Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (Annotated Edition)

by Herman Melville

  "There's only ten maintopmen belonging to our watch; if you are one, then there'll be eleven," said a second sailor. "Get out of the top!"

  "This is too bad, maties," cried Israel, "to serve an old topmate this way. Come, come, you are foolish. Give us a quid." And, once more, with the utmost sociability, he addressed the sailor next to him.

  "Look ye," returned the other, "if you don't make away with yourself, you skulking spy from the mizzen, we'll drop you to deck like a jewel-block."

  Seeing the party thus resolute, Israel, with some affected banter, descended.

  The reason why he had tried the scheme-and, spite of the foregoing failure, meant to repeat it-was this: As customary in armed ships, the men were in companies allotted to particular places and functions.

  Therefore, to escape final detection, Israel must some way get himself recognized as belonging to some one of those bands; otherwise, as an isolated nondescript, discovery ere long would be certain, especially upon the next general muster. To be sure, the hope in question was a forlorn sort of hope, but it was his sole one, and must therefore be tried.

  Mixing in again for a while with the general watch, he at last goes on the forecastle among the sheet-anchor-men there, at present engaged in critically discussing the merits of the late valiant encounter, and expressing their opinion that by daybreak the enemy in chase would be hull-down out of sight.

  "To be sure she will," cried Israel, joining in with the group, "old ballyhoo that she is, to be sure. But didn't we pepper her, lads? Give us a chew of tobacco, one of ye. How many have we wounded, do ye know?

  None killed that I've heard of. Wasn't that a fine hoax we played on 'em? Ha! ha! But give us a chew."

  In the prodigal fraternal patriotism of the moment, one of the old worthies freely handed his plug to our adventurer, who, helping himself, returned it, repeating the question as to the killed and wounded.

  "Why," said he of the plug, "Jack Jewboy told me, just now, that there's only seven men been carried down to the surgeon, but not a soul killed."

  "Good, boys, good!" cried Israel, moving up to one of the gun-carriages, where three or four men were sitting-"slip along, chaps, slip along, and give a watchmate a seat with ye."

  "All full here, lad; try the next gun."

  "Boys, clear a place here,", said Israel, advancing, like one of the family, to that gun.

  "Who the devil are you, making this row here?" demanded a stern-looking old fellow, captain of the forecastle, "seems to me you make considerable noise. Are you a forecastleman?"

  "If the bowsprit belongs here, so do I," rejoined Israel, composedly.

  "Let's look at ye, then!" and seizing a battle-lantern, before thrust under a gun, the old veteran came close to Israel before he had time to elude the scrutiny.

  "Take that!" said his examiner, and fetching Israel a terrible thump, pushed him ignominiously off the forecastle as some unknown interloper from distant parts of the ship.

  With similar perseverance of effrontery, Israel tried other quarters of the vessel. But with equal ill success. Jealous with the spirit of class, no social circle would receive him. As a last resort, he dived down among the holders.

  A group of them sat round a lantern, in the dark bowels of the ship, like a knot of charcoal burners in a pine forest at midnight.

  "Well, boys, what's the good word?" said Israel, advancing very cordially, but keeping as much as possible in the shadow.

  "The good word is," rejoined a censorious old holder, "that you had best go where you belong-on deck-and not be a skulking down here where you don't belong. I suppose this is the way you skulked during the fight."

  "Oh, you're growly to-night, shipmate," said Israel, pleasantly-"supper sits hard on your conscience."

  "Get out of the hold with ye," roared the other. "On deck, or I'll call the master-at-arms."

  Once more Israel decamped.

  Sorely against his grain, as a final effort to blend himself openly with the crew, he now went among the waisters: the vilest caste of an armed ship's company, mere dregs and settlings-sea-Pariahs, comprising all the lazy, all the inefficient, all the unfortunate and fated, all the melancholy, all the infirm, all the rheumatical scamps, scapegraces, ruined prodigal sons, sooty faces, and swineherds of the crew, not excluding those with dismal wardrobes.

  An unhappy, tattered, moping row of them sat along dolefully on the gun-deck, like a parcel of crest-fallen buzzards, exiled from civilized society.

