Historical fiction; United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 -- Fiction
Ben was remembering an April afternoon when _Artemis_ came into Boston
harbor, and Faith stood beside him, and Daniel Shawn also was someone
new, both admirable and good. He was remembering certain acts of
kindness, of almost incredible forbearance, chess games, lessons with
the sextant, jests and tall stories told in moments of relaxation during
the long armed truce, and told without any overtones of madness or evil.
He was remembering above all the magic of a voice, and how the vision it
generated had stirred his own spirit with all the rocketing enthusiasm
of a boy and the more sober acceptance of a man--for surely, no matter
what madness and evil there were in Shawn, it was still as true as
sunrise that there must be new lands in the western sea, and some day
those would be discovered, and one could fairly trust (as Shawn said)
that all men's life on earth would be the richer for it. Remembering all
this, it seemed wholly impossible to Ben that he could actually do what
he now intended. He prayed for at least a little time of delay, and
hesitantly said: "Mr. Shawn, it seems we've swung full about during the
calm this morning. By the sun, I make it that our stem here is pointed
near due south, and so----"
"And the sail is southwest by west, and when I saw it last night it was
northwest, but Mother of God, Ben, I make nothing much of that. They
could have made a better run in the night than we did before the wind
fell away. Even if they be common men aboard her, that's possible. The
great thing--ah, have you sometimes thought me mad, Ben, until now?--the
great thing is, you see it too, and so you know I am not deluded. Now
give me back the glass. I'll try once more if I can't find her in it."
Ben knew he must no longer delay, or he could not do the thing at all.
He said: "The marks on her side will be the letters of her name--must
be mighty large to show at such a distance, I cannot quite make them
out, except there are three, and then a space, and then a D. The next
after the D may be a Y."
"Give me the glass!" Shawn snatched it and held it to his eye, but with
such wildly shaking hands that surely he would find nothing in it. The
sight of such weakness sickened Ben, yet at the same time gave him a
sense of his own power overwhelming as a wave, and of amazement that he
could ever have feared this man Shawn, or believed Shawn to be stronger
than himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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