Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

For him, poor fellow, he repented of his folly, and then, like a man, submitted to the fate he had asked for. He never intentionally added to the difficulty or delicacy of the charge of those who had him in hold. Accidents would happen; but they never happened from his fault. Lieutenant Truxton told me, that, when Texas was annexed, there was a careful discussion among the officers, whether they should get hold of Nolan's handsome set of maps, and cut Texas out of it,--from the map of the world and the map of Mexico. The United States had been cut out when the atlas was bought for him. But it was voted, rightly enough, that to do this would be virtually to reveal to him what had happened, or, as Harry Cole said, to make him think Old Burr had succeeded. So it was from no fault of Nolan's that a great botch happened at my own table, when, for a short time, I was in command of the George Washington corvette, on the South American station. We were lying in the La Plata, and some of the officers, who had been on shore, and had just joined again, were entertaining us with accounts of their misadventures in riding the half-wild horses of Buenos Ayres. Nolan was at table, and was in an unusually bright and talkative mood. Some story of a tumble reminded him of an adventure of his own, when he was catching wild horses in Texas with his adventurous cousin, at a time when he must have been quite a boy. He told the story with a good deal of spirit,--so much so, that the silence which often follows a good story hung over the table for an instant, to be broken by Nolan himself. For he asked perfectly unconsciously:--

"Pray, what has become of Texas? After the Mexicans got their independence, I thought that province of Texas would come forward very fast. It is really one of the finest regions on earth; it is the Italy of this continent. But I have not seen or heard a word of Texas for near twenty years."

There were two Texan officers at the table. The reason he had never heard of Texas was that Texas and her affairs had been painfully cut out of his newspapers since Austin began his settlements; so that, while he read of Honduras and Tamaulipas, and, till quite lately, of California,--this virgin province, in which his brother had travelled so far, and, I believe, had died, had ceased to be to him. Waters and Williams, the two Texas men, looked grimly at each other, and tried not to laugh. Edward Morris had his attention attracted by the third link in the chain of the captain's chandelier. Watrous was seized with a convulsion of sneezing. Nolan himself saw that something was to pay, he did not know what. And I, as master of the feast, had to say,--

"Texas is out of the map, Mr. Nolan. Have you seen Captain Back's curious account of Sir Thomas Roe's Welcome?"

After that cruise I never saw Nolan again. I wrote to him at least twice a year, for in that voyage we became even confidentially intimate; but he never wrote to me. The other men tell me that in those fifteen years he _aged_ very fast, as well he might indeed, but that he was still the same gentle, uncomplaining, silent sufferer that he ever was, bearing as best he could his self-appointed punishment,--rather less social, perhaps, with new men whom he did not know, but more anxious, apparently, than ever to serve and befriend and teach the boys, some of whom fairly seemed to worship him. And now it seems the dear old fellow is dead. He has found a home at last, and a country.

* * * * *

Since writing this, and while considering whether or no I would print it, as a warning to the young Nolans and Vallandighams and Tatnalls of to-day of what it is to throw away a country, I have received from Danforth, who is on board the Levant, a letter which gives an account of Nolan's last hours. It removes all my doubts about telling this story.

To understand the first words of the letter, the non-professional reader should remember that after 1817, the position of every officer who had Nolan in charge was one of the greatest delicacy. The government had failed to renew the order of 1807 regarding him. What was a man to do? Should he let him go? What, then, if he were called to account by the Department for violating the order of 1807? Should he keep him? What, then, if Nolan should be liberated some day, and should bring an action for false imprisonment or kidnapping against every man who had had him in charge? I urged and pressed this upon Southard, and I have reason to think that other officers did the same thing. But the Secretary always said, as they so often do at Washington, that there were no special orders to give, and that we must act on our own judgment. That means, "If you succeed, you will be sustained; if you fail, you will be disavowed." Well, as Danforth says, all that is over now, though I do not know but I expose myself to a criminal prosecution on the evidence of the very revelation I am making.

Here is the letter:--

* * * * *

"LEVANT, 2° 2' S. @ 131° W.

"DEAR FRED:--I try to find heart and life to tell you that it is all over with dear old Nolan. I have been with him on this voyage more than I ever was, and I can understand wholly now the way in which you used to speak of the dear old fellow. I could see that he was not strong, but I had no idea the end was so near. The doctor has been watching him very carefully, and yesterday morning came to me and told me that Nolan was not so well, and had not left his state-room,--a thing I never remember before. He had let the doctor come and see him as he lay there,--the first time the doctor had been in the state-room,--and he said he should like to see me. O dear! do you remember the mysteries we boys used to invent about his room, in the old Intrepid days? Well, I went in, and there, to be sure, the poor fellow lay in his berth, smiling pleasantly as he gave me his hand, but looking very frail. I could not help a glance round, which showed me what a little shrine he had made of the box he was lying in. The stars and stripes were triced up above and around a picture of Washington, and he had painted a majestic eagle, with lightnings blazing from his beak and his foot just clasping the whole globe, which his wings overshadowed. The dear old boy saw my glance, and said, with a sad smile, 'Here, you see, I have a country!' And then he pointed to the foot of his bed, where I had not seen before a great map of the United States, as he had drawn it from memory, and which he had there to look upon as he lay. Quaint, queer old names were on it, in large letters: 'Indiana Territory,' 'Mississippi Territory,' and 'Louisiana Territory,' as I suppose our fathers learned such things: but the old fellow had patched in Texas, too; he had carried his western boundary all the way to the Pacific, but on that shore he had defined nothing.

