Attempt > Volume 3

THE ATTEMPT. 67
vain dreamer 1 Yet dreams seem a substantial staff unto himself Behold him now,
so bold, so bright, so hopeful, so sunshine lit ! Think ye that we should trust the
man 1 We shall wait yet awhile. A month hath passed. Onward, onward, and
the vessels' keels still plough the pathless deep. The " Islands of the Blest" have
risen on them, and have faded in eastward mist, and onward, stUl onward, to the
west they sailed. Still, each night sinks the sun 'mid air-wrouglit gold, into the
shoreless sea of the far, far west. The sailors gather in small groups upon the decks
and whisper in mysterious words, "where more is meant than meets the ear." Each
day new wonders appal them; and they fearfully recall the tales that they have
heard of danger and of death amid the western surf; of the unknown fate that
ever overtook the enthusiastic searchers of the cloud-built Atlantis, or the mirage¬
like islet of St Brandon, or the dreamt-of Island of the Seven Cities of the sea that
never found a shore, but stretched on, on into space; and of the chaos beyond " the
treasury for lost and missing things."
In the cabin beneath, Columbus paces with a hasty step, enchained in thought,
now linked fast with doubt. He completes his nightly task of lessening the public
reckoning of the distance they have sailed, that the sailors might not needlessly fear.
He can cheer them ; but who is there to hold up his hands 1 He places in his
private book the true number of the leagues, and strengthens himself to his task.
But there, before him, on that rough-hewn table, lies his compass,—the needle no
longer pointing with a stedfast finger ever to the pole, but trembling and veering, it
seems itself in doubt. Has the last material thing he trusted in thus failed him
at last 1 Will the spiritual help fail him also ? Is he then, after all, as he has been
styled, a vain dreamer 1
Day after day does that eastern breeze still blow steadfastly on, and before it
these three small ships ride, through calm and storm, through ocean current, or
tangled sea-meadow of weeds, on to the west; eve after eve the western sun sinks
westward, and casts up no land-shadow from its beams ; night after night does the
longing seaman wish for the morning light, but the morning brings naught but
sorrow. Desolation and loneliness long endured—a fearful novelty in all sights and
sounds—and the unsustained spirits of the timid seamen had been, by slow degi-ees,
worked into "resolution by despair." They will, they must return ! And threaten¬
ingly they gather round the man who brought them hither, and bid him take them
back, or weigh his own life in the balance with their many wills. Oft has he
curbed the mutterings of such gathering storms before; but his wonted accents of firm
command fall unheeded now. Wliat will he now do 1 Ah ! magic signs have been