University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.
PAUL JONES IN A REVERIE.

“`GOD helps them that help themselves.' That's a
clincher. That's been my experience. But I never
saw it in words before. What pamphlet is this? `Poor
Richard,' hey!”

Upon entering Israel's room, Captain Paul, stepping
towards the table and spying the open pamphlet there,
had taken it up, his eye being immediately attracted to
the passage previously marked by our adventurer.

“A rare old gentleman is `Poor Richard,'” said Israel
in response to Paul's observations.

“So he seems, so he seems,” answered Paul, his eye
still running over the pamphlet again; “why, `Poor
Richard' reads very much as Doctor Franklin speaks.”

“He wrote it,” said Israel.

“Aye? Good. So it is, so it is; it's the wise man
all over. I must get me a copy of this and wear it
around my neck for a charm. And now about our quarters
for the night. I am not going to deprive you of
your bed, my man. Do you go to bed and I will doze

in the chair here. It's good dozing in the crosstrees.”

“Why not sleep together?” said Israel; “see, it is a
big bed. Or perhaps you don't fancy your bed-fellow,
Captain?”

“When, before the mast, I first sailed out of Whitehaven
to Norway,” said Paul, coolly, “I had for
hammock-mate a full-blooded Congo. We had a white
blanket spread in our hammock. Every time I turned
in I found the Congo's black wool worked in with the white
worsted. By the end of the voyage the blanket was of a
pepper-and-salt look, like an old man's turning head. So
it's not because I am notional at all, but because I don't
care to, my lad. Turn in and go to sleep. Let the
lamp burn. I'll see to it. There, go to sleep.”

Complying with what seemed as much a command as
a request, Israel, though in bed, could not fall into slumber
for thinking of the little circumstance that this strange
swarthy man, flaming with wild enterprises, sat in full
suit in the chair. He felt an uneasy misgiving sensation,
as if he had retired, not only without covering up the fire,
but leaving it fiercely burning with spitting fagots of
hemlock.

But his natural complaisance induced him at least to
feign himself asleep; whereupon Paul, laying down “Poor
Richard,” rose from his chair, and, withdrawing his boots,
began walking rapidly but noiselessly to and fro, in his
stockings, in the spacious room, wrapped in Indian meditations.
Israel furtively eyed him from beneath the coverlid,
and was anew struck by his aspect, now that Paul thought
himself unwatched. Stern relentless purposes, to be pursued

to the points of adverse bayonets and the muzzles of
hostile cannon, were expressed in the now rigid lines of
his brow. His ruffled right hand was clutched by his
side, as if grasping a cutlass. He paced the room as if
advancing upon a fortification. Meantime a confused buzz
of discussion came from the neighboring chamber. All
else was profound midnight tranquillity. Presently, passing
the large mirror over the mantel, Paul caught a
glimpse of his person. He paused, grimly regarding it,
while a dash of pleased coxcombry seemed to mingle
with the otherwise savage satisfaction expressed in his
face. But the latter predominated. Soon, rolling up his
sleeve, with a queer wild smile, Paul lifted his right arm,
and stood thus for an interval, eyeing its image in the
glass. From where he lay, Israel could not see that side
of the arm presented to the mirror, but he saw its reflection,
and started at perceiving there, framed in the carved
and gilded wood, certain large intertwisted ciphers covering
the whole inside of the arm, so far as exposed, with
mysterious tattooings. The design was wholly unlike the
fanciful figures of anchors, hearts, and cables, sometimes
decorating small portions of seamen's bodies. It was a
sort of tattooing such as is seen only on thorough-bred savages—deep
blue, elaborate, labyrinthine, cabalistic. Israel
remembered having beheld, on one of his early voyages,
something similar on the arm of a New Zealand warrior,
once met, fresh from battle, in his native village. He
concluded that on some similar early voyage Paul must
have undergone the manipulations of some pagan artist.

Covering his arm again with his laced coat-sleeve, Paul

glanced ironically at the hand of the same arm, now again
half muffled in ruffles, and ornamented with several Parisian
rings. He then resumed his walking with a prowling
air, like one haunting an ambuscade; while a gleam of
the consciousness of possessing a character as yet unfathomed,
and hidden power to back unsuspected projects,
irradiated his cold white brow, which, owing to the shade
of his hat in equatorial climates, had been left surmounting
his swarthy face, like the snow topping the Andes.

So at midnight, the heart of the metropolis of modern
civilization was secretly trod by this jaunty barbarian
in broadcloth; a sort of prophetical ghost, glimmering
in anticipation upon the advent of those tragic scenes of
the French Revolution which levelled the exquisite refinement
of Paris with the bloodthirsty ferocity of
Borneo; showing that broaches and finger-rings, not less
than nose-rings and tattooing, are tokens of the primeval
savageness which ever slumbers in human kind, civilized
or uncivilized.

Israel slept not a wink that night. The troubled spirit
of Paul paced the chamber till morning; when, copiously
bathing himself at the wash-stand, Paul looked care-free
and fresh as a day-break hawk. After a closeted consultation
with Doctor Franklin, he left the place with a
light and dandified air, switching his gold-headed cane,
and throwing a passing arm round all the pretty chambermaids
he encountered, kissing them resoundingly, as
if saluting a frigate. All barbarians are rakes.