"'O Danforth,' he said, 'I know I am dying. I cannot get home. Surely you will tell me something now?--Stop! stop! Do not speak till I say what I am sure you know, that there is not in this ship, that there is not in America,--God bless her!--a more loyal man than I. There cannot be a man who loves the old flag as I do, or prays for it as I do, or hopes for it as I do. There are thirty-four stars in it now, Danforth. I thank God for that, though I do not know what their names are. There has never been one taken away: I thank God for that. I know by that that there has never been any successful Burr. O Danforth, Danforth,' he sighed out, 'how like a wretched night's dream a boy's idea of personal fame or of separate sovereignty seems, when one looks back on it after such a life as mine! But tell me,--tell me something,--tell me everything, Danforth, before I die!'

"Ingham, I swear to you that I felt like a monster that I had not told him everything before. Danger or no danger, delicacy or no delicacy, who was I, that I should have been acting the tyrant all this time over this dear, sainted old man, who had years ago expiated, in his whole manhood's life, the madness of a boy's treason? 'Mr. Nolan,' said I, 'I will tell you every thing you ask about. Only, where shall I begin?'

"O the blessed smile that crept over his white face! and he pressed my hand and said, 'God bless you' 'Tell me their names,' he said, and he pointed to the stars on the flag. 'The last I know is Ohio. My father lived in Kentucky. But I have guessed Michigan and Indiana and Mississippi,--that was where Fort Adams is,--they make twenty. But where are your other fourteen? You have not cut up any of the old ones, I hope?'

"Well, that was not a bad text, and I told him the names in as good order as I could, and he bade me take down his beautiful map and draw them in as I best could with my pencil. He was wild with delight about Texas, told me how his cousin died there; he had marked a gold cross near where he supposed his grave was; and he had guessed at Texas. Then he was delighted as he saw California and Oregon;--that, he said, he had suspected partly, because he had never been permitted to land on that shore, though the ships were there so much. 'And the men,' said he, laughing, 'brought off a good deal besides furs.' Then he went back--heavens, how far!--to ask about the Chesapeake, and what was done to Barron for surrendering her to the Leopard, and whether Burr ever tried again,--and he ground his teeth with the only passion he showed. But in a moment that was over, and he said, 'God forgive me, for I am sure I forgive him.' Then he asked about the old war,--told me the true story of his serving the gun the day we took the Java,--asked about dear old David Porter, as he called him. Then he settled down more quietly, and very happily, to hear me tell in an hour the history of fifty years.

"How I wished it had been somebody who knew something! But I did as well as I could. I told him of the English war. I told him about Fulton and the steamboat beginning. I told him about old Scott, and Jackson; told him all I could think of about the Mississippi, and New Orleans, and Texas, and his own old Kentucky. And do you think, he asked who was in command of the 'Legion of the West.' I told him it was a very gallant officer named Grant, and that, by our last news, he was about to establish his head-quarters at Vicksburg. Then, 'Where was Vicksburg?' I worked that out on the map; it was about a hundred miles, more or less, above his old Fort Adams; and I thought Fort Adams must he a ruin now. 'It must be at old Vick's plantation,' at Walnut Hills, said he: 'well, that is a change!'

"I tell you, Ingham, it was a hard thing to condense the history of half a century into that talk with a sick man. And I do not now know what I told him,--of emigration, and the means of it,--of steamboats, and railroads, and telegraphs,--of inventions, and books, and literature,--of the colleges, and West Point, and the Naval School,--but with the queerest interruptions that ever you heard. You see it was Robinson Crusoe asking all the accumulated questions of fifty-six years!

"I remember he asked, all of a sudden, who was President now; and when I told him, he asked if Old Abe was General Benjamin Lincoln's son. He said he met old General Lincoln, when he was quite a boy himself, at some Indian treaty. I said no, that Old Abe was a Kentuckian like himself, but I could not tell him of what family; he had worked up from the ranks. 'Good for him!' cried Nolan; 'I am glad of that. As I have brooded and wondered, I have thought our danger was in keeping up those regular successions in the first families.' Then I got talking about my visit to Washington. I told him of meeting the Oregon Congressman, Harding; I told him about the Smithsonian, and the Exploring Expedition; I told him about the Capitol, and the statues for the pediment, and Crawford's Liberty, and Greenough's Washington: Ingham, I told him everything I could think of that would show the grandeur of his country and its prosperity; but I could not make up my mouth to tell him a word about this infernal Rebellion!

