CHAPTER XCIII.
CABLE AND ANCHOR ALL CLEAR.
And now that the white jacket has sunk to the bottom of the sea, andthe blessed Capes of Virginia are believed to be broad on ourbow--though still out of sight--our five hundred souls are fondlydreaming of home, and the iron throats of the guns round the galleyre-echo with their songs and hurras--what more remains?
Shall I tell what conflicting and almost crazy surmisings prevailedconcerning the precise harbour for which we were bound? For, accordingto rumour, our Commodore had received sealed orders touching thatmatter, which were not to be broken open till we gained a preciselatitude of the coast. Shall I tell how, at last, all this uncertaintydeparted, and many a foolish prophecy was proved false, when our noblefrigate--her longest pennant at her main--wound her stately way intothe innermost harbour of Norfolk, like a plumed Spanish Grandeethreading the corridors of the Escurial toward the throne-room within?Shall I tell how we kneeled upon the holy soil? How I begged a blessingof old Ushant, and one precious hair of his beard for a keepsake? HowLemsford, the gun-deck bard, offered up a devout ode as a prayer ofthanksgiving? How saturnine Nord, the magnifico in disguise, refusingall companionship, stalked off into the woods, like the ghost of an oldCalif of Bagdad? How I swayed and swung the hearty hand of Jack Chase,and nipped it to mine with a Carrick bend; yea, and kissed that noblehand of my liege lord and captain of my top, my sea-tutor and sire?
Shall I tell how the grand Commodore and Captain drove off from thepier-head? How the Lieutenants, in undress, sat down to their lastdinner in the ward-room, and the champagne, packed in ice, spirted andsparkled like the Hot Springs out of a snow-drift in Iceland? How theChaplain went off in his cassock, without bidding the people adieu? Howshrunken Cuticle, the Surgeon, stalked over the side, the wiredskeleton carried in his wake by his cot-boy? How the Lieutenant ofMarines sheathed his sword on the poop, and, calling for wax and ataper, sealed the end of the scabbard with his family crest andmotto--_Denique Coelum?_ How the Purser in due time mustered hismoney-bags, and paid us all off on the quarter-deck--good and bad, sickand well, all receiving their wages; though, truth to tell, somereckless, improvident seamen, who had lived too fast during the cruise,had little or nothing now standing on the credit side of their Purser'saccounts?
Shall I tell of the Retreat of the Five Hundred inland; not, alas! inbattle-array, as at quarters, but scattered broadcast over the land?
Shall I tell how the Neversink was at last stripped of spars, shrouds,and sails--had her guns hoisted out--her powder-magazine, shot-lockers,and armouries discharged--till not one vestige of a fighting thing wasleft in her, from furthest stem to uttermost stern?
No! let all this go by; for our anchor still hangs from our bows,though its eager flukes dip their points in the impatient waves. Let usleave the ship on the sea--still with the land out of sight--still withbrooding darkness on the face of the deep. I love an indefinite,infinite background--a vast, heaving, rolling, mysterious rear!
It is night. The meagre moon is in her last quarter--that betokens theend of a cruise that is passing. But the stars look forth in theireverlasting brightness--and _that_ is the everlasting, glorious Future,for ever beyond us.
We main-top-men are all aloft in the top; and round our mast we circle,a brother-band, hand in hand, all spliced together. We have reefed thelast top-sail; trained the last gun; blown the last match; bowed to thelast blast; been tranced in the last calm. We have mustered our lastround the capstan; been rolled to grog the last time; for the last timeswung in our hammocks; for the last time turned out at the sea-gullcall of the watch. We have seen our last man scourged at the gangway;our last man gasp out the ghost in the stifling Sick-bay; our last mantossed to the sharks. Our last death-denouncing Article of War has beenread; and far inland, in that blessed clime whither-ward our frigatenow glides, the last wrong in our frigate will be remembered no more;when down from our main-mast comes our Commodore's pennant, when downsinks its shooting stars from the sky.
"By the mark, nine!" sings the hoary old leadsman, in the chains. Andthus, the mid-world Equator passed, our frigate strikes soundings atlast.
Hand in hand we top-mates stand, rocked in our Pisgah top. And over thestarry waves, and broad out into the blandly blue and boundless night,spiced with strange sweets from the long-sought land--the whole longcruise predestinated ours, though often in tempest-time we almostrefused to believe in that far-distant shore--straight out into thatfragrant night, ever-noble Jack Chase, matchless and unmatchable JackChase stretches forth his bannered hand, and, pointing shoreward,cries: "For the last time, hear Camoens, boys!"
