Wilderness of Spring Part 56

Quite gently Shawn asked; "All quiet, Ben?"

"Yea, quiet." Not "Yea, sir." Not "Yea, Captain." The self clinging to integrity will s.n.a.t.c.h at trivia. But for Ben there was a kind of upside-down shame in reflecting that anyone else aboard who omitted the formula of humility would very quickly be instructed with a rope's end.

And so, Ben Cory thought, it seems Ben Cory doth care about the opinion of others, be they only the rats aboard a pirate ketch, the which would be dem'd good and comical--could I be telling it to Ru before the fire in Uncle John's library, and sweet Kate maybe bringing us a plate of----

"Ben, who's aloft?"

"Manuel."

"Have you chanced to look aft, the last half-hour, boy?"

"No. Watching the bow, so to keep the bearing you ordered."

"Then give me the helm, and take this gla.s.s"--Shawn's voice was rising curiously--"and look well abaft, and tell me what you see at all."

"Where away?"

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it," said Shawn, still rather softly, "find it yourself!" He thrust the spygla.s.s into Ben's hand and s.n.a.t.c.hed the tiller, humming in his teeth and not pleasantly.

Ben searched the northwestern arc, and found nothing but empty sea.

Something to throw him off his guard?--he lowered the gla.s.s quickly, but Shawn was not even watching him. Shawn was staring forward, head high, the moon's whiteness displaying his face, cold and suffering and proud.

"I don't find anything."

"Look again."

"I see the stars, a quiet sea, and not another thing."

"Judah!" Marsh hurried aft. "Take the gla.s.s, Mr. Marsh. See what you can find to the northwest."

Ben stood away from them. He saw Marsh stiffen with uneasiness or bewilderment; fidget, and mutter, and rub the gla.s.s with an end of his s.h.i.+rt. "Mr. Shawn, sir, my one glim a'n't too sharp."

Shawn immensely filled his lungs and slowly let the breath go. "You too maybe?... Well--it may be gone." It might be easier, Ben thought, to endure the ache of waiting if Shawn himself would look aft again, but he would not.

"Was it a sail, Captain?"

"It wasn't the Lamb of G.o.d walking upon the waters, Mr. Marsh. I am changing course two points. Sou'-sou'east, d'you hear? Call that fool Manuel from aloft, who wouldn't be seeing the entire Royal Navy and it half a mile to wind'ard. He and Dummy will make ready to haul me the tack--will you move, man?" Marsh vanished forward; Ben heard his thin snarl crying Manuel down from the masthead. "Well, Cory?--get to the mizzen, d.a.m.n you!" Ready in his place--what else?--Ben presently heard Marsh's advisory shout. "Cory, Mother of G.o.d, can't _you_ speak up like a seaman?"

"Ready!"

"_Lee-oh!_" The _Diana_ answered calmly, undismayed. "Trim her!" Ben had already done so, handily. "Will you sheet her in, you b.l.o.o.d.y farmer? Oh, dear Mother of G.o.d, for _men_ to sail with me!..." Undismayed, the _Diana_ settled to her new course under the friendly wind. A small maneuver--a crew of boys could have done it in this soft landsman's weather. Ben knew that Shawn had no cause to rave at his part in it; knew also in a moment that the crying voice climbing from the region of the helm was no longer concerned with him. "Speak plainer! I cannot hear you.... Oh, but I will go alone if I must. Have I not alway gone alone?

Have I not alway made mine own law--as I am directed, as I am directed--but thou knowest I am compa.s.sed about.... Plainer! Speak _plain_!--or send me a wind and not this d.a.m.ned crawling breeze! Am I to meet them in a b.l.o.o.d.y calm?... Then, most soberly and quietly: "Ben--aft with you!"

Ben returned aft, being on duty and having perhaps no choice. "Am I to take the helm again?"

"First look, only once more. Man dear, don't you see?--it could be I'm growing old and foolish, but--but for all you hate me, you can't call me fool, Beneen, you can't do that."

"I never have."

"Then look once more--the way I might've been deceived--the way the Devil's minions are in the thing tonight, now that's no lie. I waited too long, so I did. I cast about, while time wasted, praying for the easier course--a fleet--men enough--seeing I could not have the support of those who should have understood me. I prayed for the easier course, so I did, but I tell you now, Beneen, a man must never do that."

And Ben looked again, and found nothing. "It was a sail?"

"I thought so. I thought so, Ben."

