by Mark Twain
mainly Turner, who is a puzzled man.
.During the first four years we had several mutinies, but things have been reasonably quiet during the past two. One of them had really a serious look. It occurred when Harry was a month old, and at an anxious time, for both he and his mother were weak and ill. The master spirit of it was Stephen Bradshaw the carpenter, of course -- a hard lot I know, and a born mutineer I think.
In those days I was greatly troubled, for a time, because my wife's memories still refused to correspond with mine. It had been an ideal life, and naturally it was a distress not to be able to live it over again with her in our talks. At first she did not feel about it as I did, and said she could not understand my interest in those dreams, but when she found how much I took the matter to heart, and that to me the dreams had come to have a seeming of reality and were freighted with tender and affectionate impressions besides, she began to change her mind and wish she could go back in spirit with me to the mysterious land. And so she tried to get back that forgotten life. By my help, and by patient probing and searching of her memory she succeeded. Gradually it all came back, and her reward was sufficient. We now had the recollections of two lives to draw upon, and the result was a double measure of happiness for us. We even got the children's former lives back for them -- with a good deal of difficulty -- next the servants'.
It made a new world for us all, and an entertaining one to explore. In the beginning George the colored man was an unwilling subject, because by heredity he was superstitious, and believed that no good could come of meddling with dreams; but when he presently found that no harm came of it his disfavor dissolved away.
Talking over our double-past became our most pleasant and satisfying amusement, and the search for missing details of it our most profitable labor. One day when the baby was about a month old, we were at this pastime in our parlor. Alice was lying on the sofa, propped with pillows -- she was by no means well. It was a still and solemn black day, and cold; but the lamps made the place cheerful, and as for comfort, Turner had taken care of that; for he had found a kerosene stove with an isinglass front among the freight, and had brought it up and lashed it fast and fired it up, and the warmth it gave and the red glow it made took away all chill and cheerlessness from the parlor and made it homelike. The little girls were out somewhere with George and Germania (the maid).
Alice and I were talking about the time, twelve years before, when Captain Hall's boy had his tragic adventure with the spider-squid, and I was reminding her that she had misstated the case when she mentioned it to me, once. She had said the squid ate the boy. Out of memory I could call back all the details, now, and I remembered that the boy was only badly hurt, not eaten.
For a month or two the ship's company had been glimpsing vast animals at intervals of a few days, and at first the general terror was so great that the men openly threatened, on two occasions, to seize the ship unless the captain turned back; but by a resolute bearing he tided over the difficulty; and by pointing out to the men that the animals had shown no disposition to attack the ship and might therefore be considered harmless, he quieted them down and restored order. It was good grit in the captain, for privately he was very much afraid of the animals himself and had but a shady opinion of their innocence. He kept his Gatlings in order, and had gun watches, which he changed with the other watches.
I had just finished correcting Alice's history of the boy's adventure with the squid when the ship, plowing through a perfectly smooth sea, went heeling away down to starboard and stayed there! The floor slanted like a roof, and every loose thing in the room slid to the floor and glided down against the bulkhead. We were greatly alarmed, of course. Next we heard a rush of feet along the deck and an uproar of cries and shoutings, then the rush of feet coming back, with a wilder riot of cries. Alice exclaimed,
"Go find the children -- quick!"
I sprang out and started to run aft through the gloom, and then I saw the fearful sight which I had seen twelve years before when that boy had had his shocking misadventure. For the moment I turned the corner of the deckhouse and had an unobstructed view astern, there it was -- apparently two full moons rising close over the stern of the ship and lighting the decks and rigging with a sickly yellow glow -- the eyes of the colossal squid. His vast beak and head were plain to be seen, swelling up like a hill above our stem; he had flung one tentacle forward and gripped it around the peak of the mainmast and was pulling the ship over; he had gripped the mizzenmast with another, and a couple more were writhing about dimly away above our heads searching for something to take hold of. The stench of his breath was suffocating everybody.
I was like the most of the crew, helpless with fright; but the captain and the officers kept their wits and courage. The Gatlings on the starboard side could not be used, but the four on the port side were brought to bear, and inside of a minute they had poured more than two thousand bullets into those moons. That blinded the creature, and he let go; and by squirting a violent Niagara of water out of his mouth which tore the sea into a tempest of foam he shot himself backward three hundred yards and the ship forward as far, drowning the deck with a racing flood which swept many of the men off their feet and crippled some, and washed all loose deck-plunder overboard. For five minutes we could hear him thrashing about, there in the dark, and lashing the sea with his giant tentacles in his pain; and now and then his moons showed, then vanished again; and all the while we were rocking and plunging in the booming seas he made.
Then he quieted down. We took a thankful full breath, believing him dead.
Now I thought of the children, and ran all about inquiring for them, but no one had seen them. I thought they must have been washed overboard, and for a moment my heart stopped beating. Then the hope came that they had taken refuge with their mother; so I ran there; and almost swooned when I entered the place, for it was vacant.
