CHAPTER XVI
A REIGN OF TERROR
Far more frequently than any shore-living people can imagine, there occur times on board ship when it seems as if the whole condition of things must be overwhelmed in one red holocaust. No ship, whatever her position or character may be, is quite exempt from such crises as these. For at sea all hands are compelled to feel that they have been driven back upon primitive conditions, and the one paramount question demanding answer is: ‘How much longer can I bear this?’ No such problem ever confronts shore people, for the most obvious reason: there is always a way of escape—at sea there is none. And, if the true inwardness of all the awful sea tragedies that have ever been known were inquired into, it would be found that nearly all of them originated in a condition of things such as I have been sketching. A brutal, unscrupulous villain (we have had them in the British Navy) at the head of affairs, a vilely truckling gang of officers ready at a nod to carry out that villain’s behests, and before the mast a mob of men driven frantic by ill-treatment yet lacking initiative, the one ignition spark which only a genius can supply. A case in point is afforded by the tragedy of the Bounty. Concerning that terrible mutiny reams have been written wherein the horrid crimes of the sailors are continually held up to execration, but how seldom is passing mention given to the true cause of the whole awful business—the treatment of the men by the commander, who seemed to have felt it his duty to make his men realise before death what sort of a place the infernal regions must be. Only the lack of initiative has prevented the tale of sea tragedies from being a hundredfold as many, not the desert of those in charge, who seem to have exhausted the ingenuity of fiends in their behaviour towards their hapless crews.
Still, it must be confessed, and gladly, too, that few indeed are the captains or officers who set out with the deliberate intention of goading their crews to the point of madness just apparently in order to exhibit their power of command, their ability to control even the most frantic crowd of men. Few men are as wicked as that. But Captain Da Silva certainly was, and his visit to Brava was made with deliberate intent to procure certain auxiliaries upon whom he could rely for aid in the vile purpose he had set before himself—viz., that of trampling under foot triumphantly men of the hated Anglo-Saxon race, with all their nonchalant assumption of moral and mental superiority. Therefore it was that no sooner had sail been made and filled away for the southward than his plan of campaign began. The recruits—all of whom, be it noted, had been to sea before—were carefully apportioned by him throughout the two watches. They alone were allowed to steer the ship, and with each of them while at the wheel the skipper would converse in their own language, while the American officers could not help but listen uncomprehendingly, with black rage in their hearts, yet in utter impotence. For what could they do? If the skipper was powerful before, sufficiently so to enforce his will, he was omnipotent now. And these six black Portuguese felt it in their bones. They did not refuse to carry out any order given them by the officers, but they behaved in a singularly offensive manner as who should say, ‘We do this not to obey you, but because we are your master’s cronies, and it isn’t yet time in his opinion that we should show you how we regard you.’
If this state of things was hard of endurance for the officers, it was trebly so for the men. In the foc’s’le the Dagoes were now about even in numbers with the Americans and other white men, but in physique the former were far superior. And all conversation ceased in that sad place. No man dared to complain, even under his breath, for everyone felt that the foc’s’le was a sort of Dionysius’ Ear, where every word uttered immediately resounded in the private apartments of the skipper. All the worst of the work was reserved for the white men, every soft job was kept for the blacks, and no man durst say a word, for all knew as well as could be that sitting in the midst of this web of devilishness was the skipper pulling the cords and gloating over his revenge.
Finest weather, bluest of skies, and an almost utter absence of squalls attended the Grampus as she crossed the Line. And through it all, watch and watch, the sorely tried white portion of the crew were kept at work scrubbing and polishing until even the flagship of our Mediterranean Squadron would not, so far as cleanliness went, have surpassed her. And it was with a perfect pang of delight that all hands heard the long-drawn cry of ‘Blow’ from the mastheads when off Fernando Noronha. Well knowing what bone-wrenching toil it would bring, they yet welcomed the prospect of whaling almost gleefully—anything for a change in the deadly monotony of their daily life. Poor fellows!
They had a grand day’s sport, about which I can say very little since it was all so orthodox and free from extraordinary incident. The whales were medium-sized cows—that is to say, ranging from twenty-five to forty barrels each—and as the big bull leader of the school went off to windward at top speed when the battle began, there was but little fighting: it was just a butchery. The poor, silly creatures crowded round each other quite helplessly, and submitted to be done to death almost as complacently as does the great right whale of the Arctic regions. Of course, Captain Da Silva took part in the slaughter. Else it had been but a wasted day for him. For he had, in common with some of the old Romans, an insatiable blood-thirst that could not be gratified as he craved owing to the hampering laws of civilisation, and he was therefore driven to quench it by conflict with the mighty whale, utterly heedless, to all appearance, of any probability of danger to himself. His absence from the ship tempted Priscilla on deck.