  "Cheer up, lads," said Israel, in a jovial tone, "homeward-bound, you know. Give us a seat among ye, friends."

  "Oh, sit on your head!" answered a sullen fellow in the corner.

  "Come, come, no growling; we're homeward-bound. Whoop, my hearties!"

  "Workhouse bound, you mean," grumbled another sorry chap, in a darned shirt.

  "Oh, boys, don't be down-hearted. Let's keep up our spirits. Sing us a song, one of ye, and I'll give the chorus."

  "Sing if ye like, but I'll plug my ears, for one," said still another sulky varlet, with the toes out of his sea-boots, while all the rest with one roar of misanthropy joined him.

  But Israel, riot to be daunted, began:

  "'Cease, rude Boreas, cease your growling!'"

  "And you cease your squeaking, will ye?" cried a fellow in a banged tarpaulin. "Did ye get a ball in the windpipe, that ye cough that way, worse nor a broken-nosed old bellows? Have done with your groaning, it's worse nor the death-rattle."

  "Boys, is this the way you treat a watchmate" demanded Israel reproachfully, "trying to cheer up his friends? Shame on ye, boys. Come, let's be sociable. Spin us a yarn, one of ye. Meantime, rub my back for me, another," and very confidently he leaned against his neighbor.

  "Lean off me, will ye?" roared his friend, shoving him away.

  "But who is this ere singing, leaning, yarn-spinning chap? Who are ye?

  Be you a waister, or be you not?"

  So saying, one of this peevish, sottish band staggered close up to Israel. But there was a deck above and a deck below, and the lantern swung in the distance. It was too dim to see with critical exactness.

  "No such singing chap belongs to our gang, that's flat," he dogmatically exclaimed at last, after an ineffectual scrutiny. "Sail out of this!"

  And with a shove once more, poor Israel was ejected.

  Blackballed out of every club, he went disheartened on deck. So long, while light screened him at least, as he contented himself with promiscuously circulating, all was safe; it was the endeavor to fraternize with any one set which was sure to endanger him. At last, wearied out, he happened to find himself on the berth deck, where the watch below were slumbering. Some hundred and fifty hammocks were on that deck. Seeing one empty, he leaped in, thinking luck might yet some way befriend him. Here, at last, the sultry confinement put him fast asleep. He was wakened by a savage whiskerando of the other watch, who, seizing him by his waistband, dragged him most indecorously out, furiously denouncing him for a skulker.

  Springing to his feet, Israel perceived from the crowd and tumult of the berth deck, now all alive with men leaping into their hammocks, instead of being full of sleepers quietly dosing therein, that the watches were changed. Going above, he renewed in various quarters his offers of intimacy with the fresh men there assembled; but was successively repulsed as before. At length, just as day was breaking, an irascible fellow whose stubborn opposition our adventurer had long in vain sought to conciliate-this man suddenly perceiving, by the gray morning light, that Israel had somehow an alien sort of general look, very savagely pressed him for explicit information as to who he might be. The answers increased his suspicion. Others began to surround the two. Presently, quite a circle was formed. Sailors from distant parts of the ship drew near. One, and then another, and another, declared that they, in their quarters, too, had been molested by a vagabond claiming fraternity, and seeking to palm himself off upon decent society. In vain Israel protested. The truth, like the day, dawned clearer and clearer
. More and more closely he was scanned. At length the hour for having all hands on deck arrived; when the other watch which Israel had first tried, reascending to the deck, and hearing the matter in discussion, they endorsed the charge of molestation and attempted imposture through the night, on the part of some person unknown, but who, likely enough, was the strange man now before them. In the end, the master-at-arms appeared with his bamboo, who, summarily collaring poor Israel, led him as a mysterious culprit to the officer of the deck, which gentleman having heard the charge, examined him in great perplexity, and, saying that he did not at all recognize that countenance, requested the junior officers to contribute their scrutiny. But those officers were equally at fault.

  "Who the deuce are you?" at last said the officer-of-the-deck, in added bewilderment. "Where did you come from? What's your business?

  Where are you stationed? What's your name? Who are you, any way? How did you get here? and where are you going?"

  "Sir," replied Israel very humbly, "I am going to my regular duty, if you will but let me. I belong to the maintop, and ought to be now engaged in preparing the topgallant stu'n'-sail for hoisting."

