Part 3

(4.) "Thunder and lightnin'!" It will be seen that the oaths commonly used by the Columbians differ from those now in fashion; but this is very natural, for it is well known that the common phrases of one century are quite changed in another. We swear not as we did in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and the oaths then in vogue were altogether different from those which prevailed during the reign of William the Conqueror.

CHAP. II.

ZABRA.

Zabra had not been many days on board, before he became a source of wonder to the whole crew. A spirit flashed from his dark lustrous eyes, that kept off every thing approaching the shape of sociality among the persons by whom he was surrounded. He rarely spoke, except when attending upon Oriel Porphyry; and then the proud expression of his looks that made curiosity stand aloof, was changed into a glowing animation, and the tongue which had seemed to disdain all converse became eloquent with a resistless endeavour to delight. He had all the external appearance of a graceful youth of sixteen, with a form tall, elegant, and buoyant, whose heart had just received the invigorating warmth of the first dawn of manly sentiments; but when the voice sent its soft music to the ear, breathing the rich poetry of an ardent imagination, the splendour of the language, its power and meaning, and the energy with which it was supported, gave evidence of a mind much nearer approaching the maturity of a masculine intellect, than the age that has been mentioned could have possessed. He seemed as if he existed only for the purpose for which he had been sent--as if he knew that his occupation was watching over the safety of him to whom he had been committed; and he appeared to enter into the service with a heart and soul devoted to the object. His looks searched the inmost thoughts of those upon whom they fell, as if to discover whether any sinister intention against his lord and master was there harboured, and before their piercing sight it was scarcely possible to stand unmoved; and there was a mystery in his actions, when removed from the apparent source of his solicitude, that still more made the wonderers marvel. He sought a place where no one could intrude upon his privacy, and with a harp, with which on these occasions he never failed to be accompanied, so filled the air with unknown melodies, and unheard-of songs, that the superstitious seamen, as they listened, imagined he was in communication with beings of another world,--there was something so aërial, so soft, and so sweet in the music he created.

"Scrunch me if I can make it out at all!" exclaimed Climberkin to a group of sailors in the forecastle. "He ar'n't got a word to throw away upon a dog; but if he looks at one, one doesn't feel at all inclined to be 'quisitive. He was wand'rin' about the main deck as it was getting duskish yesterday--and I, not keeping a good look out ahead, run foul o' him afore I knowed who it was. As soon as I diskivered the craft, I was just beginning a bit of a 'pology, when he fixes on me a look as cut through me like a nor-wester, waves his arm in a most mysterus manner, and glides away as softly as if he trod upon butter."

"As true as a fish swims, I've got the only prime notion of this here mystery," said Boggle, with an air of considerable importance.

"No!" cried several voices incredulously.

"Ah! but I have though, or I'm the spawn of a toad-fish!" replied Boggle. "And I'll tell you how I gripped it. You see I ar'n't a bit afeard o' any 'dividual as is aboveboard in what he's arter; and I'm not the chap likely to be flabbergasted in a fair fight;--so seeing as how you were all in no little mystification about this youngster, I thought to myself, says I, when he steers his course into your whereabouts, 'spose you show a civil flag at the mast-head, and ax arter his mother and all the family; he nat'rally sees you knows manners, and 'mediately returns the compliment. From this to that, and from that to t'other, is as easy as catching sharks wi' pickled pork, when two civil fellows lets go their jawing tackle; so you'll tell him your 'miniscences quite confidential, and he'll be obligated to tell you his'n; and then having overhauled his log-book pretty smartish, you can return to your mates with the 'telligence. Well, I was walking along jest afore dinner, when I seed master Zabra leaning against a mast, wi' folded arms, eyes looking straight up to the clouds as was fleecing over the sky in all sorts o' figurations, and his mahogany face seemin' quite fair by the side o' the rollin' jet black curls as fell on each cheek down to his shoulder. I seed in a moment he was no common sort o' cretur. If he ar'n't a Indian prince, thinks I, I've no notion o' things in general. Well, I was determined to know the rights on't, and was just about recomembring the bit of a speech I was going to say about his mother and the rest o' the family, when, as I came right afore him, he looks me full in the face; and though I seed nothin' but the flash o' his two eyes afore he flitted away to the other end o' the ship, they seemed so 'stonishingly curious that they held me to the ground as if I was nailed to the deck, and the words I was going to say stuck in my throat like lumps o' old Cucumber-Shin's puddin'."

"Kukumshin!" shouted the black cook, a very fat old negro, indignantly thrusting his woolly poll in the middle of the group. "Dare to call me Kukumshin! Me, Roly Poly Cook in ship Albatross, and free gennleman o' colour--me Kukumshin! Pretty kettle o' fish!--Puddin' berry much too good for sich a fellar. Stick in him troat too! Him nebber hab no time, acause him bolt him like smoke, a fellar! Call me Kukumshin indeed!"

