Homeward Bound, James Fenimore Cooper [ebook reader for pc .TXT] 📗

to be nearly forgotten during the first week after the ship succeeded in effecting her escape; for he had the sagacity to keep himself in the background, in the hope that all connected with himself might be overlooked in the hurry and excitement of events. At the end of that period, however, he resumed his intrigues, and was soon actively engaged in endeavouring to get up a "public opinion," by means of which he proposed to himself to obtain some reputation for spirit and courage. With what success this deeply-laid scheme was likely to meet, as well as the more familiar condition of the cabins, may be gathered by a conversation that took place in the pantry, where Saunders and Toast were preparing the hot punch for the last of the Saturday nights that Captain Truck expected to be at sea. This discourse was held while the few who chose to join in jollification that peculiarly recalled the recollection of Mr. Monday, were slowly assembling round the great table at the urgent request of the master.

"Well, I must say, Mr. Toast," the steward commenced, as he kept stirring the punch, "that I am werry much rejoiced Captain Truck has resuscertated his old nature, and remembers the festivals and fasts, as is becoming the master of a liner. I can see no good reason because a ship is under jury-masts, that the passengers should forego their natural rest and diet. Mr. Monday made a good end, they say, and he had as handsome a burial as I ever laid eyes on at sea. I don't think his own friends could have interred him more efficaciously, or more piously, had he been on shore."

"It is something, Mr. Saunders, to be able to reflect beforehand on the respectable funeral that your friends have just given you. There is a great gratification to contemplate on such an ewent."

"You improve in language, Toast, that I will allow; but you sometimes get the words a little wrong. We suspect before a thing recurs, and reflect on it after it has ewentuated. You might have suspected the death of poor Mr. Monday after he was wounded, and reflected on it after he was interred in the water. I agree with you that it is consoling to know we have our funeral rights properly delineated. Talking of the battle, Mr. Toast, I shall take this occasion to express to you the high opinion I entertain of your own good conduct. I was a little afraid you might injure Captain Truck in the conflict; but, so far as I have ascertained, on close inwestigation, you hurt nobody. We coloured people have some prejudices against us, and I always rejoice when I meet with one who assists to put them down by his conduck."

"They say Mr. Dodge didn't do much harm, either," returned Toast. "For my part I saw nothing of him after I opened my eyes; though I don't think I ever stared about me so much in my life."

Saunders laid a finger on his nose, and shook his head significantly.

"You may speak to me with confidence and mistrust, Toast," he said, "for we are friends of the same colour, besides being officers in the same pantry. Has Mr. Dodge conwersed with you concerning the ewents of those two or three werry ewentful days?"

"He has insinevated considerable, Mr. Saunders; though I do not think Mr. Dodge is ever a werry free talker."

"Has he surgested the propriety of having an account of he whole affair made out by the people, and sustained by affidavits?"

"Well, sir, I imagine he has. At all ewents, he has been much on the forecastle lately, endeavouring to persuade the people that they retook the ship, and that the passengers were so many encumbrancers in the affair."

"And, are the people such non composses as to believe him, Toast?"

"Why, sir, it is agreeable to humanity to think well of ourselves. I do not say that anybody actually believes this; but, in my poor judgment, Mr. Saunders, there are men in the ship that would find it pleasant to believe it, if they could."

"Werry true; for that is natural. Your hint, Toast, has enlightened my mind on a little obscurity that has lately prewailed over my conceptions. There are Johnson, and Briggs, and Hewson, three of the greatest skulks in the ship, the only men who prewaricated in the least, so much as by a cold look, in the fight; and these three men have told me that Mr. Dodge was the person who had the gun put on the box; and that he druv the Arabs upon the raft. Now, I say, no men with their eyes open could have made such a mistake, except they made it on purpose. Do you corroborate or contrawerse this statement, Toast?"

"I contrawerse it, sir; for in my poor judgment it was Mr. Blunt."

"I am glad we are of the same opinion. I shall say nothing till the proper moment arrives, and then I shall exhibit my sentiments, Mr. Toast, without recrimination or anxiety, for truth is truth."

"I am happy to observe that the ladies are quite relaxed from their melancholy, and that they now seem to enjoy themselves ostensibly."

Saunders threw a look of envy at his subordinate, whose progress in refinement really alarmed his own sense of superiority; but suppressing the jealous feeling, he replied with, dignity,

"The remark is quite just, Mr. Toast, and denotes penetration. I am always rejoiced when I perceive you elewating your thoughts to superior objects, for the honour of the colour."

"Mister Saunders," called out the captain from his seal in the arm-chair, at the head of the table.

