University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.
THE SHUTTLE.

FOR a time back, across the otherwise blue-jean career
of Israel, Paul Jones flits and re-flits like a crimson
thread. One more brief intermingling of it, and to the
plain old homespun we return.

The battle won, the squadron started for the Texel,
where they arrived in safety. Omitting all mention of
intervening harassments, suffice it, that after some months
of inaction as to anything of a warlike nature, Paul and
Israel (both, from different motives, eager to return to
America) sailed for that country in the armed ship Ariel,
Paul as commander, Israel as quartermaster.

Two weeks out, they encountered by night a frigate-like
craft, supposed to be an enemy. The vessels came
within hail, both showing English colors, with purposes of
mutual deception, affecting to belong to the English Navy.
For an hour, through their speaking trumpets, the captains
equivocally conversed. A very reserved, adroit, hood-winking,
statesman-like conversation, indeed. At last,
professing some little incredulity as to the truthfulness of

the stranger's statement, Paul intimated a desire that he
should put out a boat and come on board to show his
commission, to which the stranger very affably replied,
that unfortunately his boat was exceedingly leaky. With
equal politeness, Paul begged him to consider the danger
attending a refusal, which rejoinder nettled the other, who
suddenly retorted that he would answer for twenty guns,
and that both himself and men were knock-down Englishmen.
Upon this, Paul said that he would allow him
exactly five minutes for a sober, second thought. That
brief period passed, Paul, hoisting the American colors,
ran close under the other ship's stern, and engaged her.
It was about eight o'clock at night that this strange
quarrel was picked in the middle of the ocean. Why
cannot men be peaceable on that great common? Or
does nature in those fierce night-brawlers, the billows, set
mankind but a sorry example?

After ten minutes' cannonading, the stranger struck,
shouting out that half his men were killed. The Ariel's
crew hurrahed. Boarders were called to take possession.
At this juncture, the prize shifting her position so that
she headed away, and to leeward of the Ariel, thrust her
long spanker-boom diagonally over the latter's quarter;
when Israel, who was standing close by, instinctively
caught hold of it—just as he had grasped the jib-boom
of the Serapis—and, at the same moment, hearing the
call to take possession, in the valiant excitement of the
occasion, he leaped upon the spar, and made a rush for
the stranger's deck, thinking, of course, that he would be
immediately followed by the regular boarders. But the

sails of the strange ship suddenly filled; she began to
glide through the sea; her spanker-boom, not having at
all entangled itself, offering no hindrance. Israel, clinging
midway along the boom, soon found himself divided from
the Ariel by a space impossible to be leaped. Meantime,
suspecting foul play, Paul set every sail; but the stranger,
having already the advantage, contrived to make good
her escape, though perseveringly chased by the cheated
conqueror.

In the confusion, no eye had observed our hero's spring.
But, as the vessels separated more, an officer of the
strange ship spying a man on the boom, and taking him
for one of his own men, demanded what he did there.

“Clearing the signal halyards, sir,” replied Israel, fumbling
with the cord which happened to be dangling
near by.

“Well, bear a hand and come in, or you will have a
bow-chaser at you soon,” referring to the bow guns of
the Ariel.

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Israel, and in a moment he sprang
to the deck, and soon found himself mixed in among
some two hundred English sailors of a large letter of
marque. At once he perceived that the story of half
the crew being killed was a mere hoax, played off for
the sake of making an escape. Orders were continually
being given to pull on this and that rope, as the ship
crowded all sail in flight. To these orders Israel, with
the rest, promptly responded, pulling at the rigging
stoutly as the best of them; though Heaven knows his
heart sunk deeper and deeper at every pull which thus

helped once again to widen the gulf between him and
home.

In intervals he considered with himself what to do.
Favored by the obscurity of the night and the number
of the crew, and wearing much the same dress as theirs,
it was very easy to pass himself off for one of them till
morning. But daylight would be sure to expose him,
unless some cunning plan could be hit upon. If discovered
for what he was, nothing short of a prison awaited
him upon the ship's arrival in port.

It was a desperate case, only as desperate a remedy
could serve. One thing was sure, he could not hide.
Some audacious parade of himself promised the only
hope. Marking that the sailors, not being of the regular
navy, wore no uniform, and perceiving that his jacket
was the only garment on him which bore any distinguishing
badge, our adventurer took it off, and privily
dropped it overboard, remaining now in his dark blue
woollen shirt and blue cloth waistcoat.

What the more inspirited Israel to the added step now
contemplated, was the circumstance that the ship was not
a Frenchman's or other foreigner, but her crew, though
enemies, spoke the same language that he did.

