CHAPTER III.
"There's Jonathan, that lucky lad,
Who knows it from the root, sir;--
He sucks in all that's to be had,
And always trades for boot, sir."
14,763D VERSE OF YANKEE DOODLE.
Il Capitano Smeet' was not sorry to get out of the government house--palazzo, as some of the simple people of Elba called the unambitious dwelling. He had been well badgered by the persevering erudition of the vice-governatore; and, stored as he was with nautical anecdotes and a tolerable personal acquaintance with sundry seaports, for any expected occasion of this sort, he had never anticipated a conversation which would aspire as high as the institutions, religion, and laws of his adopted country. Had the worthy Andrea heard the numberless maledictions that the stranger muttered between his teeth, as he left the house, it would have shocked all his sensibilities, if it did not revive his suspicions.
It was now night; but a starry, calm, voluptuous evening, such as are familiar to those who are acquainted with the Mediterranean and its shores. There was scarcely a breath of wind, though the cool air, that appeared to be a gentle respiration of the sea, induced a few idlers still to linger on the heights, where there was a considerable extent of land that might serve for a promenade. Along this walk the mariner proceeded, undetermined, for the moment, what to do next. He had scarcely got into the open space, however, before a female, with her form closely enveloped in a mantle, brushed near him, anxiously gazing into his face. Her motions were too quick and sudden for him to obtain a look in return; but, perceiving that she held her way along the heights, beyond the spot most frequented by the idlers, he followed until she stopped.
"Ghita!" said the young man, in a tone of delight, when he had got near enough to the female to recognize a face and form she no longer attempted to conceal; "this is being fortunate, indeed, and saves a vast deal of trouble. A thousand, thousand thanks, dearest Ghita, for this one act of kindness. I might have brought trouble on you, as well as on myself, in striving to find your residence."
"It is for that reason, Raoul, that I have ventured so much more than is becoming in my sex, to meet you. A thousand eyes, in this gossiping little town, are on your lugger, at this moment, and be certain they will also be on its captain, as soon as it is known he has landed. I fear you do not know for what you and your people are suspected, at this very instant!"
"For nothing discreditable, I hope, dear Ghita, if it be only not to dishonor your friends!"
"Many think, and say, you are Frenchmen, and that the English flag is only a disguise."
"If that be all, we must bear the infamy," answered Raoul Yvard, laughing. "Why, this is just what we are to a man, a single American excepted, who is an excellent fellow to make out British commissions, and help us to a little English when harder pushed than common; and why should we be offended, if the good inhabitants of Porto Ferrajo take us for what we are?"
"Not offended, Raoul, but endangered. If the vice-governatore gets this notion, he will order the batteries to fire upon you, and will destroy you as an enemy."
"Not he, Ghita. He is too fond of le Capitaine Smeet', to do so cruel a thing; and then he must shift all his guns, before they will hurt le Feu-Follet where she lies. I never leave my little Jack-o'-Lantern[1] within reach of an enemy's hand. Look here, Ghita; you can see her through this opening in the houses--that dark spot on the bay, there--and you will perceive no gun from any battery in Porto Ferrajo can as much as frighten, much less harm her."
[1] The English of Feu Follet.
"I know her position, Raoul, and understand why you anchored in that spot. I knew, or thought I knew you, from the first moment you came in plain sight; and so long as you remained outside, I was not sorry to look on so old a friend--nay, I will go further, and say I rejoiced, for it seemed to me you passed so near the island just to let some whom you knew to be on it understand you had not forgotten them; but when you came into the bay, I thought you mad!"
"Mad I should have been, dearest Ghita, had I lived longer without seeing you. What are these misérables of Elbans, that I should fear them! They have no cruiser--only a few feluccas--all of which are not worth the trouble of burning. Let them but point a finger at us, and we will tow their Austrian polacre out into the bay, and burn her before their eyes. Le Feu-Follet deserves her name; she is here, there, and everywhere, before her enemies suspect her."
