He Displayed Not The
Slightest Intention Of Living Up To Our Agreement.
Now this was not Roscoe's fault; he could not help it.
He had
merely gone the way of all the men who learned navigation before
him. By an understandable and forgivable confusion of values, plus
a loss of orientation, he felt weighted by responsibility, and
experienced the possession of power that was like unto that of a
god. All his life Roscoe had lived on land, and therefore in sight
of land. Being constantly in sight of land, with landmarks to guide
him, he had managed, with occasional difficulties, to steer his body
around and about the earth. Now he found himself on the sea, wide-
stretching, bounded only by the eternal circle of the sky. This
circle looked always the same. There were no landmarks. The sun
rose to the east and set to the west and the stars wheeled through
the night. But who may look at the sun or the stars and say, "My
place on the face of the earth at the present moment is four and
three-quarter miles to the west of Jones's Cash Store of
Smithersville"? or "I know where I am now, for the Little Dipper
informs me that Boston is three miles away on the second turning to
the right"? And yet that was precisely what Roscoe did. That he
was astounded by the achievement, is putting it mildly. He stood in
reverential awe of himself; he had performed a miraculous feat. The
act of finding himself on the face of the waters became a rite, and
he felt himself a superior being to the rest of us who knew not this
rite and were dependent on him for being shepherded across the
heaving and limitless waste, the briny highroad that connects the
continents and whereon there are no mile-stones. So, with the
sextant he made obeisance to the sun-god, he consulted ancient tomes
and tables of magic characters, muttered prayers in a strange tongue
that sounded like INDEXERRORPARALLAXREFRACTION, made cabalistic
signs on paper, added and carried one, and then, on a piece of holy
script called the Grail - I mean the Chart - he placed his finger on a
certain space conspicuous for its blankness and said, "Here we are."
When we looked at the blank space and asked, "And where is that?" he
answered in the cipher-code of the higher priesthood, "31-15-47
north, 133-5-30 west." And we said "Oh," and felt mighty small.
So I aver, it was not Roscoe's fault. He was like unto a god, and
he carried us in the hollow of his hand across the blank spaces on
the chart. I experienced a great respect for Roscoe; this respect
grew so profound that had he commanded, "Kneel down and worship me,"
I know that I should have flopped down on the deck and yammered.
But, one day, there came a still small thought to me that said:
"This is not a god; this is Roscoe, a mere man like myself. What he
has done, I can do. Who taught him? Himself. Go you and do
likewise - be your own teacher." And right there Roscoe crashed, and
he was high priest of the Snark no longer. I invaded the sanctuary
and demanded the ancient tomes and magic tables, also the prayer-
wheel - the sextant, I mean.
And now, in simple language. I shall describe how I taught myself
navigation. One whole afternoon I sat in the cockpit, steering with
one hand and studying logarithms with the other. Two afternoons,
two hours each, I studied the general theory of navigation and the
particular process of taking a meridian altitude. Then I took the
sextant, worked out the index error, and shot the sun. The figuring
from the data of this observation was child's play. In the
"Epitome" and the "Nautical Almanac" were scores of cunning tables,
all worked out by mathematicians and astronomers. It was like using
interest tables and lightning-calculator tables such as you all
know. The mystery was mystery no longer. I put my finger on the
chart and announced that that was where we were. I was right too,
or at least I was as right as Roscoe, who selected a spot a quarter
of a mile away from mine. Even he was willing to split the distance
with me. I had exploded the mystery, and yet, such was the miracle
of it, I was conscious of new power in me, and I felt the thrill and
tickle of pride. And when Martin asked me, in the same humble and
respectful way I had previously asked Roscoe, as to where we were,
it was with exaltation and spiritual chest-throwing that I answered
in the cipher-code of the higher priesthood and heard Martin's self-
abasing and worshipful "Oh." As for Charmian, I felt that in a new
way I had proved my right to her; and I was aware of another
feeling, namely, that she was a most fortunate woman to have a man
like me.
I couldn't help it. I tell it as a vindication of Roscoe and all
the other navigators. The poison of power was working in me. I was
not as other men - most other men; I knew what they did not know, -
the mystery of the heavens, that pointed out the way across the
deep. And the taste of power I had received drove me on. I steered
at the wheel long hours with one hand, and studied mystery with the
other. By the end of the week, teaching myself, I was able to do
divers things. For instance, I shot the North Star, at night, of
course; got its altitude, corrected for index error, dip, etc., and
found our latitude. And this latitude agreed with the latitude of
the previous noon corrected by dead reckoning up to that moment.
Proud? Well, I was even prouder with my next miracle.
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