"And he drank it in, and enjoyed it as I cannot tell you. He grew more and more silent, yet I never thought he was tired or faint. I gave him a glass of water, but he just wet his lips, and told me not to go away. Then he asked me to bring the Presbyterian 'Book of Public Prayer,' which lay there, and said, with a smile, that it would open at the right place,--and so it did. There was his double red mark down the page; and I knelt down and read, and he repeated with me, 'For ourselves and our country, O gracious God, we thank Thee, that, notwithstanding our manifold transgressions of Thy holy laws, Thou hast continued to us Thy marvellous kindness,'--and so to the end of that thanksgiving. Then he turned to the end of the same book, and I read the words more familiar to me: 'Most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favor to behold and bless Thy servant, the President of the United States, and all others in authority,'--and the rest of the Episcopal collect. 'Danforth,' said he, 'I have repeated those prayers night and morning, it is now fifty-five years.' And then he said he would go to sleep. He bent me down over him and kissed me; and he said, 'Look in my Bible, Danforth, when I am gone.' And I went away.

"But I had no thought it was the end. I thought he was tired and would sleep. I knew he was happy and I wanted him to be alone.

"But in an hour, when the doctor went in gently he found Nolan had breathed his life away with a smile. He had something pressed close to his lips. It was his father's badge of the Order of the Cincinnati.

"We looked in his Bible, and there was a slip of paper at the place where he had marked the text:--

"'They desire a country, even a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.'

"On this slip of paper he had written:--

"'Bury me in the sea; it has been my home, and I love it. But will not some one set up a stone for my memory at Fort Adams or at Orleans, that my disgrace may not be more than I ought to bear? Say on it:--

"'_In Memory of_

PHILIP NOLAN,

_Lieutenant in the Army of the United States_, He loved his
country as no other man has loved her; but no man deserved less at
her hands.'"

THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA.

FROM THE INGHAM PAPERS.

[The Florida, Anglo-Rebel pirate, after inflicting horrible injuries on the commerce of America and the good name of England, was cut out by Captain Collins, from the bay of Bahia, by one of those fortunate mistakes in international law which endear brave men to the nations in whose interest they are committed. When she arrived here the government was obliged to disavow the act. The question then was, as we had her by mistake, what we should do with her. At that moment the National Sailors' Fair was in full blast at Boston, and I offered my suggestion in answer in the following article, which was published November 19, 1864, in the "Boatswain's Whistle," a little paper issued at the fair.

The government did not take the suggestion. Very unfortunately, before the Florida was got ready for sea, she was accidentally sunk in a collision with a tug off Fort Monroe, and the heirs of the Confederate government or the English bond-holders must look there for her, if the Brazilian government will give them permission.

For the benefit of the New York Observer I will state that a despatch sent round the world in a spiral direction westward 1,200 times, would not really arrive at its destination four years before it started. It is only a joke which suggests it.]

* * * * *

SPECIAL DESPATCH.

LETTER FROM CAPTAIN INGHAM, IN COMMAND OF THE FLORIDA.

[Received four years in advance of the mail by a lightning express, which has gained that time by running round the world 1,200 times in a spiral direction westward on its way from Brazil to our publication-office. Mrs. Ingham's address not being known, the letter is printed for her information.]

No. 29.

BAHIA, BRAZIL, April 1, 1868.

MY DEAR WIFE:--We are here at last, thank fortune; and I shall surrender the old pirate to-day to the officers of government. We have been saluted, are to be fêted, and perhaps I shall be made a Knight Commander of the Golden Goose. I never was so glad as when I saw the lights on the San Esperitu head-land, which makes the south point of this Bahia or bay.

You will not have received my No. 28 from Loando, and may have missed 26 and 24, which I gave to _outward_ bound whalemen. I always doubted whether you got 1, 7, 9, and 11. And for me I have no word of you since you waved your handkerchief from the window in Springfield Street on the morning of the 1st of June, 1865, nearly four years. My dear child, you will not know me.

Let me then repeat, very briefly, the outline of this strange cruise; and when the letters come, you can fill in the blanks.

The government had determined that the Florida must be returned to the neutral harbor whence she came. They had put her in complete repair, and six months of diplomacy had made the proper apologies to the Brazilian government. Meanwhile Collins, who had captured her by mistake, had, by another mistake, been made an admiral, and was commanding a squadron; and to insure her safe and respectful delivery, I, who had been waiting service, was un shelved, and, as you know, bidden to take command.

She was in apple-pie order. The engines had been cleaned up; and I thought we could make a quick thing of it. I was a little dashed when I found the crew was small; but I have been glad enough since that we had no more mouths. No one but myself knew our destination. The men thought we were to take despatches to the Gulf squadron.

You remember I had had only verbal orders to take command, and after we got outside the bay I opened my sealed despatches. The gist of them was in these words:--

"You will understand that the honor of this government is pledged for the _safe_ delivery of the Florida to the government of Brazil. You will therefore hazard nothing to gain speed. The quantity of your coal has been adjusted with the view to give your vessel her best trim, and the supply is not large. You will husband it with care,--taking every precaution to arrive in Bahia _safely_ with your charge, in such time as _your best discretion_ may suggest to you."

