Chapter 12: John Silver; "Flying the Fine Space Air"
Smoke floated nervously from the belly of Doctor Welling's pipe the day following Barak's discourse with him, as he and John waited for the pirate early in the morning to bring John to the docks. While the house was dim and gray in the early hours of the new day, John could feel a tension of suspense flicker periodically from the part of the house where Welling would inhabit with restless disquietude; he would leaf about the old house smoking his pipe, replacing objects on mantles, flipping through pages in books, and then he would accost Elizabeth—who was attending to her own independent operations—when they're paths intersected to petition the time.
There is no doubt John's anxiety surpassed Welling's; however, John concealed it determinedly. A timorous silence reigned relentlessly all about the house—one which John had no inclination to overturn—thus, he contained his apprehensiveness by watching Welling weave in and out of rooms, followed irresolutely by a thin string of black smoke from his pipe.
The previous evening it had been delivered by two more abominable pirates—who claimed to be a part of Barak's crew—that Barak would arrive early in the morning to take John to the ship, where he would stay until the afternoon, and then they would launch at the repeated term of "three bells", which was revealed upon Welling's command to mean half-passed one.
Barak made no approach to the house upon the appointed time or the hour after, but arrived sourly the hour following, like a whirlwind, grumbling indignant imprecations to all who greeted him at the door about how such a man of his great character should not be burdened with the responsibility of remembering to deliver a child to where he might need him. John took little offense to this, though, for after these remarks, Barak redeemed himself once more by giving John a warm salutation and a salute which he claimed was reserved for only gentlemen of fortune.
Welling's former disquietude seemed to be amplified at Barak's eventual advent. Twice he accused the brown spacer of intoxication, to which Barak denied with, "I haven't had a noggin o' rum this blessed day! Ye'll know when ye see me if I've took more rum for my head t' carry, for I'm a man who's lived rough and who raises Cain when he's drunk, and so I'd swing afore th' sun sets, I would! Have I had a dram this fine day, sir? No, not I!"
It seemed with the second allegation of this contravene, Barak's whirlwind blew forth out of the Welling home, for John was swept through the door and into the golden streets that were bathed in the sun of the afternoon. When the light bloomed in John's eyes and he felt Barak's hand on his back, keeping him in a rapid pace, John was swift to look back, and the house looked very austere and remote under the auric rays of the afternoon. He did not feel remorse in leaving it, nor did he regret leaving Abigail confined in her gardens; but John's heart leapt for an instant at the sight of Welling's figure standing on the porch of his house, smoking his pipe.
Rounding the corner into the Western hemisphere of the ports, very excited, Barak hastened toward the quays with his hand on John's back, and creating himself to be a most arresting companion as they plunged down the dock planks. In intervals, Barak would turn with vigor and indicate the differences in the ships that the two passed—their tonnage, rig, and nationality; and how each were being prepared for sail, or being repaired, or engaging in trade. Once, they passed a Flatulan ship, and Barak stopped John with a plangent clamor and a terrible oath.
"Watch it, John! Flatulans are nothin' t' walk in th' presence of!" And with this, he spat into the earth in the direction of the galleon, whereupon he took to full flight, slapping John on the back to follow him.
Presently Barak gave John the permission to decelerate, and the two continued in their former manner, Barak occasionally erupting with laughter in regard to his conduct toward the Flatulan spacecraft. After one such eruption, he cried with a corrupt mirth, "The great gasbags! Shiver me timbers, but they are feebleminded—none o' v'em smart, says you, John; not a pair o' v'em smart! But, thunder! T'were a magnificent lay!" He chuckled once more, but then, all of a sudden, he stopped, and his jaw dropped as though he had realized something.
"But blow me!" Barak exclaimed, "ye had not th' chance t' spatter at th' swabs!"
John, after his initial perplexity, was obliged to laugh aloud at this, for he had never been given the permission to expectorate at a creature he deplored, and he did not even know if he deplored the Flatulan species. John did, however, draw himself up and lift his chin in the sunlight, and replied, emulating Barak's accent, "I did not even think to, sir! They're too lowly for even me own spatter!"
To this, Barak was seized by a laughter so great he nearly choked, and, finding a place to sit with great difficulty, he chortled until tears slid down his face. "Why," he faltered, after his peal, "what a precious lil' chap ye is, boy! But come, now, this won't do; ye've got t' have a chance t'—" but here Barak stopped, and his jaw dropped once more. He then curled his lips in a belligerent smile, and informed John that, instead of spattering, he should pick pocket one of the Flatulan spacers, for he could tell it was John's aptitude.
