The Magician's Show Box, and Other Stories Part 11

"You know I was born in India, where the people--that is, the people who are any body--never think of walking, but ride in palanquins carried on men's shoulders. These coolies, as they are called, are just like horses here, and one never thinks of their having any will of their own, or any thought, but of trotting patiently all day under the palanquin. As for me, I hardly knew there was such a thing as the ground, till one day the palanquin bearers, for some reason which I never understood,--a quarrel among themselves I believe,--suddenly set the palanquin down on the ground, and left me all alone in a strange part of the city, crying, and begging the pa.s.sers by (who did not understand a word I said) to carry me home; but I never should have reached there if I had not been found by some one who knew our family."

"What a wonderful adventure, to be sure!"

"Well, I thought I had something to tell when I began. I am sure I know now what you mean by Mr. Cantari's smile. But it was not so much my little adventure in itself, though that always seemed something till now; but after that I never could get the palanquin out of my head. It seemed to me that all the people in India lived in palanquins, except the poor people, and that they were nothing but bearers. No one did any work, not even the servants, for every servant seemed to have another under him, though, to be sure, there must have been some at last with their feet on the ground, trudging along to carry on the household. But this was always a puzzle to me, and I used to wonder if some time every thing would come down to the ground, like the palanquin; for the bearers were human beings after all, and I had found, for once, at least, that they had wills of their own. But this was, I suppose, something like the fear of the Indians, which some of you say you always had when little children. I do not think it could have troubled me much, however, for I remember I used to lie all day in a hammock, reading story books, with a half-waking and half-sleeping sense of the poor story writers being palanquin bearers, to carry us about so delightfully, without any thought or trouble on our part. But really, now, was it not natural to be reminded of all this by Clara's situation? Was it not, Miss Revere?"

"Yes, Effie," answered Miss Revere. "And probably we could each of us remember a similar impression, if we would recall the circ.u.mstance in our lives which brought us into closest contact with the reality of life, which Clara is now finding, I fear, so different from her school-girl ideas of it For my own part, you have reminded me of my earliest years, when my palanquin, also, was set down with a shock I have never forgotten."

"Why, were you ever in India, Miss Revere?" asked f.a.n.n.y.

"No, dear, but Effie has already hinted that the country of palanquins is not so far from us as that."

"Do tell us about it, Miss Revere. I have always longed to know your history, for I was sure you had one. You seem to be so apart from us girls, and to do every thing as if you had done it before, and as if you stood so far back, that things which make us happy or unhappy are only things to be looked at by you, just like Leonora, who is always quietly sketching us, when the greatest excitement is going on."

"I will tell you, if you wish, all that is to be told of a life, which, with one exception, has been without events, that would appear such to any one but myself. It will only, therefore, be the result, and not the history of my life, which I can tell you, and that rather for the pleasure I shall have in exacting the same of you, than for any I shall take in recalling my own. I say there has been but one event in my life; it was that which left me an orphan. O girls, we speak of Clara's coming down to the ground; we speak of seeing our way clear, and treading on solid ground; these are expressions of those whose feet only would walk upon the ground, while their hearts and eyes are on a level with those about them, who have never known how hard to the forehead is the ground, when all we love lie beneath it; how one hides her face in terror from the vacant air, finding her only refuge in the earth, where lies all her grief. But I do not wish to bring my dark robe among your gay dresses."

"O Miss Revere!"

"Tell me if you think it possible for one who is absolutely alone in the world to be happy, after having once been so with others?"

"I cannot imagine being alone, any more than I can imagine a sound, without being there to hear it," answered Anna.

"Poor Mr. Polanco, in the Darien expedition! Was not that absolute solitude? After being left to die alone by his companions, who were forced by starvation to desert him, think of his bones being found long after, stretched on the grave of his friend, who had been buried a day's march behind!" said Miss Revere.

"I know. Was it not frightful?" said Anna. "Can you imagine a solitude so appalling, that a dying man would drag himself a whole day's march (poor men! it was but a few miles in their condition) to find in a grave some semblance of human society."

