Jack Tier by James Fenimore Cooper (novel24 .TXT) 📖

and how can he be den on dat rock over yonder, too?"

"Dat is imposserbul," answered Josh; "derefore I says it is n't true. I surposes you know dat what is imposserbul is n't true, Simon. Nobody can't be out yonder and down here at de same time. Dat is imposserble, Simon. But what I wants to intermate to you, will explain all dis difficulty; and it do show de raal super'ority of a coloured man over de white poperlation. Now, you mark my words, cook, and be full of admiration! Jack Tier came back along wid de Mexican gentle'em, in my anchor-watch, dis very night! You see, in de first place, ebbery t'ing come to pass in nigger's watch."

Here the two dark-skinned worthies haw-haw'd to their heart's content; laughing very much as a magistrate or a minister of the gospel might be fancied to laugh, the first time he saw a clown at a circus. The merriment of a negro will have its course, in spite of ghosts, or of anything else; and neither the cook nor the steward dreamed of puting in another syllable, until their laugh was fairly and duly ended. Then the cook made his remarks.

"How Jack Tier comin' back explain der differculty, Josh?" asked Simon.

"Did n't Jack go away wid Miss Rose and de mate, in de boat dat got adrift, you know, in Jack's watch on deck?"

Here the negroes laughed again, their imaginations happening to picture to each, at the same instant, the mystification about the boat; Biddy having told Josh in confidence, the manner in which the party had returned to the brig, while he and Simon were asleep; which fact the steward had already communicated to the cook. To these two beings, of an order in nature different from all around them, and of a simplicity and of habits that scarce placed them on a level with the intelligence of the humblest white man, all these circumstances had a sort of mysterious connection, out of which peeped much the most conspicuously to their faculties, the absurdity of the captain's imagining that a boat had got adrift, which had, in truth, been taken away by human hands. Accordingly, they laughed it out; and when they had done laughing, they returned again to the matter before them with renewed interest in the subject.

"Well, how all dat explain dis differculty?" repeated Simon.

"In dis wery manner, cook," returned the steward, with a little dignity in his manner. "Ebbery t'ing depend on understandin', I s'pose you know. If Mr. Mulford got taken off dat rock by Miss Rose and Jack Tier, wid de boat, and den dey comes here altogedder; and den Jack Tier, he get on board and tell Biddy all dis matter, and den Biddy tell Josh, and den Josh tell de cook--what for you surprise, you black debbil, one bit?"

"Dat all!" exclaimed Simon.

"Dat just all--dat ebbery bit of it, do n't I say."

Here Simon burst into such a fit of loud laughter, that it induced Spike himself to shove aside the galley-door, and thrust his own frowning visage into the dark hole within, to inquire the cause.

"What's the meaning of this uproar?" demanded the captain, all the more excited because he felt that things had reached a pass that would not permit him to laugh himself. "Do you fancy yourself on the Hook, or at the Five Points?"

The Hook and the Five Points are two pieces of tabooed territory within the limits of the good town of Manhattan, that are getting to be renowned for their rascality and orgies. They probably want nothing but the proclamation of a governor in vindication of their principles, annexed to a pardon of some of their unfortunate children, to render both classical. If we continue to make much further progress in political logic, and in the same direction as that in which we have already proceeded so far, neither will probably long be in want of this illustration. Votes can be given by the virtuous citizens of both these purlieus, as well as by the virtuous citizens of the anti-rent districts, and votes contain the essence of all such principles, as well as of their glorification.

"Do you fancy yourselves on the Hook, or at the Five Points?" demanded Spike, angrily.

"Lor', no sir!" answered Simon, laughing at each pause with all his heart. "Only laughs a little at _ghost_--dat all, sir."

"Laugh at ghost! Is that a subject to laugh at? Have a care, you black rascal, or he will visit you in your galley here, when you will least want to see him."

"No care much for _him,_ sir," returned Simon, laughing away as hard as ever. "_Sich_ a ghost ought n't to skear little baby."

"_Such_ a ghost? And what do you know of _this_ ghost more than any other?"

"Well, I seed him, Cap'in Spike; and what a body sees, he is acquainted wid."

"You saw an image that looked as much like Mr. Mulford, my late mate, as one timber-head in this brig is like another."

"Yes, sir, he like enough--must say _dat_--so wery like, could n't see any difference."