  "Belong to the maintop? Why, these men here say you have been trying to belong to the foretop, and the mizzentop, and the forecastle, and the hold, and the waist, and every other part of the ship. This is extraordinary," he added, turning upon the junior officers.

  "He must be out of his mind," replied one of them, the sailing-master.

  "Out of his mind?" rejoined the officer-of-the-deck. "He's out of all reason; out of all men's knowledge and memories! Why, no one knows him; no one has ever seen him before; no imagination, in the wildest flight of a morbid nightmare, has ever so much as dreamed of him. Who are you?" he again added, fierce with amazement. "What's your name? Are you down in the ship's books, or at all in the records of nature?"

  "My name, sir, is Peter Perkins," said Israel, thinking it most prudent to conceal his real appellation.

  "Certainly, I never heard that name before. Pray, see if Peter Perkins is down on the quarter-bills," he added to a midshipman. "Quick, bring the book here."

  Having received it, he ran his fingers along the columns, and dashing down the book, declared that no such name was there.

  "You are not down, sir. There is no Peter Perkins here. Tell me at once who are you?"

  "It might be, sir," said Israel, gravely, "that seeing I shipped under the effects of liquor, I might, out of absent-mindedness like, have given in some other person's name instead of my own."

  "Well, what name have you gone by among your shipmates since you've been aboard?"

  "Peter Perkins, sir."

  Upon this the officer turned to the men around, inquiring whether the name of Peter Perkins was familiar to them as that of a shipmate. One and all answered no.

  "This won't do, sir," now said the officer. "You see it won't do. Who are you?"

  "A poor persecuted fellow at your service, sir."

  "Who persecutes you?"

  "Every one, sir. All hands seem to be against me; none of them willing to remember me."

  "Tell me," demanded the officer earnestly, "how long do you remember yourself? Do you remember yesterday morning? You must have come into existence by some sort of spontaneous combustion in the hold. Or were you fired aboard from the enemy, last night, in a cartridge? Do you remember yesterday?"

  "Oh, yes, sir."

  "What was you doing yesterday?"

  "Well, sir, for one thing, I believe I had the honor of a little talk with yourself."

  "With me?"

  "Yes, sir; about nine o'clock in the morning-the sea being smooth and the ship running, as I should think, about seven knots-you came up into the maintop, where I belong, and was pleased to ask my opinion about the best way to set a topgallant stu'n'-sail."

  "He's mad! He's mad!" said the officer, with delirious conclusiveness.

  "Take him away, take him away, take him away-put him somewhere, master-at-arms. Stay, one test more. What mess do you belong to?"

  "Number 12, sir."

  "Mr. Tidds," to a midshipman, "send mess No. 12 to the mast."

  Ten sailors replied to the summons, and arranged themselves before Israel.

  "Men, does this man belong to your mess?"

  "No, sir; never saw him before this morning."

  "What are those men's names?" he demanded of Israel.

  "Well, sir, I am so intimate with all of them," looking upon them with a kindly glance, "I never call them by their real names, but by nicknames. So, never using their real names, I have forgotten them. The nicknames that I know, them by, are Towser, Bowser, Rowser, Snowser."

  "Enough. Mad as a March hare. Take him away. Hold," again added the officer, whom some strange fascination still bound to the bootless investigation. "What's my name, sir?"

  "Why, sir, one of my messmates here called you Lieutenant Williamson, just now, and I never heard you called by any other name."

  "There's method in his madness," thought the officer to himself. "What's the captain's name?"

  "Why, sir, when we spoke the enemy, last night, I heard him say, through his trumpet, that he was Captain Parker; and very likely he knows his own name."

  "I have you now. That ain't the captain's real name."

  "He's the best judge himself, sir, of what his name is, I should think."

  "Were it not," said the officer, now turning gravely upon his juniors,

  "were it not that such a supposition were on other grounds absurd, I should certainly conclude that this man, in some unknown way, got on board here from the enemy last night."

  "How could he, sir?" asked the sailing-master.

  "Heaven knows. But our spanker-boom geared the other ship, you know, in manoeuvring to get headway."

