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Israel Potter by Herman Melville

H >> Herman Melville >> Israel Potter




With a loud huzza, Israel hauled down the flag with one hand, while with
the other he helped the now slowly gliding craft from falling off before
the wind.

In a few moments a boat was alongside. As its commander stepped to the
deck he stumbled against the body of the first officer, which, owing to
the sudden slant of the cutter in coming to the wind, had rolled against
the side near the gangway. As he came aft he heard the moan of the other
officer, where he lay under the mizzen shrouds.

"What is all this?" demanded the stranger of Israel.

"It means that I am a Yankee impressed into the king's service, and for
their pains I have taken the cutter."

Giving vent to his surprise, the officer looked narrowly at the body by
the shrouds, and said, "This man is as good as dead, but we will take
him to Captain Paul as a witness in your behalf."

"Captain Paul?--Paul Jones?" cried Israel.

"The same."

"I thought so. I thought that was his voice hailing. It was Captain
Paul's voice that somehow put me up to this deed."

"Captain Paul is the devil for putting men up to be tigers. But where
are the rest of the crew?"

"Overboard."

"What?" cried the officer; "come on board the Ranger. Captain Paul will
use you for a broadside."

Taking the moaning man along with them, and leaving the cutter
untenanted by any living soul, the boat now left her for the enemy's
ship. But ere they reached it the man had expired.

Standing foremost on the deck, crowded with three hundred men, as Israel
climbed the side, he saw, by the light of battle-lanterns, a small,
smart, brigandish-looking man, wearing a Scotch bonnet, with a gold band
to it.

"You rascal," said this person, "why did your paltry smack give me this
chase? Where's the rest of your gang?"

"Captain Paul," said Israel, "I believe I remember you. I believe I
offered you my bed in Paris some months ago. How is Poor Richard?"

"God! Is this the courier? The Yankee courier? But how now? in an
English revenue cutter?"

"Impressed, sir; that's the way."

"But where's the rest of them?" demanded Paul, turning to the officer.

Thereupon the officer very briefly told Paul what Israel told him.

"Are we to sink the cutter, sir?" said the gunner, now advancing towards
Captain Paul. "If it is to be done, now is the time. She is close under
us, astern; a few guns pointed downwards will settle her like a shotted
corpse."

"No. Let her drift into Penzance, an anonymous earnest of what the
whitesquall in Paul Jones intends for the future."

Then giving directions as to the course of the ship, with an order for
himself to be called at the first glimpse of a sail, Paul took Israel
down with him into his cabin.

"Tell me your story now, my yellow lion. How was it all? Don't stand,
sit right down there on the transom. I'm a democratic sort of sea-king.
Plump on the woolsack, I say, and spin the yarn. But hold; you want some
grog first."

As Paul handed the flagon, Israel's eye fell upon his hand.

"You don't wear any rings now, Captain, I see. Left them in Paris for
safety."

"Aye, with a certain marchioness there," replied Paul, with a dandyish
look of sentimental conceit, which sat strangely enough on his otherwise
grim and Fejee air.

"I should think rings would be somewhat inconvenient at sea," resumed
Israel. "On my first voyage to the West Indies, I wore a girl's ring on
my middle finger here, and it wasn't long before, what with hauling wet
ropes, and what not, it got a kind of grown down into the flesh, and
pained me very bad, let me tell you, it hugged the finger so."

"And did the girl grow as close to your heart, lad?"

"Ah, Captain, girls grow themselves off quicker than we grow them on."

"Some experience with the countesses as well as myself, eh? But the
story; wave your yellow mane, my lion--the story."

So Israel went on and told the story in all particulars.

At its conclusion Captain Paul eyed him very earnestly. His wild, lonely
heart, incapable of sympathizing with cuddled natures made humdrum by
long exemption from pain, was yet drawn towards a being, who in
desperation of friendlessness, something like his own, had so fiercely
waged battle against tyrannical odds.

"Did you go to sea young, lad?"

"Yes, pretty young."

"I went at twelve, from Whitehaven. Only so high," raising his hand some
four feet from the deck. "I was so small, and looked so queer in my
little blue jacket, that they called me the monkey. They'll call me
something else before long. Did you ever sail out of Whitehaven?"

"No, Captain."