"But her enemies suspect her now, and you cannot be too cautious. My heart was in my throat a dozen times, while the batteries were firing at you this evening."
"And what harm did they? they cost the Grand Duke two cartridges, and two shot, without even changing the lugger's course! You have seen too much of these things, Ghita, to be alarmed by smoke and noise."
"I have seen enough of these things, Raoul, to know that a heavy shot, fired from these heights, would have gone through your little Feu-Follet, and, coming out under water, would have sunk you to the bottom of the Mediterranean."
"We should have had our boats, then," answered Raoul Yvard, with an indifference that was not affected, for reckless daring was his vice, rather than his virtue; "besides, a shot must first hit before it can harm, as the fish must be taken before it can be cooked. But enough of this, Ghita; I get quite enough of shot, and ships, and sinkings, in everyday life, and, now I have at last found this blessed moment, we will not throw away the opportunity by talking of such matters--"
"Nay, Raoul, I can think of nothing else, and therefore can talk of nothing else. Suppose the vice-governatore should suddenly take it into his head to send a party of soldiers to le Feu-Follet, with orders to seize her--what would then be your situation?"
"Let him; and I would send a boat's crew to his palazzo, here"--the conversation was in French, which Ghita spoke fluently, though with an Italian accent--"and take him on a cruise after the English and his beloved Austrians! Bah!--the idea will not cross his constitutional brain, and there is little use in talking about it. In the morning, I will send my prime minister, mon Barras, mon Carnot, mon Cambacérès, mon Ithuel Bolt, to converse with him on politics and religion."
"Religion," repeated Ghita, in a saddened tone; "the less you say on that holy subject, Raoul, the better I shall like it, and the better it will be for yourself, in the end. The state of your country makes your want of religion matter of regret, rather than of accusation, but it is none the less a dreadful evil."
"Well, then," resumed the sailor, who felt he had touched a dangerous ground, "we will talk of other things. Even supposing we are taken, what great evil have we to apprehend? We are honest corsairs, duly commissioned, and acting under the protection of the French Republic, one and undivided, and can but be made prisoners of war. That is a fortune which has once befallen me, and no greater calamity followed than my having to call myself le Capitaine Smeet', and finding out the means of mystifying le vice-governatore."
Ghita laughed, in spite of the fears she entertained, for it was one of the most powerful of the agencies the sailor employed in making others converts to his opinions, to cause them to sympathize with his light-hearted gayety, whether it suited their natural temperaments or not. She knew that Raoul had already been a prisoner in England two years, where, as he often said himself, he stayed just long enough to acquire a very respectable acquaintance with the language, if not with the institutions, manners, and religion, when he made his escape aided by the American called Ithuel Bolt, an impressed seaman of our own Republic, who, fully entering into all the plans imagined by his more enterprising friend and fellow-sufferer, had cheerfully enlisted in the execution of his future schemes of revenge. States, like powerful individuals in private life, usually feel themselves too strong to allow any considerations of the direct consequences of departures from the right to influence their policy; and a nation is apt to fancy its power of such a character, as to despise all worldly amends, while its moral responsibility is divided among too many to make it a matter of much concern to its particular citizens. Nevertheless, the truth will show that none are so low but they may become dangerous to the highest; and even powerful communities seldom fail to meet with their punishment for every departure from justice. It would seem, indeed, that a principle pervades nature, which renders it impossible for man to escape the consequences of his own evil deeds, even in this life; as if God had decreed the universal predominance of truth and the never-failing downfall of falsehood from the beginning; the success of wrong being ever temporary, while the triumph of the right is eternal. To apply these consoling considerations to the matter more immediately before us: The practice of impressment, in its day, raised a feeling among the seamen of other nations, as well as, in fact, among those of Great Britain herself, that probably has had as much effect in destroying the prestige of her nautical invincibility, supported, as was that prestige, by a vast existing force, as any other one cause whatever. It was necessary to witness the feeling of hatred and resentment that was raised by the practice of this despotic power, more especially among those who felt that their foreign birth ought at least to have insured them immunity from the abuse, in order fully to appreciate what might so readily become its consequences. Ithuel Bolt, the seaman just mentioned, was a proof, in a small way, of the harm that even an insignificant individual can effect, when his mind is fully and wholly bent on revenge. Ghita knew him well; and, although she little liked either his character or his appearance, she had often been obliged to smile at the narrative of the deceptions he practised on the English, and of the thousand low inventions he had devised to do them injury. She was not slow, now, to imagine that his agency had not been trifling in carrying on the present fraud.
