by John Gardner
“The smell of land was all around us, solid, real—trees reaching out to us from a thousand miles away, as eerily still as a megalithic door, a blind stone eye against darkness. It made the world heavy. The ship rode low in the water, a great dark casque of murdered whale.
“I asked: ‘How many on the ship know your purpose?’
“ ‘Just the commoners, of course.’
“ ‘And they approve, you think?’
“She was silent a moment, still trembling, her fingers clamped tight to my arms, but the look of both terror and glee was still there. ‘Jonathan, trust me. Trust us—Father and me. Believe in us!’ She tipped her head up as if in conscious imitation of some woodcut figure in a Saint’s Life.
“I said nothing.
“ ’Believe in us!’ A whisper. Her expression—face lifted, eyes rolled down to watch me—was so desperate, so filled with fear that I might not believe, that at last I nodded. Jeremiah had groped nearer.
“The Captain said, ‘Augusta!’
“She made a move to go in with him, then glanced at me, hesitant, and the next instant, as if on a sudden, defiant impulse, kissed me on the lips. When she drew back she was blushing and frightened, on the verge of a swoon. I held her. As she recovered, I released her and she turned away, eyes closed. She moved toward her father slowly, feeble and trembling, as if her fear, her betrayal of us both, had made her ill. She took her father’s arm. Turning slightly, the fingertips of her right hand on her heart, she said, ‘Jonathan, God’s will is inexorable!’
“I stood alone, shaken. The music of the slaves in the hold below was a hum low and steady as the rumble of some animal awakening from centuries of rest. I went back to my quarters, directly to the hiding place in the bulkhead.
“In The World’s Great Scoundrels I found her picture, as I’d known I would—though in the picture she hadn’t dyed her shining, golden hair or transformed her expression to make herself resemble the Captain’s poor gudgeon of a daughter. She was Miranda Flint, offspring of the infamous Dr. Luther Flint, magician, mesmerist, bunkum-man extraordinaire, known from Shanghai to Joplin, Missouri, his birthplace (and Miranda’s), for tricks both benign and malevolent. That was why it had worried old Dirge when he heard, by way of Wilkins, my claim that I’d once been a river-man. Well, I had to hand it to him. Even now that I knew, I could hardly believe that, behind the disguise, he was the incredible Flint.
“When I turned the page I got another surprise. There stood Augusta’s black mastiff, ‘Wonderdog,’ and across from the dog sat ‘Swami Havananda,’ Flint’s assistant—inventor of illusions, piano player, personal bodyguard, cut-throat. It was Wilkins.
“The history of that crowd, if the book could be believed, was enough to make a man’s blood curdle. They were gypsies to the core, the pack of them; tricksters by maniacal compulsion. Flint might have been one of the greatest of stage illusionists, but the urge to deceive was boundless in him: The rabbit in the hat, the levitated lady, the mesmerized child that a man could drive nails in, all those were mere taps at the jalousie of the madman’s boundless ego. He must bamboozle churches, steal fortunes from crafty, perspicacious old brokers, steal the chief ship from the daring and bloodthirsty pirates of China Bay, and, soon after, the golden, emerald-studded crown from the King of Sweden. His present whereabouts, the book said, had been unknown for years.
“So now I knew everything—or so I thought. The trouble was, what could I do with it? Because sure as her name was Miranda Flint— and sure as that dagger in the sailor’s neck was none other than Miranda’s—I’d been in love with that murdering vixen all my life.
“ ‘Ah, well,’ said the huge, partly visible pigeon, and sadly shook its head, ‘something may come of this queer business yet.’
“ ‘Never,’ I said bitterly, and closed the book.
“It was the next morning that Billy More was flogged for mutinous agitation. Mr. Knight, looking miserable, managed the whip. ‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost!’ old Captain Dirge mumbled, staring at the planks. Jeremiah’s face was white, his blind eyes wide. ‘Repent, Captain Dirge! The heavens have turned their face! I implore thee!’
“That afternoon came the mutiny.”
XXII
“Mutiny, ye say?” says the guest, uneasy.
The mariner looks troubled. He knows himself that the tale’s overblown, too pleached and twisted for an evening’s entertainment. The dead have been gone from the fields for hours, and the sheep as well (it’s midnight now). The angel is fast asleep, dead-drunk. For the living there are roads to be gotten down, and in the morning, pigs to feed, cows to milk, children to be gotten to the schoolbus on time. The ticks of the clock ring loud and ironic on the fireplace stones.
