Previous - Next

their adieux. At last, after much dodging search, he finds the
Tarshish ship receiving the last items of her cargo; and as he steps
on board to see its Captain in the cabin, all the sailors for the
moment desist from hoisting in the goods, to mark the stranger's evil
eye. Jonah sees this; but in vain he tries to look all ease and
confidence; in vain essays his wretched smile. Strong intuitions of
the man assure the mariners he can be no innocent. In their gamesome
but still serious way, one whispers to the other--"Jack, he's robbed
a widow;" or, "Joe, do you mark him; he's a bigamist;" or, "Harry
lad, I guess he's the adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or
belike, one of the missing murderers from Sodom." Another runs to
read the bill that's stuck against the spile upon the wharf to which
the ship is moored, offering five hundred gold coins for the
apprehension of a parricide, and containing a description of his
person. He reads, and looks from Jonah to the bill; while all his
sympathetic shipmates now crowd round Jonah, prepared to lay their
hands upon him. Frighted Jonah trembles, and summoning all his
boldness to his face, only looks so much the more a coward. He will
not confess himself suspected; but that itself is strong suspicion.
So he makes the best of it; and when the sailors find him not to be
the man that is advertised, they let him pass, and he descends into
the cabin.

"'Who's there?' cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly making
out his papers for the Customs--'Who's there?' Oh! how that harmless
question mangles Jonah! For the instant he almost turns to flee
again. But he rallies. 'I seek a passage in this ship to Tarshish;
how soon sail ye, sir?' Thus far the busy Captain had not looked up
to Jonah, though the man now stands before him; but no sooner does he
hear that hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinizing glance. 'We
sail with the next coming tide,' at last he slowly answered, still
intently eyeing him. 'No sooner, sir?'--'Soon enough for any honest
man that goes a passenger.' Ha! Jonah, that's another stab. But he
swiftly calls away the Captain from that scent. 'I'll sail with
ye,'--he says,--'the passage money how much is that?--I'll pay now.'
For it is particularly written, shipmates, as if it were a thing not
to be overlooked in this history, 'that he paid the fare thereof' ere
the craft did sail. And taken with the context, this is full of
meaning.

"Now Jonah's Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment detects
crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless.
In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely,
and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at
all frontiers. So Jonah's Captain prepares to test the length of
Jonah's purse, ere he judge him openly. He charges him thrice the
usual sum; and it's assented to. Then the Captain knows that Jonah
is a fugitive; but at the same time resolves to help a flight that
paves its rear with gold. Yet when Jonah fairly takes out his purse,
prudent suspicions still molest the Captain.

Previous - Next