"You do not openly call your lugger le Feu-Follet, Raoul," she answered, after a minute's pause; "that would be a dangerous name to utter, even in Porto Ferrajo. It is not a week since I heard a mariner dwelling on her misdeeds, and the reasons that all good Italians have to detest her. It is fortunate the man is away, or he could not fail to know you."
"Of that I am not so certain, Ghita. We alter our paint often, and, at need, can alter our rig. You may be certain, however, that we hide our Jack-o'-Lantern, and sail under another name. The lugger, now she is in the English service, is called the 'Ving-and-Ving.'"
"I heard the answer given to the hail from the shore, but it sounded different from this."
"Non--Ving-and-Ving. Ithuel answered for us, and you may be sure he can speak his own tongue. Ving-and-Ving is the word, and he pronounces it as I do."
"Ving-y-Ving!" repeated Ghita, in her pretty Italian tones, dropping naturally into the vice-governatore's fault of pronunciation--"it is an odd name, and I like it less than Feu-Follet."
"I wish, dearest Ghita, I could persuade you to like the name of Yvard," rejoined the young man, in a half-reproachful, half-tender manner, "and I should care nothing for any other. You accuse me of disrespect for priests; but no son could ever kneel to a father for his blessing, half so readily or half so devoutly, as I could kneel with thee before any friar in Italy, to receive that nuptial benediction which I have so often asked at your hand, but which you have so constantly and so cruelly refused."
"I am afraid the name would not then be Feu-Follet, but Ghita-Folie," said the girl, laughing, though she felt a bitter pang at the heart, that cost her an effort to control; "no more of this now, Raoul; we may be observed and watched; it is necessary that we separate."
A hurried conversation, of more interest to the young couple themselves than it would prove to the reader, though it might not have been wholly without the latter, but which it would be premature to relate, now followed, when Ghita left Raoul on the hill, insisting that she knew the town too well to have any apprehensions about threading its narrow and steep streets, at any hour, by herself. This much, in sooth, must be said in favor of Andrea Barrofaldi's administration of justice; he had made it safe for the gentle, the feeble, and the poor, equally, to move about the island by day or by night; it seldom happening that so great an enemy to peace and tranquillity appeared among his simple dependants, as was the fact at this precise moment.
In the mean time, there was not quite as much tranquillity in Porto Ferrajo as the profound silence which reigned in the place might have induced a stranger to imagine. Tommaso Tonti was a man of influence, within his sphere, as well, as the vice-governatore; and having parted from Vito Viti, as has been related, he sought the little clientelle of padroni and piloti, who were in the habit of listening to his opinions as if they were oracles. The usual place of resort of this set, after dark, was a certain house kept by a widow of the name of Benedetta Galopo, the uses of which were plainly enough indicated by a small bush that hung dangling from a short pole, fastened above the door. If Benedetta knew anything of the proverb that "good wine needs no bush," she had not sufficient faith in the contents of her own casks to trust to their reputation; for this bush of hers was as regularly renewed as its withering leaves required. Indeed, it was a common remark among her customers, that her bush was always as fresh as her face, and that the latter was one of the most comely that was to be met with on the island; a circumstance that aided much indifferent wine in finding a market. Benedetta bore a reasonably good name, nevertheless, though it was oftener felt, perhaps, than said, that she was a confirmed coquette. She tolerated 'Maso principally on two accounts; because, if he were old and unattractive in his own person, many of his followers were among the smartest seamen of the port, and because he not only drank his full proportion, but paid with punctuality. These inducements rendered the pilot always a welcome guest at La Santa Maria degli Venti, as the house was called, though it had no other sign than the often-renewed bush already mentioned.
