THE LAST VOYAGE OF HUCKABACK.

Your highness will be surprised at the unheard-of adventures that occurred to me in my last voyage, and I think I can boldly assert that no man, either before or since, has explored so much, or has been in the peculiarly dangerous situations in which I have been placed by destiny.

Notwithstanding the danger which I incurred from my former expedition to the Northern Ocean, I was persuaded to take the command of a whaler about to proceed to those latitudes:  we sailed from Marseilles early in the year that we might arrive at the northward in good time, and be able to quit the Frozen Ocean before the winter had set in.  We were very fortunate on our arrival at Baffin’s Bay, and very soon had eighteen fish on board.  The autumn was hardly commenced before I proposed to return, and we were steering in a southerly direction, when we encountered two or three large icebergs, upon the edges of which the walruses or sea-horses were lying in herds.  As we had some casks still empty, I determined to fill them with the oil to be obtained from these animals, and hoisted out my boats to attack them.  We killed a large number, which we sent on board, and continued our fishery with great success, having only lost one boat, the bottom plank of which had been bitten out by the tusks of one of these unwieldy animals.  Of a sudden the wind changed to the southward, and the small icebergs which were then to windward rapidly closed with the large one upon which we were fishing.  The harpooners observed it, and recommended me to return to the ship, but I was so amused with the sport that I did not heed their advice.  A sea-horse was lying in a small cave accidentally formed on the upright edge of the iceberg, and wishing to attack him, I directed my boat to pull towards it.  At this time there was not more than twenty yards of water between the two icebergs, and a sudden squall coming on, they closed with great rapidity.  The men in the other boats immediately pulled away, and, as I afterwards learnt, when I arrived at Marseilles, they escaped, and returned home in the ship; but those in mine, who were intent upon watching me, as I stood in the bow of the boat with the harpoon to strike the animal, did not perceive the danger until the stern of the boat was touched by the other iceberg.  The two now coming within the attraction of cohesion of floating bodies, were dashed like lightning one against the other, jamming the men, as well as the boat, into atoms.

Being in the bow of the boat, and hearing the crash, I had just time, in a moment of desperation, to throw myself into the cave upon the back of the sea-horse, when the two enormous bodies of ice came in contact ­the noise I have no doubt was tremendous, but I did not hear it, as I was immediately enclosed in the ice.  Although at first there were interstices, yet, as the southerly gale blew the icebergs before it into the northern region, all was quickly cemented together by the frost, and I found myself pent up in an apartment not eight feet square, in company with a sea-horse.

I shall not detain your highness by describing my sensations:  my ideas were, that I was to exist a certain time, and then die for want of fresh air; but they were incorrect.  At first, indeed, the cave was intolerably hot from the accumulation of breath, and I thought I should soon be suffocated.  I recollected all my past sins, I implored for mercy, and lay down to die; but I found that the ice melted away with the heat, and that, in so doing, a considerable portion of the air was liberated, so that in a few minutes my respiration became more free.  The animal in the meantime, apparently frightened at his unusual situation, was perfectly quiet; and, as the slightest straw will be caught at by the drowning man, so did the idea of my preservation come into my head.  I considered how much air so enormous an animal must consume, and determined upon despatching him, that I might have more for my own immediate wants.  I took out my knife, and inserting it between the vertebral bones that joined his head to his neck, divided the spinal marrow, and he immediately expired.

When I found that he was quite dead, I crawled from his shoulders, and took up a more convenient berth in that part of the cave which was before his head, to which I had been afraid to venture while the animal was alive, lest he should attack me with his enormous tusks.  The air soon became more pure, and I breathed freely.  Your highness may be surprised at the assertion; but, whether I obtained air from the ice itself, or whether the ice was sufficiently porous to admit of it, I know not; but from that time I had no difficulty of respiration.  In our country we have had instances of women and children, who have been buried in the snow for two months, and yet have been taken out alive, and have recovered, although they had little or no nourishment during their inhumation.  I recollected this, and aware that the carcase of the animal would supply me for years, I began to indulge a hope that I might yet be saved, if driven sufficiently to the southward to admit of my being thawed out.  I was convinced that the ice about me could not be more than six or eight feet thick, as I had sufficient light to distinguish the day from the night.  Afterwards my eye-sight became so much more acute, that I could see very well to every corner of the cave in which I was embedded.