"If you had, you'd have heard sad stories about me. To this hour they
say there that I--bloodthirsty, coward dog that I am--flogged a sailor,
one Mungo Maxwell, to death. It's a lie, by Heaven! I flogged him, for
he was a mutinous scamp. But he died naturally, some time afterwards,
and on board another ship. But why talk? They didn't believe the
affidavits of others taken before London courts, triumphantly acquitting
me; how then will they credit _my_ interested words? If slander, however
much a lie, once gets hold of a man, it will stick closer than fair
fame, as black pitch sticks closer than white cream. But let 'em
slander. I will give the slanderers matter for curses. When last I left
Whitehaven, I swore never again to set foot on her pier, except, like
Caesar, at Sandwich, as a foreign invader. Spring under me, good ship;
on you I bound to my vengeance!"

Men with poignant feelings, buried under an air of care-free self
command, are never proof to the sudden incitements of passion. Though
in the main they may control themselves, yet if they but once permit the
smallest vent, then they may bid adieu to all self-restraint, at least
for that time. Thus with Paul on the present occasion. His sympathy with
Israel had prompted this momentary ebullition. When it was gone by, he
seemed not a little to regret it. But he passed it over lightly, saying,
"You see, my fine fellow, what sort of a bloody cannibal I am. Will you
be a sailor of mine? A sailor of the Captain who flogged poor Mungo
Maxwell to death?"

"I will be very happy, Captain Paul, to be sailor under the man who will
yet, I dare say, help flog the British nation to death."

"You hate 'em, do ye?"

"Like snakes. For months they've hunted me as a dog," half howled and
half wailed Israel, at the memory of all he had suffered.

"Give me your hand, my lion; wave your wild flax again. By Heaven, you
hate so well, I love ye. You shall be my confidential man; stand sentry
at my cabin door; sleep in the cabin; steer my boat; keep by my side
whenever I land. What do you say?"

"I say I'm glad to hear you."

"You are a good, brave soul. You are the first among the millions of
mankind that I ever naturally took to. Come, you are tired. There, go
into that state-room for to-night--it's mine. You offered me your bed in
Paris."

"But you begged off, Captain, and so must I. Where do you sleep?"

"Lad, I don't sleep half a night out of three. My clothes have not been
off now for five days."

"Ah, Captain, you sleep so little and scheme so much, you will die
young."

"I know it: I want to: I mean to. Who would live a doddered old stump?
What do you think of my Scotch bonnet?"

"It looks well on you, Captain."

"Do you think so? A Scotch bonnet, though, ought to look well on a
Scotchman. I'm such by birth. Is the gold band too much?"

"I like the gold band, Captain. It looks something as I should think a
crown might on a king."

"Aye?"

"You would make a better-looking king than George III."

"Did you ever see that old granny? Waddles about in farthingales, and
carries a peacock fan, don't he? Did you ever see him?"

"Was as close to him as I am to you now, Captain. In Kew Gardens it was,
where I worked gravelling the walks. I was all alone with him, talking
for some ten minutes."

"By Jove, what a chance! Had I but been there! What an opportunity for
kidnapping a British king, and carrying him off in a fast sailing smack
to Boston, a hostage for American freedom. But what did you? Didn't you
try to do something to him?"

"I had a wicked thought or two, Captain, but I got the better of it.
Besides, the king behaved handsomely towards me; yes, like a true man.
God bless him for it. But it was before that, that I got the better of
the wicked thought."

"Ah, meant to stick him, I suppose. Glad you didn't. It would have been
very shabby. Never kill a king, but make him captive. He looks better as
a led horse, than a dead carcass. I propose now, this trip, falling on
the grounds of the Earl of Selkirk, a privy counsellor and particular
private friend of George III. But I won't hurt a hair of his head. When
I get him on board here, he shall lodge in my best state-room, which I
mean to hang with damask for him. I shall drink wine with him, and be
very friendly; take him to America, and introduce his lordship into the
best circles there; only I shall have him accompanied on his calls by a
sentry of two disguised as valets. For the Earl's to be on sale, mind;
so much ransom; that is, the nobleman, Lord Selkirk, shall have a bodily
price pinned on his coat-tail, like any slave up at auction in
Charleston. But, my lad with the yellow mane, you very strangely draw
out my secrets. And yet you don't talk. Your honesty is a magnet which
attracts my sincerity. But I rely on your fidelity."

"I shall be a vice to your plans, Captain Paul. I will receive, but I
won't let go, unless you alone loose the screw."

"Well said. To bed now; you ought to. I go on deck. Good night,
ace-of-hearts."

"That is fitter for yourself, Captain Paul, lonely leader of the suit."

"Lonely? Aye, but number one cannot but be lonely, my trump."

"Again I give it back. Ace-of-trumps may it prove to you, Captain Paul;
may it be impossible for you ever to be taken. But for me--poor deuce, a
trey, that comes in your wake--any king or knave may take me, as before
now the knaves have."

