“I know not, but it appears to me that it would be sweet to live there. You may call to mind your dream, Philip; I was then, according to your description, one of those same beings.”
“You were,” replied Philip, thoughtfully.
“And yet I feel as if water would reject me, even if the vessel were to sink. In what manner this mortal frame of mine may be resolved into its elements, I know not; but this I do feel, that it never will become the sport of, or be tossed by, the mocking waves. But come in, Philip, dearest; it is late, and the decks are wet with dew.”
When the day dawned, the look-out man at the masthead reported that he perceived something floating on the still surface of the water, on the beam of the vessel. Krantz went up with his glass to examine, and made it out to be a small boat, probably cut adrift from some vessel. As there was no appearance of wind, Philip permitted a boat to be sent to examine it and after a long pull, the seamen returned on board, towing the small boat astern.
“There is a body of a man in it, sir,” said the second mate to Krantz, as he gained the gangway; “but whether he is quite dead or not, I cannot tell.”
Krantz reported this to Philip, who was, at that time sitting at breakfast with Amine, in the cabin, and then proceeded to the gangway, to where the body of the man had been already handed up by the seamen. The surgeon, who had been summoned, declared that life was not yet extinct, and was ordering him to be taken below, for recovery, when, to their astonishment, the man turned as he lay, sat up, and ultimately rose upon his feet and staggered to a gun, when, after a time, he appeared to be fully recovered. In reply to questions put to him, he said that he was in a vessel which had been upset in a squall, that he had time to cut away the small boat astern, and that all the rest of the crew had perished. He had hardly made this answer, when Philip, with Amine, came out of the cabin, and walked up to where the seamen were crowded round the man; the seamen retreated so as to make an opening, when Philip and Amine, to their astonishment and horror, recognised their old acquaintance, one-eyed pilot Schriften.
“He! he! Captain Vanderdecken I believe—glad to see you in command, and you too, fair lady.”
Philip turned away with a chill at his heart; Amine’s eye flashed as she surveyed the wasted form of the wretched creature. After a few seconds she turned round and followed Philip into the cabin, where she found him with his face buried in his hands.
“Courage, Philip, courage!” said Amine; “it was indeed a heavy shock, and I fear me, forebodes evil; but what then? it is our destiny.”
“It is! it ought perhaps to be mine,” replied Philip, raising his head; “but you, Amine, why should you be a partner—”
“I am your partner, Philip, in life and in death. I would not die first, Philip, because it would grieve you; but your death will be the signal for mine, and I will join you quickly.”
“Surely, Amine, you would not hasten your own?”
“Yes! and require but one moment for this little steel to do its duty.”
“Nay! Amine, that is not lawful—our religion forbids it.”
“It may do so, but I cannot tell why. I came into this world without my own consent; surely I may leave it without asking the leave of priests! But let that pass for the present what will you do with that Schriften?”
“Put him on shore at the Cape—I cannot bear the odious wretch’s presence. Did you not feel the chill, as before, when you approached him?”
“I did—I knew that he was there before I saw him; but still I know not why, I feel as if I would not send him away.”
“Why not?”
“I believe it is because I am inclined to brave destiny, not to quail at it. The wretch can do no harm.”
“Yes, he can—much: he can render the ship’s company mutinous and disaffected; besides, he attempted to deprive me of my relic.”
“I almost wish he had done so; then must you have discontinued this wild search.”
“Nay, Amine, say not so; it is my duty, and I have taken my solemn oath—”
“But this Schriften—you cannot well put him ashore at the Cape; being a Company’s officer, you might send him home if you found a ship there homeward bound; still were I you I would let destiny work. He is woven in with ours, that is certain. Courage, Philip, and let him remain.”
“Perhaps you are right, Amine: I may retard, but cannot escape, whatever may be my intended fate.”
“Let him remain, then, and let him do his worst. Treat him with kindness—who knows what we may gain from him?”
“True, true, Amine; he has been my enemy without cause. Who can tell?—perhaps he may become my friend.”
“And if not, you will have done your duty. Send for him now.”
“No, not now—to-morrow; in the mean time, I will order him every comfort.”
“We are talking as if he were one of us, which I feel that he is not,” replied Amine; “but still, mundane or not we cannot but offer mundane kindness, and what this world, or rather what this ship, affords. I long now to talk with him to see if I can produce any effect upon his ice-like frame. Shall I make love to the ghoul?” And Amine burst into a bitter laugh.
