Something startling, mysterious, hastily confused, was taking place.I watched it with incredulous and fascinated awe, as one watches the confused, swift movements of some deed of violence done in the dark.As if at a given signal, the run of the smooth undulations seemed checked suddenly around the brig.By a strange optical delusion the whole sea appeared to rise upon her in one overwhelming heave of its silky surface, where in one spot a smother of foam broke out ferociously.And then the effort subsided.It was all over, and the smooth swell ran on as before from the horizon in uninterrupted cadence of motion, passing under us with a slight friendly toss of our boat.Far away, where the brig had been, an angry white stain undulating on the surface of steely-gray waters, shot with gleams of green, diminished swiftly, without a hiss, like a patch of pure snow melting in the sun.And the great stillness after this initiation into the sea's implacable hate seemed full of dread thoughts and shadows of disaster.
"Gone!" ejaculated from the depths of his chest my bowman in a final tone.He spat in his hands, and took a better grip on his oar.The captain of the brig lowered his rigid arm slowly, and looked at our faces in a solemnly conscious silence, which called upon us to share in his simple-minded, marvelling awe.All at once he sat down by my side, and leaned forward earnestly at my boat's crew, who, swinging together in a long, easy stroke, kept their eyes fixed upon him faithfully.
"No ship could have done so well," he addressed them firmly, after a moment of strained silence, during which he seemed with trembling lips to seek for words fit to bear such high testimony."She was small, but she was good.I had no anxiety.She was strong.Last voyage I had my wife and two children in her.No other ship could have stood so long the weather she had to live through for days and days before we got dismasted a fortnight ago.She was fairly worn out, and that's all.You may believe me.She lasted under us for days and days, but she could not last for ever.It was long enough.I am glad it is over.No better ship was ever left to sink at sea on such a day as this."He was competent to pronounce the funereal oration of a ship, this son of ancient sea-folk, whose national existence, so little stained by the excesses of manly virtues, had demanded nothing but the merest foothold from the earth.By the merits of his sea-wise forefathers and by the artlessness of his heart, he was made fit to deliver this excellent discourse.There was nothing wanting in its orderly arrangement - neither piety nor faith, nor the tribute of praise due to the worthy dead, with the edifying recital of their achievement.She had lived, he had loved her; she had suffered, and he was glad she was at rest.It was an excellent discourse.
And it was orthodox, too, in its fidelity to the cardinal article of a seaman's faith, of which it was a single-minded confession.
"Ships are all right." They are.They who live with the sea have got to hold by that creed first and last; and it came to me, as Iglanced at him sideways, that some men were not altogether unworthy in honour and conscience to pronounce the funereal eulogium of a ship's constancy in life and death.
After this, sitting by my side with his loosely-clasped hands hanging between his knees, he uttered no word, made no movement till the shadow of our ship's sails fell on the boat, when, at the loud cheer greeting the return of the victors with their prize, he lifted up his troubled face with a faint smile of pathetic indulgence.This smile of the worthy descendant of the most ancient sea-folk whose audacity and hardihood had left no trace of greatness and glory upon the waters, completed the cycle of my initiation.There was an infinite depth of hereditary wisdom in its pitying sadness.It made the hearty bursts of cheering sound like a childish noise of triumph.Our crew shouted with immense confidence - honest souls! As if anybody could ever make sure of having prevailed against the sea, which has betrayed so many ships of great "name," so many proud men, so many towering ambitions of fame, power, wealth, greatness!
As I brought the boat under the falls my captain, in high good-humour, leaned over, spreading his red and freckled elbows on the rail, and called down to me sarcastically, out of the depths of his cynic philosopher's beard:
"So you have brought the boat back after all, have you?"Sarcasm was "his way," and the most that can be said for it is that it was natural.This did not make it lovable.But it is decorous and expedient to fall in with one's commander's way."Yes.Ibrought the boat back all right, sir," I answered.And the good man believed me.It was not for him to discern upon me the marks of my recent initiation.And yet I was not exactly the same youngster who had taken the boat away - all impatience for a race against death, with the prize of nine men's lives at the end.
Already I looked with other eyes upon the sea.I knew it capable of betraying the generous ardour of youth as implacably as, indifferent to evil and good, it would have betrayed the basest greed or the noblest heroism.My conception of its magnanimous greatness was gone.And I looked upon the true sea - the sea that plays with men till their hearts are broken, and wears stout ships to death.Nothing can touch the brooding bitterness of its heart.
Open to all and faithful to none, it exercises its fascination for the undoing of the best.To love it is not well.It knows no bond of plighted troth, no fidelity to misfortune, to long companionship, to long devotion.The promise it holds out perpetually is very great; but the only secret of its possession is strength, strength - the jealous, sleepless strength of a man guarding a coveted treasure within his gates.
