Various - Stories of Mystery

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"I was th' only one, seemunly, to be cast out alive, an' wi' the dearest
maid in the world (so I thought) waitun for me. I s'pose 'ee might ha'
knowed somethun better, Sir; but I was n' larned, an' I ran so fast as
ever I could up the way I thowt home was, an' I groaned, an' groaned,
an' shook my handes, an' then I thowt, 'Mubbe I may be goun wrong way.'
So I groaned to the Lard to stop the snow. Then I on'y ran this way
an' that way, an' groaned for snow to knock off.[9] I knowed we was
driftun mubbe a twenty leagues a day, and anyways I wanted to be doun
what I could, keepun up over th' Ice so well as I could,
Noofundland-ways, an' I might come to somethun,--to a schooner or
somethun; anyways I'd get up so near as I could. So I looked for a lee.
I s'pose 'ee 'd ha' knowed better what to do, Sir," said the planter,
here again appealing to me, and showing by his question that he
understood me, in spite of my pea-jacket.

[Footnote 9: To stop.]

I had been so carried along with his story that I had felt as if I were
the man on the Ice, myself, and assured him, that, though I could get
along pretty well on land, _and could even do something at netting_,
I should have been very awkward in his place.

"Wull, Sir, I looked for a lee. ('T would n' ha' been so cold, to say
cold, ef it had n' a-blowed so tarrible hard.) First step, I stumbled
upon somethun in the snow, seemed soft, like a body! Then I comed all
together, hopun an' fearun an' all together. Down I goed upon my knees
to un, an' I smoothed away the snow, all tremblun, an' there was a moan,
as ef 't was a-livun.

"'O Lard!' I said, 'who's this? Be this one of our men?'

"But how could it? So I scraped the snow away, but 't was easy to see
't was smaller than a man. There was n' no man on that dreadful place
but me! Wull, Sir, 't was a poor swile, wi' blood runnun all under;
an' I got my cuffs[10] an' sleeves all red wi' it. It looked like a
fellow-creatur's blood, a'most, an' I was a lost man, left to die away
out there in th' Ice, an' I said, 'Poor thing! poor thing!' an' I did
n' mind about the wind, or th' ice, or the schooner goun away from me
afore a gale (I _would_ n' mind about 'em), an' a poor lost Christen
may show a good turn to a hurt thing, ef 't was on'y a baste. So I
smoothed away the snow wi' my cuffs, an' I sid 't was a poor thing wi'
her whelp close by her, an' her tongue out, as ef she'd a-died fondlun
an' lickun it; an' a great puddle o' blood,--it looked tarrible
heartless, when I was so nigh to death, an' was n' hungry. An' then
I feeled a stick, an' I thowt, 'It may be a help to me,' an' so I pulled
un, an' it would n' come, an' I found she was lyun on it; so I hauled
agen, an' when it comed, 't was my gaff the poor baste had got away
from me, an' got it under her, an' she was a-lyun on it. Some o' the
men, when they was runnun for dear life, must ha' struck 'em, out o'
madness like, an' laved 'em to die where they was. 'T was the whelp
was n' quite dead. 'Ee 'll think 't was foolish, Sir, but it seemed
as though they was somethun to me, an' I'd a-lost the last friendly
thing there was.

[Footnote 10: Mittens.]

"I found a big hummock an' sheltered under it, standun on my feet, wi'
nawthun to do but think, an' think, an' pray to God; an' so I doned.
I could n' help feelun to God then, surely. Nawthun to do, an' no place
to go, tull snow cleared away; but jes' drift wi' the great Ice down
from the Nothe, away down over the say, a sixty mile a day, mubbe. I
was n' a good Christen, an' I could n' help a-thinkun o' home an' she
I was troth-plight wi', an' I doubled over myself an' groaned,--I could
n' help it; but bumby it comed into me to say my prayers, an' it seemed
as thof she was askun me to pray (an' she _was_ good, Sir, al'ays),
an' I seemed all opened, somehow, an' I knowed how to pray."

