The Madman and the Pirate

by R. M. Ballantyne

to Asia: who even began—though he failed to finish—the conquest of Africa; who made kings as you might make pasteboard men, and filled the civilised world with fear, as well as with blood and graves—all for his own glorification! Think of these and other “great” men, and reflect that it is written, “He who rules his own spirit” is greater than they.

Yes, the human spirit is difficult to deal with, and uncomfortably explosive. At least so Richard Rosco found it when, towards the close of the day on which his enemy chased him into the dismal swamp, he sat down on a gnarled root and began to reflect.

His spirit jumped almost out of him with contempt, when he thought that for the first time in his life, he had fled in abject terror from the face of man! He could not conceal that from himself, despite the excuse suggested by pride—that he had half believed Zeppa to be an apparition. What even if that were true? Had he not boastfully said more than once that he would defy the foul fiend himself if he should attempt to thwart him? Then his spirit bounded into a region of disappointed rage when he thought of the lost opportunity of stabbing his enemy to the heart. After that, unbidden, and in spite of him, it dropped into an abyss of something like fierce despair when he recalled the past surveyed the present, and forecast the future. Truly, if hell ever does begin to men on earth, it began that day to the pirate, as he sat in the twilight on the gnarled root, with one of his feet dangling in the slimy water, his hands clasped so tight that the knuckles stood out white, and his eyes gazing upwards with an expression that seemed the very embodiment of woe.

Then his spirit lost its spring, and he began to crawl, in memory, on the shores of “other days.” He thought of the days when, comparatively innocent he rambled on the sunny hills of old England; played and did mischief with comrades; formed friendships and fought battles, and knew what it was to experience good impulses; understood the joy of giving way to these, as well as the depression consequent on resisting them; and recalled the time when he regarded his mother as the supreme judge in every case of difficulty—the only comforter in every time of sorrow.

At this point his spirit grovelled like a crushed worm in the stagnant pool of his despair, for he had no hope. He had sinned every opportunity away. He had defied God and man, and nothing was left to him, apparently, save “a fearful looking-for of judgment.”

As he bent over the pool he saw his own distorted visage dimly reflected therein, and the thought occurred,—“Why not end it all at once? Five minutes at the utmost and all will be over!” The pirate was a physically brave man beyond his fellows. He had courage to carry the idea into effect but—“after death the judgment!” Where had he heard these words? They were strange to him, but they were not new. Those who are trained in the knowledge of God’s Word are not as a general rule, moved in an extraordinary degree by quotations from it. It is often otherwise with those who have had little of it instilled into them in youth and none in later years. That which may seem to a Christian but a familiar part of the “old, old story,” sometimes becomes to hundreds and thousands of human beings a startling revelation. It was so to the pirate on this occasion. The idea of judgment took such a hold of him that he shrank from death with far more fear than he ever had, with courage, faced it in days gone by. Trembling, terrified, abject he sat there, incapable of consecutive thought or intelligent action.

At last the gloom which had been slowly deepening over the swamp sank into absolute blackness, and the chills of night, which were particularly sharp in such places, began to tell upon him. But he did not dare to move, lest he should fall into the swamp. Slowly he extended himself on the root; wound his arms and fingers convulsively among leaves and branches, and held on like a drowning man. An ague-fit seemed to have seized him, for he trembled violently in every limb; and as his exhausted spirit was about to lose itself in sleep, or, as it seemed to him, in death, he gave vent to a subdued cry, “God be merciful to me a sinner!”

Rest, such as it was, refreshed the pirate, and when the grey dawn, struggling through the dense foliage, awoke him, he rose up with a feeling of submissiveness which seemed, somehow, to restore his energy.

He was without purpose, however, for he knew nothing of his surroundings, and, of course, could form no idea of what was best to be done. In these circumstances he rose with a strange sensation of helplessness, and wandered straight before him.