HOW CAPTAIN PAMPHILE, THINKING TO LAND ON AN ISLAND, LANDED ON A WHALE INSTEAD, AND BECAME THE SLAVE OF BLACK SNAKE
By the time Captain Pamphile regained the surface of the water, the brig “Roxelane “was beyond hailing distance, so he knew better than to tire himself by useless shouts for help. He began by taking his bearings with a view to making out what might be the nearest land, and coming to the conclusion that it should be Cape Breton, he laid his course for it by the help of the Pole Star, which he kept carefully on his right hand.
Captain Pamphile swam like a seal. Nevertheless, after four or five hours of this exercise, he began to feel a little tired. Moreover, the sky was overcast, and the beacon light by which he had been steering had disappeared; thus he thought he could not do better than take a rest. So he stopped his forward stroke, and, turning over, floated on his back.
He remained for about an hour in this position, making no movement beyond what was necessary to keep his face above water, and watching the stars one by one being blotted out from the sky. However great the stock of philosophy possessed by Captain Pamphile, it will be understood that the situation was not altogether amusing for him. He was quite familiar with the lie of the coast around him,- and knew that he must still be three or four leagues away from the nearest land. Feeling his strength renewed by the temporary repose he had taken, he had just renewed his swim with fresh vigour when he saw, a few yards beyond him, a black something on the sea, which the darkness of the night had prevented his observing sooner. Captain Pamphile considered it to be some isle or rock which navigators and geographers had overlooked, and he swam towards it. He soon reached it, but he had some difficulty in gaining a footing, as the surface of the ground, incessantly washed by the waves, was very slippery. But after a few attempts he succeeded, and found himself on a small hillock of an island from twenty to twenty-five yards in length, and rising in the centre to a height of ten feet above the level of the sea. It was entirely uninhabited.
Captain Pamphile soon explored the whole of his new domain. It was barren and naked, except for a sort of tree about as thick in the stem as a broomstick and from eight to ten feet high, entirely destitute of branches and leaves, and for some low weeds which were still wet, showing that, in stormy weather, the waves washed completely over the rock. To this circumstance Captain Pamphile attributed the incredible ignorance of cartographers, and made a firm resolve that, as soon as he got back to France, he would send to the Society of Exploration a scientific memoir correcting the mistakes of his precursors. He was thus forming his plan and projects, when he thought he heard some one talking not far off. He looked about on all sides, but, as we have said, the night was so dark that he could distinguish nothing. He listened once again, and this time he heard clearly the sound of several voices, albeit the words were still unintelligible, Captain Pamphile had in the first instance thought of hailing the speakers; but, on second thoughts, as he did not know whether those who were approaching through the darkness were friends or foes, he determined to await the course of events. In any case, the island on which he had landed could not be so far from the mainland as to leave him in much danger of dying of hunger in so frequented a neighbourhood as that of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. He determined then to keep still until daylight, unless he were discovered himself. Accordingly he placed himself at the end of his isle furthest removed from the point whence proceeded the sounds of the human voice which under certain circumstances man dreads more than the roaring of beasts of prey.
All was still again, and Captain Pamphile began to hope that things would pass off without further adventure, when he felt the ground move under him. His first thought was that there was an earthquake; but within the whole perimeter of his island he had not seen the smallest sign of a mountain bearing the appearance of a volcano; then he recollected having heard accounts of submarine formations which appear suddenly on the surface of the sea, remain above it sometimes days, sometimes months, sometimes years, give colonists time to sow crops, to build cabins, to form a community, and then, at a given moment, go down as they came up, without apparent cause, carrying with them the overconfident population which has made its home on them. Whatever might happen, as Captain Pamphile had not had time to sow of build, and would not have to lament either for his corn or his houses, he simply prepared to resume his swim, only too happy that his miraculous island had remained long enough above the surface to allow him to take a rest upon it. Thus he had quite resigned himself to whatever might be the will of God, when, to his great astonishment, he saw that his island, instead of disappearing, was actually moving through the water, leaving behind it a wake like that astern of a vessel. Captain Pamphile was on a floating island; the miracle of Latona was being performed again for his benefit, and he was drifting, on some unknown Delos, towards the shores of the New World.
Captain Pamphile had seen so much in the course of his nomadic and adventurous life that he was not the man to be astonished at a trifle like this; the only thing he thought strange was that his island, as if endowed with intelligence such as he had never dared to expect, was steering straight for the northerly point of Cape Breton. As he had no preference for one point over another, he resolved to let the island go wherever its business seemed to take it, and to take advantage of the circumstance by travelling in its company. But as the slippery state of the ground was rendered still more dangerous than before by the motion, Captain Pamphile, although he had sea-legs, still climbed towards the top of his island, and, holding on by the isolated and leafless tree which seemed to mark the centre, awaited events with patience and resignation.
