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else induced all that intelligent company to come to one of the other tables
that was still intact, and to continue the nonsense there.
Who could that person have been?
At the Ship Argo, as usual, Duffey and Brannagan had to wait for
Casey who had been taking his pleasure in the town. When Casey did join
them, he had a new, sly look about him. Take that not to heart. Casey always
had a new, sly look about him. But one Argonaut surely will not slip back
and undo the work of two fellow Argonauts. He would not set things right if
they had set them wrong, and he would not set them wrong if they had set
them right. For, if an Argonaut did do wrong, he would always do it for the
right reasons.
Unless, of course, he was Casey Gorshok Szymansky. And in his case
--
At Milano, on the Po (or nearly so), they took Mr. X. on board The
Argo. This X. was not a true Mistcr of The Argo, however much he washed that
he were. He was not one of the long-lived persons, and his present
manifestation was likely to be the only one he would have. He was not a
sorcerer, but he swore that he could reproduce any trick of any sorcerer if
he saw it twice. He was acquainted with all three masters who were presently
on The Argo. He was good and amusing company. There was no reason why he
should not have ridden on the Ship. But easily tendered accommodations are
not appreciated as much is those that are more hardly given.
"I do not know you, man," Kasmir Szymansky said when X. came to them
there.
"I do not know you, man," Melchisedech Duffey said. There was always
fun to be had with X.
"I do not know you, man," Biloxi Brannagan said, "and our sublime
destibation can hardly be yours. Nor are you able to riddle our riddles."
"The Ship will know me," said X. "We have sailed together before. I
am even a sort of half member of this corporation. Ask the talking oak that
has a piece of itself in the Ship's wheel."
"I do not know you, man," said the piece of talking oak. "I believe
that it is the nature of X. to be unknown. Are you in Scripture, or arc you
in Inscription? Nobody comes onto The Argo who is not to be found in one
place or the other."
"I am surely in Inscription," X. maintained. "In the Attic ephebic
inscriptions, X. equals 'Xenoi'. No, I am not other wise in Scripture or in
Inscription, but I ask you to take me into your company. All of you do know
me.
"'Xenoi' means 'Strangers'," the piece of talking oak said. And then
it fell silent, for that was much more than it usually talked.
"Oh, I suppose that we halfway know you, X.," Brannagan said, for he
had a kind heart under his ruddy hide, "and you have always been good on the
conversation and news. Set your golden medallion there on the stearsman's
sideboard and we will accept it as your identity."
X. rubbed his hands together in the professional manner. He had seen
real sorcerers do this trick more than twice, so he could do it also. And he
did produce a big gold coin, according to first appearance. It had his coat
of arms on it. It had half of all the fancy things that he wished to put on
it.
"There it is," he said. "Was there ever such a medallion coin as
that?"
"But, X., it is only a one-sided coin," Casey chided him. "That
makes it a very one-sided identification. Are we not to be allowed to hear
the contra against you, the reverse of your own coin?"
X. turned the coin over, and it disappeared. He had made the coin to
be two-sided, but something had happened to it. He tried it again and again.
He turned it and it was there, a good coin. He turned it over and it
disappeared. There wasn't any reverse to it. X. had crossed magic with real
magicians. In particular he had crossed magic with Casey Gorshok the
necromance and Gorshok had won. The coin is still there, on the steersman's
sideboard in the cabin of The Argo. It's a curiosity the way it will appear
and disappear when it's turned.
"Yes, X., you may sail with us," Melchisedech said. "But you sail as
a servitor only and not as a Master Argonaut. You are talented, sure. And
you are all over the place. But, with you, it is a question of not being
able to see the water for the fish. You are to receive half shares of
whatever booty we win. Many servitors receive only quarter shares."
"That is all right," X. said, "and you do need me. Some of your
latest exploits have been worse than just bad show. Gentlemen, they have
been bush. Was there not something said about 'Reducing a problem to its
lowest level'? Was there not a business of four quick carpenters and four
quick saws?"
"You hear only about our busts and half busts," Melchisedech said.
"The hundreds of consummate successes are closed off forever in that
forgetfulness 'where the only sound is Lethe, and where the ovations sound
now', as the poet says. Our really good work remains under the seal and the
silence."
"That's what they all say."
So X. sailed with them. And, really, they were glad to have him.
At Our'yev, at the East Mouth of the River Uril in Tartary,
Melchisedech Duffey lost his life. Oh, there was no question about it. He
was killed dead: deader than a mackerel. Dead, and quickly stripped of the
flesh off his bones, and that flesh cremated to ashes. A man will not walk
away fromn such a thing as that.
6
The Gold Ship or the King's Ship or the Shimmering Ship is an almost
universal boys' dream. And all of the almost universal dreams have strong
basis in fact. The almost universal dreams (but not ordinary dreams) are
really sub-surface or simultaneous happenings which parallel the surface
happenings and are often the stronger and more valid. Almost all boys
realize that they have this valid dimension of other happenings and other
life. But many of them, not being intelligent enough to keep up, forget it
as they grow older.
The other world of oceans and ships and adventures is really there.
It is the other side of the coin. It is often the clearest and most
decorative side of that coin.
The Argo is not the only one of the preternatural Gold Ships or
King's Ships or Shimmering Ships. There are a dozen or so of them. But The
Argo is one of the most noble of them, and also it is one of those with the
raciest adventures.
These Shimmering Ships, with their ever-young crewmen of very great
age, have all the excitement and blood and thunder of Pirate Ships or Devil
Ships, but they have the advantage of being on the side of light and glory.
But every boy reveling in their companionship by day and by night
knows that their victories are not either easy or inevitable, that some of
the greatest contests will be lost, that some of the great Ship Masters will
be slain and skinned by their adversaries, that the adversaries are very
strong.
These adversariea are people of stunning impact, of massive mystery,
of overpowering personality, of unmatchable courage. Give them all of that.
So it is in the group understanding, and so it is in reality.
Among the most shatteriiig of the Adversaries is that group known is
The Evil prince, the Purple Prince, the Mocking Prince, the Laughing Prince.
The most powerful and trickiest of all these adversaries may well be the
Laughing Prince of Tartary.
Except for a very short interlude it Wien, all the Argonauts had
always been able to tell right from wrong very clearly, and they had always
supported the right. They were Commando Experts of a sort, in a battle
against evil things, and all of them served tours of duty at this heroic
labor. They ransacked minds and seas and realms in their efforts, and they
brought strength of character and lively imagination to bear.
The Argo did, very often, sail clear outside of the cosmos, and it
did also sail on the insides of minds and persons and it learned of the
dangerous reefs and promontories that are within. If the Argonauts ever
became confused as to 'where' or 'on which side', there was an Instruction
in the clart room of The Argo to set them right. Even when, several times,
The Argo had been in evil hands and ownership, the chart room and its
instruction were not disturbed.
There were, of course, gray areas that they traveled on their tours, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
