A Memory Of The Southern Seas Part 2

"I'm waiting for the water-boat; but otherwise I'm ready to sail."

"Well, what is it then?"

"I want to know if it is a fact that you will not employ married men as captains?"

"It is."

"Will you make no exception in my favour?"

"No."

"I have been five years in your employ as mate and master of the _Harvest Home_, and I am about to marry."

"Do as you please, but the day you marry you leave my service."

The young man's face flushed. "Then you can give me my money, and I'll leave it to-day."

"Very well. Sit down," replied the old man, reaching for his wages book.

"There are sixty pounds due to you," he said; "go on board and wait for me. I'll be there at twelve o'clock with the new man, and we'll go through the stores and spare gear together. If everything is right, I'll pay your sixty pounds--if not, I'll deduct for whatever is short. Good morning."

At two o'clock in the afternoon Captain Tom Lester landed at Circular Quay with his effects and sixty sovereigns in his pocket.

Leaving his baggage at an hotel he took a cab, drove to a quiet little street in the suburb of Darling Point, and stopped at a quaint, old-fas.h.i.+oned cottage surrounded by a garden.

The door was opened by a tall, handsome girl of about twenty-two.

"Tom!"

"Lucy!" he replied, mimicking her surprised tone. Then he became grave, and leading her to a seat, sat beside her, and took her hand.

"Lucy, I have bad news. Rod way dismissed me this morning, and I have left the s.h.i.+p."

The girl's eyes filled. "Never mind, Tom. You will get another."

"Ah, perhaps I might have to wait a long time. I have another plan.

Where is Mrs. Warren? I must tell her that our marriage must be put off."

"Why should it, Tom? I don't want it to be put off. And neither does she."

"But I have no home for you."

"We can live here until we have one of our own. Mother will be only too happy."

"Sure?"

"Absolutely, or I would not say it."

"Will you marry me this day week?"

"Yes, dear--today if you wish. We have waited two years."

"You're a brave little woman, Lucy," and he kissed her. "Now, here is my plan. I can raise nearly a thousand pounds. I shall buy the _Dolphin_ steam tug--I can get her on easy terms of payment--fill her with coal and stores, and go to Kent's Group in Ba.s.s's Straits, and try and refloat the _Braybrook Castle_. I saw the agents and the insurance people this morning--immediately after I left old Bodway. If I float her, it will mean a lot of money for me. If I fail, I shall at least make enough to pay me well by breaking her up. The insurance people know me, and said very nice things to me."

"Will you take me, Tom?"

"Don't tempt me, Lucy. It will be a rough life, living on an almost barren, rocky island, inhabited only by black snakes, albatrosses, gulls and seals."

"Tom, you _must_. Come, let us tell mother."

Three days later they were married, and at six o'clock in the evening the newly-made bride was standing beside her husband on the bridge of the _Dolphin_, which was steaming full speed towards Sydney Heads, loaded down almost to the waterways with coals and stores for four months.

CHAPTER II

Two months had pa.s.sed, and the st.u.r.dy _Dolphin_ was lying snugly at anchor in a small, well-sheltered cove on one of the Kent's Group of islands. Less than a hundred yards away was one of the rudest attempts at a house ever seen--that is, externally--for it was built with wreckage from many s.h.i.+ps and was roofed with tarpaulins and coa.r.s.e "albatross" gra.s.s. Seated on a stool outside the building was Mrs.

Lester, engaged in feeding a number of noisy fowls with broken-up biscuit, but looking every now and then towards the _Braybrook Cattle_, which lay on the rocks a mile away with only her lower masts standing.

It was nearing the time when her husband and his men would be returning from their usual day's arduous toil. She rose, shook the biscuit crumbs from her ap.r.o.n, and walking down to the _Dolphin_, anch.o.r.ed just in front of the house, called--"Manuel."

A black, woolly head appeared above the companion way, and Manuel, the cook of the wrecking party, came on deck, jumped into the dinghy alongside and sculled ash.o.r.e.

"Manuel, you know that all the men are having supper in the house to-night," she said, as the man--a good-natured Galveston negro--stepped on sh.o.r.e.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, I've done all _my_ share of the cooking--I've made two batches of bread, and the biggest sea pie you ever saw in your life, but I want two buckets of water from the spring."

"All right, ma'am. I'll tote 'em up fo' yo' right away.".

"Please do. And I'll come with you. Captain Lester and the others won't be here for half an hour yet, and I want to show you some curious-looking stuff I saw on the beach this morning. It looks like dirty soap mixed with black sh.e.l.ls, like fowl's beaks."

The negro's face displayed a sudden interest. "Mixed with sh.e.l.ls, yo'

say, ma'am. Did yo' touch it?"

"No--it looks too unpleasant."

The negro picked up the buckets, and, followed by Mrs. Lester, set out along a path which led to a rocky pool of some dimensions filled with rain water.. "Leave the buckets till we come back, Manuel We have not far to go."

She led the way to the beach, and then turning to the left walked along the hard, white sand till they came to a bar of low rocks covered with sea-moss and lichen. Lying against the seaward face of the rock was a pile of driftweed, kelp, crayfish sh.e.l.ls, &c, and half buried in _debris_ was the object that had aroused her curiosity.

"There it is, Manuel," she said, pointing to an irregularly-shaped ma.s.s of a mottled grey, yellow and brown substance, looking like soap, mixed with cinders and ashes.

The negro whipped out his sheath knife, plunged it into the ma.s.s, then withdrew it, pressed the flat of the blade to his nostrils, and then uttered a yell of delight, clapped his hands, took off his cap and tossed it in the air, and rolled his eyes in such an extraordinary manner, that Mrs. Lester thought he had become suddenly insane.

"Yo' am rich woman now, ma'am," he said in his thick, fruity voice. "Dat am ambergris. I know it well 'nuff. I was cook on a whales.h.i.+p fo' five years, and have handled little bits of ambergris two or three times, but no one in de world, I believe, ever see such a lump like dis."

"Is it worth anything then?"