Here the conversation dropped, but its substance was not disregarded. The next morning, the surgeon having reported that Schriften was apparently quite recovered, he was summoned into the cabin. His frame was wasted away to a skeleton, but his motions and his language were as sharp and petulant as ever.
“I have sent for you, Schriften, to know if there is anything that I can do to make you more comfortable. Is there anything that you want?”
“Want?” replied Schriften, eyeing first Philip and then Amine. “He! he I think I want filling out a little.”
“That you will, I trust, in good time; my steward has my orders to take care of you.”
“Poor man,” said Amine, with a look of pity, “how much he must have suffered! Is not this the man who brought you the letter from the Company, Philip?”
“He! he! yes! Not very welcome, was it, lady?”
“No, my good fellow; it’s never a welcome message to a wife, that sends her husband away from her. But that was not your fault.”
“If a husband will go to sea and leave a handsome wife when he has, as they say, plenty of money to live upon on shore, he! he!”
“Yes, indeed, you may well say that,” replied Amine.
“Better give it up. All folly, all madness—eh, captain?”
“I must finish this voyage, at all events,” replied Philip to Amine, “whatever I may do afterwards. I have suffered much, and so have you, Schriften. You have been twice wrecked; now tell me, what do you wish to do? Go home in the first ship, or go ashore at the Cape, or—”
“Or do anything, so I get out of this ship—he! he!”
“Not so. If you prefer sailing with me, as I know you are a good seaman, you shall have your rating and pay of pilot—that is, if you choose to follow my fortunes.”
“Follow?—Must follow. Yes! I’ll sail with you, Mynheer Vanderdecken, I wish to be always near you—he! he!”
“Be it so, then: as soon as you are strong again, you will go to your duty; till then, I will see that you want for nothing.”
“Nor I, my good fellow. Come to me if you do, and I will be your help,” said Amine. “You have suffered much; but we will do what we can to make you forget it.”
“Very good!—very kind!” replied Schriften, surveying the lovely face and figure of Amine. After a times shrugging up his shoulders, he added—“A pity! Yes, it is! Must be, though.”
“Farewell!” continued Amine, holding out her hand to Schriften.
The man took it, and a cold shudder went to her heart; but she, expecting such a result, would not appear to feel it. Schriften held her hand for a second or two in his own, looking at it earnestly, and then at Amine’s face. “So fair—so good! Mynheer Vanderdecken, I thank you. Lady, may Heaven preserve you!” Then squeezing the hand of Amine, which he had not released, Schriften hastened out of the cabin.
So great was the sudden icy shock which passed through Amine’s frame when Schriften pressed her hand, that when with difficulty she gained the sofa, she fell upon it. After remaining with her hand pressed against her heart for some time, during which Philip bent over her, she said, in a breathless voice, “That creature must be supernatural—I am sure of it—I am now convinced. Well,” continued she, after a pause of some little while, “all the better, if we can make him a friend; and if I can I will.”
“But think you, Amine, that those who are not of this world have feelings of kindness, gratitude, and ill-will, as we have? Can they be made subservient?”
“Most surely so. If they have ill-will—as we know they have—they must also be endowed with the better feelings. Why are there good and evil intelligences? They may have disencumbered themselves of their mortal clay, but the soul must be the same. A soul without feeling were no soul at all. The soul is active in this world, and must be so in the next. If angels can pity, they must feel like us. If demons can vex, they must feel like us. Our feelings change, then why not theirs? Without feelings, there were no heaven, no hell. Here our souls are confined, cribbed, and overladen—borne down by the heavy flesh by which they are, for the time, polluted; but the soul that has winged its flight from clay is, I think, not one jot more pure, more bright, or more perfect, than those within ourselves. Can they be made subservient, say you! Yes, they can; they can be forced, when mortals possess the means and power. The evil-inclined may be forced to good, as well as to evil. It is not the good and perfect spirits that we subject by art, but those that are inclined to wrong. It is over them that mortals have the power. Our arts have no power over the perfect spirits, but over those which are ever working evil, and which are bound to obey and do good, if those who master them require it.”
“You still resort to forbidden arts, Amine. Is that right?”