"Tut, tut, lad; never be more cheery for another than for yourself. But
a fagged body fags the soul. To hammock, to hammock! while I go on deck
to clap on more sail to your cradle."

And they separated for that night.




CHAPTER XV.

THEY SAIL AS FAR AS THE CRAG OF AILSA.


Next morning Israel was appointed quartermaster--a subaltern selected
from the common seamen, and whose duty mostly stations him in the stern
of the ship, where the captain walks. His business is to carry the glass
on the look-out for sails; hoist or lower the colors; and keep an eye on
the helmsman. Picked out from the crew for their superior respectability
and intelligence, as well as for their excellent seamanship, it is not
unusual to find the quartermasters of an armed ship on peculiarly easy
terms with the commissioned officers and captain. This birth, therefore,
placed Israel in official contiguity to Paul, and without subjecting
either to animadversion, made their public intercourse on deck almost as
familiar as their unrestrained converse in the cabin.

It was a fine cool day in the beginning of April. They were now off the
coast of Wales, whose lofty mountains, crested with snow, presented a
Norwegian aspect. The wind was fair, and blew with a strange, bestirring
power. The ship--running between Ireland and England, northwards,
towards the Irish Sea, the inmost heart of the British waters--seemed,
as she snortingly shook the spray from her bow, to be conscious of the
dare-devil defiance of the soul which conducted her on this anomalous
cruise. Sailing alone from out a naval port of France, crowded with
ships-of-the-line, Paul Jones, in his small craft, went forth in
single-armed championship against the English host. Armed with but the
sling-stones in his one shot-locker, like young David of old, Paul
bearded the British giant of Gath. It is not easy, at the present day,
to conceive the hardihood of this enterprise. It was a marching up to
the muzzle; the act of one who made no compromise with the cannonadings
of danger or death; such a scheme as only could have inspired a heart
which held at nothing all the prescribed prudence of war, and every
obligation of peace; combining in one breast the vengeful indignation
and bitter ambition of an outraged hero, with the uncompunctuous
desperation of a renegade. In one view, the Coriolanus of the sea; in
another, a cross between the gentleman and the wolf.

As Paul stood on the elevated part of the quarter-deck, with none but his
confidential quartermaster near him, he yielded to Israel's natural
curiosity to learn something concerning the sailing of the expedition.
Paul stood lightly, swaying his body over the sea, by holding on to the
mizzen-shrouds, an attitude not inexpressive of his easy audacity; while
near by, pacing a few steps to and fro, his long spy-glass now under his
arm, and now presented at his eye, Israel, looking the very image of
vigilant prudence, listened to the warrior's story. It appeared that on
the night of the visit of the Duke de Chartres and Count D'Estaing to
Doctor Franklin in Paris--the same night that Captain Paul and Israel
were joint occupants of the neighboring chamber--the final sanction of
the French king to the sailing of an American armament against England,
under the direction of the Colonial Commissioner, was made known to the
latter functionary. It was a very ticklish affair. Though swaying on the
brink of avowed hostilities with England, no verbal declaration had as
yet been made by France. Undoubtedly, this enigmatic position of things
was highly advantageous to such an enterprise as Paul's.

Without detailing all the steps taken through the united efforts of
Captain Paul and Doctor Franklin, suffice it that the determined rover
had now attained his wish--the unfettered command of an armed ship in
the British waters; a ship legitimately authorized to hoist the American
colors, her commander having in his cabin-locker a regular commission as
an officer of the American navy. He sailed without any instructions.
With that rare insight into rare natures which so largely distinguished
the sagacious Franklin, the sage well knew that a prowling _brave_, like
Paul Jones, was, like the prowling lion, by nature a solitary warrior.
"Let him alone," was the wise man's answer to some statesman who sought
to hamper Paul with a letter of instructions.

Much subtile casuistry has been expended upon the point, whether Paul
Jones was a knave or a hero, or a union of both. But war and warriors,
like politics and politicians, like religion and religionists, admit of
no metaphysics.

On the second day after Israel's arrival on board the Ranger, as he and
Paul were conversing on the deck, Israel suddenly levelling his glass
towards the Irish coast, announced a large sail bound in. The Ranger
gave chase, and soon, almost within sight of her destination--the port
of Dublin--the stranger was taken, manned, and turned round for Brest.

The Ranger then stood over, passed the Isle of Man towards the
Cumberland shore, arriving within remote sight of Whitehaven about
sunset. At dark she was hovering off the harbor, with a party of
volunteers all ready to descend. But the wind shifted and blew fresh
with a violent sea.