At the very moment, then, when Raoul Yvard and Ghita parted on the hill, 'Maso was seated in his usual place at the table in Benedetta's upper room, the windows of which commanded as full a view of the lugger as the hour permitted; that craft being anchored about a cable's length distant, and, as a sailor might have expressed it, just abeam. On this occasion he had selected the upper room, and but three companions, because it was his wish that as few should enter into his counsels as at all comported with the love of homage to his own experience. The party had been assembled a quarter of an hour, and there had been time to cause the tide to ebb materially in the flask, which, it may be well to tell the reader at once, contained very little less than half a gallon of liquor, such as it was.
"I have told it all to the podestà," said 'Maso, with an important manner, as he put down his glass, after potation the second, which quite equalled potation the first in quantity; "yes, I have told it all to Vito Viti, and no doubt he has told it to Il Signor Vice-governatore, who now knows as much about the whole matter as either of us four. Cospetto!--to think such a thing dare happen in a haven like Porto Ferrajo! Had it come to pass over on the other side of the island, at Porto Longone, one wouldn't think so much of it, for they are never much on the lookout: but to take place here, in the very capital of Elba, I should as soon have expected it in Livorno!"
"But, 'Maso," put in Daniele Bruno, in the manner of one who was a little sceptical, "I have often seen the pavilion of the Inglese, and this is as much like that which all their frigates and corvettes wear, as one of our feluccas is like another. The flag, at least, is right."
"What signifies a flag, Daniele, when a French hand can hoist an English ensign as easily as the king of Inghilterra himself? If that lugger was not built by the Francese, you were not built by an Italian father and mother. But I should not think so much of the hull, for that may have been captured, as the English take many of their enemies on the high seas; but look at the rigging and sails--Santa Maria! I could go to the shop of the very sailmaker, in Marseilles, who made that foresail! His name is Pierre Benoit, and a very good workman he is, as all will allow who have had occasion to employ him."
This particularity greatly aided the argument; common minds being seldom above yielding to the circumstances which are so often made to corroborate imaginary facts. Tommaso Tonti, though so near the truth as to his main point--the character of the visitor--was singularly out as to the sail, notwithstanding; le Feu-Follet having been built, equipped, and manned at Nantes, and Pierre Benoit never having seen her or her foresail either; but it mattered not, in the way of discussion and assertion, one sailmaker being as good as another, provided he was French.
"And have you mentioned t his to the podestà?" inquired Benedetta, who stood with the empty flask in her hand, listening to the discourse; "I should think that sail would open his eyes."
"I cannot say I have; but then I told him so many other things more to the point, that he cannot do less than believe this, when he hears it. Signor Viti promised to meet me here, after he has had a conversation with the vice-governatore; and we may now expect him every minute."
"Il Signor Podestà will be welcome," said Benedetta, wiping off a spare table, and bustling round the room to make things look a little smarter than they ordinarily did; "he may frequent grander wine-houses than this, but he will hardly find better liquor."
"Poverina!--Don't think that the podestà comes here on any such errand; he comes to meet me," answered 'Maso, with an indulgent smile; "he takes his wine too often on the heights, to wish to come as low as this after a glass. Friends of mine (amigi mii), there is wine up at that house, that, when the oil is once out of the neck of the flask[2], goes down a man's throat as smoothly as if it were all oil itself! I could drink a flask of it without once stopping to take breath. It is that liquor which makes the nobles so light and airy."
