Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (300 page)

Bligh,
of
course,
would
have
had
his
explanation:
it
was
the
Hand of
God.
That
sufficed
for
Bligh,
who
had
gone
forward
the
evening before,
and
whom
Abel
Keeling
now
seemed
vaguely
and
as
at
a
distance
to
remember
as
the
deep-voiced
fanatic
who
had
sung
his
hymns as,
man
by
man,
he
had
committed
the
bodies
of
the
ship's
company to
the
deep.
Bligh
was
that
sort
of
man;
accepted
things
without
question;
was
content
to
take
things
as
they
were
and
be
ready
with
the fenders
when
the
wall
of
rock
rose
out
of
the
opalescent
mists.
Bligh, too,
like
the
waterdrops,
had
his
Law,
that
was
his
and
nobody else's.
.
.
.

There
floated
down
from
some
rotten
rope
up
aloft
a
flake
of
scurf, that
settled
in
the
pipkin.
Abel
Keeling
watched
it
dully
as
it
settled towards
the
pipkin's
rim.
When
presently
he
again
dipped
his
fingers into
the
vessel
the
water
ran
into
a
little
vortex,
drawing
the
flake with
it.
The
water
settled
again;
and
again
the
minute
flake
determined
towards
the
rim
and
adhered
there,
as
if
the
rim
had
power
to draw
it.
.
.
.

It
was
exactly
so
that
the
galleon
was
gliding
towards
the
wall
of rock,
the
yellow
and
green
weeds,
and
the
monkeys
and
parrots.
Put out
into
mid-water
again
(while
there
had
been
men
to
put
her
out) she
had
glided
to
the
other
wall.
One
force
drew
the
chip
in
the pipkin
and
the
ship
over
the
tranced
sea.
It
was
the
Hand
of
God
said Bligh.
.
.
.

Abel
Keeling,
his
mind
now
noting
minute
things
and
now
clouded with
torpor,
did
not
at
first
hear
a
voice
that
was
quakingly
lifted
up over
by
the
forecastle—a
voice
that
drew
nearer,
to
an
accompaniment of
swirling
water.

"O
Thou,
that
Jonas
in
the
fish

Three
days
didst
keep
from
pain, Which
was
a
figure
of
Thy
death And
rising
up
again
—"

It
was
Bligh,
singing
one
of
his
hymns:

"O
Thou,
that
Noah
keptst
from
flood And
Abram,
day
by
day, As
he
along
through
Egypt
passed Didst
guide
him
in
the
way
—"

The
voice
ceased,
leaving
the
pious
period
uncompleted.
Bligh
was alive,
at
any
rate.
.
.
.
Abel
Keeling
resumed
his
fitful
musing.

Yes,
that
was
the
Law
of
Bligh's
life,
to
call
things
the
Hand
of God;
but
Abel
Keeling's
Law
was
different;
no
better,
no
worse,
only different.
The
Hand
of
God,
that
drew
chips
and
galleons,
must
work by
some
method;
and
Abel
Keeling's
eyes
were
dully
on
the
pipkin again
as
if
he
sought
the
method
there.
.
.
.

Then
conscious
thought
left
him
for
a
space,
and
when
he
resumed it
was
without
obvious
connection.

Oars,
of
course,
were
the
thing.
With
oars,
men
could
laugh
at calms.
Oars,
that
only
pinnaces
and
galliasses
now
used,
had
had
their advantages.
But
oars
(which
was
to
say
a
method,
for
you
could
say
if you
liked
that
the
Hand
of
God
grasped
the
oar-loom,
as
the
Breath of
God
filled
the
sail)—oars
were
antiquated,
belonged
to
the
past, and
meant
a
throwing-over
of
all
that
was
good
and
new
and
a
return to
fine
lines,
a
battle-formation
abreast
to
give
effect
to
the
shock
of the
ram,
and
a
day
or
two
at
sea
and
then
to
port
again
for
provisions. Oars
.
.
.
no.
Abel
Keeling
was
one
of
the
new
men,
the
men
who swore
by
the
line-ahead,
the
broadside
fire
of
sakers
and
demi-cannon, and
weeks
and
months
without
a
landfall.
Perhaps
one
day
the
wits
of such
men
as
he
would
devise
a
craft,
not
oar-driven
(because
oars could
not
penetrate
into
the
remote
seas
of
the
world)—not
sail-driven
(because
men
who
trusted
to
sails
found
themselves
in
an
airless,
three-mile
strait,
suspended
motionless
between
cloud
and
water, ever
gliding
to
a
wall
of
rock)—but
a
ship
...
a
ship.
.
.
.

"To
Noah
and
his
sons
with
him God
spake,
and
thus
said
He: A
cov'nant
set
I
up
with
you And
your
posterity
—"

It
was
Bligh
again,
wandering
somewhere
in
the
waist.
Abel
Keeling's
mind
was
once
more
a
blank.
Then
slowly,
slowly,
as
the
water drops
collected
on
the
collar
of
rope,
his
thought
took
shape
again:

A
galliasse?
No,
not
a
galliasse.
The
galliasse
made
shift
to
be
two things,
and
was
neither.
This
ship,
that
the
hand
of
man
should
one day
make
for
the
Hand
of
God
to
manage,
should
be
a
ship
that should
take
and
conserve
the
force
of
the
wind,
take
it
and
store
it
as she
stored
her
victuals;
at
rest
when
she
wished,
going
ahead
when
she wished;
turning
the
forces
both
of
calm
and
storm
against
themselves. For,
of
course,
her
force
must
be
wind—stored
wind—a
bag
of
the winds,
as
the
children's
tale
had
it—wind
probably
directed
upon
the water
astern,
driving
it
away
and
urging
forward
the
ship,
acting
by reaction.
She
would
have
a
wind-chamber,
into
which
wind
would
be pumped
with
pumps.
.
.
.
Bligh
would
call
that
equally
the
Hand
of God,
this
driving
force
of
the
ship
of
the
future
that
Abel
Keeling dimly
fore-shadowed
as
he
lay
between
the
mainmast
and
the
belfry, turning
his
eyes
now
and
then
from
the
ashy
white
timbers
to
the vivid
green
bronze-rust
of
the
bell
above
him.
.
.
.