John pulled a money purse from a passing Flatulan's satchel, and Barak claimed his very soul fainted with joy. "But now, boy," he straightened, adjusting the cuffs of his great coat, "stand by to go about; dooty is dooty, messmate, and I'll stake me davy we'll ne'er reach th' blessed ship at this wind!"
So once again Barak and John launched into their former pace down the docks at a stride that made John's ears ring with ebullience. They passed the marketplace where John had smelled fruits and meat so many times before; they passed the fisherman's stand where John had purchased the ancient fish for Mrs. Thatcher, and the crowded streets he had visited in one interval of his life, worked in another interval, and slept, starved, and stole in a most recently passed interval, and John considered hopefully that he was finally and truly leaving it.
The ship lay abstracted from the other crafts in a quiet nebula that clung to the edge of the Western Hemisphere. The rigging swung overhead, and grated along the keel as the ship was slowly being released, and curled above them in the autumn wind and splendor of the sun. Barak led John around one side of the docks, where a skiff lay by the pier, with three spacers sleeping on the thwarts. Barak, as they approached, roared with temper.
"Gentlemen!" he addressed impassionedly, and, as they all stirred with alacrity, "Ah, so! Takin' a catnap whilst yer cap'm was now'ere t' be found, was ye?"
It was a spacer of counterfeit fortitude and the most gallant of salutes who was encouraged to respond, and as he presented his hail, he defended himself and the two others with the fact that the vessel was fully prepared for her dispatch, and the three had the brig's boat and were awaiting the return of their captain and his companion. "Issat 'im, Cap'm"? He asked, indicating John with a twitch of his finger.
"Are you 'cap'm', sir?" John inquired covertly to Barak at his side, to which he simply winked at him in return, and asked John his full name. The Ursid replied, "John Silver."
Barak faced the spacer again. "Aye, this be he, t' be sure! The lad's name is Silver—take care ye remember that, for I won't have me errand boy doin' favors for anyone else besides meself that don't call 'im by his right name!"
"Silver?" repeated the spacer, after a startled exchange of glances with the others, "like in th' precious metal—that kind o' silver?"
Barak's mouth hung open and he laughed. "Aye, sure enough, t'is like that! I hadn't ne'er thought o' that! To be sure! But no more dallyin', mates—there's a lady who awaits our board!"
John was steered toward the skiff and bade to sit between the thwarts on the bottom. As he stooped to obey, the spacer who had addressed Barak sat behind him before the tiller, and whispered gingerly, "'Ello, Silver. My name's Timeus. Did you make up yo' name?"
John smiled. "No."
The vessel was the Oeil de la Mer, and, as John leaned passed Barak's great bulk—for he had taken the thwart in front of John—to watch as they neared it in the little skiff that was to take them aboard, the first sight John's eyes leapt upon was the figurehead of a mermaid. As they neared, John saw her eyes were veiled by the carving of a cloth, and yet a slender and weightless arm extended in front of her, as if pointing the ship in its destination. It was a Carrack, as Timeus explained when he saw John peering out to it, which was a three-masted vessel with higher forecastles and aftcastles. "Bust me if she ain't one o' th' prettiest ladies ye ever did see!" John heard Barak sigh with coarse affection, and he looked out over the nebula to view her again, and, indeed, he thought her magnificent.
The stern and bow rose with a sweep into the air above the main deck, like two mountains and its valley between them, and the mainmast bloomed like a tree in the center of the ship; its spar branches reaching perpendicular against it, pulling in the sunlight from the sails. The rigging flowed downward and embraced the masts with their delicate grasps, and stood enduringly to see the ship follow the finger of its blind figurehead. John's tongue moved along the backs of his teeth, watching as they approached the vessel in a silent awe.
Thrill suddenly flourished inside John's young chest and heart, for John now determined that this was the true embodiment of consummated liberty; John's fears and aggressions were all assuaged and relinquished upon sight of the craft. He determined this was when life began. A life he could quell his desire for wealth with, his desire for happiness, and his desire for belonging. The Oeil de la Mer was the passage to Heaven—where he would live in harmony for all the eternity he dared to wish he knew—and she would be guided by the Etherium and its golden arms.