"How calm the waves, how mild the balmy gale! The Halcyons call, ye Lusians spread the sail! Appeased, old Ocean now shall rage no more; Haste, point our bowsprit for yon shadowy shore. Soon shall the transports of your natal soil O'erwhelm in bounding joy the thoughts of every toil."
* * * * *
THE END.
As a man-of-war that sails through the sea, so this earth that sailsthrough the air. We mortals are all on board a fast-sailing,never-sinking world-frigate, of which God was the shipwright; and sheis but one craft in a Milky-Way fleet, of which God is the Lord HighAdmiral. The port we sail from is for ever astern. And though far outof sight of land, for ages and ages we continue to sail with sealedorders, and our last destination remains a secret to ourselves and ourofficers; yet our final haven was predestinated ere we slipped from thestocks at Creation.
Thus sailing with sealed orders, we ourselves are the repositories ofthe secret packet, whose mysterious contents we long to learn. Thereare no mysteries out of ourselves. But let us not give ear to thesuperstitious, gun-deck gossip about whither we may be gliding, for, asyet, not a soul on board of us knows--not even the Commodore himself;assuredly not the Chaplain; even our Professor's scientific surmisingsare vain. On that point, the smallest cabin-boy is as wise as theCaptain. And believe not the hypochondriac dwellers below hatches, whowill tell you, with a sneer, that our world-frigate is bound to nofinal harbour whatever; that our voyage will prove an endlesscircumnavigation of space. Not so. For how can this world-frigate proveour eventual abiding place, when upon our first embarkation, as infantsin arms, her violent rolling--in after life unperceived--makes everysoul of us sea-sick? Does not this show, too, that the very air we hereinhale is uncongenial, and only becomes endurable at last throughgradual habituation, and that some blessed, placid haven, howeverremote at present, must be in store for us all?
Glance fore and aft our flush decks. What a swarming crew! All told,they muster hard upon eight hundred millions of souls. Over these wehave authoritative Lieutenants, a sword-belted Officer of Marines, aChaplain, a Professor, a Purser, a Doctor, a Cook, a Master-at-arms.
Oppressed by illiberal laws, and partly oppressed by themselves, manyof our people are wicked, unhappy, inefficient. We have skulkers andidlers all round, and brow-beaten waisters, who, for a pittance, do ourcraft's shabby work. Nevertheless, among our people we have gallantfore, main, and mizzen top-men aloft, who, well treated or ill, stilltrim our craft to the blast.
We have a _brig_ for trespassers; a bar by our main-mast, at which theyare arraigned; a cat-o'-nine-tails and a gangway, to degrade them intheir own eyes and in ours. These are not always employed to convertSin to Virtue, but to divide them, and protect Virtue and legalised Sinfrom unlegalised Vice.
We have a Sick-bay for the smitten and helpless, whither we hurry themout of sight, and however they may groan beneath hatches, we hearlittle of their tribulations on deck; we still sport our gay streameraloft. Outwardly regarded, our craft is a lie; for all that isoutwardly seen of it is the clean-swept deck, and oft-painted plankscomprised above the waterline; whereas, the vast mass of our fabric,with all its storerooms of secrets, for ever slides along far under thesurface.
When a shipmate dies, straightway we sew him up, and overboard he goes;our world-frigate rushes by, and never mor
e do we behold him again;though, sooner or later, the everlasting under-tow sweeps him towardour own destination.
We have both a quarter-deck to our craft and a gun-deck; subterraneanshot-lockers and gunpowder magazines; and the Articles of War form ourdomineering code.
Oh, shipmates and world-mates, all round! we the people suffer manyabuses. Our gun-deck is full of complaints. In vain from Lieutenants dowe appeal to the Captain; in vain--while on board our world-frigate--tothe indefinite Navy Commissioners, so far out of sight aloft. Yet theworst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves; our officerscannot remove them, even if they would. From the last ills no being cansave another; therein each man must be his own saviour. For the rest,whatever befall us, let us never train our murderous guns inboard; letus not mutiny with bloody pikes in our hands. Our Lord High Admiralwill yet interpose; and though long ages should elapse, and leave ourwrongs unredressed, yet, shipmates and world-mates! let us neverforget, that,
Whoever afflict us, whatever surround, Life is a voyage that's homeward-bound!
THE END
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