"As if a drowning sailor, in an Arctic sea, should swim to an island of ice," said Kate.

"Only think how many have gone down in the sea with nothing in sight but the waves; and people have fallen down precipices, and known they were going, and no one has ever known what they have felt. We only hear about those who are saved. I would give any thing to know the last thoughts of those who have never been heard of."

"But, Anna, is it not the same to every one at the last moment?"

"Perhaps so; but it seems different."

"Ah, Anna," said Miss Revere, "that _seems_ is the old story of the palanquin again. Just as we _seemed_ safer the other night, when we all huddled together in one room, in the thunder storm."

"What an awful night that was!"

"And yet here we all are, safe. I never could have believed, years ago, when I was lying alone in a heavier night than that, that I should ever be sitting here tranquilly telling of it."

"O, yes, do tell us the rest."

"If I should tell you all, it would only be answering my own question, 'whether one could be happy after being left alone in the world by all whom she loved.' Little thing as I was then, I learned that there is no comfort from others, no diversion from a great calamity. Every thing that one clings to for help is only the sailor's block of ice, which is itself water. May you never know how utterly alone one is in a great sorrow; but if you ever should, may you find yourselves, as I did at last, taking root in the very ground on which you fall, and drawing a new life from the reality of your desolation. Thus I had to earn my own living; and you can judge if Clara's lot can seem a hard one to me, who have known so well what poverty is."

"Why, Miss Revere, how can you speak of poverty? I thought you had every thing you wished," exclaimed Effie.

"Dear child, I believe it is only those who have been unhappy, or in some way thrown out of their natural life, who can understand comparisons. We must all earn our own living in some way, and always in the way in which our life is different from all others."

"I wish, Anna, you had not told about the sailor swimming to that awful ice. I do not see the use of thinking of such things before they happen. I am sure I shall never dare to go to sea," said Kate.

"How did you feel, f.a.n.n.y, when you were out in the boat, in the middle of the ocean?" asked Linda.

"Why, was she ever at sea?"

"And in a real s.h.i.+pwreck, my dear."

"What, f.a.n.n.y here? Do, pray, tell us all about it."

"I thought every one knew about it. And yet I remember when we landed,--for we were picked up by another s.h.i.+p,--and I thought every one in the city would be thinking of nothing else, how strange it seemed that no one thought much about it. We went up to a hotel, and every one was seeing to his own baggage, and every thing going on just as if nothing had happened. I suppose this is why I have never talked more about it."

"But tell us; you know we shall be interested in it. I have always wanted to hear about a s.h.i.+pwreck from some one who had actually been in it."

"And then it was not so much the actual wreck. I think I rather enjoyed it,--what I remember of it,--and I suppose I was too ill most of the time to take much notice. But the voyage I remember distinctly, or rather after a certain time, for I was so young that my first recollections were about that s.h.i.+p, so that it seems to me as if I had been born upon the ocean. I remember playing dolls in the cabin just as if I had been in a house; and although it rocked about terribly, the vessel was so large, with all kinds of other cabins and forecastles, and holds, which I heard them speak of, but had never seen, that I never thought of it as actually floating on a deep sea, and separate from every thing else; for we were really, you know, thousands of miles out on this immense ocean. But I always thought of it as something like the floating bridge at the salt water bath, fastened in some way, at one end, to the place we had left,--of which, however, I had no recollection,--and at the other end to the place to which we were going, about which I had almost as little idea.

