Turned Adrift Part 6

Then, while I was goin' through my pockets, huntin' for something else, I comes across this here letter, and opened it. And I tell you, Mister, that there was news in it that made me sit up and feel mighty anxious all of a sudden to get away round to the Pacific as quick as possible.

And it made me feel, too, that I wisht I had three or four more men along. So if your chaps are willin' to sign on with me I'll be glad to have 'em. Pay--well, they're good men, you tell me--say, twenty a month."

I glanced forward and saw that all three of the men were on deck, smoking, and chatting with the two hands who, with the man at the wheel, const.i.tuted the watch.

"They are on deck, I see," said I. "If you like I will mention your proposal to them, and see how they take it."

"I'll take it very kindly if you will, Mister," answered the skipper; and without more ado I beckoned them to join me in the waist, where I laid the skipper's offer before them, while the Old Man himself and Cunningham remained chatting animatedly together close by the companion, where much of the foregoing conversation had taken place upon our adjournment from the breakfast table.

I soon found that, with the careless, happy-go-lucky temperament of the British merchant sailor, all three men were perfectly willing to s.h.i.+p for the voyage--about which they had already heard something from the forecastle hands with whom they had been fraternising--especially when I told them that I had been offered the position of mate and felt strongly disposed to accept it; and accordingly I led them aft there and then, and informed the skipper that we all accepted his offer, and without further ado we went below and signed articles.

When, after signing, we all returned to the deck, and the three English seamen had gone forward, Cunningham came up to me and said, laughingly:

"You will be interested to learn, Temple, that our worthy friend here, Captain Brown, has also offered me a post, which I have accepted. As nearly as I can define it, the position is that of honorary second mate; it carries with it no pay, but in lieu of that I am to be perfectly free to leave the schooner whenever I please, and am to live in the cabin, receive cabin rations, and obtain, free of cost, an entirely new outfit of clothes from the slop chest. What do you think of my bargain?"

"I consider it a very fair one," said I, "with perhaps a slight advantage in favour of the skipper. For although of course he could doubtless do perfectly well without you, your grub and a new rig-out will not cost him very much; and in return for that he will get--as long as you choose to remain with us--the ability to sleep in all night with a perfectly easy mind: for I can a.s.sure the captain," and I here turned to that individual, who was standing by, intently listening to all that was said, "that although you are not a professional seaman you are quite sailor enough to take care of this schooner during your watch. Also you are a man of intellect and education, well-read, musical, and with an inexhaustible fund of intensely interesting conversation, so that I think Captain Brown will find in you a very agreeable companion."

"Ay, ay, you've just hit it, Temple," cut in the skipper. "That's just what I thought when I was listenin' to you two fellers talkin' at breakfast-time. Says I to myself: 'Now, here's two chaps with the speech and manners of gentlefolks, chaps as can hold their own with anybody when it comes to talkin', and yet they're sailors too--at least one of 'em is; and if you, Eph Brown, what have never had no more eddication than what you could pick up, could only persuade them two to jine yer in this here v'yage, you'd have such a chance as you've never had before to learn gentlefolks' manners, to talk proper, and ginerally to comport yourself in such a fas.h.i.+on as'd make your dear old Marthy fit to bust herself with pride to see and hear ye when ye get back home again, 'specially as you hopes to strike it rich this trip.' So there you are, gents: you can call me Cap'n as often as you likes--it sounds good, and makes me feel as though I was some punkins--but otherwise I'd like you to talk to me and behave to me just as if we was all eq'als; and whenever you hear me makin' a bad slip up in the matter of language, I'll take it very kindly of ye if you'll just pull me up with a round turn and p'int out where I've gone wrong."

It was rather an amusing proposal, certainly, for a s.h.i.+pmaster to make to his officers, but the old fellow was so transparently frank in recognising his shortcomings, and so earnestly anxious to have them remedied, that both Cunningham and I entered quite heartily into the spirit of the thing, and readily undertook to do everything that lay in our power to polish up his manners and speech in readiness for the surprise which he proposed to spring upon his "dear old Marthy" upon his return to Baltimore.

CHAPTER SIX.

SKIPPER BROWN RELATES A REMARKABLE STORY.

"And now, gents," said the skipper, when we had satisfactorily arranged the important and rather delicate matter referring to the improvement of his speech and deportment, "I'm sorter hankerin' to have a talk with you both about that there letter I was tellin' you of a while ago--the letter that was handed to me just as we was makin' a start from Baltimore, and that I forgot all about until we was fairly out to sea.