"I tell ye what it is, my mates," cried Hearty, inattentive to Roly Poly's indignation. The group were all attention.

"A fellar!" exclaimed the cook, casting one of his blackest looks upon the offender, and then waddling off to another part of the ship.

"In my time I've been many voyages to India and thereabouts," said the old man; "and I knows it's the notion o' them people, that arter a fellow's dead he comes to life again in another sort of a body. Now if this here rigmarole's true, which every body there says is as sartain as a stone 'ill sink, seeing that this youngster is more 'cute in his notions than is usual at his time o' day, and appears a most 'straordinary sort o' a human, it's much more nat'ral to 'spose he's been metamorphorosed from some of those Old Indian flos'phers who 's up to ev'ry thing in natur', than that he should be a mere hobbledehoy, as can't have any more gumption than what 'll serve him to carry a letter or go on a message. But hush!" exclaimed the speaker as a beautiful symphony full of passionate sentiment was borne upon the air. A soft melodious voice soon mingled with the instrument, and these words were sung with all the expression superior skill could bestow upon them:--

"The wave rolls on from shore to shore, As from the first those billows roll'd; All study its mysterious lore, But none have yet its secrets told! So in the heart a flood flows on As free and boundless in its will; As long, the learnèd there have gone-- Its secrets are unfathom'd still!

"Unfathomed still, fond heart! remain,-- Veil thy rich flood's most precious prize! Thy pearlèd worth--thy golden gain-- Hide--hide from all too-curious eyes! For see! th' adventurous diver comes, Down in thy deeps he makes his stay; Through ev'ry hidden cave he roams-- Then bears thy treasured stores away.

"But why thy sterling splendours hide?-- Why veil the worth thou dost possess?-- Pour out thy bright exhaustless tide! Lay bare thy wealth!--and thee 't will bless. The riches that are hoarded up, In worthless hands at last must shrink;-- And he who cares to fill the cup, Should fill for one who longs to drink!"

"There! that _is_ music," observed Climberkin in a whisper; "and it makes my heart leap like a dolphin just taken out o' his element."

"All hands to take in sail!" shouted a stentorian voice from the quarter-deck, and in an instant the group were engaged in active duty.

But the song had other listeners than the party just described. Oriel Porphyry, after escaping from a weary lecture from the learned professor Fortyfolios, who seemed laudably anxious to fulfil his duties to his pupil, had been pacing the quarter-deck with long and hasty strides, when he was roused from the ambitious reveries of his ardent imagination by the mellow sounds of a harp at no great distance. In him, the voice, the song, its sentiments, and their expression, recalled to his memory the delicious beauty of her, from the wondrous lustre of whose gaze he had drunk of that intoxicating stream which had bound his senses in a wild and rapturous delirium. The dark eyes, radiant with the light of the impassioned soul that floated in their depths, again raised on him their sunny splendour; and the budding mouth, bearing the odorous spirits of a thousand roses on its lips, once more appeared to teach those smiling lessons that had been to him the fairest pages in the book of knowledge. He listened, and his heart was filled with the sweet influence of a happier time. The dreams of ambition were forgot--the suggestions of pride were unthought of--fame, glory, power, the pomp of greatness, the sway of empire, and the adulation of the governed, were now as things for which he had no sympathy; and he thought only of the time when the noble, gifted, young, and beautiful Eureka, regardless of the loftiness of her exalted station, the opinions of her princely family, or the sentiments of the world, ennobled him with the passionate ecstacies of her enthusiastic nature, and first filled his youthful brain with those heroic dreams which made him yearn after the glorious influence of superiority.

During the continuance of the song he listened with breathless attention, and the rich harmonies of the music kept him spell-bound to the spot on which he stood; but as the last chords of the closing symphony were struck, he stood by the side of the musician.

"I knew not, Zabra, that you were so well skilled in the science of sweet sounds," said he.

Zabra had appeared so lost in his own meditations, that he had not noticed master Porphyry's approach. His gaze was fixed; and as he bent over his harp, allowing the long curls of his dark hair to mingle with its strings, no attitude, and no expression of countenance, could more plainly interpret the perfect state of self-abandonment in which he then existed; but when he heard the voice of him by whom he was addressed, in an instant his dark handsome features assumed a different expression, and throwing back the shining tresses that shaded his face, he seemed a creature all smiles, devotion, and enjoyment.

"Music has been to me the food of my existence," remarked the page: "on its divine essence I was nurtured; and as the perfume forms a part of the breeze on which it is borne, harmony has entered into my nature, and is now my life, my strength, and my felicity."

"Where did you learn the song I have just heard?" inquired the merchant's son.

