THE CAPTAIN'S STORY
There was a good deal of pleasant gossip about old Captain 'Hurricane'Jones, of the Pacific Ocean--peace to his ashes! Two or three ofus present had known him; I, particularly well, for I had made foursea-voyages with him. He was a very remarkable man. He was born on aship; he picked up what little education he had among his ship-mates;he began life in the forecastle, and climbed grade by grade to thecaptaincy. More than fifty years of his sixty-five were spent at sea.He had sailed all oceans, seen all lands, and borrowed a tint from allclimates. When a man has been fifty years at sea, he necessarily knowsnothing of men, nothing of the world but its surface, nothing of theworld's thought, nothing of the world's learning but it's A B C, andthat blurred and distorted by the unfocussed lenses of an untrainedmind. Such a man is only a gray and bearded child. That is what oldHurricane Jones was--simply an innocent, lovable old infant. When hisspirit was in repose he was as sweet and gentle as a girl; when hiswrath was up he was a hurricane that made his nickname seem tamelydescriptive. He was formidable in a fight, for he was of powerful buildand dauntless courage. He was frescoed from head to heel with picturesand mottoes tattooed in red and blue India ink. I was with him onevoyage when he got his last vacant space tattooed; this vacant space wasaround his left ankle. During three days he stumped about the ship withhis ankle bare and swollen, and this legend gleaming red and angry outfrom a clouding of India ink: 'Virtue is its own R'd.' (There was alack of room.) He was deeply and sincerely pious, and swore like afish-woman. He considered swearing blameless, because sailors wouldnot understand an order unillumined by it. He was a profound Biblicalscholar--that is, he thought he was. He believed everything in theBible, but he had his own methods of arriving at his beliefs. He wasof the 'advanced' school of thinkers, and applied natural laws to theinterpretation of all miracles, somewhat on the plan of the peoplewho make the six days of creation six geological epochs, and so forth.Without being aware of it, he was a rather severe satirist on modernscientific religionists. Such a man as I have been describing is rabidlyfond of disquisition and argument; one knows that without being told it.
One trip the captain had a clergyman on board, but did not know he wasa clergyman, since the passenger list did not betray the fact. He took agreat liking to this Rev. Mr. Peters, and talked with him a great deal:told him yarns, gave him toothsome scraps of personal history, and wovea glittering streak of profanity through his garrulous fabric that wasrefreshing to a spirit weary of the dull neutralities of undecoratedspeech. One day the captain said, 'Peters, do you ever read the Bible?'
'Well--yes.'
'I judge it ain't often, by the way you say it. Now, you tackle it indead earnest once, and you'll find it'll pay. Don't you get discouraged,but hang right on. First you won't understand it; but by-and-by thingswill begin to clear up, and then you wouldn't lay it down to--eat.'
'Yes, I have heard that said.'
'And it's so too. There ain't a book that begins with it. It lays over'em all, Peters. There's some pretty tough things in it--there ain't anygetting around that--but you stick to them and think them out, and whenonce you get on the inside everything's plain as day.'
'The miracles, too, captain?'
'Yes, sir! the miracles, too. Every one of them. Now, there's thatbusiness with the prophets of Baal; like enough that stumped you?'
'Well, I don't know but--'
'Own up, now; it stumped you. Well, I don't wonder. You hadn't anyexperience in ravelling such things out, and naturally it was too manyfor you. Would you like to have me explain that thing to you, and showyou how to get at the meat of these matters?'
'Indeed, I would, captain, if you don't mind.'
Then the captain proceeded as follows: 'I'll do it with pleasure.First, you see, I read and read, and thought and thought, till I gotto understand what sort of people they were in the old Bible times, andthen after that it was clear and easy. Now, this was the way I put itup, concerning Isaac(1) and the prophets of Baal. There was some mightysharp men amongst the public characters of that old ancient day, andIsaac was one of them. Isaac had his failings--plenty of them, too;it ain't for me to apologise for Isaac; he played a cold deck on theprophets of Baal, and like enough he was justifiable, considering theodds that was against him. No, all I say is, 't' wa'n't any miracle, andthat I'll show you so's 't you can see it yourself.