As Simon concluded this remark, he burst out into another fit of laughter, in which Josh joined him, heart and soul, as it might be. The uninitiated reader is not to imagine the laughter of those blacks to be very noisy, or to be raised on a sharp, high key. They _could_ make the welkin ring, in sudden bursts of merriment, on occasion; but, at a time like this, they rather caused their diversion to be developed by sounds that came from the depths of their chests. A gleam of suspicion that these blacks were acquainted with some fact that it might be well for him to know, shot across the mind of Spike; but he was turned from further inquiry by a remark of Don Juan, who intimated that the mirth of such persons never had much meaning to it, expressing at the same time a desire to pursue the more important subject in which they were engaged. Admonishing the blacks to be more guarded in their manifestations of merriment, the captain closed the door on them, and resumed his walk up and down the quarter-deck. As soon as left to themselves, the blacks broke out afresh, though in a way so guarded, as to confine their mirth to the galley.

"Cap'in Spike t'ink _dat_ a ghost!" exclaimed Simon, with contempt.

"Guess if he see _raal_ ghost, he find 'e difference," answered Josh. "One look at raal sperit wort' two at dis object."

Simon's eyes now opened like two saucers, and they gleamed, by the light of the lamp they had, like dark balls of condensed curiosity, blended with awe, on his companion.

"You ebber see him, Josh?" he asked, glancing over each shoulder hurriedly, as it might be, to make sure that he could not see "him," too.

"How you t'ink I get so far down the wale of life, Simon, and nebber see sich a t'ing? I seed t'ree of the crew of the `Maria Sheffington,' that was drowned by deir boat's cap-sizin', when we lay at Gibraltar, jest as plain as I see you now. Then--"

But it is unnecessary to repeat Josh's experiences in this way, with which he continued to entertain and terrify Simon for the next half-hour. This is just the difference between ignorance and knowledge. While Spike himself, and every man in his brig who belonged forward, had strong misgivings as to the earthly character of the figure they had seen at the foot of the light-house, these negroes laughed at their delusion, because they happened to be in the secret of Mulford's escape from the rock, and of that of his actual presence at the Tortugas. When, however, the same superstitious feeling was brought to bear on circumstances that lay _without_ the sphere of their exact information, they became just as dependent and helpless as all around them; more so, indeed, inasmuch as their previous habits and opinions disposed them to a more profound credulity.

It was midnight before any of the crew of the Swash sought their rest that night. The captain had to remind them that a day of extraordinary toil was before them, ere he could get one even to quit the deck; and when they did go below, it was to continue to discuss the subject of what they had seen at the Dry Tortugas. It appeared to be the prevalent opinion among the people, that the late event foreboded evil to the Swash, and long as most of these men had served in the brig, and much as they had become attached to her, had she gone into port that night, nearly every man forward would have run before morning. But fatigue and wonder, at length, produced their effect, and the vessel was silent as was usual at that hour. Spike himself lay down in his clothes, as he had done ever since Mulford had left him; and the brig continued to toss the spray from her bows, as she bore gallantly up against the trades, working her way to windward. The light was found to be of great service, as it indicated the position of the reef, though it gradually sunk in the western horizon, until near morning it fell entirely below it.

At this hour Spike appeared on deck again, where, for the first time since their interview on the morning of Harry's and Rose's escape, he laid his eyes on Jack Tier. The little dumpling-looking fellow was standing in the waist, with his arms folded sailor-fashion, as composedly as if nothing had occurred to render his meeting with the captain any way of a doubtful character. Spike approached near the person of the steward, whom he surveyed from head to foot, with a sort of contemptuous superiority, ere he spoke.

"So, Master Tier," at length the captain commenced, "you have deigned to turn out at last, have you? I hope the day's duty you've forgotten, will help to pay for the light-house boat, that I understand you've lost for me, also."

"What signifies a great clumsy boat that the brig could n't hoist in nor tow," answered Jack, coolly, turning short round at the same time, but not condescending to "uncoil" his arms as he did so, a mark of indifference that would probably have helped to mystify the captain, had he even actually suspected that anything was wrong beyond the supposed accident to the boat in question. "If you had had the boat astarn, Captain Spike, an order would have been given to cut it adrift the first time the brig made sail on the wind."

"Nobody knows, Jack; that boat would have been very useful to us while at work about the wreck. You never even turned out this morning to let me know where that craft lay, as you promised to do, but left us to find it out by our wits."

"There was no occasion for my tellin' you anything about it, sir, when the mast-heads was to be seen above water. As soon as I heard that them 'ere mast-heads was out of water, I turned over and went to sleep upon it. A man can't be on the doctor's list and on duty at the same time."

Spike looked hard at the little steward, but he made no further allusion to his being off duty, or to his failing to stand pilot to the brig as she came through the passage in quest of the schooner's remains. The fact was, that he had discovered the mast-heads himself, just as he was on the point of