"From the impulses of my own creative spirit," replied the other. "From sympathies awakened into action by the strong power that creates and controls them. See you the mighty tide that swells up into universal motion, bearing by its own strength the burthen of resistless armaments as if they were but reeds, and when it does put forth its power, assuming such shapes and doing such things as make the marvel of every age; and know you not that it is the operation of its attraction for that fair world of light that dwelleth in the starry heaven, whose glimpses of a glory not to be subdued enter into its innermost depths, and stir its everlasting waves with passionate emotion?"

"Surely one so young cannot have felt the power of Love?" asked the elder of the two, in a tone that betrayed the influence of which it spoke.

"Who shall say when it shall come or when it shall depart?" said Zabra, as the dusky hue of his cheek gave evidence of the warm blood that filled his veins. "It is a presence that appeareth at all times when the soul is fit to receive it. It cometh not at this time, nor at that--it dwelleth not here, nor there; it filleth eternity of time, and infinity of space. Look around you, over the vast circumference of boundless nature--wherever there is life, wherever there is motion--wherever there is an object that hath beauty in its form and fitness for its purpose, it hath all its energies swayed by the thrilling impulses of that almighty passion. The flower that liveth but a few days, trembles in the warm embraces of the southern breeze; and the planet that smiled upon the infancy of the world, in the unconquerable maturity of a thousand ages, still enamoured, drinks in the beauty of the mountain stream. The heart is ever young, as mine is; and as the mellowing sunbeam calls into activity the principle of life in the insect's egg, the sunshine in which I have basked, hath stirred the vital seed implanted within my breast, and given it restless hopes and fond desires, and properties and motives to an end, that are the wings with which it flutters in its shell. The only thing in which I differ from the rest is that my Spring hath preceded theirs. All have their seasons, but till the sun comes the winter endures; and in me the frost hath been broken up, and the current, freed from its icy chains, rushes through its channels in the soft light of its first bright day, and makes a world of its own, full of music and flowers."

"But how can you bear to be parted from the object with which your sympathies are so closely united?" asked master Porphyry.

"We are inseparable," replied Zabra, as he fixed his eyes on the inquirer, eloquent with animation. "Think you, you can part the melody from the voice by which it is sung? The two cannot be severed; neither can the spirit to which mine is linked be other than a part of myself. I breathe its atmosphere--I enjoy its presence--I share in its delights. Our bodies may be set asunder by a plank; but you may pile mountains upon mountains, and worlds upon worlds between us, and yet our souls will remain one and indivisible."

"How much your voice and gestures remind me of Eureka!" remarked the merchant's son, regarding with increasing interest the romantic enthusiasm of his companion.

"For what purpose than this was I sent?" asked the youth, as he turned away from the gaze as if to examine some of the strings of his instrument: then continued--"If you loved her with the same intense devotion with which she regards you, you would not require to be reminded; but, save in the color of our complexions, there is so perfect a resemblance both in our appearance and in our natures, that I might recall her image to any one who has seen her and seems likely to forget her."

"You wrong me, Zabra!" cried the other vehemently, "if you imagine it possible that I can forget her. It is she who hath filled these veins with a quenchless fire that makes my whole frame glow with a desire for lofty enterprise, to attain a renown, and acquire a greatness worthy of the love with which I have been honoured. Since that proud day when I first beheld in her lustrous eyes the light that created a new splendour over the horizon of my happiness, I have been shaking the chains that bound me to the world, and, while yearning to emancipate myself from its oppressive thraldoms, have sought how I could best subdue it to my own ambitious purposes. I worship the nobility of her nature, and would have her behold in mine something worthy of its intimate association. I would not have her descend from the lofty pedestal on which she is placed; therefore am I eager to win my way to a like elevation--ay, and ascend higher, if a loftier step there be--and there acknowledge the greatness I have worshipped, and everlastingly unite it to my own."

"How little you know of her character, if you think she values any thing except the spirit to which she is attached," observed the page. "Did she care for the accidental difference of birth that distinguishes you from her, you would never have known of her affection, because it could never have existed. They who love the idle vanities of rank, set their hearts upon a garment, a feather, a shining stone that is made to adorn the person who possesses it; but it was not such artificial worth that could attract Eureka. That she would feel proud of any distinction you might by the force of your own merit acquire, is probable; but knowing the qualities of your disposition, she holds them at their full value, which could not be increased in the slightest degree by all the honours you might gain. It was her observation of a tendency in you to seek after the unattainable, that made her fearful it would lead you into danger; and when she pressed me into this service, she bade me warn you of the different perils it would produce. I warn you now. Take heed of indulging in these ambitious dreams. You have the elements of greatness in your character; they ought to content you; and what you desire are but the shadows of what you have. There is another danger which is equally imminent; and if you are as truly devoted to Eureka as she hath ever been to you, you will pause before it reaches you.--Your feverish pursuit after renown, or power, or whatever delusive meteor it may be that dazzles your eyes, only tends to make you lose sight of that one true, steady, and brilliant light that should be a glory in your pathway."

