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Title: Dorymates - A Tale of the Fishing Banks
Author: Munroe, Kirk
Language: English
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[Illustration:
THE LITTLE FELLOW SMILED IN THE WEATHER-BEATEN FACE.
[_See page 15._
]
DORYMATES
A TALE OF THE FISHING BANKS
BY KIRK MUNROE
AUTHOR OF
“WAKULLA” “FLAMINGO FEATHER” “DERRICK STERLING” ETC.
=Illustrated=
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1903
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1889, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
CONTENTS.
-------
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A WAIF OF THE SEA 11
II. ON BOARD THE “CURLEW” 25
III. THE HAULING OF THE SEINE 37
IV. A SUDDEN DISASTER 51
V. SAVED BY ELECTRICITY 64
VI. THE GALE ON GEORGE’S 78
VII. A STRUGGLE FOR A LIFE 92
VIII. A FALSE FRIEND, AND AN OPEN ENEMY 105
IX. KIDNAPPED.--THE PROMISE 119
X. TRAWLS AND WHALES 132
XI. SURROUNDED BY ARCTIC ICE 145
XII. AN ICE CAVE AND ITS PRISONERS 159
XIII. LOST IN THE FOG 172
XIV. THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN BALL 186
XV. A WONDERFUL MEETING 200
XVI. NAVIGATING THE BRIG 213
XVII. OVERBOARD AND INBOARD 227
XVIII. NEWS FROM HOME 240
XIX. THE DEVIL-FISH OF FLEMISH CAP 253
XX. ON THE COAST OF ICELAND 266
XXI. TEMPTED FROM DUTY 279
XXII. THE STEAM-YACHT “SAGA” 292
XXIII. PONIES AND GEYSERS 306
XXIV. A DORYMATE’S HOME 319
XXV. STARTLING DISCOVERIES 332
XXVI. PROUD OF BEING A YANKEE 345
ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE LITTLE FELLOW SMILED IN THE WEATHER-BEATEN _Frontispiece._
FACE
“I CAME TO YOU FROM THE SEA,” HE SAID, PATTING HER _Faces page_ 28
THIN CHEEKS
“SEEMS TO ME I WOULDN’T FEEL SO BAD ABOUT IT IF I ” ” 44
WAS YOU”
“THAT GENTLEMAN THERE REFUSES TO RETURN A GOLD ” ” 52
BALL AND CHAIN THAT I HANDED HIM FOR
EXAMINATION”
IN ANOTHER MOMENT IT FLASHES FULL IN THE WHITE ” ” 68
FACES OF BREEZE M^cCLOUD AND HIS COMPANIONS
“YOU’RE CRAZY, LAD! YOU CAN’T LIVE A MINUTE IN ” ” 90
SUCH A SEA”
THERE WAS A LONG, FIRM HAND-CLASP BETWEEN THEM ” ” 98
“QUICK, NOW! LET’S GET HIM ABOARD THIS SCHOONER” ” ” 116
A LARGE WHALE ROSE TO THE SURFACE TO BLOW ” ” 140
IN A MINUTE MORE THEY HAD SNATCHED THE BUOY FROM ” ” 150
THE ICE-RAFT
AND THE TWO ATHLETIC YOUNG FELLOWS DREW THE ALMOST ” ” 166
HELPLESS FORM OF THEIR SHIPMATE SLOWLY BUT
STEADILY TO WHERE THEY STOOD
“BLOW, SONNY, BLOW!” CRIED ONE OF THE MEN ” ” 174
NOT A HUMAN BEING WAS TO BE SEEN ON BOARD OF HER, ” ” 198#
NOR DID THEIR HAIL RECEIVE ANY ANSWER
“ME AN’ DE CAP’N, WE’S BEEN HABIN’ A MONS’ROUS ” ” 204
HARD TIME”
“BLESS MY SOUL, IF IT ISN’T BREEZE M^cCLOUD!” ” ” 238
NIMBUS, RAISING HIM CLEAR OF THE DECK, HELD HIM AT ” ” 242
ARM’S-LENGTH ABOVE HIS HEAD
MATEO, WITH A HOWL OF DISMAY, HAD DARTED FORWARD ” ” 260
AND VANISHED IN THE FORECASTLE; WHILE NIMBUS,
WITH A YELL OF AFFRIGHT, HAD ROLLED AFT
THE FIRST VIEW OF ICELAND ” ” 266
THE YACHT CAME DIRECTLY TOWARDS THEM ” ” 288
BREEZE’S WELCOME TO THE ”SAGA” ” ” 292
“YOU OUGHT TO HAVE WORN A DIVING SUIT, NIMBUS,”
SAID BREEZE ” ” 310
THOSE ON BOARD THE GREAT STEAMER GAZED WITH ” ” 326
ADMIRATION AT THE DAINTY YACHT
BREEZE STARED IN AMAZEMENT AT WOLFE’S MOTHER ” ” 332
BREEZE’S WELCOME HOME ” ” 350
_Do you carry a dory, captain?
Do you carry a dory on your deck?
Manned by two bold fishermen,
To save a life or board a wreck._
_Landsmen cry, “Man the life-boat!” captain,
“Man the life-boat off our coast!”
But, captain, man the dory,
The fisherman’s glory,
The Banker’s pride and boast._
BY THE B. H. M.
DORYMATES:
A STORY OF THE FISHING BANKS.
CHAPTER I.
A WAIF OF THE SEA.
The fog had lifted, and a few stars were to be seen twinkling feebly;
but the wind was very light, and what there was of it was dead ahead.
There was a heavy swell rolling in from the eastward, but no sea
running. The Gloucester fishing schooner _Sea Robin_ was homeward bound
from the Newfoundland Banks, and as she slowly climbed each glassy
incline of black water, and then slid down into the windless hollow
beyond, she seemed to be making no progress whatever on her course.
Although the _Sea Robin_ had been out for more than four months, and had
seen vessel after vessel of the fleet leave the Banks before she did and
sail for home with full fares, not half the salt in her pens was used
up, and she was returning with the smallest catch of the season. In
spite of the fact that provisions were running low on board the
schooner, her captain, Almon McCloud, would not have given up and left
the Banks yet, had not a recent gale swept away his dories, and caused
the loss of his new four-hundred-fathom cable.
Under these circumstances the crew of the schooner were very
low-spirited, and there was none of the larking and fun among them that
is usually to be noticed in a homeward-bound Banker. The men wondered as
to the “Jonah” who had caused all their ill-luck. Finally they whispered
among themselves that it must be the skipper. They now remembered that
he had been unfortunate in more than one undertaking during the past
year or two, and all were agreed that it would be wise not to sail with
him again. This decision had been unanimously reached a few days before
the one on which this story opens; and when, shortly before daybreak,
there came a loud pounding on the cabin hatch, and a request that the
captain should come on deck, one of the watch below turned restlessly in
his bunk, and growled out,
“I expect we are in for another bit of the skipper’s tough luck.”
Reaching the deck, Captain McCloud found the two men on watch gazing
earnestly at a dull red glow that lighted the distant horizon behind
them.
“Looks like there was suthin afire back there, skipper,” said the man at
the wheel.
The captain waited until the schooner rose on top of a swell, and then,
after a long look at the light, gave the order to put her about and run
for it.
There was some grumbling among the crew at this, for they were tired and
sick of the trip. They wanted to get home and have it over with, and
this running back over the course they had just come seemed to promise a
long and vexatious delay. However, lucky or unlucky, their skipper had
proved himself to be the captain of his vessel in every sense of the
word more times than one, and they dared not question his action loudly
enough for him to hear them.
For nearly an hour longer the light glowed steadily, then it expanded
into a sudden wonderful brightness, and the next instant had disappeared
entirely.
Three hours later, just as the sun was rising in all its sea-born glory,
the _Sea Robin_ sailed slowly through a mass of charred timbers and
other floating remains of what evidently had been a large vessel. There
were no boats to be seen, nor was anything discovered by which her name
or character could be identified. For some time the schooner cruised
back and forth through the wreckage in a fruitless search for survivors
of the catastrophe. As they were about to give it up, and Captain
McCloud had begun to issue the order to head her away again on her
course towards home, he all at once held up his hand to command silence,
and listened.
It was certainly the cry of an infant that came clear and loud across
the water. The crew looked at each other in amazement, not unmixed with
fear. There was no boat to be seen, no sign of life; and yet there it
came again, louder and more distinct than before; the vigorous cry of a
healthy baby who has just waked up and is hungry. The wind had died out
entirely, the water was oily in its unruffled smoothness, and only the
long swell remained.
Once more the cry was heard, and now it seemed so close at hand that
several of the men trembled and turned pale. There was still nothing to
be seen, save on the crest of the swell above them an apparently empty
cask maintaining an upright position in the water, and showing a third
of its length above it.
“That’s the life-boat!” shouted Captain McCloud. “There’s where the
music comes from, men. Oh for the use of a dory for just five minutes!”
Having no boat, they could only watch the cask as it came slowly nearer
and nearer, and several of the men prepared to jump overboard and swim
for it in case it should drift past them. At last, when it was about
thirty feet away, the skipper, making a skilful cast, settled the bight
of a light line over the strange craft. Then he carefully drew it
towards the schooner, over the low rail of which a couple of the crew
were hanging, waiting with out-stretched arms to grasp it.
A minute later the cask stood on the schooner’s deck, and Captain
McCloud was lifting tenderly from it a sturdy, well-grown baby boy,
apparently about two years old. The little fellow smiled in the
weather-beaten face, and stretched out his arms eagerly as the rough
fisherman bent down towards him. At the same instant there came a
fluttering of sails overhead, with a rattling of blocks, and one of the
crew sang out as he sprang to the wheel, “Here’s a breeze! and it’s fair
for home!”
“The baby’s brought it!” shouted another. “Hurrah for the baby!”
The shout was eagerly taken up by the crew; three hearty cheers were
given for the baby, and three more for the breeze he had brought with
him. Then, springing to sheets and halyards with more enthusiasm than
they had shown before on the whole cruise, the active fellows quickly
had the _Sea Robin_ under a cloud of light canvas, and humming merrily
along towards Gloucester.
They now found time to look at their baby, who, held in the skipper’s
arms while he gave the necessary orders for working the schooner,
contentedly sucked his thumb and gazed calmly about with the air of
being perfectly at home. He was a beautiful child, with great blue eyes
and yellow hair that curled in tiny ringlets all over his head. He was
plainly dressed; but all that he wore was made of the finest material.
Altogether he was so dainty a little specimen of humanity that he seemed
like a pink and white rose-bud amid the rough men who surrounded him. He
gazed at them for a minute or two with a smile, as though he would say
that he was most happy to make their acquaintance, and was not in the
least embarrassed by their stares. Then he turned to the skipper, and
began to cry in exactly the tone with which he had announced his
presence in the floating cask.
“Hello!” exclaimed the skipper, who, though married, had no children of
his own, and had never held a baby before in his life, “what’s up now?
Here, ‘doctor,’ you’ve had some experience in this line, I believe; cast
your weather eye over this way and tell us the meaning of the squall.”
The cook, or “doctor,” as he is almost always called on board the
fishing schooners, and, in fact, on most vessels, was a short, thick-set
Portuguese, almost as dark as an Indian, but the very picture of
good-nature. He now stepped up behind the skipper so as to have a good
view of the baby, whose face, which rested on the skipper’s shoulder,
was turned away from the crew, who stood looking at him in a helplessly
bewildered way.
At the “doctor’s” sudden appearance the baby stopped crying, began again
to suck his thumb, and, with great, wide-open eyes, stared solemnly at
the grinning figure to whom it was thus introduced.
“Him hongry, skip,” announced the “doctor.” “Me fix him, pret quicka,
bimeby, right off. Got one lit tin cow lef. You fetcha him down.”
The “doctor,” who was named Mateo, declared afterwards that the moment
he looked into the baby’s face the little one had winked at him, as much
as to say, “You know what I want, old chap, now go ahead and get it.”
By his “lit tin cow” he meant a can of condensed milk, and, as the only
man on board who knew how to feed a baby, he had suddenly become the
most important person among all the crew. Obeying his order, the
skipper, with the new arrival in his arms, followed him down into the
fore hold. The rest of the crew also attempted to crowd down into the
narrow space to witness the novel sight of a baby at breakfast, but old
Mateo quickly ordered them on deck, saying that the little stranger was
big enough to occupy all the room there was to spare.
Then he bustled around in a hurry. He got out and opened the one
remaining can of milk, and mixed a small portion of its contents with
some warm water in a cup. The baby watched his every movement in
silence, but with such a wise look that both the men felt he knew
exactly what was going on. Now came the anxious moment--would he take
the milk? Had he learned how to drink? The anxiety was quickly ended. He
had learned to drink, and quickly emptied the proffered cup of every
drop of its contents with an eagerness that showed how hungry he was. A
ship biscuit, broken into small bits and soaked until soft in another
cup of the warm milk, proved equally acceptable. When the members of the
crew heard that the baby not only took kindly to the tin cow’s milk, but
had eaten hard-tack, they were highly delighted. They declared that he
was a natural born sailor, and would make a fisherman yet.
After his breakfast the baby was laid in the skipper’s own bunk in the
cabin, where, warmly covered, and rocked by the motion of the schooner,
he quickly fell asleep.
On deck the men conversed in low tones for fear of disturbing him. Their
sole topic was the child’s miraculous preservation and rescue, first
from the burning vessel and then from the sea. The cask in which he had
floated to them was carefully examined and pronounced to be of foreign
make. It had evidently been prepared hastily to serve the novel purpose
of a life-boat, but the preparation had been made with skill. In the
bottom was a quantity of scrap-iron, that had served as ballast and
caused it to float on end instead of on its side. On top of this were,
tightly wedged, two large empty tin cans, square, and having screw tops;
while above these was a pillow, in which the baby, wrapped in a thick
woollen shawl, had been laid. There was nothing else. Here was the baby,
and here the cask in which he had been saved; there, far behind them,
was the charred wreckage, and on the sky the night before had shone the
red glow from the burning vessel. Where she was from, and where bound,
whether or not others besides this helpless babe had been spared her
awful fate, what was her name and what her nationality, were among the
countless mysteries of the ocean that might never be cleared up.
There was little satisfaction to be gained by the discussion of these
things; but the baby was a reality, and a novelty such as none of them
had ever before seen on board a fishing schooner. Of him they talked
incessantly during the three days’ homeward run. What they should call
him perplexed them sadly for a time. The names suggested and rejected
would have added several pages to a city directory. Finally this most
important question was decided by the skipper, who said, “He brought a
fair breeze with him that’s held by us ever since, and is giving us one
of the quickest runs home ever made from the Banks. He’s as bright and
cheery and refreshing as a breeze himself, and I propose that we call
him ‘Breeze.’ It’s a name that might belong to almost any nationality,
and yet give offence to none. As to a second name, for want of a better,
and if he don’t discover the one he’s rightly entitled to, why, I’ll
give him mine. What’s more, I’ll adopt him if his own folks don’t turn
up; that is, if my old woman is agreeable, and I ain’t much afraid but
what she will be.”
So the little waif of the sea became, and was known from that day forth
as, Breeze McCloud--a name that was destined to become connected with as
many exciting adventures and hair-breadth escapes as any ever signed to
the shipping papers of a Gloucester fishing schooner.
The breeze that hurried the _Sea Robin_ along was none too fair nor too
strong; for the supply of milk furnished by the “doctor’s” tin cow was
completely exhausted before they reached home. If they had not got in
just as they did, the baby would have suffered from hunger, and the
whole crew would have suffered with him. As it was, they passed
Thatcher’s Island while he was drinking the last of the milk. Before he
was again hungry, with everything set and drawing, and decorated with
every flag and bit of bunting that could be found on board, the saucy
_Sea Robin_ had rounded Eastern Point and was sailing merrily up
Gloucester harbor.
A crowd of people had assembled on the wharf to witness her arrival, and
learn the cause of her decorations. As she neared it one of them called
out,
“What is it, skipper? You’ve got your flags up as if you thought you was
High-line[A] of the fleet; but the old _Robin_ don’t look to be very
deep. What have you got?”
-----
Footnote A:
High-line. The man who catches the most fish on a trip, or the vessel
that brings in the heaviest fare of the season.
-----
“We do claim to be High-line,” shouted back the skipper. “And here’s
what we’ve got to prove it.” With this he held the baby high above his
head so that all might see it, and added, “If any Grand Banker has
brought in a better fare than that this season, I want to see it; that’s
all.”
So Breeze McCloud entered Gloucester harbor, and never had any stranger
been received with greater enthusiasm. The news of his arrival spread
like wildfire, and it seemed as though half the population of the city
had crowded down to the wharf to see him before Captain McCloud could
get ready to leave the schooner. Then, with the baby in his arms, he
stepped into the long seine-boat that, pulled by half a dozen lusty
fellows, was waiting to take him across the harbor to the foot of the
hill upon which his modest cottage was perched.
After many days of anxiety--for the _Sea Robin_ was long overdue--the
captain’s wife, who had watched his schooner sail up the harbor with
flags flying, now awaited him in a fever of impatience. She had waited
at home because she could not bear to meet him before strangers, so she
had heard nothing of what he was bringing her. When at last she saw him
coming up the hill, accompanied by an ever-increasing throng of men,
women, and children, she was greatly perplexed to know what to make of
the sight, and hurried down to the little front gate, where she waited
for an explanation.
“Why! whose child can the man have picked up?” she said to herself, as
her husband drew near enough for her to see what it was he held in his
arms.
“The old _Robin’s_ High-line this season, Dolly,” cried Captain McCloud
as he reached the gate, “and I’ve brought you my share of the catch.”
“You don’t mean that baby, Almon!” exclaimed the bewildered woman.
“Yes, I do mean this very blessed baby! He’s a waif of the sea, without
father, mother, or home, that anybody knows of; and if you say the word,
we’ll give him all three.” With this he held the baby towards her.
She hesitated a moment, but the baby did not. With a happy little crow
he at once stretched out his arms to her, and said, “Mamma!”
It was enough. All the mother-love within her responded to this cry, and
the next moment the little one was hugged tightly to her bosom.
Turning to those who had accompanied him, Captain McCloud said, “That
settles it, neighbors! I hadn’t much doubt of it before; now I know I am
acting rightly; and here, before you all, I solemnly adopt this baby
boy, Breeze McCloud, as my son, and promise, with God’s help, to be a
father to him in deed as well as in name.”
On board the _Sea Robin_ none of the rough nurses, not even the
baby-wise Mateo, had dared undress the little one so strangely given
into their charge, for fear they would not be able to dress him again.
Thus, when he was delivered to Mrs. McCloud, it was evident that, next
to food, his greatest needs were a bath and some clean clothes. These
last his adopted mother borrowed from a neighbor who had children of all
ages and sizes.
When the baby was undressed it was discovered that a slender gold chain
was clasped about his neck. Attached to it was a golden ball covered
with a tracery of unique and elaborate engraving. It was apparently
hollow; but nobody was able to open it, nor could they discover any
joint on its surface, so skilful was the workmanship that had created
it. Finally, declaring that it was merely an ornament and not meant to
be opened, Mrs. McCloud put it carefully away in a sandal-wood box,
among her own little hoard of treasures.
In that box the golden ball lay for years, almost unnoticed, but ever
guarding jealously the secret that some day should exert such a
wonderful influence over the fortunes of the baby from whose neck it had
been taken.
CHAPTER II.
ON BOARD THE “CURLEW.”
Fifteen years seems a long time, and yet when they are happy years how
quickly they pass! They had been happy to Breeze McCloud; happy and busy
years. No boy in Gloucester had a pleasanter home or more loving parents
than he, though he was but an adopted son. He rarely thought of this,
though, for Captain McCloud had, from the very first, been a true
father, and the captain’s wife a loving mother to him. No other children
had come to them since they had taken him into their hearts and home,
and he was their pride and delight. He had grown to be a tall, handsome
fellow, interested in his studies, and a bright scholar, but always
impatient for the time to come when he should go out into the world and
win from it his own livelihood.
Whenever Captain McCloud was at home the boy was his constant companion,
and from him Breeze eagerly learned the rudiments of a sailor’s art. He
delighted in being called his father’s “dorymate,” and was very proud of
being able to swim, and to row and sail his own dory, before he was
twelve years old.
Being so much in his father’s company, and listening to the
conversations between him and other men, gave Breeze many ideas beyond
the comprehension of most boys of his age. He sometimes wore a grave and
thoughtful air, and often said wise things that sounded oddly enough in
one so young.
The boy’s curly head was a familiar sight on board most of the fishing
schooners that were constantly coming into or going out of the port.
Here he was perfectly happy while listening to some tale of adventure on
the Banks or more distant fishing grounds, perhaps told by its hero on
the breezy deck or in the snug cabin of the very craft on which it had
all happened.
At last the time had come for him to set forth in quest of similar
adventures, and to do his share towards maintaining the home that had
been such a safe and pleasant one to him. There was sorrow in it now,
and there might soon be want. The _Sea Robin_ had been gone six months,
and no word had been received from her since the day she sailed out
beyond Eastern Point, and vanished in the red glory of the rising sun.
Only in the hearts of his wife and adopted son did the faintest hope
remain that the _Robin’s_ captain was still alive. To all others he was
as dead, and a new breadwinner was needed in his place.
“I must go now, mother,” said Breeze. “I’m large and strong for my age,
and if they’ll take me I am sure I can do a man’s work and earn a man’s
wages.”
“Oh, Breeze, my dear boy! my comfort! Is there not something else you
can do? A clerkship would pay just as well, and there would be none of
the horrible danger.”
“Don’t, mother! don’t urge it! It makes me heart-sick to think of a
desk, or of being shut up all day in a store. I should never be good for
anything, you know I wouldn’t, mother dear, trying to do work that I had
no heart in.”
“But, Breeze--”
“But, mother! Please don’t think any more about a clerkship. Give me
your consent and your blessing, and let me follow father’s calling and
gain a living from the sea, as he has done. I came to you from the sea,
you know,” he continued, with a winning smile, and patting her thin
cheeks. “It was kind to me then, and it always will be, I am sure.”
After many talks of this kind Breeze carried his point. Then, one
evening in March, there was no prouder boy in town than he, when he was
able to announce to his mother that he had shipped for a mackerelling
trip to the southward, on the schooner _Curlew_.
The vessel was already taking in her ice and stores, and would haul out
into the stream the next morning, ready to start. Breeze was to go over
to town the first thing after breakfast, and buy the oil-skin suit,
rubber boots, and woollen cap that, besides the canvas bag of heavy
clothing he would take from home, would form his outfit. These he would
send aboard the schooner. Then he would come home again and say good-by
if there was time--but perhaps there would not be, and so they had
better make the most of this evening.
They did make the most of it, and until after ten o’clock, Breeze and
his mother sat hand in hand, and talked, she sadly and tearfully, he
bravely and hopefully.
The next morning, just before he left, his mother called him into her
room, saying, “I have one more thing to give you, Breeze. It is
something that should be the most precious thing in the world to you,
and I want you to wear it always.” With this she took from the
sandalwood box, that had kept it safely all these years, the slender
chain and golden ball that had hung around his baby neck when she first
held him in her arms.
Breeze was inclined to laugh at the idea of wearing a gold chain and a
locket around his neck; but his mother was so in earnest in her desire
that he should, that he promised to do as she wished.
[Illustration: “I CAME TO YOU FROM THE SEA,” HE SAID, PATTING HER THIN
CHEEKS.]
“It was, doubtless, your own mother first placed it there, and I have a
strong feeling that it will, somehow or other, have much to do with your
future safety and happiness,” she said. “See, I have made a little
pocket in the breast of each of your flannel shirts to hold it,” she
added, as she clasped the chain about his neck and kissed him.
“Own mother, or not own mother, no boy ever had a better, or sweeter, or
dearer, or more loving mother than you have been to me,” cried Breeze,
throwing his arms about her neck, “and I would not exchange you for any
other in the world, not even if she was a queen.”