"This here letter told me--But stop a bit; if I want you to understand the thing properly, and I surely do, I guess I'll have to give you the whole history of it from the very beginnin'. Along about three months ago, just after I'd got home from my last v'yage, I happened to have a bit of business to attend to that called for a trip over to New York; and when I'd got through with what I had to do, the fancy took me to stay over for a day or two and have a look round, me not havin' been in New York for quite a number of years before, you'll understand. And while I was doin' my lookin' around I must needs go nosin', like a fool, down into the Bowery. And down there I runs up agin a ragged skeleton that looks me hard in the face and hails me with: 'h.e.l.lo, Eph Brown, what cheer? Blamed if you ain't the very chap that I've been most wantin' to see.'

"I guess I was pretty well struck of a heap, for I didn't reckernise the chap from Adam; all I noticed was that he didn't seem to ha' had a bath since his mother give him one as a baby, that he was dressed in clo'es that ought by rights to have belonged to a scarecrow, that he was that thin and cadaverous he might have just escaped from the Morgue, and that his breath was reekin' of cheap whisky.

"'Now, who in Tom Hawkins may you be?' says I; for, you see, the feller knowed my name all right, yet, seein' where we was, and what the man looked like, I sorter suspicioned that he wasn't exactly square, and was tryin' to get at me.

"'What!' he says; 'd'ye mean to say as ye don't remember me--Abe Johnson--what used to play with yer in the old days when we was boys together away in dear old Nantucket?'--Nantucket, you'll understand, gents, bein' the place where I was born.

"'No,' says I, 'I don't, and that's the cold, solid truth. But if you're really Abe Johnson you'll remember the names of a few people in Nantucket, and a few of the things that we done together. Where, f'r instance, did I live when you knew me?'

"Well, he told me where I lived, give me the names of a lot of people that we both used to know, and reminded me of a good many things that we done together that I'd clean forgot all about until he mentioned 'em.

Oh yes, he was Abe, sure; and when he see that he'd satisfied me upon that p'int, he told me a real downright pitiful tale, and struck me for ten dollars. He was right away down on his luck, he said; and I guess he was speakin' the truth, if looks went for anything.

"Now, Abe never had amounted to much when I knew him; he was just a low-down, ornery cuss every way that you looked at him. But I was al'ays a bit tender-hearted, and I sorter pitied the feller; so a'ter I pa.s.sed over the ten-spot to him I took him into a restyrong and filled him up with a good square meal. And while we was eatin' he told me a long yarn about what he'd been doin'; how he'd tried fust one thing and then another, and had finally took to the sea. And it seemed that his bad luck had follered him there, for he'd ended up by bein' s.h.i.+pwrecked upon one of them uncharted reefs that you runs up agin sometimes in the Pacific, he bein' the only survivor out of the whole crowd. If he was tellin' me the truth he must ha' had a pretty rough time on that reef, for he described it as bein' as bare as the back of your hand, with nothin' to eat but birds' eggs and clams, and only a small, tricklin'

stream of brackish, scarcely drinkable water to quench his thirst with.

And he was on that there reef five solid months afore a whaler comed along and, seein' his signals, took him off, and later transferred him to another s.h.i.+p that brought him home.

"Now when Abe had got this far with his yarn he begun to get mysterious, sunk his voice to a whisper, and asked if he could trust me. I told him that he best knew whether he could or not, and that anyway, if the thing was a secret, I didn't want to hear anything about it.

"'Ah, but,' says he, 'there's a fortune in it--a fortune for both of us, Eph, if I can only trust you.'

"'Well,' I says, 'as I told ye before, that's for you to decide. But if you're agoin' to trust me, get along with your trustin', for I reckon I've had about enough of this 'ere place; I don't like the looks of the folks I sees around me, not a little bit, and I'm growin' sorter keen to get out of it.'

"'All right,' he says, 'let's git.' So we got, and made our way to Central Park, where we found a seat in a quiet, secluded spot, and sat ourselves down. And there, a'ter sayin' as he'd got a secret that he must share with somebody if he was to get any good out of it, and that I was the only reely honest feller he knowed, Abe up and told me how, a'ter he'd built a bit of a raft out of some of the wreckage of the s.h.i.+p, so's he could go off fis.h.i.+n' in her, he one day happened to hit upon a big bed of pearl-oysters, thousan's--millions of 'em! He sorter guessed what they was when he first set eyes on 'em, as he looked down through the clear green water, and tried to get down to 'em by divin'.

