, no longer sustained by the continuous swell,
settled, at length, heavily down in its pause, and without
an effort, I sunk beneath the waters, the corpse of
my companion changing its position, and riding rigidly
upon my shoulders. Ten thousand ships had not sustained
me under such a pressure. The waters went
over me with a roar of triumph, and I felt, with Clarence,
how “horrid 'twas to drown.” Even at that
moment of dread and death, the memory of that vivid
picture of the dramatist came to my senses, as I realised
all its intensely fearful features in my own fate. What
was that fate? The question was indeed difficult of
solution, for I did not perish. I was not deprived of
sense or feeling, though shut in from the blessed air,
and pressed upon and surrounded by the rolling and yet
turbulent waters. For leagues, apparently, could I behold
the new domain in which I was now, perforce, a
resident; the cold corpse still hanging loosely but firmly
about my shoulders. I settled at length upon a rock of
a broad surface, which in turn rested upon a fine gravelly
bed of white sand. Shrinking and sheltering
themselves in innumerable crevices of the rocks around
me, from the violence of the storm that had raged above,
I was enabled in a little time to behold the numberless
varieties of the finny tribe that dwelt in the mighty seas.
Many were the ferocious monsters by which I was surrounded;
influence of their own terrors. There were huge serpents,
lions, and tigers of the ocean. There roved the
angry and ever hungry shark—his white teeth, showing
like the finest saws, promising little pause in the banquet
on his prey. There leapt the lively porpoise—
there swam the sword-fish, and galloped the sea-horse.
They were not long in their advances. I saw the sea-wolf
prepare to spring—the shark darted like an arrow
on my path, and, with a horror too deep for expression,
I struck forth into the billows, and strove once more for
the upper air. A blow, from what quarter I know not,
struck the corpse from my shoulders, and was spent
upon my head. My body was seized by a power, in
whose grasp all vigour was gone, and every muscle relaxed.
On a sudden, the entire character of the scene was
altered. My enemies assumed a new guise and appearance,
and in place of fish, and beast, and reptile, I
perceived myself closely surrounded by a crowd of old
and young ladies, busily employed with a dozen smelling
bottles, which they vigorously and most industriously
employed in application to my nostrils. Where was I?
Instead of a billowy dwelling in the sea, I was in possession
of the large double family pew in the well-known
meeting-house. I had never been to sea—had not killed
my companion—was not drowned, and hope never to
be; but the whole affair was a vast effort of diablerie—
a horrible phantasm of the incubi, got up by the foul
fiend himself, and none other, for my especial exposure
and mortification. The old ladies told me I had been
endeavour to embrace the prettiest among them; the
gauntlike, however, most charitably, put it down to a
spiritual influence; as (entre nous) doubtless it was.
So much for taking late dinners with a friend, drinking
my two bottles of Madeira, and going to a night meeting,
when I should have gone to bed.
| A STORY OF THE SEA. The book of my lady | |