"I won't call on old friends in foul weather," said Captain Paul to
Israel. "We'll saunter about a little, and leave our cards in a day or
two."

Next morning, in Glentinebay, on the south shore of Scotland, they fell
in with a revenue wherry. It was the practice of such craft to board
merchant vessels. The Ranger was disguised as a merchantman, presenting
a broad drab-colored belt all round her hull; under the coat of a
Quaker, concealing the intent of a Turk. It was expected that the
chartered rover would come alongside the unchartered one. But the former
took to flight, her two lug sails staggering under a heavy wind, which
the pursuing guns of the Ranger pelted with a hail-storm of shot. The
wherry escaped, spite the severe cannonade.

Off the Mull of Galoway, the day following, Paul found himself so nigh a
large barley-freighted Scotch coaster, that, to prevent her carrying
tidings of him to land, he dispatched her with the news, stern foremost,
to Hades; sinking her, and sowing her barley in the sea broadcast by a
broadside. From her crew he learned that there was a fleet of twenty or
thirty sail at anchor in Lochryan, with an armed brigantine. He pointed
his prow thither; but at the mouth of the lock, the wind turned against
him again in hard squalls. He abandoned the project. Shortly after, he
encountered a sloop from Dublin. He sunk her to prevent intelligence.

Thus, seeming as much to bear the elemental commission of Nature, as the
military warrant of Congress, swarthy Paul darted hither and thither;
hovering like a thundercloud off the crowded harbors; then, beaten off
by an adverse wind, discharging his lightnings on uncompanioned vessels,
whose solitude made them a more conspicuous and easier mark, like lonely
trees on the heath. Yet all this while the land was full of garrisons,
the embayed waters full of fleets. With the impunity of a Levanter, Paul
skimmed his craft in the land-locked heart of the supreme naval power of
earth; a torpedo-eel, unknowingly swallowed by Britain in a draught of
old ocean, and making sad havoc with her vitals.

Seeing next a large vessel steering for the Clyde, he gave chase, hoping
to cut her off. The stranger proving a fast sailer, the pursuit was
urged on with vehemence, Paul standing, plank-proud, on the
quarter-deck, calling for pulls upon every rope, to stretch each already
half-burst sail to the uttermost.

While thus engaged, suddenly a shadow, like that thrown by an eclipse,
was seen rapidly gaining along the deck, with a sharp defined line,
plain as a seam of the planks. It involved all before it. It was the
domineering shadow of the Juan Fernandez-like crag of Ailsa. The Kanger
was in the deep water which makes all round and close up to this great
summit of the submarine Grampians.

The crag, more than a mile in circuit, is over a thousand feet high,
eight miles from the Ayrshire shore. There stands the cove, lonely as a
foundling, proud as Cheops. But, like the battered brains surmounting
the Giant of Gath, its haughty summit is crowned by a desolate castle,
in and out of whose arches the aerial mists eddy like purposeless
phantoms, thronging the soul of some ruinous genius, who, even in
overthrow, harbors none but lofty conceptions.

As the Ranger shot higher under the crag, its height and bulk dwarfed
both pursuer and pursued into nutshells. The main-truck of the Ranger
was nine hundred feet below the foundations of the ruin on the crag's
top:

While the ship was yet under the shadow, and each seaman's face shared
in the general eclipse, a sudden change came over Paul. He issued no
more sultanical orders. He did not look so elate as before. At length he
gave the command to discontinue the chase. Turning about, they sailed
southward.

"Captain Paul," said Israel, shortly afterwards, "you changed your mind
rather queerly about catching that craft. But you thought she was
drawing us too far up into the land, I suppose."

"Sink the craft," cried Paul; "it was not any fear of her, nor of King
George, which made me turn on my heel; it was yon cock of the walk."

"Cock of the walk?"

"Aye, cock of the walk of the sea; look--yon Crag of Ailsa."




CHAPTER XVI.

THEY LOOK IN AT CARRICKFERGUS, AND DESCEND ON WHITEHAVEN.


Next day, off Carrickfergus, on the Irish coast, a fishing boat, allured
by the Quaker-like look of the incognito craft, came off in full
confidence. Her men were seized, their vessel sunk. From them Paul
learned that the large ship at anchor in the road, was the ship-of-war
Drake, of twenty guns. Upon this he steered away, resolving to return
secretly, and attack her that night.

"Surely, Captain Paul," said Israel to his commander, as about sunset
they backed and stood in again for the land "surely, sir, you are not
going right in among them this way? Why not wait till she comes out?"