"If you'll call Manuel aft, whose eyes are good as mine----"

"Manuel is it? Have I time for the witless, when--but I may have been deceived. Not there, you say, and I'm believing you. Nothing?"

"Nothing. Sometimes, Mr. Shawn, I've been fooled at night by a whale's spouting. The spray of him seems to hang in the air a while, and I suppose moonlight may lend it the look of a sail." Shawn laughed a little, his breathing slower. He seemed not annoyed that an untamed pup should be instructing him concerning sea-born illusions. "Well, do you take the helm again, and this'll be your bearing, steady as she goes."

"May I ask, Mr. Shawn, is this course for Martinique?"

"It seems to be gone and that's the truth, and yet I could have sworn--what? Martinique? Why, if my reckoning is right, her present course maintained will bear her a very far way to the east of Martinique."

"Nothing before us then but the South Atlantic."

"The Line, the South Atlantic, and the Horn. No more waiting. No more of this petty cruising about. No more--piracy. Do you hear me?"

"Less than a year ago I might have jumped at the sound of that."

"Not now?"

"You're not speaking to a boy now, Mr. Shawn."

"'Deed so, friend? When did that happen?"

"Who can ever say? It happened.... Mr. Shawn, I've asked you a dozen times, and have been refused, and now I say again: I wish to go in that cabin and speak with Captain Jenks."

"And I'll be telling you for maybe the hundredth time, Ben, he is not captain of this or any other vessel.... Ben, with all the charity I've seen in you, can you not hear a man acknowledge his error? I said, no more piracy. I have done wrong, almost betraying my purpose. I say now--and this is like something you once said to me yourself--henceforth I will not lift my hand against any man except to defend my life and my purpose. Jenks?--why, I think he can be released, and you too if it must be so. I shall be forced to put in at some Brazilian port for water and provisions, and there, I think--well, we shall see. Can I say more?"

"Yes, you could, Mr. Shawn, because I'm asking you again: Why do you hold him at all? Mills says you question him continually, and he answers nothing."

"That's true." Shawn gazed steadily northward, at the open sea. "Answers nothing, and will any man hold such a silence with nothing to hide?"

"_Hide_, Mr. Shawn? Captain Jenks, hide?"

"Must I say again, he is not captain now?... Ben, did you know I spent more than a year in that sorry city of Boston?"

"No, how should I?"

"Oh, you might've.... More than a year, seeking support for the greatest venture a man's spirit ever conceived. I was ignored, laughed at, brushed aside. I sought out the merchants, for behind all the pious canting they've become the rulers of your Boston and I suppose you know it. Sought 'em out one after another, and spilled my heart, the while they looked at my poor clothes and shuffled their feet and remembered important business. I sought audience with your Governor Dudley himself--Mother of G.o.d, would he even admit me to the b.l.o.o.d.y presence?

Queen Anne's man, body and soul.... Somehow, Ben--and mark this, I pray you--at some time that miserable year, the story was pa.s.sed about that I had been with John Quelch. And--why, d.a.m.n their souls, so I was, for a while. I did s.h.i.+p with him, being penniless and starving, and escaped him as soon as I might. He was evil, Ben, a common pirate, it was right he should hang. I served him briefly, I did that, having no choice, and the rumor of it was made a cause why I should be persecuted, ignored, laughed at, brushed aside. Compa.s.sed about.... And still, didn't I ask far less than was asked by Cabot, Drake, Magellan? A trifle of support, mind you, a tiny fleet, a sound crew, a charter to explore--don't you see any man of them might have compounded his fortune a hundred times and written his name in history beside my own? But would they? You know the answer, and they shall know the whole of it too, in time.... And somehow, Ben--while I went from one to another wearing my heart out--somehow a few of them did finally understand a little of what I so recklessly told concerning this venture. Certain of them began to think: Why not the venture without the man? You see? Have you ever heard of such a thing as stealing a man's dreams?"

"What has this to do with Captain Jenks?"

"Surely it's plain? The man you childishly call Captain was one of those who began to ask themselves: What if this wild, shabby, tedious Irishman hath glimpsed something of value after all? What if there _are_ new lands for the taking in the western sea, and why should this miserable noisy Sligo man, this old Shawn, why should _he_ have any part of it?...

Why, I couldn't believe this of Peter Jenks myself for a long time--never came to me that he was one of 'em, till he hired that man Hanson in the room of me--and that in despite of your great-uncle."

"But----"