'Well, times had been getting rougher and rougher for prophets--thatis, prophets of Isaac's denomination. There were four hundred and fiftyprophets of Baal in the community, and only one Presbyterian; that is,if Isaac was a Presbyterian, which I reckon he was, but it don't say.Naturally, the prophets of Baal took all the trade. Isaac was prettylow spirited, I reckon, but he was a good deal of a man, and no doubthe went a-prophesying around, letting on to be doing a land-officebusiness, but 't' wa'n't any use; he couldn't run any opposition toamount to anything. By-and-by things got desperate with him; he setshis head to work and thinks it all out, and then what does he do? Why hebegins to throw out hints that the other parties are this and that andt'other,--nothing very definite, may be, but just kind of underminingtheir reputation in a quiet way. This made talk, of course, and finallygot to the King. The King asked Isaac what he meant by his talk. SaysIsaac, "Oh, nothing particular; only, can they pray down fire fromheaven on an altar? It ain't much, maybe, your majesty, only can they doit? That's the idea." So the King was a good deal disturbed, and he wentto the prophets of Baal, and they said, pretty airy, that if he hadan altar ready, they were ready; and they intimated he better get itinsured, too.
'So next morning all the Children of Israel and their parents and theother people gathered themselves together. Well, here was that greatcrowd of prophets of Baal packed together on one side, and Isaac walkingup and down all alone on the other, putting up his job. When time wascalled, Isaac let on to be comfortable and indifferent; told the otherteam to take the first innings. So they went at it, the whole fourhundred and fifty, praying around the altar, very hopefully, and doingtheir level best. They prayed an hour--two hours--three hours--and soon, plumb till noon. It wa'n't any use; they hadn't took a trick. Ofcourse they felt kind of ashamed before all those people, and well theymight. Now, what would a magnanimous man do? Keep still, wouldn't he? Ofcourse. What did Isaac do? He graveled the prophets of Baal every wayhe could think of. Says he, "You don't speak up loud enough; your god'sasleep, like enough, or may be he's taking a walk; you want to holler,you know," or words to that effect; I don't recollect the exactlanguage. Mind I don't apologise for Isaac; he had his faults.
'Well, the prophets of Baal prayed along the best they knew how all theafternoon, and never raised a spark. At last, about sundown, they wereall tuckered out, and they owned up and quit.
'What does Isaac do, now? He steps up and says to some friends ofhis, there, "Pour four barrels of water on the altar!" Everybody wasastonished; for the other side had prayed at it dry, you know, and gotwhitewashed. They poured it on. Says he, "Heave on four more barrels."Then he says, "Heave on four more." Twelve barrels, you see, altogether.The water ran all over the altar, and all down the sides, and filled upa trench around it that would hold a couple of hogsheads--"measures," itsays: I reckon it means about a hogshead. Some of the people were goingto put on their things and go, for they allowed he was crazy. Theydidn't know Isaac. Isaac knelt down and began to pray: he strung along,and strung along, about the heathen in distant lands, and about thesister churches, and about the state and the country at large, andabout those that's in authority in the government, and all the usualprogramme, you know, till everybody had got tired and gone to thinkingabout something else, and then, all of a sudden, when nobody wasnoticing, he outs with a match and rakes it on the under side of hisleg, and pff! up the whole thing blazes like a house afire! Twelvebarrels of water? Petroleum, sir, PETROLEUM! that's what it was!'
'Petroleum, captain?'
'Yes, sir; the country was full of it. Isaac knew all about that. Youread the Bible. Don't you worry about the t
ough places. They ain't toughwhen you come to think them out and throw light on them. There ain't athing in the Bible but what is true; all you want is to go prayerfullyto work and cipher out how 'twas done.'
(1) This is the captain's own mistake.