Israel Potter: Chapter 20

Chapter 20

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, hoodwinking,
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 maintop, 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 mizzentop 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 swineherds 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 sea-boots, while all the rest
with one roar of misanthropy joined him.

But Israel, riot to be daunted, began:

"'Cease, rude Boreas, cease your growling!'"

"And you cease your squeaking, will ye?" cried a fellow in a banged
tarpaulin. "Did ye get a ball in the windpipe, 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 light 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
manoeuvring 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."

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