El Capitan

“ El ‘Centipede’ y el capitano! Hasta muerto! Long live the captain! We stand by you until death!”
“Thank you, my friends; I have but one more word to say. The men who have the relief at the signal-stations and the water-battery must keep sober. Now go on again with the music.”
The captain, however, did not immediately quit the hall, but, while the revel began once more with all its enthusiasm, he moved amid the crowd of its adherents and said a cheerful word to many.
“Ah! Pepe, your arm in a sling, eh! a graze of a grape-shot, eh? Why, Hans, you here! nothing can hurt you! ”

“ Those which descend from the brow of El Capitan are particularly fine; but most of the great Yosemite avalanches flow in regular channels like cascades and waterfalls. When the snow first gives way on the upper slopes of their basins, a dull rushing, rumbling sound is heard which rapidly increases and seems to draw nearer with appalling intensity of tone. Presently the white flood comes bounding into sight over bosses and sheer places, leaping from bench to bench, spreading and narrowing and throwing off clouds of whirling dust like the spray of foaming cataracts. ”

“ The Capitan-General, who was a fine, stately, white-haired man, listened with the most courteous attention to what the two Englishmen had to say, and then, with equal courtesy, proceeded to pooh-pooh the whole story, insisting upon the exceeding unlikelihood of any officer of Captain Alvaros’ standing in the Spanish service stooping to so degrading and cowardly a step as that of hiring an assassin to “remove” an almost total stranger from his path. ”

“ It may be funny to one's friends, to do absurd things through absent mindedness, but it simply terrifies me to think of what I may do with others' money and such trifles. Aren't you afraid, Janie dear, I will run off with some of your family plate?"
"Not the leastest bit," and Jane swung around to give her chum a punctuating hug. "Judy, haven't you promised to keep your failing for your enemies, and never to work it off on your friends?" she reminded the girl, who was fairly dancing around the spacious room, as if wanting to cover every inch of it before bidding good bye to El Capitan. ”

“ The darkness deepened, became blackness; only the red gleams from the fire broke it, in swaying rifts, as the wind makes rifts in black storm-clouds in the heavens. With the darkness, the stillness also deepened. Nothing broke that, except an occasional motion of Baba or the pony, or an alert signal from Capitan; then all seemed stiller than ever. Alessandro felt as if God himself were in the cañon. ”

“ Ramona was very tired, and she was happy. All night long she slept like a child. She did not hear Alessandro's steps. She did not hear the crackling of the fire he lighted. She did not hear the barking of Capitan, who more than once, spite of all Alessandro could do to quiet him, made the cañon echo with sharp, quick notes of warning, as he heard the stealthy steps of wild creatures in the chaparral. Hour after hour she slept on. And hour after hour Alessandro sat leaning against a huge sycamore-trunk, and watched her. ”

“ He struck her in the face. She fell senseless, six feet away.
With a wild laugh he jumped at Juancito. His fist cracked under the chief’s ear, and the capitán dropped as if shot.
In another instant he was among the Indians, kicking, striking, attacking the whole tribe of Uaunana with his knotted black hands and laughing like a fiend from hell.
Men threw themselves at him, their faces flaming. None had a weapon, but none ran to get one. With hands curved like talons they leaped to claw him, to choke him, to throw and break him. ”

“ The captain darted on me a terrible look of suspicion, and ordered me to scour the woods with my companions, in search of some shepherd who might be sent to her father's to demand a ransom.
I saw at once the peril. To resist with violence was certain death; but to leave her alone, in the power of the captain!--I spoke out then with a fervor inspired by my passion and my despair. I reminded the captain that I was the first to seize her; that she was my prize, and that my previous attachment for her should make her sacred among my companions. ”

“ A roar of wild exultation, a gigantic Homeric laugh, broke from the throats of the crew of the Richard, as the reply of the captain was passed from deck to deck, until the whole ship from truck to keelson quivered with responsive joy. It was a joke, the character of which those blood-stained ruffians could well appreciate; but the captain was in no mood for joking. He was serious, and in the simplicity of the answer lay its greatness. Strike! Not now, nor ever! Beaten! The fighting is but just begun! The preposterous possibility of surrender cannot even be considered. ”