Now that the time to go had really come, the boy found it a very hard
thing to part from his home. After he had kissed his mother good-by, and
started down the hill, with his canvas bag on his shoulder, he dared not
look back, though he knew she was standing in front of the little
cottage watching him.
He had barely time in town to make his few purchases before the _Curlew_
should sail; for wind and tide were both favorable, and her skipper was
impatient to take advantage of them and get started. His hurry was owing
to the fact that several other schooners were getting ready for trips to
the same waters. He was anxious to be the first on the ground, and, if
possible, carry the first fresh mackerel of the season into New York.
Although everybody has seen and eaten mackerel either fresh or salted,
and though they are caught in immense numbers off the Atlantic coast of
the United States every year, there is but little really known about
them. Where they come from and where they go to are still unsolved
mysteries. Every spring, between the middle of March and the middle of
April, they appear in great shoals in the waters just north of Cape
Hatteras. At this time they are very thin, and hardly fit for food; but
on the coast feeding-grounds they rapidly improve, until in the early
summer, when they have worked their way northward to New England waters,
they are in prime condition. They generally run as far north as the Gulf
of St. Lawrence, from which, in the fall, they suddenly disappear, to be
seen no more until the following spring.
All through the summer, but especially at the very first of the season,
those that are caught near a port are packed in ice and carried in to
the market fresh. The greater part of the year’s catch is, however,
salted in barrels on board the schooners, and afterwards repacked on
shore, in kits or boxes, marked according to the size and quality of the
fish they contain, Nos. 1, 2, 3, or 4, and sent all over the world.
The cruise on which Breeze McCloud was about to start was to be made in
search of the very first mackerel of the season, and the _Curlew’s_
destination was therefore the waters off the Delaware coast, or between
there and Cape Hatteras.
By ten o’clock everything was in readiness for the start. The skipper
had come on board, and all hands were hard at work, making sail or
breaking out and getting up the heavy anchor. Then it was “up jib and
away.” As the lively craft slipped swiftly down the harbor, Breeze found
time for one long last look at his home. At the cottage door he could
just make out a waving handkerchief, that told him he was being watched
and remembered.
Once outside, all hands were kept busy for a couple of hours, setting
light sails, coiling lines, stowing odds and ends, and making everything
snug. The course they were heading would carry them just clear of Cape
Cod; and before a spanking breeze, under a press of canvas, the _Curlew_
tore along as though sailing an ocean race that she was bound to win.
Almost any fishing vessel but a mackereller going out at this stormy
season would have left both top-masts and her jib-boom at home, being
content with the safest of working sails. To the early mackerel catcher,
however, every minute gained may mean many extra dollars in pocket; so
his craft sails in racing trim, and carries her canvas to the extreme of
recklessness.
Like all fishing schooners, the _Curlew_ had a forecastle, in which
several of the crew slept, and in which were also the cook-stove and
mess-table. Back of it was the pantry and store-room, in which were ten
fresh-water tanks. Still farther aft was the hold, divided into pens by
partitions of rough boards. These were now filled with cakes of ice, but
later would be used for fish. Abaft the hold was the cabin, in which the
skipper and five of the crew found sleeping accommodations. It was
neatly finished in ash, and running along three sides of it was a broad
transom that served as a seat or lounging-place. The only furniture was
a small coal-stove, securely fastened in the middle of the floor. On the
walls hung a clock, a barometer, and a thermometer. A few charts were
stowed overhead in a rack, and, flung around in the bunks or on the
transom, were a number of paper-covered novels.
The business of fishing is conducted upon the system of shares. That is,
half the value of the catch, after outfitting expenses have been
deducted, goes to the owners of the vessel, and half to the crew.
Although the skipper and cook are not required to take part in the
actual business of fishing, each of them receives a full share. The
skipper gets, in addition, four per cent. of the value of the catch, and
the cook has regular wages.
The living on board a fishing schooner is generally superior to that on
almost any other craft. It consists of fresh meat, whenever it can be
obtained, fresh fish, vegetables, dried fruit, soft bread, cakes and
pies, eggs, condensed milk, and always tea and coffee, hot, strong, and
in abundance.
The _Curlew_ was manned by a picked crew of twelve men, including the
skipper and cook. They were young, strong, and active, and, except
Breeze, all were skilful fishermen. He had been considered very
fortunate in obtaining a berth at a time of year when there are so many
good men anxious to ship. That he had done so was largely owing to the
friendship existing between the skipper, Captain Ezra Coffin, and his
adopted father.
When he had consented to ship the boy for this trip, the skipper said,
“It’s a hard life, Breeze, and one full of chances. Every man aboard may
have a hundred dollars to his credit before the week is out, and then
again we may cruise for a month and not make enough to pay for our ice.
You are only a boy, but you will have to do a man’s work, and hard work
at that. There are perils of all kinds waiting on every minute of the
night and day, and they’ll come when you least expect them. I’d rather a
boy of mine would saw wood for a living on land than to try and make it
by fishing. Besides all this, as you are a green hand, I can only offer
you half a share for this trip. Still, if you are bound to come, I’m
glad to have you, both for your own sake and for that of my old
dorymate, Almon McCloud. So bring along your dunnage, lad, and may
good-luck come with you!”
Breeze had answered, “I know it won’t be all plain sailing, sir, and
that I’ve got a lot to learn before I can be called an A 1 hand. Still,
hard and dangerous as you say the business is, I’d rather try and make a
living at it than at anything else I know of, and I am much obliged to
you for giving me a chance.”
Soon after leaving port, the skipper called all hands aft to draw for
bunks and to “thumb the hat.” The bunks had numbers chalked on them, and
now the skipper held in his hand as many small sticks as there were men
in the crew. Each stick had notches cut in it corresponding to the
numbers of the bunks, and one by one the crew stepped up and drew them
from the skipper’s hand. Thus the sleeping quarters were distributed
with perfect fairness, and there was no chance for grumbling. Breeze was
lucky enough to draw one of the wide bunks in the cabin, and at once
hastened to stow his possessions in it.
When all the berths had been thus distributed, the crew again gathered
aft, and each man placed a thumb on the rim of an old straw hat that had
been laid on top of the cabin. The skipper turned his back to them, one
of the men named a number, and, without looking to see whose it was, the
skipper touched one of the thumbs. Then he counted around until the
number mentioned was reached. The man at whose thumb he stopped was to
stand first watch and trick at the wheel, the next man on his right the
second, and so on. There would be two men on watch in bad weather, but
one is generally considered sufficient when it is fine.
With the parting injunction to “mind, now, and remember who you are to
call,” the skipper went below. As eight bells, or twelve o’clock, was
struck, the man who had first watch took the wheel, gave a glance at the
compass, another at the sails, and the regular routine of duty was
begun.
Now dinner was announced, and after the skipper was seated, the half of
the crew that reached the mess-table and secured seats were entitled to
eat at “first table” during the trip. The others had to be content to
eat at “second table.” Breeze was not posted as to this, and
consequently was among those who got left when the rush took place.
Afterwards, this seemingly trifling circumstance proved to be of the
most vital importance to him, as we shall see.
The cruise thus fairly begun was continued without incident until the
_Curlew_ reached the fishing grounds off the Virginia capes. Then, under
easy sail, she stood off and on, with a man constantly at the mast-head,
scanning the surface of the water in the hope of seeing mackerel. The
great seine-boat was got overboard, and with the seine in it, was towed
behind the schooner, ready for instant use.
At length, after four tedious days of this work, the impatient crew were
brought tumbling on deck in a hurry one fine morning by the welcome cry
of “There they school; half a mile away, off the weather bow!”
CHAPTER III.
THE HAULING OF THE SEINE.
In less than five minutes after the first cry announcing the appearance
of the eagerly expected fish, the great thirty-foot, double-ended
seine-boat, rowed by eight men, had left the schooner and started in the
direction of the school. In its stern, with his hand on the long
steering oar, stood the seine-master, directing the course of the boat
and keeping a sharp lookout ahead. Pulling after them as fast as he
could was Breeze McCloud, in the single dory that the _Curlew_ carried.
The schooner, left in charge of the skipper and cook, was thrown up into
the wind, and was held as nearly stationary as possible until it could
be seen where she would be wanted.
“Come, stretch yourselves, lads! stretch yourselves! Let’s see who’ll
break the first oar! Those other fellows are just humping themselves.
It’s Yankee against Yankee this time, and you’ve got a tough lot to
beat,” shouted the seine-master.
He would, of course, have been very sorry to have an oar broken, but he
had such confidence that the men could do no more than bend the tough
ash blades, no matter how hard they tugged, that he was perfectly
willing they should try. By the “other fellows” he meant the crew of
another fishing schooner, which daylight of that morning had disclosed
not far from them, and which had evidently discovered mackerel about the
same time they had. They, too, were out in their seine-boat, and
doubtless looked forward with as great confidence as did the men from
the _Curlew_ to taking the first fare of the season into New York.
“Easy, lads, easy now!” ordered the seine-master, in a tone of
suppressed excitement; “here’s our school.” Now he tossed overboard a
small keg, or buoy, to which was attached one end of the upper, or cork
line of the great net. Near this Breeze was to wait in his dory. Then,
bending to their oars, the boat’s crew began to pull, with lusty
strokes, in a great circle around the school of fish that was rippling
the water close beside them. Swimming in a dense body close to the
surface, often throwing themselves clear of the water, with their steely
blue sides flashing in the morning light, the mackerel were darting
madly hither and thither. At one instant the whole school, moved by some
mysterious impulse, would make a simultaneous dash in one direction, and
the next it would as suddenly rush back again. In the cool dim depths
beneath them, dog-fish, sharks, and other hungry sea pirates were
breakfasting off the newly arrived strangers, and devouring them by the
score. In the air above them circled and swooped great fishing hawks,
anxious to make a meal off of fresh mackerel. Now to these enemies was
added man, the most cruel and greatly to be dreaded of all. No wonder
the poor fish were frightened and undecided as to the direction of their
flight from so many imminent dangers.
Meantime the great net, a quarter of a mile long, had been skilfully
drawn completely around them. Breeze, in his dory, obeying previously
given instructions, carried the buoy that had first been thrown
overboard to the seine-boat, in which the other end of the cork-line was
still held and made fast. The circle was now perfect, and the fish were
surrounded by a wall of fine but stout twine. Their only chance of
escape lay at the bottom of the net, and in another minute this opening
would also be closed against them.
While the upper edge of the seine was floated by means of numerous large
corks attached to the rope that ran along its entire length, its lower
edge was sunk and held straight down by an equal number of leaden rings.
Through these ran a second stout line, known as the “purse rope,” an end
of which remained in the boat. By pulling on this all the leaden rings
could be drawn close together, and as the net was now in the form of a
circle, its lower edge would form a purse in which there would be no
opening for escape.
Hauling on this rope and “pursing” the seine is the hardest part of the
entire job, and takes the united efforts of the seine-boat’s crew. It is
also a most exciting operation, for if it is successfully accomplished
the fish are caught and an ample reward for all the previous toil is
almost certain. If, on the other hand, the fish take alarm at the last
moment and dart downward through the still open bottom of the net, all
the hard work goes for nothing and must be done over again, perhaps many
times before a successful haul is made.
Such was the case in this instance. Success was almost within reach of
the _Curlew’s_ crew, when suddenly the entire school of fish, upon which
they were building such high hopes, dropped out of sight like so many
leaden plummets, and were gone. They had evidently decided that there
were more chances for life among the sharks and dog-fish than within the
power of their human enemies, and had wisely seized their last chance of
escape from them.
It was a bitter disappointment, and it was made the keener by the sight
of certain movements on board the rival schooner that indicated a
successful pursing of their seine and a heavy catch of fish. Slowly, and
with much grumbling over their hard luck, the _Curlew’s_ men gathered in
their net and empty seine. They piled it up carefully, rings forward and
corks aft, in the after-part of their boat, ready for the next time.
Then they listlessly pulled towards their schooner, which was lying near
by, and on board which breakfast awaited them.
The _Curlew_ sailed close to the other schooner in order to learn her
luck, and witness the lively scene about her. The stranger’s seine had
enclosed an enormous school of fish, which was estimated at nearly, if
not quite, five hundred barrels. One end of it had been got on board the
schooner, and the dipping out of the fish was about to begin. They were
greatly frightened, and rushed from side to side with such violence that
many of them were crushed to death. All at once they sank, and their
weight was so great as to draw one gunwale of the heavy seine-boat under
the water, although eight men were perched on the opposite side to
counterbalance it.
When a crew find a greater quantity of fish on their hands than they can
take care of, as was the case now, it is customary, if there is another
vessel within hail, to give her the surplus rather than to throw it
away. Having often done this himself, Captain Coffin did not hesitate,
as the two schooners drew close together, to hail the other skipper and
ask if he had any fish to give away.
“No, I haven’t,” was the surly answer. “If you want fish go and catch
’em.”
“All right,” answered Captain Coffin, somewhat provoked, but still
good-naturedly; “we’re the lads can just do that, and we’ll beat you
into New York yet.”
“Looks like it now, doesn’t it?” shouted the other, scornfully. “If you
do, though, it won’t be because I helped you. I’d rather lose every fish
I’ve got alongside here than to give you one of them.”
These words were hardly out of his mouth when the captured fish darted
violently towards the bottom of the net, and the seine-boat was nearly
capsized, as has been related. Its crew hurriedly scrambled to the upper
side. Suddenly the boat righted, so quickly that the whole eight men
were flung overboard, and found themselves floundering in the cold
water.
The situation was startling as well as comical, though the explanation
of what had happened was very simple. The frightened fish, in their
downward rush, had torn a great hole in the net, which was an old one,
and through it they had instantly darted to depths of safety. The seine,
being thus relieved of its burden, no longer pulled the boat down, and
it at once yielded to the weight of the men on its upper gunwale.
Under ordinary circumstances this mishap would have excited the sympathy
of those on board the _Curlew_. Now, on account of the uncivil reply of
the rival skipper to their captain, they were inclined to rejoice at
what had happened, and they roared with laughter at the rueful faces of
the dripping men as they scrambled back into their boat.
To Breeze the whole affair presented itself in such a comical aspect
that he laughed louder and longer than any of the others, though in a
perfectly good-humored way, and without a trace of an unkind feeling
towards those who had been so unfortunate. His mirth was, however,
deemed peculiarly irritating by one of the rival crew, a young man with
an ugly face that bore unmistakable traces of dissipation. He shook his
fist at Breeze and called out,
“Never you mind, young feller, I’ll not forget you! And maybe I’ll find
a chance to make you laugh out of the other side of your mouth some
day.”
This speech sobered Breeze at once, though at first he looked around in
a bewildered way, thinking it could not possibly be meant for him. When
he realized that it was he shouted back,
“Seems to me I wouldn’t feel so bad about it if I was you. I wasn’t
laughing at you, anyway. I was laughing to think how surprised those
mackerel must have been when you went diving down after them, trying to
catch ’em in your hands.”
This raised another shout of laughter from the Curlew men, but the young
man towards whom it was directed only shook his fist again at Breeze,
and turned away without a word, going below to find some dry clothes.
Breeze saw that he had unwittingly made for himself an enemy in this
stranger, and for a time the knowledge caused him real distress. He was
a warm-hearted boy, preferring friendships to enmities, and would at any
time sacrifice his own pleasure or comfort to win the former and
overcome the latter. At the same time, he was not sorry that he had
asserted his own independence and answered back as he had. The incident
soon passed from his mind, however, in the rush of more stirring events,
and it was some time before he was again reminded of it.
Captain Coffin was much puzzled to account for the surliness of the
rival skipper until the _Curlew_ passed astern of the other schooner, so
that her name, _Roxy B._, and her hailing port could be read. Then it
flashed across him that this was the Rockhaven craft that was thought to
be so fast, but which he had beaten in a fair race on a run into Boston
the summer before.
[Illustration: “SEEMS TO ME I WOULDN’T FEEL SO BAD ABOUT IT IF I WAS
YOU.”]
To bear ill-will for such a cause certainly showed a small and mean
mind, and Captain Coffin said he was very glad the other had refused to
let him have any fish, for he should hate to be under obligations to
such a man.
The _Curlew_ had not gone more than a mile from the _Roxy B._ when the
fish of which she was in search began to rise to the surface on all
sides of her. The seine-boat was quickly sent out, while Breeze, in his
dory, followed it as before. This time a school was successfully
surrounded, and the net was pursed without a mishap. A flag hoisted on
an oar in the boat was the signal to the schooner that they had made a
large haul and needed her assistance. She was soon brought alongside of
the pursed seine with its burden of glittering fish, and from it a
long-handled scoop-net, worked with a tackle, was dipping them, a
half-barrelful at a time, and transferring them to her deck.
The catch was about one hundred and fifty barrels of mackerel that were
of a prime quality as to size, but so thin that they would have been
unfit to split and salt. The afternoon was drawing to a close before
they were all got on board and the seine was properly stowed in its
boat; but there was no rest for the tired crew yet a while. Sail was
made on the schooner, and she was headed for Sandy Hook, nearly three
hundred miles away. Then all hands, except the cook and the man at the
wheel, turned to and began “gibbing” and packing the fish.
Mackerel are so delicate that they die almost as soon as they touch a
deck, and will quickly spoil if not cared for at once. So there was no
time to lose, and the whole catch must be “gibbed,” or cleaned, and
packed in ice before sleep could be thought of.
In “gibbing” a mackerel the gills are plucked out, and with them come
the entrails. This operation was performed with marvellous rapidity by
the skilled workers of the crew, the refuse matter was tossed into
square wooden boxes known as “gib-tubs,” and the cleaned fish were
thrown into bushel baskets.
Down in the hold the blocks of ice were removed from a pen, and reduced
to small bits by heavy sharp-pointed “slicers.” A layer of this broken
ice was shovelled over the bottom of the empty pen, and above it was
spread a basket of fish. Then came another layer of ice, then more fish,
and so on until the pen was full, when another was emptied and filled in
the same manner. It was long after midnight before the crew of the
_Curlew_ knocked off work, with the last of their fish safely packed
away; but, tired as they were, they were also highly elated by their
success, and by the prospect of being the first mackereller of the
season into New York.
The next day, spent in running up the coast with a brisk westerly
breeze, was one of the happiest that can come to the in-shore fisherman.
Everybody was in the best of humor, from the knowledge that they had,
stowed beneath their hatches, a fair-sized catch of the very earliest
mackerel of the season. They knew these would bring an extra price, and
pay each of them at least twice as much as they would make under more
ordinary circumstances. There was little to do except stand watch and
clean ship; so that most of the day was devoted to the spinning of yarns
in the forecastle, and the singing of songs to a banjo accompaniment in
the cabin. The cook made them a great dish of Joe-floggers (peculiar
pancakes stuffed with plums) for breakfast, and a gorgeous plum-duff for
dinner. Upon the whole, Breeze enjoyed the day so thoroughly that he
wondered how anybody could complain of the hardships of a fisherman’s
life, or think it anything but fascinating.
They passed the double Highland lights, and rounding Sandy Hook, stood
up New York Bay some time during the following night; the next morning,
by daylight, they were snugly moored in the Fulton Market slip, among
scores of other fishing vessels, none of which had on board a single
mackerel. Theirs was the first catch of the season, and before
breakfast-time it had been sold in bulk for three thousand dollars. Of
this, after expenses were deducted, each full share amounted to
ninety-two dollars, while the half share credited to Breeze was
forty-six dollars. This seemed to him a large sum of money to have been
earned in a week, only one day and night of which had been devoted to
real hard work. He at once wrote to his mother telling her the good
news, and as he did so he felt that he had become, if not an important
member of society, at least a very wealthy one.
In the afternoon he took a short walk through the lower part of the
great city, but became so bewildered by the noise, bustle, and crowds of
people that he dared not go very far for fear of getting lost. On one of
the downtown streets that he did visit he was attracted by the sight of
a jeweller’s window. This reminded him of what his mother had said, that
if anybody could open the golden ball that hung from the chain around
his neck it would be a city jeweller.
Entering the store, he stepped up to an elderly gentleman who stood
behind a desk, and unclasping the chain, handed it and the ball to him,
saying, “I don’t know whether this ball will open or not; can you tell
me, sir?”
The jeweller examined the trinket carefully, and seemed particularly
interested in the unique tracery with which it was ornamented. For
several minutes he did not speak; then he asked, abruptly, “Where did
you get this?”
Breeze told him in a few words all that he knew of its history as well
as his own.
“H’m,” said the jeweller. “You wait here a moment, while I show this to
my partner.”
He was gone so long that Breeze began to grow uneasy, and had just about
made up his mind to go in search of him, when he returned. He was
accompanied by a low-browed, swarthy individual, who, when Breeze was
pointed out, stepped up to him and said,
“This trinket, that you have brought in, is quite a novelty in our line,
and I should like to buy it of you. It is a puzzle-charm of East Indian
make. Unless one knows the secret of its construction, it cannot
possibly be opened except by an accident that might not happen in ten
thousand times of trying. I learned my trade in Calcutta, and am
probably the only man in New York City to-day who can open this little
ball. You see that I can do it.”
Here he showed Breeze the ball open, but did not let him see its
contents. Then turning his back for an instant, he again displayed it
closed as before.
“What will you take for it?” he asked.
“It’s not for sale,” answered Breeze, “but I am willing to pay for
learning the trick of how to open it, for I am curious to know what it
contains.”
“That information is not for sale either, nor will I tell you what the
ball contains,” said the jeweller. “Moreover, if you will not sell it to
me, or show me some proof that you are its rightful owner, I shall keep
it until I can place it in the hands of the police, for it is my belief
that you have stolen it.”
CHAPTER IV.
A SUDDEN DISASTER.
The jeweller’s accusation was so unexpected and startling to Breeze that
he flushed hotly, and for a moment found no words to answer it. Then he
demanded, indignantly,
“How dare you say such a thing? Give me back my property instantly, or I
shall be the one to call in the police!”
“Certainly, my young friend, certainly, when you produce the proof that
it is yours,” replied the man, dropping the trinket into a drawer, of
which he turned the lock.
There was no element of decision lacking in Breeze’s character; he was
quick to act in emergencies, and without another word he stepped to the
door. A small boy was passing.
“Sonny,” said Breeze, “run quick and bring a policeman. If he is here
within five minutes I will give you five cents.”
The boy, keenly alive to a situation that promised so much excitement as
this, started off on a run. Breeze remained standing where he could
survey the whole interior of the store, and could especially keep an eye
on the drawer in which lay his property.
The men inside watched him closely. They had seen him despatch the boy
on some errand, but had not overheard what he said, and did not know
what it was. Now the one who had opened the ball approached him and
said,
“Why don’t you go for your proofs? You had better hurry, as we shall
close up soon, and then we could not look at them until to-morrow.”
“I have sent for them,” answered Breeze, simply.
“Oh,” said the man, somewhat disconcerted. “Well, of course, if they
come in time, and are satisfactory, you shall have your charm back, and
an apology into the bargain.”
“Here comes one of them now,” replied Breeze, as he handed a five-cent
piece to a breathless small boy, who came running up just in front of a
big policeman.
[Illustration: "THAT GENTLEMAN THERE REFUSES TO RETURN A GOLD BALL AND
CHAIN THAT I HANDED HIM FOR EXAMINATION."]
To this officer Breeze said, “That gentleman there,” pointing to the
dark-skinned jeweller, “refuses to return a gold ball and chain that I
handed him for examination. He says he thinks I stole them, and he has
locked them up in a drawer. I think I can bring one of the best-known
men in New York to vouch for my honesty; but it may be some time before
I can find him. Now, I want to know if you will take this trinket, as
the gentleman calls it, and keep it for me until I return?”
“Why not just as well leave it where it is?” interrupted the jeweller,
eagerly. “It will be perfectly safe here, as this officer knows.”