"_Your best discretion_" was underscored.

I called Prendergast, and showed him the letter. Then we called the engineer and asked about the coal. He had not been into the bunkers, but went and returned with his face white, through the black grime, to report "not four days' consumption." By some cursed accident, he said, the bunkers had been filled with barrels of salt-pork and flour!

On this, I ordered a light and went below. There had been some fatal misunderstanding somewhere. The vessel was fitted out as for an arctic voyage. Everywhere hard-bread, flour, pork, beef, vinegar, sour-krout; but, clearly enough, not, at the very best, five days of coal!

And I was to get to Brazil with this old pirate transformed into a provision ship, "at my best discretion."

"Prendergast," said I, "we will take it easy. Were you ever in Bahia?"

"Took flour there in '55, and lay waiting for India-rubber from July to October. Lost six men by yellow-jack."

Prendergast was from the merchant marine. I had known him since we were children. "Ethan," said I, "in my best discretion it would be bad to arrive there before the end of October. Where would you go?"

I cannot say he took the responsibility. He would not take it. You know, my dear, of course, that it was I who suggested Upernavik. From the days of the old marbled paper Northern Regions,--through the quarto Ross and Parry and Back and the nephew Ross and Kane and McClure and McClintock, you know, my dear, what my one passion has been,--to see those floes and icebergs for myself. Surely you forgive me, or at least excuse me. Do not you? Here was this fast steamer under me. I ought not to be in Bahia before October 25. It was June 1. Of course we went to Upernavik.

I will not say I regret it now. Yet I will say that on that decision, cautiously made, though it was "on my discretion," all our subsequent misfortunes hang. The Danes were kind to us,--the Governor especially, though I had to carry the poor fellow bad news about the Duchies and the Danish war, which was all fresh then. He got up a dance for us, I remember, and there I wrote No. 1 to you. I could not of course help--when we left him--running her up a few degrees to the north, just to see whether there is or is not that passage between Igloolik and Prince Rupert's Headland (and by the way there _is_). After we passed Igloolik, there was such splendid weather, that I just used up a little coal to drive her along the coast of King William's Land; and there, as we waited for little duck-shooting on the edge of a floe one day, as our luck ordered, a party of natives came on board, and we treated them with hard-tack crumbs and whale-oil. They fell to dancing, and we to laughing,--they danced more and we laughed more, till the oldest woman tumbled in her bear-skin bloomers, and came with a smash right on the little cast-iron frame by the wheel, which screened binnacle and compass. My dear child, there was such a hullalu and such a mess together as I remember now. We had to apologize, the doctor set her head as well as he could. We gave them gingerbread from the cabin, to console them, and got them off without a fight. But the next morning when I cast off from the floe, it proved the beggars had stolen the compass card, needle and all.

My dear Mary, there was not another bit of magnetized iron in the ship. The government had been very shy of providing instruments of any kind for Confederate cruisers. Poor Ethan had traded off two compasses only the day before for whalebone spears and skin breeches, neither of which knew the north star from the ace of spades. And this thing proved of more importance than you will think; it really made me feel that the stuff in the books and the sermons about the mariners' needle was not quite poetry.

As you shall see, if I ever get through. (Since I began, I have seen the Consul,--and heard the glorious news from home,--and am to be presented to the port authorities to-morrow.) It was the most open summer, Mary, ever known there. If I had not had to be here in October, I would have driven right through Lancaster Sound, by Baring's Island, and come out into the Pacific. But here was the honor of the country, and we merely stole back through the Straits. It was well enough there,--all daylight, you know. But after we passed Cape Farewell, we worked her into such fogs, child, as you never saw out of Hyde Park. Did not I long for that compass-card! We sailed, and we sailed, and we sailed. For thirty-seven days I did not get an observation, nor speak a ship! October! It was October before we were warm. At noon we used to sail where we thought it was lightest. At night I used to keep two men up for a lookout, lash the wheel, and let her drift like a Dutchman. One way as good as another. Mary, when I saw the sun at last, enough to get any kind of observation, we were wellnigh three hundred miles northeast of Iceland! Talk of fogs to me!

Well, I set her south again, but how long can you know if you are sailing south, in those places where the northeast winds and Scotch mists come from! Thank Heaven, we got south, or we should have frozen to death. We got into November, and we got into December. We were as far south as 37° 29'; and were in 31° 17' west on New Year's Day, 1866, when the second officer wished me a happy new year, congratulated me on the fine weather, said we should get a good observation, and asked me for the new nautical almanac! You know they are only calculated for five years. We had two Greenwich ones on board, and they ran out December 31, 1865. But the government had been as stingy in almanacs as in coal and compasses. They did not mean to keep the Confederacy in almanacs.