"I must have been kept in the cabin, I think, by my nurse, for I remember so distinctly the first time I climbed up the steep stairs, and found myself alone by the side of the s.h.i.+p. Now I think of it, I must have been on deck before, for I have a confused sense of the glittering of the sun on the waves, which seemed very near, and the spray, and the wind in the ropes, and altogether like a city or a band of music; perhaps there was music on board, though I don't remember hearing it again. But now it was after sunset, and there were no little sparkling waves, but great, solemn swells rolling, as if their loneliness, out there in the middle of the ocean, was too awful to think of, out to the gray edge of the sky, so far and vast all around, with nothing to hold on to, and then swelling up so deep against the side of the s.h.i.+p, and lifting it up,--that great, heavy vessel,--as they pa.s.sed under; and then I felt for the first time the motion of the whole s.h.i.+p, and the depth of the sea beneath it, and understood what some one meant who had said one day at table, that there 'was but a plank between us and eternity.' I had some sense of what he meant when he said it; but there were so many planks in the s.h.i.+p, so many decks, one below the other, that I never thought till now, that, last of all, there must be one plank along which the deep water was always was.h.i.+ng, and if this should give way, we should go down 'with every soul on board!' These words I had heard said by a very solemn man, a pa.s.senger, who was also, I think, the one who spoke of the plank and eternity. After this they were always sounding in my ears, and at night, after lying awake, trying not to listen to the wash of the water against the side of the s.h.i.+p, and not to feel it heaving up on a great wave and then sinking down--down--till I felt certain something would give way, and we never should come up, I would fall asleep, and dream the s.h.i.+p had sunk, and 'every soul on board' was tossing alone on the waves, with 'only a plank between him and eternity.'

"I forgot to say that we had a captain whom I loved very much; he was so kind and polite to us all, and at the table particularly, was so attentive to me, that I thought the s.h.i.+p would be safe so long as he was in it. He was very young and handsome, and I thought he sat at the head of the dinner table like a real n.o.bleman. And so I believe he was, as I heard one of the sailors say one day,--a gruff old fellow he was,--that n.o.body but a lord's son would ever have given such an order as that, whatever it was. I heard him say, too, one day, to a pa.s.senger who looked as if he had something to do with vessels, that if the captain had earned his own living, as he had, at the ropes, he would have known something or other from a marline-spike. He said, too, that s.h.i.+ps never would be safe so long as captains who had never 'served up' were appointed over the heads of old salts, like himself.

"I felt dreadfully troubled to learn that the s.h.i.+p was not considered safe by an old sailor; but I could not make out what he meant by saying the captain had not 'served up,' the only use of those words which I had ever known being in reference to the dinner, about which the captain was always very particular with the steward. I at last asked one of the sailors, who laughed, and said it meant that the captain had not come up from the forecastle, but had come in at the cabin windows. After this I gave up asking questions of the crew, and puzzled myself alone over their queer sea terms; but I took all the more notice of their ways towards the captain, and soon found that he was not so great a man with them as with the pa.s.sengers. What knowing looks they would give each other, when obeying his orders! There!--I knew when you were speaking of Mr. Cantari's smile, it reminded me of something like it that had happened years ago; it was that look, of those sun-browned, good-natured sailors. I seem to see the captain now, standing so handsome and gentlemanly on the deck, the color mounting into his face as he gave some order about taking in sails, or tightening ropes, or such things, and the crew going about this way and that, and looking sidewise at each other, with that good-natured, wicked smile; I do believe the captain was more afraid of that than he would have been of a pirate s.h.i.+p. There was one old man, in particular, who was more grave than any of them, and never moved his face, but had an odd way of smiling with his eyes at the men, and putting out his cheek with his tongue; and the captain's voice always seemed to be a little tremulous when he was giving an order while this man was standing by. I was very fond of him still; but it was a great shock to me to find the crew thought so little of one in whom I had placed such unbounded confidence. What was to become of us now in case of danger?--though of that I thought less than of that awful sea which lay day and night beneath us; and now, more than ever, there seemed to be but 'a plank' between me and it, now that the captain was no longer between the plank and me.