During the first month the calls of hunger obliged me to make frequent attacks upon the carcase of the sea-horse; after that, my appetite decreased, until at length I would not touch a mouthful of food in a week, ­I presume from the want of fresh air and exercise, neither of which I could be said to enjoy.  I had been about two months in this hole, when a violent shock like that of an earthquake took place, and I fell from the top of the cave to the bottom, and for a minute was knocked about like a pea in a rattle.  I had almost lost my senses before it was over, and I found myself lying upon what was before the top of the cave.  From these circumstances I inferred that the iceberg in which I was inclosed had come in contact with another, and that I had been broken off from it, and was floating on the sea with other pieces, which, when collected in large quantities, are termed a floe of ice.  Whether my situation was changed for the better I knew not, but the change inspired me with fresh hopes.  I now calculated that five months had elapsed, and that it was the depth of winter, therefore I had no chance of being released until the ensuing spring.

“Allah Wakbar, God is every where!” interrupted the pacha.  “But I wish to know, Huckaback, how you were so exactly aware of the time which had passed away.”

“Min Bashi, and head of thousands!” replied Huckaback, “I will explain to your highness.  I once jammed my nail at the bottom, and I expected to lose it.  It did not however come off, but grew up as before, and I had the curiosity to know how often people changed their nails in the course of a year.  It was exactly two months, and from this I grounded my calculations.  I observed specks on my nails, and as they grew up, so did I calculate time.”

“Mashallah, how wonderful is God!  Wallah Thaib!  Well said, by Allah!  I never should have thought of that,” observed the pacha.  “Proceed with your story.”

The five months had elapsed, according to my calculations, when one morning I heard a grating noise close to me; soon afterwards I perceived the teeth of a saw entering my domicile, and I correctly judged that some ship was cutting her way through the ice.  Although I could not make myself heard, I waited in anxious expectation of deliverance.  The saw approached very near to where I was sitting, and I was afraid that I should be wounded, if not cut in halves; but just as it was within two inches of my nose, it was withdrawn.  The fact was, that I was under the main floe, which had been frozen together, and the firm ice above having been removed and pushed away, I rose to the surface.  A current of fresh air immediately poured into the small incision made by the saw, which not only took away my breath from its sharpness, but brought on a spitting of blood.  Hearing the sound of voices, I considered my deliverance as certain.  Although I understood very little English, I heard the name of Captain Parry frequently mentioned ­a name, I presume, that your highness is well acquainted with.

“Pooh! never heard of it,” replied the pacha.

“I am surprised, your highness; I thought every body must have heard of that adventurous navigator.  I may here observe that I have since read his voyages, and he mentions, as a curious fact, the steam which was emitted from the ice ­which was nothing more than the hot air escaping from my cave when it was cut through ­a singular point, as it not only proves the correctness of his remarks, but the circumstance of my having been there, as I am now describing it to your highness.”

But, alas! my hopes soon vanished:  the voices became more faint, I felt that I was plunged under the floe to make room for the passage of the ship, and when I rose, the water which had filled the incision made by the saw, froze hard, and I was again closed in ­perhaps for ever.  I now became quite frantic with despair, I tore my clothes, and dashed my head against the corners of the cave, and tried to put an end to my hated existence.  At last, I sank down exhausted with my own violent efforts, and continued sullen for several days.

But there is a buoyant spirit in our composition which raises our heads above the waters of despair.  Hope never deserts us, not even in an iceberg.  She attends us and supports us to the last; and although we reject her kind offices in our fury, she still watches by us, ready to assist and console us, when we are inclined to hearken to her encouraging whispers.

I once more listened to her suggestions, and for six months fed upon them, aided by occasional variations of the flesh of the sea-horse.  It was now late in the summer, and the ice in which I was bound up had evidently melted away.  One morning I was astonished by perceiving that the light of the sun seemed to change its position regularly every quarter of an hour.  Had it done so occasionally during the day, and at no stated intervals, I should have imagined that the ice that I was inclosed in, altered its position from the winds and currents; but the regularity astonished me.  I watched it, and I found that the same phenomenon occurred, but at shorter intervals, and it continued until the light shifted from side to side every minute.

After some reflection, the horrid idea occurred to me that I must have been drifted to the coast of Norway, and was in the influence of the dreadful whirlpool, called the Maelstroom, and that, in a few minutes, I should be engulfed for ever, and, whilst I was thinking that such might be the case, the light revolved each fifteen seconds.  “Then it is!” cried I in despair, and, as I uttered the words, it became quite dark, and I knew that I had sunk in the vortex, and all was over.

