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1893
AWAY by the lands of the Japanee | |
| Where the paper lanterns glow | |
| And the crews of all the shipping drink | |
| In the house of Blood Street Joe, | |
| At twilight, when the landward breeze | 5 |
| Brings up the harbour noise, | |
| And ebb of Yokohama Bay | |
| Swigs chattering through the buoys, | |
| In Cisco’s Dewdrop Dining Rooms | |
| They tell the tale anew | 10 |
| Of a hidden sea and a hidden fight, | |
| When the Baltic ran from the Northern Light | |
| And the Stralsund fought the two. | |
| |
| Now this is the Law of the Muscovite, that he proves with shot and steel, | |
| When you come by his isles in the Smoky Sea you must not take the seal, | 15 |
| Where the grey sea goes nakedly between the weed-hung shelves, | |
| And the little blue fox he is bred for his skin and the seal they breed for themselves. | |
| For when the matkas 1 seek the shore to drop their pups aland, | |
| The great man-seal haul out of the sea, aroaring, band by band. | |
| And when the first September gales have slaked their rutting-wrath, | 20 |
| The great man-seal haul back to the sea and no man knows their path. | |
| Then dark they lie and stark they lie—rookery, dune, and floe, | |
| And the Northern Lights come down o’ nights to dance with the houseless snow; | |
| And God Who clears the grounding berg and steers the grinding floe, | |
| He hears the cry of the little kit-fox and the wind along the snow. | 25 |
| But since our women must walk gay and money buys their gear, | |
| The sealing-boats they filch that way at hazard year by year. | |
| English they be and Japanee that hang on the Brown Bear’s flank, | |
| And some be Scot, but the worst of the lot, and the boldest thieves, be Yank! | |
| |
| It was the sealer Northern Light, to the Smoky Seas she bore. | 30 |
| With a stovepipe stuck from a starboard port and the Russian flag at her fore. | |
| (Baltic, Stralsund, and Northern Light—oh! they were birds of a feather— | |
| Slipping away to the Smoky Seas, three seal-thieves together!) | |
| And at last she came to a sandy cove and the Baltic lay therein, | |
| But her men were up with the herding seal to drive and club and skin. | 35 |
| There were fifteen hundred skins abeach, cool pelt and proper fur, | |
| When the Northern Light drove into the bight and the sea-mist drove with her. | |
| The Baltic called her men and weighed—she could not choose but run— | |
| For a stovepipe seen through the closing mist, it shows like a four-inch gun | |
| (And loss it is that is sad as death to lose both trip and ship | 40 |
| And lie for a rotting contraband on Vladivostok slip). | |
| She turned and dived in the sea-smother as a rabbit dives in the whins, | |
| And the Northern Light sent up her boats to steal the stolen skins. | |
| They had not brought a load to side or slid their hatches clear, | |
| When they were aware of a sloop-of-war, ghost-white and very near. | 45 |
| Her flag she showed, and her guns she showed—three of them, black, abeam, | |
| And a funnel white with the crusted salt, but never a show of steam. | |
| |
| There was no time to man the brakes, they knocked the shackle free, | |
| And the Northern Light stood out again, goose-winged to open sea. | |
| (For life it is that is worse than death, by force of Russian law | 50 |
| To work in the mines of mercury that loose the teeth in your jaw.) | |
| They had not run a mile from shore—they heard no shots behind— | |
| When the skipper smote his hand on his thigh and threw her up in the wind: | |
| “Bluffed—raised out on a bluff,” said he, “for if my name’s Tom Hall, | |
| “You must set a thief to catch a thief—and a thief has caught us all! | 55 |
| “By every butt in Oregon and every spar in Maine, | |
| “The hand that spilled the wind from her sail was the hand of Reuben Paine! | |
| “He has rigged and trigged her with paint and spar, and, faith, he has faked her well— | |
| “But I’d know the Stralsund’s deckhouse yet from here to the booms o’ Hell. | |
| “Oh, once we ha’ met at Baltimore, and twice on Boston pier, | 60 |