“No,” said Breeze, “that will not do. You must give it to the officer at
once, or else I shall go to the police-station, and enter a complaint
against you for stealing.”
The partners whispered together for a minute. Evidently the bold stand
taken by the lad, and his prompt action, had made a decided impression
upon them.
Before they could reach a decision as to what they should do, the
officer spoke up and said,
“The young man is right. If there is any stolen property in the
question, the proper place for it is in the station-house. So, if you
will just hand over this article, whatever it is, I will take it there.”
There was no appeal from this decision. The locket was reluctantly given
up to the officer, who took both it and Breeze to the station-house near
by. Here the sergeant in charge listened attentively to all that he had
to say, as well as to the story Breeze had to tell.
“Go with him,” he said, finally, to the officer, “down to the schooner,
and see what sort of a character his captain gives him. Then bring him
back here.”
With this he placed the golden ball and chain in a drawer of his own
desk, and again turned to his writing.
Breeze and the officer found Captain Coffin talking to the gentleman to
whom he had sold his cargo of fish that morning. He happened to be not
only a prominent business man, but an active local politician, and was
the very person whom Breeze had in his mind when he had offered to bring
a well-known citizen to establish his character.
Begging their pardon for the interruption, Breeze told his story to
Captain Coffin, and the politician also listened to it.
When the story was finished, the latter, turning to the captain, said,
“Can you vouch for this lad’s honesty, skipper?”
“Certainly I can, as I would for my own,” was the answer. “I have known
him from his babyhood, and, moreover, I have often heard this golden
ball spoken of by his adopted father, though I have never seen it.”
“Then,” said the other, “supposing we step up to the police-station, and
have it returned to him. It is one of the most curious cases I ever
heard of, and I am interested to see that the boy comes out of it all
right.”
Within ten minutes the sergeant had been satisfied that Breeze was the
rightful owner of the locket, had returned it to him, and he had again
clasped its chain about his neck. He was very happy in thus regaining
possession of it, and very thankful to those who had so promptly
assisted him. When Captain Coffin proposed that they should now go to
the jeweller’s shop and get him to again open the ball, Breeze begged
him not to think of such a thing. “I don’t want that man ever to get it
into his possession,” he said, “and I don’t believe he’d open it for us
anyway, now.”
“I guess the boy is about right,” remarked the politician, thoughtfully.
“That fellow has evidently some strong reason for wishing to obtain the
trinket, and if he got hold of it again he might change it for another
that looked just like it, and we never be the wiser.”
This was just what Breeze had thought of when he had refused to leave
the jeweller’s shop and go in search of proofs of his ownership of the
locket, and he was greatly pleased at this evidence that he had acted
wisely.
That night the _Curlew_ sailed out of New York Bay, and was once more
headed to the southward in search of the early mackerel. The following
day was clear and bright, but very cold for that season of the year.
There were only a few clouds to be seen; but the sky was coppery in
color, and the wind, which was still off-shore, was fitful and baffling.
At supper-time, about an hour before sunset, the man at the wheel, who
happened to be one of those who ate at the first table, said,
“Here, McCloud, you belong to second mess; take the wheel while I eat
supper, will you?”
“Certainly I will,” answered Breeze, cheerfully. “What’s the course?”
“South by west, half west, an open sea, a favoring wind, and no odds
asked or given,” was the laughing response, as the man hurried forward.
Captain Coffin was impatient to get back among the mackerel, and so the
schooner was running under all the sail she could carry, including a
jib-topsail and a huge main-staysail.
Somewhat to his surprise, Breeze now found himself the sole occupant of
the deck. The skipper and half the crew were eating their supper in the
forecastle, while the others were in the cabin, sleeping, reading, and
keeping warm. On account of the cold, they had drawn the slide over the
companion-way.
It was the first time the young sailor had been left in sole charge of
the vessel, and he realized the responsibility of his position. Still,
owing to his father’s teachings and careful training, he felt quite
competent to manage her, so long as no especial danger threatened. He
also comforted himself with the thought that there was not the slightest
chance of anything happening in the short time before he should be
relieved.
While thus thinking, and at the same time keeping a sharp watch of the
sails, the compass, and the dog-vane that, fluttering from the
mainmast-head, denoted the direction of the wind, he was startled by a
curious humming sound in the air above him. It was a weird, uncanny
sound, unlike anything he had ever before heard, and it filled him with
a strange fear. He was just about to call the men in the cabin, when
suddenly there came a roar and a shriek above his head. Then the little
circular tornado, directly in whose track the unfortunate _Curlew_
happened to be, struck her such a terrible blow that she was powerless
to resist it. In an instant she was knocked down and thrown on her beam
ends. The white sails, that had soared aloft so gracefully, and offered
so tempting a mark for the spinning whirlwind, now lay flat in the
water, heavily soaking and holding the schooner down.
Breeze had spun the wheel with all his might, and thrown the helm hard
down, in the hope of bringing her up into the wind; but the blow had
been too sudden and too heavy. The rudder no longer controlled her, and
she lay as helpless as though waterlogged, held down by that terrible
dragging weight of top-hamper.
As she went over, one man had struggled up from the forecastle and been
instantly buried in the sea beneath the heavy canvas of the foresail.
Breeze knew that the reason no more came was that a torrent of water was
rushing with resistless force through the narrow opening. Beneath him he
could hear the smothered cries and struggles of the prisoners in the
cabin. In a few minutes more the vessel would sink, and all within her
would be miserably drowned. Their only hope was in him. What could he
do? What could he do?
Standing on the weather side of the wheel when the schooner was struck,
he had saved himself from going overboard by clinging to it. Now he
scrambled to the upper side of the house, and holding on to the
weather-rail, began to hack desperately at the lanyards of the main
rigging with his sheath-knife. If only the masts would break off and
relieve the vessel of that awful weight of soaked canvas, she might
right herself.
One after another the lanyards snap like strained harpstrings. There!
the rigging has gone and the mast cracks. Now for the fore rigging! How
he reached it the boy never knew; in fact he afterwards had very little
recollection of what he did amid the terrible excitement of those two
minutes; but he did reach and cut it.
Then there came a rending of wood as the tough masts broke off. Then
slowly, very slowly, the vessel righted herself, and once more rode on
an even keel, though half full of water, and as sad a looking wreck as
ever floated.
As she righted, the after companion-way was burst open by the mighty
effort of those beneath the slide, and they rushed out gasping for
breath and with glaring eyes. They had been very nearly suffocated by
steam and gas generated by the water pouring down the funnel on the
glowing coals in the cabin stove.
From the forecastle also emerged, one by one, the half-drowned figures
of those who had been imprisoned in it. But for the prompt action of the
brave boy on deck, they would never have left its flooded recesses. One
of their number was missing, and he was the man whose place at the wheel
Breeze had taken, and who had forced his way out as the vessel capsized,
only to be drowned beneath the canvas of the foresail. He would be
sincerely mourned later, but there was no time to think of him now. The
others were still in too imminent peril of losing their own lives.
As the stricken craft rolled like a log in the sea-way, she pounded
heavily against the masts and spars, which, still attached to her by the
lee rigging and head-stays, floated close alongside. The danger that her
planking might thus be crushed in was so great that, in spite of his own
wretched condition, Captain Coffin saw it the moment he gained the deck.
Calling upon the others to follow his example, he drew his knife and
began to cut away the tangle of cordage that bound the vessel to this
new enemy.
When it was finally cleared, the seine-boat, which was still dragging
astern, was pulled up, and half the crew went in it to tow the mass of
spars and canvas clear of the schooner, and save such of the sails as
they could. The rest began to labor at the pumps, and to rig a jury-mast
on which they might spread such sail as would carry her into port. The
main-mast had snapped off so close to the deck as to leave nothing to
which they might fasten a jury-spar; but of the foremast a stump some
six feet high remained, and with this they hoped to accomplish their
purpose.
While the skipper, Breeze, and two others were thus engaged, those at
the pumps suddenly called out that the water was gaining on them, and
that the vessel was about to founder.
It was only too true; the stanch little schooner had evidently made her
last voyage, and would never again sail into Gloucester harbor. In fact,
the water was gaining so rapidly that it was within a foot or two of her
deck, and there was no time to lose in leaving her. Those in the
seine-boat were fortunately within easy hail, and dropping their work,
they quickly had it alongside.
There was no need of seeking an explanation of the rapid inflow of
water. It was only too plain that gaping seams had been opened by the
great strain of her masts and sails while the schooner lay on her beam
ends. It was more than probable, also, that butts had been started here
and there by the jagged ends of the heavy spars as they lay in the water
pounding and grinding against her sides.
Nothing could be saved. There was barely time for all hands to tumble
into the seine-boat and pull it to a safe distance from the fast-sinking
vessel. Then they lay on their oars and watched her. She seemed like
some live thing, aware of the fate about to overtake her, and struggling
pitifully against it. The swash of the water in her cabin sounded like
sobs, and the faces of the men who watched her, usually so bright and
merry, were as sad as though they watched at the bedside of a dying
friend.
The sun was setting red and angry in a mass of black clouds that came
rolling up out of the west as she took the final plunge, and diving bows
first, disappeared forever, leaving her crew silent, motionless, and
awe-stricken at the catastrophe that had thus overtaken them.
The skipper was the first to break the silence, and in a tone of forced
cheerfulness he said, “Well, boys, the old _Curlew_ has gone where all
good crafts go, sooner or later, and we must be thankful she hasn’t
taken us along with her. I honestly believe we should all have shared
her fate, and that of poor Rod Mason, if it had not been for this brave
lad and the quick wit that taught him to do exactly the right thing at
the right moment. I have not the slightest doubt that we owe our lives
to Breeze McCloud, and right here I want to thank him, and to pay my
respects to the memory of the brave man who brought him up to act as a
true sailor should in such an emergency.”
These were grateful words to poor Breeze, who was feeling the loss of
his shipmate, and of the schooner, more keenly than any of his
companions, and fearing that perhaps they would blame him for what had
happened. He had given Captain Coffin a hurried account of the disaster,
and of how he had cut away the masts; but the skipper had found no time
then to say what he thought of the course the boy had pursued.
Now, one by one, the men reached forward to shake hands with him, and
had it not been for the thought of the drowned man, he would, in spite
of their miserable situation, have felt as light-hearted as though
already in port.
There were neither water nor provisions in the boat, they had no mast,
sail, nor compass. Most of them were wet through, and already chilled to
the bone by the cold wind, which was rising, and promised to freshen
into a gale before midnight. Breeze was the only one who was dry and had
his oil-skins on, and but for his hunger he would have been
comparatively comfortable.
They stopped near the floating wreckage of spars and sails long enough
to obtain the schooner’s main-topsail, and the foregaff which they hoped
to rig up as a mast in the boat. They also cut away a small lot of the
lighter cordage. Then they headed their craft to the westward, and
started to pull for the distant land. The skipper said they were not
more than fifty miles from the coast, and if the sea did not get too
rough, they ought to make it by noon of the next day.
They were divided into two watches, and while half of them rowed, the
rest huddled together as close as possible in the bottom of the boat for
warmth.
It was nearly midnight, the wind was blowing a gale dead against them,
and they seemed to be making no progress whatever. Breeze, unable to
sleep, was sitting up gazing out into the blackness behind them.
Suddenly, as the boat rose on the crest of a great wave, he sprang to
his feet and cried, “A light! I see a light!”
CHAPTER V.
SAVED BY ELECTRICITY.
The joyful cry of a light at once put new life and hope into the hearts
of the hungry, drenched, and shivering occupants of the seine-boat.
Those who had huddled together under the wet canvas of the top-sail in
the vain effort to keep warm, as well as those who were pulling
hopelessly and wearily at the oars, gazed eagerly in the direction
indicated by Breeze. Yes, there it was, faint and yellow in the
distance, apparently that of some vessel approaching them from the
southward. They could see it as their boat rose on the crests of the
great billows, though it was lost again when they sank into the black
hollows between them.
Soon they were able to distinguish a second yellow light, lower than the
other, and by the position of these they knew that the approaching
vessel was a steamer, and a large one at that. Then her red and green
side-lights came into view. They watched anxiously to see which of these
would disappear first, in order to determine on which side of them she
was going to pass. If the red light should be lost to view, then they
would know she was passing to windward of them. In that case there would
not be the slightest chance of any cries they could utter reaching her,
and she would go on her way unconscious of their presence. If the green
light should disappear, it would be a sign that she was about to pass to
leeward. In that case there was a possibility that their shouts, borne
down the gale, might attract the attention of the watch on her deck.
Still, she might not stop even then, and it was an almost unheard-of
thing for a boat to be picked up at sea in the darkness of midnight,
amid the noise and tumult of a gale. They fully understood their
position, but, slight as their chance was, they watched for it
hopefully.
All at once, as they were lifted from a deep, watery hollow, and looked
for the lights, they gave utterance to exclamations of dismay. They
could still see the green light and the two yellow lights, but the red
one was no longer visible.
“’Tain’t no use. She’s going to windward of us;” muttered one of the
men, at once giving up all hope, and again lying down in the bottom of
the boat. “Luck’s against us, and we might as well reckon on help from
the old _Curlew_ as from that craft.”
Most of the others evidently thought as he did, and they turned their
eyes resolutely away from the lights, as though determined to be no
longer tantalized by them. But Breeze could not give up so easily, and
he still watched the lights whenever a lifting wave afforded him an
opportunity of seeing them.
What! Can it be? Or are his eyes deceiving him? No. It certainly is the
red light again, now much more distinct than before. The steamer has
altered her course and is heading directly for them. The men are filled
with new life at the boy’s exultant cry announcing his discovery. They
spring up and gaze incredulously. It is true, and both lights are now to
be plainly seen, not more than half a mile away and bearing directly
towards them. Now they fear that she may run them down, and begin to
pull to windward, so as to give her a clear berth. At last she is close
upon them, and the green light disappears, while the red shows clear and
steady.
“Now for a shout, men! All together as I give the word. One! two!
three!” commands the skipper.
It is a wild, desperate cry that startles the lookout on the forward
deck of the steamer from the half reverie into which he has fallen.
Again it comes to his ears, and again, borne on the wings of the gale
across the angry waters; and now it is heard by the steamer’s captain,
who has not left the pilot-house that night.
A gong clangs down among the engines, and a hoarse order is shouted to
the engineer through the speaking-tube. The great screw under the
steamer’s stern stops for a moment, and then churns the water violently
as its motion is reversed and it revolves rapidly backward.
“See if you can pick them up with the electric,” is the captain’s order
to the second officer, who has just appeared on deck. At the same
instant a dazzling flash of white light darts forth from the steamer’s
bow, and cuts a gleaming path-way between two solid walls of blackness
above the raging waters.
The second officer seizes the handles at the back of the great lamp, and
the broad band of light is slowly swept round to the direction from
which the cries have come. In another moment it flashes full in the
white faces of Breeze McCloud and his companions, sitting in their
seine-boat not more than a hundred yards away. The wonderful eye of the
search-light has discovered them, and they cover theirs with their
hands, or turn away from the unbearable radiance.
“Pull under our lee,” shouts the captain of the steamer through a
speaking-trumpet, “and we’ll try and get you aboard.”
It was a difficult task, for the ship rolled so deeply that it would
have been unsafe to open her side-ports, and they must be taken aboard
over the rail. As the seine-boat lay alongside, it was at one moment on
a level with the steamer’s deck, and the next so far below it that her
wet side rose like a black wall high above them. Nothing could be done
until she was turned, so as to lie head to the wind. Then, one by one,
the wrecked men caught the ropes flung to them, fastened them under
their arms, and were hauled up to the steamer’s deck, where they were
received and pulled on board by the stout arms eagerly out-stretched to
aid them. Some of them were buried beneath the huge waves that sprang
after them as though furious at being thus robbed of their expected prey
and still determined to clutch it. Others were bruised by being swung
violently against the iron side of the steamer. At last all of them were
safely rescued, and, with the seine-boat towing by a long line astern,
the great steamer was again headed on her course.
Was there ever anything so delicious as the hot coffee at once served to
them, or so welcome as the plentiful meal that awaited them in the
steamer’s mess-room, after they had got into the dry clothes furnished
by her crew? Breeze did not think there was. And when, soon afterwards,
he found himself in a comfortable bunk, under warm blankets, and
dropping to sleep, he felt that he was one of the most fortunate and
marvellously cared for boys in the world.
[Illustration: IN ANOTHER MOMENT IT FLASHES FULL IN THE WHITE FACES OF
BREEZE McCLOUD AND HIS COMPANIONS.]
The steamer that thus furnished the weary fishermen with shelter,
safety, and all the comforts of a sailor’s life was one of a line plying
between Boston and a southern city, from which she was now bound. Her
captain was one of those noble sailors who are never so happy as when
rescuing other toilers of the sea from its perils. He told Captain
Coffin that, without any definite reason, he had felt impelled to alter
his ship’s course half a point to the eastward shortly before their
cries had been heard. It was this change of direction that had brought
the red light once more into view.
Before morning the gale had so increased in fury that it was not
probable their light craft could have lived through it had they not been
picked up when they were. As it was, the seine-boat, while towing behind
the steamer, was struck soon after daylight by a great sea that capsized
it. The next crushed it like an egg-shell, and the broken wreck was cut
adrift.
Twenty-four hours later they entered Boston harbor, and the crew of the
lost _Curlew_, after expressing their heart-felt thanks to the captain,
passengers, and crew of the steamer, who had done everything in their
power to make them comfortable, left her. They made their way at once to
the market slip devoted to the use of fishing vessels, where they were
sure of finding friends and fellow-townsmen.
While walking slowly along the wharf, and looking wistfully over the
many fishing vessels crowded into the basin, in search of a familiar
face, Breeze was slapped on the shoulder, and a well-known voice
exclaimed,
“Vy, Breeza, ma boy! how you vas? Vere you come from, eh?”
Turning, he saw the smiling face of old Mateo, the Portuguese cook who,
on board the _Sea Robin_, had fed him with milk from the “lit tin cow”
when he was a baby. The old cook had always retained a warm affection
for the boy whom he had thus cared for in his helplessness, and had
never returned to Gloucester without visiting him and bringing him some
present. Now to see him seemed to Breeze almost like a glimpse of home.
Mateo, who, in spite of his years, was still hale and hearty, and one of
the best cooks to be found in the fishing fleet, would listen to nothing
where they stood. He insisted upon dragging Breeze aboard a new and
handsome schooner named the _Albatross_, in which he had shipped for a
cruise to the George’s. She had left Gloucester the day before, and run
up to Boston, where her skipper had some business to attend to. Now she
was to sail again within an hour.
Pulling his young friend down into the forecastle, and seating him
before the mess-table, Mateo exclaimed, “Vell, Breeza, you hongry, eh?”
To him eating was the most important business of life, and until Breeze
had assured him that he had just finished one breakfast, and had no room
for another mouthful, he would listen to nothing else. His mind being
set at rest on this point, Mateo asked,
“Vell, you not hongry, ma boy, ver is ze _C’loo_?”
“Gone to the bottom,” answered Breeze, “and poor Rod Mason has gone with
her.”
“Vat you say? ze _C’loo_ loss, and Rod Mason drowned? Oh, ze holy feesh!
an his bruzzer Bill here, on ze _’Batross_!”
It was indeed so; the only brother of the drowned man had shipped in the
_Albatross_ the day before. When he heard the sad news brought by
Breeze, he declared he must return at once to Gloucester, and make
arrangements for the future of his brother’s family. He would not even
wait for the skipper’s return, but, collecting his dunnage, hurried away
to catch the first train for home.
The rest of the crew, most of whom knew him, were intensely interested
in what Breeze had to tell them of the loss of the _Curlew_ and the
rescue of her crew. They were still plying him with questions when the
skipper of the _Albatross_ returned. He, like Mateo, had been one of the
_Sea Robin’s_ crew upon the memorable occasion when Breeze had come to
her, and now he gave the lad a hearty welcome. When he learned of
William Mason’s desertion he was somewhat annoyed, but in a moment his
face cleared and he said,
“Why won’t you come with us in his place, Breeze? You shall go as an A1
hand, have a full share of the catch, and we are not likely to be out
more than a couple of weeks anyhow. She’s a good vessel, and you are
always such a lucky chap that you’ll be more than welcome aboard of
her.”
“Yes, Breeza, come ’long,” urged the cook. “Ole Mateo feeda you till you
git fat like dog-feesh. Joe-flog, sea-pie, hatch, plenty good t’ings.”
Breeze laughed at the earnestness of the old man and the inducements he
held out, but said, “If I only could go home and see mother for a little
while first, I’d go in a minute. I’d have to get a new outfit too; the
only thing I saved from the _Curlew_ is this oil suit.”
“We’ll wait an hour for you to write to your mother and tell her just
how things stand. That’ll give you time to get an outfit in, too. I
guess you’d better come along,” urged the skipper.
“Outfeet!” cried Mateo, eagerly. “Vat you want? Peajack, boota, gole
vatch an’ chain, eberyting vat you vill hab me getta him.”
So it was finally settled, and an hour later, having written a loving
letter home, and been provided, through the old cook’s generosity, with
an outfit of clothes quite as good as the one he had lost, Breeze found
himself sailing out of Boston harbor in the good schooner _Albatross_,
bound for the George’s Bank. Certainly, nothing had been further from
his mind than this, when he had entered the same harbor a few hours
before; but he was rapidly learning that nothing is so likely to happen
in this life as those things we least expect.
St. George’s Bank, which furnishes the finest cod and halibut found on
the American coast, lies about ninety-five miles due east from Highland
light on Cape Cod. Its waters are fished all through the year by a large
fleet of vessels from New England ports, but its supply continues
apparently undiminished. It lies in a dangerous part of the ocean, for
it is swept by the current of the Gulf Stream, is subject to fearful
storms and dense fogs, and is crossed by all the transatlantic lines of
steamers.
Although it is so near at hand, and though fishing was one of the
earliest industries followed by the New England settlers, it was not
until about 1836 that trips to George’s became a regular feature of the
business. The bank was known to exist, and fish were known to be plenty
on it, long before, but the fishermen were afraid of it. This fear was
owing to the belief among them that the current, always sweeping across
it, was strong enough to drag under and sink any vessel that should
anchor within its influence.
The first three fishing vessels that visited the dreaded bank kept close
together, and their crews fished as they drifted about. Finally, one of
the skippers, who was regarded as a perfect dare-devil for proposing
such a thing, said he was going to anchor and take his chances. Several
of his crew were so frightened that they begged to be put aboard the
other vessels, whose skippers were not so venturesome. They were allowed
to go, and volunteers were called for from the other crews to aid this
bold skipper in his desperate venture. When enough brave fellows had
gone on board to be able to get the anchor up quickly in case of
trouble, it was let go, the cable spun out, was checked, the anchor
held, and the schooner rode to it as easily and quietly as though in
Gloucester harbor.
Now occurred the most amusing part of this bold experiment. The swift
current quickly bore the other two vessels away from the anchored craft,
but those on board the latter imagined that they were moving and leaving
their friends behind. They began to heave desperately on their cable,
got their anchor up, and started back in pursuit of their companions.
When they were once more united, all hands were fully satisfied with
their exploit; and though they had taken but a few quintals[B] of fish
they sailed back to Gloucester filled with pride because one of their
number had dared drop an anchor on George’s.
-----
Footnote B:
A hundred pounds weight.
-----
In those days, and until 1846, fishing vessels did not carry ice in
which to pack their catch and bring it fresh into market. In place of
this, many of them were made into what are known as “smacks” by having
tight compartments built in their hold amidships, and filled with
sea-water from auger-holes bored through the vessel’s bottom.
The greatest depth of water on George’s is 212 fathoms,[C] or 1272 feet,
nearly a quarter of a mile. The average depth for fishing is sixty
fathoms, though halibut are often taken in water two hundred fathoms
deep. It is, of course, tiresome work to drag these great fish to the
surface from such great depths, and they are never sought for there if
they can be found in shoaler water.
