Tales of the Chesapeake | Page 9

Stay not for me, whose
sands are nearly run. I am too old to try for life or fear to die, but thou
art full of youth and beauty, and Israel needs thee in the world behind
me. Let me bless thee, Abraham, and commit thee to God."
The water entered the cracks of the cabin; a pitching motion, as if it
were afloat, made the son of the negro cling closer to the Jew.
"Father," he said, "I have passed the bitterness of death. When the
vessel struck and threw me into the surf, I cried to God and fought for
life. The waves rolled over me, and the agony of dying so young and
happy grew into such a terror that I could not pray. In my despair a
something seemed to grasp me, like tongs of iron, and my eyes were
filled with light, bright as the face of the I AM. Behold! I am here, and
that which saved me has made me content to die by thee."
The old man drew the dripping ringlets of the younger one to his
venerable beard. The house rocked like a sailing vessel, and the strong
sea-fogs seemed to close them round.
"We are sailing to sea," whispered the Jew. "It is too late to escape. The
next billow may fling us apart, and our bones shall descend amongst
the oyster-shells to build houses for the nutritious beings of the water.
Thence, some day, my son, from the heavens God may drop His tongs

and draw us up to Him, as on this night thy father and I drew the casket,
many years ago. Look there! Look there!"
The heads of both were turned toward the spot where the finger of the
old man pointed, and they saw the denuded cross shining in the light of
the agitated fire, so large and bright that it reduced all other objects to
insignificance.
"It was a light like that," exclaimed Abraham, "which shone in my eyes
through the darkness of the billows."
"It was on that," whispered Issachar, "that I called for help, my son,
when thou wert dying. From the hour I dipped it from the water my
heart has been warmer to the world and man. Is there, in all the hoary
traditions of our church, a reason why we should not beseech its
illumination again before it returns to the ocean with ourselves? Do
thou decide, who art full of wisdom; for I am ignorant in thy eyes, and
heavy with sins."
The cross, resplendent, seemed to wear a visible countenance. Wrapped
in Issachar's arms, like a babe to its mother, young Abraham extended
his hands to the effigy, and in its beams a wondrous consolation of love
and rest returned to those poor companions, reconciling them to their
helplessness in the presence of the Almighty awe.
"Child of God!" exclaimed the Jew, "thou beauty of the Gentiles, I gave
thee life but for a span, and thou seemest to bring to me the life
immortal."
The morning broke on the shore frosty and clear after the subsided
storm, and the earliest wreckers, seeking in the drift for Christmas gifts
to give their children, found well-remembered parts of the Eli and
portions of the tenement of its proprietor. A wave rolled higher than the
rest and cast upon the shore two bodies--a young man of the comely
face and symmetry of a woman, without a sign of pain in his features
and dark, oriental eyes, and an old man, venerable as an inhabitant of
the ocean and mysterious as a being of some race anterior to the deluge.
In his rugged face the marks of that antiquity which has something

stately in the lowest types of the Jew, and in this one an almost Mosaic
might, were softened to a magnanimity where death had nothing to
contribute but its silence and respect. Laying them together, the
fishermen and idlers looked at them with a superstition partly of
remorse and mild remembrance, and the star of Christmas twinkled
over them in the sky. None felt that they were other than father and son,
and black men and white, indifferent that day to social prejudices,
followed the child of Hagar and the Hebrew patriarch to the grave.

HAUNTED PUNGY.
They hewed the pines on Haunted Point To build the pungy boat, And
other axes than their own Yet other echoes smote; They heard the
phantom carpenters, But not a man could see; And every pine that
crashed to earth Brought down a viewless tree.
They launched the pungy, not alone; Another vessel slipped Down in
the water with their own, And ghostly sailors shipped; They heard the
rigging flap and creak, And hollow orders cried. But not a living man
could