I ran out shouting the alarm, and after a dozen steps almost ran over her. She was lying against the bulwarks drenched and insensible. The surgeon and young Phillips helped me carry her in; then the surgeon and I began to work over her and Phillips rushed away to start the hunt for the children. It was all of half an hour before she showed any sign of life; then her eyes opened with a dazed and wandering look in them, then they recognized me and into them shot a ghastly terror.
"The children! the children!" she gasped; and I, with the heart all gone out of me, answered with such air of truth as I could assume, "They are safe."
I could never deceive her. I was transparent to her.
"It is not true! The truth speaks out all over you -- they are lost, oh, they are lost, they are lost!"
We were strong, but we could not hold her. She tore loose from us and was gone in a moment, flying along the dark decks and shrieking the children's names with a despairing pathos that broke one's heart to hear it. We fled after her, and urged that the flitting lanterns meant that all were searching, and begged her for the children's sake and mine if not for her own to go to bed and save her life. But it went for nothing, she would not listen. For she was a mother, and her children were lost. That says it all. She would hunt for them as long as she had strength to move. And that is what she did, hour after hour, wailing and mourning, and touching the hardest hearts with her grief, until she was exhausted and fell in a swoon. Then the stewardess and I put her to bed, and as soon as she came to and was going to creep out of her bed to take up her search again the doctor encouraged her in it and gave her a draught to restore her strength; and it put her into a deep sleep, which was what he expected.
We left the stewardess on watch and went away to join the searchers. Not a lantern was twinkling anywhere, and every figure that emerged from the gloom moved upon tiptoe. I collared one of them and said angrily, "What does this mean? Is the search stopped?"
Turner's voice answered -- very low, "--'sh! Captain's orders. The beast ain't dead -- it's hunting for us."
It made me sick with fear.
"Do yo
u mean it, Turner? How do you know?
"Listen."
There was a muffled swashing sound out there somewhere, and then the two moons appeared for a moment, then turned slowly away and were invisible again.
"He's been within a hundred yards of us, feeling around for us with his arms. He could reach us, but he couldn't locate us because he's blind. Once he mighty near had us; one of his arms that was squirming around up there in the dark just missed the foremast, and he hauled in the slack of it without suspecting anything. It made my lungs come up into my throat. He has edged away, you see, but he ain't done laying for us."
Pause. Then in a whisper, "He's wallowing around closer to us again, by gracious. Look
-- look at that. See it? Away up in the air -- writhing around like a crooked mainmast.
Dim, but -- there, now don't you see it?"
We stood dead still, hardly breathing. Here and there at little distances the men were gathering silently together and watching and pointing. The deep hush lay like a weight upon one's spirit. Even the faintest quiver of air that went idling by gave out a ghost of sound. A couple of mellow notes floated lingering and fading down from forward: Booooom -- booooom. (Two bells in the middle watch.) A hoarse low voice -- the captain's: "Silence that damned bell!"
Instantly there was a thrashing commotion out there, with a thundering rush of discharged water, and the monster came charging for us. I caught my breath, and had to seize Turner or I should have fallen, so suddenly my strength collapsed. Then vaguely we saw the creature, waving its arms aloft, tear past the ship stern first, pushing a vast swell ahead and trailing a tumultuous wake behind, and the next moment it was far away and we were plunging and tossing in the sea it made.
"Thank God, he's out of practice!" said Turner, with emotion.
The majestic blind devil stopped out there with its moons toward us, and we were miserable again. We had so hoped it would go home.
I resumed my search. Below I found Phillips and Lucy Davis and a number of others searching, but with no hope. They said they had been everywhere, and were merely going over the ground again and again because they could not bear to have it reported to the mother that the search had ceased. She must be told that they were her friends and that she could depend upon them.
Four hours later I gave it up, wearied to exhaustion, and went and sat down by Alice's bed, to be at hand and support her when she should wake and have to hear my desolate story. After a while she stirred, then opened her eyes and smiled brightly and said, "Oh, what bliss it is! I dreamed that the children --" She flung her arms about me in a transport of grief. "I remember -- oh, my God, it is true!"
And so, with sobs and lamentations and frantic self-reproaches she poured out her bitter sorrow, and I clasped her close to me, and could not find one comforting word to say.
"Oh, Henry, Henry, your silence means -- oh, we cannot live, we cannot bear it!"
There was a flurry of feet along the deck, the door was burst in, and Turner's voice shouted, "They're found, by God they're found!"
A joy like that brings the shock of a thunderbolt, and for a little while we thought Alice was gone; but then she rallied, and by that time the children were come, and were clasped to her breast, and she was steeped in a happiness for which there were no words. And she said she never dreamed that profanity could sound so dear and sweet, and she asked the mate to say it again; and he did, but left out the profanity and spoiled it.
The children and George and Germania had seen the squid come and lift its moons above our stern and reach its vast tentacle aloft; and they had not waited, but had fled below, and had not stopped till they were deep down in the hold and hidden in a tunnel among the freight. When found, they had had several hours' sleep and were much refreshed.
Between seeing the squid, and getting washed off her feet, and losing the children, the day was a costly one for Alice. It marks the date of her first gray hairs.
They were few, but they were to have company.