-----
Footnote C:
A fathom is six feet.
-----
It is no rare thing to find a hundred fishing vessels at anchor at one
time on George’s during any month of the year, and it was to join this
fleet that the _Albatross_ was now making her way swiftly around the
point of Cape Cod. She was fitted out as a hand-liner--that is, her crew
would fish with hand-lines over her sides--and she had a quantity of
frozen herring stowed with the ice in her hold to be used as bait.
They reached the bank and caught sight of the anchored fleet early the
following morning after leaving Boston. As they slipped along past one
after another of the vessels already at work, they could see their crews
hauling in their lines and tossing fish over the rail as fast as their
arms could move. It seemed curious to Breeze that this busy work should
always stop as soon as the _Albatross_ drifted near any of the others.
He asked why it was, and was told that they were afraid the new-comers
would notice their good luck and anchor near them, which they did not
wish to have them do.
As the _Albatross_ moved slowly across the bank, soundings were taken,
and the skipper kept a baited hook down. At last, in fifty fathoms of
water he got a strong bite, and at once ordered the anchor to be
dropped, Then the sails were snugly furled and the riding-sail set. This
is a small triangular bit of canvas bent to the main-mast, and is used
to hold the vessel’s head to the wind.
Now baskets of bait were got up, lines were overhauled, and soon every
man on board had one or two over the side. They were allowed to run out
until their leaden sinkers touched, when they were drawn up so that the
hooks, that hung a fathom below them, were raised a few feet above the
bottom.
There was an intense eagerness to bring up the first fish, and each man
kept an eye on his neighbor’s line as well as on his own, to see if he
were to be the lucky man. At last a shout announced a bite, and all
turned to see Breeze McCloud tug away at something so tremendously heavy
that it seemed to him he must be lifting a large piece of the bottom of
the ocean.
CHAPTER VI.
THE GALE ON GEORGE’S.
“Look out, Breeze! Let him run a bit!” shouted the skipper. “Don’t try
to snub him yet, or he’ll snap your line like a thread.”
Whish-hiss-s-s goes the stout line as the fish at the other end takes a
downward plunge. Now he runs upward, and the slack is hastily gathered
in. “There, he is off again! My, what a rush! There is evidently some
serious work on hand here,” said the skipper, as he went to the young
fisherman’s assistance. It took fifteen minutes of steady, patient, and
skilful work to tire the powerful fish. During this time general
attention was directed to the struggle, and the men almost neglected
their own lines in their curiosity to see what sort of a creature Breeze
had hooked.
Finally the exhausted fish gave up the fight and allowed itself to be
drawn to the surface. Now was seen the great white head of a halibut,
that looked to Breeze, who had never before caught a fish of this kind,
large enough to be a whale. Two men with gaffs[D] in their hands sprang
to his assistance, but the fish was so huge that not until two more had
also got gaffs into him was he lifted from the water and got on deck.
Here he was despatched by a few smart taps on the head from the “halibut
killer,” which is a short wooden club kept ready for this especial
purpose.
-----
Footnote D:
Gaffs are iron hooks securely fastened to strong wooden handles four
or five feet long.
-----
Breeze was wild with delight over his capture, while the whole crew were
more or less excited, as well they might be, for no such fish had been
taken from George’s by any one else that season. It weighed three
hundred and twenty-six pounds, and though larger halibut than this have
been caught, they are few and far between. One of the men said that he
was worth at least twenty dollars, and all admitted that he would create
a sensation when they took him into port.
“Put your mark on him, Breeze,” said the skipper, “so that you will be
able to pick him out when we get home. He might get lost, you know,
among the really big ones that the rest of us are going to catch.”
The boy laughed, but felt very proud of his first fish, as with his
sharp sheath-knife he cut a rude B like this, B, in the thick skin on
its head, and inscribed the same mark near its tail.
Old Mateo was as delighted at the success of his protégé as the boy
himself, and in honor of the event brought him a cup of hot coffee and
an extra nice Joe-flogger spread with butter and sugar.
“Me tell ’em so ven you lit babee, an’ eat ze harda tack. Me tell ’em
you catch ze feesh bimeby plentee, plentee! Now zey find out, eh?” he
exclaimed, in a tone of self-satisfied pride. It was as much as to say
that if they would only bring all the babies to him, he could tell
whether they would make successful fishermen or not. The men laughed at
him, and made many jokes concerning his wisdom; but he only laughed back
good-naturedly, and shook his head at them as he again disappeared in
the depths of his own domain.
For the rest of the day the fishing went on so merrily, and halibut and
cod were piled up on deck so rapidly, that nobody found time to stop for
dinner; but snatched hurried mouthfuls of food as they tended their
lines. It was lively and exciting work; but when it was time to knock
off, and begin to clear and pack the day’s catch, Breeze, for one, found
himself aching in every joint, while his hands were raw and water-soaked
from handling the hard, wet lines.
He would have gladly turned in at once, but the fish must be cleaned
first, and after that it was his turn to stand a two hours’ watch on
deck. Thus it was late in the evening before the exhausted lad tumbled
into his bunk, where he dreamed of monstrous fish with twenty-dollar
gold-pieces in their mouths, that turned into Joe-floggers as he reached
for them.
The fishing was good for three days longer, and all hands were
light-hearted and happy over their success. Songs and jokes were heard
on all sides, and the yarns told at night in the cabin were all of big
fares and quick trips to the Banks. It had been a stormy winter, and
March had come in like an angry, roaring lion; but now it seemed to be
anxious to prove the truth of the old saying, and to be about to go out
like the meekest of lambs. Three days more of such luck as they had had
would pull up their anchor and see them homeward bound. But March is a
fickle month.
The fourth day broke cloudy and threatening. The sky was gray and the
air was filled with a penetrating chill. The schooner rode uneasily,
straining and surging at her cable in the heavy swell that rolled in
from the eastward. The previous day had been what old sailors would call
“a weather-breeder,” with the wind light and puffy from the south-west.
The mercury in the barometer had stood about 30.7, which indicated a
change, and something to be expected from off the sea.
As the day wore on there was a feeling of snow in the atmosphere, and
the barometer fell steadily. The fish continued to bite eagerly, and
every man did his best to swell the sum total of his catch while he had
the chance. The luck of the _Albatross_ had been noticed, and several
other vessels were anchored near her, both ahead and astern.
By noon angry spurts of snow were driving in the faces of her crew, the
wind was moaning drearily through the rigging, and an occasional dash of
spray wet the deck. About this time all hands were ordered to “knock
off” fishing, dress the morning’s catch, stow all light articles below,
and “snug ship.” Twenty more fathoms of cable were paid out. The
foresail was loosed and three reefs were tied in it, so that it might be
ready for instant use in case the vessel broke adrift. Then it was again
furled, and securely tied.
The storm came on rapidly after that, until at four o’clock, when supper
was served, the schooner was pitching furiously, and bringing up with
vicious jerks on its straining cable. It was already quite dark, and the
snow drove in horizontal lines, tingling against a bare face like cuts
from a whip-lash. The wind howled through the taut rigging, and the
spray, torn from the crests of the racing seas, was blown in blinding
sheets above the slippery decks.
Breeze had never experienced anything like this. To him it was already a
frightful gale, and, as he almost pitched down the forward
companion-ladder in answer to the supper call, he was surprised to find
how calmly the men were taking it. In spite of the tumult on deck, the
creaking and groaning of the vessel’s timbers, and her mad pitching,
several of them were seated at the mess-table eating as unconcernedly as
though nothing unusual were happening. Another lay in his bunk, smoking
and exchanging jokes with those who were eating.
After the storm-swept deck, the forecastle seemed warm, light, and
cheerful. As Breeze sat down to the table, from which, in spite of the
storm-racks, the dishes were every now and then flung to the floor, he
wondered that he had never before noticed what a cosey and comfortable
place it was.
“Vel, Breeza!” shouted old Mateo, whose entire energies were devoted to
keeping the coffee-pot from sliding off the stove. “How you lak him?
Pret good, eh?”
“I lak him very much better down here than I do on deck,” answered the
boy between his mouthfuls of hot coffee and biscuit. “But, I say, Mateo,
don’t you call this a pretty stiff sort of a gale?”
“No,” replied the old cook, scornfully; “zis only one-a lit Georgy
shake-up. For ze gale you mus’ go to ze Gran’ Bank. Ah, zat ze place!”
With this the others chimed in, and began to tell of their experiences
in real gales, to which this one was but a March zephyr.
For all this, a little later, when the crew were gathered in the cabin,
where, around the little red-hot stove, wet clothing and boots were
sending up clouds of steam, the skipper, after looking out of the
companion-way, said,
“Boys, we are in for a regular ‘rip-snorter.’ I never saw a nastier
night. You’d better get a nap if you can now, for after midnight there
won’t be any chance for sleep aboard this craft. I want the watch on
deck to keep the sharpest kind of a lookout, and to call me the moment a
light is seen in any direction.”
The great danger of the night lay either in getting adrift, through the
parting of their cable or the dragging of their anchor, and rushing into
collision with some anchored vessel, or in being run down. In either
case the result would probably be the almost instant death of all on
board.
Following the skipper’s advice, Breeze crept into his bunk for a nap,
but for a long time found it impossible to sleep. The violence of the
pitching and the roar of the gale seemed to increase with each moment,
and it was only by the strongest effort of will that he could restrain
himself from springing up and rushing on deck. At last he did sleep, but
was only aware of it when a dash of icy water in his face awakened him.
Forgetting where he was, he sprang up, and struck his head violently
against the low ceiling above him.
A great sea of solid water had broken over the schooner’s bows, and
swept aft in such a volume that it must have flooded the cabin had not
the skipper, who stood in the companion-way, pulled the slide. As it
was, about a bucketful had made its way in, and a portion of it had
fallen on Breeze.
Scrambling from the bunk, he found his companions clad in their
oil-skins and prepared to hurry on deck at the first notice that their
presence was needed. Several of them were picking themselves up from the
floor, to which they had been flung by the shock of the big wave, and
one was lamenting a broken pipe. They were much more sober now than at
supper-time, and their conversation, which was entirely of wreck and
disaster, was not calculated to fill the boy with cheerful thoughts.
Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was past midnight, and the
skipper’s warning that there would be no sleep for them after that hour
flashed into his mind.
Following the example of the others, he pulled on his oil-skins, and sat
down to wait, he knew not what for. A few minutes later the summons
came. It was an unintelligible cry from the watch on deck, but its
meaning was clear to the practised ears of those below, and as the
skipper sprang up the steps, the others followed.
When Breeze reached the deck and felt the full force of the blast, it
seemed to drive the breath from his body. The wind was shrieking through
the strained rigging like a hundred steam-whistles. The snow had turned
into fine particles of ice that pricked like needles. The billows hissed
and seethed as, with streaming manes of glistening white, they galloped
past the quivering vessel. Now she was poised on the crest of a gigantic
wave, and the next instant buried in a yawning depth, beneath a smother
of broken waters that leaped high up on her masts.
By the rays of the riding-light, that still burned steadily just abaft
the foremast, Breeze could make out the several members of the crew
clinging to whatever seemed to promise the greatest safety, the
fife-rail, halyards, or rigging. Away forward, beside the groaning
windlass, was a figure which he knew to be that of the skipper,
crouching, axe in hand, ready to cut the cable.
All this had been taken in at one glance, the next revealed the cause of
the outcry from the watch on deck. A light dead ahead was bearing
swiftly down upon them. It was that of a fishing schooner torn from her
anchorage, and being hurled by the storm giant, like a bolt of
destruction, through the helpless fleet.
During the fearful suspense of the next minute the boy did not breathe,
and his very heart seemed to cease its beating. Twice the gleaming axe
in the skipper’s hand was raised to strike. Each time he thought of the
vessels anchored astern of the _Albatross_, upon which she must drive in
turn if cut adrift, and the blow was withheld.
Now the threatening light rose high above them, and then it swooped down
and rushed past so close that they could almost have sprung aboard the
drifting schooner. They caught a momentary glimpse of white faces, heard
one wild cry, and felt the dragging of the broken cable as it was drawn
across their own. Then all was again swallowed up in the furious
blackness astern, and for them that danger was past.
The night was bitterly cold, but the first sensation of which Breeze was
aware, when it was all over, was that of the profuse perspiration in
which he was bathed.
There being no longer any need of their presence on deck, the members of
the crew, after a fresh watch was set, again sought the shelter of the
cabin. Here Breeze was advised to try and get some more sleep, as it
would be his turn to go on watch at four o’clock. He lay down, but felt
as though he should never sleep again; for he could not close his eyes
without seeing, once more, the drifting phantom of destruction that had
just swept past them. He started fearfully at each lurch of the reeling
vessel, and fancied that he heard cries in the shriek of the blast
overhead. Although he dreaded to go on deck, it seemed as though he
should prefer it to remaining in the cabin, and it was a relief when he
was called to go on watch.
The lad’s watchmate was much older than he, a weather-beaten sailor who
had witnessed a hundred such gales, and felt that so long as the cable
held, there was not much to fear. He helped Breeze up on the foregaff,
where he would escape the worst of the great seas that continually broke
over the schooner’s bows, sweeping her from stem to stern, and bade him
keep a sharp lookout from there.
At last, faint and uncertain, the prayed-for, long-deferred, and
anxiously awaited light of day began to creep over the wild scene, and
the white foam-crests stretched away farther and farther. The snow
ceased to fall, and there was some promise of a cessation of the gale.
One of the first things they distinguished in the early light was the
huge dim form of a square-rigged vessel that, under bare poles, drove
past them, less than a quarter of a mile away, and vanished almost as
soon as she was seen. Nothing was said, for only a shout close to the
ear could be heard amid the tumult; but Breeze shuddered to think how
powerless their little schooner would have been to resist that driving
mass had they chanced to lie in its course.
They next saw a schooner plunging at her anchor, a short distance ahead
of them, and noted how she had dragged during the night, for they had
seen her the day before, but then much farther away. Her anchors had
only caught just in time to save both her and them, and again Breeze
realized the narrowness of their escape from the night’s perils.
As the daylight revealed her sad plight, they turned their attention to
their own craft. The seas no longer broke over her so furiously as they
had, but crushed bulwarks, and the deck swept clear of boat, gurry-kids,
and everything not absolutely built into it told of their awful force.
All at once Breeze, from his slight elevation, noted a commotion on the
deck of the schooner ahead of them. The men on watch seemed to be
heaving lines at something in the water. It was evidently drifting past
them, and their lines plainly failed to reach it. They were motioning,
as though to attract his attention towards it, and the thought flashed
into his mind that perhaps they had discovered a survivor of some wreck
floating in the angry waters, and had tried unsuccessfully to save him.
He told his companion of what he had seen, and they both watched eagerly
in the hope that if it was indeed a man he might drift within their
reach. They procured a couple of long light lines, made one end fast,
and coiled them carefully, in readiness to be flung at a moment’s
notice.
“I see him!” cried Breeze at length. “There, see! off our port bow; but
he is going to drift clear of us.”
It was the figure of a man, clad in oil-skins, the yellow gleam of which
had caught the boy’s eye as they showed for a moment on the crest of a
wave.
As he came near they saw that he was apparently clinging to the bottom
of an overturned dory. At the same time it was evident that he was going
to drift far beyond their reach, and they doubted if their lines even
could be made to reach him. They shouted again and again, but he gave no
sign of hearing them.
Breeze began to tear off his oil-skins, then his jacket and boots, and
to knot the end of a line about his waist.
“What are you going to do?” shouted his companion. “Not try and swim to
him?”
[Illustration: “YOU’RE CRAZY, LAD! YOU CAN’T LIVE A MINUTE IN SUCH A
SEA.”]
“Yes, I am,” shouted Breeze, in reply. “It would be a pity if the best
swimmer in Gloucester should let a man drown before his eyes for want of
trying to save him.”
“But you’re crazy, lad! You can’t live a minute in such a sea!” and the
man took hold of the boy’s arm to restrain him from the rash attempt.
With a single violent wrench Breeze freed himself from the other’s
grasp, and just as some of the crew, who had been attracted by the
shouts on deck, came up from the cabin, he plunged headlong into the
raging waters.
CHAPTER VII.
A STRUGGLE FOR A LIFE.
For half a minute Breeze was lost to the view of those who from the deck
of the schooner watched anxiously to see him emerge from his brave
plunge. They gave a shout as he reappeared. He had only time to draw in
a single breath of air before he was again buried beneath a huge curling
wave that, before it broke, towered many feet above his head. His
comrades were just about to haul him back by means of the line they were
paying out, and the other end of which was knotted about his waist, when
his head was once more seen above the surface.
This time they were astonished to note what a distance he had gained,
for being many feet under water had not prevented his swimming sturdily
towards the object of his efforts. Now how gallantly he dashed forward!
with what splendid overhand strokes he took advantage of the few moments
of surface-swimming granted him before he was again swallowed up! He had
won many a swimming-match in both smooth and storm-tossed waters about
Gloucester. He had taken many a header through green walls of inrushing
breakers, but never before had he swam as now; never before had he
struggled for the prize of a human life.
When for the third time he emerged from the suffocating waters, he saw
the yellow-clad form, to gain which he had fought so bravely, within a
few feet of him. With one more desperate effort, for the line about his
waist was now dragging him back almost irresistibly, he reached it, and
grasped the stern becket of the overturned dory.
Out-stretched upon its flat bottom, with both arms and legs twined about
the life-line,[E] lay the senseless form of a young man, apparently but
little older than the brave swimmer who now tried to rouse him. It was
impossible to do so, and Breeze feared that he was dead. Without casting
loose the line from about his body, he gathered a bight in it, and made
this fast to the becket of the dory. Then he waved his hand as a signal
to those on board the schooner to pull in.
-----
Footnote E:
A fishing dory has a wooden plug in its bottom near the after end that
can be drawn so as to allow water to run out. To the lower end of
this, extending forward along the boat’s bottom to an iron ring, is
often fastened a life-line for use in case of a capsize.
-----
The strain upon the light line was terrible, and in any other hands but
those of expert fishermen it would have parted a dozen times before its
precious burden was drawn as close as was safe under the stern of the
schooner. Then a second line was thrown to Breeze, who, nearly exhausted
as he was, still found strength to secure it about the body of the
senseless lad beside him. He could not, however, undo the clutch of the
rigid fingers from the life-line, and for a moment began to despair,
even within reach of rescue, of saving him for whom he had risked so
much. But help was at hand, and it came as he least expected it.
From the schooner’s deck old Mateo had watched the brave struggles of
his boy, as he called him, in an agony of apprehension. Now, with senses
quickened by affection, he was the first to comprehend the difficulty.
Just as Breeze was about to relax his efforts, feeling that he could do
no more, the old cook’s heavy jack-knife, with the end of a fishing-line
attached to the ring in its horn handle, came flying across the dory,
and dropped into the water beyond it.
Breeze secured it, opened it, and with a last effort cut both ends of
the dory’s life-line, as well as the becket to which he had fastened
himself. Then the knife dropped from his nerveless fingers, and, as the
dory drifted away, two senseless figures were drawn through the wild
waters to the plunging schooner. With a final effort for their
destruction, a huge billow hurled itself bodily upon them, and the lines
had to be slackened for a few moments, or they would have parted. The
limp forms were buried deep beneath the green waters; but again they
were drawn to the surface, and this time they came within reach of the
eagerly out-stretched arms waiting to grasp them.
The unknown lad was carried into the cabin; while Breeze, claimed by
Mateo, was tenderly taken into the forecastle. There, while two men
stripped and rubbed him, the old cook heated blankets, and prepared hot
stimulants, wailing as he bustled about, “Oh, Breeza! ma boy, ma boy!
You no-a die; you must leeve!”
It was half an hour before their efforts were rewarded by a faint sigh
and a flush of returning color in the livid cheeks. Then the boy opened
his eyes, and gazed about him wonderingly for an instant. A few minutes
later, wrapped in hot blankets, he fell asleep and was breathing
regularly.
Almost the same scene was taking place in the cabin, only there it was
so long before the patient showed the least sign of life that some of
those who worked over him were several times ready to give up in
despair. They were only kept at it by the skipper, who exclaimed,
“Great Scott, men! it will be a shame if we cannot fetch him to, after
that boy has nearly given his life to save him. I, for one, shall work
over him from now till noon before I will give him up.”
At last he, too, was brought back to the life from which he had so
nearly departed, and by noon, when the sun came out, both patients were
doing finely. Neither of them was allowed to leave his bunk until the
next morning; but they were kept warm, and encouraged to sleep as much
as possible. In their exhausted condition this was easy to do. So with
only one or two awakenings to take the light nourishment that Mateo
prepared for them, by the aid of his never-failing “lit tin cow,” they
slept through the rest of the day and the whole of the night.
The next morning they awoke, filled with the life and energy that always
wait upon youth and a sound constitution, and almost inclined to believe
their recent adventure to be but a troubled dream. Only a few bruises,
and the marks about their bodies of the ropes by which they had been
drawn aboard the schooner, remained as traces of what they had
undergone.
The sea had gone down so rapidly the day before that the crew of the
_Albatross_ had been able to resume their fishing by noon, and had had
remarkably good-luck until night. By a mutual agreement, suggested by
the man who had been watchmate with Breeze that morning, they devoted
half an hour to their brave young comrade, and the entire catch of fish,
made during that time, was credited to him in the ship’s books.
The next morning when Breeze came on deck he saw the skipper talking to
a well-built young stranger, whose naturally ruddy face had not yet
wholly recovered its color. For an instant he wondered who it could be,
and where he had come from. Then it flashed across him that this was the
person whom he had rescued from the sea; and, not knowing exactly what
to do or say, he stood looking at him curiously.
The young stranger noticing him, said something to the skipper, who
turned quickly and exclaimed,
“Good-morning, Breeze! Why, you are looking as fresh as a daisy. This is
Mr. Wolfe Brady,” he added, indicating the lad who stood beside him.
“Although you two have already been dorymates, he declares he has never
seen you before, and I am certain you have never been introduced. Mr.
Brady, Mr. McCloud.”
In assuming this jesting tone the skipper hoped to put the young men at
their ease, and relieve their first meeting of the embarrassment they
might naturally be expected to feel under the circumstances.
There was a long, firm hand-clasp between the two who had so nearly met
death together; but for a moment neither of them spoke. Then Wolfe Brady
said,
“They tell me you saved my life, and nearly lost your own in doing it. I
can’t thank you, because I haven’t the gift; but if ever the time comes
when you can use it, I will offer my life to you as freely as you
offered yours for me.”
“Thank you,” answered Breeze, simply. “I am very glad I succeeded in
reaching you; but how did you happen to be afloat on that dory?”
[Illustration: THERE WAS A LONG FIRM HAND-CLASP BETWEEN THEM.]
“I hardly know myself. Yesterday morning I belonged to the trawler
_Ibis_ of Boston. Just before daylight, while half the crew, and I among
them, were on deck, we were run down by a large square-rigger scudding
under bare poles. It was so dark that we did not see her until she was
right on top of us, and then, though we cut the cable, it was too late.
She struck us before those below could get on deck, and crushed the
schooner down as though she were a herring-box. Then I’ve no knowledge
of what happened to the others, or even to myself. I only know that I
was under water such a long time that I wonder I did not stay there.
When I came up something was floating close beside me, and I got hold of
it. The rest is a blank. The next thing I knew, I was lying in a bunk
and somebody was trying to pour something down my throat. Your skipper
was just telling me what a splendid fight you made to get me, and how
near you came to losing the number of your mess, and sending your vessel
home with her flag at half-mast in doing it. I’m awfully grateful, and I
hope some time I may be able to prove it; for I’ve been a pretty bad
lot, and was not ready to go up aloft yet.”
“No,” said Breeze, soberly, “I don’t suppose many of us are.” Then he
asked, “Are you an American?” The other’s name, and a foreign accent to
his speech, led to the question.
