Mardi: Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Noises And Portents

I longed for day. For however now inclined to believe that the
brigantine was untenanted, I desired the light of the sun to place
that fact beyond a misgiving.

Now, having observed, previous to boarding the vessel, that she lay
rather low in the water, I thought proper to sound the well. But
there being no line-and-sinker at hand, I sent Jarl to hunt them up
in the arm-chest on the quarter-deck, where doubtless they must be
kept. Meanwhile I searched for the "breaks," or pump-handles, which,
as it turned out, could not have been very recently used; for they
were found lashed up and down to the main-mast.

Suddenly Jarl came running toward me, whispering that all doubt was
dispelled;--there were spirits on board, to a dead certainty. He had
overheard a supernatural sneeze. But by this time I was all but
convinced, that we were alone in the brigantine. Since, if otherwise,
I could assign no earthly reason for the crew's hiding away from a
couple of sailors, whom, were they so minded, they might easily have
mastered. And furthermore, this alleged disturbance of the atmosphere
aloft by a sneeze, Jarl averred to have taken place in the main-top;
directly underneath which I was all this time standing, and had heard
nothing. So complimenting my good Viking upon the exceeding delicacy
of his auriculars, I bade him trouble himself no more with his
piratical ghosts and goblins, which existed nowhere but in his own
imagination.

Not finding the line-and-sinker, with the spare end of a bowline we
rigged a substitute; and sounding the well, found nothing to excite
our alarm. Under certain circumstances, however, this sounding a
ship's well is a nervous sort of business enough. 'Tis like feeling
your own pulse in the last stage of a fever.

At the Skyeman's suggestion, we now proceeded to throw round the
brigantine's head on the other tack. For until daylight we desired to
alter the vessel's position as little as possible, fearful of coming
unawares upon reefs.

And here be it said, that for all his superstitious misgivings about
the brigantine; his imputing to her something equivalent to a purely
phantom-like nature, honest Jarl was nevertheless exceedingly
downright and practical in all hints and proceedings concerning her.
Wherein, he resembled my Right Reverend friend, Bishop Berkeley--
truly, one of your lords spiritual--who, metaphysically speaking,
holding all objects to be mere optical delusions, was, notwith-
standing, extremely matter-of-fact in all matters touching
matter itself. Besides being pervious to the points of pins, and
possessing a palate capable of appreciating plum-puddings:--which
sentence reads off like a pattering of hailstones.

Now, while we were employed bracing round the yards, whispering Jarl
must needs pester me again with his confounded suspicions of goblins
on board. He swore by the main-mast, that when the fore-yard swung
round, he had heard a half-stifled groan from that quarter; as if one
of his bugbears had been getting its aerial legs jammed. I laughed:--
hinting that goblins were incorporeal. Whereupon he besought me to
ascend the fore-rigging and test the matter for myself But here my
mature judgment got the better of my first crude opinion. I civilly
declined. For assuredly, there was still a possibility, that the
fore-top might be tenanted, and that too by living miscreants; and a
pretty hap would be mine, if, with hands full of rigging, and legs
dangling in air, while surmounting the oblique futtock-
shrouds, some unseen arm should all at once tumble me overboard.
Therefore I held my peace; while Jarl went on to declare, that with
regard to the character of the brigantine, his mind was now pretty
fully made up;--she was an arrant impostor, a shade of a ship, full
of sailors' ghosts, and before we knew where we were, would dissolve
in a supernatural squall, and leave us twain in the water. In short,
Jarl, the descendant of the superstitious old Norsemen, was full of
old Norse conceits, and all manner of Valhalla marvels concerning the
land of goblins and goblets. No wonder then, that with this catastrophe
in prospect, he again entreated me to quit the ill-starred craft,
carrying off nothing from her ghostly hull. But I refused.

One can not relate every thing at once. While in the cabin, we came
across a "barge" of biscuit, and finding its contents of a quality
much superior to our own, we had filled our pockets and occasionally
regaled ourselves in the intervals of rummaging. Now this sea cake-
basket we had brought on deck. And for the first time since bidding
adieu to the Arcturion having fully quenched our thirst, our appetite
returned with a rush; and having nothing better to do till day
dawned, we planted the bread-barge in the middle of the quarter-deck;
and crossing our legs before it, laid close seige thereto, like the
Grand Turk and his Vizier Mustapha sitting down before Vienna.

Our castle, the Bread-Barge was of the common sort; an oblong oaken
box, much battered and bruised, and like the Elgin Marbles, all over
inscriptions and carving:--foul anchors, skewered hearts, almanacs,
Burton-blocks, love verses, links of cable, Kings of Clubs; and
divers mystic diagrams in chalk, drawn by old Finnish mariners; in
casting horoscopes and prophecies. Your old tars are all Daniels.
There was a round hole in one side, through which, in getting at the
bread, invited guests thrust their hands.

And mighty was the thrusting of hands that night; also, many
and earnest the glances of Mustapha at every sudden creaking of the
spars or rigging. Like Belshazzar, my royal Viking ate with great
fear and trembling; ever and anon pausing to watch the wild shadows
flitting along the bulwarks.

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