It may appear strange to your highness, that after the first pang, occasioned by the prospect of perdition, had passed away, that so far from feeling a horror at my situation, I mocked and derided it.  I could feel no more, and I waited the result with perfect indifference.  From the marks in my nails, I afterwards found out that I was nearly six months in the interior of the earth.  At last, one day I was nearly blinded by the powerful light that poured through my tenement, and I knew that I was once more floating on the water.

“Allah Kebir!  God is most powerful!” exclaimed the pacha.  “Holy prophet, where was it that you came up again?”

“In the harbour of Port Royal in Jamaica.  Your highness will hardly credit it, but on my honour it is true.”

The heat of the sun was so great, that in a very short time the ice that surrounded me was thawed, and I found myself at liberty; but I still floated upon the body of the sea-horse, and the ice which was under the water.  The latter soon vanished, and striding the back of the dead animal, although nearly blind by the rays of the sun, and suffocated with the sudden change of climate, I waited patiently to gain the shore, which was not one mile distant; but, before I could arrive there, for the sea breeze had not yet set in, an enormous shark, well known among the English by the name of Port Royal Tom, who had daily rations from government, that by remaining in the harbour he might prevent the sailors from swimming on shore to desert, ranged up alongside of me.  I thought it hard that I should have to undergo such new dangers, after having been down the Maelstroom, but there was no help for it.  He opened his enormous jaws, and had I not immediately shifted my leg, would have taken it off.  As it was, he took such a piece out of my horse, as to render it what the sailors call lopsided.  Again he attacked it, and continued to take piece after piece off my steed, until I was afraid that he would come to the rider at last, when fortunately a boat full of black people, who were catching flying fish, perceived me and pulled to my assistance.  They took me on shore and carried me to the governor, to whom I gave a history of my adventures; but Englishmen suppose that nobody can meet with wondrous adventures except themselves.  He called me a liar, and put me in the Clink, and a pirate schooner having been lately taken and the crew executed, I was declared to have been one of them; but, as it was clearly proved that the vessel only contained thirty men, and they had already hung forty-seven, I was permitted to quit the island, which I did in a small vessel bound to America, on condition that I would work my passage.

We had gained to the northward of the Bahama Isles, and were standing to the westward before a light breeze, when early one morning several waterspouts were observed to be forming in various directions.  It was my watch below, but as I had never seen one of these curious phenomena of nature, I went on deck to indulge my curiosity.

“Pray what is a waterspout?” inquired the pacha; “I never heard of one before.”

“A waterspout, your highness, is the ascent of a large body of water into the clouds ­one of those gigantic operations by which nature, apparently without effort, accomplishes her will, pointing out to man the insignificance of his most vaunted undertakings.”

“Humph! that’s a waterspout, is it?” replied the pacha; “I’m about as wise as before.”

“I will describe it more clearly to your highness, for there is no one who has a better right to know what a waterspout is, than myself.”

A black cloud was over our heads, and we perceived that for some time it was rapidly descending.  The main body then remained stationary, and a certain portion of it continued bellying down until it had assumed the form of an enormous jelly-bag.  From the end of this bag a thin, wiry, black tongue of vapour continued to descend until it had arrived half way between the cloud and the sea.  The water beneath, then ruffled on its surface, increasing its agitation more and more until it boiled and bubbled like a large cauldron, throwing its foam aside in every direction.  In a few minutes a small spiral thread of water was perceived to rise into the air, and meet the tongue which had wooed it from the cloud.  When the union had taken place, the thread increased each moment in size, until it was swelled into a column of water several feet in diameter, which continued to supply the thirsty cloud until it was satiated and could drink no more.  It then broke, the sea became smooth as before, and the messenger of heaven flew away upon the wings of the wind, to dispense its burthen over the parched earth in refreshing and fertilising showers.

While I was standing at the taffrail in admiration of this wonderful resource of nature, the main boom jibbed and struck me with such force, that I was thrown into the sea.  Another waterspout forming close to the vessel, the captain and crew were alarmed and made all sail to escape, without regarding me; for they were aware that if it should happen to break over them, they would be sent to the bottom with its enormous weight.  I had scarcely risen to the surface, when I perceived that the water was in agitation round me, and all my efforts to swim from the spot were unavailing, for I was within the circle of attraction.  Thus was I left to my fate, and convinced that I could not swim for many minutes, I swallowed the salt water as fast as I could, that my struggles might the sooner be over.