So very quietly, at last, he goes aloft into the main-top,
and sitting down on an old sail there, beside some
eight or ten topmen, in an off-handed way asks one for
tobacco.

“Give us a quid, lad,” as he settled himself in his
seat.

“Halloo,” said the strange sailor, “who be you? Get

out of the top! The fore and mizzen-top men won't let
us go into their tops, and blame me if we'll let any of
their gangs come here. So, away ye go.”

“You're blind, or crazy, old boy,” rejoined Israel. “I'm
a topmate; ain't I, lads?” appealing to the rest.

“There's only ten maintopmen belonging to our watch;
if you are one, then there'll be eleven,” said a second
sailor. “Get out of the top!”

“This is too bad, maties,” cried Israel, “to serve an
old topmate this way. Come, come, you are foolish.
Give us a quid.” And, once more, with the utmost sociability,
he addressed the sailor next to him.

“Look ye,” returned the other, “if you don't make
away with yourself, you skulking spy from the mizzen,
we'll drop you to deck like a jewel-block.”

Seeing the party thus resolute, Israel, with some affected
banter, descended.

The reason why he had tried the scheme—and, spite
of the foregoing failure, meant to repeat it—was this:
As customary in armed ships, the men were in companies
allotted to particular places and functions. Therefore, to
escape final detection, Israel must some way get himself
recognized as belonging to some one of those bands;
otherwise, as an isolated nondescript, discovery ere long
would be certain, especially upon the next general muster.
To be sure, the hope in question was a forlorn sort of
hope, but it was his sole one, and must therefore be
tried.

Mixing in again for a while with the general watch, he
at last goes on the forecastle among the sheet-anchor-men

there, at present engaged in critically discussing the merits
of the late valiant encounter, and expressing their opinion
that by daybreak the enemy in chase would be hull-down
out of sight.

“To be sure she will,” cried Israel, joining in with the
group, “old ballyhoo that she is, to be sure. But didn't
we pepper her, lads? Give us a chew of tobacco, one
of ye. How many have we wounded, do ye know?
None killed that I've heard of. Wasn't that a fine hoax
we played on 'em? Ha! ha! But give us a chew.”

In the prodigal fraternal patriotism of the moment, one
of the old worthies freely handed his plug to our adventurer,
who, helping himself, returned it, repeating the
question as to the killed and wounded.

“Why,” said he of the plug, “Jack Jewboy told me,
just now, that there's only seven men been carried down
to the surgeon, but not a soul killed.”

“Good, boys, good!” cried Israel, moving up to one
of the gun-carriages, where three or four men were sitting—“slip
along, chaps, slip along, and give a watchmate
a seat with ye.”

“All full here, lad; try the next gun.”

“Boys, clear a place here,” said Israel, advancing, like
one of the family, to that gun.

“Who the devil are you, making this row here?” demanded
a stern-looking old fellow, captain of the forecastle,
“seems to me you make considerable noise. Are
you a forecastleman?”

“If the bowsprit belongs here, so do I,” rejoined Israel,
composedly.

“Let's look at ye, then!” and seizing a battle-lantern,
before thrust under a gun, the old veteran came close
to Israel before he had time to elude the scrutiny.

“Take that!” said his examiner, and fetching Israel a
terrible thump, pushed him ignominiously off the forecastle
as some unknown interloper from distant parts of
the ship.

With similar perseverance of effrontery, Israel tried
other quarters of the vessel. But with equal ill success.
Jealous with the spirit of class, no social circle would
receive him. As a last resort, he dived down among the
holders.

A group of them sat round a lantern, in the dark
bowels of the ship, like a knot of charcoal burners in a
pine forest at midnight.

“Well, boys, what's the good word?” said Israel, advancing
very cordially, but keeping as much as possible
in the shadow.

“The good word is,” rejoined a censorious old holder,
“that you had best go where you belong—on deck—and
not be a skulking down here where you don't belong.
I suppose this is the way you skulked during the fight.”

“Oh, you're growly to-night, shipmate,” said Israel,
pleasantly—“supper sits hard on your conscience.”

“Get out of the hold with ye,” roared the other. “On
deck, or I'll call the master-at-arms.”

Once more Israel decamped.

Sorely against his grain, as a final effort to blend himself
openly with the crew, he now went among the
waisters: the vilest caste of an armed ship's company,

mere dregs and settlings—sea-Pariahs, comprising all the
lazy, all the inefficient, all the unfortunate and fated, all
the melancholy, all the infirm, all the rheumatical scamps,
scapegraces, ruined prodigal sons, sooty faces, and swine-herds
of the crew, not excluding those with dismal wardrobes.