“ The hard brilliancy of the Cavalier’s eye softened: here was a remark which betrayed the logic of a perfectly childish mind.
“The poor Capitan Ramon,” she went on, “has so little money and gets such poor fare. I think it but right to help him.”
“Madam,” said Rockhurst, “you have described my own case. I bless the hour when I was inspired to pass beneath the window of so tender-hearted a lady!”
“Indeed,” she said, and her creamy skin flushed to the roots of her hair, “if you will share the supper, too, I shall be glad of it.”
Again the Spaniard rolled his glare of sullen doubt. ”

“ The captain, in the first place, is lord paramount. He stands no watch, comes and goes when he pleases, and is accountable to no one, and must be obeyed in everything, without a question, even from his chief officer. He has the power to turn his officers off duty, and even to break them and make them do duty as sailors in the forecastle. Where there are no passengers and no supercargo, as in our vessel, he has no companion but his own dignity, and no pleasures, unless he differs from most of his kind, but the consciousness of possessing supreme power, and, occasionally, the exercise of it. ”

“ The Capitan Ramon has met with a slight misadventure, and needs but your smile, a bandage, and a tass of brandwein to restore him.”
“Ah, heavens!” answered she, and the door was flung wide open. A woman, evidently of the rich burgher class, young, and very fair of colouring, stood in the passage, a small lamp in her hand. Her face blanched as the half-fainting man was assisted across the threshold, and she caught her free hand to her lips as if to stifle a rising scream. It was evident, thought Rockhurst, that there were those in the house whom she feared to disturb. ”

“ No beard is developed either in young or old, and yet it does not appear that they use a cosmetic to extirpate it. If Selim Capitan pleased them better with his smooth shaven chin, than the long-bearded Suliman Kashef, yet they exhibited a kind of horror when he shewed them his hairy breast, which perhaps appeared to them more fit for a beast than a man. ”

“ Said the captain, ‘I’m hang’d now, you’re cool, and I’m bang’d now!’
Said Hal, ‘Here, old Weatherface, take all my clothes.’
And ashore then he steer’d her; the lads they all cheer’d her;
But the captain was jealous, and looked down his nose. ”

“ Marcelin, grinning, stood between the two, his [23] back against the door-post, the basket on his arm, holding up the lantern. The light fell full on the Spaniard’s visage: young and handsome enough it was, though now livid with fury. Still speechless, he seemed rooted to the spot, his black eyes starting, the wings of his nostrils distended upon his angry breath.
Rockhurst waited a second or two, then with a laugh:—
“Marcelin,” he ordered, “relieve the noble Capitan of my cloak: he will understand my impatience.” ”

“ CHAPTER XX "The captain was sitting with one foot upon the carronade in his outer-cabin, looking through the port at the heavy Indiaman, as she slued about and plunged in the blue surge, with all sorts of ugly ropes hanging from her bows, dirty pairs of trousers towing clear of the water when she lifted, and rusty stains at her hawse-holes. A stout-built, hard-featured man he was, with bushy black eyebrows, and grizzled black hair and whiskers, not to speak of a queer, anxious, uneasy look in the keen of his eyes when he turned to me. ”

“ First, as to the evidence of the good character the captain sustains on shore. It is to be remembered that masters of vessels have usually been brought up in a forecastle; and upon all men, and especially upon those taken from lower situations, the conferring of absolute power is too apt to work a great change. There are many captains whom I know to be cruel and tyrannical men at sea, who yet, among their friends, and in their families, have never lost the reputation they bore in childhood. ”

“ The shores are planted right and left. We stuck nearly fast by the large city; and now we have the trinchetta or foresail as leader, so that we may navigate on the sand more splendidly. The forest emerges on the left shore, and solitary beautiful trees stand on the margin of the river, between which an island grown over with reeds, of a quarter of an hour in length, is situated. In the space of ten minutes another one follows. The vessels halt at the shore to wait for Selim Capitan and the other vessels navigating on the sand. ”

