Turned Adrift Part 5

"No, he ain't; he's gone aft to get his gla.s.s. Yes, that's it; and now he's bringin' it to bear upon us. Wave, Sails, wave, you s...o...b..nk, for all you're worth. Yes; that's--Hurrah! it's all right, bullies, they're not agoin' to leave us behind; they're chaps of the right sort, they are! See that, Mr Temple? There's in stuns'ls; they're agoin' to shorten sail and round-to, to pick us up. But they seem to be thunderin' short-handed. They'll be past us and away to loo'ard long afore they can get them stuns'ls in. Better bear up and run down afore it, hadn't we, sir, so's not to keep 'em waitin'?"

The suggestion was a good one, for they had at least two studdingsails-- those set on the starboard side--to take in before they could round-to, and from the rate at which they were getting the first in I could see that, as Murdock had said, the little vessel would run past us before they could get in the other. So I put up the helm and bore away, easing off the sheet, and when we were running off square before the wind I began to edge the boat gradually in toward the line of the schooner's course. By this manoeuvre we gave them a little more time to shorten sail, since we were still about a mile ahead of them and were now travelling in the same direction as themselves, although the schooner was fast overhauling us. But by the time that she was abreast of us, and only about a hundred feet distant, both her starboard studdingsails were in, and she was ready to round-to. Then a man came to the rail and hailed us.

"Boat ahoy!" he shouted. "I guess you're s.h.i.+pwrecked, ain't you, and want to be picked up."

"Ay, ay, sir," I answered; "that is so. May we run alongside?"

"Sure!" he replied heartily. "I'll come to the wind on the starboard tack, when you can pa.s.s under my starn and come alongside at the lee gangway."

I waved my hand by way of thanks and to show that I understood, and let run the sheet of the lug to allow him to draw ahead and take room to round-to; and presently he eased down his helm and brought the schooner to the wind, keeping his yards square and hauling his jib sheets over to windward to check the little vessel's way. We were thus afforded an excellent view of the craft, and a little beauty she was, as clean built and finely modelled as a yacht--for which, indeed, she might easily have been mistaken, except for the fact that her sails were not big enough.

She was painted all black from her rail to her copper, with the bust of a woman, painted white, for a figurehead, and the name _Martha Brown_, with the word Baltimore--her port of registry--painted in white letters on her stern. She appeared to be in little more than deep-ballast trim, and I began to wonder whither she was bound even before we got alongside her.

The getting alongside required a little management, for there was a fair amount of swell running, and the schooner was rolling heavily; but we managed it all right, and were met at the gangway, upon boarding the little vessel, by the individual who had hailed us. He was a typical Yankee, tall, thin, and somewhat cadaverous-looking as to features, with a clean-shaven upper lip, a short goatee beard, and light hair, slightly touched with grey, worn so long that it came down over the collar of his coat, which was of faded blue cloth, adorned with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons. His trousers were braced up high enough to reveal his ankles, and he wore a pair of ancient red morocco slippers upon his otherwise naked feet. His head was adorned with a peakless cap of what looked like wolfskin, fitted with a pair of flaps to tie down over the ears, but now fastened together at the crown.

Although the man presented a distinctly quaint ensemble, there was a genial, kindly twinkle in his eyes that caused me to take to him on the spot as he extended his hand and said, with a slight drawl and a strong Yankee accent:

"Walcome, strangers, to the _Marthy Brown_. I guess you've been havin'

a rough time by the looks of you. How long, now, have ye been knockin'

about in that boat?"

"This is our fifth day in her, Mr--er--er--" I answered.

"I reckon you're gropin' around after my name, Mister," he interrupted.

"It's Ephraim Brown--very ginerally razeed down to Eph by my friends-- and I'm master and owner of this here schooner, named a'ter my old woman away back to Baltimore. I guess your name is--"

"Mark Temple," I hastened to reply. "My companions are respectively Mr Edward Cunningham, late a cuddy pa.s.senger aboard the British barque _Zen.o.bia_--of which vessel I was one of the apprentices; William Murdock, boatswain; Joseph Parsons, carpenter; and James Simpson, sailmaker, all of the same s.h.i.+p."

"I'm downright glad to meet you all," replied Mr Ephraim Brown, shaking hands all round again with much cordiality. Then he stepped to the taffrail and looked down at the gig, which had been pa.s.sed astern.

"I guess that's a very tidy-lookin' boat of yourn, and there don't seem to be nothin' partic'lar the matter with her. I reckon she's quite worth hoistin' in, ain't she, Mister?" he remarked.

"Yes, indeed she is," I replied. "She has brought us safely through some pretty heavy weather, and I should be very sorry to see her cast adrift."

"Cast adrift nothin'! That ain't old Eph Brown's way," retorted the skipper briskly. "Is she very heavy?"