“Having come so far—” says the mariner’s eye.
Halfway to the mountains, in a white house with towers, a fifty-year-old sculptor with a terminal disease sits painting with infinite patience and total concentration a pale yellow lemon on a field of white. With each light stroke added, the lemon shows more its inclination to vanish. Oh, all very well for a man like Flint to play tricks on the world, void his span on mere lunacy! The man in the tower has a son to raise, a wife whose life’s meaning is tottering even now. His hand grows steadier, severe as steel; in his mind all reality expands toward white.
A knock at the public-house door; the door opens. Lo and behold, it’s Luther Flint, with eyes like fire, one arm reaching inward; behind him a terrible, ravaged Miranda! He snatches off his top-hat, makes a grab at her arm. Their faces are gray, as gray as the faces of newly drained cadavers at the mortuary. He stretches his arm out once more in supplication. Mere fictions, cartoons, though more real than the stones of my dungeon room, the gallows in the square. Surely some truth can be found for these creatures, some church-hard solidity, salvation of phantoms!
Beyond the barn, old trees stand listening, reaching through the darkness toward snakes and toads, toward the sleeping sheep, with anguish like a mother’s, listening in a terror of concern for the footsteps of spiders gone astray. Say no more of the thousand-mile animal, philosopher! I gave you an animal large as the world, blind and full of terror, purposeless, searching.
“Aye!” says the mariner. “Mutiny. Aye sir!”
And now the guest, too, feels the trees groping inward, dark, age-old, mute inglorious Miltons, hungry as the heart of the sculptor, the sculptor’s dog.
The guest glances at the clock. “Tell on.”
XXIII
“Captain Dirge sat freezing—silently, motionlessly raving in the hold— his fine clothes crumpled and squeezed where the heavy gray cords cut in, and his eyes were shut tight, his fingers as still as a deadman’s. Wilkins had gagged him with coarse rope lapped three times and knotted wet, so that now that it was frozen stiff and contracted, caked blood-chips glinted on the Captain’s lace collar and matted his great black beard. At the end of an hour, his jerking stopped, as if finally he’d understood he was not to be resurrected. Mr. Knight was dead. Billy More was dead. Jeremiah had vanished. The mutineers had spared me—had put off reaching a decision about me. I’d rolled my eyes and knocked my bony knees together and insisted in the voice of a Gold Coast man that I was really a black; mad scientists in Zurich had transmogrified me. Scoff as they might, or bang their heads with their knuckles in frustration, the white mutineers couldn’t risk the displeasure of the slaves they’d freed. And Billy More swore that what I claimed was true. After Billy More was dead himself—killed with Mr. Knight, and for the same mistake—the mutineers forgot me, left me there lashed to the ice-crusted foremast and didn’t remember my existence till the violence was done with.
“I watched the executions. The mutineers, who’d begun with only axes and axehandles, had rummaged the staterooms and equipped themselves with muskets and ammunition. Then, back on deck, they proceeded straight to the forecastle, which was fastened down and sealed shut with ice, two mutineers standing one on each side
of the hatch with axes, and two more by the main hatch. Below were the men who’d held loyal to the Captain—some from true loyalty, no doubt; most from conviction that the mutiny would fail. Mr. Wolff, the second mate, cracked the seal of ice with his axe and called out, ‘D’ye hear there below? Tumble up with you, one by one. Come now, and no grumbling!’ It was several minutes before anyone appeared—at last an Englishman who’d shipped as a raw hand. He was weeping piteously and beseeching the mate to spare his life. Wolff split the man’s forehead with the axe. The poor devil fell on the deck without a groan, his bright blood steaming, and the Chinese cook lifted him in his arms and tossed him to the fishes. Mr. Knight went pale. It had happened too fast for human interference, but he leaped forward now, angrily protesting, trying to take Wolff’s axe away. Billy More was right behind him. Two blacks with muskets were on them in an instant, jabbing them back with the musket barrels, and Wolff flew toward them with the axe slanting back past his shoulder. Mr. Knight stared, cringing, but it was a blast from one of the muskets that killed him. Billy More screamed, outraged. The second musket hushed him. ‘You will interfere with me no more,’ Wolff shouted. ‘You’re not in power here!’ He was dwarfish, bespectacled; his straight blond hair fluttered around his shoulders as if terrified birds flew inside it, and he foundered like a drunk in the fur coat he’d stolen from the Captain. The two shattered bodies lay reaching for each other. They’d neither approved nor disapproved; they’d allowed it to happen, true democratic hearts, and when the thing had turned murderous (who could have imagined that Wolff would suddenly assert himself?), they were powerless to stop it.
