Lincoln Colcord

“ I'd met him a number of times, of course, during this interval, and had come to understand Lee Fu's urgent advice. Indeed, for one curious about the habits of the human species, Wilbur compelled attention. That perfect urbanity, that air of unfailing dignity and confidence, that aura of a commanding personality, of an able ship-master among his brethren, of a man whose position in the world was secure beyond peradventure: all this could spring from one of only two spiritual conditions—either from a quiet and innocent conscience, or from a heart perfectly attuned to villainy. ”

“ She was the finest square-rigger that had ever been launched in the town, a ship of eighteen hundred tons, crossing three skysail yards. Her lines were those of the moderate or commercial clipper. As he looked up from the quarter-deck at her lofty spars that November morning, while they waited for the tide—at the maze of freshly tarred rigging and new manila running gear, at the brightly varnished yards, at the furled sails that stretched from yardarm to yardarm like caps of snow—a thrill of genuine sentiment coursed through his blood. His ship—and he loved her already. ”

“ Nearer at hand, a group of outlying islands appeared on the horizon. Captain Sheldon swung his course to the westward, heading directly into the blinding sun that by this time had sunk low in the western sky.
In the extreme bow of the longboat sat the old steward, gazing straight ahead with unseeing eyes. His head was uncovered; the sun beat down on him without effect. He made no movement, uttered no sound. Alone and helpless, he suffered the throes of the most desperate struggle that human consciousness affords—the struggle of the will against the call of a body habituated to opium. ”

“ But life had accomplished it easily and inexorably; failure had at last ground down the keen edge of his spirit, disappointment had rounded off the corners of his imperative nature. As he stepped across the rail of the barge Viking, only a great and pathetic happiness found place in his heart. His fight was finished. He had kept his pride at too terrible a cost. Now he gave it up, freely, gladly. Perhaps he would be allowed to die in peace, aboard the ship that had shared his better days.
Fine old ship—life had gone hard with her, too. The lofty masts and spreading spars had been lopped away ”

“ Captain, there are crimes and crimes, and it has been my lot to know men who have committed many of them. There are murder, theft, arson, treason, infidelity, and all the rest; and these, in a manner of speaking, are natural crimes. Shall we define it thus: a natural crime is one which eventually brings its own retribution? Sooner or later, if justice is not done, the natural crime works havoc with its perpetrator; it plagues his conscience, it fastens like a fungus on his soul. Through lust or passion, natural impulses, he has committed error ”

“ Safely on our decks, watching this symbol of elemental destruction, stood every soul of the steamer's company.
"I really must congratulate you again!" said Captain Potter heartily "That was a feat of seamanship, sir. You seem to be able to put your ship through the eye of a needle"
"She handles nicely, doesn't she?" I agreed. As a matter of fact, I felt like congratulating myself; I won't deny that I had a feeling of pride, as well as a prayer of thankfulness for our universal good luck. Things had gone without a hitch, at a time when a hitch might easily have called for payment in human life. ”

“ The ship paid off, heading up the coast; from the frozen and snowbound shore the sweet land-smell, always a miracle to sailors nearing port in winter, came off to them. Night fell, the air grew crystalline, stars sparkled white and big in the cloudless sky. Minute by minute the easterly swell decreased, knocked down by the offshore wind, as the old barge crept northward. She sunk the lights of Atlantic City, picked up Barnegat, brought it abeam, dropped it on her port quarter. Then Captain Bradley left the deck, for almost the first time in three days. ”

“ Soon those white sails would be set to the breeze, soon those strong, slender masts would sway against the sky, bearing aloft their press of flattened canvas, soon those new ropes would snap and sing, settling into a taut network from deck to truck and from masthead to masthead, whose every strand would have its use and meaning. Soon the ship would surge beneath him—his to control, to guide, to learn, to play upon, as an organist brings out the tone and volume of his instrument. ”

“ It would have been merciful to kill him there in the boat; hunger and thirst of the body are nothing, are soon over with. But think of the surpassing cruelty of saving him! Great pains were taken to that end; winds were manipulated, a ship was selected and driven from her course; it was as if the elements had conspired together and the whole machinery of the universe had paused a moment for the consummation of the act. On a certain morning he was sighted from the quarter-deck of the Vanguard ”

