CHAPTER LXV.
A MAN-OF-WAR RACE.
We lay in Rio so long--for what reason the Commodore only knows--that asaying went abroad among the impatient sailors that our frigate wouldat last ground on the beef-bones daily thrown overboard by the cooks.
But at last good tidings came. "All hands up anchor, ahoy!" And brightand early in the morning up came our old iron, as the sun rose in theEast.
The land-breezes at Rio--by which alone vessels may emerge from thebay--is ever languid and faint. It comes from gardens of citrons andcloves, spiced with all the spices of the Tropic of Capricorn. And,like that old exquisite, Mohammed, who so much loved to snuff perfumesand essences, and used to lounge out of the conservatories of Khadija,his wife, to give battle to the robust sons of Koriesh; even so thisRio land-breeze comes jaded with sweet-smelling savours, to wrestlewith the wild Tartar breezes of the sea.
Slowly we dropped and dropped down the bay, glided like a stately swanthrough the outlet, and were gradually rolled by the smooth, slidingbillows broad out upon the deep. Straight in our wake came the tallmain-mast of the English fighting-frigate, terminating, like a steepledcathedral, in the bannered cross of the religion of peace; and straightafter _her_ came the rainbow banner of France, sporting God's tokenthat no more would he make war on the earth.
Both Englishmen and Frenchmen were resolved upon a race; and we Yankeesswore by our top-sails and royals to sink their blazing banners thatnight among the Southern constellations we should daily beextinguishing behind us in our run to the North.
"Ay," said Mad Jack, "St. George's banner shall be as the _SouthernCross_, out of sight, leagues down the horizon, while our gallantstars, my brave boys, shall burn all alone in the North, like the GreatBear at the Pole! Come on, Rainbow and Cross!"
But the wind was long languid and faint, not yet recovered from itsnight's dissipation ashore, and noon advanced, with the Sugar-Loafpinnacle in sight.
Now it is not with ships as with horses; for though, if a horse walkwell and fast, it generally furnishes good token that he is not bad ata gallop, yet the ship that in a light breeze is outstripped, may sweepthe stakes, so soon as a t'gallant breeze enables her to strike into acanter. Thus fared it with us. First, the Englishman glided ahead, andbluffly passed on; then the Frenchman politely bade us adieu, while theold Neversink lingered behind, railing at the effeminate breeze. At onetime, all three frigates were irregularly abreast, forming a diagonalline; and so near were all three, that the stately officers on thepoops stiffly saluted by touching their caps, though refraining fromany further civilities. At this juncture, it was a noble sight tobehold those fine frigates, with dripping breast-hooks, all rearing andnodding in concert, and to look through their tall spars and wildernessof rigging, that seemed like inextricably-entangled, gigantic cobwebsagainst the sky.
Toward sundown the ocean pawed its white hoofs to the spur of itshelter-skelter rider, a strong blast from the Eastward, and, givingthree cheers from decks, yards, and tops, we crowded all sail on St.George and St. Denis.
But it is harder to overtake than outstrip; night fell upon us, stillin the rear--still where the little boat was, which, at the eleventhhour, according to a Rabbinical tradition, pushed after the ark of oldNoah.
It was a misty, cloudy night; and though at first our look-outs keptthe chase in dim sight, yet at last so thick became the atmosphere,that no sign of a strange spar was to be seen. But the worst of it wasthat, when last discerned, the Frenchman was broad on our weather-bow,and the Englishman gallantly leading his van.
The breeze blew fresher and fresher; but, with even our main-royal set,we dashed along through a cream-coloured ocean of illuminated foam.White-Jacket was then in the top; and it was glorious to look down andsee our black hull butting the white sea with its broad bows like a ram.
"We must beat them with such a breeze, dear Jack," said I to our nobleCaptain of the Top.
"But the same breeze blows for John Bull, remember," replied Jack, who,being a Briton, perhaps favoured the Englishman more than the Neversink.
"But how we boom through the billows!" cried Jack, gazing over thetop-rail; then, flinging forth his arm, recited,
"'Aslope, and gliding on the leeward side, The bounding vessel cuts the roaring tide.'
