He ceased, and silence fell upon the ship’s company. Still on we swept; it seemed a weary way. The tireless pedestrians still paced to and fro, and the idle smokers puffed. The ship sailed on, and endless music and odor chased each other through the misty air. Suddenly a deep sigh drew universal attention to a person who had not yet spoken. He held a broken harp in his hand, the strings fluttered loosely in the air, and the head of the speaker, bound with a withered wreath of laurels, bent over it.
“No, no,” said he, “I will not eat your lotus, nor sail into the Hole. No magic root can cure the home-sickness I feel; for it is no regretful remembrance, but an immortal longing. I have roamed farther than I thought the earth extended. I have climbed mountains; I have threaded rivers; I have sailed seas; but nowhere have I seen the home for which my heart aches. Ah! my friends, you look very weary; let us go home.”
The pedestrian paused a moment in his walk, and the smokers took their pipes from their mouths. The soft air which blew in that moment across the deck, drew a low sound from the broken harp-strings, and a light shone in the eyes of the old man of the figure-head, as if the mist had lifted for an instant, and he had caught a glimpse of the lost Atlantis.
“I really believe that is where I wish to go,” said the seeker of the fountain of youth. “I think I would give up drinking at the fountain if I could get there. I do not know,” he murmured, doubtfully; “it is not sure; I mean, perhaps, I should not have strength to get to the fountain, even if I were near it.”
“But is it possible to get home?” inquired the pale young man. “I think I should be resigned if I could get home.”
“Certainly,” said the dry, hard voice of Prester John’s confessor, as his cowl fell a little back, and a sudden flush burned upon his gaunt face; “if there is any chance of home, I will give up the Bishop’s palace in Central Africa.”
“But Eldorado is my home,” interposed the old Alchemist.
“Or is home Eldorado?” asked the poet, with the withered wreath, turning towards the Alchemist.
It was a strange company and a wondrous voyage. Here were all kinds of men, of all times and countries, pursuing the wildest hopes, the most chimerical desires. One took me aside to request that I would not let it be known, but that he inferred from certain signs we were nearing Utopia. Another whispered gaily in my ear that he thought the water was gradually becoming of a ruby color—the hue of wine; and he had no doubt we should wake in the morning and find ourselves in the land of Cockaigne. A third, in great anxiety, stated to me that such continuous mists were unknown upon the ocean; that they were peculiar to rivers, and that, beyond question, we were drifting along some stream, probably the Nile, and immediate measures ought to be taken that we did riot go ashore at the foot of the mountains of the moon. Others were quite sure that we were in the way of striking the great southern continent; and a young man, who gave his name as Wilkins, said we might be quite at ease for presently some friends of his would come flying over from the neighboring islands and tell us all we wished.
Still I smelled the mouldy rigging, and the odor of cabbage was strong from the hold.