While the words were coming tenderly from the weather-beaten fisherman,
I could not help being moved, and glanced over toward the daughter's
seat; but she was gone, and, turning round, I saw her going quietly,
almost stealthily, and very quickly, _toward the cove_.

The father gave no heed to her leaving, but went on with his tale:--

"Then the wind began to fall down, an' the snow knocked off altogether,
an' the sun comed out; an' I sid th' Ice, field-ice an' icebargs, an'
every one of 'em flashun up as ef they'd kendled up a bonfire, but no
sign of a schooner! no sign of a schooner! nor no sign o' man's douns,
but on'y ice, every way, high an' low, an' some places black water,
in-among; an' on'y the poor swiles bawlun all over, an' I standun
amongst 'em.

"While I was lookun out, I sid a great icebarg (they calls 'em) a quarter
of a mile away, or thereabouts, standun up,--one end a twenty fathom
out o' water, an' about a forty fathom across, wi' hills like, an'
houses,--an' then, jest as ef 'e was alive an' had tooked a notion in
'e'sself, seemunly, all of a sudden 'e rared up, an' turned over an'
over, wi' a tarrible thunderun noise, an' comed right on, breakun
everything an' throwun up great seas; 't was frightsome for a lone body
away out among 'em! I stood an' looked at un, but then agen I thowt
I may jes' so well be goun to thick ice an' over Noofundland-ways a
piece, so well as I could. So I said my bit of a prayer, an' told Un
I could n' help myself; an' I made my confession how bad I'd been, an'
I was sorry, an ef 'E 'd be so pitiful an' forgive me; an' ef I mus'
loss my life, ef 'E 'd be so good as make me a good Christen first,--an'
make _they_ happy, in course.

"So then I started; an' first I goed to where my gaff was, by the
mother-swile an' her whelp. There was swiles every two or three yards
a'most, old uns an' young uns, all round everywhere; an' I feeled shamed
in a manner: but I got my gaff, an' cleaned un, an' then, in God's name,
I took the big swile, that was dead by its dead whelp, an' hauled it
away, where the t' other poor things could n' si' me, an' I sculped[11]
it, an' took the pelt;--for I thowt I'd wear un, now the poor dead thing
did n' want to make oose of un no more,--an' partly becase 't was sech
a lovun thing. An' so I set out, walkun this way for a spurt, an' then
t' other way, keepun up mostly a Nor-norwest, so well as I could:
sometimes away round th' open, an' more times round a lump of ice, an'
more times, agen, off from one an' on to another, every minute. I did
n' feel hungry, for I drinked fresh water off th' ice. No schooner!
no schooner!

[Footnote 11: Skinned.]

"Bumby the sun was goun down: 't was slow work feelun my way along,
an' I did n' want to look about; but then agen I thowt God 'ad made
it to be sid; an' so I come to, an' turned all round, an' looked; an'
surely it seemed like another world, someway, 't was so
beautiful,--yellow, an' different sorts o' red, like the sky itself
in a manner, an' flashun like glass. So then it comed night; an' I thowt
I should n' go to bed, an' I may forget my prayers, an' so I'd, mubbe,
best say 'em right away; an' so I doned: 'Lighten our darkness,' and
others we was oosed to say; an' it comed into my mind, the Lard said
to Saint Peter, 'Why did n' 'ee have faith?' when there was nawthun
on the water for un to go on; an' I had ice under foot,--'t was but
frozen water, but 't was frozen,--an' I thanked Un.

"I could n' help thinkun o' Brigus an' them I'd laved in it, an' then
I prayed for 'em; an' I could n' help cryun a'most; but then I give
over agen, an' would n' think, ef I could help it; on'y tryun to say
an odd psalm, all through singun-psalms an' other, for I knowed a many
of 'em by singun wi' Patience, on'y now I cared more about 'em: I said
that one,--

'Sech as in ships an' brickle barks
Into the seas descend,
Their merchantun, through fearful floods,
To compass an' to end:
They men are force-put to behold
The Lard's works, what they be;
An' in the dreadful deep the same
Most marvellous they see.'