Camoens! White-Jacket, Camoens! Did you ever read him? The Lusiad, Imean? It's the man-of-war epic of the world, my lad. Give me Gama for aCommodore, say I--Noble Gama! And Mickle, White-Jacket, did you everread of him? William Julius Mickle? Camoens's Translator? Adisappointed man though, White-Jacket. Besides his version of theLusiad, he wrote many forgotten things. Did you ever see his ballad ofCumnor Hall?--No?--Why, it gave Sir Walter Scott the hint ofKenilworth. My father knew Mickle when he went to sea on board the oldRomney man-of-war. How many great men have been sailors, White-Jacket!They say Homer himself was once a tar, even as his hero, Ulysses, wasboth a sailor and a shipwright. I'll swear Shakspeare was once acaptain of the forecastle. Do you mind the first scene in _TheTempest_, White-Jacket? And the world-finder, Christopher Columbus, wasa sailor! and so was Camoens, who went to sea with Gama, else we hadnever had the Lusiad, White-Jacket. Yes, I've sailed over the verytrack that Camoens sailed--round the East Cape into the Indian Ocean.I've been in Don Jose's garden, too, in Macao, and bathed my feet inthe blessed dew of the walks where Camoens wandered before me. Yes,White-Jacket, and I have seen and sat in the cave at the end of theflowery, winding way, where Camoens, according to tradition, composedcertain parts of his Lusiad. Ay, Camoens was a sailor once! Then,there's Falconer, whose 'Ship-wreck' will never founder, though hehimself, poor fellow, was lost at sea in the Aurora frigate. Old Noahwas the first sailor. And St. Paul, too, knew how to box the compass,my lad! mind you that chapter in Acts? I couldn't spin the yarn bettermyself. Were you ever in Malta? They called it Melita in the Apostle'sday. I have been in Paul's cave there, White-Jacket. They say a pieceof it is good for a charm against shipwreck; but I never tried it.There's Shelley, he was quite a sailor. Shelley--poor lad! a Percy,too--but they ought to have let him sleep in his sailor's grave--he wasdrowned in the Mediterranean, you know, near Leghorn--and not burn hisbody, as they did, as if he had been a bloody Turk. But many peoplethought him so, White-Jacket, because he didn't go to mass, and becausehe wrote Queen Mab. Trelawney was by at the burning; and he was anocean-rover, too! Ay, and Byron helped put a piece of a keel on thefire; for it was made of bits of a wreck, they say; one wreck burninganother! And was not Byron a sailor? an amateur forecastle-man,White-Jacket, so he was; else how bid the ocean heave and fall in thatgrand, majestic way? I say, White-Jacket, d'ye mind me? there never wasa very great man yet who spent all his life inland. A snuff of the sea,my boy, is inspiration; and having been once out of sight of land, hasbeen the making of many a true poet and the blasting of manypretenders; for, d'ye see, there's no gammon about the ocean; it knocksthe false keel right off a pretender's bows; it tells him just what heis, and makes him feel it, too. A sailor's life, I say, is the thing tobring us mortals out. What does the blessed Bible say? Don't it saythat we main-top-men alone see the marvellous sights and wonders? Don'tdeny the blessed Bible, now! don't do it! How it rocks up here, myboy!" holding on to a shroud; "but it only proves what I've beensaying--the sea is the place to cradle genius! Heave and fall, old sea!"
"And _you_, also, noble Jack," said I, "what are you but a sailor?"
"You're merry, my boy," said Jack, looking up with a glance like thatof a sentimental archangel doomed to drag out his eternity in disgrace."But mind you, White-Jacket, there are many great men in the worldbesides Commodores and Captains. I've that here,White-Jacket"--touching his forehead--"which, under happierskies--perhaps in you solitary star there, peeping down from thoseclouds--might have made a Homer of me. But Fate is Fate, White-Jacket;and we Homers who happen to be captains of tops must write our odes inour hearts, and publish them in our heads. But look! the Captain's onthe poop."
It was now midnight; but all the officers were
on deck.
"Jib-boom, there!" cried the Lieutenant of the Watch, going forward andhailing the headmost look-out. "D'ye see anything of those fellows now?"
"See nothing, sir."
"See nothing, sir," said the Lieutenant, approaching the Captain, andtouching his cap.
"Call all hands!" roared the Captain. "This keel sha'n't be beat whileI stride it."
All hands were called, and the hammocks stowed in the nettings for therest of the night, so that no one could lie between blankets.
Now, in order to explain the means adopted by the Captain to insure usthe race, it needs to be said of the Neversink, that, for some yearsafter being launched, she was accounted one of the slowest vessels inthe American Navy. But it chanced upon a time, that, being on a cruisein the Mediterranean, she happened to sail out of Port Mahon in whatwas then supposed to be very bad trim for the sea. Her bows wererooting in the water, and her stern kicking up its heels in the air.But, wonderful to tell, it was soon discovered that in this comicalposture she sailed like a shooting-star; she outstripped every vesselon the station. Thenceforward all her Captains, on all cruises,_trimmed her by the head;_ and the Neversink gained the name of aclipper.
To return. All hands being called, they were now made use of by CaptainClaret as make-weights, to trim the ship, scientifically, to her mostapproved bearings. Some were sent forward on the spar-deck, withtwenty-four-pound shot in their hands, and were judiciously scatteredabout here and there, with strict orders not to budge an inch fromtheir stations, for fear of marring the Captain's plans. Others weredistributed along the gun and berth-decks, with similar orders; and, tocrown all, several carronade guns were unshipped from their carriages,and swung in their breechings from the beams of the main-deck, so as toimpart a sort of vibratory briskness and oscillating buoyancy to thefrigate.
And thus we five hundred make-weights stood out that whole night, someof us exposed to a drenching rain, in order that the Neversink mightnot be beaten. But the comfort and consolation of all make-weights isas dust in the balance in the estimation of the rulers of ourman-of-war world.
The long, anxious night at last came to an end, and, with the firstpeep of day, the look-out on the jib-boom was hailed; but nothing wasin sight. At last it was broad day; yet still not a bow was to be seenin our rear, nor a stern in our van.
"Where are they?" cried the Captain.
"Out of sight, astern, to be sure, sir," said the officer of the deck.
"Out of sight, _ahead_, to be sure, sir," muttered Jack Chase, in thetop.
Precisely thus stood the question: whether we beat them, or whetherthey beat us, no mortal can tell to this hour, since we never saw themagain; but for one, White-Jacket will lay his two hands on the bowchasers of the Neversink, and take his ship's oath that we Yankeescarried the day.