As I was gazing over the vessel’s side at the phosphoric gleams that danced along the billows, he came up to me.
“I am sorry,” said he, “that we have been compelled to give you so rough a specimen of our hospitality, and this is not altogether a summer sea, but you saw how the matter stood. The enemy would have been upon us, and the whole advantage of our staying at home would be to have our throats cut in company.”
Odd and rambling as his style was, there was something in his manner and voice that had struck me before, even in the boisterousness of the convivial crowd. But now, in the solitary sea, there was a melancholy sweetness in his tones that made me start with sad recollection. Yet, when by the lightning I attempted to discover in his features any clue to memory, and saw but the tall figure wrapped in the sailor’s cloak, the hair streaming over his face in the spray, and every line of his powerful physiognomy at its full stretch in the agitation of the time, the thought vanished again.
His Request
“I hinted,” said he, after an interval of silence, “at your taking chance with us. If you will, you may. But the hint was thrown out merely to draw off the fellows about me, and you are at full liberty to forget it.”
“It is impossible to join you,” was my answer; “my life is due to my country.”
“Oh, for that matter, so is mine, and due a long time ago; my only wonder is, how I have evaded payment till now. But I am a man of few words. I have taken a sort of liking to you, and would wish to have a few such at hand. The world calls me pirate, and the majority, of course, carries the question. For its opinion I do not care a cup of water; a bubble would weigh as heavily with me as the rambling, giddy, vulgar judgment of a world in which the first of talents is knavery. I never knew a man fail who brought to market prostitution of mind enough to make him a tool, vice enough to despise everything but gain, and cunning enough to keep himself out of the hands of the magistrate till opulence enabled him to corrupt the law or authority to defy it. But let that pass. The point between us is, will you take service with us?”
“No! I feel the strongest gratitude for the manliness and the generosity of your protection. You saved our lives, and our only hope of revisiting Judea in freedom is through you. But, young man, I have a great cause in hand. I have risked everything for it. Family, wealth, rank, life, are my stake; and I look upon every hour given to other things as so far a fraud upon my country.”
I heard him sigh. There was silence on both sides for a while, and he paced the deck; then suddenly returning, laid his hand on my shoulder.