“All’s goin’ on as smooth as a mackerel’s back,” said the lieutenant—“every man knows his dooty, and looks arter it. There’s no flinchers among ’em; and every one feels in his nat’ral element, cause there’s no abominable honesty among ’em to corrupt their morals.”
“So you must acknowledge that it’s impossible there can be such a thing as free-will, don’t you see,” said Dr. Tourniquet.
“I acknowledge nothing of the kind, doctor, I assure you,” replied Professor Fortyfolios. “The doctrine of necessity——”
“Hullo! is my nightingale silent?” cried the captain, unceremoniously interrupting the logicians. “Have you piped all dry—not a song left, nor a voice to sing it with? Is the harp dumb, or the singer sad, that we haven’t heard so much as the ghost of a tune!”
“Neither, noble captain,” replied Zabra, dressing his handsome face in his happiest smiles. “I wait your pleasure for a theme. Shall it be of love, or of war—of the pleasures of wine, or the gladness of gold—a song of the hunters amid the melodious forests—or of the mariner upon the everlasting sea?”
“If I might be so bold as to speak for the cap’ain,” said the lieutenant, “I should say you might sing any thin’ you has a mind—any thin’ in the univarsal globe, so as there’s nothin’ about honesty in it—a thing as I’ve got a most vartuous abhorrence on. So chirrup away as soon as you like. I loves to listen to your toons—they fills me wi’ a sort o’ all overishness. Arn’t it delightful, Master Log!”
“Delightful—delightful—very delightful—positively delightful—upon my word very superlatively delightful, Mister Scrumpy—I mean Lieutenant Rifle,” mumbled the little man, as plainly as his mouth filled full of preserves would allow.
“Let it be what is most agreeable to yourself,” said the captain. “But I would rather have something to stir one up a bit—a sort of nor-easter—that will make one’s timbers creak again: none of your lack-a-daisical love and dove jimcracks—sink them—give us a song that will make one feel as if one was standing on the tip of one’s toes on the tip-top of the world.”
“You shall have what you desire, noble captain,” replied Zabra; and, after a stirring prelude on the harp, sang the following verses:—
“I heard a voice upon the sea,
That pierced the waters fierce and free,—
The loud winds running wild with glee
Brought it to me;
I heard a voice the land-breeze bore,
That thrilled the mountains to the core,
And shouted out, from shore to shore,
‘Who are the free?’
Reply, reply aloud, air, earth, and sea!
Shout to the list’ning stars, ‘Who are the free!’