“Not yet,” answered Wolfe, smiling, "but I hope to be in two years more
when I come of age. At present I am an Irishman. That is, my father is
Irish, my mother is English, and I was born in England, but brought up
in Queenstown, Ireland, where my parents live, and from which I ran away
to sea about a year ago. Before they were married, my father was butler
and my mother lady’s-maid in the household of Sir Wolfe Tresmont. That’s
where I got my first name. My father is now a linen-draper in
Queenstown, where his best customers are Americans. I was sent to school
in England for four years, but I hated it, and from seeing and hearing
so much of Americans, I had a great desire to come to this country. Last
year my father took me from school and set me to work in his shop. I
hated that worse than school, and seeing a chance to run away and ship
on board a bark bound for Boston, I took it and came over here.
“By the time I got on this side I had had enough of merchant sailing;
and, as I could not find anything else to do, thought I would try
fishing. Since then I have made two trips, one of four months to the
Newfoundland Banks, and one to George’s before this one. Now here I am,
and you know more about me than I have told to another living soul since
leaving home.”
“Well,” said Breeze, “you know a good deal more about yourself than I do
about myself. I suppose I must have had a real father and mother, but I
never knew them, for I was picked up at sea, floating in a cask, when I
was a baby. I am almost certain I must be an American, though, for I
know I could never love any other country so well. I’m glad you are
going to be one too, as soon as you can. Don’t you think I look more
like an American than anything else?” he inquired, a little anxiously.
“I don’t know,” replied the other, regarding him attentively. “Yes, on
the whole I think perhaps you do. Still, with light hair and blue eyes,
you know, you might be a Scandinavian, or a Dutchman, or an Englishman,
or a Scotchman, or even an Irishman.”
They both laughed at this, and Breeze said,
“You might as well quote ‘Pinafore’ at once and be done with it.”
So the conversation between the two, which had been rather constrained
at first, became more easy and confidential, until they found themselves
discussing each other’s hopes and plans with the freedom of old friends.
Every now and then a shadow would sweep over Wolfe’s face, and he would
speak in a lower tone as he thought of the probable fate of his recent
shipmates. Still, as grieving could do neither them nor him the
slightest good, he tried to keep cheerful, by remembering how
marvellously he himself had been spared. He confessed to Breeze that he
had caused his parents much trouble and anxiety, by his manner of life,
both in school and at home, but declared that now he really meant to
turn over a new leaf.
“I’ll begin by writing to my mother as soon as ever we reach port,” he
said, “for it makes me feel ashamed of myself to remember that I have
not sent home a single line since I left there. I do not suppose they
have the slightest idea what has become of me, or whether I am alive or
dead.”
To Breeze, his mother was so near and dear, he had thought of her and
written to her so often even during his short absence from home, that
Wolfe’s account of his own neglect was most surprising. Still, he did
not feel at liberty to express his feelings in the matter, and only
said, “I would, if I were you, by all means; she must be feeling awfully
at not hearing.”
The rest of the schooner’s crew had been hard at work catching fish
since daylight, and during their conversation Breeze and Wolfe had also
been busy with their lines. Several other schooners were still in sight,
though at long distances from them. Most of the fleet had been scattered
far and wide by the gale, which, though short, had been one of the
severest of the season. After it was over many of the fishing vessels
returned to port to refit, while the fate of others was told by the
melancholy signs of wreck and disaster that every now and then floated
past the _Albatross_. Her skipper knew that for a time fresh fish would
command an extra price in the Eastern market, and so was anxious to
carry in as large a fare as possible. For this reason, in spite of the
damaged condition of his vessel, he remained on the bank two days longer
before getting up the anchors that had held her so well, and heading for
home.
In the mean time tidings of the gale and its destruction of lives and
vessels had reached Gloucester, and had caused the greatest anxiety
there. As one after another of the schooners that had escaped sailed
into the harbor, their crews were eagerly questioned for news of this
one or that one not yet heard from. At last one came in bringing with
her a dory that she had picked up, and on which was stencilled the name
“_Albatross_.” Her skipper reported that on the night of the awful
storm, during a slight lull, he had caught a momentary glimpse of two
lights. They were so close together that the vessels bearing them must
have been in collision. They bore from him just as the _Albatross_ had
when he last saw her. As he looked the lights suddenly disappeared,
either from the shutting in again of the snow, or because they had gone
to the bottom. Soon afterwards his own craft had parted her cables, but
had managed to weather the gale, and on the following day he had picked
up this dory. That was all, but it seemed to seal the fate of the
schooner, whose return had until then been watched for so hopefully and
so anxiously.
Mrs. McCloud had made Captain Coffin, who was still at home, promise to
bring her the very first tidings, whether good or bad, that should come.
Now with a heavy heart he walked slowly towards the little cottage, in
which sorrow was becoming so familiar a visitor.
The moment he opened the door, and the anxious loving mother caught
sight of his face, she exclaimed, “He is lost; my boy is lost! I know he
is! I can see it in your face!”
“You must not give up all hope yet,” said the captain, soothingly,
seeking to comfort her, though he felt that his words would be in vain.
“We do not yet know certainly the fate of the _Albatross_, though we
have every reason to fear the worst.”
CHAPTER VIII.
A FALSE FRIEND, AND AN OPEN ENEMY.
All night long the poor mother seemed to hear Captain Coffin’s last
words, “We have every reason to fear the worst,” repeated over and over;
but, as though to comfort her, they were always followed by the thought,
“Nothing certain is yet known.” She always tried to find a bright side
to her troubles, and by looking steadily at it, to forget that there was
any dark side. This plan worked so well now that by morning she had
determined to still hope for the best, instead of fearing the worst,
until something more definite should be known. This was certainly the
wisest thing to do, for more than half of all our troubles are those we
think may come, but which, after all, never do come; and hoping steadily
for the best goes a long way towards bringing the best to us.
Though all this had nothing to do with bringing Breeze McCloud home, he
came nevertheless. While his mother was busy, with almost her usual
cheerfulness, preparing breakfast, she heard a joyous shout in the
little front yard, the door was burst open, and the next moment her
boy’s arms were thrown about her neck.
The _Albatross_ had made a glorious run home, and passed in by Eastern
Point at sunrise that morning. The moment she was made fast to her wharf
Breeze had jumped into a dory and pulled across the harbor, so as to be
the first to tell his mother of his own arrival. He could stay to
breakfast, but must get back to the schooner as quickly as possible
afterwards, and help discharge the fare of fish she had brought in. One
of the boy’s first questions was,
“Is there any news from father yet, mother?”
“Not yet,” was the answer; “but I feel certain there will be soon, and
that when it comes it will be good news. How much we shall have to tell
him when he does get home, and how proud he will be of you!” she added,
fondly.
Her faith in her husband’s return was still as strong as ever, and
Breeze had always shared it.
While they were at breakfast there came another shout in the front yard,
the door again opened, and before he got fairly inside, Captain Coffin
exclaimed, “It’s all right, Mrs. McCloud! The _Albatross_ is in, and
Breeze is--”
“Here, and mighty glad to see you, sir!” cried the lad, jumping up from
the table to greet the new-comer.
“Bless my soul!” exclaimed the astonished skipper, shaking Breeze
heartily by the hand, and gazing at him incredulously, “you have both
out-footed and out-pointed me this time. I didn’t suppose the
_Albatross_ was tied up yet, and thought I had at least half an hour’s
start of you.”
The captain sat down to breakfast with them, and between mouthfuls
Breeze tried to give them an outline of his recent adventures. They were
all so excited, and Mrs. McCloud had to jump up from the table so often
to replenish the plates, that she only received a confused impression
that her boy had saved somebody’s life and caught the biggest fish that
ever was seen. This, however, satisfied her for the present; the details
she could learn afterwards.
As soon as breakfast was over, Breeze started back for the schooner, and
Captain Coffin went with him. While they were rowing across the harbor
the latter said,
“I’ve got a new schooner, Breeze, and a finer craft was never built in
Essex. Her name is the _Fish-hawk_, and she is fitting out for a salt
trip to Grand Bank. Don’t you want to ship on her? I can offer you a
full share now.”
“I don’t know, sir. It seems as though I ought to stay with mother a few
days at any rate.”
“So you can; we sha’n’t get off for a week yet, but I thought I would
speak about it now, so that if you decided to go I could hold the place
for you. Besides, you could put your dunnage right aboard, which would
save you the trouble of carrying it home when the _Albatross_ hauls out
for repairs.”
“All right, sir,” said Breeze; “I should like to go with you better than
with anybody else, and I guess, inside of a week, I can persuade mother
to let me start off again. If you’ve got room for another, I’d like to
speak for a berth for a friend of mine too.”
“Do you mean the one you went dorymate with on George’s the other day?”
asked the captain, laughing.
“Yes, sir. His name is Wolfe Brady, and he has been on one trawling trip
to the Banks already, besides two to George’s.”
“Well, I’ve got about all the men I want, except a cook, and I don’t
suppose he can fill that berth, but I’ll take a look at him, and if we
suit each other perhaps I can make room for him.”
“If you want a cook,” said Breeze, eagerly, “why not try and get old
Mateo? He is the best cook sailing out of Gloucester, and if the
_Albatross_ is going to be laid up for some time, perhaps he will go
with us.”
“I see that you were cut out for a regular shipping agent,” laughed the
captain, “but I’ll get Mateo if I can.”
Everything went well that day. Captain Coffin took a fancy to Wolfe and
offered him a berth on the _Fishhawk_ almost as soon as he saw him.
Wolfe, who was willing to ship for any kind of a trip, was greatly
pleased at the prospect of going with Breeze, and at once accepted the
offer.
Old Mateo, too, who, now that his boy had become a sailor, seemed to
think it his duty to follow and watch over him, was easily booked as
cook of the new schooner.
The big halibut caught by Breeze sold for nearly twenty dollars, and the
boy was handed a check for thirty-four dollars as the result of his
eight days’ trip to George’s. Wolfe was also made happy by receiving
twelve dollars as his share of the three days’ fishing after he had been
picked up.
After getting his check cashed, and repaying what old Mateo had loaned
him, Breeze carried the rest home to his mother. This money, added to
what he had made on the mackerelling trip in the _Curlew_, amounted to
sixty-five dollars. It would be hard to tell whether he or his mother
was the prouder over this satisfactory result of the boys’ first efforts
as a bread-winner.
During the long, happy talk that they had after supper, their one regret
was that the father was not there to share their joy, but they spoke
hopefully of his coming, and the future looked brighter to them than it
had for many a day. Mrs. McCloud was greatly interested in what Breeze
had to tell her of his adventure with the New York jeweller who had
opened the golden ball. They both examined it minutely, but could
discover no joint amid the delicate tracery of its surface. After it had
been again restored to its place, Mrs. McCloud cautioned the boy to
always guard it carefully, as she felt more than ever certain that some
day it would prove of great value to him.
About eight o’clock Breeze started up, saying that he must go back to
the schooner after Wolfe Brady. He had invited him to come home to
supper and spend the night, but Wolfe had begged for a little time in
which to purchase some very necessary additions to his scanty wardrobe,
and Breeze had promised to meet him on board the Albatross soon after
eight o’clock. Since then he had told his mother all that he knew of the
young stranger, and so excited her interest in him that she now sent him
an invitation to stay with them as long as he should remain in port.
Kissing his mother good-by, and promising to be back very soon, Breeze
left the house; and taking her sewing, Mrs. McCloud sat down to await
his return.
Neither Wolfe Brady nor anybody else was to be seen on the _Albatross_
when Breeze reached her. Near by lay the _Fish-hawk_, to which he had
transferred his dunnage that afternoon, but she too was deserted. On the
opposite side of the wharf lay a shabby-looking old schooner, named
_Vixen_, on which several men were still at work, evidently getting her
ready for sailing. Breeze asked them if they had seen anybody answering
Wolfe’s description about there recently.
“Yes,” answered one of them, “I seen a young feller like that hanging
round here ’bout half an hour ago. He came over here and got talking
with Hank Hoffer, one of our men, and they walked off uptown together. I
expect they’ll be back directly.”
“Did you hear them say where they were going?”
“No; seems to me, though, I did hear Hank say something ’bout Grimes’s.
Shouldn’t wonder if they’d gone up there to get a drink.”
Breeze started at the mention of Grimes’s, for he knew it to be one of
the lowest and very worst drinking-dens in the town. Such places are not
permitted by law to exist in Gloucester, but occasionally they escape
the vigilance of the police for a short time, and in them many a sturdy
fisherman is tempted to squander the money he has risked his life to
earn.
Captain McCloud had seen so much of the pitiful misery and sorrow caused
by drink that he had brought Breeze up to regard it with horror. As soon
as the boy was old enough to realize what he was doing, he had promised
his father that, so long as he lived, he would never touch a drop of any
intoxicating liquor. He had never signed a pledge, nor had his father
asked him to; for although Breeze was slow to make promises, he would as
soon cut off his hand as to break one that he had made, and his father
trusted him implicitly.
Now, although he was neither a prig nor a goody-goody boy it distressed
Breeze to think of any one whom he called friend visiting Grimes’s. His
one hope was that, being a stranger in town, Wolfe did not know what
sort of a place it was, and that he would leave it and come back as soon
as he discovered its character.
In this hope he waited for half an hour longer, and then, as Wolfe still
failed to appear, he determined to go in search of him. He knew pretty
nearly where Grimes’s was, and walked in that direction. Very soon he
saw several men come out from a dark passage-way and turn down the
street, talking and laughing loudly. He followed them until satisfied
that Wolfe was not among them, and then returned and waited until
another party came out from the same passage-way. His friend did not
appear this time, and he felt that he must go in and either satisfy
himself that Wolfe was not there, or persuade him to come away if he
was.
He walked back and forth several times before he could make up his mind
to go in. At last, feeling that he was acting the part of a coward, he
entered the passage, and finding a closed door at its farther end, tried
to open it. The noise that he made was evidently heard inside, for a
slide in one of the upper panels of the door was pushed back a few
inches, and a bright light flashed full in his face.
“Who are you?” asked a voice through the opening.
“No matter who I am,” replied Breeze. “I come to look for a friend and I
want to be let in.”
“Well, you can’t come in until you’ve told me your name, and whether you
are alone or not.”
“My name is Breeze McCloud, if you must have it, and I am alone,”
answered the boy.
“That’s all right; I recognize you now,” said the voice, and the next
moment the door was thrown open.
Just then two figures came through the dimly lighted hall-way that the
open door disclosed, and in the voice of one of them Breeze recognized
that of Wolfe Brady.
He waited until they got to where he was standing, and then, taking hold
of his friend’s arm, he said, “I’ve been looking for you, Wolfe, and
waiting to take you home with me.”
“Hello, Breeze!” exclaimed the other, huskily; “glad to see you, old
boy. You’re just in time to go back and have a drink with us.”
“No, thank you,” replied Breeze; “I never drink anything. I only came
here to find you, and now I want you to go home with me.”
“Oh, come along in,” said Wolfe’s companion, in a disagreeable tone.
“You ain’t afraid, are you?”
“No,” said Breeze, “I’m not afraid; but now that I’ve found my friend
there’s no reason why I should go in, and I don’t choose to do so.”
“Well, you needn’t put on any of your high and mighty airs with me,”
exclaimed the other, threateningly. “This gentleman is as much my friend
as he is yours, and I’m going to prove it by taking him inside again.
Come back in, old pard,” he added, grasping Wolfe’s other arm as he
stood balancing himself unsteadily between the two.
“No,” said Breeze, decidedly, “he sha’n’t go back;” and with this he
endeavored to pull Wolfe through the still open door-way into the
street.
Here the door-keeper, who had watched the scene impatiently, interfered,
and saying, “I can’t have any disturbance here, gentlemen; you’ll have
to settle this business outside,” assisted Breeze to such purpose that
the next moment all three were in the street, and the door was closed
behind them.
This excited Wolfe’s anger so that he began to kick the door, at the
same time screaming to be let in.
“Oh, come, this won’t do!” exclaimed Wolfe’s companion. “This racket’ll
bring the police down on us in no time. You see now what a fix you’ve
got us into, don’t yer?” he asked, turning to Breeze.
“I see what a fix you’ve got this poor fellow into by bringing him to
such a place,” replied the latter, indignantly, “and I hope you feel as
ashamed of yourself as you ought to be.”
“None of your preaching!” cried the other, fiercely, “or you and I’ll
have a bigger score to settle than we’ve got now. Take hold of him,
can’t you? and let’s get away from here before we get nabbed.”
Together they succeeded in pulling Wolfe from the door, and in directing
his unsteady steps down the street in the direction of the wharf.
While Breeze was wondering what on earth he should do with his friend in
this wretched condition, Wolfe’s intoxication assumed a new form, and he
began to yell and sing at the top of his voice.
“Stop that noise, or I’ll take you all in,” shouted a gruff voice behind
them.
“Shut up, can’t yer?” exclaimed Wolfe’s companion to him, angrily.
“Don’t you hear the police?”
But Wolfe only yelled the louder, and began to revile the police, and
dare them to come and get him.
“We must cut for it,” said Hank Hoffer, for this was the name of Wolfe’s
companion. “Grab him tight and run him. We’re pretty near there.”
Almost carrying Wolfe between them, the others hurried him along at such
a pace as to quite take his breath away and put a stop to any further
outcries.
As they reached the wharf Hank said, “Quick, now! let’s get him aboard
this schooner. I belong here, and it’ll be all right. We’ll get him
below, and put him in a bunk, where they’ll never notice him. Hurry,
they’re coming!”
In the excitement of the moment Breeze did not stop to think whether
this was a wise thing to do or not; and, only anxious to shield his
friend from the consequences of his own folly, he blindly obeyed these
instructions.
Wolfe stumbled on the deck of the schooner and fell, striking his head
against the wheel. When they got him below he seemed stupid, and blood
was flowing from a gash on his forehead.
[Illustration: “QUICK, NOW! LET’S GET HIM ABOARD THIS SCHOONER.”]
Pulling forward a bucket of water, and handing Breeze a rag, Hank said,
“You sponge him off, and keep him quiet while I go on deck and see
whether the police have followed us down here or not.”
Without waiting for an answer, he sprang up the companion-way and pulled
the slide over it. Then he went forward, and began to talk in a low tone
to the skipper of the schooner, who, with several other men, was on
deck. The police had evidently given up the chase some time before, for
none were in sight on the wharf.
What Hank Hoffer said to the skipper was, “I’ve brought you a couple of
first-class hands, and they’re both drunk down in the cabin; but they’ll
be all right to-morrow. They were making such a racket in the streets
that the police gave us a run for it. I’m afraid they’ll come after us
yet; so, as long as we’re all ready, why don’t you cast off, drop out
into the stream, and make a start.”
Now, this skipper was not much liked by those who knew him, nor was his
old schooner a popular boat; so he had found it somewhat difficult to
get a crew for the trip she was about to make to the Newfoundland Banks.
He had, however, succeeded in shipping all but two of the necessary
number, and now that these two had come aboard of their own free-will,
he saw no reason why he should not take Hank Hoffer’s advice and make a
start.
The motion of the schooner was so gentle as she drifted away from the
wharf that Breeze, busily bathing his friend’s head, did not notice it.
When, however, those on deck began to hoist the sails, he recognized the
sound quickly enough, and springing up, tried to push back the
companion-way slide. It was locked. Then he began to pound on it
furiously, and to shout for somebody to come and unfasten it; but no
attention was paid to his outcries.
“It’s only those drunken fellows in the cabin,” explained Hank Hoffer to
the rest of the crew; “they’ll quiet down directly.”
So Breeze McCloud and Wolfe Brady sailed away in the old schooner
_Vixen_ for Grand Bank, while in the little cottage on the eastern hill
an anxious woman sat and waited for their coming.
CHAPTER IX.
KIDNAPPED.--THE PROMISE.
Finding that no notice was taken of his shouts to be released from the
cabin, Breeze finally sat down on the transom beside the bunk in which
Wolfe was now sleeping heavily, and tried to puzzle out the meaning of
what had taken place. At first he thought it might be a sort of a
practical joke, and perhaps the _Vixen_ was only being carried out in
the bay to get a good position for an early start in the morning. In
that case he did not doubt but he would be allowed to return to the city
when she came to anchor. As time wore on, and the schooner still
continued to move rapidly through the water, even this hope began to
disappear. At last the motion of the vessel convinced him that she had
passed out of the bay, and was now riding the long, regular swells of
the open sea.
He now remembered that the _Vixen_ had been fitting for a trip to the
Grand Bank, and realized that she had really begun the long voyage that
might last for months. If he could only have bidden his mother good-by,
and told her where he was going! Now the thought of her distress at his
unexplained absence completely overcame him. Throwing himself at full
length on the hard transom, he buried his face in his hands and sobbed
as though his heart would break. Finally, tired out by his long, hard
day’s work, his recent excitement, and the strength of his emotions, he
fell into a troubled sleep.
Soon afterwards the companion-way slide was pushed back, and the
skipper, Hank Hoffer, and another man entered the cabin and tumbled into
their bunks, but without waking the prisoners.
“Sleep sound enough, don’t they?” remarked the skipper.
“Yes,” answered Hank Hoffer. “Drunken men always do.”
It was broad daylight when Breeze awoke, cramped and stiff from lying so
long on the bare boards of the transom. As he sat up and looked about
him, his thoughts were in such confusion that he could not for a moment
recall where he was. Seeing Wolfe Brady asleep in the bunk beside him
brought back the events of the preceding evening with a rush, and
starting up, he went on deck. There a single glance showed him that they
were out of sight of land and heading to the eastward.
A young man whose face looked somewhat familiar to him was at the wheel,
though he could not recollect where he had seen it.
“Hello!” exclaimed this individual. “Turned out, have yer? Feel any
better than you did last night?”
Breeze started at the sound of the voice. It was that of Wolfe Brady’s
companion of the night before, of whose face he had not at any time
obtained a good view, but whom he now recognized. “What do you mean,” he
asked, stepping up to the young man, “by playing such a trick on me? How
dared you lock us into that cabin and bring us off in this way?”
“Ho, ho!” laughed the other, “I dare do almost anything. As for what I
meant by it, I told you a while ago that I’d get even with you for
laughing at me when that mackerel seine broke and pitched us all
overboard. I’ve only kept my word.”
Now it flashed across Breeze where he had seen the face before. It was
while on his trip in the _Curlew_, and this young man had been one of
the crew of the Rockhaven schooner--the one who had shaken his fist and
threatened him for laughing at their ridiculous mishap.
“I laid up another grudge agin you yesterday,” continued Hank Hoffer.
“When I went to Captain Coffin and asked for a chance on the
_Fish-hawk_, he said he had just engaged you and your mate, and didn’t
want any more hands. So I had to ship on this old packet. When I found
your mate hanging around alone last evening, I saw a chance to fix him,
and thought I’d get even with you that way. Then you had to come along,
like the greenhorn that you are, and walk right into the trap too. I
tell you what, young feller, you won’t never gain nothing by running
afoul the hawse of Hank Hoffer! So put that in your pipe and smoke it,
and see that you remember it too.”
It was all plain enough to Breeze now, and he turned away angry and
heart-sick, to think that his own carelessness should have led him into
such a predicament. He thought he could not feel any worse than he did,
but a minute later he found himself confronted by a new trouble, beside
which the other became insignificant.
As he re-entered the cabin he found the skipper awake, and at once began
to charge him with having kidnapped them, and to threaten that if they
were not set aboard the first homeward-bound vessel they met, he would
have him arrested the moment they again reached Gloucester.
The skipper listened to all this in amazement, and when Breeze had ended
said,
“You’d better be careful in your choice of words, my young friend, or
you may get yourself into trouble. I never kidnapped you or anybody else
in my life, and I don’t know what you mean. You came aboard this vessel
of your own free-will just as she was about to start. Your friend on
deck there told me that you wanted to ship with us for the pleasure of
sailing in his company. I took his word for it instead of talking with
you, because you were too drunk to--”
“I drunk!” interrupted Breeze, excitedly. “I never drank a drop of
liquor in my life, and anybody who says I was drunk last night lies;
that’s all.”