"Because, Yellow-hair, my boy, I am engaged to marry her to-night. The
bride's friends won't like the match; and so, this very night, the bride
must be carried away. She has a nice tapering waist, hasn't she, through
the glass? Ah! I will clasp her to my heart."

He steered straight in like a friend; under easy sail, lounging towards
the Drake, with anchor ready to drop, and grapnels to hug. But the wind
was high; the anchor was not dropped at the ordered time. The ranger
came to a stand three biscuits' toss off the unmisgiving enemy's
quarter, like a peaceful merchantman from the Canadas, laden with
harmless lumber.

"I shan't marry her just yet," whispered Paul, seeing his plans for the
time frustrated. Gazing in audacious tranquillity upon the decks of the
enemy, and amicably answering her hail, with complete self-possession,
he commanded the cable to be slipped, and then, as if he had
accidentally parted his anchor, turned his prow on the seaward tack,
meaning to return again immediately with the same prospect of advantage
possessed at first--his plan being to crash suddenly athwart the Drake's
bow, so as to have all her decks exposed point-blank to his musketry.
But once more the winds interposed. It came on with a storm of snow; he
was obliged to give up his project.

Thus, without any warlike appearance, and giving no alarm, Paul, like an
invisible ghost, glided by night close to land, actually came to anchor,
for an instant, within speaking-distance of an English ship-of-war; and
yet came, anchored, answered hail, reconnoitered, debated, decided, and
retired, without exciting the least suspicion. His purpose was
chain-shot destruction. So easily may the deadliest foe--so he be but
dexterous--slide, undreamed of, into human harbors or hearts. And not
awakened conscience, but mere prudence, restrain such, if they vanish
again without doing harm. At daybreak no soul in Carrickfergus knew that
the devil, in a Scotch bonnet, had passed close that way over night.

Seldom has regicidal daring been more strangely coupled with
octogenarian prudence, than in many of the predatory enterprises of
Paul. It is this combination of apparent incompatibilities which ranks
him among extraordinary warriors.

Ere daylight, the storm of the night blew over. The sun saw the Ranger
lying midway over channel at the head of the Irish Sea; England,
Scotland, and Ireland, with all their lofty cliffs, being as
simultaneously as plainly in sight beyond the grass-green waters, as the
City Hall, St. Paul's, and the Astor House, from the triangular Park in
New York. The three kingdoms lay covered with snow, far as the eye could
reach.

"Ah, Yellow-hair," said Paul, with a smile, "they show the white flag,
the cravens. And, while the white flag stays blanketing yonder heights,
we'll make for Whitehaven, my boy. I promised to drop in there a moment
ere quitting the country for good. Israel, lad, I mean to step ashore in
person, and have a personal hand in the thing. Did you ever drive
spikes?"

"I've driven the spike-teeth into harrows before now," replied Israel;
"but that was before I was a sailor."

"Well, then, driving spikes into harrows is a good introduction to
driving spikes into cannon. You are just the man. Put down your glass;
go to the carpenter, get a hundred spikes, put them in a bucket with a
hammer, and bring all to me."

As evening fell, the great promontory of St. Bee's Head, with its
lighthouse, not far from Whitehaven, was in distant sight. But the wind
became so light that Paul could not work his ship in close enough at an
hour as early as intended. His purpose had been to make the descent and
retire ere break of day. But though this intention was frustrated, he
did not renounce his plan, for the present would be his last
opportunity.

As the night wore on, and the ship, with a very light wind, glided
nigher and nigher the mark, Paul called upon Israel to produce his
bucket for final inspection. Thinking some of the spikes too large, he
had them filed down a little. He saw to the lanterns and combustibles.
Like Peter the Great, he went into the smallest details, while still
possessing a genius competent to plan the aggregate. But oversee as one
may, it is impossible to guard against carelessness in subordinates.
One's sharp eyes can't see behind one's back. It will yet be noted that
an important omission was made in the preparations for Whitehaven.

The town contained, at that period, a population of some six or seven
thousand inhabitants, defended by forts.

At midnight, Paul Jones, Israel Potter, and twenty-nine others, rowed in
two boats to attack the six or seven thousand inhabitants of Whitehaven.
There was a long way to pull. This was done in perfect silence. Not a
sound was heard except the oars turning in the row-locks. Nothing was
seen except the two lighthouses of the harbor. Through the stillness and
the darkness, the two deep-laden boats swam into the haven, like two
mysterious whales from the Arctic Sea. As they reached the outer pier,
the men saw each other's faces. The day was dawning. The riggers and
other artisans of the shipping would before very long be astir. No
matter.

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