An' I said a many more (I can't be accountable how many I said), an'
same uns many times, over: for I would keep on; an' 'ould sometimes
sing 'em very loud in my poor way.

"A poor baste (a silver fox 'e was) comed an' looked at me; an' when
I turned round, he walked away a piece, an' then 'e comed back, an'
looked.

"So I found a high piece, wi' a wall of ice atop for shelter, ef it
comed on to blow; an' so I stood, an' said, an' sung. I knowed well
I was on'y driftun away.

"It was tarrible lonely in the night, when night comed; it's no use!
'T was tarrible lonely: but I 'ould n' think, ef I could help it; an'
I prayed a bit, an' kep' up my psalms, an' varses out o' the Bible,
I'd a-larned. I had n' a-prayed for sleep, but for wakun all night,
an' there I was, standun.

"The moon was out agen, so bright; an' all the hills of ice shinun up
to her; an' stars twinklun, so busy, all over; an' No'ther' Lights goun
up wi' a faint blaze, seemunly, from th' ice, an' meetun up aloft; an'
sometimes a great groanun, an' more times tarrible loud shriekun! There
was great white fields, an' great white hills, like countries, comun
down to be destroyed; an' some great bargs a-goun faster, an' tearun
through, breakun others to pieces; an' the groanun an' screechun,--ef
all the dead that ever was, wi' their white clothes--But no!" said the
stout fisherman, recalling himself from gazing, as he seemed to be,
on the far-off ghastly scene, in memory.

"No!--an' thank 'E's marcy, I'm sittun by my own room. 'E tooked me
off; but 't was a dreadful sight,--it's no use,--ef a body'd let
'e'sself think! I sid a great black bear, an' hard un growl; an' 't
was feelun, like, to hear un so bold an' so stout, among all they
dreadful things, an' bumby the time 'ould come when 'e could n' save
'e'sself, do what 'e woul'.

"An' more times 't was all still: on'y swiles bawlun, all over. Ef it
had n' a-been for they poor swiles, how could I stan' it? Many's the
one I'd a-ketched, daytime, an' talked to un, an' patted un on the head,
as ef they'd a-been dogs by the door, like; an' they'd oose to shut
their eyes, an' draw their poor foolish faces together. It seemed
neighbor-like to have some live thing.

"So I kep' awake, sayun an' singun, an' it was n' very cold; an'
so,--first thing I knowed, I started, an' there I was lyun in a heap;
an' I must have been asleep, an' did n' know how 't was, nor how long
I'd a-been so: an' some sort o' baste started away, an' 'e must have
waked me up; I could n' rightly see what 't was, wi' sleepiness: an'
then I hard a sound, sounded like breakers; an' that waked me fairly.
'T was like a lee-shore; an' 't was a comfort to think o' land, ef 't
was on'y to be wrecked on itself: but I did n' go, an' I stood an'
listened to un; an' now an' agen I'd walk a piece, back an' forth, an'
back an' forth; an' so I passed a many, many longsome hours, seemunly,
tull night goed down tarrible slowly, an' it comed up day o' t' other
side: an' there was n' no land; nawthun but great mountains meltun an'
breakun up, an' fields wastun away. I sid 't was a rollun barg made
the noise like breakers; throwun up great seas o' both sides of un;
no sight nor sign o' shore, nor ship, but dazun white,--enough to blind
a body,--an' I knowed 't was all floatun away, over the say. Then I
said my prayers, an' tooked a drink o' water, an' set out agen for
Nor-norwest: 't was all I could do. Sometimes snow, an' more times fair
agen; but no sign o' man's things, an' no sign o' land, on'y white ice
an' black water; an' ef a schooner was n' into un a'ready, 't was n'
likely they woul', for we was gettun furder an' furder away. Tired I
was wi' goun, though I had n' walked more n' a twenty or thirty mile,
mubbe, an' it all comun down so fast as I could go up, an' faster, an'
never stoppun! 'T was a tarrible long journey up over the driftun ice,
at sea! So, then I went on a high bit to wait tull all was done; I thowt
't would be last to melt, an' mubbe, I thowt 'e may capsize wi' me,
when I did n' know (for I don' say I was stouthearted); an' I prayed
Un to take care o' them I loved; an' the tears comed. Then I felt
somethun tryun to turn me round like, an' it seemed as ef _she_ was
doun it, somehow, an' she seemed to be very nigh, somehow, an' I did
n' look.