“ Nichols went on, while grunts of assent from several quarters of the deck gave testimony to his reputation. "Oh, yes, I know them. They are made of flesh and blood, if you'll believe me; they eat with their mouths, and think in the recesses of their skulls, just as we do. They marry, beget children, and pass through life. They love, fight, strive for gain, sin, suffer, learn lessons, regret, make restitution, are tempted by devils, struggle and triumph, or give up in despair, and finally die with their years and their secrets on their heads. The same old conscience pursues them. ”

“ Dusk had swallowed the white houses and green slopes below us; the riding lights on the harbour had begun to prick out the berths of ships; with the coming of night, voices seemed hushed among the yellow lanterns.
"What is madness? Who will lay down the line between madness and sanity?" demanded Nichols suddenly "They are like right and wrong, or good and evil .... much as you want to believe. If we dared for a moment to face the logic of existence, I think we should find that we're all a little mad, each in his own way. An entirely sane man would sort of puff out, like a candle. ”

“ The outlying fringe of reefs that had broken our first approach ended at the middle island; beyond that, to windward, lay clear water, and the nest of reefs that I've mentioned received the full force of the wind and sea. Five miles of water stretched in mad confusion, a solid whiteness of spouting foam that seemed to generate a hideous illumination, that reflected a dingy glow into the abandoned sky. All the cataracts of the world rolled into one couldn't have matched the awful spectacle. ”

“ So it went on, year after year, from Honolulu to Shanghai, from Shanghai to Hong Kong, and down the coast to Singapore; a term in Calcutta, another term in Batavia; a year on the West Coast, Lima, Iquiqui, Valparaiso, she never resting, and he following in due time. It's hard to imagine what her life must have been during this pilgrimage; for now we know that she loved him, too, and that her heart likewise burned in the fires of hell. Pride, pride, what anguish will be borne in thy name! She had of course grown into a strong, clear-headed woman; only strength could have carried her so far. ”

“ The result is a distinctly Chinese creation, a craft that in some unaccountable way seems to reflect his own personality, that responds to his touch and works mysteriously for him. She's higher in the bows than an ordinary junk, and a trifle lower in the stern; a broad, shallow hull, requiring a centreboard on the wind. She is completely decked over for heavy weather. In charge of any one of us, perhaps, she would be fairly unmanageable; but in Lee Fu's hands, I can assure you, she's a sea-boat of remarkable attainments and a yacht of no insignificant speed. ”

“ This we passed with a rush, and shot forward into a relatively smooth basin that lay under the protection of the high headland on the larger island.
"It was like nothing but a return from hell. The wind held us in a solid blast; but to feel the deck grow quiet, to be able to think, to speak, to hear ... to see the land close aboard.... By Jove, we were saved!—it seemed more incredible than the adventure itself. Heads began to bob up forward, faces drawn with terror, frantic with relief—the faces of men who had lost and found a world. ”

“ The doctor came out of the captain's stateroom with a grave look on his face. The mate stood in the middle of the cabin floor, nervous and unstrung; he had been fond of Captain Bradley. The afternoon sun streamed through the cabin skylight. For several hours they had been watching the old man struggle for breath. The mate's gaze roved uneasily over the top of the chart table, where, according to his invariable habit, the captain had that morning spread the tablecover that he used in port, and had set out a few pictures and ornaments, to make the cabin look more homelike. ”

“ As the flush years went by, he developed into a typical sea captain of the old school; a man of honour, of ideals, of simple dignity and original thought, careless, buoyant, at times a little reckless, a stern disciplinarian, a wise judge of human nature, a sentimentalist at heart, a believer in the inherent righteousness of things, a man of sincerity and individuality. Dishonesty, laziness, hypocrisy, he hated as he hated crime. ”

“ Stooping and keeping an arm half around him, Captain Sheldon followed Wang through a shallow lazaret. It led forward into the open hold. They passed beneath a hatch, where Wang drew aside in the deeper shadow, listening. Not a sound came from overhead. Again they stole forward. The wounded man held on indomitably, bearing his pain in a silence that seemed almost supernatural, as if unknown to the other he had been rendered invulnerable by a magic spell. Beyond the hatch they entered a narrow passage-way, and came out suddenly into the junk's forecastle, the quarters of the Chinese crew. ”