That was the beginning of our troubles. I had to take the old almanac, with Prendergast, and we figured like Cocker, and always kept ahead with a month's tables. But somehow,--I feel sure we were right,--but something was wrong; and after a few weeks the lunars used to come out in the most beastly way, and we always proved to be on the top of the Andes or in the Marquesas Islands, or anywhere but in the Atlantic Ocean. Well then, by good luck, we spoke the Winged Batavian; could not speak a word of Dutch, nor he a word of English; but he let Ethan copy his tables, and so we ran for St. Sacrament. I posted 8, 9, and 10 there; I gave the Dutchman 7, which I hope you got, but fear.

Well, this story is running long; but at St. Sacrament we started again, but, as ill-luck would have it, without a clean bill of health. At that time I could have run into Bahia with coal--of which I had bought some--in a week. But there was fever on shore,--and bad,--and I knew we must make pratique when we came into the outer harbor here; so, rather than do that, we stretched down the coast, and met that cyclone I wrote you about, and had to put into Loando. Understand, this was the first time we went into Loando. I have learned that wretched hole well enough since. And it was as we were running out of Loando, that, in reversing the engine too suddenly, lest we should smash up an old Portuguese woman's bum-boat, that the slides or supports of the piston-rod just shot out of the grooves they run in on the top, came cleverly down on the outside of the carriage, gave that odious _g-r-r-r_, which I can hear now, and then, _dump_,--down came the whole weight of the walking-beam, bent rod and carriages all into three figure 8's, and there we were! I had as lief run the boat with a clothes-wringer as with that engine, any day, from then to now.

Well, we tinkered, and the Portuguese dock-yard people tinkered. We took out this, and they took out that. It was growing sickly, and I got frightened, and finally I shipped the propeller and took it on board, and started under such canvas as we had left,--not much after the cyclone,--for the North and the South together had rather rotted the original duck.

Then,--as I wrote you in No. 11,--it was too late to get to Bahia before that summer's sickly season, and I stretched off to cooler regions again, "in my best discretion." That was the time when we had the fever so horribly on board; and but for Wilder the surgeon, and the Falkland Islands, we should be dead, every man of us, now. But we touched in Queen's Bay just in time. The Governor (who is his own only subject) was very cordial and jolly and kind. We all went ashore, and pitched tents, and ate ducks and penguins till the men grew strong. I scraped her, nearly down to the bends, for the grass floated by our side like a mermaid's hair as we sailed, and the once swift Florida would not make four knots an hour on the wind;--and this was the ship I was to get into Bahia in good order, at my best discretion!

Meanwhile none of these people had any news from America. The last paper at the Falkland Islands was a London Times of 1864, abusing the Yankees. As for the Portuguese, they were like the people Logan saw at Vicksburg. "They don't know anything good!" said he; "they don't know anything at all!" It was really more for news than for water I put into Sta. Lucia,--and a pretty mess I made of it there. We looked so like pirates (as at bottom the old tub is), that they took all of us who landed to the guard-house. None of us could speak Sta. Lucia, whatever that tongue may be, nor understand it. And it was not till Ethan fired a shell from the 100-pound Parrott over the town that they let us go. I hope the dogs sent you my letters. I suppose there was another infringement of neutrality. But if the Brazilian government sends this ship to Sta. Lucia, I shall not command her, that's all!

Well! what happened at Loando the second time, Valencia, and Puntos Pimos, and Nueva Salamanca, and Loando this last time, you know and will know, and why we loitered so. At last, thank fortune, here we are. Actually, Mary, this ship logged on the average only thirty-two knots a day for the last week before we got her into port.

Now think of the ingratitude of men! I have brought her in here, "according to my best discretion," and do you believe, these hidalgos, or dons, or senores, or whatever they are, had forgotten she existed. And when I showed them to her, they said in good Portugal that I was a liar. Fortunately the Consul is our old friend Kingsley. He was delighted to see me; thought I was at the bottom of the sea. From him we learned that the Confederacy was blown sky-high long ago. And from all I can learn, I may have the Florida back again for my own private yacht or peculium, unless she goes to Sta. Lucia.

Not I, my friends! Scrape her, and mend her, and give her to the marines,--and tell them her story; but do not intrust her again to my own Polly's own

FREDERIC INGHAM

A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY.

[This essay was first published in the Monthly Religious Magazine, Boston, for October, 1851. One or another professor of chronology has since taken pains to tell me that it is impossible. But until they satisfy themselves whether Homer ever lived at all, I shall hold to the note which I wrote to Miss Dryasdust's cousin, which I printed originally at the end of the article, and which will be found there in this collection. The difficulties in the geography are perhaps worse than those of chronology.]

* * * * *

A summer bivouac had collected together a little troop of soldiers from Joppa, under the shelter of a grove, where they had spread their sheep-skins, tethered their horses, and pitched a single tent. With the carelessness of soldiers, they were chatting away the time till sleep might come, and help them to to-morrow with its chances; perhaps of fight, perhaps of another day of this camp indolence. Below the garden slope where they were lounging, the rapid torrent of Kishon ran brawling along. A full moon was rising above the rough edge of the Eastern hills, and the whole scene was alive with the loveliness of an Eastern landscape.

As they talked together, the strains of a harp came borne down the stream by the wind, mingling with the rippling of the brook.