| “But the sickest day for you, Reuben Paine, was the day that you came here— | |
| “The day that you came here, my lad, to scare us from our seal | |
| “With your funnel made o’ your painted cloth, and your guns o’ rotten deal! | |
| “Ring and blow for the Baltic now, and head her back to the bay, | |
| “And we’ll come into the game again—with a double deck to play!” | 65 |
| |
| They rang and blew the sealers’ call—the poaching-cry of the sea— | |
| And they raised the Baltic out of the mist, and an angry ship was she. | |
| And blind they groped through the whirling white and blind to the bay again, | |
| Till they heard the creak of the Stralsund’s boom and the clank of her mooring chain. | |
| They laid them down by bitt and boat, their pistols in their belts, | 70 |
| And: “Will you fight for it, Reuben Paine, or will you share the pelts?” | |
| |
| A dog-toothed laugh laughed Reuben Paine, and bared his flenching-knife. | |
| “Yea, skin for skin, and all that he hath a man will give for his life; | |
| But I’ve six thousand skins below, and Yeddo Port to see, | |
| And there’s never a law of God or man runs north of Fifty-Three: | 75 |
| So go in peace to the naked seas with empty holds to fill, | |
| And I’ll be good to your seal this catch, as many as I shall kill!” | |
| |
| Answered the snap of a closing lock—the jar of a gun-butt slid, | |
| But the tender fog shut fold on fold to hide the wrong they did. | |
| The weeping fog rolled fold on fold the wrath of man to cloak, | 80 |
| As the flame-spurts pale ran down the rail and the sealing-rifles spoke. | |
| The bullets bit on bend and butt, the splinter slivered free | |
| (Little they trust to sparrow-dust that stop the seal in his sea!), | |
| The thick smoke hung and would not shift, leaden it lay and blue, | |
| But three were down on the Baltic’s deck and two of the Stralsund’s crew. | 85 |
| An arm’s length out and overside the banked fog held them bound, | |
| But, as they heard or groan or word, they fired at the sound. | |
| For one cried out on the Name of God, and one to have him cease, | |
| And the questing volley found them both and bade them hold their peace. | |
| And one called out on a heathen joss and one on the Virgin’s Name, | 90 |
| And the schooling bullet leaped across and led them whence they came. | |
| And in the waiting silences the rudder whined beneath, | |
| And each man drew his watchful breath slow-taken ’tween the teeth— | |
| Trigger and ear and eye acock, knit brow and hard-drawn lips— | |
| Bracing his feet by chock and cleat for the rolling of the ships. | 95 |
| Till they heard the cough of a wounded man that fought in the fog for breath, | |
| Till they heard the torment of Reuben Paine that wailed upon his death: | |
| |
| “The tides they’ll go through Fundy Race, but I’ll go never more | |
| “And see the hogs from ebb-tide mark turn scampering back to shore. | |
| “No more I’ll see the trawlers drift below the Bass Rock ground, | 100 |
| “Or watch the tall Fall steamer lights tear blazing up the Sound. | |
| “Sorrow is me, in a lonely sea and a sinful fight I fall, | |
| “But if there’s law o’ God or man you’ll swing for it yet, Tom Hall!” | |
| |
| Tom Hall stood up by the quarter-rail. “Your words in your teeth,” said he. | |
| “There’s never a law of God or man runs north of Fifty-Three. | 105 |
| “So go in grace with Him to face, and an ill-spent life behind, | |
| “And I’ll be good to your widows, Rube, as many as I shall find.” | |
| A Stralsund man shot blind and large, and a warlock Finn was he, | |
| And he hit Tom Hall with a bursting ball a hand’s-breadth over the knee. | |
| Tom Hall caught hold by the topping-lift, and sat him down with an oath, | 110 |
| “You’ll wait a little, Rube,” he said, “the Devil has called for both. | |
| “The Devil is driving both this tide, and the killing-grounds are close, | |
| “And we’ll go up to the Wrath of God as the holluschickie 2 goes. | |
| “O men, put back your guns again and lay your rifles by, | |
