Dear comrade, pardon and absolve your spiritual adviser, for seeking to remould so delicate and original a soul as yours; and, though neither prophet nor priest, I yet give you the kiss of peace at parting, and the benediction of unceasing love.
PART III.
BARBARIAN DAYS.
We had been watching intently the faint, shadowy outline along the horizon, and wondering whether it were really land, or but a cloudy similitude of it; while we bore down upon it all the afternoon in fine style, and the breeze freshened as evening came on. It was all clear sailing, and we were in pretty good spirits,—which is not always the case with landsmen at sea.
Sitting there on the after-deck, I had asked myself, more than once, If life were made up of placid days like this, how long would life be sweet? I gave it up every time; for one is not inclined to consider so curiously as to press any problem to a solution in those indolent latitudes.
Perhaps it was Captain Kidd who told me he had sailed out of a twelve-knot breeze on a sudden,—slipping off the edges of it, as it were,—and found his sails all aback as he slid into a dead calm. There, rocking in still weather, he saw another bark, almost within hail, blown into the west and out of sight, like a bird in a March gale.
I wonder what caused me to think of Kidd's experiences just then? I can't imagine, unless it was some prescient shadow floating in my neighborhood,—the precursor of the little event that followed. Such things do happen, and when we least expect it; though, fortunately, they don't worry us as a general thing. I didn't worry at all, but sat there by myself, while some of my fellow-passengers took a regular "constitutional" up and down the deck, and over and over it, until the nervous woman below in the cabin "blessed her stars," and wished herself ashore.
I preferred sitting and pondering over the cloud that seemed slowly to rise from the sea, assuming definite and undeniable appearances of land.
I knew very well what land it must be: one of a group of islands every inch of which I had traversed with the zeal of youthful enthusiasm; but which of them, was a question I almost feared to have answered. Yet, what difference could it make to me! The land was providentially in our course, but not on our way-bill. If we were within gunshot of its loveliest portion, we must needs pass on as frigidly as though it were Charybdis, or something equally dreadful; and I began to think it might be something of the sort, because of its besetting temptations.