[2] It is a practice in Tuscany to put a few drops of oil in the neck of each flask of the more delicate wines, to exclude the air.
"I know the washy stuff," put in Benedetta, with more warmth than she was used to betray to her customers; "well may you call it smooth, a good spring running near each of the wine-presses that have made it. I have seen some of it that even oil would not float on!"
This assertion was a fair counterpoise to that of the sail, being about as true. But Benedetta had too much experience in the inconstancy of men, not to be aware that if the three or four customers who were present should seriously take up the notion that the island contained any better liquor than that she habitually placed before them, her value might be sensibly diminished in their eyes. As became a woman who had to struggle singly with the world, too, her native shrewdness taught her, that the best moment to refute a calumny was to stop it as soon as it began to circulate, and her answer was as warm in manner as it was positive in terms. This was an excellent opening for an animated discussion, and one would have been very likely to occur, had there not fortunately been steps heard without, that induced 'Maso to expect the podestà. Sure enough, the door opened, and Vito Viti appeared, followed, to the astonishment of all the guests, and to the absolute awe of Benedetta, by the vice-governatore himself.
The solution of this unexpected visit is very easily given. After the departure of the Capitano Smees, Vito Viti returned to the subject of 'Maso's suspicions, and by suggesting certain little circumstances in the mariner's manner, that he had noted during the interview, he so far succeeded in making an impression on himself, that, in the end, his own distrust revived, and with it that of the deputy-governor. Neither, however, could be said to be more than uneasy, and the podestà happening to mention his appointment with the pilot, Andrea determined to accompany him, in order to reconnoitre the strange craft in person. Both the functionaries wore their cloaks, by no means an unusual thing in the cool night air of the coast, even in midsummer, which served them for all the disguise that circumstances required.
"Il Signor Vice-governatore!" almost gasped Benedetta, dusting a chair, and then the table, and disposing the former near the latter by a sort of mechanical process, as if only one errand could ever bring a guest within her doors; "your eccellenza is most welcome; and it is an honor I could oftener ask. We are humble people down here at the water side, but I hope we are just as good Christians as if we lived upon the hill."
"Doubt it not, worthy Bettina--"
"My name is Benedetta, at your eccellenza's command-Benedittina if it please the vice-governatore; but not Bettina. We think much of our names, down here at the water side, eccellenza."
"Let it be so, then, good Benedetta, and I make no doubt you are excellent Christians.--A flask of your wine, if it be convenient."
The woman dropped a curtsey that was full of gratitude; and the glance of triumph that she cast at her other guests may be said to have terminated the discussion that was about to commence, as the dignitaries appeared. It disposed of the question of the wine at once, and for ever silenced cavilling. If the vice-governatore could drink her liquor, what mariner would henceforth dare calumniate it!
"Eccellenza, with a thousand welcomes," Benedetta continued, as she placed the flask on the table, after having carefully removed the cotton and the oil with her own plump hand; this being one of half a dozen flasks of really sound, well-flavored, Tuscan liquor, that she kept for especial occasions; as she well might, the cost being only a paul, or ten cents for near half a gallon; "Eccellenza, a million times welcome. This is an honor that don't befall the Santa Maria degli Venti more than once in a century; and you, too, Signor Podestà, once before only have you ever had leisure to darken my poor door."
"We bachelors"--the podestà, as well as the vice-governor, belonged to the fraternity--"we bachelors are afraid to trust ourselves too often in the company of a sprightly widow like yourself, whose beauty has rather improved than lessened by a few years."
This brought a coquettish answer, during which time Andrea Barrofaldi, having first satisfied himself that the wine might be swallowed with impunity, was occupied in surveying the party of silent and humble mariners, who were seated at the other table. His object was to ascertain how far he might have committed himself, by appearing in such a place, when his visit could not well be attributed to more than one motive. 'Maso he knew, as the oldest pilot of the place, and he had also some knowledge of Daniele Bruno; but the three other seamen were strangers to him.