“ Across the water, as if in answer, floated the voices of natives somewhere in the jungle, lifted in wild and startling melodies. The same breeze fanned down from the land—the breeze that seems always to be blowing here in the early evening, filling the straits with the overpowering sweetness of bloom and decay.
"It must have been quite late—the moon had risen overhead, and the singing had died out forward and ashore—when I first noticed lights in the old consulate bungalow. I at once thought of the stranger whom Sa-lee had mentioned. Who could he be? ”

“ And I remember, Captain, that it occurred to me, as I examined their fastenings, how easily these ports could be loosened from within, by anyone who desired to sink the vessel. The iron cross-bars could be lifted from their brackets by a single strong man; with a small tackle they could be dropped without noise into the bottom. No one need know of it; and, lo, the ship would sail to meet her destiny riding on the waves. Has the thought ever occurred to you, Captain Wilbur?'
"Wilbur's air of mingled repugnance and perplexity was innocence itself. ”

“ Perhaps Captain Bradley was a little proud of his own achievement. He could look back over a clean, hard record. In his nine years of seafaring he had not spared himself. Obey, work, learn, develop judgment and decision, be able to handle any job or meet any emergency; these principles had ruled his life, the sine qua non of old-fashioned seamanship. The reward had come unexpectedly. Captain Marshall, the leading shipowner of the town, whose fortune and influence lay behind the building of the Viking, had offered him the ship that summer as she stood on the stocks. ”

“ The old Omega had drifted that morning past Green Island, dropping anchor a little later among the fleet off Stonecutter's; and after dinner, moved by a common impulse, we had called our sampans and joined Nichols under her spacious after awning. There, with the broad land-locked harbour of Hong Kong under a half moon reflecting the perfect outline of the Peak, talk had wandered lazily along the range of our shipping activities, to reach at last, as it always did in such company, that world-old problem of the races of men. ”

“ Devereux grew to love the people; and because he seemed so different, yet conformed naturally to the island proprieties, they exalted him. And, marvellous to relate, he knew the worth of what he had found; he fulfilled the opportunity, he appreciated the honour, he was worthy of the romantic choice"
Nichols struck the table sharply with his fist. "Beware of too much happiness!" he growled "That's another lesson of a jaundiced civilization. It isn't expedient to embrace truth too hard.... Who could have conceived an existence safer than Devereux's, or one more likely to last? ”

“ He says that during those long hours of tumult and darkness, a premonition of doom became as real to his fancy as if an actual spirit, an embodiment of disaster, had settled down out of the night to keep him company. He didn't feel alone—fate sailed with him.
"In the morning, the island had, of course, disappeared. The squall had at length passed over; the sea grew calm, and the hot sun burned down on the water. It remained calm all day, so that he couldn't use the sail. He rowed the heavy boat until his hands could barely touch the oars, steering as best he knew how by the sun. ”

“ The first boat that came off from shore—Reardon's old whaleboat—brought me disappointing news. Reardon himself, it seemed, had been transferred to Batavia the year before, and the consulate had been discontinued; my letters, if any had been sent to Anjer, were being held in Batavia or Singapore. Old Sa-lee, Reardon's boatswain, was still in charge of the boat, but seemed to be merely following a lifelong habit in coming off to every ship that called. He wanted to see his old friends, to gossip, and to bemoan the decline of human institutions. ”

“ It was at the time of New England's success and prosperity on the sea that young Captain Bradley took the ship Viking on her maiden voyage. In those days the building and sending forth of a ship was a community enterprise. One sharp November morning, the seaport that had seen her keel laid down the previous winter, had watched her rise on the stocks through the long days of summer, and had launched her successfully in the early fall, turned out to bid the Viking good-bye and Godspeed. Her crew was made up of home boys; Captain Bradley himself had been born and reared in the town. ”

“ The old free motion had returned to her deck, the old life ran along her keel. Immediately, they set the spanker, mainsail and jib; this was all the sail she had. The whole area of it would hardly have equalled her former mainsail, dropping its solid square of canvas from an eighty foot mainyard; but it was enough for the purpose, and the Viking answered to it. The gale had struck; the ship heeled sharply, plunging forward on the port tack at a three-knot gait. She made considerable leeway, but headed up to east-south-east. ”