But that wa'n't no good; the water was too deep--a good five fathom he said there was over 'em--and then there was sharks about too. So he unlaid a bit o' rope from the wreckage, knocked some nails out o' some o' the timber that had druv ash.o.r.e, and fixed up a sorter small grapple, with which he went gropin' out on this here oyster bed. But the thing wasn't of much account, accordin' to what Abe himself said. First he'd got to git it just so over a oyster afore it'd take holt; and then, when he'd hooked one, as often as not the blamed thing'd let go agin afore he got the oyster up out o' water: consequently it come to this, that with all his gropin' he only managed to land four oysters altogether. But out of them four two had pearls in 'em, one bein' as big as a small marble, while the others was little 'uns--three of 'em--'bout the size of cherry stones.

"Well, he took care of them there pearls, and managed to bring 'em home with him. And then, 'stead of takin' of 'em to a respectable jeweller, he must needs try to trade 'em off to a Chinaman! Of course you can guess what happened. The c.h.i.n.k purtended that he was game to buy, took Abe to his house--leastways the c.h.i.n.k said it was his--doped Abe, stole the pearls, and vamoosed!

"Then, a few days a'terwards, along comes I; and when Abe reckernised me he made up his mind in a minute what he'd do. First of all he offered to sell me the secret of the whereabouts of the oyster bed for fifty thousand dollars! Only fifty thousand, mind yer, and nothin' but his bare word for it that there was so much as a single oyster in the place!

I got up to go away and leave him; and then he asked me if I was game to go shares with him--he to give me the secret, I to go out to the Pacific and fish up the pearls, and the two of us to divide equally when I got back home again. Well, that was somethin' more like a business proposition, and after a lot o' talk I agreed; and he give me the lat.i.tood and longitood of the place right there, afore I left him, I givin' him a hundred dollars on account, to carry him along a bit until he could get a job. Then I went back home to Baltimore and began to figure upon the best way to work the scheme. I wa'n't rich enough to make the trip purely as a speculation, so at last I hit upon the sandalwood idea, which I reckon'll pay the expenses of the v'yage and return me a profit, even if I don't find nary a pearl, although I've a very good notion that they're where Abe said they was. The next thing I did was to get a few p'ints upon the ins-and-outs of sandalwood tradin'; and when I'd done that I started out to get my stock of notions, overhaul the schooner and make her ready for the v'yage, and look about for a crew of men that I could be sure wouldn't play no tricks after we'd got hold of the pearls.

"We sailed from Baltimore the day a'ter Christmas, and, as we was castin' off, this here letter that I told ye about was handed aboard.

And when I come to open it, what d'ye think was the news in it? Reckon you'll never guess. I've got a cousin 'way over in Nantucket--he's pretty well-to-do--and findin' myself runnin' a bit short o' money when it come to fittin' out the schooner, I went over to him, told him all about Abe and the pearls, and asked him to lend me a thousand dollars to leave with my old Marthy, to keep her goin' while I was away. He knows me, and let me have the dollars straight away. Well, this here letter was from him; and what it said was that he was writin' in a hurry to tell me that he'd just heard, quite by accident, that Abe was dead--died in hospital in New York, havin' been run over and fatally injured by an express wagon two days a'ter I'd left him. And--this is where the trouble comes in--afore he died he sent post-haste for his brother-in-law, Abner Sloc.u.m, to go to him to oncet, as he had somethin'

most terrible partic'lar to tell him. Abner went; and although my cousin don't know what Abe told him, he guesses it had somethin' to do with the pearls, because when Abner got back after buryin' Abe he went to work in a most tremenjous hurry to get his schooner, the _Kingfisher_, ready for sea, observin' the greatest secrecy about it, and refusin' to say what the hurry was, or where he was boun' to. But he was layin' in such a big stock of provisions and water that people got talkin' about it; and that was how my cousin got to hear what was goin' on. But he didn't get to hear of it until just at the very last, which was on the day that the _Kingfisher_ went to sea, which was two days before Christmas! So, you see, this Abner Sloc.u.m was in such a tarnation hurry to git away that he wouldn't even wait to spend Christmas with his wife and kiddies. Now, what d'ye make of that yarn?"

