A more forlorn party, in more dismal
circumstances, it would be hard to imagine. The motion here in the
ship's nose was very violent; the uproar of the sea often
overpoweringly loud. The yellow flicker of the lantern spun round
and round and tossed the shadows in masses. The air was hot, but
it struck a chill from its foetor.
From all round in the dark bunks, the scarcely human noises of the
sick joined into a kind of farmyard chorus. In the midst, these
five friends of mine were keeping up what heart they could in
company. Singing was their refuge from discomfortable thoughts and
sensations. One piped, in feeble tones, 'Oh why left I my hame?'
which seemed a pertinent question in the circumstances. Another,
from the invisible horrors of a pen where he lay dog-sick upon the
upper-shelf, found courage, in a blink of his sufferings, to give
us several verses of the 'Death of Nelson'; and it was odd and
eerie to hear the chorus breathe feebly from all sorts of dark
corners, and 'this day has done his dooty' rise and fall and be
taken up again in this dim inferno, to an accompaniment of
plunging, hollow-sounding bows and the rattling spray-showers
overhead.
All seemed unfit for conversation; a certain dizziness had
interrupted the activity of their minds; and except to sing they
were tongue-tied. There was present, however, one tall, powerful
fellow of doubtful nationality, being neither quite Scotsman nor
altogether Irish, but of surprising clearness of conviction on the
highest problems. He had gone nearly beside himself on the Sunday,
because of a general backwardness to indorse his definition of mind
as 'a living, thinking substance which cannot be felt, heard, or
seen' - nor, I presume, although he failed to mention it, smelt.
Now he came forward in a pause with another contribution to our
culture.
'Just by way of change,' said he, 'I'll ask you a Scripture riddle.
There's profit in them too,' he added ungrammatically.
This was the riddle-
C and P
Did agree
To cut down C;
But C and P
Could not agree
Without the leave of G;
All the people cried to see
The crueltie
Of C and P.
Harsh are the words of Mercury after the songs of Apollo! We were
a long while over the problem, shaking our heads and gloomily
wondering how a man could be such a fool; but at length he put us
out of suspense and divulged the fact that C and P stood for
Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate.
I think it must have been the riddle that settled us; but the
motion and the close air likewise hurried our departure. We had
not been gone long, we heard next morning, ere two or even three
out of the five fell sick.