"Inquire if we are among friends, here, and worthy subjects of the Grand Duke, all," observed Andrea to Vito Viti, in a low voice.
"Thou hearest, 'Maso," observed the podestà; "canst thou answer for all of thy companions?"
"Every one of them, Signore: this is Daniele Bruno, whose father was killed in a battle with the Algerines, and whose mother was the daughter of a mariner, as well known in Elba as--"
"Never mind the particulars, Tommaso Tonti," interrupted the vice-governatore--"it is sufficient that thou knowest all thy companions to be honest men, and faithful servants of the sovrano. You all know, most probably, the errand which has brought the Signor Viti and myself to this house, to-night?"
The men looked at each other, as the ill-instructed are apt to do, when it becomes necessary to answer a question that concerns many; assisting the workings of their minds, as it might be, with the aid of the senses; and then Daniele Bruno took on himself the office of spokesman.
"Signore, vostro eccellenza, we think we do," answered the man. "Our fellow, 'Maso here, has given us to understand that he suspects the Inglese that is anchored in the bay to be no Inglese at all, but either a pirate or a Frenchman. The blessed Maria preserve us! but in these troubled times it does not make much difference which."
"I will not say as much as that, friend--for one would be an outcast among all people, while the other would have the rights which shield the servants of civilized nations," returned the scrupulous and just-minded functionary. "The time was when His Imperial Majesty, the emperor, and his illustrious brother, our sovereign, the Grand Duke, did not allow that the republican government of France was a lawful government; but the fortune of war removed his scruples, and a treaty of peace has allowed the contrary. Since the late alliance, it is our duty to consider all Frenchmen as enemies, though it by no means follows that we are to consider them as pirates."
"But their corsairs seize all our craft, Signore, and treat their people as if they were no better than dogs; then, they tell me that they are not Christians--no, not even Luterani or heretics!"
"That religion does not flourish among them, is true," answered Andrea, who loved so well to discourse on such subjects, that he would have stopped to reason on religion or manners with the beggar to whom he gave a pittance, did he only meet with encouragement; "but it is not as bad in France, on this important head, as it has been; and we may hope that there will be further improvement in due time."
"But, Signor Vice-governatore," put in 'Maso, "these people have treated the holy father and his states in a way that one would not treat an Infidel or a Turk!"
"Aye, that is it, Signori," observed Benedetta--"a poor woman cannot go to mass without having her mind disturbed by the thoughts of the wrongs done the head of the church. Had these things come from Luterani, it might have been borne; but they say the Francese were once all good Catholics!"
"So were the Luterani, bella Benedetta, to their chief schismatic and leader, the German monk himself."
This piece of information caused great surprise, even the podestà himself turning an inquiring glance at his superior, as much as to acknowledge his own wonder that a Protestant should ever have been anything but a Protestant--or rather, a Lutheran anything but a Lutheran--the word Protestant being too significant to be in favor among those who deny there were any just grounds for a protest at all. That Luther had ever been a Romanist was perfectly wonderful, even in the eyes of Vito Viti.
"Signore, you would hardly mislead these honest people, in a matter as grave as this!" exclaimed the podestà.
"I do but tell you truth; and one of these days you shall hear the whole story, neighbor Viti. 'Tis worth an hour of leisure to any man, and is very consoling and useful to a Christian. But whom have you below, Benedetta--I hear steps on the stairs, and wish not to be seen."
The widow stepped promptly forward to meet her new guests, and to show them into a commoner room, below stairs, when her movement was anticipated by the door's opening, and a man's standing on the threshold. It was now too late to prevent the intrusion, and a little surprise at the appearance of the new-comer held all mute and observant for a minute.