"On the contrary, she is an exceedingly light boat when empty," I replied.

"Ah!" remarked my interlocutor. "Then I guess we'll have all that stuff--your stock of provisions, I reckon--out of her, and then we'll uns.h.i.+p the lee gangway and run her inboard fisherman fas.h.i.+on. It'll be quicker than riggin' tackles; and I'm in an almighty big hurry." He faced forward and hailed a couple of his men. "You, Sam and Pete, lay aft here and lend a hand to get the stuff out of this boat."

"But there is no need to trouble your people, Captain," I interrupted.

"We will empty her ourselves in a brace of shakes. Murdock and Chips, just jump down into the gig and pa.s.s those things out of her. Haul her close up under the counter, and we will pa.s.s you down a rope's end over the taffrail to sling them to."

"Yes, I guess that'll do the trick," agreed the skipper. "And you, Sam and Pete," he continued, turning to the two men who still lingered, "turn-to and uns.h.i.+p the lee gangway, ready to run the boat inboard when she's cleared. We'll stow her, right side up, alongside of the longboat."

A quarter of an hour later saw the gig hauled inboard and snugly stowed, after which the _Martha Brown_ was kept away upon her course and the studdingsails were rehoisted, our boatswain, carpenter, and sailmaker lending a hand, while Cunningham and I remained aft, chatting with our new friend. As the last rope was belayed the skipper stepped to the skylight, peered down through it, and then turned and struck eight bells. Almost immediately afterward a lad emerged from the cabin companion, went forward to the little galley, and presently reappeared bearing a large covered dish in one hand and a capacious coffee-pot in the other.

"Aha!" exclaimed Brown, smacking his lips in antic.i.p.ation, "breakfast; and I guess it smells good. Now I reckon that you 'uns have been upon pretty short commons this last few days, and'll be in good shape to enj'y a square meal. I guess you two'll have to mess in the cabin along o' me; the hands for'ard'll look a'ter the rest of your crowd."

At the skipper's invitation Cunningham and I forthwith followed him below to an exceeding small but very comfortable cabin, upon the tiny table of which was set out a quite unexpectedly enticing meal, to which Brown helped us both with most hospitable liberality. For a little while we ate and drank in silence; but presently, when we had taken the keen edge off our appet.i.tes, our kindly host asked for details of the circ.u.mstances under which we had come to be knocking about in mid-ocean in an open boat.

"Waal, I'll be sugared!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, after I had related to him in detail the incidents connected with the seizure of the _Zen.o.bia_ by her crew, under the leaders.h.i.+p of Bainbridge; "if that don't beat everything! And you say that the skunk means to set up in business as a pirate? But is this here barque of yourn armed? Do she mount any guns?

Because, if she don't, how do that crowd of toughs reckon they're goin'

to hold up and rob a s.h.i.+p?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I haven't the slightest notion," I replied; "but, knowing Bainbridge so well as I do, I have no doubt that he has a scheme of some sort in his head."

"Waal," agreed the skipper, "if he's pretty cute he may p'rhaps bluff a skipper or two; but I guess he'll very soon be euchred--a man-o'-war'll nab him afore he can say 'Jack Robinson'. And now," he continued, "about you 'uns. From things said while you was spinnin' that yarn of the mutiny I seemed to get a sort of notion that you'd like me to put ye ash.o.r.e as soon as possible. Is that the idee?"

"Precisely," I said. "Mr Cunningham, here, naturally wishes to return to England with as little delay as may be; and as for myself, I am equally anxious, because, until I can get into touch with the owners of the _Zen.o.bia_, and be placed by them in another s.h.i.+p, I am losing time."

"I see," commented the skipper meditatively; "yes, I reckon I kinder understand the situation. By the by, did you say, just now, that you was a purty good navigator, or did I only fancy it?"

"I don't remember having exactly said such a thing," I replied; "but possibly I may have implied as much. Anyhow, I think I am justified in saying that I am navigator enough to take a s.h.i.+p from any one part of the world to any other."

"Ah!" returned the skipper; "I had an idee that I'd understood as much.

Now, then, just listen to me. I guess I can't put ye ash.o.r.e until we arrives at Punta Arenas, away down there in the Magellan Straits, because the solid fact is that I'm in a most tarnation, all-fired hurry to get into the Pacific. Of course I'll be very willin' to trans.h.i.+p ye into a homeward-bounder, if we happens to fall in with one--and you really wants to go. But I've been thinkin' matters over a bit while we've been talkin', and I've a proposition to make that maybe'll suit ye just as well as goin' back to the old country. I s'pose you've noticed that I haven't got nary a mate with me?"

"Well," I confessed, "to tell you the truth, I've been wondering how it is that I have not yet seen him."

