Why Captain Ponto (for so I shall call my landlady’s friend, the colored skipper) named his little schooner the “Prince Albert,” I can not imagine, unless he thought thereby to do honor to the Queen-Consort; for the aforesaid schooner had evidently got old, and been condemned, long before that lucky Dutchman woke the echoes of Gotha with his baby cries. The “Prince Albert” was of about seventy tons burden, built something on the model of the “Jung-frau,” the first vessel of the Netherlands that rolled itself into New York bay, like some unwieldy porpoise, after a rapid passage of about six months from the Hague. The wise men of the Historical Society have satisfactorily shown, after long and diligent research, that the “Jung-frau” measured sixty feet keel, sixty feet beam, and sixty feet hold, and was modeled after one of Rubens’ Venuses. The dimensions of the “Prince Albert” were every way the same, only twenty feet less. The sails were patched and the cordage spliced, and she did not leak so badly as to require more than six hours’ steady pumping out of the twenty-four. The crew was composed of Captain Ponto, Thomas, his mate, one seaman, and an Indian boy from Yucatan, whose business it was to cook and do the pumping. As may be supposed, the Indian boy did not rust for want of occupation.
It was a clear morning, toward the close of December, that Captain Ponto’s wife, a white woman, with a hopeful family of six children, the three eldest with shirts, and the three youngest without, came down to the schooner to see us off. I watched the parting over the after-bulwarks, and observed the tears roll down Mrs. Ponto’s cheeks as she bade her sable spouse good-by. I wondered if she really could have any attachment for her husband, and if custom and association had utterly worn away the natural and instinctive repugnance which exists between the superior and inferior races of mankind? I thought of the condition of Jamaica itself, and mentally inquired if it were not due to a grand, practical misconception of the laws of Nature, and the inevitable result of their reversal? It can not be denied that where the superior and inferior races are brought in contact, and amalgamate, there we uniformly find a hybrid stock springing up, with most, if not all of the vices, and few, if any of the virtues of the originals. And it will hardly be questioned, by those experimentally acquainted with the subject, that the manifest lack of public morality and private virtue, in the Spanish-American States, has followed from the fatal facility with which the Spanish colonists have intermixed with the negroes and Indians. The rigid and inexorable exclusion, in respect to the inferior races, of the dominant blood of North America, flowing through different channels perhaps, yet from the same great Teutonic source, is one grand secret of its vitality, and the best safeguard of its permanent ascendency.
Mrs. Ponto wept; and as we slowly worked our way outside of Port Royal, I could see her waving her apron, for she was innocent of a more classical signal, in fond adieus. We finally got out from under the lee of the land, and caught in our sails the full trade-wind, blowing steadily in the desired direction. I sat long on deck, watching the receding island sinking slowly in the bright sea, until Captain Ponto signified to me, in the patois of Jamaica, which the deluded people flatter themselves is English, that dinner was ready, and led the way into what he called the cabin. This cabin was a little den, seven feet by nine at the utmost, low, dark and dirty, with no light or air except what entered through the narrow hatchway, and, consequently, hot as an oven. Two lockers, one on each side, answered for seats by day, and, covered with suspicious mattresses, for beds by night. The cabin was sacred to Captain Ponto and myself, the mate having been displaced to make room for the gentleman who had paid three pounds for his passage! I question if the “Prince Albert” had ever before been honored with a passenger; certainly not since she had come into the hands of Captain Ponto, who therefore put his best foot forward, with a full consciousness of the importance of the incident. Ponto had been a slave once, and was consequently imperious and tyrannical now, toward all people in a subordinate relation to himself. Yet, as he had evidently been owned by a man of consequence, he had not entirely lost his early deference for the white man, and sometimes forgot Ponto the captain in Ponto the chattel. It was in the latter character only, that he was perfectly natural; and, although I derived no little amusement from his attempts to enact a loftier part, I shall not trouble the reader with an episode on Captain Ponto. He was a very worthy darkey, with a strong aversion to water, both exteriorly and internally. The mate, and the man who constituted the crew, were ordinary negroes of no possible account.