“Right! If we have power given to us, it is right to use it.”
“Yes, most certainly, for good; but not for evil.”
“Mortals in power, possessing nothing but what is mundane, are answerable for the use of that power; so those gifted by superior means are answerable as they employ those means. Does the God above make a flower to grow, intending that it should not be gathered! No! neither does he allow supernatural aid to be given, if he did not intend that mortals should avail themselves of it.”
As Amine’s eyes beamed upon Philip’s, he could not for the moment subdue the idea rising in his mind, that she was not like other mortals; and he calmly observed, “Am I sure, Amine, that I am wedded to one mortal as myself?”
“Yes! yes! Philip, compose yourself, I am but mortal; would to Heaven I were not. Would to Heaven I were one of those who could hover over you, watch you in all your perils, save and protect you in this your mad career but I am but a poor weak woman, whose heart beats fondly, devotedly for you—who for you would dare all and everything—who, changed in her nature, has become courageous and daring from her love—and who rejects all creeds which would prevent her from calling upon heaven, or earth, or hell, to assist her in retaining with her her soul’s existence!”
“Nay! nay! Amine,—say not you reject the creed. Does not this,”—and Philip pulled from his bosom the holy relic,—“does not this, and the message sent by it, prove our creed is true?”
“I have thought much of it, Philip. At first it startled me almost into a belief; but even your own priests helped to undeceive me. They would not answer you; they would have left you to guide yourself; the message and the holy word, and the wonderful signs given, were not in unison with their creed, and they halted. May I not halt, if they did? The relic may be as mystic, as powerful as you describe; but the agencies may be false and wicked—the power given to it may have fallen into wrong hands; the power remains the same, but it is applied to uses not intended.”
“The power, Amine, can only be exercised by those who are friends to Him who died upon it.”
“Then is it no power at all or if a power, not half so great as that of the arch-fiend; for his can work for good and evil both. But on this point, dear Philip, we do not well agree, nor can we convince each other. You have been taught in one way, I another. That which our childhood has imbibed—which has grown up with our growth, and strengthened with our years—is not to be eradicated. I have seen my mother work great charms and succeed. You have knelt to priests. I blame not you!—blame not, then, your Amine. We both mean well—I trust do well.”
“If a life of innocence and purity were all that were required, my Amine would be sure of future bliss.”
“I think it is; and thinking so, it is my creed. There are many creeds: who shall say which is the true one? And what matters it?—they all have the same end in view—a future Heaven.”
“True Amine, true,” replied Philip, pacing the cabin thoughtfully; “and yet our priests say otherwise.”
“What is the basis of their creed, Philip?”
“Charity and good-will.”
“Does charity condemn to eternal misery those who have never heard this creed—who have lived and died worshipping the Great Being after their best endeavours, and little knowledge?”
“No, surely.”
Amine made no further observations; and Philip, after pacing for a few minutes in deep thought, walked out of the cabin.
The Utrecht arrived at the Cape, watered, and proceeded on her voyage, and, after two months of difficult navigation, cast anchor off Gambroon. During this time Amine had been unceasing in her attempts to gain the good-will of Schriften. She had often conversed with him on deck, and had done him every kindness, and had overcome that fear which his near approach had generally occasioned. Schriften gradually appeared mindful of this kindness, and at last to be pleased with Amine’s company. To Philip he was at times civil and courteous, but not always; but to Amine he was always deferent. His language was mystical,—she could not prevent his chuckling laugh, his occasional “He! he!” from breaking forth. But when they anchored at Gambroon, he was on such terms with her, that he would occasionally come into the cabin; and, although he would not sit down, would talk to Amine for a few minutes, and then depart. While the vessel lay at anchor at Gambroon, Schriften one evening walked up to Amine, who was sitting on the poop. “Lady,” said he, after a pause, “yon ship sails for your own country in a few days.”
“So I am told,” replied Amine.
“Will you take the advice of one who wishes you well? Return in that vessel—go back to your own cottage, and stay there till your husband comes to you once more.”
“Why is this advice given?”
“Because I forebode danger—nay, perhaps death, a cruel death—to one I would not harm.”
“To me!” replied Amine, fixing her eyes upon Schriften, and meeting his piercing gaze.
“Yes, to you. Some people can see into futurity further than others.”