"Then I thought how safe and careless of danger the sailors seemed to be, and that it must be because they knew the s.h.i.+p so well, knew every timber in it, and where it was, and how strong it was; and I determined I would learn too, and asked the captain to tell me all about it; but I found his knowledge of it did not reach much below the cabin floor, and the pa.s.sengers could tell me little. Then I said to myself, I will go to the forecastle and 'serve up,' for I had found out by this time what that meant; and this, Miss Revere, was really what you would call 'earning my living.' I learned from the crew, and particularly from the same old man who troubled the captain so much with his silent smile, and who would cut little s.h.i.+ps, and parts of s.h.i.+ps, and put them together for me, so much, that at last I could stand upon the upper deck and know every deck below, and the princ.i.p.al timbers of the frame down to the very keel. I suppose I could not have known all this very well, such a child as I was; but I had learned enough to feel safer and to feel the motion of the waves through the whole s.h.i.+p, up to the planks on which I stood; so that I felt no longer like a loose piece of ballast, rolling helpless about, but as if the s.h.i.+p were a great living thing, and I was its spirit and life.

About that time I used to go to the bow of the s.h.i.+p, when great waves were buoying it up, and repeat, with my hair streaming behind my head,--

'And the waves bound beneath me, as a steed That knows his rider!'--

some lines that I had heard from a pa.s.senger; till one day I turned round, and there was the old sailor putting out his cheek, and winking to one of the men; and I ran off as if I had seen a shark, and I believe I never went forward of the cabin after that."

"But, f.a.n.n.y, how could you remember so well what happened when you were such a mere child as you must have been then? What you say does not sound like a very little child," said Effie.

"I dare say many of the things I am telling were at the time very indistinct and confused; but if I should tell them in the same way, they would not have form enough for you to see them. Then I cannot remember the voyage in course,--day after day,--but particular times I remember just as distinctly as if they had happened yesterday. If I should confuse a little what I felt then with what I have felt since, it would be perfectly natural; for I do feel sometimes as if I had never left that s.h.i.+p. I wonder if we never have but one thought all our lives? That s.h.i.+p was then the whole world to me, and now the whole world seems the s.h.i.+p. And that carries me back to one splendid night,--the only perfectly beautiful night in the voyage,--in fact it is the only night I remember; I suppose the nurse usually kept me below for fear of the night air. That night there was a great deal of noise and talking in the cabin, and I stole away to the deck. All was stillness and starlight, with a gentle sound in the sails like the cooing of a dove, and every thing as if it had been going on so for hours. A few long swells reached to the horizon, and I could see their waving lines against the sky, and the light came up from beyond them, so that the whole world seemed to be ocean, and the s.h.i.+p the only living thing, swaying on its bosom as lightly as Anna's cross, (what a beauty it is, Anna!) and the top of the masts sweeping over whole tracts of stars, and the stars blinking as if keeping time with the dipping of the vessel, till it all seemed a dance, s.h.i.+p and stars together, the stars seeming s.h.i.+ps in an ocean of s.p.a.ce, and the s.h.i.+p to hang in a liquid sky, and I,--there I was alone on the deck, my world under my feet; and who knew but that in each of the stars was a being whose steed bounded beneath him as intelligently as mine? Would not these sometimes speak each other, as the pa.s.sing s.h.i.+ps? Perhaps they do now, I thought, in a way as much finer as the ocean on which they all sail is larger than ours; and by listening attentively perhaps my ear will become fine enough to hear them. Now, what are you laughing at Kate?"

"Only to think how Humboldt would look, to hear you describing the world which you had conquered so scientifically."

"Just as if I felt so now, and did not know that only a little child as I then was would ever have such magnificent ideas of itself. I don't believe even then I looked any wiser than you, when you came to school with your new Geology, walking as grand as if you were treading on the old red sandstone."

"Now don't, f.a.n.n.y! We all feel proud enough of our new studies; it seems like having attained the greater part of a science to have bought the books; but we feel humble enough to make up for it on examination day."

"But all the time you have not said a word about the s.h.i.+pwreck,"

suggested Effie.

"O, yes, the s.h.i.+pwreck!" exclaimed the girls.

"I know that is all you want to hear; but you have put me out, so that I shall make but a short story of it. Besides, as I said before, that was the least part of it."