An unhappy, tattered, moping row of them sat along
dolefully on the gun-deck, like a parcel of crest-fallen buzzards,
exiled from civilized society.

“Cheer up, lads,” said Israel, in a jovial tone, “homeward-bound,
you know. Give us a seat among ye,
friends.”

“Oh, sit on your head!” answered a sullen fellow in
the corner.

“Come, come, no growling; we're homeward-bound.
Whoop, my hearties!”

“Workhouse bound, you mean,” grumbled another
sorry chap, in a darned shirt.

“Oh, boys, don't be down-hearted. Let's keep up our
spirits. Sing us a song, one of ye, and I'll give the
chorus.”

“Sing if ye like, but I'll plug my ears, for one,” said
still another sulky varlet, with the toes out of his seaboots,
while all the rest with one roar of misanthropy
joined him.

But Israel, not to be daunted, began:

“And you cease your squeaking, will ye?” cried a fellow
in a banged tarpaulin. “Did ye get a ball in the wind-pipe,

that ye cough that way, worse nor a broken-nosed
old bellows? Have done with your groaning, it's worse
nor the death-rattle.”

“Boys, is this the way you treat a watchmate” demanded
Israel reproachfully, “trying to cheer up his
friends? Shame on ye, boys, Come, let's be sociable.
Spin us a yarn, one of ye. Meantime, rub my back for
me, another,” and very confidently he leaned against his
neighbor.

“Lean off me, will ye?” roared his friend, shoving him
away.

“But who is this ere singing, leaning, yarn-spinning
chap? Who are ye? Be you a waister, or be you not?”

So saying, one of this peevish, sottish band staggered
close up to Israel. But there was a deck above and a
deck below, and the lantern swung in the distance. It
was too dim to see with critical exactness.

“No such singing chap belongs to our gang, that's flat,”
he dogmatically exclaimed at last, after an ineffectual
scrutiny. “Sail out of this!”

And with a shove once more, poor Israel was ejected.

Blackballed out of every club, he went disheartened on
deck. So long, while night screened him at least, as he
contented himself with promiscuously circulating, all was
safe; it was the endeavor to fraternize with any one set
which was sure to endanger him. At last, wearied out,
he happened to find himself on the berth deck, where the
watch below were slumbering. Some hundred and fifty
hammocks were on that deck. Seeing one empty, he
leaped in, thinking luck might yet some way befriend him.

Here, at last, the sultry confinement put him fast asleep.
He was wakened by a savage whiskerando of the other
watch, who, seizing him by his waistband, dragged him
most indecorously out, furiously denouncing him for a
skulker.

Springing to his feet, Israel perceived from the crowd
and tumult of the berth deck, now all alive with men
leaping into their hammocks, instead of being full of
sleepers quietly dosing therein, that the watches were
changed. Going above, he renewed in various quarters
his offers of intimacy with the fresh men there assembled;
but was successively repulsed as before. At length, just
as day was breaking, an irascible fellow whose stubborn
opposition our adventurer had long in vain sought to conciliate—this
man suddenly perceiving, by the gray morning
light, that Israel had somehow an alien sort of general
look, very savagely pressed him for explicit information
as to who he might be. The answers increased his suspicion.
Others began to surround the two. Presently,
quite a circle was formed. Sailors from distant parts of
the ship drew near. One, and then another, and another,
declared that they, in their quarters, too, had been molested
by a vagabond claiming fraternity, and seeking to
palm himself off upon decent society. In vain Israel
protested. The truth, like the day, dawned clearer and
clearer. More and more closely he was scanned. At
length the hour for having all hands on deck arrived;
when the other watch which Israel had first tried, reascending
to the deck, and hearing the matter in discussion,
they endorsed the charge of molestation and

attempted imposture through the night, on the part of
some person unknown, but who, likely enough, was the
strange man now before them. In the end, the master-at-arms
appeared with his bamboo, who, summarily collaring
poor Israel, led him as a mysterious culprit to
the officer of the deck, which gentleman having heard the
charge, examined him in great perplexity, and, saying
that he did not at all recognize that countenance, requested
the junior officers to contribute their scrutiny.
But those officers were equally at fault.

“Who the deuce are you?” at last said the officer-of-the-deck,
in added bewilderment. “Where did you come
from? What's your business? Where are you stationed?
What's your name? Who are you, any way? How
did you get here? and where are you going?”