"After a bit, I got up to look out where most swiles was, for company,
while I was livun: an' the first look struck me a'most like a bullet!
There I sid a sail! _'T was_ a sail, an' 't was like heaven openun,
an' God settun her down there. About three mile away she was, to
nothe'ard, in th' Ice.

"I could ha' sid, at first look, what schooner 't was; but I did n'
want to look hard at her. I kep' my peace, a spurt, an' then I runned
an' bawled out, 'Glory be to God!' an' then I stopped, an' made proper
thanks to Un. An' there she was, same as ef I'd a-walked off from her
an hour ago! It felt so long as ef I'd been livun years, an' they would
n' know me, sca'ce. Somehow, I did n' think I could come up wi' her.

"I started, in the name o' God wi' all my might, an' went, an' went,--'t
was a five mile, wi' goun round,--an' got her, thank God! 'T was n'
the Baccaloue (I sid that long before), 't was t' other schooner, the
Sparrow, repairun damages they'd got day before. So that kep' 'em there,
an' I'd a-been took from one an' brought to t' other.

"I could n' do a hand's turn tull we got into the Bay agen,--I was so
clear beat out. The Sparrow kep' her men, an' fotch home about
thirty-eight hundred swiles, an' a poor man off th' Ice: but they, poor
fellows, that I went out wi' never comed no more: an' I never went agen.

"I kept the skin o' the poor baste, Sir: that's 'e on my cap."

When the planter had fairly finished his tale, it was a little while
before I could teach my eyes to see the things about me in their places.
The slow-going sail, outside, I at first saw as the schooner that
brought away the lost man from the Ice; the green of the earth would
not, at first, show itself through the white with which the fancy
covered it; and at first I could not quite feel that the ground was
fast under my feet. I even mistook one of my own men (the sight of whom
was to warn me that I was wanted elsewhere) for one of the crew of the
schooner Sparrow of a generation ago.

I got the tale and its scene gathered away, presently, inside my mind,
and shook myself into a present association with surrounding things,
and took my leave. I went away the more gratified that I had a chance
of lifting my cap to a matron, dark-haired and comely (who, I was sure,
at a glance, had once been the maiden of Benjie Westham's
"troth-plight"), and receiving a handsome courtesy in return.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

THE INVISIBLE PRINCESS.

BY FRANCIS O'CONNOR.

I could be "as tedious as a king," in analyzing those chivalrous
instincts of masculine youth that lured me from college at nineteen,
and away over the watery deserts of the sea; and, like Dogberry, "I
could find in my heart to bestow it all of your worships." But since,
like the auditor of that worthy, you do not want it, I will pass over
the embarkation, which was tedious, over the sea-sickness, which was
more tedious, over the home-sickness, over the monotonous duties
assigned me, and the unvarying prospect of sea and sky, all so tedious
that I grew as morose after a time as a travelling Englishman. Neither
was coasting, with restricted liberty and much toil, amongst people
whose language I could not speak, quite all that my fancy painted
it,--although Genoa, Venice, the Bay of Naples,--crimsoned by Vesuvius,
and canopied by an Italian sky,--and the storied scenes of Greece, all
rich in beauties and historic associations, repaid many discomforts
at the time and remain to me forever as treasures of memory the more
precious for being dearly bought. But these, with the pleasures and
displeasures of Constantinople,--the limit of our voyage,--I will pass
over, to the midsummer eve when, with all the arrangements for our
return voyage completed, we swung slowly out of the northern eddy of
the Golden Horn into the clear blue Bosphorus.