"The boys were right," said the captain of the little company. "They asked leave to go up the stream to spend their evening with the Carmel-men; and said that they had there a harper, who would sing and play for them."

"Singing at night, and fighting in the morning! It is the true soldier's life," said another.

"Who have they there?" asked a third.

"One of those Ziklag-men," replied the chief. "He came into camp a few days ago, seems to be an old favorite of the king's, and is posted with his men, by the old tomb on the edge of the hill. If you cross the brook, he is not far from the Carmel post; and some of his young men have made acquaintance there."

"One is not a soldier for nothing. If we make enemies at sight, we make friends at sight too."

"Echish here says that the harper is a Jew."

"What!--a deserter?"

"I do not know that; that is the king's lookout. Their company came up a week ago, were reviewed the day I was on guard at the outposts, and they had this post I tell you of assigned to them. So the king is satisfied; and, if he is, I am."

"Jew or Gentile, Jehovah's man or Dagon's man," said one of the younger soldiers, with a half-irreverent tone, "I wish we had him here to sing to us."

"And to keep us awake," yawned another.

"Or to keep us from thinking of to-morrow," said a third.

"Can nobody sing here, or play, or tell an old-time story?"

There was nobody. The only two soldiers of the post, who affected musical skill, were the two who had gone up to the Carmelites' bivouac; and the little company of Joppa--catching louder notes and louder, as the bard's inspiration carried him farther and farther away--crept as far up the stream as the limits of their station would permit; and lay, without noise, to catch, as they best could, the rich tones of the music as it swept down the valley.

Soothed by the sound, and by the moonlight, and by the summer breeze, they were just in mood to welcome the first interruption which broke the quiet of the night. It was the approach of one of their company, who had been detached to Accho a day or two before; and who came hurrying in to announce the speedy arrival of companions, for whom he bespoke a welcome. Just as they were to leave Accho, he said, that day, on their return to camp, an Ionian trading-vessel had entered port. He and his fellow-soldiers had waited to help her moor, and had been chatting with her seamen. They had told them of the chance of battle to which they were returning; and two or three of the younger Ionians, enchanted at the relief from the sea's imprisonment, had begged them to let them volunteer in company with them. These men had come up into the country with the soldiers, therefore; and he who had broken the silence of the listeners to the distant serenade had hurried on to tell his comrades that such visitors were on their way.

They soon appeared on foot, but hardly burdened by the light packs they bore.

A soldier's welcome soon made the Ionian sailors as much at home with the men of the bivouac, as they had been through the day with the detachment from the sea-board. A few minutes were enough to draw out sheep-skins for them to lie upon, a skin of wine for their thirst, a bunch of raisins and some oat-cakes for their hunger; a few minutes more had told the news which each party asked from the other; and then these sons of the sea and these war-bronzed Philistines were as much at ease with each other as if they had served under the same sky for years.

"We were listening to music," said the old chief, "when you came up. Some of our young men have gone up, indeed, to the picket yonder, to hear the harper sing, whose voice you catch sometimes, when we are not speaking."

"You find the Muses in the midst of arms, then," said one of the young Ionians.

"Muses?" said the old Philistine, laughing. "That sounds like you Greeks. Ah! sir, in our rocks here we have few enough Muses, but those who carry these lances, or teach us how to trade with the islands for tin."

"That's not quite fair," cried another. "The youngsters who are gone sing well; and one of them has a harp I should be glad you should see. He made it himself from a gnarled olive-root." And he turned to look for it.

"You'll not find it in the tent: the boy took it with him. They hoped the Ziklag minstrel might ask them to sing, I suppose."

"A harp of olive-wood," said the Ionian, "seems Muse-born and Pallas-blessed."

And, as he spoke, one of the new-comers of the Philistines leaned over, and whispered to the chief: "He is a bard himself, and we made him promise to sing to us. I brought his harp with me that he might cheer up our bivouac. Pray, do you ask him."

The old chief needed no persuasion; and the eyes of the whole force brightened as they found they had a minstrel "of their own" now, when the old man pressed the young Ionian courteously to let them hear him: "I told you, sir, that we had no Muses of our own; but we welcome all the more those who come to us from over seas."

Homer smiled; for it was Homer whom he spoke to,--Homer still in the freshness of his unblinded youth. He took the harp which the young Philistine handed to him, thrummed upon its chords, and as he tuned them said: "I have no harp of olive-wood; we cut this out, it was years ago, from an old oleander in the marshes behind Colophon. What will you hear, gentlemen?"

"The poet chooses for himself," said the courtly old captain.

"Let me sing you, then, of _the Olive Harp_"; and he struck the chords in a gentle, quieting harmony, which attuned itself to his own spirit, pleased as he was to find music and harmony and the olive of peace in the midst of the rough bivouac, where he had come up to look for war. But he was destined to be disappointed. Just as his prelude closed, one of the young soldiers turned upon his elbow, and whispered contemptuously to his neighbor: "Always _olives_, always _peace_: that's all your music's good for!"