“Oh, come now,” said the skipper, beginning to get angry in turn,
“that’s too thin. Didn’t you come stumbling aboard last night as no
sober man would have done? Didn’t you raise particular Cain down here in
the cabin for a while, and then fall into such a heavy sleep that
nothing could wake you from it? Don’t your eyes show that you have been
drinking? Wasn’t the smell of whiskey almost strong enough to knock a
man down when I came into the cabin to turn in, and nobody’d been here
but you and your mate? Besides all this, didn’t I see you myself hanging
round Grimes’s not more than half an hour before you came aboard? Don’t
tell me again you wasn’t drunk. There’s nothing I despise so much as a
sneak that tries to crawl out of a scrape by lying about it. Now wake up
that partner of yours and turn him out, or I’ll come down here and do it
for you with a bucket of salt-water.”
With this the skipper went on deck, leaving Breeze bewildered and
stunned by the charge just made against him, and the amount of apparent
proof brought to sustain it.
The worst of it all was that if the skipper had seen him in the vicinity
of Grimes’s, others might also have seen him there, and would report the
fact when inquiries began to be made for him. Then, too, if the whole
crew of the _Vixen_ believed as their captain evidently did, that he had
been drunk, would anybody ever believe his simple assertion that he had
not been so, against their statement that he was? What would Captain
Coffin think? What would his mother think? Would not her heart be broken
by this horrid report coming on top of his mysterious and unexplained
disappearance? In his agony of mind the poor boy groaned aloud. At this
sound a voice behind him exclaimed,
“Hello! What’s the matter, Breeze?”
Turning quickly, he saw Wolfe Brady awake, but still lying in his bunk
and regarding him with dull eyes.
“Matter enough,” he answered; “for if ever a fellow was in a worse fix
than I am I should like to know it. You ought not to be the one to ask,
anyhow,” he added, bitterly.
“Why, what do you mean, old man?” inquired Wolfe, leaning upon his elbow
and gazing about the dirty cabin with a perplexed air. “Where are we,
anyhow? What craft is this? Somehow, it doesn’t seem like the
_Albatross_.”
“_Albatross!_” exclaimed Breeze. “I should say not. We are on board the
_Vixen_, bound for the Grand Bank, with only our shore clothes for an
outfit, and nobody in Gloucester knows what has become of us.”
“You don’t mean it!” cried Wolfe, now thoroughly aroused. “How did it
all happen?”
“Do you mean to tell me,” said Breeze, “that you do not remember
anything of what happened to us last night?”
“Not a thing. ’Pon my honor. The last I remember is that after waiting a
while for you I fell in with a pleasant fellow on the wharf who wanted
me to stroll uptown with him. He said we would not be gone more than
fifteen minutes. We stopped in at some kind of a place to get a drink.
He treated me, then of course I had to treat him, and after that I don’t
remember anything more. What vile stuff it must have been! Ugh! my mouth
tastes like brass and my head feels as though it were made of red-hot
lead.”
“Well,” said Breeze, “that drink of yours has got us into about as mean
a scrape as I know of, and if it hasn’t completely ruined my reputation
and broken my mother’s heart, I shall be thankful.”
“My dear fellow, you don’t mean to tell me it is as bad as all that!”
exclaimed Wolfe, now sitting up, and with a tone of deep concern. “It
doesn’t seem possible. I wish you would explain what you mean.”
“There isn’t time now,” answered Breeze; “the cook called breakfast ten
minutes ago, and we’ll have to hurry if we want to get any. You’d better
get on deck and douse your head in a bucket of cold water. It will do
you good. After breakfast I’ll tell you the whole story, and then we can
make up our minds what to do.”
The men who sat at the breakfast-table with Breeze and Wolfe regarded
them curiously, winked slyly to one another, and made a few jokes in low
tones upon their appearance, but nobody spoke to them.
After the meal was over, as no particular attention was paid to them,
they found a sheltered place forward, away up in the eyes of the
schooner. There Breeze related to Wolfe all that had happened during the
preceding night, bringing his story down to that morning, and not
omitting the remarks the skipper had made to the effect that he had been
intoxicated.
Before he had finished, Wolfe was worked up into a state of furious
anger. “You miserable low-lived scoundrel!” he muttered through his
clinched teeth, shaking his fist in the direction of Hank Hoffer, whom
he now recognized as the one who had played him such a mean trick the
night before; “I’ll pay you off for this; see if I don’t.”
“It was a mean trick, and I hope he’ll live to be sorry for it,” said
Breeze; “but don’t you think you were almost as much to blame as he?”
“I!” exclaimed Wolfe, in surprise; “how do you mean? By being so soft as
to let that fellow get the best of me?”
“I mean by having anything to do with him when you found out that he
wanted you to drink with him.”
“Why, man! I thought he only wanted me to take a glass with him in a
friendly way.”
“And do you think it is right to take that kind of a glass?”
“Certainly; where’s the harm?”
“Well, I expect you and I have been differently brought up, then. My
father thinks it is the very worst and most dangerous habit a young man
can get into. As for the harm, seems to me it is plain enough in this
case at any rate. If it hadn’t been for that glass we wouldn’t be in
this fix now, and mother wouldn’t be breaking her heart at home, as I’m
sure she is at this minute, for not knowing what has become of us.”
“I hadn’t thought of it in that light,” said Wolfe, who had never been
taught as Breeze had, to regard drinking as a sin.
“I wish I could get you to think of it in that light now,” said Breeze.
“Oh, Wolfe! if you would only promise, this very minute, that you’d
never touch another glass of liquor as long as you live, I believe I
should be glad that all this had happened--will you?”
Wolfe looked at him for a moment without speaking, then he said, “Would
you rather I’d promise you that than anything else, Breeze?”
“Yes, I would.”
“Then I’ll do it. Not long ago you risked your life to save mine, and I
told you that from that time on it was at your service. This is the
first thing you have asked of me since, and I’m not the lad to go back
on my word. So now I promise you, and there’s my hand on it, that so
long as I live I’ll never taste another drop of strong drink unless you
ask me to.”
“Then you never will,” said Breeze, smiling; “and, Wolfe, if you only
knew how glad I am to have that promise, it would make you very happy to
think you had given it to me.”
“It makes me happy already to see you smile again, for I begin to see
now how I have brought on all this trouble.”
“Let’s not call it trouble any longer,” said Breeze, cheerily, “but do
as my mother does, and try to look on the bright side of it. We were
coming to the Banks, anyway, in a week or so, and perhaps this trip will
be luckier than the one on the _Fish-hawk_ would have been, who knows?”
Just then the skipper came up to where they were sitting, and said,
“Well, boys! how goes it now? Feeling any better than you did?”
“Yes, very much,” answered Breeze, “but not so well as we should if
you’d only get rid of the idea that I was drunk when we came aboard last
night.”
“It’s true, skipper,” added Wolfe, earnestly, “I was a little under the
weather, I acknowledge, but Breeze, here, never drinks, and was as sober
as a halibut. I can vouch for that. And I’m never going to get that way
again either. I’ve sworn off.”
“Oh, well,” answered the skipper, carelessly, “it’s all right now. There
isn’t a drop aboard this craft,[F] so I ain’t afraid but that you’ll
keep straight enough till the end of the trip anyhow.”
-----
Footnote F:
As a rule, the Gloucester fishing skippers pride themselves upon never
allowing any liquor to be carried to sea aboard their vessels.
-----
“Now that you have got us off here,” said Wolfe, “what are you going to
do in the way of finding us something to wear, besides these store
clothes?” Here he looked ruefully at the new suit he had bought the day
before, which was already showing signs of hard usage.
“What!” exclaimed the skipper, “are those all you’ve brought with you?”
“Of course they are; we have not a rag except what we stand in.”
“Well, now, that’s bad; but perhaps some of the other fellows can spare
a few old things, and there are a couple of extra oil suits aboard that
you can have and I’ll charge ’em up to you. By-the-way, I suppose you
two will go dorymates?”
“Of course,” answered Breeze, promptly; “we’ve already been dorymates on
one trip, and we mean to be on every other we ever take together.”
“You’ll use dory No. 6, then,” said the skipper, “and you’d better get
to work overhauling your trawls right off. You want to have everything
in order before we get to the Banks, ’cause there won’t be any time to
waste then. When we once get to fishing I shall expect every man on
board the old packet to jump quick and make every minute tell, or else
he’ll have to reckon with me for it.”
“That’s all right, skipper. We’ve made up our minds to do our best so
long as we are here and can’t help ourselves,” said Breeze. “But we
belong to the _Fish-hawk_, you know, and if we should happen to run
across her at any time while we are on the Banks, you must not be
surprised if we turn up missing some fine day.”
“We’ll see about that when the time comes,” replied the skipper, grimly;
“but mind you, if you leave the vessel before the trip’s finished,
you’ll lose all interest in what has been caught up to that time, and
can’t claim a cent’s worth of it.”
Both sides having thus arrived at a fair understanding with each other,
the boys proceeded to make themselves as comfortable as possible under
the circumstances. Though they declined to have anything to do with Hank
Hoffer, they soon established friendly relations with the rest of the
crew. They found the _Vixen_ to be a dirty old craft, and very
uncomfortable in many respects. She was, however, an able sailor and a
good sea-boat, and after weathering a pretty stiff gale she reached
Grand Bank, nearly nine hundred miles from Gloucester, during the night
of the sixth day out.
Although the boys had said nothing more about deserting her, if they had
a good chance they had fully made up their minds to do so. Little did
they imagine, however, under what circumstances this leave-taking was to
be effected, or how they should long to once more set foot on the
well-worn deck of the old _Vixen_.
CHAPTER X.
TRAWLS AND WHALES.
A trawler, such as the _Vixen_ was, is fitted out very differently from
a seiner or a hand-liner, the styles of craft on which Breeze had made
his previous fishing trips. Instead of a large seine-boat, she carries
from four to eight dories, and a crew sufficiently large to allow two
men to each dory, besides the skipper and cook. The trawls are tarred
cotton ropes the size of a lead-pencil, that come in lengths of about
fifty fathoms, or three hundred feet each. To these are attached at
distances of a fathom apart for cod, and a fathom and a half apart for
halibut, short lines of from three to six feet long, to the ends of
which hooks are made fast. About six of these lengths of trawl, or 1800
feet, are coiled in a tub, and each dory will carry out and set from
four to six tubs of trawl in from twenty to two hundred fathoms of
water. The lines contained in the several tubs are made fast to each
other, and all are set in one straight line, from one to two miles in
length. The trawls are anchored at each end, and buoyed by small kegs,
so that the hooks shall hang just clear of the bottom.
As the _Vixen_ was on a “salt trip,” the pens in the hold, instead of
being filled with ice, contained several hundred bushels of coarse
rock-salt. She had a crew of fourteen men all told, and on her deck,
fitting into each other like nests of buckets, were six dories, three on
each side.
The next morning after reaching the Bank a fishing-ground was chosen,
and the anchor was dropped overboard. Then the canvas was furled, the
riding-sail was bent on, top-masts were sent down, and everything was
made as snug as possible, and put in readiness for all sorts of weather.
Baskets of frozen herring were got up from the hold, and cut into bait
sizes with sharp knives on the bait-boards. These are heavy planks laid
on top of the cabin. With this cut-up herring each dory crew baited the
thousand or more hooks of their own trawl, and coiled the lines snugly
away again in the tubs.
That afternoon the trawls were set, one astern of the schooner, one
ahead, one off each quarter, and one off each bow, these positions
having been drawn for by lot beforehand. Thus the schooner formed the
centre of a circle of trawls, the outer ends of which were nearly two
miles from her. The position falling to Breeze and Wolfe was that
directly ahead of the vessel. After going far enough away to be sure of
being well clear of her, in case she should have swung round by morning,
they began to set their trawl. Breeze continued to row in a straight
line away from the schooner, while Wolfe, after dropping overboard the
light anchor and the buoy-line attached to its floating keg, began to
pay out the trawl with its baited hooks. It required great care and
considerable skill to get them overboard without snarls or knots, so
that each hook would be certain to hang straight down by itself and
clear of all the others. After the job had been done neatly and
properly, the second anchor was dropped, and a buoy, with a flag on it
to mark the outer end of the trawl, was flung overboard. Then their work
was finished for the present; for the line was to be left “set” all
night, and would not be visited until early in the morning.
As they rowed back to the schooner Breeze said, “Wolfe, I want always to
carry out some fresh water and some hard-tack in the dory after this.
I’ve heard my father say a great many times that if all fishermen would
only do this, half the lives that are now lost on the Banks might be
saved.”
“You’ll be well laughed at on board for a coward if you do,” replied
Wolfe.
“I don’t care. I’d rather any time be laughed at than to be lost out
there somewhere in a fog, and perhaps drift round for days without
anything to eat or drink.”
“All right,” said Wolfe; “I guess I can stand it if you can.”
That night Breeze hunted up a small keg, which he filled with fresh
water, and a box into which he put a couple of dozen ship biscuit
wrapped in paper and stuffed into a sort of a water-proof bag that he
made out of an old oil-skin jacket.
When the whole crew was turned out at daylight the next morning, they
found dreary, shivering weather up on the cold deck; but after the hot
coffee and hearty breakfast which the cook had ready for them, they felt
better. All were then soon off in their dories, going in the direction
of the several buoy-flags left at the outer ends of their trawls the
night before.
As Breeze stowed his fresh water and provisions in the stern of dory No.
6, Hank Hoffer noticed what he was doing, and sung out to know what he
was afraid of, and if he didn’t want to be tied to an apron-string for
fear of getting lost.
Wolfe’s hot Irish blood rushed to his face at these taunts, and he would
have answered back but for Breeze, who said,
“Let him alone, Wolfe. It makes him feel a great deal worse not to be
noticed at all. Nothing would please him better than to get us into a
muss, and to have the skipper order us off about our business.”
“Well, I don’t know but what you are right, Breeze; but what a queer
fellow you are, anyhow. It seems to me you must have been born with a
wise head on your shoulders. Here I am a year older than you, but most
any one hearing us talk would take you for the old boy and me for the
young one.”
They rowed steadily while they talked, and soon reached the little
canvas flag that marked the buoy at the outer end of their trawl.
“I wonder what luck we’re going to have?” said Breeze. “What I like best
about fishing is the not knowing what you are going to catch, and the
thinking whenever you have bad-luck you may have better next time.”
“I expect that is the most interesting part about most things in this
world,” said Wolfe; “but with all my luck I can’t start this anchor.
It’s got foul of something. I expect we’ll have to rig up the
hurdy-gurdy.”
This was a small iron winch that could be set up in the bows of the
dory, and which is often found necessary in heaving up heavy trawls.
With its aid the refractory anchor was soon got aboard. The buoy had
already been picked up, and at length the trawl began to appear. Now
came the exciting moment. What would it bring? Would every hook have its
fish, or would they be few and far between? They would not even consider
the possibility of its being what fishermen describe as a “water haul,”
or one bringing them nothing but empty hooks. Wolfe stood forward in the
dory pulling in the line, while Breeze stood a few feet behind him,
ready to take off the fish and stow the trawl in its tubs.
“Here he is!” cried Wolfe at last. “Number one a cod, and a jolly big
fellow at that. My eye! but he must weigh fifty pounds at least. Our
luck’s begun good at any rate. Bear a hand here with the gaff, Breeze.
Quick! There, my hearty! lie still where you are put, and we’ll soon
give you plenty of company.”
After this came two or three bare hooks, and then a small halibut. Then
half a dozen more codfish, one close after the other, and next only the
skeleton of a fish with its bones picked as clean as though there had
never been a particle of flesh on them. It astonished Breeze greatly,
and he said,
“Well! I never knew before that a fish’s skeleton would take bait. How
hungry it must have been! It does look rather thin and gaunt, for a
fact,” he added, laughing.
“He was something a good deal better than a skeleton when he took that
hook,” explained Wolfe, who had hauled trawls before. “The sand-fleas
have made a meal off of him, and there must have been a pretty lot of
them to go through him so quickly and completely.”
“Sand-fleas?” repeated Breeze, inquiringly.
“Yes, just such chaps as you may see almost any time hopping on a
beach.”
A haddock bearing the teeth-marks of the halibut that had tried to
swallow him after he was caught came next. Then followed cod, cod, cod,
so fast that by the time the trawl was half hauled, dory No. 6 was deep
in the water and her crew did not dare to put another fish into her.
They were in fine spirits over their good-luck, as they buoyed the trawl
and pulled back to the schooner to get rid of their load before
attempting to finish the haul. By this time a stiff northerly breeze was
blowing, and the _Vixen_ had swung with the change of wind, so that she
now lay stern to them. This made their pull much shorter than it
otherwise would have been. Owing to this they had the satisfaction of
pitching the first fish of that cruise on the schooner’s deck. This
greatly disappointed Hank Hoffer, who came up a minute later in dory No.
5, and who had fully expected to be able to claim the honor of “first
fish.”
He began to make ugly remarks to the effect that if they had waited to
get a full load they would not have been back so quickly. This time the
skipper cut him short with, “Look to your own load, Hank. If you’d ’a’
waited to make it as big as the one these lads have brought in, you
wouldn’t have come for half an hour yet.”
As soon as the fish had been unloaded from dory No. 6, and the two tubs
of trawl already hauled had been lifted out, the boys returned for the
rest of their catch. They had hardly got the buoy aboard, and were just
beginning to haul in the remainder of the trawl, when suddenly the most
surprising thing occurred.
The dory was at once, and without the slightest warning, lifted bodily
several feet into the air, and both its occupants were flung down, Wolfe
striking and breaking a thwart in his fall. Immediately afterwards the
dory slid on its side, and apparently downhill, into the water. It was
only by scrambling hastily to the upper gunwale that the boys kept it
from capsizing. As it was, it was half full of water before they
succeeded in righting it.
At the same moment they heard a loud rushing sound like escaping steam,
a column of spray was thrown high in the air, and they caught a glimpse
of a huge black object sinking out of sight but a short distance from
them. As it disappeared, their boat was rocked violently on the waves
that surged over the place where it had been.
Both the boys were terribly startled, and for a moment greatly
frightened, by this mysterious occurrence. They had instinctively begun
bailing the water from the dory almost as soon as they found that she
still floated right side up. Breeze was the first to recover the breath
which had been nearly driven from his body by the shock of his
overthrow, and now he gasped out,
“Do you think it was an earthquake, Wolfe?” Before Wolfe could answer, a
large whale, evidently the mate of the one that had given them such a
scare, rose to the surface to blow, a hundred yards to one side of them,
and Breeze exclaimed, “So that’s what it was! Well, I’m mighty glad he
didn’t come along and hoist us on his back while the dory was loaded
down as she was half an hour ago.”
“So am I,” began Wolfe, “but hello!” he cried, stopping his bailing and
starting up. “Whatever has got into the old _Vixen_? She must have a
steam-engine aboard.”
[Illustration: A LARGE WHALE ROSE TO THE SURFACE TO BLOW]
Breeze looked, and, to his astonishment, saw the schooner moving away
from them, and going through the water at a speed of ten or twelve knots
an hour. Her sails were still furled, and apparently her anchor was
still down; but she was certainly moving, and that at a rapid rate. The
white water was foaming under her bows, and a wake, like that of a
steamer, was trailing and eddying behind her.
“It’s one of those whales, and he’s caught a fluke of her anchor in his
blow-hole or in his jaws. Yes, sir, he’s running away with her!”
exclaimed Breeze, who had heard his father describe a similar occurrence
as having happened to him once on the Banks.
“That’s what it must be,” said Wolfe. “But it beats anything I ever
heard of. My eye! isn’t she going, though!”
“Well,” remarked Breeze, as they watched the rapidly vanishing schooner,
“I should say that fishing in these waters was pretty exciting work. I
know it beats mackerelling, or life on George’s. Do you know whether it
is always as lively here as it seems to be this morning, Wolfe?”
“This goes ahead of anything in my experience,” was the reply. “I only
hope the old man will cut his cable before he loses sight of us, or that
he has had sense enough to take our bearings so that he can pick us up
again. Now that we have got a quiet spell, I suppose we might as well
finish bailing before the next performance begins.”
After they had rid the boat of all the water she had shipped, they began
once more to haul in on their trawl. They reasoned that if the schooner
came back they would be so much ahead with their work, and if she did
not, they could pitch the fish overboard; while, in the mean time, the
occupation would keep them from worrying over what might happen.
They had got nearly to the end of their trawl, and the dory was again
deeply laden with fish, when Breeze cried out, joyfully, “Here she comes
back!”
He was right. The white sails of the schooner could be seen, though at a
great distance from them, and they knew that she had in some way got rid
of her unwelcome tow-boat, and was on her way back.
Two of the other dories that had been left behind now approached them,
and a man in one of them called out, “I don’t suppose you fellows have
got any fresh water aboard, have you?”
“Yes, we have plenty of it,” shouted Wolfe. “I declare I had forgotten
it, though, and I’m awfully thirsty myself,” he added to Breeze.
The latter had no reason to regret his thoughtfulness when he saw how
heartily they all enjoyed the water and a lunch of biscuit that, but for
him, they would have gone without.
So far had the schooner been towed before the whale had managed to clear
himself from his encumbrance that she was nearly two hours in making her
way back to them. Her skipper had refused to cut the cable, for he was a
part owner in the vessel, and did not want to be put to the expense of a
new one. Thus he showed one of the traits in his character that made him
so unpopular. He was always ready to sacrifice the comfort, and even the
safety, of his men, rather than run the risk of losing money.
At last the schooner did return to the waiting dories, and their loads
of fish were transferred to her deck, after which the trawls were
rebaited and again set out. Then came a busy time spent in “dressing
down;” that is, cleaning the fish, cutting off their heads, splitting
and salting them, and finally packing them in the hold. After this, the
trawls were again hauled and again set for the night. Owing to the delay
of the morning, the second catch had to be “dressed down” by
lantern-light, so that it was nearly eleven o’clock before the tired
crew were allowed to throw themselves into their bunks for a few hours’
sleep.
The air during the day had been growing steadily colder, and before dark
the peculiar chill denoting the presence of ice at no great distance had
been noticed, and had occasioned some anxiety. The season was unusually
backward, and a recent succession of northerly gales had driven the
arctic ice almost to the edge of the Gulf Stream. This had been reported
before the _Vixen_ left Gloucester; but, as her crew had not yet met
with any ice, they hoped it had again gone north, and that they were to
escape it entirely.
While Hank Hoffer was on watch that night he busied himself for some
time with the contents of dory No. 6, and any one standing close beside
him might have heard him mutter, “There, I hope those sneaks will enjoy
the drink I’ve fixed for them. I’ll teach ’em that we don’t want any
cowards aboard this craft.”
An hour later, or shortly before daylight, the tired sleepers in cabin
and forecastle were roused from their dreams, and brought shivering out
from their warm bunks by the hoarse voice of the watch on deck shouting
down the companion-ways, “Hear the news below there! Tumble out all
hands! Lolly ice all around us, and a big berg bearing down from dead
ahead!”
CHAPTER XI.
SURROUNDED BY ARCTIC ICE.
There is nothing more dreary or depressing in the whole experience of a
fisherman’s hard life than to be awakened from a sound sleep and turned
out from snug quarters to fight against ice. In either form, as it
drifts down upon his vessel from arctic seas, or as it accumulates in
the form of frozen spray upon her bows, until, to reduce the great
weight that endangers her safety, he must attack it with axes and iron
bars, it is an enemy to be dreaded and cordially hated. So, to the tired
crew of the _Vixen_, the unwelcome announcement made at the close of the
last chapter brought them on deck, grumbling at their hard fate and
shivering in the deadly chill of the air.