Already the lengthening shadows of a thousand domes and minarets
stretched across its waters, and glimpses of sunlight lay between them,
like golden clasps linking continent to continent. Around us were ships
and sailors from all parts of the habitable globe; while through shine
and shadow flitted boats and caiques innumerable, and except where
these, or the rising of a porpoise, or the dipping of a gull, broke
the surface of the water, it lay as smooth as a mirror, reflecting its
palace-guarded shores.

The men were lounging about the deck or leaning over the bulwarks,
listening to a neighboring crew chanting their vespers, while we
awaited the coming on board of our captain. Meanwhile the shadows crept
up the Asian hills, till the last sombre answering smile to the sun's
good-night faded from the cypress-trees above the graves of Scutari.

Beside me, long in silent admiration of the scene, stood my messmates,
Fred Smith and Mike O'Hanlon,--two genuine specimens of Young New York,
the first of whom disappointed love had driven to sea, whither also
friendship and a reckless spirit of adventure had impelled the second.
Behind us was one, a just impression of whom--if I could but convey
it--would make what followed appear as possible to you as it did to
us who were long his companions. I never knew to what country he
belonged; for he spoke any language occasion called for, with the same
apparent ease and fluency. He was far beyond the ordinary stature, yet
it was only when you saw him in comparison with other men that you
observed anything gigantic in his form. His hair was black, and hung
in a smooth, heavy, even wave down to his massive jaw, which was always
clean shaved, if indeed beard ever grew upon it. Neither could I guess
his age; for though he was apparently in manhood's prime, it often
appeared to me that the spirit I saw looking through his eyes must have
been looking from them for a thousand years.

And how I need to exult in watching him deal with matter! He never took
anything by the wrong end, nor failed to grasp a swinging rope or a
flapping sail, nor miscalculated the effort necessary to the
performance of whatever he undertook. He was silent, but not morose.
Yet there was something in his measured tones and the gaze of his large
gray eyes which Mike compared in their mingled effects to the charms
of sight and sound that the victims of the rattlesnake's fascination
are said to undergo. Whatever sensations they occasioned, men shrank
from renewing them, and the frankest and boldest of the crew shunned
occasions for addressing him. Stranger still, this feeling, instead
of wearing off by the close companionship of our little bark, seemed
to deepen and strengthen, until at length, except myself, no one spoke
to him who could avoid it. Even the captain, when circumstances allowed
him a choice, always directed his orders to another, though this man's
duties were performed with the quiet promptness of a machine. If he
was conscious of anything peculiar in the behavior of his companions
toward him, he betrayed no indication of it. Such he was who stood
listening, with an appearance of interest unusual in him, to our
otherwise inconsequent chat.

"You are bidding a very silent adieu to the Genius of the East," I said.

"Yes," Fred answered, "it's her first actual revelation to me, but it's
a glorious one."

"Let those who love to decipher illegible inscriptions, to contemplate
a throttled centaur on a dilapidated frieze, or a carved acanthus on
a fallen capital, grope over the Acropolis and invoke Athenian Pallas,"
said Mike; "but for me these painted seraglios and terraced,
bower-canopied gardens, vocal with nightingales and seeming to
impregnate the very air with the pleasures of desire, justify the
decision of Paris. Hurrah for Asiatic Venus!"

"You are no true Christian knight," I said. "Your Rinaldos and Sir
Guyons always waste your gardens of voluptuous delight, and wipe out
their abominations."

"Yes," he retorted, "all but the abomination of desolation."

"But do you consider," said Fred, "how many sweet birds may be looking
out through the bars of those bright lattice cages even now, who can
follow neither their hearts' desires nor their souls' aspirations, but
whom fate has degraded to be the slaves of some miserable old Blue
Beard?"