Yet, Captain Pamphile, who had become, naturally enough, all eyes and ears, in the intervals of light when the wind, driving aside the clouds, allowed some star to sparkle like a diamond in the heavens, thought he saw, like a black speck, a little island acting as guide to the larger, keeping about fifty paces in front. Moreover when the waves, which broke against-his domain, were less noisy, those same voices which he had heard before for a moment, again struck on his ear, borne on the murmuring wind, vague and unmeaning as the sounds of the spirits of the deep.
It was not until dawn began to break in the east that Captain Pamphile found his bearings completely, and was astonished that, with the intelligence for which he gave himself credit, he had not grasped the situation much sooner. The small isle travelling in front was a boat manned by six Canadian Indians, the large island on which he stood was a whale, which the former allies of France were towing off to cut up, and the branchless and leafless tree to which he was clinging was the harpoon that had dealt death to the sea-monster, and which, penetrating four or five feet into the wound it had caused, stood still eight or nine feet above it. The Hurons, on their part, when they saw the double capture they had made, allowed an exclamation of surprise to escape them. But, remembering immediately that it is beneath the dignity of man to appear surprised by anything, they went on rowing in silence towards the land, without taking any further notice of Captain Pamphile. The latter, seeing that the savages, notwithstanding their apparent indifference, never took their eyes off him, affected to maintain the greatest calm, although the strange situation in which he was really caused him considerable perturbation of spirit.
As the whale reached to within about a quarter of a league of the northern end of Cape Breton, the skiff stopped; but the enormous cetacean, continuing the impulse of motion imparted to it, ranged up gradually to the little boat till it brought the latter alongside. Then the native who appeared to be the commander of the crew, a great, strong fellow of over six feet, painted blue and red, with a black snake tattooed on his chest and carrying on his shaven crown the tail of a bird of paradise plaited into the only lock of hair he had kept on his head, stuck a large knife into his waistcloth, took a tomahawk in his right hand, and advanced, slow and dignified, towards Captain Pamphile.
Captain Pamphile, who, for his part, had seen every savage race of the known world, from those who come down from La Courtille on Ash Wednesday mornings to those of the Sandwich Isles who treacherously slow Captain Cook, quietly allowed him to approach, without taking apparently the least notice of him.
Three paces distant from the European, the Huron stopped and fixed his eyes on Captain Pamphile; Captain Pamphile resolutely declined to recede a hair’s breadth and gazed back at the Huron with as much calm and tranquillity as the latter affected. At last, after ten minutes of mutual inspection—” The Black Snake is a great chief,” said the Huron.
“Pamphile, of Marseilles, is a great Captain,” said the Provençal.
“And why, my brother,” answered the Huron, “did he leave his vessel and embark on the Black Snake’s whale?”
“Because,” said the Captain, “his crew threw him overboard, and, tired of swimming, he took a rest on the first thing he came across, without waiting to inquire to whom it belonged.”
“Very good,” said the Huron, “Black Snake is a great chief, and Captain Pamphile will be his servant.”
“Just say that over again,” said the Captain, in a tone of banter.
“I say,” repeated the Huron, “that Captain Pamphile will row Black Snake’s boat when he is on the water, will carry his birch-bark tent when he travels by land, will light his fire when it is cold, will keep the flies off when it is hot, and will mend his mocassins when they are out of repair; in return for which Black Snake will give Captain Pamphile the leavings of his dinner and such old beaver skins as may be of no use to himself.”
“Ah, well!” said the Captain, “and supposing the conditions do not suit Captain Pamphile and that he declines them?”
“Then Black Snake will raise Captain Pamphile’s scalp, and hang it up before his door with those of seven Englishmen, nine Spaniards, and eleven Frenchmen which are already there.”
“Very good,” said the Captain, seeing that he was not the stronger of the two, “Black Snake is a great chief, and Pamphile shall be his servant.”
Upon this Black Snake made a signal to his crew, who in due course landed on the whale and surrounded Captain Pamphile. The chief said something to his men, and they proceeded at once to land on the animal several small boxes, a beaver, two or three birds which they had killed with bows and arrows, and everything necessary for kindling a fire. Then Black Snake got on board the canoe, took an oar in each hand, and proceeded to row towards land.
The Captain was engaged in watching the departure of the chief, and in admiring the speed with which the little boat skimmed over the sea, when three Huron Indians approached him: one took off his neck-tie, the second his shirt, and the third his trousers, in the pocket of which was his watch. Then two others followed, one of them holding a razor, and the other a sort of palette made up of little cockle shells-filled with yellow, red, and blue pigments. They made a sign to Captain Pamphile to lie down, and while the remainder of the band lighted a fire, as they would on a real island, plucked the birds and skinned the beaver, they proceeded with the toilet of their new comrade. One shaved his head, leaving only the lock which the savages are in the habit of growing; the other dipped his brush in the various colours, and painted him all over after the latest fashion obtaining among the dandies of the River Ottawa and Lake Huron.