But as the sea boiled up, I found myself gradually drawn more to the centre, and when exactly in it, I was raised in a sitting posture upon the spiral thread of water, which, as I explained to your highness, forced itself upwards to join the tongue protruded by the cloud.  There I sat, each second rising higher and higher, balanced like the gilt ball of pith, which is borne up by the vertical stream of the fountain which plays in the inner court of your highness’s palace.  I cast my eyes down, and perceived the vessel not far off, the captain and crew holding up their eyes in amazement at the extraordinary spectacle.

“I don’t wonder at that,” observed the pacha.

I soon reached the tongue of the cloud, which appeared as if impatient to receive me ­the hair of my head first coming within its attractive powers was raised straight on end ­then seized as it were and twisted it round.  I was dragged up by it each moment with increased velocity, as I whirled round in my ascent.  At last I found myself safely landed, and sat down to recover my breath which I had nearly lost for ever.

“And, pray, where did you sit, Huckaback?”

“On the cloud, your highness.”

“Holy prophet!  What, a cloud bear your weight?”

“If your highness will call to mind that at the same time the cloud took up several tons of water, you cannot be surprised at its supporting me.”

“Very true,” replied the pacha.  “This is a very wonderful story, but before you go on, I wish to know what the cloud was made of.”

“That is rather difficult to explain to your highness.  I can only compare it to a wet blanket.  I found it excessively cold and damp, and caught a rheumatism while I was there, which I feel to this day.”

When the cloud was saturated, the column divided, and we rapidly ascended until the cold became intense.  We passed a rainbow as we skimmed along, and I was very much surprised to find that the key of my chest and my clasp knife, forced themselves through the cloth of my jacket, and flew with great velocity towards it, fixing themselves firmly to the violet rays, from which I discovered that those peculiar rays were magnetic.  I mentioned this curious circumstance to an English lady whom I met on her travels, and I have since learnt that she has communicated the fact to the learned societies as a discovery of her own.  However, as she is a very pretty woman, I forgive her.  Anxious to look down upon the earth, I poked a hole with my finger through the bottom of the cloud, and was astonished to perceive how rapidly it was spinning round.  We had risen so high as to be out of the sphere of its attraction, and in consequence remained stationary.  I had been up about six hours, and although I was close to the coast of America when I ascended, I could perceive that the Cape of Good Hope was just heaving in sight.  I was enabled to form a very good idea of the structure of the globe, for at that immense height I could see to the very bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.  Depend upon it, your highness, if you wish to discover more than other people can, it is necessary to be “up in the clouds.”

“Very true,” replied the pacha, “but go on.”

I was very much interested in the chemical process of turning the salt water into fresh, which was going on with great rapidity while I was there.  Perhaps your highness would like me to explain it, as it will not occupy your attention more than an hour.

“No, no, skip that, Huckaback, and go on.”

But as soon as I had gratified my curiosity, I began to be alarmed at my situation, not so much on account of the means of supporting existence, for there was more than sufficient.

“More that sufficient!  Why, what could you have to eat?”

Plenty of fresh fish, your highness, which had been taken up in the column of water at the same time I was, and the fresh water already lay in little pools around me.  But the cold was dreadful, and I felt that I could not support it many hours longer, and how to get down again was a problem which I could not solve.

It was however soon solved for me, for the cloud having completed its chemical labours, descended as rapidly as it had risen, and joined many others, that were engaged in sharp conflict.  As I beheld them darting against each other, and discharging the electric fluid in the violence of their collision, I was filled with trepidation and dismay, lest, meeting an adversary, I should be hurled into the abyss below, or be withered by the artillery of heaven.  But I was fortunate enough to escape.  The cloud which bore me descended to within a hundred yards of the earth, and then was hurried along by the wind with such velocity and noise, that I perceived we were assisting at a hurricane.

As we neared the earth, the cloud, unable to resist the force of its attraction, was compelled to deliver up its burthen, and down I fell, with such torrents of water, that it reminded me of the deluge.  The tornado was now in all its strength.  The wind roared and shrieked in its wild fury, and such was its force that I fell in an acute angle.

“What did you fall in?” interrupted the pacha.  “I don’t know what that is.”

“I fell in a slanting direction, your highness, describing the hypotenuse between the base and perpendicular, created by the force of the wind, and the attraction of gravitation.”

“Holy prophet! who can understand such stuff?  Speak plain, do you laugh at our beards?”

“Min Allah!  God forbid!  Your servant would indeed eat dirt,” replied Huckaback.