  "But supposing he could have got here that fashion, which is quite impossible under all the circumstances, what motive could have induced him voluntarily to jump among enemies?"

  "Let him answer for himself," said the officer, turning suddenly upon Israel, with the view of taking him off his guard, by the matter of course assumption of the very point at issue.

  "Answer, sir. Why did you jump on board here, last night, from the enemy?"

  "Jump on board, sir, from the enemy? Why, sir, my station at general quarters is at gun No. 3, of the lower deck, here."

  "He's cracked-or else I am turned-or all the world is;-take him away!"

  "But where am I to take him, sir?" said the master-at-arms. "He don't seem to belong anywhere, sir. Where-where am I to take him?"

  "Take him-out of sight," said the officer, now incensed with his own perplexity. "Take him out of sight, I say."

  "Come along, then, my ghost," said the master-at-arms. And, collaring the phantom, he led it hither and thither, not knowing exactly what to do with it.

  Some fifteen minutes passed, when the captain coming from his cabin, and observing the master-at-arms leading Israel about in this indefinite style, demanded the reason of that procedure, adding that it was against his express orders for any new and degrading punishments to be invented for his men.

  "Come here, master-at-arms. To what end do you lead that man about?"

  "To no end in the world, sir. I keep leading him about because he has no final destination."

  "Mr. Officer-of-the-deck, what does this mean? Who is this strange man?

  I don't know that I remember him. Who is he? And what is signified by his being led about?"

  Hereupon the officer-of-the-deck, throwing himself into a tragical posture, set forth the entire mystery; much to the captain's astonishment, who at once indignantly turned upon the phantom.

  "You rascal-don't try to deceive me. Who are you? and where did you come from last?"

  "Sir, my name is Peter Perkins, and I last came from the forecastle, where the master-at-arms last led me, before coming here."

  "No joking, sir, no joking."

  "Sir, I'm sure it's too serious a business to joke about.
"

  "Do you have the assurance to say, that you, as a regularly shipped man, have been on board this vessel ever since she sailed from Falmouth, ten months ago?"

  "Sir, anxious to secure a berth under so good a commander, I was among the first to enlist."

  "What ports have we touched at, sir?" said the captain, now in a little softer tone.

  "Ports, sir, ports?"

  "Yes, sir, ports"

  Israel began to scratch his yellow hair.

  "What ports, sir?"

  "Well, sir:-Boston, for one."

  "Right there," whispered a midshipman.

  "What was the next port, sir?"

  "Why, sir, I was saying Boston was the first port, I believe; wasn't it? — and"- "The second port, sir, is what I want."

  "Well-New York."

  "Right again," whispered the midshipman.

  "And what port are we bound to, now?"

  "Let me see-homeward-bound-Falmouth, sir."

  "What sort of a place is Boston?"

  "Pretty considerable of a place, sir."

  "Very straight streets, ain't they?"

  "Yes, sir; cow-paths, cut by sheep-walks, and intersected with hen-tracks."

  "When did we fire the first gun?"

  "Well, sir, just as we were leaving Falmouth, ten months ago-signal-gun, sir."

  "Where did we fire the first shotted gun, sir? — and what was the name of the privateer we took upon that occasion?"

  "'Pears to me, sir, at that time I was on the sick list. Yes, sir, that must have been the time; I had the brain fever, and lost my mind for a while."

  "Master-at-arms, take this man away."

  "Where shall I take him, sir?" touching his cap.

  "Go, and air him on the forecastle."

  So they resumed their devious wanderings. At last, they descended to the berth-deck. It being now breakfast-time, the master-at-arms, a good-humored man, very kindly' introduced our hero to his mess, and presented him with breakfast, during which he in vain endeavored, by all sorts of subtle blandishments, to worm out his secret.

  At length Israel was set at liberty; and whenever there was any important duty to be done, volunteered to it with such cheerful alacrity, and approved himself so docile and excellent a seaman, that he conciliated the approbation of all the officers, as well as the captain; while his general sociability served, in the end, to turn in his favor the suspicious hearts of the mariners. Perceiving his good qualities, both as a sailor and man, the captain of the maintop applied for his admission into that section of the ship; where, still improving upon his former reputation, our hero did duty for the residue of the voyage.