<p><SPAN name="linkch77" id="linkch77"></SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER LXXVII. </h2>
<p><br/></p>
<p>I stumbled upon one curious character in the Island of Mani. He became a
sore annoyance to me in the course of time. My first glimpse of him was in
a sort of public room in the town of Lahaina. He occupied a chair at the
opposite side of the apartment, and sat eyeing our party with interest for
some minutes, and listening as critically to what we were saying as if he
fancied we were talking to him and expecting him to reply. I thought it
very sociable in a stranger. Presently, in the course of conversation, I
made a statement bearing upon the subject under discussion—and I
made it with due modesty, for there was nothing extraordinary about it,
and it was only put forth in illustration of a point at issue. I had
barely finished when this person spoke out with rapid utterance and
feverish anxiety:</p>
<p>"Oh, that was certainly remarkable, after a fashion, but you ought to have
seen my chimney—you ought to have seen my chimney, sir! Smoke! I
wish I may hang if—Mr. Jones, you remember that chimney—you
must remember that chimney! No, no—I recollect, now, you warn't
living on this side of the island then. But I am telling you nothing but
the truth, and I wish I may never draw another breath if that chimney
didn't smoke so that the smoke actually got caked in it and I had to dig
it out with a pickaxe! You may smile, gentlemen, but the High Sheriff's
got a hunk of it which I dug out before his eyes, and so it's perfectly
easy for you to go and examine for yourselves."</p>
<p>The interruption broke up the conversation, which had already begun to
lag, and we presently hired some natives and an out-rigger canoe or two,
and went out to overlook a grand surf-bathing contest.</p>
<p>Two weeks after this, while talking in a company, I looked up and detected
this same man boring through and through me with his intense eye, and
noted again his twitching muscles and his feverish anxiety to speak. The
moment I paused, he said:</p>
<p>"Beg your pardon, sir, beg your pardon, but it can only be considered
remarkable when brought into strong outline by isolation. Sir, contrasted
with a circumstance which occurred in my own experience, it instantly
becomes commonplace. No, not that—for I will not speak so
discourteously of any experience in the career of a stranger and a
gentleman—but I am obliged to say that you could not, and you would
not ever again refer to this tree as a large one, if you could behold, as
I have, the great Yakmatack tree, in the island of Ounaska, sea of
Kamtchatka—a tree, sir, not one inch less than four hundred and
fifteen feet in solid diameter!—and I wish I may die in a minute if
it isn't so! Oh, you needn't look so questioning, gentlemen; here's old
Cap Saltmarsh can say whether I know what I'm talking about or not. I
showed him the tree."</p>
<p>Captain Saltmarsh—"Come, now, cat your anchor, lad—you're
heaving too taut. You promised to show me that stunner, and I walked more
than eleven mile with you through the cussedest jungle I ever see, a
hunting for it; but the tree you showed me finally warn't as big around as
a beer cask, and you know that your own self, Markiss."</p>
<p><SPAN name="link553" id="link553"></SPAN></p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="553.jpg (48K)" src="images/553.jpg" width-obs="100%" /></div>
<p>"Hear the man talk! Of course the tree was reduced that way, but didn't I
explain it? Answer me, didn't I? Didn't I say I wished you could have seen
it when I first saw it? When you got up on your ear and called me names,
and said I had brought you eleven miles to look at a sapling, didn't I
explain to you that all the whale-ships in the North Seas had been wooding
off of it for more than twenty-seven years? And did you s'pose the tree
could last for-ever, con-found it? I don't see why you want to keep back
things that way, and try to injure a person that's never done you any
harm."</p>
<p>Somehow this man's presence made me uncomfortable, and I was glad when a
native arrived at that moment to say that Muckawow, the most companionable
and luxurious among the rude war-chiefs of the Islands, desired us to come
over and help him enjoy a missionary whom he had found trespassing on his
grounds.</p>
<p>I think it was about ten days afterward that, as I finished a statement I
was making for the instruction of a group of friends and acquaintances,
and which made no pretence of being extraordinary, a familiar voice chimed
instantly in on the heels of my last word, and said:</p>
<p>"But, my dear sir, there was nothing remarkable about that horse, or the
circumstance either—nothing in the world! I mean no sort of offence
when I say it, sir, but you really do not know anything whatever about
speed. Bless your heart, if you could only have seen my mare Margaretta;
there was a beast!—there was lightning for you! Trot! Trot is no
name for it—she flew! How she could whirl a buggy along! I started
her out once, sir—Colonel Bilgewater, you recollect that animal
perfectly well—I started her out about thirty or thirty-five yards
ahead of the awfullest storm I ever saw in my life, and it chased us
upwards of eighteen miles! It did, by the everlasting hills! And I'm
telling you nothing but the unvarnished truth when I say that not one
single drop of rain fell on me—not a single drop, sir! And I swear
to it! But my dog was a-swimming behind the wagon all the way!"</p>
<p><SPAN name="link554" id="link554"></SPAN></p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="554.jpg (76K)" src="images/554.jpg" width-obs="100%" /></div>
<p>For a week or two I stayed mostly within doors, for I seemed to meet this
person everywhere, and he had become utterly hateful to me. But one
evening I dropped in on Captain Perkins and his friends, and we had a
sociable time. About ten o'clock I chanced to be talking about a merchant
friend of mine, and without really intending it, the remark slipped out
that he was a little mean and parsimonious about paying his workmen.
