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- tried to _lasso_ him in dark corners. And now he was adrift among them,
under notorious circumstances of superlative villainy, at last dragged
to light; and yet he blandly smiled, politely offered his cigar-holder
to a perfect stranger, and laughed and chatted to right and left, as if
springy, buoyant, and elastic, with an angelic conscience, and sure of
kind friends wherever he went, both in this life and the life to come.
While he was lying ironed in the “brig,” gangs of the men were
sometimes overheard whispering about the terrible reception they would
give him when he should be set at large. Nevertheless, when liberated,
they seemed confounded by his erect and cordial assurance, his
gentlemanly sociability and fearless companionableness. From being an
implacable policeman, vigilant, cruel, and remorseless in his office,
however polished in his phrases, he was now become a disinterested,
sauntering man of leisure, winking at all improprieties, and ready to
laugh and make merry with any one. Still, at first, the men gave him a
wide berth, and returned scowls for his smiles; but who can forever
resist the very Devil himself, when he comes in the guise of a
gentleman, free, fine, and frank? Though Goethe’s pious Margaret hates
the Devil in his horns and harpooner’s tail, yet she smiles and nods to
the engaging fiend in the persuasive, _winning_, oily, wholly harmless
Mephistopheles. But, however it was, I, for one, regarded this
master-at-arms with mixed feelings of detestation, pity, admiration,
and something opposed to enmity. I could not but abominate him when I
thought of his conduct; but I pitied the continual gnawing which, under
all his deftly-donned disguises, I saw lying at the bottom of his soul.
I admired his heroism in sustaining himself so well under such
reverses. And when I thought how arbitrary the _Articles of War_ are in
defining a man-of-war villain; how much undetected guilt might be
sheltered by the aristocratic awning of our quarter-deck; how many
florid pursers, ornaments of the ward-room, had been legally protected
in defrauding _the people_, I could not but say to myself, Well, after
all, though this man is a most wicked one indeed, yet is he even more
luckless than depraved.
Besides, a studied observation of Bland convinced me that he was an
organic and irreclaimable scoundrel, who did wicked deeds as the cattle
browse the herbage, because wicked deeds seemed the legitimate
operation of his whole infernal organisation. Phrenologically, he was
without a soul. Is it to be wondered at, that the devils are
irreligious? What, then, thought I, who is to blame in this matter? For
one, I will not take the Day of Judgment upon me by authoritatively
pronouncing upon the essential criminality of any man-of-war’s-man; and
Christianity has taught me that, at the last day, man-of-war’s-men will
not be judged by the _Articles of War_, nor by the _United States
Statutes at Large_, but by immutable laws, ineffably beyond the
comprehension of the honourable Board of Commodores and Navy
Commissioners. But though I will stand by even a man-of-war thief, and
defend him from being seized up at the gangway, if I can—remembering
that my Saviour once hung between two thieves, promising one
life-eternal—yet I would not, after the plain conviction of a villain,
again let him entirely loose to prey upon honest seamen, fore and aft
all three decks. But this did Captain Claret; and though the thing may
not perhaps be credited, nevertheless, here it shall be recorded.
- title
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