“The ruckus had alerted the others below; and now neither threats nor promises could induce them to come out. Then Wilkins said in his loud, reedy voice, bending close to the hatch, twitching, leering, his puffy, slanted black eyes like needles, ‘Why not smoke ‘em out?’ A rush ensued, and it seemed for a moment that the ship might be retaken. But the mutineers managed to close off the forecastle after only six had reached the deck, and seeing themselves outnumbered, they gave up hope and submitted. Wolff spoke them fair, knowing all he said would be heard below. Within minutes the rest had emerged on deck. They ascended one by one and were pinioned and thrown on their backs—fourteen in all.
“Then came the butchery. One by one the bound seamen were dragged to the gangway, where the cook stood waiting with his axe, clumsily striking each victim on the head as he was forced to the rail by the other mutineers. I shouted against it, inside my gag, but my shouts went unheard, mere whispers beside the anguished bawling of the victims. When seven had gone over the side in this way, the black harpooner with the bone in his nose went silently up to the cook and said: ‘No more.’ The cook looked at him, furious but frightened, then looked at Wolff for orders. The same instant, with the same deep calm with which he’d fire at a whale, the harpooner struck the cook on the ear, his doubled fist like a blacksmith’s hammer, and the cook sank to the deck, jerking. In a minute he was dead. Four slaves, two in shackles, joined the harpooner and stood prepared to try a new mutiny, though armed only with axehandles. Wolff and Wilkins, looking startled half out of their wits, changed tactics at once. ‘Enough,’ Wolff said. ‘Throw the rest in the hold with the Captain!’ I watched, bound and gagged, while mutineers and the slaves they’d freed dragged away their captives. Jeremiah, all this while, was nowhere to be seen. I assumed they’d killed him.
“And now black Ngugi again showed his surprising humanity. As Wolff and Wilkins and their detail of mutineers came back up through the hatch, most of them expressionless, one or two smiling like mules gone crazy, the black harpooner—he’d remained above—strode toward them. He held his axe at waist level, one fist at each end. Wilkins held a musket, casual but ready. The big black spoke to him, then pointed at me. The fire was still in his eyes, but his tone seemed harmless. Wilkins and Wolff talked, too low for me to hear. The air, motionless, was full of the smell of land, though there was no land. My hands, tightly bound in icy cords, had no feeling in them. My eyes stung.
“Wolff came toward me, Wilkins a few steps behind. Wolff said, polite as a traveling preacher but without much conviction—more like a stage automaton than like a living man—‘Mr. Upchurch, you will see to the Captain’s daughter.’ Without another word, he cut away the ropes that held me to the mast. I couldn’t move, for a moment, my feet like stones. He waited. Wilkins, behind his shoulder, smiled and winked and twitched his lips. I rolled my eyes, still playing poor black (on the chance it was that that had rescued me), and, as soon as I could move, I sidled loose-jointedly to the poopdeck and into the chartroom. I found a lantern, oil, and phosphur-sticks and soon had the room a good deal lighter than I’d ever before seen it. Nothing was disturbed. The Captain’s chess game was waiting on the board.
“I will not dwell on what my lantern found in the Captain’s inward chambers. I had never before been beyond the dim parlor where I worked with Augusta—Miranda—on her lessons. Two rooms, not counting the chartroom, opened off it: the Captain’s sleeping quarters and the girl’s. The Captain’s bunkroom had been torn to shreds. The bunk had been cut to bits with axes, the locker smashed, and the Captain’s belongings scattered from bulkhead to bulkhead. On the floor beside the Captain’s berth, half-hidden under feathers from the ruined mattress, lay the painting of Flint. The staring eyes, the straight, fierce mouth below the black mustache, gave my soul a shiver. If I’d ever been mesmerized by that devil Flint, I believe I might’ve been mesmerized again. Was that why Flint kept it in Miranda’s parlor?—a device to control her? The head glowed, like those pictures of Jesus, except that the pictures in a church are more mannerly—eyeballs rolled up, apologetic, arms raised straight-at-the-elbows in prayer, as if lifting an invisible veil to shield the viewer, make no undue demands, respectful as a still-life, a bowl of pale lemons. I picked it up, not looking squarely at the picture even now. I felt a queer numbness coming over me and threw the picture down again, dropped it as you would an adder.