"Captain Truck, sir."

"Let us taste your liquors."

This was the signal that the Saturday-night was about to commence, and the officers of the pantry presented their compounds in good earnest. On this occasion the ladies had quietly, but firmly declined being present, but the earnest appeals of the well-meaning captain had overcome the scruples of the gentlemen, all of whom, to avoid the appearance of disrespect to his wishes, had consented to appear.

"This is the last Saturday night, gentlemen, that I shall probably ever have the honour of passing in your good company," said Captain Truck, as he disposed of the pitchers and glasses before him, so that he had a perfect command of the appliances of the occasion, "and I feel it to be a gratification with which I would not willingly dispense. We are now to the westward of the Gulf, and, according to my observations and calculations, within a hundred miles of Sandy Hook, which, with this mild south-west wind, and our weatherly position, I hope to be able to show you some time about eight o'clock to-morrow morning. Quicker passages have been made certainly, but forty days, after all, is no great matter for the westerly run, considering that we have had a look at Africa, and are walking on crutches."

"We owe a great deal to the trades," observed Mr. Effingham; "which have treated us as kindly towards the end of the passage, as they seemed reluctant to join us in the commencement. It has been a momentous month, and I hope we shall all retain healthful recollections of it as long as we live."

"No one will retain as grateful recollections of it as myself, gentlemen," resumed the captain. "You had no agency in getting us into the scrape, but the greatest possible agency in getting us out of it. Without the knowledge, prudence, and courage that you have all displayed, God knows what would have become of the poor Montauk, and from the bottom of my heart I thank you, each and all while I have the heartfelt satisfaction of seeing you around me, and of drinking to your future health, happiness and prosperity."

The passengers acknowledged their thanks in return, by bows, among which, that of Mr. Dodge was the most elaborate and conspicuous. The honest captain was too much touched, to observe this little piece of audacity, but, at that moment, he could have taken even Mr. Dodge in his arms and pressed him to his heart.

"Come, gentlemen," he continued; "let us fill and do honour to the night. God has us all in his holy keeping, and we drift about in the squalls of life, pretty much as he orders the wind to blow. 'Sweethearts and wives!' and, Mr. Effingham, we will not forget beautiful, spirited, sensible, and charming daughters."

After this piece of nautical gallantry, the glass began to circulate. The captain. Sir George Templemore--as the false baronet was still called in the cabin, and believed to be by all but those who belonged to the coterie of Eve--and Mr. Dodge, indulged freely, though the first was too careful of the reputation of his ship, to forget that he was on the American coast in November. The others partook more sparingly, though even they submitted in a slight degree to the influence of good cheer, and for the first time since their escape, the laugh was heard in the cabin as was wont before to be the case. An hour of such indulgence produced again some of the freedom and ease which mark the associations of a ship, after the ice is fairly broken, and even Mr. Dodge began to be tolerated. This person, notwithstanding his conduct on the occasion of the battle, had contrived to maintain his ground with the spurious baronet, by dint of assiduity and flattery, while the others had rather felt pity than aversion, on account of his abject cowardice. The gentlemen did not mention his desertion at the critical moment, (though Mr. Dodge never forgave those who witnessed it,) for they looked upon his conduct as the result of a natural and unconquerable infirmity, that rendered him as much the subject of compassion as of reproach. Encouraged by this forbearance, and mistaking its motives, he had begun to hope his absence had not been detected in the confusion of the fight, and he had even carried his audacity so far, as to make an attempt to persuade Mr. Sharp that he had actually been one of those who went in the launch of the Dane, to bring down the other boat and raft to the reef, after the ship had been recaptured. It is true, in this attempt, he had met with a cold repulse, but it was so gentlemanlike and distant, that he had still hopes of succeeding in persuading the other to believe what he affirmed; by way of doing which, he endeavoured all he could to believe it himself. So much confusion existed in his own faculties during the fray, that Mr. Dodge was fain to fancy others also might not have been able to distinguish things very accurately.

Under the influence of these feelings, Captain Truck, when the glass had circulated a little freely, called on the Editor of the Active Inquirer, to favour the company with some more extracts from his journal. Little persuasion was necessary, and Mr. Dodge went into his state-room to bring forth the valuable records of his observations and opinions, with a conviction that all was forgotten, and that he was once more about to resume his proper place in the social relations of the ship. As for the four gentlemen who had been over the ground the other pretended to describe, they prepared to listen, as men of the world would be apt to listen to the superficial and valueless comments of a tyro, though not without some expectations of amusement.

"I propose that we shift the scene to