The boy spoke too loud, and Homer caught the discontented tone and words with an ear quicker than the speaker had given him credit for. He ended the prelude with a sudden crash on the strings, and said shortly, "And what is better to sing of than the olive?"

The more courteous Philistines looked sternly on the young soldier; but he had gone too far to be frightened, and he flashed back: "War is better. My broadsword is better. If I could sing, I would sing to your Ares; we call him Mars!"

Homer smiled gravely. "Let it be so," said he; and, in a lower tone, to the captain, who was troubled at the breach of courtesy, he added, "Let the boy see what war and Mars are for."

He struck another prelude and began. Then was it that Homer composed his "Hymn to Mars." In wild measure, and impetuous, he swept along through the list of Mars's titles and attributes; then his key changed, and his hearers listened more intently, more solemnly, as in a graver strain, with slower music, and an almost awed dignity of voice, the bard went on.--

"Helper of mortals, hear!
As thy fires give
The present boldnesses that strive
In youth for honor;
So would I likewise wish to have the power
To keep off from my head thy bitter hour,
And quench the false fire of my soul's low kind,
By the fit ruling of my highest mind I
Control that sting of wealth
That stirs me on still to the horrid scath
Of hideous battle!

"Do thou, O ever blessed! give me still
Presence of mind to put in act my will,
Whate'er the occasion be;
And so to live, unforced by any fear,
Beneath those laws of peace, that never are
Affected with pollutions popular
Of unjust injury,
As to bear safe the burden of hard fates,
Of foes inflexive, and inhuman hates!"

The tones died away; the company was hushed for a moment; and the old chief then said gravely to his petulant follower, "That is what _men_ fight for, boy." But the boy did not need the counsel. Homer's manner, his voice, the music itself, the spirit of the song, as much as the words, had overcome him; and the boasting soldier was covering his tears with his hands.

Homer felt at once (the prince of gentlemen he) that the little outbreak, and the rebuke of it, had jarred the ease of their unexpected meeting. How blessed is the presence of mind with which the musician of real genius passes from song to song, "whate'er the occasion be!" With the ease of genius he changed the tone of his melody again, and sang his own hymn, "To Earth, the Mother of all."

The triumphant strain is one which harmonizes with every sentiment; and he commanded instantly the rapt attention of the circle. So engrossed was he, that he did not seem to observe, as he sang, an addition to their company of some soldiers from above in the valley, just _as_ he entered on the passage:--

"Happy, then, are they
Whom thou, O great in reverence!
Are bent to honor. They shall all things find
In all abundance! All their pastures yield
Herds in all plenty. All their roofs are filled
With rich possessions.
High happiness and wealth attend them,
While, with laws well-ordered, they
Cities of happy households sway;
And their sons exult in the pleasure of youth,
And their daughters dance with the flower-decked girls,
Who play among the flowers of summer!
Such are the honors thy full hands divide;
Mother of Gods and starry Heaven's bride!"[A]

A buzz of pleasure and a smile ran round the circle, in which the new-comers joined. They were the soldiers who had been to hear and join the music at the Carmel-men's post. The tones of Homer's harp had tempted them to return; and they had brought with them the Hebrew minstrel, to whom they had been listening. It was the outlaw David, of Bethlehem Ephrata.

David had listened to Homer more intently than any one; and, as the pleased applause subsided, the eyes of the circle gathered upon him, and the manner of all showed that they expected him, in minstrel-fashion, to take up the same strain.

He accepted the implied invitation, played a short prelude, and taking Homer's suggestion of topic, sang in parallel with it:--

"I will sing a new song unto thee, O God!
Upon psaltery and harp will I sing praise to thee.
Thou art He that giveth salvation to kings,
That delivereth David, thy servant, from the sword.
Rid me and save me from those who speak vanity,
Whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood,--
That our sons may be as plants in fresh youth;
That our daughters may be as corner-stones,--
The polished stones of our palaces;
That our garners may be full with all manner of store;
That our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in the
way;
That there may be no cry nor complaint in our streets
Happy is the people that is in such a case;
Yea, happy is the people whose God is the Lord!"

The melody was triumphant; and the enthusiastic manner yet more so. The Philistines listened delighted,--too careless of religion, they, indeed not to be catholic in presence of religious enthusiasm; and Homer wore the exalted expression which his face seldom wore. For the first time since his childhood, Homer felt that he was not alone in the world!

Who shall venture to tell what passed between the two minstrels, when Homer, leaving his couch, crossed the circle at once, flung himself on the ground by David's side, gave him his hand; when they looked each other in the face, and sank down into the rapid murmuring of talk, which constant gesture illustrated, but did not fully explain to the rough men around them? They respected the poets' colloquy for a while; but then, eager again to hear one harp or the other, they persuaded one of the Ionian sailors to ask Homer again to sing to them.

It was hard to persuade Homer. He shook his head, and turned back to the soldier-poet.

"What should _I_ sing?" he said.

They did not enter into his notion: hearers will not always. And so, taking his question literally, they replied, "Sing? Sing us of the snow-storm, the storm of stones, of which you sang at noon."