"Not long after that splendid night, I was called up on deck by the cry of a sail in sight, which, you know, is the great event at sea. It pa.s.sed at some distance, though near enough for us to see it distinctly; but it was a clouded sky, and the waves, dark and foreboding, left such a dreary s.p.a.ce of water between it and us, and the poor s.h.i.+p looked so forlorn and helpless, tumbling about on the great loose waves, that all my old fear came back. I thought perhaps there were those on board that dismal little bark who thought, as I had, that they were carrying the centre of the world along with them; and perhaps there were hundreds of other such, scattered all over the sea in their poor little c.o.c.klesh.e.l.ls, and our great s.h.i.+p would seem as little and helpless to them as theirs to us. After the s.h.i.+p was out of sight, and I was looking off indifferently in that direction, all at once the back of an immense fish arose out of the sea and disappeared. Perhaps it was the coming up of a storm which spread a gloom over the sea, and made that huge black thing so awfully distinct and lonely; but it was the most fearful sight I had ever seen. There was that creature, out there in the middle of the ocean, in a security frightful to think of, and we in an artificial fabric, which, at best, was only the 'single plank.' To feel as safe as the fish, was now my only desire, and I tried to give up all thought of the s.h.i.+p, and commit myself boldly to the waves,--as I had heard Arion did, who was saved by the dolphin,--not really, you know, but I could not even imagine it; when it came to the last point, I could not even think of plunging into the deep sea, and I went to bed dreadfully depressed, partly owing, I dare say, to the mournful sound of the rising storm in the rigging. All I remember afterwards was dreaming the fish had changed into a mermaid, and was holding out her arms to me, and waiting for me to make up my mind, and I was thinking that if I leaped into them, the sea would have no power over me, and then plunging down and finding not her arms, but the cold sea, then waking up and actually feeling the cold water das.h.i.+ng over me, and a moment after, some one seizing me, and hurrying me on deck amid shrieks and screams,--and then finding myself in a little boat, crowded with wet people, and tossing about in the dark, not knowing which was sea, which was sky. Only one thing I remember after this, and that is--after the storm had gone down, and the boat was rising and falling on the great swells, the sailors resting on their oars, and a clergyman in the boat offering up a prayer, and then reading from a little wet Bible about Jesus walking on the water and holding out his hand to Peter, telling him if he had faith he could walk on the sea, as he did. I thought this was better than Arion and the dolphin, and I could really understand how it could be, though it is all gone now. I can only remember lying, crying, in the bottom of the boat. I was so happy and weak,--for I think we had nothing to eat after we left the s.h.i.+p,--and I would keep falling asleep and seeing some one stretching out his hand to me, and saying 'It is I; be not afraid;' then half waking up, and hearing some one say, in a solemn tone, 'But a plank between us and eternity,' and if it had not been for something, 'every soul on board'--and that is the last recollection I have of any thing, until we were coming into port in another s.h.i.+p; and every thing, as I said, was just as if nothing had happened, only I was very weak, for I had been quite ill; and the captain, when he saw me coming on deck, caught me in his arms and kissed me, which he had never done before, and the grave old sailor with the queer smile gave me _such_ a hug. The smile was all gone now, and when we left the s.h.i.+p I saw him shaking hands with the captain, with the most serious face I ever saw. I had overheard the old man telling some one the captain had shown he had the real grit in him, and if he had not had the misfortune to be born a gentleman he would have been as good a sailor as ever did something or other, I forget what; as if he had said he would have been as good a sailor as he had shown himself a brave man."

"Is that all?" said Effie. "I thought when you came to the s.h.i.+pwreck it would be something grand and dangerous."

"I suppose you would like to hear that the s.h.i.+p was struck by lightning, and went down in the middle of the ocean, with every soul on board but me, and that I drifted for days on a single oar, and at last came to a savage coast with a horde of wild Arabs ready to pounce upon me the moment I should be dashed upon the beach."