Casabianca

by James Baldwin

　　

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There was a great battle at sea. One could hear nothing but the roarof the big guns. The air was filled with black smoke. The water wasstrewn with broken masts and pieces of timber which the cannon ballshad knocked from the ships. Many men had been killed, and many morehad been wounded.The flag-ship had taken fire. The flames were breaking out from below.The deck was all ablaze. The men who were left alive made haste tolaunch a small boat. They leaped into it, and rowed swiftly away. Anyother place was safer now than on board of that burning ship. Therewas powder in the hold.But the captain's son, young Ca-sa-bi-an´ca, still stood upon thedeck. The flames were almost all around him now; but he would not stirfrom his post. His father had bidden him stand there, and he had beentaught always to obey. He trusted in his father's word, and be-lievedthat when the right time came he would tell him to go.He saw the men leap into the boat. He heard them call to him to come.He shook his head."When father bids me, I will go," he said.And now the flames were leaping up the masts. The sails were allablaze. The fire blew hot upon his cheek. It scorched his hair. It wasbefore him, behind him, all around him."O father!" he cried, "may I not go now? The men have all left theship. Is it not time that we too should leave it?"He did not know that his father was lying in the burning cabin below,that a cannon ball had struck him dead at the very be-gin-ning of thefight. He listened to hear his answer."Speak louder, father!" he cried. "I cannot hear what you say."Above the roaring of the flames, above the crashing of the fallingspars, above the booming of the guns, he fancied that his father'svoice came faintly to him through the scorching air."I am here, father! Speak once again!" he gasped.But what is that?A great flash of light fills the air; clouds of smoke shoot quicklyupward to the sky; and--"Boom!"Oh, what a ter-rif-ic sound! Louder than thunder, louder than the roarof all the guns! The air quivers; the sea itself trembles; the sky isblack.The blazing ship is seen no more.There was powder in the hold!* * * * *A long time ago a lady, whose name was Mrs. Hemans, wrote a poem aboutthis brave boy Ca-sa-bi-an-ca. It is not a very well written poem, andyet everybody has read it, and thousands of people have learned it byheart. I doubt not but that some day you too will read it. It beginsin this way:-- "The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but him had fled; The flame that lit the battle's wreck Shone round him o'er the dead. "Yet beautiful and bright he stood, As born to rule the storm-- A creature of heroic blood, A proud though childlike form."

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