She has been neglected of late in this chronicle for several reasons. First, any allusion to her must of necessity be tame, since she had voluntarily taken upon herself the rôle of a patient martyr, from whom no taunt or even ill-usage could wring a complaint. Secondly, any information about her is scarcely possible since she was more like an automaton than aught else—moving, indeed, waking, sleeping, and eating (very little), but speaking hardly ever, and apparently determined to efface herself as much as possible from the life of the ship. She was an insoluble puzzle to her husband. At first he was brutal in the extreme, even to the length of striking her, but to this treatment she opposed a stolidity of demeanour which alarmed him. Then he became gentler, spoke to her civilly, almost kindly, with the same result. Superstitious terrors took possession of him, for he began to wonder whether, indeed, she had not died, only her body retaining sufficient volition to keep about among them. He noticed that she never spoke one word to anyone but him, and gave way to the opinion that some change—he knew not what—had taken place, and unless he wished to be haunted (of which, like the majority of Latins, he had an awful dread) he had better let her alone. So, unconsciously, she had been led to do just the right thing in order to secure what tiny modicum of comfort still remained possible of attainment in her present position. And, as for suffering—well, the edge of that was dulled to such an extent that she often surveyed herself as it were from an impartial mental standpoint, and wondered mildly whether she was indeed the discontented, prideful Priscilla Fish of olden days or not. I do not like, especially in a work of this kind, to insist continually upon the sacred ability to detach oneself from the things of sense that God gives His dear ones, yet how otherwise, I ask myself, can the literalness, the common-sense application of real Christianity be brought home to people who have been trained from infancy to believe that religion is an excrescence, as it were—something of external growth which can be applied like a poultice by a skilled professional at hand at seasons when needed?—how otherwise explain that Christ does dwell in the hospitable heart, and there produces a toleration of (not an indifference to) the world’s vicissitudes, so that ‘in the world, but not of it’ becomes a fact of experience, not a pretty theory?
Priscilla had been taught this by the Teacher Himself; the Comforter had come with His consolations to this poor soul, and there amid all that made for misery she was as nearly happy as the flesh will allow. Occasionally, in almost an ecstasy of joy, she sat communing with God, forgetting all else, unconscious for the time of any other environment than that of the Holy of Holies. Herein I can see lie twin dangers—in the expression of this fact, I mean: the one that this must be an argument for the conventual life, the other that such matters are entirely unreal—the outcome of mystical meditation, and as unsubstantial and inapplicable to the ordinary details of life as is the hermetic philosophy of the ancients. Well, it takes all sorts of people to make a world, and if there were no unbelievers in God’s immanent companionship and no misunderstandings of His dealings with His children, His Kingdom would be come, and we should no longer need to pray for it. I can only reiterate with all simplicity and directness that in such wise (as I have feebly tried to describe Priscilla’s case) God does associate with men and women. That the words, ‘Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world,’ are literally, not figuratively, true; and that millions of His children, given the opportunity, will gladly testify to the same. How else, do you think, do men and women live on through long lives, seeing what they do see of their fellow humans, knowing what they must know of the Powers of Darkness visible, and still preserve intact their childlike faith in Jesus and His love? Only because it is literally, absolutely true that ‘He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.’
But in spite of her joy in the Lord, it must be admitted that Priscilla occasionally felt an almost overwhelming longing to breathe the free, fresh air of Heaven. For that had of late been a luxury denied her. She had been practically forbidden to go on deck, to appear at table. Her husband had developed along with his belief in her uncanny powers a horrible jealousy of her—so much so that he would not allow her to be seen by any of the crew or officers. And although he had not actually in so many words forbidden her to come on deck, yet so many obstacles had been placed in her way, even to locking her in her berth, that at last she had dumbly acquiesced in this condition of things, and submitted to breathe the fetid air of the little cabin, which, as everyone who has ever been on board of even a trading vessel knows, is foul and vitiated beyond description. It is no paradox to say that there is more air and less ventilation at sea than anywhere on earth. Therefore it was no wonder that, learning from the faithful darkey steward of her husband’s absence at the whaling, she crept timidly on deck and sat on the transom, looking out over the wide brightness of the sea with feelings of almost intolerable complexity. She had learned, in the same perfect way, to take the keenest delight in the beauties of creation; scenes that so many of us pass over unheedingly were to her almost poignant in their revelations of the Father’s benevolent and beautiful designs, and in proportion as she was debarred from enjoying them so she prized them. Perfectly natural. How many an old sailor has gone grumbling through his long seafaring career apparently all unheeding the glories so lavishly spread before his sullen gaze, and then when retired to some dull, inland village in his old age, perhaps blind and deaf, he has feasted on the treasures of memory, and again in fancy watched his gallant vessel leaping blithely from sea to sea, or breasting steadily as if with unconquerable resolution and force the relentless thrust of the storm-wind and its accompanying sea.