“Sir,” replied Israel very humbly, “I am going to my
regular duty, if you will but let me. I belong to the
maintop, and ought to be now engaged in preparing the
topgallant stu'n'-sail for hoisting.”

“Belong to the maintop? Why, these men here say
you have been trying to belong to the foretop, and the
mizzentop, and the forecastle, and the hold, and the waist,
and every other part of the ship. This is extraordinary,”
he added, turning upon the junior officers.

“He must be out of his mind,” replied one of them, the
sailing-master.

“Out of his mind?” rejoined the officer-of-the-deck.
“He's out of all reason; out of all men's knowledge and
memories! Why, no one knows him; no one has ever
seen him before; no imagination, in the wildest flight of

a morbid nightmare, has ever so much as dreamed of
him. Who are you?” he again added, fierce with amazement.
“What's your name? Are you down in the ship's
books, or at all in the records of nature?”

“My name, sir, is Peter Perkins,” said Israel, thinking
it most prudent to conceal his real appellation.

“Certainly, I never heard that name before. Pray, see
if Peter Perkins is down on the quarter-bills,” he added
to a midshipman. “Quick, bring the book here.”

Having received it, he ran his fingers along the columns,
and dashing down the book, declared that no such name
was there.

“You are not down, sir. There is no Peter Perkins
here. Tell me at once who are you?”

“It might be, sir,” said Israel, gravely, “that seeing I
shipped under the effects of liquor, I might, out of absent-mindedness
like, have given in some other person's name
instead of my own.”

“Well, what name have you gone by among your shipmates
since you've been aboard?”

“Peter Perkins, sir.”

Upon this the officer turned to the men around, inquiring
whether the name of Peter Perkins was familiar to
them as that of a shipmate. One and all answered no.

“This won't do, sir,” now said the officer. “You see
it won't do. Who are you?”

“A poor persecuted fellow at your service, sir.”

“Who persecutes you?”

“Every one, sir. All hands seem to be against me;
none of them willing to remember me.”

“Tell me,” demanded the officer earnestly, “how long
do you remember yourself? Do you remember yesterday
morning? You must have come into existence by some
sort of spontaneous combustion in the hold. Or were
you fired aboard from the enemy, last night, in a cartridge?
Do you remember yesterday?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“What was you doing yesterday?”

“Well, sir, for one thing, I believe I had the honor of
a little talk with yourself.”

“With me?”

“Yes, sir; about nine o'clock in the morning—the sea
being smooth and the ship running, as I should think,
about seven knots—you came up into the maintop, where
I belong, and was pleased to ask my opinion about the
best way to set a topgallant stu'n'-sail.”

“He's mad! He's mad!” said the officer, with delirious
conclusiveness. “Take him away, take him away, take
him away—put him somewhere, master-at-arms. Stay,
one test more. What mess do you belong to?”

“Number 12, sir.”

“Mr. Tidds,” to a midshipman, “send mess No. 12 to
the mast.”

Ten sailors replied to the summons, and arranged themselves
before Israel.

“Men, does this man belong to your mess?”

“No, sir; never saw him before this morning.”

“What are those men's names?” he demanded of
Israel.

“Well, sir, I am so intimate with all of them,” looking

upon them with a kindly glance, “I never call them by
their real names, but by nicknames. So, never using
their real names, I have forgotten them. The nicknames
that I know them by, are Towser, Bowser, Rowser,
Snowser.”

“Enough. Mad as a March hare. Take him away.
Hold,” again added the officer, whom some strange fascination
still bound to the bootless investigation. “What's
my name, sir?”

“Why, sir, one of my messmates here called you
Lieutenant Williamson, just now, and I never heard you
called by any other name.”

“There's method in his madness,” thought the officer
to himself. “What's the captain's name?”

“Why, sir, when we spoke the enemy, last night, I
heard him say, through his trumpet, that he was Captain
Parker; and very likely he knows his own name.”

“I have you now. That ain't the captain's real name.”

“He's the best judge himself, sir, of what his name is,
I should think.”

“Were it not,” said the officer, now turning gravely
upon his juniors, “were it not that such a supposition
were on other grounds absurd, I should certainly conclude
that this man, in some unknown way, got on board here
from the enemy last night.”

“How could he, sir?” asked the sailing-master.

“Heaven knows. But our spanker-boom geared the
other ship, you know, in manœuvring to get headway.”

“But supposing he could have got here that fashion,
which is quite impossible under all the circumstances,

what motive could have induced him voluntarily to jump
among enemies?”

“Let him answer for himself,” said the officer, turning
suddenly upon Israel, with the view of taking him off his
guard, by the matter of course assumption of the very
point at issue.