"Why don't you sail in and rescue some of them?" said Mike mockingly.
"Tell the old tyrant to his cerulean beard that he has too many strings
to his bow, and he will undoubtedly spare a bow-string to twine around
your manly neck. But I guess you had better, after all, leave the
Fatimas to their fate. The barriers that fence them in from their
hearts' desires and souls' aspirations here are not more real, if more
palpable, than those that guard them in our land of boasted freedom;
neither are they altogether secure from sale and barter there; and as
for us outside barbarians, I'd as lief be shut out by palace walls from
a beauty I can only imagine, as by custom still more insurmountable
from beauty set visibly before me and enhanced with intellectual and
social graces."

I cited the lady in the song, who says:--

A tarry sailor I'll ne'er disdain,
But always I will treat the same,

as proof that such exclusiveness was far from being the universal rule
at home, and encouraged him to rival the "swabber, the boatswain and
mate" for "Moll, Mag, Marion, and Margery."

"Or," said he, "like the jolly tar you quote, dismiss both your songs
as 'scurvy tunes,' and, swigging at a black jack, say: Here's my
comfort."

"I am not sure," said Fred bitterly, thinking of his own rejected suit,
"that Stephano's philosophy is not the best for wretches like us."

"Yes," said Mike, "until after the Millennium. Then the march of
civilization will be ended, and the ranks may be broken. Then soft hands
and hard hands may clasp each other. Then rays from the purest and most
refined souls may shine through bright eyes without being especially
chilled for those whom a cold destiny makes especially needful of their
heart-warming influences. Then you, poor as you are, may aspire to wed
the daughter of a banker, and Joe or I may seek to satisfy the heart's
desires of the Sultan's daughter, without Aladdin's lamp or Oberon's
whistle."

Here our strange auditor came forward with a small tin whistle in his
hand, and gravely presenting it to Fred, he advised him to try its note
on the hard-hearted parent who opposed his happiness. In the deepening
twilight, Fred and Mike, putting their heads together, read the
following legend graven upon it:--

O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad!

We all laughed outright, except the donor.

"This is not Oberon's whistle, at any rate," I said.

"No," he answered, "the inspiration of this is from Mammon, whose gates
I understood shut Mr. Smith out from his true love. A single blast on
it will, I dare say, open them wide enough to let him in."

"Then it's as good as money to you, Fred," said Mike.

"That's what our old boss used to tell us," answered Fred ruefully,
"when he gave us orders on a neighboring grocery, in lieu of cash for
our wages. But I must confess I have now, as I had then, a prejudice
in favor of the circulating medium."

"If so, whistle for it at once," said the other.

Fred looked at him, and then at Mike and me, with a puzzled expression
which seemed to ask: Is this a crazy freak, or an absurd, insulting
joke?

"Now," said the object of this scrutiny, turning to me, "I have a
talisman for you also, wherewith to entice the Sultan's daughter. It
is a ruby of rare size and color, and therefore valuable. But the power
of the spell it is said to possess remains to be tested. I give it to
you because in you, at this moment, are fulfilled the conditions
necessary to exercise this spell; which you do by simply taking the
jewel in your hand thus, and saying,--

Come, O royal maiden, come to me this hour."

"And she'll come, of course," said Mike, bantering me in his turn. "Now
hoist your signal and hail the daughter of the Grand Turk, and let Fred
pipe for his princess at the same auspicious moment."

"Amen!" I said, holding up the gem till the moonbeams blushed red in
it, and calling out with a strange, impulsive sense of power,--

"Come, O royal maiden, come to me this hour."

But no responsive tooting of the whistle echoed from the lips of Fred.
I looked toward him for an explanation of the silence, and beheld him
spitting out the fragments of the instrument, which had gone to pieces
in his mouth.

"What's all this?" he exclaimed, unrolling a little scroll of paper
that had been compressed within it, and holding it up to the light.
"See here, Joe, what do you make of this?"

"A draft for ten thousand pounds sterling, on the Bank of England, duly
signed and indorsed," I answered after scrutinizing it carefully.

We turned simultaneously for an explanation, but there was no one to
give it.

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