"Well," said Cunningham, "I am bound to admit, Captain, that it looks very much as though your friend Abe, finding himself upon his deathbed, had sent for his brother-in-law and divulged to him the secret of the oyster bed. Probably when he found himself dying, and realised that he could derive no personal benefit from his discovery, he wished that the wealth should go to his own family."

"That's how I figure it out," agreed the skipper. "But I reckon that my claim's just as good as Abner's, Abe havin' entered into a business agreement with me. Besides, it isn't as though Abner'd make good use of the money when he'd got it. I know Abner Sloc.u.m through and through, and I tell you, gents, that he's out-and-out the very worst character in all Nantucket--a real, downright hard case, and--well, everything that's bad; and if he happens to get any o' them pearls he'll just drink hisself to death in three months, and most likely kill his wife into the bargain."

"Then in that case," said I, "it seems to me that it will be a great deal better that he should not have any of them."

"Well, that's just my view of it too," agreed the skipper. "But I guess he's goin' to do his level best to get hold of 'em," he continued. "I reckon that Abe must ha' told him that he'd parted with his secret to me, and that I was fittin' out to go in search of them there oysters, and that's the reason why he was so all-fired anxious to get to sea before me. And as a matter o' fact he did it; he sailed three clear days ahead of me, and must ha' been just about off Cape Henry when we cleared it. So it's a race between the two schooners which'll get there fust, and, barrin' accidents, I reckon it's goin' to be a neck-and-neck one, for the _Kingfisher's_ the smartest schooner sailin' out o'

Nantucket; and although Abner Sloc.u.m's such a downright 'bad man' I'll say this for him--there ain't a better seaman sailin' under 'Old Glory'

than what he is.

"Now, gents, this here is my idee. I'm agoin' to carry on, night and day, to get to that there spot in the Pacific where them pearls be; and when I gets there I'm goin' to sc.r.a.pe up as many oysters as ever I can lay hands on. And when I've got 'em, and have realised upon 'em, I shall look upon half of the proceeds as belongin' to Abe, or--he bein'

dead--his heirs. But I mean to take partic'ler care that, let the heirs be who they may, that skunk Abner don't touch a penny of the money. If it turns out that Abner's children is the heirs, then I'm goin' to app'int trustees to look a'ter the money for 'em until a'ter Abner's dead, and then they can have it."

"Bravo, Captain!" exclaimed Cunningham, patting the skipper approvingly on the back. "A most wise and honourable decision to have arrived at, I call it; and, so far as I am concerned, I'll do all I can to help you to carry it out. By the way, how do you propose to obtain the oysters when you arrive at the spot where, according to your friend Abe, they are to be found?"

"How do I intend to get 'em?" repeated the skipper. "Why, with a trawl, of course. I've got some specially strong trawlin' gear aboard, made o'

purpose for the job."

"I see," commented Cunningham. "It did not occur to you to get any diving gear, I suppose?"

"Well--no, it didn't, and that's a fact," answered the skipper. "But I guess we'll find that the trawl'll work all right," he added cheerfully.

"Yes, no doubt," agreed Cunningham. "But of course," he added, "the diving system would have worked very much more rapidly, because, you see, if you had happened to possess a set of diving gear you could have anch.o.r.ed the schooner right over the bed, sent your diver down with two large sacks, or nets, and while he filled one you could have hauled up the other and emptied it into the bins or barrels ranged round the decks in readiness to be conveyed ash.o.r.e and emptied after the day's work on the bed was over. In that manner you could have secured several thousands of oysters daily."

"Ay, I reckon we could. But I guess we'll have to be content to work with the trawl, seein' that we've neither divin' gear nor diver aboard,"

replied the skipper, rather regretfully.

"Well, I am not quite so sure about that," observed Cunningham thoughtfully. "I have the germ of an idea in my head, and will see if I cannot develop it. Do you happen to have any rubber hose on board?"

"Sure!" replied the skipper. "Got a hundred feet of brand new hose for was.h.i.+n' decks with. It's a bit extravagant, I know, but I 'low it'll pay in the long run."

"It most certainly will, and very handsomely too, if I can put my idea into shape. Have you used the hose at all yet?" asked Cunningham.

"Used it every mornin' since we left Baltimore," replied the skipper.

"Then let me earnestly beg you not to use it any more, just for the present at least," entreated the engineer.