Complete Poetical Works by Bret Harte Part 14

The first two given and compared; The third--the commandante stared!

"The FIRST of June? I make it second."

Said the stranger, "Then you've wrongly reckoned; I make it FIRST: as you came this way, You should have lost, d'ye see, a day; Lost a day, as plainly see, On the hundred and eightieth degree."

"Lost a day?" "Yes; if not rude, When did you make east longitude?"

"On the ninth of May,--our patron's day."

"On the ninth?--YOU HAD NO NINTH OF MAY!

Eighth and tenth was there; but stay"-- Too late; for the galleon bore away.

Lost was the day they should have kept, Lost unheeded and lost unwept; Lost in a way that made search vain, Lost in a trackless and boundless main; Lost like the day of Job's awful curse, In his third chapter, third and fourth verse; Wrecked was their patron's only day,-- What would the holy Fathers say?

Said the Fray Antonio Estavan, The galleon's chaplain,--a learned man,-- "Nothing is lost that you can regain; And the way to look for a thing is plain, To go where you lost it, back again.

Back with your galleon till you see The hundred and eightieth degree.

Wait till the rolling year goes round, And there will the missing day be found; For you'll find, if computation's true, That sailing EAST will give to you Not only one ninth of May, but two,-- One for the good saint's present cheer, And one for the day we lost last year."

Back to the spot sailed the galleon; Where, for a twelvemonth, off and on The hundred and eightieth degree She rose and fell on a tropic sea.

But lo! when it came to the ninth of May, All of a sudden becalmed she lay One degree from that fatal spot, Without the power to move a knot; And of course the moment she lost her way, Gone was her chance to save that day.

To cut a lengthening story short, She never saved it. Made the sport Of evil spirits and baffling wind, She was always before or just behind, One day too soon or one day too late, And the sun, meanwhile, would never wait.

She had two Eighths, as she idly lay, Two Tenths, but never a NINTH of May; And there she rides through two hundred years Of dreary penance and anxious fears; Yet, through the grace of the saint she served, Captain and crew are still preserved.

By a computation that still holds good, Made by the Holy Brotherhood, The San Gregorio will cross that line In nineteen hundred and thirty-nine: Just three hundred years to a day From the time she lost the ninth of May.

And the folk in Acapulco town, Over the waters looking down, Will see in the glow of the setting sun The sails of the missing galleon, And the royal standard of Philip Rey, The gleaming mast and glistening spar, As she nears the surf of the outer bar.

A Te Deum sung on her crowded deck, An odor of spice along the sh.o.r.e, A crash, a cry from a shattered wreck,-- And the yearly galleon sails no more In or out of the olden bay; For the blessed patron has found his day.

Such is the legend. Hear this truth: Over the trackless past, somewhere, Lie the lost days of our tropic youth, Only regained by faith and prayer, Only recalled by prayer and plaint: Each lost day has its patron saint!

* See notes at end.

III. IN DIALECT

"JIM"

Say there! P'r'aps Some on you chaps Might know Jim Wild?

Well,--no offense: Thar ain't no sense In gittin' riled!

Jim was my chum Up on the Bar: That's why I come Down from up yar, Lookin' for Jim.

Thank ye, sir! YOU Ain't of that crew,-- Blest if you are!

Money? Not much: That ain't my kind; I ain't no such.

Rum? I don't mind, Seein' it's you.

Well, this yer Jim,-- Did you know him?

Jes' 'bout your size; Same kind of eyes;-- Well, that is strange: Why, it's two year Since he came here, Sick, for a change.

Well, here's to us: Eh?

The h--- you say!

Dead?

That little cuss?

What makes you star', You over thar?

Can't a man drop 's gla.s.s in yer shop But you must r'ar?

It wouldn't take D----d much to break You and your bar.

Dead!

Poor--little--Jim!

Why, thar was me, Jones, and Bob Lee, Harry and Ben,-- No-account men: Then to take HIM!

Well, thar-- Good-by-- No more, sir--I-- Eh?

What's that you say?

Why, dern it!--sho!-- No? Yes! By Joe!

Sold!

Sold! Why, you limb, You ornery, Derned old Long-legged Jim.

CHIQUITA

Beautiful! Sir, you may say so. Thar isn't her match in the county; Is thar, old gal,--Chiquita, my darling, my beauty?

Feel of that neck, sir,--thar's velvet! Whoa! steady,--ah, will you, you vixen!

Whoa! I say. Jack, trot her out; let the gentleman look at her paces.

Morgan!--she ain't nothing else, and I've got the papers to prove it.

Sired by Chippewa Chief, and twelve hundred dollars won't buy her.

Briggs of Tuolumne owned her. Did you know Briggs of Tuolumne?

Busted hisself in White Pine, and blew out his brains down in 'Frisco?

Hedn't no savey, hed Briggs. Thar, Jack! that'll do,--quit that foolin'!

Nothin' to what she kin do, when she's got her work cut out before her.

Hosses is hosses, you know, and likewise, too, jockeys is jockeys: And 'tain't ev'ry man as can ride as knows what a hoss has got in him.

Know the old ford on the Fork, that nearly got Flanigan's leaders?

Nasty in daylight, you bet, and a mighty rough ford in low water!

Well, it ain't six weeks ago that me and the Jedge and his nevey Struck for that ford in the night, in the rain, and the water all round us;

Up to our flanks in the gulch, and Rattlesnake Creek just a-bilin', Not a plank left in the dam, and nary a bridge on the river.

I had the gray, and the Jedge had his roan, and his nevey, Chiquita; And after us trundled the rocks jest loosed from the top of the canyon.

Lickity, lickity, switch, we came to the ford, and Chiquita Buckled right down to her work, and, a fore I could yell to her rider, Took water jest at the ford, and there was the Jedge and me standing, And twelve hundred dollars of hoss-flesh afloat, and a-driftin' to thunder!