| “We’ve fought our fight, and the best are down. Let up and let us die! | 115 |
| “Quit firing, by the bow there—quit! Cail off the Baltic’s crew! | |
| “You’re sure of Hell as me or Rube—but wait till we get through.” | |
| There went no word between the ships, but thick and quick and loud | |
| The life-blood drummed on the dripping decks, with the fog-dew from the shroud, | |
| The sea-pull drew them side by side, gunnel to gunnel laid, | 120 |
| And they felt the sheer-strakes pound and clear, but never a word was said. | |
| |
| Then Reuben Paine cried out again before his spirit passed: | |
| “Have I followed the sea for thirty years to die in the dark at last? | |
| “Curse on her work that has nipped me here with a shifty trick unkind— | |
| “I have gotten my death where I got my bread, but I dare not face it blind. | 125 |
| “Curse on the fog! Is there never a wind of all the winds I knew | |
| “To clear the smother from off my chest, and let me look at the blue?” | |
| The good fog heard—like a splitten sail, to left and right she tore, | |
| And they saw the sun-dogs in the haze and the seal upon the shore. | |
| Silver and grey ran spit and bay to meet the steel-backed tide, | 130 |
| And pinched and white in the clearing light the crews stared overside. | |
| O rainbow-gay the red pools lay that swilled and spilled and spread, | |
| And gold, raw gold, the spent shell rolled between the careless dead— | |
| The dead that rocked so drunkenwise to weather and to lee, | |
| And they saw the work their hands had done as God had bade them see! | 135 |
| And a little breeze blew over the rail that made the headsails lift, | |
| But no man stood by wheel or sheet, and they let the schooners drift. | |
| And the rattle rose in Reuben’s throat and he cast his soul with a cry, | |
| And “Gone already?” Tom Hall he said. “Then it’s time for me to die.” | |
| His eyes were heavy with great sleep and yearning for the land, | 140 |
| And he spoke as a man that talks in dreams, his wound beneath his hand. | |
| |
| “Oh, there comes no good o’ the westering wind that backs against the sun; | |
| “Wash down the decks—they’re all too red—and share the skins and run, | |
| “Baltic, Stralsund, and Northern Light—clean share and share for all, | |
| “You’ll find the fleets off Tolstoi Mees, but you will not find Tom Hall. | 145 |
| “Evil he did in shoal-water and blacker sin on the deep, | |
| “But now he’s sick of watch and trick and now he’ll turn and sleep. | |
| “He’ll have no more of the crawling sea that made him suffer so, | |
| “But he’ll lie down on the killing-grounds where the holluschickie go. | |
| “And west you’ll sail and south again, beyond the sea-fog’s rim, | 150 |
| “And tell the Yoshiwara girls to burn a stick for him. | |
| “And you’ll not weight him by the heels and dump him overside, | |
| “But carry him up to the sand-hollows to die as Bering died, | |
| “And make a place for Reuben Paine that knows the fight was fair, | |
| “And leave the two that did the wrong to talk it over there!” | 155 |
| |
| Half-steam ahead by guess and lead, for the sun is mostly veiled— | |
| Through fog to fog, by luck and log, sail you as Bering sailed; | |
| And if the light shall lift aright to give your landfall plain, | |
| North and by west, from Zapne Crest you raise the Crosses Twain. | |
| Fair marks are they to the inner bay, the reckless poacher knows, | 160 |
| What time the scarred see-catchie 3 lead their sleek seraglios. | |
| Ever they hear the floe-pack clear, and the blast of the old bull-whale, | |
| And the deep seal-roar that beats off-shore above the loudest gale. | |
| Ever they wait the winter’s hate as the thundering boorga 4 calls, | |
| Where northward look they to St. George, and westward to St. Paul’s. | 165 |
| Ever they greet the hunted fleet—lone keels off headlands drear— | |
| When the sealing-schooners flit that way at hazard year by year. | |
| Ever in Yokohama port men tell the tale anew | |
| Of a hidden sea and a hidden fight, | |
| When the Baltic ran from the Northern Light | 170 |
| And the Stralsund fought the two. | |