There was no time to spare, for they could plainly distinguish, looming
from out the gloom on their starboard bow, the vast form that threatened
their destruction. They could already feel its icy breath, colder even
than the chill of the night, and note that its motion, aided by
converging currents of air and water, was such that within a few minutes
it must sweep over the very place they were occupying.
As many as could man the bars sprang to the windlass and began to get up
the anchor. One hurriedly cast off the stops from the furled foresail,
while another loosed the jib. Then the former was hoisted, and at the
same instant the cable was announced as “hove short;” but the anchor
obstinately refused to break out. Once, twice, and again they heaved on
it in vain.
The steady but silent advance of the monster now close upon them was
awful in its relentlessness, and finally, given added strength by the
terror of its nearness, the straining crew at the windlass made one last
effort that tore the unwilling anchor from its hold just as the skipper
had raised his axe to cut the cable.
The big jib seemed to run up the stay of its own accord, while powerful
arms held its clew well over to windward. Breeze, who had tugged and
strained with the others at the windlass until he was dripping with
perspiration, sprang aft to the wheel and rolled it hard over. Then
slowly, oh, so slowly! as it seemed to the breathless crew, the schooner
began to pay off, and then to forge ahead. Even then they did not know
but that they were too late. Already the small drift-ice pushed ahead of
the berg was grinding against the vessel’s sides, while the towering
mass was cutting off the wind from her sails and leaving her becalmed to
await its pleasure.
It revolved slowly as it drifted, and all at once this rotary motion
opened up to them a deep cleft in its formation, through which whirled a
sudden gust of wind. As it struck the out-spread sails the schooner
heeled over before it and bounded forward, as though only then awakened
to the consciousness of her danger.
She just cleared it, and that was all. For her and her crew, five little
seconds and a cat’s-paw of wind spanned the infinite gulf that separates
safety from destruction, life from death. For a moment they could hardly
realize they had escaped, and as the monster swept sullenly past them,
still revolving like a gigantic millstone seeking to grind to powder all
who dared oppose it, they gazed at it in silence and with bloodless
faces.
But the reaction came quickly. The men who fish on the Newfoundland
Banks learn to forget their perils almost before they have passed. At
the hoarse command of “Ready about! Stand by the jib-sheets!” the crew
of the Vixen seemed to awaken as from a troubled dream.
Within fifteen minutes their vessel was again at anchor in nearly the
same place she had occupied before the berg drove them from it. Her
sails were furled, and all who could be accommodated at the little
mess-table were eating, with a relish, the breakfast that the cook had
been steadily preparing amid all the exciting scenes that had just
passed. He knew that, to live and to work, men must eat, and that so
long as the vessel held together and floated, it was his duty to prepare
food for them.
The berg that had caused all this trouble and anxiety was a solitary
rover that had left its frigid companions in order to pursue its own
erratic course. It was not even accompanied by large floe-cakes, but
only by quantities of the small drift or “lolly” ice. This would not
interfere to any great extent with the handling of the trawls, though it
would render the work particularly cold and disagreeable.
As the daylight strengthened, however, practised eyes on board the
_Vixen_ detected a pale glimmer on the northern horizon that indicated
the presence of those vast ice-fields that frequently sweep over the
Newfoundland Banks in the spring of the year. They often carry death and
destruction to the fishermen and their vessels, always bring hard,
dangerous work, and threaten a disastrous loss of gear. Therefore, on
the present occasion the skipper hurried the men through their meal, and
despatched them as quickly as possible in the dories to haul their
trawls. They were ordered to cut the lines if necessary, and to return
to the schooner with all speed the moment the close approach of the ice
should be indicated by the signal of the ship’s flag displayed in the
main rigging.
In the present position of the schooner the trawl belonging to dory No.
6 was at some distance astern of her, and our dorymates had a long pull
before reaching its outer buoy. They worked like beavers in getting the
trawl aboard; and as it was nearly bare of fish, the ice having
seemingly driven them away, they succeeded in hauling the whole of it
before the recall signal was shown.
Just as he had got in the last anchor, Wolfe, casting a glance in the
direction of the schooner, observed the flag, though there was not now
wind enough to flutter it, and exclaimed, “There it is, Breeze! the
skipper’s giving us the recall, and he is not the man to do it until the
last moment. You may count on the ice being close to her now, as well as
on the fact that we’ve got a stiff pull ahead of us to get back in
time.”
And it was a stiff pull. The strong young backs straightened out
splendidly with every stroke, the tough oars bent and rattled sharply
against their confining thole-pins, and the white water sped away from
the prow of the old dory, as though she were a racing boat. But they had
been too heavily handicapped; the ice had been allowed too great a
start, and they were still several hundred feet from the schooner when a
shout from her deck caused them to look around.
What they saw made them heart-sick, and for a moment their case seemed
hopeless. They were already cut off from the vessel by several great
cakes of ice that were grinding and crashing together angrily. Others
were rapidly drifting into, and narrowing, the open space that still
remained, and they could not see any chance of ever being able to pass
this moving, treacherous barrier. All at once the loud cries and eager
gestures of those on board the schooner directed their attention to a
buoy lying on one of the cakes nearest to them. To their great joy they
saw that to it was attached a line that was being paid out over the
stern of the vessel. Somebody had been thoughtful enough to make this
use of the cake as it drifted by.
Altering their direction slightly, the boys had, in a minute more,
snatched the buoy from its ice raft, and Wolfe was making the line it
had brought them fast to the rope becket in the bow of the dory. At the
same moment a shout was heard from another direction. Looking up they
saw another dory still farther off than they were, and evidently about
to be cut off, not only from the schooner but from them, by the cruel
ice.
[Illustration: IN A MINUTE MORE THEY HAD SNATCHED THE BUOY FROM THE
ICE-RAFT.]
As quick as thought, Breeze tossed one of their trawl buoys, with its
line still attached, to the cake of ice that had brought help to them
from the schooner, and which was still within reach. It fell so close to
the edge that he had to pay out the line most carefully to prevent its
being dragged off. In a few minutes he had the satisfaction of seeing
the dory pulled alongside of the floating cake, and one of her crew step
carefully out upon it, and walk towards the buoy.
His weight bore the ice down so that water began to flow over its edge;
and just as he stooped to pick up the buoy, it floated and eluded his
grasp. He made a clutch and succeeded in seizing it; but at the same
instant his feet slipped from under him, and he plunged headlong into
the cold waters.
The cry with which the unfortunate man disappeared from view was echoed
from the dory he had just left. In it Hank Hoffer was now as effectually
cut off from the schooner as though he were already miles away, instead
of almost within reach of her.
For the time being the crew of dory No. 6 paid but little attention to
him. All their energies were directed towards saving the man in the
water, who had now come to the surface, still grasping the buoy. A great
cake bore down upon him, and threatened to crush him, or at least to
force him under. Fortunately the line by which he was held passed over
it, and he was able to draw himself on to its slippery surface. From it
he again went into the water, and thus, slipping, scrambling, jumping,
and swimming, but always clinging to the line, he finally reached the
dory, cut, bruised, and nearly exhausted.
Then the dorymates began to look after their own safety, for they were
still in great danger of going adrift. A portion of the line that
connected them with the schooner was under the ice, and might at any
moment be cut or parted. There was also the danger that the sides of the
dory might be crushed in or cut through by the heavy jagged cakes, some
of which were fifty feet wide, and from five to ten feet thick. By
jumping out on the larger cakes, and pulling the boat over them, pushing
aside the smaller ones, tugging, straining, and working with all their
might for half an hour, they finally got the line clear and above the
ice. All this time those on the schooner had held it taut. Now it was a
comparatively easy matter to pull the boat, with its brave crew and the
man whom they had rescued, close under the stern of the vessel, and to
hoist her clear of the water by the davits.
Thankful enough were the dorymates to tread once more the firm deck of
the old _Vixen_, and hearty was the welcome given them by her crew. All
the other dories, except that which held Hank Hoffer, had been got
safely on board, some with all their trawls, and others with only
portions of them. The lost dory, with its solitary occupant, had become
but a dim speck against the white background of ice that now covered the
sea as far as their sight could reach. The boys barely caught a glimpse
of it as it was pointed out to them from the deck of the schooner before
it vanished entirely. They both sprang into the main rigging to get
another sight of it; but, though they climbed to the mast-head, they
could not again discover it. They did, however, see several icebergs
drifting in that direction, and it was with heavy hearts and very sober
faces that they descended to the deck and reported the probable fate
that had overtaken their shipmate. He had proved himself their enemy,
and even among the rougher members of the crew he had made no friends.
Still he was a human being, who for more than a week had formed one of
their little community, and been thrown into close companionship with
them. Now he was called upon to suffer terribly, and alone, a fate that
might have overtaken any one of them, and they pitied him from the
bottom of their hearts.
With the exception of a few puffy squalls, the morning had been without
moving air enough to lift the ensign that still drooped listlessly from
the main rigging, but about noon a breeze sprang up from the southward.
With the first sign of wind the _Vixen’s_ anchor was hove up, sail was
made, and she began to beat slowly in the direction taken by the missing
dory, through a lead of clear water that had opened through the floe.
There was not much chance that anything would ever again be seen of it
or its unfortunate occupant; but they could not give him up without
making an effort to save him, and so, for several hours, the almost
hopeless search was continued.
Navigation was extremely difficult, for the spaces of open water were
few and often very narrow. Sometimes they led abruptly into ice so
closely packed that no headway could be made against it, and the
schooner barely held her own, as it ground and scraped along her sides
with a force that threatened to cut through even her stout planking.
At length Breeze, who had climbed to the mast-head to take a look
through the skipper’s glass, reported that he could see something black
that looked like a man on one of the icebergs they had noticed earlier
in the day, and which they were now approaching.
After the object had been pointed out to the skipper, and he had looked
at it long and carefully, he also expressed the opinion that it was a
man, and ordered the schooner to be headed in that direction. Her
progress was necessarily very slow, and the afternoon was well advanced
before she reached a broad space of open water, beyond which rose the
iceberg. It was now not more than half a mile from them; but it was
surrounded by an apparently impassable barrier of floe ice. This, though
in motion, was so densely packed along its outer edge that the vessel
could not be forced into it. Again and again was the attempt made, but
it only resulted in failure, and each successive shock threatened her
with irreparable damage.
At length these efforts were abandoned, and the schooner began to cruise
up and down along the barrier, seeking for some opening through which
she might pass. The black object on the iceberg had remained in sight
long enough for them to be certain that it was a man, but then it had
disappeared. This disappearance greatly puzzled the _Vixen’s_ crew. Some
of them said he must have slipped off the ice into the water, and been
drowned, or else he would certainly have remained in sight to make
signals to them. Others thought perhaps the berg had swung round so as
to hide him from them, and that he was unable to reach any point from
which he could be seen. Among the latter were Breeze and Wolfe, who, as
time wore on, became very impatient at the delay caused by the icy
barrier.
“If we do not get to him soon,” said Breeze, “he will certainly freeze
to death. Wolfe, don’t you think we could get our dory across the floe
to that iceberg, if we should try?”
“You don’t mean to say that you’d be willing to try it for the sake of
that fellow, do you?” exclaimed his companion in amazement. “Why, man,
the chances would be ten to one, yes a hundred to one, against your ever
getting back to the schooner again.”
“That may all be,” replied Breeze, “but if they were a thousand to one
against it I’d rather take the one chance than to go off and leave that
poor fellow to die there without even trying to save him. I believe it
can be done, and I’m going to ask the skipper to let me go.”
“Well,” said Wolfe, “you are the softest and the pluckiest fellow I ever
met. I don’t believe the skipper will hear of your going, but if he
should you sha’n’t go alone.”
“I was sure you’d say that!” cried Breeze, “and I’m just as sure that
we’ll succeed if we are only allowed to try my plan.”
The skipper hesitated some time before giving his consent to the scheme
proposed by Breeze; but at length, finding that no further headway could
be made by the schooner, he yielded reluctantly, and said they might
make the attempt.
The rest of the crew tried to dissuade the boys from such a foolhardy
undertaking, “especially,” as one of them said, “when the man doesn’t
show up, and is probably gone long before this.” When they found them
determined to go, however, they lent them every assistance in their
power.
Before starting, both the boys drank a cup of hot coffee and ate a hasty
luncheon. Into dory No. 6 they put a box of provisions, two pairs of
blankets, a coil of rope, and a hatchet. Their water-keg was already
full. The skipper promised to remain within sight of that iceberg until
they returned, or until he knew what had become of them, and as they
started the crew gave them a hearty cheer.
They found it hard and tedious work to get their dory over the first
barrier of ice, which was about a hundred yards wide. After that was
passed they progressed more rapidly, and discovered so many little lanes
of open water that they reached the berg much more easily than they had
expected to.
As they rowed alongside of it they discovered a small level place, close
to the water’s edge, upon which a landing could be made. The ends of the
berg rose into points fifty or sixty feet high, but above this point was
a depression that did not rise more than twenty feet above the water.
When they reached this place Breeze said, “Let me land here, Wolfe, and
climb up to the top, where I can look over, while you stay in the dory.”
So saying, and taking the hatchet with him, he stepped out on the ice,
and began slowly to make his way up the gentle but slippery incline. As
he reached the top he stood there for a moment looking around, and then
turned as though about to call out to his friend. Suddenly he seemed to
slip, and to Wolfe’s dismay he threw up his arms, uttered a loud cry,
and disappeared.
CHAPTER XII.
AN ICE CAVE AND ITS PRISONERS.
At first Wolfe hoped that Breeze had merely slipped and fallen, and for
a minute waited anxiously for him to reappear. Then it occurred to him
that his companion might have slid into the water, and that possibly he
was even now drowning, or struggling in vain to regain a footing upon
the treacherous surface. Thus thinking, he sprang to his oars, and
pulling furiously, soon carried the dory to the other side of the
iceberg, which was not a very large one. To his dismay he could discover
no trace of his friend even here, and he now began to be seriously
alarmed. He could see the whole side of the ice island as it rose,
glittering and sparkling above him, in the light of the setting sun. It
shone with all the colors of the rainbow, and was coldly, awfully
beautiful to look upon, but nowhere did it offer to his view the
faintest trace of a human presence.
This side was rugged, and so precipitous that it would be impossible for
any one to gain a foothold upon it from a boat, much less from the
water; all of which Wolfe noticed with a feeling of despair. As he
examined the frigid mass above him more closely he noticed that, near
its top, there seemed to be several platforms or terraces, and he
determined to pull back to the landing-place and climb up and examine
them. Rowing slowly around the other end of the berg, and scanning every
foot of its surface in the vague hope of discovering something, he
finally came again to the place where Breeze had left him. Here, with a
heavy heart, he made his preparations to follow the course his friend
had taken. Hauling the dory partially out of the water, so that there
would be less danger of its being crushed by floating cakes, he jammed
its anchor into a crack of the ice and pulled the anchor rope taut.
Then, taking advantage of the occasional holes Breeze had cut in the ice
with his hatchet, he began to climb towards the summit of the ridge.
When at last he reached it he dreaded to look around him; for this was
his last hope, and if he should see nothing of his dorymate from here,
he felt that he must indeed give him up for lost. At length he forced
himself to gaze, slowly and carefully, in every direction about him.
There was only the ice, the water, the sunset sky, and, sharply outlined
against it, the _Vixen_, standing off and on beyond the floe, waiting
for them.
Waiting for _them_, and he must return to her alone. This thought broke
him down completely, and he groaned aloud in his distress. He knew now
how strong a hold his sunny-faced young dorymate had gained upon his
affections, and feeling that he had gone from his life forever, the
whole world seemed as lonely and dreary and cold as the scene around
him. In his misery he called out, “Breeze! oh, Breeze! come back to me.”
“Well, I’m coming as fast as I can,” answered a muffled voice so close
to him that he started in affright, and came very near rolling down the
incline he had just ascended. He trembled so that he could hardly speak;
but he finally managed to call out, “Is that really you, Breeze? And
where are you?” for, as yet, he could neither see his friend nor locate
the spot from which his voice had come.
“Of course it’s me,” answered the voice, “and I’m down here in a hole
with poor Hank. I wish you’d fetch the rope and throw one end of it down
to me, for it’s mighty slow work cutting these steps, and I could get up
by it a good deal quicker. We’ll want it for Hank, anyhow, because he’s
hurt and can’t climb.”
The crest of the ridge on which Wolfe was seated--for he had not dared
stand up as Breeze had done--was quite narrow, and sloped sharply down
the opposite side from that up which he had come. This side was wet and
very slippery, for the afternoon sun had been warm enough to melt the
surface in places. A few feet below him the slope appeared to end with a
short upward incline, beyond which the ice again fell away to the water.
In compliance with his friend’s request, Wolfe hurried back to the dory
for the rope, with his heart as full of joyful emotions as a few minutes
before it had been of sorrowful ones. He could not yet imagine what had
happened to Breeze, nor in what sort of a place he was, and he hardly
cared; the mere fact that he was alive was sufficient for the present.
He afterwards learned that the icy slope down the opposite side of the
ridge ended abruptly about two feet above the short upward incline that,
from his point of view, it had appeared to join; while between the two
was a deep, narrow crevice, extending far down towards the heart of the
berg. This crevice had originally been filled with snow, and in the
angle between the two slopes there had collected, while the iceberg was
still a part of some Greenland glacier, a bank of arctic sand.
Attracting the heat of what little sunshine fell upon it, this material
had gradually melted its way deep into the snow. Then water had flowed
into the depression thus made, and moving the sand back and forth, had
slowly enlarged the hole until it had finally become a deep crevice,
with smooth walls of glare ice and a sandy bottom. No trap could have
been better planned, and after waiting perhaps hundreds of years for its
victims, it had caught two in one day. It would also have held on to
them so long as the iceberg continued to float if Breeze had not
happened to hold a hatchet in his hand when he nearly killed poor Hank
Hoffer, and frightened as much as he hurt him by suddenly sliding down
on top of him. He had done this without giving the slightest warning of
his coming, about an hour after Hank had landed at the bottom of the
crevice with a sprained ankle and no hope of ever getting out again.
After the first shock was over, and a few words of explanation had been
exchanged between the two prisoners, Breeze had set to work to chop a
series of footholds up the sides of the crevice, and to gradually make
his way towards the top. Wolfe had heard the faint clicking sound of the
hatchet, but imagined it to be the beating of small drift-ice against
the base of the berg. When in his despair he called out the name of
Breeze, the latter had nearly reached the top of the crevice, and was
within twenty feet of where his dorymate sat, though still effectually
concealed from his view.
When Wolfe again returned to the top of the ridge with the rope, Breeze
had worked his way up so that his head could be seen above the edge of
the crevice, and the friends gave each other a joyful greeting. After
receiving the assurance that the other was not hurt, Wolfe said, “Did
you say that Hank Hoffer was down there where you have just come from?”
“Yes, indeed he is, and pretty badly hurt. He is stiff with the cold
too, and we must get him out as quick as we can.”
“I don’t see how we are going to do it if he can’t help himself,” said
Wolfe. “Yes, I do too,” he added, after a moment’s thought. “But we must
work fast, for it will soon be dark, and we don’t want to stay here all
night. You just wait two minutes longer.”
With this he again made his way to the dory, took the anchor from the
crack into which he had jammed it, thrust the blade of an oar down in
its place, and made the dory fast to it. Then he carried the anchor to
the top of the ridge, got the hatchet from Breeze by means of the rope
which he let down to him, chopped a hole to receive a fluke of the
anchor on his own side of the ridge, made the rope fast to it, and again
tossed an end of the line to his companion.
First testing the strength of the rope and anchor thoroughly, he slid
down to where Breeze was waiting, and the dorymates exchanged as warm a
hand-clasp as though they had been separated for months instead of
minutes.
All this time poor Hank had been groaning at the bottom of the crevice,
and calling upon them to hurry. The rope was fortunately long enough to
reach him, and Breeze, again descending to where he lay, knotted the end
of it under his arms. While he was doing this Wolfe cut a few footholds
on the face of the slope leading to the top of the ridge. Then Breeze
came up, and the two athletic young fellows drew the almost helpless
form of their shipmate slowly but steadily to where they stood. While
Wolfe supported him there Breeze pulled himself, by the aid of the rope,
to the top of the ridge, where he took in the slack of the line and
fastened it anew to the anchor. Hank being thus secured against sliding
back into the crevice, Wolfe left him, and joining Breeze, they together
drew the sufferer to the top of the ridge. Slowly and carefully they
helped him down the opposite side, and at last had the satisfaction of
placing him safely in the bottom of the dory.
It was now quite dark, but they could still note the position of the
_Vixen_ by the light of the “flare,” that was kept constantly burning on
board for their guidance. They dreaded leaving their comparatively safe
position and attempting to force their frail craft through the masses of
moving ice that lay between them and the schooner. The thought of
spending the night where they were was, however, still worse, and they
decided to try and reach her.
As there was enough open water to row in for a while Wolfe took the
oars, and Breeze busied himself with the rescued man. He rolled him in
the blankets they had brought, rubbed his hands and limbs briskly, and
offered him food. Hank declined this, but asked for water, saying that
he was dying of thirst.
“Why didn’t you get a drink on the iceberg?” asked Breeze, in surprise.
“I’m sure there was plenty of water there; or you might have eaten a bit
of ice.” At the same time he got out their little keg of water and
handed it to the sufferer.
“I didn’t suppose an iceberg was made of fresh ice,” replied Hank,
eagerly seizing the keg and applying his lips to the bung-hole for a
long drink. The next instant he dropped it, spat out the mouthful of
water he had taken, and sank down in the bottom of the boat with a
groan.
“What is the matter?” cried Breeze, picking up the keg. As Hank made no
answer, he lifted it to his own lips and tasted of its contents. It was
full of salt water.
[Illustration: AND THE TWO ATHLETIC YOUNG FELLOWS DREW THE ALMOST
HELPLESS FORM OF THEIR SHIPMATE SLOWLY BUT STEADILY TO WHERE THEY
STOOD.]
There was no time then for questions or explanations, as the floes on
either side of them began closing together so rapidly that the dory was
in danger of being crushed between them. The boys sprang from the boat,
and managed to drag it out on the ice, just as the drifting masses met
with a shock that ground their edges to powder and nearly threw Breeze
and Wolfe from their feet.
Then began a struggle similar to that which they had gone through in the
morning, only with the danger increased a hundred-fold by the darkness.
Now they dragged the dory by main strength over some great cake that lay
squarely in their way, then, both in the boat, they used the oars as
poles and pushed it along from piece to piece. Occasionally a submerged
mass would rise beneath the boat, and it was only by the greatest
activity that they prevented it from capsizing. Several times one or the
other of them slipped into the icy water; but they always clung to the
dory, and managed to pull themselves out.
But for the flare, that continued to blaze brightly from the schooner’s
deck, they would have given over the struggle a dozen times. Hank could
lend them no assistance, but lay, numbed and stupid, in the bottom of
the boat, a dead-weight.
At last, when after a harder struggle than usual, on account of their
exhaustion, they had again dragged the dory out on the ice, Breeze threw
himself down in it exclaiming, “I’m about done for, Wolfe; and I’m
afraid we’ve got to give it up.”
“I feel the same way myself,” said Wolfe, “I can’t pull another pound.”
The frigid breath of the ice-fields, penetrating their soaked garments,
chilled them to the marrow, and they shook as with the ague. A short
time longer of such exposure would have finished the story of these
dorymates, and one more tale of death would have been added to the long
list that saddens the history of the Banks fisheries. But their
situation was not yet utterly hopeless. One brave spirit of that little
group was not yet wholly prepared to yield itself beaten by the terrors
that surrounded them.
After remaining a few minutes motionless and silent, Breeze shook off
the numbness that was stealing over him, and endeavored to arouse his
companions. Wolfe responded readily to his efforts, but it was a
difficult matter to rouse Hank Hoffer. When at last he seemed able to
understand them, Breeze said,
“We mustn’t give up yet, fellows. The schooner isn’t so very far off,
and though we can’t drag the dory any farther, perhaps if we give a
shout all together they may hear it on board and do something for us.