"Never!" exclaimed his companion with fervour--"never can any ambitious dream of mine lead me from that splendour out of which it was created. My aspirations are a natural result of the lofty source from which they spring. They are but the reflections of her excellence--and the signs of her presence; and loving her, I could no more exist without desiring to be great, than I could bask in the sun's rays without acquiring warmth.--Besides, had I not this stimulus to exertion, by what means can I hope to make her mine. To the merchant's son the Lord of Philadelphia would deny his daughter; but with Oriel Porphyry, his equal in dignity and superior in power, the honoured of all and the feared of many, he would gladly seek an alliance."

"You think not of what Eureka's ideas may be on this subject?" inquired Zabra.

"I think of them, but they cannot avail," said the other.

"They will avail!" replied the youth emphatically.

"How?" asked master Porphyry.

"Be assured of this," said his young companion, while again he seemed more attentive to his harp than to his listener. "If, in a reasonable time, the obstacles that retard your union still exist, she will point out a way by which they may be honourably set aside, or acquiesce in any plan with the same object in view, which you may propose."

"How know you this?" inquired the other hastily.

"I heard her say it," said the page.

"But before I return, her father may compel her to enter into other arrangements."

"Eureka has a will which is not to be compelled--she will readily do that which is right--but no power on earth could bend her inclinations to an unjust purpose."

"And she may be surrounded by dangers--subject to every kind of suffering, and forced to endure a thousand indignities from which I have no power to rescue her," continued master Porphyry.

"She _is_ surrounded by dangers," said the youth with emphasis--"dangers new and terrible to other minds; but of these she will think nothing, and of what she may be obliged to endure she will be equally regardless, as long as she is possessed with the conviction, that he for whom alone she suffers is not unmindful of the sacrifices she has made."

"There is a strength in your words," said the merchant, laying his hand upon the shoulder of his companion, "which there is no withstanding; and your looks are even more eloquent than your language. How is it possible that one apparently so young should have acquired that force of expression, and depth of meaning, which breathes in every sentence you express."

"I was taught early, and well," replied the other, as his frame trembled slightly under the touch of his companion. "And as for my speech--truth is always the most forcible. My external frame may appear light and boyish; but size is no safe guide for the judgment. The ostrich never leaves the earth along which it glides; but the eagle pierces the unfathomable depths of air with an untiring wing, and floats with eye undimmed within the scorching rays of the eternal sun."

"Zabra, your nature is superior to the garb you wear," said the elder, as he kindly took the hand and gazed into the face of his more youthful associate. "I cannot allow you to be thus. You must put away the page, and endeavour to be the friend of Oriel Porphyry."

"By whatever title Oriel Porphyry can most love Zabra, that title Zabra would most desire to be," replied the other.

"Then be it so," said his companion. "From henceforth you shall be my associate--my friend--my brother. Any thing in the ship that can extend your enjoyments shall be at your disposal, and you may command the services of every living creature it contains. We will be together as often as possible, and the greatest delight you can create, or I can indulge in, will be for us to discourse of her in whose affection I exist; that when I hear the magic music of your voice, and meet the deep intelligence of your gaze, the resemblance may make me imagine that the blissful times have again returned, when beneath the shadows of the welcome trees we sat together till the noonday hours ran on unnoticed to the twilight, and the twilight deepened into evening, and still our hands were clasped with the same gentle pressure with which they first met, and still our eyes looked into each other with the same unspeakable meaning that was first created in their mutual glances."

Perhaps Oriel Porphyry would have said more, but at that moment his companion withdrew his hand, and with looks full of an empassioned tenderness, as he struck an accompaniment of harmonious chords, he sang the following words:--

"Sound, oh Harp! some sweet and cheerful lay, Soft as the breath of eve o'er mountain springs, Awhile the spirit of a brighter day Mingles its voice with thy rejoicing strings. With thy rejoicing strings, oh Soul of Song! Bind the fond air with spells rained free and fast; And as thy thrilling echoes roll along, We'll raise again THE RAPTURES OF THE PAST!

"Sound, oh Harp! such harmony as dies Within the warm and rosy atmosphere, When gentle whispers, and delicious sighs, Send a delighting welcome to the ear. A welcome to the ear, oh Voice Divine! Which long as life, and kind as hope, shall last; That with the wealth of an exhaustless mine Stores in our hearts THE TREASURES OF THE PAST!

"Sound, oh Harp! thy music once again, For now while I intrusive cares destroy, An impulse stirs within the heart and brain, Strong with the power of everlasting joy. Of everlasting joy, Prophetic Sound! (A bliss that cannot in the grave be cast;) For as thy trembling murmurs swell around, Still we embrace THE BLESSINGS OF THE PAST."