“In the second room, I found Miranda. She lay stiff and furious, in a dress like torn and bloodstained moonlight, her small hands clenched to fists under her chin. She was bruised and swollen. Her eyes were wide with fear.
“ ‘Miranda!’ I breathed, forgetting myself, kneeling beside her.
“Her eyes widened more. She whispered, ‘How long have you known?’
“ ‘From the beginning,’ I said. It was partly true.
“ ‘Where’s Jeremiah?’ she said.
“ ‘Vanished. No doubt murdered.’
“She closed her eyes, fleeing inward, terrified, the remorseless Miranda Flint made guilty at last. I squeezed her hand. She refused to awaken.
XXIV
“Wolff stood at the Captain’s chessboard as if thinking of completing the unfinished game. He said in his burred, stiffly upright English: ‘The Captain had no understanding of power.’ He grinned, looking over his spectacles at the pieces, two fingers sharpening the end of his mustache. Wilkins beamed, enjoying the performance, though I was doubtful how much he agreed with Wolff’s opinions. Wolff hooked his thumbs in his vest, still studying the pieces, and continued, professorial: ‘He used his power ruthlessly—there he was right—but he did not recognize that one must appear to use one’s power for the welfare of the ship. The ship, one must make one’s crew believe, is of greater value than the life of any crew member. The ship is a creature with a purpose of its own, beyond our understanding, and each of us is merely a cell in that creature. The Captain is, perhaps, the brain—so he should have told them—but even the brain is subservient. The duty of every part of the ship—this he should have made clear—is absolute submission. The ship is the Father.’ He began to speak more sternly, biting off his words. ‘The ship’s needs are our orthodoxy, and to any dissension from that orthodoxy we must respond with rigidity and no imagination. That surprises you, Mr. Upchurch, Mr. Quick-tongued Trickster. But mark my words. Given enough imagination, a man may come even
to sympathize with the whale. “How grand he is!” imagination cries. “How vast, how majestic!” ’ He smiled.
“Wilkins smiled too, more heavy-lidded than usual, thanks to the Captain’s wine.
“Wolff shook his finger, immensely stern, immensely pleased with himself. ‘Whatever the cry of imagination, my friend, the whale is the enemy of the whaling ship. Aggression is the meaning of life on earth, the only freedom. Because I am clever, and more powerful than you, I am the Captain of the Jerusalem. I grind you under my thumb if I please. That makes you, you think, a mere victim? Not so! By the nature of the case, I leave you free to oppress those beneath you, as they, in turn, oppress those beneath them, and so on down to the feeblest spider who tears the wings off flies. You do not especially like this system, I can see, Mr. Upchurch—nor you, Mr. Wilkins. “Elsewhere perhaps,” you say. “Not here, not on the Jerusalem!” But I tell you: Everywhere! Be comforted; I did not make the system up. Mother Nature did. She lays down the code for all things living.
1. Distrust Reason
2. Deny Equality
3. Succeed by Lies
4. Govern by Violence
5. Oppose All Law but Biological Law
Under Wolff, my friends, the Jerusalem will have order.’ He smiled again, fiercely, showing all his square and perfect teeth, then bowed, about to leave. He lifted the black knight from the board, seemed to reconsider, then put it back where he’d found it. In fact, there was no move the knight could make. It was empty posturing, this pretense of shrewdly examining the board.
“ ‘Heal your patient well, Mr. Upchurch,’ he said, and looked away toward Miranda’s room. ‘She’s the only female on the ship, and we have our needs.’ He chuckled, more like an actor playing the part of a villain than like a villain. Wilkins looked up at the ceiling and smiled. I knew, watching Wilkins, that Wolff was not by any means the strongest or cleverest on the ship.