The person who had followed his ears, and thus reached the sanctum sanctorum of Benedetta, was no other than Ithuel Bolt, the American seaman, already named in the earlier part of this chapter. He was backed by a Genoese, who had come in the double capacity of interpreter and boon companion. That the reader may the better understand the character he has to deal with, however, it may be necessary to digress, by giving a short account of the history, appearance, and peculiarities of the former individual.
Ithuel Bolt was a native of what, in this great Union, is called the Granite State, Notwithstanding he was not absolutely made of the stone in question, there was an absence of the ordinary symptoms of natural feeling about him, that had induced many of his French acquaintances in particular to affirm that there was a good deal more of marble in his moral temperament, at least, than usually fell to the lot of human beings. He had the outline of a good frame, but it was miserably deficient in the filling up. The bone predominated; the sinews came next in consideration, nor was the man without a proper share of muscle; but this last was so disposed of as to present nothing but angles, whichever way he was viewed. Even his thumbs and fingers were nearer square than round; and his very neck, which was bare, though a black silk kerchief was tied loosely round the throat, had a sort of pentagon look about it, that defied all symmetry or grace. His stature was just six feet and an inch, when he straightened himself; as he did from time to time, seemingly with a desire to relieve a very inveterate stoop in his shoulders; though it was an inch or two less in the position he most affected. His hair was dark, and his skin had got several coats of confirmed brown on it, by exposure, though originally rather fair; while the features were good, the forehead being broad and full, and the mouth positively handsome. This singular countenance was illuminated by two keen, restless, whitish eyes, that resembled, not spots on the sun, but rather suns on a spot.
Ithuel had gone through all the ordinary vicissitudes of an American life, beneath those pursuits which are commonly thought to be confined to the class of gentlemen. He had been farmer's boy, printer's devil, schoolmaster, stage-driver, and tin-pedlar, before he ever saw the sea. In the way of what he called "chores," too, he had practised all the known devices of rustic domestic economy; having assisted even in the washing and house-cleaning, besides having passed the evenings of an entire winter in making brooms.
Ithuel had reached his thirtieth year before he dreamed of going to sea. An accident, then, put preferment in this form before his eyes, and he engaged as the mate of a small coaster, for his very first voyage. Fortunately, the master never found out his deficiencies, for Ithuel had a self-possessed, confident way with him, that prevented discovery, until they were outside of the port from which they sailed, when the former was knocked overboard by the main boom, and drowned. Most men, so circumstanced, would have returned, but Bolt never laid his hand to the plough and looked back. Besides, one course was quite easy to him as another. Whatever he undertook he usually completed, in some fashion or other, though it were often much better had it never been attempted. Fortunately it was summer, the wind was fair, and the crew wanted little ordering; and as it was quite a matter of course to steer in the right direction, until the schooner was carried safely into her proper port, she arrived safely; her people swearing that the new mate was the easiest and cleverest officer they had ever sailed with. And well they might, for Ithuel took care not to issue an order until he had heard it suggested in terms by one of the hands; and then he never failed to repeat it, word for word, as if it were a suggestion of his own. As for the reputation of "cleverest" officer, which he so easily obtained, it will be understood, of course, that the term was used in the provincial signification that is so common in the part of the world from which Ithuel came. He was "clever" in this sense, precisely in proportion as he was ignorant. His success, on this occasion, gained him friends, and he was immediately sent out again as the regular master of the craft, in which he had so unexpectedly received his promotion. He now threw all the duty on the mate; but so ready was he in acquiring, that by the end of six months he was a much better sailor than most Europeans would have made in three years. As the pitcher that goes too often to the well is finally broken, so did Ithuel meet with shipwreck, at last, in consequence of gross ignorance on the subject of navigation. This induced him to try a long voyage, in a more subordinate situation, until in the course of time he was impressed by the commander of an English frigate, who had lost so many of his men by the yellow fever that he seized upon all he could lay his hands on, to supply their places, even Ithuel being acceptable in such a strait.