“Answer, sir. Why did you jump on board here, last
night, from the enemy?”

“Jump on board, sir, from the enemy? Why, sir, my
station at general quarters is at gun No. 3, of the lower
deck, here.”

“He's cracked—or else I am turned—or all the world
is;—take him away!”

“But where am I to take him, sir?” said the master-at-arms.
“He don't seem to belong anywhere, sir. Where
—where am I to take him?”

“Take him out of sight,” said the officer, now incensed
with his own perplexity. “Take him out of sight, I
say.”

“Come along, then, my ghost,” said the master-at-arms.
And, collaring the phantom, he led it hither and thither,
not knowing exactly what to do with it.

Some fifteen minutes passed, when the captain coming
from his cabin, and observing the master-at-arms leading
Israel about in this indefinite style, demanded the reason
of that procedure, adding that it was against his express
orders for any new and degrading punishments to be invented
for his men.

“Come here, master-at-arms. To what end do you lead
that man about?”

“To no end in the world, sir. I keep leading him about
because he has no final destination.”

“Mr. Officer-of-the-deck, what does this mean? Who
is this strange man? I don't know that I remember
him. Who is he? And what is signified by his being
led about?”

Hereupon the officer-of-the-deck, throwing himself into
a tragical posture, set forth the entire mystery; much to
the captain's astonishment, who at once indignantly turned
upon the phantom.

“You rascal—don't try to deceive me. Who are you?
and where did you come from last?”

“Sir, my name is Peter Perkins, and I last came from
the forecastle, where the master-at-arms last led me, before
coming here.”

“No joking, sir, no joking.”

“Sir, I'm sure it's too serious a business to joke about.”

“Do you have the assurance to say, that you, as a
regularly shipped man, have been on board this vessel
ever since she sailed from Falmouth, ten months ago?”

“Sir, anxious to secure a berth under so good a commander,
I was among the first to enlist.”

“What ports have we touched at, sir?” said the captain,
now in a little softer tone.

“Ports, sir, ports?”

“Yes, sir, ports.”

Israel began to scratch his yellow hair.

“What ports, sir?”

“Well, sir:—Boston, for one.”

“Right there,” whispered a midshipman.

“What was the next port, sir?”

“Why, sir, I was saying Boston was the first port, I
believe; wasn't it?—and”—

“The second port, sir, is what I want.”

“Well—New York.”

“Right again,” whispered the midshipman.

“And what port are we bound to, now?”

“Let me see—homeward-bound—Falmouth, sir.”

“What sort of a place is Boston?”

“Pretty considerable of a place, sir.”

“Very straight streets, ain't they?”

“Yes, sir; cow-paths, cut by sheep-walks, and intersected
with hen-tracks.”

“When did we fire the first gun?”

“Well, sir, just as we were leaving Falmouth, ten
months ago—signal-gun, sir.”

“Where did we fire the first shotted gun, sir?—and
what was the name of the privateer we took upon that
occasion?”

“'Pears to me, sir, at that time I was on the sick list.
Yes, sir, that must have been the time; I had the brain
fever, and lost my mind for a while.”

“Master-at-arms, take this man away.”

“Where shall I take him, sir?” touching his cap.

“Go, and air him on the forecastle.”

So they resumed their devious wanderings. At last,
they descended to the berth-deck. It being now breakfast-time,
the master-at-arms, a good-humored man, very
kindly introduced our hero to his mess, and presented
him with breakfast, during which he in vain endeavored,

by all sorts of subtle blandishments, to worm out his secret.

At length Israel was set at liberty; and whenever there
was any important duty to be done, volunteered to it
with such cheerful alacrity, and approved himself so docile
and excellent a seaman, that he conciliated the approbation
of all the officers, as well as the captain; while his
general sociability served, in the end, to turn in his favor
the suspicious hearts of the mariners. Perceiving his
good qualities, both as a sailor and man, the captain of
the maintop applied for his admission into that section
of the ship; where, still improving upon his former reputation,
our hero did duty for the residue of the voyage.

One pleasant afternoon, the last of the passage, when
the ship was nearing the Lizard, within a few hours' sail
of her port, the officer-of-the-deck, happening to glance
upwards towards the maintop, descried Israel there, leaning
very leisurely over the rail, looking mildly down
where the officer stood.

“Well, Peter Perkins, you seem to belong to the
maintop, after all.”

“I always told you so, sir,” smiled Israel benevolently
down upon him, “though, at first, you remember, sir,
you would not believe it.”