“ Aware of custom’s nearly invincible power, having often seen seamen rebel, and then at the first warning gladly skulk back to their duty, the captain unhesitatingly advanced up the weather-gangway to the break of the forecastle, and confronted his mutinous crew. The men, who were huddled around the end of the windlass, some sitting, others standing, talking together in low tones, only showed they were aware of the captain’s presence by suddenly ceasing their conversation—but not a man of them moved. ”

“ Among the men who exchanged ideas with the captain was a young fellow, who exactly hit his fancy,--a young fisherman of two or three and twenty, in the rough sea-dress of his craft, with a brown face, dark curling hair, and bright, modest eyes under his Sou'wester hat, and with a frank, but simple and retiring manner, which the captain found uncommonly taking. ”

“ To his men your captain must he prophet, priest and king. His authority when off-shore is necessarily absolute, and therefore the crew should be as one man impressed that the captain, like the sovereign, can do no wrong. If a captain fail in this, he cannot make up for it by severity, austerity or cruelty. Use force, apply restraint, punish as he may, he will always have a sullen crew and an unhappy ship.”
The nose of the gig grates on the river’s bank, and Captain Jack Paul leaps ashore. He is greeted by a tall, weather-beaten old man—grizzled and gray. ”

“ I can hear his voice now.
"Where-ever any man shall take his place, either because he has thought it better that he should be there, or because his captain has put him there—there, as it seems to me, should he remain to face the danger, and take no account of death or of anything else in comparison with disgrace!"—And my captain is God,' he said. And with that he bent forward a little with a faint light in his face and round his lips as of a bright smile that seemed to grow deeper and deeper in a dim dream that lacked not sweetness. ”

“ The pirate captain, easily distinguishable among the rest by his good looks and the smartness of his dress, was here, there, and everywhere apparently at the same moment, urging on and encouraging his men in fluent Spanish, while he defended himself from the simultaneous attack of three of our people with consummate ease. He fought cheerfully, joyously, like a man who enjoys fighting, with a reckless jest on his lips, but with a ferocity that was terrible to behold. ”

“ He swarmed up the mast and looked out and cried aloud, "O Rais, I espy to starboard something dark, very like a fish floating on the face of the sea, and to larboard there is a loom in the midst of the main, now black and now bright." When the Captain heard the look out's words he dashed his turband on the deck and plucked out his beard and beat his face saying, "Good news indeed! we be all dead men; not one of us can be saved." And he fell to weeping and all of us wept for his weeping and also for our lives; and I said, "O Captain, tell us what it is the look out saw." ”

“ The waiter stared for a moment at the question, with an air as if doubting the seriousness of him who put it, and at last replied—"Pour Monsieur le Capitaine, je crois," with a certain tone of significance upon the latter words.
"Le Capitaine! but what captain?" said he, carelessly; "for I am a captain, and that gentleman there—and there, too, is another," at the same instant throwing himself listlessly into the well-cushioned chair, and stretching out his legs at full length upon the hearth. ”

“ He had a good deal of information, and his captain said he was a perfect seaman, and worth his weight in gold on board a vessel, in fair weather and in foul. His strength must have been great, and he had the sight of a vulture. It is strange that one should be so minute in the description of an unknown, outcast sailor, whom one may never see again, and whom no one may care to hear about; but so it is. Some people we see under no remarkable circumstances, but whom, for some reason or other, we never forget. ”

“ The purser was the shadow of a man, very regular in his accounts, fond of peach-water, playing the flute, of going on shore, receiving his necessary money and taking all imaginable care of number one. The captain of marines was a soldierly-looking, little, strong-built man, very upright, fond of his bottle of wine, of holding warm arguments with the surgeon, which always ended without either’s conviction—sometimes to the annoyance, but more frequently to the amusement of the wardroom, and he always appeared an inch taller when inspecting his corps. ”