We lay in a dead calm, and helpless. We could not get away from the squid's neighborhood. But I was obliged to have some sleep, and I took it. I took all I could get, which was six hours. Then young Phillips came and turned me out and said there were signs that the spirit of mutiny was aboard again and that the captain was going to call the men aft and talk to them. Phillips thought I would not want to miss it.
He was right. We had private theatricals, we had concerts, and the other usual time-passers customary on long voyages; but a speech from the captain was the best entertainment the ship's talent could furnish. There was character, back of his oratory.
He was all sailor. He was sixty years old, and had known no life but sea life. He had no gray hairs, his beard was full and black and shiny; he wore no mustache, therefore his lips were exposed to view; they fitted together like box and lid, and expressed the pluck and resolution that were in him. He had bright black eyes in his old bronze face and they eloquently interpreted all his moods, and his moods were many: for at times he was the youngest man in the ship, and the most cheerful and vivacious and skittish; at times he was the best-natured man in the ship, and he was always the most lovable; sometimes he was sarcastic, sometimes he was serious even to solemnity, sometimes he was stern, sometimes he was as sentimental as a schoolgirl; sometimes he was silent, quiet, withdrawn within himself, sometimes he was talkative and argumentative; he was remarkably and sincerely and persistently pious, and marvelously and scientifically profane; he was much the strongest man in the ship, and he was also the largest, excepting that plotting, malicious and fearless devil, Stephen Bradshaw the carpenter; he could smile as sweetly as a girl, and it was a pleasure to see him do it. He was entirely self-educated, and had made a vast and picturesque job of it. He was an affectionate creature, and in his family relations he was beautiful; in the eyes of his daughters he was omniscient, omnipotent, a mixed sun god and storm god, and they feared him and adored him accordingly. He was fond of oratory, and thought he had the gift of it; and so he practiced it now arid then, upon occasion, and did it with easy confidence. He was a charming man and a manly man, with a right heart and a fine and daring spirit.
Phillips and I slipped out and moved aft. Things had an unusual and startling aspect. There were flushes of light here and there and yonder; the captain stood in one of them, the officers stood a little way back of him.
"How do matters stand, Phillips?"
"You notice that the battle lanterns are lit, all the way forward?"
'
"Yes. The gun watches are at their posts; I see that. The captain means business, I reckon."
"The gun watches are mutineers!"
I steadied my voice as well as I could, but there was still a quaver in it when I said, "Then they've sprung a trap on us, and we are at their mercy, of course."
"It has the look of it. They've caught the old man napping, and we are in a close place this time."
We joined the officers, and just then we heard the measured tramp of the men in the distance. They were coming down from forward. Soon they came into view and moved toward us until they were within three or four paces of the captain.
"Halt!"
They had a leader this time, and it was he that gave the command -- Stephen Bradshaw, the carpenter. He had a revolver in his hand. There was a pause, then the captain drew himself up, put on his dignity, and prepared to transact business in a properly impressive and theatrical way. He cleared his voice and said, in a fatherly tone,
"Men, this is your spokesman, duly appointed by you?"
Several responded timidly, "Yes, sir."
"You have a grievance, and you desire to have it redressed?"
"Yes, sir."
"He is not here to represent himself, lads, but only you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very well. Your complaint shall be heard, and treated with justice." [Murmur of approbation from the men.] Then the captain's soft manner hardened a little, and he said to the carpenter, "Go on
."
Bradshaw was eager to begin, and he flung out his words with aggressive confidence.
"Captain Davis, in the first place this crew wants to know where they are. Next, they want this ship put about and pointed for home -- straight off, and no fooling. They are tired of this blind voyage, and they ain't going to have any more of it -- and that's the word with the bark on it." He paused a moment, for his temper was rising and obstructing his breath; then he continued in a raised and insolent voice and with a showy flourish of his revolver. "Before, they've had no leader, and you talked them down and cowed them; but that ain't going to happen this time. And they hadn't any plans, and warn't fixed for business; but it's different, now." He grew exultant. "Do you see this?" His revolver. "And do you see that?" He pointed to the Gatlings. "We've got the guns; we are boss of the ship. Put her about! That's the order, and it's going to be obeyed."
There was an admiring murmur from the men. After a pause the captain said, with dignity, "Apparently you are through. Stand aside."
"Stand, aside, is it? Not till I have heard what answer you --"
The captain's face darkened and an evil light began to flicker in his eyes, and his hands to twitch. The carpenter glanced at him, then stepped a pace aside, shaking his head and grumbling. "Say your say, then, and cut it short, for I've got something more to say when you're done, if it ain't satisfactory."
The captain's manner at once grew sweet, and even tender, and he turned toward the men with his most genial and winning smile on his face, and proceeded to take them into his confidence.
"You want to know where you are, boys. It is reasonable; it is natural. If we don't know where we are -- if we are lost -- who is worst off, you or me? You have no children in this ship -- I have. If we are in danger have I put us there intentionally? Would I have done it purposely -- with my children aboard? Come, what do you think?"
There was a stir among the men, and an approving nodding of heads which conceded that the point was well taken.