The first preparation made, the two valets of Captain Pamphile went and brought, one a handful of feathers from the tail of the whip-poor-will they were just singeing, the other the skin of the beaver they were beginning to cook. Coming back to their victim, they fastened the plume of feathers to the one lock of hair which they had left him, and tied the beaver’s skin round his loins. The operation being now complete, one of them gave Captain Pamphile a small piece of looking-glass. He was hideous! In the meantime, Black Snake landed and took his way to a good-sized house which could be seen from a distance showing white above the sands. He soon came out accompanied by a man dressed as a European, and from his gestures it was plain that the child of the desert was showing to the man of civilization the capture he had made in the open sea and which he had brought during the night to within sight of the coast.
After a few moments, the inhabitant of Cape Breton got into a boat with two slaves, pulled off to the whale and rowed round it, but without landing on it; then, after having probably decided that the Huron had told him the truth, he returned to the Cape, where the chief awaited him, sitting motionless on the ground.
Then the white man’s slaves brought out sundry articles which the Captain could not see properly on account of the distance, and placed them in the skiff of the red man; the Huron chief took his paddles and rowed back again to the island where his crew and Captain Pamphile awaited his coming.
He landed just as the beaver and the stork were done to a turn, ate the tail of the beaver and the wings of the whip-poor-will, and in accordance with his agreement, gave the remains of his dinner to the servants, among whom it seemed to please him greatly to include Captain Pamphile. Thereupon the Hurons brought him the booty taken from the prisoner, so that he might, as chief, make choice of such of the spoil as should be most to his liking.
Black Snake looked with considerable disdain at the Captain’s neckerchief, shirt and breeches; but, on the other hand, his attention was much attracted by the watch, the use of which he was evidently ignorant of. Nevertheless, after having turned it over and over, held it up by its short chain and swung it by the longer chain, he listened attentively to its ticking. Then, turning it backwards and forwards again to try and discover its mechanism, he put one hand to his own heart, while with the other he again placed it to his ear. At last, convinced that it was a living creature, since it had a pulse which beat in unison with his own, he placed it with the greatest care beside a small tortoise about the breadth of a five-franc piece and the thickness of half a walnut, in a box, which, richly encrusted with shell work, evidently held his most valued treasures. Then, as if well pleased with the share of the plunder he had taken, he pushed away with his foot the tie, shirt, and pantaloons, generously leaving them at the disposition of his crew.
Breakfast over, Black Snake, the Hurons, and the prisoner left the whale for the canoe. Captain Pamphile then saw that the goods brought in her for the Hurons were two English muskets, four bottles of brandy, and a barrel of powder. Black Snake, considering it beneath his dignity to cut up the whale he had killed, had bartered it with a colonist for spirits, ammunition, and arms.
As they embarked, the resident of Cape Breton reappeared on the shore, and, followed by five or six slaves, got into a larger boat than he had selected for his first visit to the whale. As he pushed off from shore, Black Snake, on his part, gave the orders to leave the whale, so that its new owner might see there was nothing to fear. Then began Captain Pamphile’s apprenticeship. A Huron, supposing that he would be ignorant of the use of the oar, placed a paddle in his hands, but as he had served in every grade, from cabin boy to captain, he made use of it with so much strength, precision, and skill, that Black Snake, to show his great satisfaction, gave him his elbow to kiss. The same evening the Huron chief and his followers stopped for the night on a large rock which stretches out, at some distance from a smaller one, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Immediately some set to work pitching the birch-bark tent, which the North American Indians generally carry with them when they travel or go on a hunting expedition, while others scattered about the rock and searched in the clefts for oysters, mussels, sea-urchins, and the products of the ocean, which they collected in such numbers, that after providing for the Great Snake, there was plenty left for everybody else.
After supper, the Great Snake sent for the box in which he had put the watch, so that he might see that it had not met with any accident. He took it up, as he had done in the morning, with the greatest care; but no sooner had he lifted it out than he perceived that the beating of the heart had stopped. He put it to his ear, and heard no sound; then he tried warming it with his breath, but finding every effort was in vain—” Here”, said he, handing it to its owner with an expression of deep contempt, “take back your animal; he is dead.”
Captain Pamphile, who valued his watch greatly as being a present from his wife, did not wait for a second offer, but hung the chain round his neck, delighted to get his timepiece back, and took good care not to wind it up.
At break of day, they started again, travelling still westward; in the evening they landed on the shores of a solitary inlet in the Island of Anticosti, and the following day, about four in the afternoon, doubling Cape Gaspé, they entered the St. Lawrence River, which they had to ascend to Lake Ontario, whence the chief expected to reach Lake Huron, on the banks of which was his wigwam.