I meant to imply, that so powerful was the wind, it almost bore me up, and when I first struck the water, which I did upon the summit of a wave, I bounded off again and ricochetted several times from one wave to another, like the shot fired from a gun along the surface of the sea, or the oyster-shell skimmed over the lake by the truant child.  The last bound that I gave, pitched me into the rigging of a small vessel on her beam ends, and I hardly had time to fetch my breath before she turned over.  I scrambled up her bends, and fixed myself astride upon her keel.

There I remained for two or three hours, when the hurricane was exhausted from its own violence.  The clouds disappeared, the sun burst out in all its splendour, the sea recovered its former tranquillity, and Nature seemed as if she was maliciously smiling at her own mischief.  The land was close to me, and the vessel drifted on shore.  I found that I was at the Isle of France, having, in the course of twelve hours thus miraculously shifted my position from one side of the globe unto the other.  I found the island in a sad state of devastation; the labour of years had been destroyed in the fury of an hour ­the crops were swept away ­the houses were levelled to the ground ­the vessels in fragments on the beach ­all was misery and desolation.  I was however kindly received by my countrymen, who were the inhabitants of the isle, and, in four-and-twenty hours, we all danced and sang as before.  I invented a very pretty quadrille, called the Hurricane, which threw the whole island into an ecstacy, and recompensed them for all their sufferings.  But I was anxious to return home, and a Dutch vessel proceeding straight to Marseilles, I thought myself fortunate to obtain a passage upon the same terms as those which had enabled me to quit the West Indies.  We sailed, but before we had been twenty-four hours at sea, I found that the captain was a violent man, and a most dreadful tyrant.  I was not very strong, and not being able to perform the duty before the mast, to which I had not been accustomed, I was beat so unmercifully, that I was debating in my mind, whether I should kill the captain and then jump overboard, or submit to my hard fate; but one night as I lay groaning on the forecastle after a punishment I had received from the captain, which incapacitated me from further duty, an astonishing circumstance occurred which was the occasion, not only of my embracing the Mahomedan religion, but of making use of those expressions which attracted your highness’s attention when you passed in disguise.  “Why am I thus ever to be persecuted?” exclaimed I in despair.  And, as I uttered these words, a venerable personage, in a flowing beard, and a book in his hand, appeared before me, and answered me.  “Because, Huckaback, you have not embraced the true faith.”

“What is the true faith?” inquired I, in fear and amazement.

“There is but one God,” replied he, “and I am his prophet.”

“Merciful Allah!” exclaimed the pacha, “why, it must have been Mahomed himself.”

“It was so, your highness, although I knew it not at the time.”

“Prove unto me that it is the true faith,” said I.

“I will,” replied he; “I will turn the heart of the infidel captain,” and he disappeared.  The next day the captain of the vessel, to my astonishment, came to me as I lay on the forecastle, and begging my pardon for the cruelty that he had been guilty of, shed tears over me, and ordered me to be carried to his cabin.  He laid me in his own bed, and watched me as he would a favourite child.  In a short time I recovered; after which he would permit me to do no duty, but insisted upon my being his guest, and loaded me with every kindness.

“God is great!” ejaculated the pacha.

I was lying in my bed, meditating upon these things, when the venerable form again appeared to me.

“Art them now convinced?”

“I am,” replied I.

“Then prove it by submitting to the law the moment that you are able.  You shall be rewarded ­not at once, but when your faith has been proved.  Mark me, follow your profession on the seas, and, when once you find yourself sitting in the divan at Cairo, with two people originally of the same profession as yourself, without others being present, and have made this secret known, then you shall be appointed to the command of the pacha’s fleet, which under your directions shall always meet with success.  Such shall be the reward of your fidelity.”

It is now four years that I have embraced the true faith, and, sinking under poverty, I was induced to make use of the exclamation that your highness heard; for how can I ever hope to meet two barbers at the divan without other people being present?

“Holy prophet! how strange!  Why Mustapha was a barber, and so was I,” cried the pacha.

“God is great!” answered the renegade, prostrating himself.  “Then I command your fleet?”

“From this hour,” replied the pacha.  “Mustapha, make known my wishes.”

“The present in command,” replied Mustapha, who was not a dupe to the wily renegade, “is a favourite with the men.”

“Then send for him and take off his head.  Is he to interfere with the commands of Mahomed?”

The vizier bowed, and the pacha quitted the divan.

The renegade, with a smile upon his lips, and Mustapha with astonishment, looked at each other for a few seconds; “You have a great talent, Selim,” observed the vizier.

“Thanks to your introduction, and to my own invention, it will at last be called into action.  Recollect, vizier, that I am grateful ­you understand me;” and the renegade quitted the divan, leaving Mustapha still in his astonishment.