But Antonio, the Indian boy, who cooked and pumped, and then pumped and cooked—I fear he never slept, for when there was not a “sizzling” in the little black caboose, there was sure to be a screeching of the rickety pump—Antonio attracted my interest from the first; and it was increased when I found that he spoke a little English, was perfect in Spanish, and withal could read in both languages. There was something mysterious in finding him among these uncouth negroes, with his relatively fair skin, intelligent eyes, and long, well-ordered, black hair. He was like a lithe panther among lumbering bears; and he did his work in a way which accorded with his Indian character, without murmur, and with a kind of silent doggedness, that implied but little respect for his present masters. He seldom replied to their orders in words, and then only in monosyllables. I asked Captain Ponto about him, but he knew nothing, except that he was from Yucatan, and had presented himself on board only the day previously, and offered to work his passage to the main land. And Captain Ponto indistinctly intimated that he had taken the boy solely on my account, which, of course, led to the inference on my part, that the captain ordinarily did his own cooking. He also ventured a patronizing remark about the Indians generally, to the effect that they made very good servants, “if they were kept under;” which, coming from an ex-slave, I thought rather good.
ANTONIO.
All this only served to interest me the more in Antonio; and, although I succeeded in engaging him in ordinary conversation, yet I utterly failed in drawing him out, as the saying is, in respect to his past history, or future purposes. Whenever I approached these subjects he became silent and impassible, and his eyes assumed an expression of cold inquiry, not unmingled with latent suspicion, which half inclined me to believe that he was a fugitive from justice. Yet he did not look the felon or knave; and when the personal inquiries dropped, his face resumed its usual pleasant although sad expression, and I became ashamed that I had suspected him. There was certainly something singular about Antonio; but, as I could imagine no very profound mystery attaching to a cook, on board of the “Prince Albert,” after the first day, I made no attempts to penetrate his secrets, but sought rather to attach him to me, as a prospectively useful companion in the country to which I was bound. So I relieved him occasionally at the pump, although he protested against it; and finally, to the horror of Captain Ponto, and the palpable high disdain of the mate, I became so intimate with him as to show him my portfolio of drawings. His admiration, I found to my surprise, was always judiciously bestowed, and his appreciation of outline and coloring showed that he had the spirit of an artist. Several times, in glancing over the drawings, he stopped short, looked up, his face full of intelligence, as if about to speak, and I paused to listen. Each time, however, the smile vanished, the flexible muscles ceased their play and became rigid, and a cold, filmy mist settled over the clear eyes which had looked into mine. Whatever was Antonio’s secret, great or small, it was evidently one that he half-wished, half-feared to reveal. I was puzzled to think that there could exist any relation between it and my paintings; but Antonio was only a cook, and so I dismissed all reflection on the subject.
On our third day out, the weather, which up to that time had been clear and beautiful, began to change, and night settled black and threatening around us. The wind had increased, but it was loaded with sultry vapors—the hot breath of the storm which was pressing on our track. Captain Ponto was not a scientific sailor, and kept no other than what is called “dead reckoning.” He had made the voyage very often, and was confident of his course. Upon that point, therefore, I gave myself no uneasiness; not so much from faith in Captain Ponto, as because there was nothing in the world to be done, except to follow his opinion. Nevertheless the captain was serious, and consulted an antediluvian chart which he kept in his cabin. It was a Rembrandtish picture, that negro tracing his forefinger slowly over the chart, by the light of a candle, which only half revealed the little cabin, while it brought out his grizzly head and anxious face in strong relief against the darkness. What Captain Ponto learned from all this study is more than I can tell; but when he came on deck, he ordered a reef to be made in the sails, and a variation of several points in our course, for the wind not only freshened, but veered to the north-east. The hot blasts or puffs of air became more and more frequent, and occasional sheets of lightning gleamed along the horizon. The sea, too, was full of phosphorescent light; fiery monsters seemed to leap around us and wreath and twine their livid volumes in our wake. I could hear the hiss of their forked tongues where the waters closed under our stern. I stood, leaning over the bulwarks, gazing on the gleaming waves, and thinking of home—for the voyager on the great deep always thinks of home, when darkness envelops him, and the storm threatens—when Antonio silently approached, so silently that I did not hear him, and took his place at my side. I was somewhat startled, therefore, when, changing my position a little, I saw, by the dim, reflected light of the sea, his eyes fixed earnestly on mine. “Ah, Antonio,” I said, “is that you?” and I placed my hand familiarly on his shoulder. He shrank beneath it, as if it had been fire. “What’s the matter?” I exclaimed, reproachfully; “have I hurt you?”
“Pardon me!” he ejaculated, rather than spoke, in a voice deep and tremulous; “I know now that it is not you who will die to-night!”