"You ha'n't seen him because I guess he ain't here to see," remarked the skipper. "I been unfort'nit in the matter o' mates this trip," he continued. "My reg'lar mate what always sails with me is my nevvy, Abr'am Brown, as slick a youngster as ever I wish to see. But he met with an accident the day before we sailed; trod on a banana peel, fell awk'ardly, broke his right leg, had to go to the hospital, and I had to look round in a hurry for somebody to take his place. Got a chap that looked all right; but we hadn't been to sea above forty-eight hours when he made a bad break--got so tarnation drunk that I couldn't get him out of his bunk for a night and a day. And a'ter that he kept on soakin' on the sly--though where he got the liquor from I couldn't find out to save my life--until things come to such a pa.s.s that if it hadn't been that I was in such a tarnation hurry I'd have put in somewhere and fired him.

Wisht I had, now. But I didn't; and the end of it was that he went crazy, jumped overboard, and was drowned, one dark night when we'd been out just three weeks.

"Now, my proposition is this. You look real smart, and are a good navigator, while I'm short of a mate. If you care to accept the position I'll sign ye on at the same rate of pay--namely, thirty dollars a month--that the other chap was gettin'. Now, what d'ye say?"

"But I don't even know yet where you are bound for, or what is the probable duration of the voyage," I objected. "Naturally I should like to know these particulars before binding myself."

"Sure," agreed the skipper, in nowise offended at my apparent hesitation. "Well then," he continued, "I'm boun' for a certain spot in the Pacific, for a certain very partic'lar reason: and if you agree to sign on I'll tell ye the reason, and just exactly where the spot is; but if you don't sign on it won't matter to you where I'm goin', or what I'm out after. That's one of the reasons for this here v'yage. T'other is to trade off a lot of truck what I've got down below, for sandalwood.

And when I've got a full cargo of the wood I propose to go on to Canton, sell it, and buy tea with the proceeds; said tea to be sold in due course at New York, where the v'yage will end. And I reckon that the trip'll run into all of eight or nine months."

"And a jolly fine trip it will be," remarked Cunningham. "I wish I had your chance, Temple; I would take it like a shot."

"You don't say?" remarked the skipper, eyeing Cunningham earnestly.

"But then, you see, you ain't a sailor," he observed.

"No, that is very true," returned Cunningham. "By profession I am a civil engineer. But I am also a keen yachtsman; and I know something more than the rudiments of navigation. But of course," he added hastily, "I have not the qualifications which would fit me for the berth that you are offering to Temple."

"N-o; I reckon not," agreed the skipper meditatively. "Still--p'rhaps I might be able to find a use for ye--if ye cared to come along--upon such terms as I could see my way to offer ye."

"Well," remarked Cunningham, with a laugh, "we can discuss that later on--if Temple accepts your offer."

Meanwhile I had been thinking rapidly. There was no very especial reason why I should return to England at once, for I had no relatives to be anxious over my disappearance, the only individuals who were in the least interested in me being my late father's trustees, to whom I could write from Punta Arenas. Then the voyage of the _Martha Brown_, as sketched by her skipper, rather appealed to me; sandalwood collecting meant a call at several of the South Sea Islands, and the South Sea Islands and romance were synonymous terms with me at that time. Also, the pay was good, exceptionally good for such a berth as that of mate of a ninety-ton schooner; and although I should probably sacrifice my indentures, that was a matter that gave me very little concern.

Altogether I felt very strongly disposed to close with Brown's offer, the only really serious obstacle in the way being the fact that I felt I had a duty to perform to the three seamen who had formed part of our little company in the gig. First-rate fellows they were, all three of them, knowing their vocation to its smallest detail, and thoroughly at home aboard a s.h.i.+p in blue water, though ash.o.r.e they were as guileless and helpless as babes, ready to fall an easy prey to the first land shark that got scent of them. If I could be sure of arranging at Punta Arenas for their conveyance to England, either as s.h.i.+pwrecked seamen or otherwise, and thus discharging my responsibility so far as they were concerned, I would not hesitate for a moment. I decided to put the matter to the skipper, and did so, there and then.

"Ah!" he said, "I was goin' to speak to you about them there men of yourn. D'ye think they'd be inclined to sign on with me for this here v'yage?"

"Really, I do not know in the least," I replied, regarding him with astonishment. "If you like I will--"

"It's like this, you see," he interrupted me, no doubt observing my look of surprise. "There's six hands in this here schooner's fo'c'sle--three to each watch; and when I s.h.i.+pped 'em I reckoned that with me, the mate, the cook, and the cabin boy there'd be plenty of us for all the work we'd have to do. But just when we was startin'--we was actually castin'

off the warps at the time--a letter was handed to me that, bein' busy just then, I put into my pocket and forgot all about until a couple of days a'terwards, when we'd cleared Cape Henry and was fairly out to sea.