Poor Homer! It was easier to do it than to be pressed to do it; and he struck his harp again:--

"It was as when, some wintry day, to men
Jove would, in might, his sharp artillery show;
He wills his winds to sleep, and over plain
And mountains pours, in countless flakes, his snow,
Deep it conceals the rocky cliffs and hills,
Then covers all the blooming meadows o'er,
All the rich monuments of mortals' skill,
All ports and rocks that break the ocean-shore
Rock, haven, plain, are buried by its fall;
But the near wave, unchanging, drinks it all.
So while these stony tempests veil the skies,
While this on Greeks, and that on Trojans flies,
The walls unchanged above the clamor rise."[B]

The men looked round upon David, whose expression, as he returned the glance, showed that he had enjoyed the fragment as well as they. But when they still looked expectant, he did not decline the unspoken invitation; but, taking Homer's harp, sang, as if the words were familiar to him:--

"He giveth snow like wool;
He scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes;
He casteth forth his ice like morsels;
Who can stand before his cold?
He sendeth forth his word, and melteth them;
He causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow."

"Always this '_He_,'" said one of the young soldiers to another.

"Yes," he replied; "and it was so in the beginning of the evening, when we were above there."

"There is a strange difference between the two men, though the one plays as well as the other, and the Greek speaks with quite as little foreign accent as the Jew, and their subjects are the same."

"Yes," said the young Philistine harper; "if the Greek should sing one of the Hebrew's songs, you would know he had borrowed it, in a moment."

"And so, if it were the other way."

"Of course," said their old captain, joining in this conversation. "Homer, if you call him so, sings the thing made: David sings the maker. Or, rather, Homer thinks of the thing made: David thinks of the maker, whatever they sing."

"I was going to say that Homer would sing of cities; and David, of the life in them."

"It is not what they say so much, as the way they look at it. The Greek sees the outside,--the beauty of the thing; the Hebrew--"

"Hush!"

For David and his new friend had been talking too. Homer had told him of the storm at sea they met a few days before; and David, I think, had spoken of a mountain-tornado, as he met it years before. In the excitement of his narrative he struck the harp, which was still in his hand, and sung:--

"Then the earth shook and trembled,
The foundations of the hills moved and were shaken,
Because He was wroth;
There went up a smoke out of his nostrils,
And fire out of his mouth devoured;
It burned with living coal.
He bowed the heavens also, and came down,
And darkness was under his feet;
He rode upon a cherub and did fly,
Yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.
He made darkness his resting-place,
His pavilion were dark waters and clouds of the skies;
At the brightness before him his clouds passed by,
Hail-stones and coals of fire.
The Lord also thundered in the heavens,
And the highest gave his voice;
Hail-stones and coals of fire.
Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them,
And he shot out his lightnings, and discomfited them.
Then the channels of waters were seen,
And the foundations of the world were made known,
At thy rebuke, O Lord!
At the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.
He sent from above, he took me,
He drew me out of many waters."

"Mine were but a few verses," said Homer. "I am more than repaid by yours. Imagine Neptune, our sea-god, looking on a battle:--

"There he sat high, retired from the seas;
There looked with pity on his Grecians beaten;
There burned with rage at the god-king who slew them.
Then he rushed forward from the rugged mountains,
Quickly descending;
He bent the forests also as he came down,
And the high cliffs shook under his feet.
Three times he trod upon them,
And with his fourth step reached the home he sought for.

"There was his palace, in the deep waters of the seas,
Shining with gold, and builded forever.
There he yoked him his swift-footed horses;
Their hoofs are brazen, and their manes are golden.
He binds them with golden thongs,
He seizes his golden goad,
He mounts upon his chariot, and doth fly:
Yes! he drives them forth into the waves!
And the whales rise under him from the depths,
For they know he is their king;
And the glad sea is divided into parts,
That his steeds may fly along quickly;
And his brazen axle passes dry between the waves,
So, bounding fast, they bring him to his Grecians."[C]

And the poets sank again into talk.

"You see it," said the old Philistine. "He paints the picture. David sings the life of the picture."

"Yes: Homer sees what he sings; David feels his song."

"Homer's is perfect in its description."

"Yes; but for life, for the soul of the description, you need the Hebrew."

"Homer might be blind; and, with that fancy and word-painting power of his, and his study of everything new, he would paint pictures as he sang, though unseen."

"Yes," said another; "but David--" And he paused.

"But David?" asked the chief.

"I was going to say that he might be blind, deaf, imprisoned, exiled, sick, or all alone, and that yet he would never know he was alone; feeling as he does, as he must to sing so, of the presence of this Lord of his!"

"He does not think of a snow-flake, but as sent from him."

"While the snow-flake is reminding Homer of that hard, worrying, slinging work of battle. He must have seen fight himself."

They were hushed again. For, though they no longer dared ask the poets to sing to them,--so engrossed were they in each other's society,--the soldiers were hardly losers from this modest courtesy. For the poets were constantly arousing each other to strike a chord, or to sing some snatch of remembered song. And so it was that Homer, _àpropos_ of I do not know what, sang in a sad tone:--