Instantly, through the steam of a hot whiskey punch on the opposite side
of the room, a remembered voice shot—and for a moment I trembled on
the imminent verge of profanity:</p>
<p>"Oh, my dear sir, really you expose yourself when you parade that as a
surprising circumstance. Bless your heart and hide, you are ignorant of
the very A B C of meanness! ignorant as the unborn babe! ignorant as
unborn twins! You don't know anything about it! It is pitiable to see you,
sir, a well-spoken and prepossessing stranger, making such an enormous
pow-wow here about a subject concerning which your ignorance is perfectly
humiliating! Look me in the eye, if you please; look me in the eye. John
James Godfrey was the son of poor but honest parents in the State of
Mississippi—boyhood friend of mine—bosom comrade in later
years. Heaven rest his noble spirit, he is gone from us now. John James
Godfrey was hired by the Hayblossom Mining Company in California to do
some blasting for them—the "Incorporated Company of Mean Men," the
boys used to call it.</p>
<p>"Well, one day he drilled a hole about four feet deep and put in an awful
blast of powder, and was standing over it ramming it down with an iron
crowbar about nine foot long, when the cussed thing struck a spark and
fired the powder, and scat! away John Godfrey whizzed like a skyrocket,
him and his crowbar! Well, sir, he kept on going up in the air higher and
higher, till he didn't look any bigger than a boy—and he kept going
on up higher and higher, till he didn't look any bigger than a doll—and
he kept on going up higher and higher, till he didn't look any bigger than
a little small bee—and then he went out of sight! Presently he came
in sight again, looking like a little small bee—and he came along
down further and further, till he looked as big as a doll again—and
down further and further, till he was as big as a boy again—and
further and further, till he was a full-sized man once more; and then him
and his crowbar came a wh-izzing down and lit right exactly in the same
old tracks and went to r-ramming down, and r-ramming down, and r-ramming
down again, just the same as if nothing had happened! Now do you know,
that poor cuss warn't gone only sixteen minutes, and yet that Incorporated
Company of Mean Men DOCKED HIM FOR THE LOST TIME!"</p>
<p><SPAN name="link555" id="link555"></SPAN></p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="555.jpg (42K)" src="images/555.jpg" width-obs="100%" /></div>
<p>I said I had the headache, and so excused myself and went home. And on my
diary I entered "another night spoiled" by this offensive loafer. And a
fervent curse was set down with it to keep the item company. And the very
next day I packed up, out of all patience, and left the Island.</p>
<p>Almost from the very beginning, I regarded that man as a liar.</p>
<p>The line of points represents an interval of years. At the end of which
time the opinion hazarded in that last sentence came to be gratifyingly
and remarkably endorsed, and by wholly disinterested persons. The man
Markiss was found one morning hanging to a beam of his own bedroom (the
doors and windows securely fastened on the inside), dead; and on his
breast was pinned a paper in his own handwriting begging his friends to
suspect no innocent person of having any thing to do with his death, for
that it was the work of his own hands entirely. Yet the jury brought in
the astounding verdict that deceased came to his death "by the hands of
some person or persons unknown!" They explained that the perfectly
undeviating consistency of Markiss's character for thirty years towered
aloft as colossal and indestructible testimony, that whatever statement he
chose to make was entitled to instant and unquestioning acceptance as a
lie. And they furthermore stated their belief that he was not dead, and
instanced the strong circumstantial evidence of his own word that he was
dead—and beseeched the coroner to delay the funeral as long as
possible, which was done. And so in the tropical climate of Lahaina the
coffin stood open for seven days, and then even the loyal jury gave him
up. But they sat on him again, and changed their verdict to "suicide
induced by mental aberration"—because, said they, with penetration,
"he said he was dead, and he was dead; and would he have told the truth if
he had been in his right mind? No, sir."</p>
<p><SPAN name="link557" id="link557"></SPAN></p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="557.jpg (26K)" src="images/557.jpg" width-obs="100%" /></div>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />
1 of 2
2 of 2
Previous
Next
Update Required
To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.