The wind is blowing that way.”
Breeze remembered his experience in the seine-boat, off the capes of
Delaware, and how the combined voices of its crew had saved them on that
occasion.
The others were willing to try, and as Breeze gave the word they raised
a cry so wild and shrill that they themselves were startled by it. Again
and again they shouted until their voices were spent; but no sound came
to them in reply. Still they sat shivering in the chill wind, and
feeling the awful numbness again creeping over them, but with their eyes
fixed upon the schooner’s light, that seemed so near and yet so
immeasurably far from them.
All at once Wolfe started up, exclaiming, “There’s another light! see
it, Breeze? A little one, between us and the flare. They’re coming for
us! They’re coming for us!”
It was a faint wavering light, like that of a lantern, and often, as
they watched, it disappeared, but always to appear again. Now it seemed
to be going away from them, and again finding their voices, they raised
once more the cry for help.
This time they fancied they heard an answer, and a little later were
sure of it. Half an hour of alternate fear and hope passed, before,
guided by their shouts, the rescuing party of four brave fellows from
the schooner reached them. They had made but slow progress, dragging
their dory over the broken ice, and not knowing but that each step might
plunge them into the water; but never since hearing that first cry for
help had they hesitated for a moment, or thought of turning back.
The meeting between the rescued and the rescuers was too joyful for
description; but there was no time for words. The new-comers had found
an unbroken floe extending from the schooner, which was made fast to the
outer edge of it; but there was no certainty that it would remain
unbroken from one moment to another, and they could not hasten back too
quickly.
New strength came to Breeze and Wolfe with renewed hope, and they were
able to aid in dragging the dories back.
In less than half an hour later they were once more safe on board the
_Vixen_, and the whole crew was striving to see who could do the most
for their comfort, and show them how fully the brave deed they had
accomplished was appreciated.
They now learned that ever since darkness set in, those who came to
their rescue had held themselves in readiness to set forth the moment
they should find out in what direction to go, and that their very first
cries for help were heard and answered.
Breeze and Wolfe were readily thawed out by hot drinks and blankets, so
that they soon fell asleep, to awaken in the morning feeling but little
the worse for their hardships. With Hank Hoffer the case was different.
His hands and feet were frost-bitten, and besides having a badly
sprained ankle, he was so prostrated by what he had suffered that he was
confined to his bunk for many days, and never wholly recovered from his
terrible experience.
He never could tell exactly how he escaped to the iceberg, after his
dory had been crushed between it and the drifting cakes by which he was
surrounded. He was able, however, to describe in vivid and forcible
language his joy at sight of the schooner, his horror at losing his
foothold and falling into the deep crevice while trying to signal her,
and his fright when Breeze came sliding down on top of him. Towards
Breeze and Wolfe his gratitude knew no bounds. He begged them to forgive
him for the cruel tricks he had played upon them, and was never
afterwards tired of sounding their praises.
In this taste of arctic trials and sufferings the dorymates thought they
had met with adventures as strange as any they were likely to encounter.
But their trip was by no means ended, and the Banks still held startling
experiences in store for them, as they were to discover ere many days
had passed.
CHAPTER XIII.
LOST IN THE FOG.
For several days after that on which Hank Hoffer was rescued the wind
blew steadily from the south, driving the ice-fields far back towards
their northern home, but bringing in their place dense masses of the
almost equally dreaded fog. Fog is the ever-present terror of the Banks,
and hangs over them so constantly as to cause the remark to be
frequently made that in this latitude three hundred and sixty-five days
out of the year are foggy. Of course this is an exaggeration; but it is
true that hardly a day passes that does not disclose a fog-bank rising
above the horizon in one or another direction.
This stealthy enemy is ever lying in wait for the fisherman, and
generally surprises him when he is least prepared for its coming. It
swoops down and envelops him in its blinding folds when he is out in his
dory, and when it again lifts, as though to mock him, he finds himself
alone on the vast waters, with no vessel in sight. It steals his gear,
and sends his craft drifting aimlessly hither and thither. Above all, it
leads swift-rushing steamers to where the fishing schooners lie, and
causes the great ships to spring upon them and crush them down beneath
iron prows, never to rise again.
The fog is terrible; but whether it comes or whether it goes, the fish
must be caught, for wives and children must be fed. So the dories go out
from the vessels, and if they never return there are others to take
their places. So accustomed does he become to its presence that the
fisherman hardly gives the fog a thought, until in his turn it swallows
him up, and he disappears forever.
The _Vixen_ was now beset by a fog, sometimes so dense that it settled
down upon the water like a pall. Again it would lift, so that her crew
were able to set and haul their trawls, with some hope of finding their
vessel when the task was finished. It was dull, dispiriting work, and in
the midst of it an amusing incident, of which Breeze McCloud was the
hero, was hailed with delight by his shipmates.
One night they were lying at anchor. The fog had lifted to such an
extent that it was not thought necessary to keep the fog-horn constantly
blowing. About midnight Breeze was turned out of his bunk to go on
watch. He had hardly reached the deck, and was still rubbing his eyes,
when suddenly he caught sight of a dim light. It rose from the mist at
about the height of a steamer’s mast-head light, and was apparently
bearing directly down upon them amidships. He made one spring for the
companion-way and another into the cabin, yelling at the top of his
voice,
“Turn out all hands! Steamer close aboard!” and snatching up the
fog-horn, he again rushed on deck, blowing it furiously as he went, and
followed by the startled crew.
Breeze did not even glance at the dreaded light again, so intent was he
upon getting all the sound he could from his fog-horn; but all at once
such a roar of laughter burst forth behind him that he dropped the horn
and turned indignantly to learn what it meant.
“Blow, sonny, blow!” cried one of the men between his shouts of
merriment. “You’ll have to do better than that to make the man in the
moon hear you.”
Then poor Breeze realized that what he had mistaken for a steamer’s
light was indeed the dim and watery moon struggling to show itself
through the upper edge of a fog-bank. There was nothing for him to say
or do, except to bear as meekly as possible the jokes of his companions
and the bursts of laughter with which they greeted him whenever they met
him the next day.
[Illustration: “BLOW, SONNY, BLOW!” CRIED ONE OF THE MEN.]
The trawls were set as usual the following evening, for in spite of the
fog the work of fishing was continued with considerable regularity, and
the next morning dory No. 6 went out with the others in quest of its
fare. It was customary in thick weather, while the dories were absent,
to keep the fog-horn constantly sounding on board the schooner, so that
they might be enabled to find her again.
On this occasion there was such a heavy sea running that unusual care
was necessary in the management of the dory, and its crew were
frequently obliged to swing her head to it to prevent her from
capsizing. After considerable difficulty they discovered their buoy, and
began to haul the trawl. In spite of the violent pitching of the boat
they were conducting this operation successfully, and had nearly
completed their task when, unnoticed by them, as their backs were turned
to it, a larger wave than usual came rushing towards them.
It seemed to spring at the deeply laden dory, and lifted it so suddenly
that Wolfe, who was leaning over the gunwale, was pitched head-foremost
into the water. At the same instant Breeze, who had been standing up,
was thrown violently backward against the opposite side of the boat,
which was probably all that saved it from upsetting. As it was, she
shipped a quantity of water, and this, in addition to the load of fish,
sank her far below the limit of safety.
Her head, which had only been held to the wind by the trawl, now swung
off, and as Wolfe rose to the surface and clutched the stern becket she
had turned completely around, and was beginning to drift.
Quickly recovering himself, Breeze went to his companion’s assistance,
and was endeavoring to help him into the boat, when Wolfe gave a sharp
cry of pain, exclaiming,
“I’m caught in the trawl! One of the hooks is in my leg! It’s dragging
me down! Oh, Breeze, help me!”
For an instant Breeze was horror-stricken; but his quick wit enabled him
to understand the situation at once, and also suggested a remedy for it.
Wolfe now formed the connecting link between the dory and the trawl,
which alone prevented it from drifting off before the wind. The strain
on his arms was so great, and the pain from the hook in his leg was so
intense, that he could not keep his hold on the becket more than a
minute longer. When he should once let go he would instantly be dragged
down beneath the dark waters.
While these thoughts were flashing through his mind Breeze had picked up
the buoy-line, cut it free from its keg, and passing the end under
Wolfe’s arms and around his body, had made it fast to the after-thwart.
He thus effectually fastened his companion to the dory, and relieved, in
a measure, the strain on his arms.
He next threw off his oil suit, his heavy outer clothes, and his boots.
Then, standing erect, with his sharp sheath-knife held between his
teeth, he sprang overboard and disappeared, head-foremost, beneath the
water, much as his dorymate had done a few minutes before. In another
moment the trawl-line holding Wolfe was cut, and the terrible strain
upon his leg was instantly relieved.
If Breeze had not been the splendid swimmer that he was, and brought up
from his earliest boyhood to feel almost as much at home in the water as
on land, he could not possibly have accomplished this feat. Neither
would he have been able to regain the dory, which, taking a send of the
sea, was at some distance from him when he again rose to the surface. He
only reached it after a hard swim, and was breathless with his exertions
by the time he had managed to clamber in over the bow.
His first act was to lighten it, and cause it to ride more buoyantly, by
tossing overboard a quantity of the fish with which it was laden. Then
he helped Wolfe into the boat; and though the poor fellow’s face was
white with the pain he was suffering, he gave no expression to it, but
at once began to bail out the water that still caused them great
anxiety.
While he was thus employed Breeze was hard at work with the oars,
pulling in what he supposed was the direction of the schooner, and
keeping a sharp lookout for any waves of unusual size.
At last, when Wolfe had nearly finished bailing, he paused for a moment
in his task and said, “Breeze, it was splendid! I don’t believe there
was ever a finer thing done on the Banks.”
“Oh, pooh!” replied the other. “What would be the use of learning how to
dive and swim under water if you couldn’t do it when it was necessary?”
“Yes, I know; it’s well enough to talk about doing such things within
reach of shore, but out here in the middle of the ocean, with a sea like
that running, makes it a very different matter. I say it was splendid!”
“Wolfe, if you knew how like a coward it makes me feel now to think of
it, you wouldn’t speak of it again. I thank God that he put it into my
heart, and gave me the strength to do what I did. Above all, I thank him
that you are now with me in this boat, instead of at the bottom of the
sea; but I don’t want to talk about it.”
“And I say ‘Amen’ to your thankfulness with all my heart,” replied
Wolfe.
“By-the-way,” said Breeze, anxious to change the subject, “do you hear
anything of the horn?”
“No, I do not, and I don’t think I have heard it since we were hauling
the trawl,” exclaimed Wolfe, with a startled air, while an anxious
expression swept over his face. “Let’s listen a minute.”
Breeze stopped rowing, and they listened until he was again obliged to
use the oars to head the dory towards another big sea that he saw
approaching; but they heard no sound, save the moan of the wind and the
rushing of the waters on all sides of them.
It came upon them both like a shock, the terrible thought that they were
lost on that wild sea, and in a fog so dense that they could not see
fifty feet in any direction. Each saw by the other’s face what he was
thinking, but neither of them had the heart to put the thought into
words.
“I don’t suppose," said Breeze, at length breaking the silence, “that
there’s any use in rowing so long as we don’t know in which direction
the schooner lies."
“No,” replied Wolfe, “I don’t suppose there is. We had better make a
drogue and get it overboard, to hold her to the wind and keep her from
drifting as much as possible. Then we’ll fix ourselves as comfortable as
we can, until the fog lifts and we can catch sight of the schooner
again.”
Neither of them would admit in words that they did not expect the fog to
lift shortly, and that the schooner would still be in sight when this
happened. They both knew, however, that it might enshroud them for days,
and that they had but a slight chance of ever seeing the _Vixen_ again.
They made a “drogue,” or drag, by fastening an end of the buoy rope to
the bow of the dory, and the other to a couple of their trawl tubs,
which they then dropped overboard with the trawl anchor attached, to
serve as a weight. The tubs filled and sank until their upper edges were
on a level with the surface of the water. In this position they acted as
a floating anchor to the dory, which tailed off from them at once and
rode head on to the wind and sea.
“Stow the oars snugly,” said Wolfe; “we must not lose them whatever
happens. Then, I suppose we might as well toss the rest of these fish
overboard, though it seems a pity, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, and I’m afraid we’ll be sorry for it when we get back to the
schooner; but here goes,” and Breeze began to toss the fish overboard
vigorously.
When this job was finished, and the dory rode the seas much more easily
than she had done, Wolfe said,
“Now that you’ve made things snug and ship-shape, old man, will you help
me a bit with this beastly hook? It’s hurting me more than a little.”
“Oh!” cried Breeze in a tone of pitying remorse. “Why didn’t you speak
of it sooner? It was awful to leave it in there all this time.”
“Had too much else on hand. It couldn’t get away, and I knew we’d find
it right there whenever we got ready to attend to it,” said Wolfe, with
an attempt to relieve the anxiety of his friend by making light of his
own sufferings.
Each of these two brave young spirits was intent upon presenting a
cheerful front to the other, while hiding its own anxiety and
forebodings, but neither of them was for a moment deceived as to the
nature of their situation.
As carefully as possible, Breeze first cut away the small portion of
line that still remained attached to the shank of the hook. Then, after
cutting little slits in them and clearing them from it, he drew off
Wolfe’s wet lower garments. The hook was fastened into the calf of the
right leg, and had torn the flesh cruelly. Now, while Breeze could, if
necessary, bear any amount of pain himself, it made him faint to inflict
it in cold blood upon others. So, when Wolfe said, “It looks as if you’d
have to cut the beggar out, old man,” he replied, “I can’t do it, Wolfe!
I haven’t the nerve.”
“Then I must,” answered his companion; and without a moment’s hesitation
he reached down, and with one powerful wrench tore the hook from his leg
and flung it overboard. “That’s a good job quickly done,” he said,
laughing at the other’s pale face. “Now if I only had something to bind
it up with!”
For a moment they could think of nothing suitable, for all their
garments were woollen. Then Breeze remembered his silken
neck-handkerchief, and hastily pulled it off. As he did so it caught on
the slender chain that he always wore clasped about his neck according
to the promise he had given his mother, and the golden ball attached to
it was brought into view.
Wolfe had never before seen it, and as he tightly bandaged his wounded
leg he asked Breeze what it was, and why he wore it. In answer Breeze
told him all that he knew concerning the ball, not forgetting the
encounter with the New York jeweller who had opened it and then closed
it again without allowing him to look at its contents.
Wolfe was greatly interested in all this, and examined the locket
closely, in the hope of discovering its secret fastening, but without
success. For some time they occupied their minds, and kept themselves
from thinking of their unhappy situation, by speculating as to what it
contained. They wondered who had first clasped the chain around the
boy’s baby neck, and Wolfe declared that Breeze was undoubtedly a lost
prince, who would some day come into his kingdom. He begged him not to
forget his old dorymate when that happy event occurred.
The word “dorymate” recalled them to their present surroundings, and
looking up, Wolfe said, “Well, there doesn’t seem to be any prospect of
the fog’s lifting yet a while. I wish it would, though, in time to let
us get back to the schooner for dinner, for I’m awfully hungry. Speaking
of dinner, have we got a bite of anything to eat besides the raw fish we
threw overboard?”
At another time Breeze would have laughed heartily at this Irish bull,
but now he only answered by going to the dory’s little stern locker and
drawing from it his oil-cloth provision-bag. A glance at its contents
assured him that they were all right, and he exclaimed, joyfully,
“Here are two dozen large biscuit, and they’ve kept dry!”
“How about water?”
“I looked after that this morning, and the keg’s full of fresh water.”
“Then,” said Wolfe, “we’ve every reason to feel very grateful that we’re
so well off; and if we only had a compass we would head for the coast of
Newfoundland, and row to it, too, barring bad weather and accidents,
before our provisions gave out.”
“Yes,” said Breeze, “we’ve certainly got provisions enough to do it
with, for if each of us eats one biscuit a day, they will last us twelve
days.”
“Couldn’t we take two a day, and make it six days?” suggested Wolfe.
“How would you like to eat three a day, one each for breakfast, dinner,
and supper, and call it a four days’ supply?” asked Breeze.
“Faith! I believe I could eat a dozen of them now, and then wish for the
rest without trying, I’m so hungry. But say, Breeze, how long would they
last us if we took three apiece the first day, two the second, one the
third, and then began and did it all over again?”
Thus talking, and in slowly eating two of their precious biscuit, they
managed to pass several hours, at the end of which they were gladdened
by a ray of sunlight. The fog was lifting. Starting up, they eagerly
scanned their widening horizon, which now extended for some miles on all
sides of them. To their bitter disappointment, they could see no sign
that any other human beings had ever floated on that dreary waste of
waters.
Shortly before sunset the fog settled down again, thicker than ever; and
lying down in the bottom of their boat, the dorymates very nearly
abandoned themselves to despair. Finally, huddling as closely together
as possible, for the sake of what warmth they could thus obtain, they
both fell asleep.
In his sleep Breeze dreamed that he was sailing a boat into Gloucester
harbor, but that instead of looking out for the familiar landmarks, he
was steering her by compass. He dreamed this same thing over and over,
until at last he awoke with it strongly impressed upon his mind.
It was night, and intensely dark, while the wind moaned mournfully above
the dashing waters. Breeze had no idea of the time, nor how long it
would be before daylight. While he was wondering about this he became
conscious, to his great surprise, that in his hand he held the golden
chain and locket that had been about his neck. His surprise was,
moreover, quickly changed to amazement when he felt that the ball was
open.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN BALL.
It seemed to Breeze as though daylight never would come, as he lay there
holding the open locket in his hand and wondering about it. How had it
come open? and what did it contain? He was adrift in a fog, far out at
sea, in a frail open boat. He was wet, cold, and hungry. His situation
was about as uncomfortable as can well be imagined; but all this was
lost sight of and forgotten in the thoughts aroused by that golden ball,
which during his sleep he must have taken from his neck, and which had
so unaccountably been opened. It was the visible evidence of the great
mystery of his life, that he so longed to solve, and in his curiosity he
wished for the daylight only that he might see what it contained. He
hoped Wolfe would wake up, that he might talk of all this with him; but
he would not disturb him, and after a while he, too, fell asleep again.
When Breeze next awoke it was early morning, and daylight was sifting
faintly through the fog. Wolfe had been aroused some time before by the
pain of his leg. He had just finished attending to the wound as well as
he was able, and was replacing the bandage.
The moment he noticed that Breeze had opened his eyes, he exclaimed,
“Good-morning, dorymate! We seem to be in luck, as usual.”
“How?” asked Breeze, wonderingly.
“How! Why, don’t you notice that the wind has gone down and the sea is
getting smooth? We have had a pretty comfortable night, and I shouldn’t
wonder if the sun drove away this beastly fog before long, and shone out
warm and pleasant. Then we must surely sight something, out of all the
vessels that are cruising on the Banks.”
“That’s so!” said Breeze, quite cheered by this hopeful view of the
situation. Then, bethinking himself of the wonderful event of the
preceding night, and anxious to add his bit of pleasant intelligence, he
continued, “And best of all, Wolfe, the ball is open.”
“The what?” asked Wolfe, greatly puzzled for the moment to know what his
companion meant.
“The ball! The golden ball that I wear around my neck, and that we were
looking at yesterday.”
“You don’t mean it!” exclaimed the other, now greatly interested. “How
did you get it open? What’s in it? Where is it?”
“I don’t know how I got it open, and I don’t know what is in it because
it was too dark to see; but here it is.”
With this Breeze withdrew the locket from the bosom of his flannel
shirt, into which he had instinctively thrust it for safe-keeping when
he found himself dropping off to sleep, and they both bent over it
eagerly.
One half had swung back from the other on a pivot, by which the two
sections were still held together. After a single glance at it, Wolfe
gave a shout.
“A compass, by all that’s wonderful!” he cried. “The very thing we’ve
been wanting, above all others! Well, old man, any one who says we are
not in luck now doesn’t know what he’s talking about, that’s all!”
One side did indeed hold a small but perfect compass, the daintiest that
was ever seen. Its freely moving card was a thin plate of gold upon
which were enamelled the four cardinal points and a coat of arms. The
latter consisted of a blue shield with a diamond, cut in the form of a
star, upon which the card was pivoted, in its centre. On the shield,
above the star, and in the lower corners were three devices, which
Breeze thought might be pyramids, and which Wolfe called volcanoes.
Above the shield was a closed helmet, and beneath it, in letters of
gold, the motto, “Point True.”
As Wolfe repeated this over to himself, his face wore a puzzled look.
“‘Point True,’” he said aloud; “I have certainly heard that before, and
I wonder where?” Finally he satisfied himself that he must have read it
in some book, and gave the matter no further thought.
In the other half of the ball was a second golden plate on which was
enamelled the same coat of arms, with the only difference that the
central star in this case was formed of a pearl. A spring, which they
did not discover for some time, slipped this plate aside, and in the
cavity beneath it the boys saw three tiny locks of hair, of which one
had evidently been cut from the head of an infant. On the under side of
the plate was engraved “Merab to Tristram,” and Ruth’s answer to Naomi,
“Whither thou goest, I will go.”
Breeze could not help feeling somewhat disappointed when he found that
this was all. Although the ball had yielded up its secret, it had in
reality told him nothing. It had merely given a new direction to his
curiosity. Who were Merab and Tristram? To whom had the locks of hair
belonged? The only satisfactory features of its revelation were the coat
of arms and the compass. The former might at some future time be
located, while the latter could be immediately used.
This thought had also come to Wolfe, who had rejoiced at the very first
sight of the little vibrating card, and who now said,
“Let’s have breakfast right off, Breeze, and then start for Nova Scotia.
I’ve been thinking the situation over, and though I believe we are
somewhat farther away from Nova Scotia than we are from Newfoundland,
we’ll stand a better chance of falling in with some sort of a vessel by
steering west than if we headed to the north. So what do you say to
laying a course due west, and sticking to it, taking turns at the oars
all day?”
“I don’t care much which way we go,” answered Breeze; “but I think it
will be much better for us to row than to lie still, because it will at
any rate occupy our time and keep us warm.”
“All right, then, west it is; and I wish the cook would hurry up
breakfast so that we could make a start. I’m not only awfully hungry,
but I’m in a great hurry to get to Nova Scotia.”
The cheerfulness and flow of spirits by which this Irish lad managed to
sustain both his own and his dorymate’s courage were wonderful. They
never flagged, and from the first to the last of that memorable voyage
his constant effort was to make the best of everything, and turn every
trifling circumstance to account for the purpose of provoking a smile or
inspiring fresh hope.
The two biscuit which, washed down with a swallow of water from the
little keg, formed their breakfast, were quickly eaten. Then the drag to
which they had been lying was taken aboard, and seizing a pair of oars,
Wolfe, who had insisted upon keeping first watch, as he called it, began
pulling vigorously in the direction indicated by Breeze. The latter made
himself as comfortable as possible in the stern of the dory, with his
gaze fixed upon the small compass that he held in his hand.
In addition to his own inclination to look upon the bright side of
things, Breeze was happily influenced by his companion’s cheerful view
of their situation, and now he said, “So long as we have lost the Vixen
and found a compass, what a comfort the fog is!”
“Is it!” asked Wolfe, in surprise. “Well, I must confess I had not quite
taken that view of it. How do you make it out?”
“Because it keeps us all the time hoping for something to turn up. It
would be awfully discouraging to be able to see for miles, with nothing
but water to look at. Now we may come upon some vessel at any minute.”
“That’s so. The skipper was telling the other night of some fellows who
were out four days in a fog without food or water, and who had just
given up in despair, when their dory was nearly capsized by drifting
afoul of the cable of an anchored schooner.”
“I remember a story my father used to tell,” said Breeze, “about two men
who were lost in a fog on this very Bank. They had been out only about
an hour when the fog lifted, and they saw the flare their mates were
burning for them. They rowed for it as hard as they could pull, but the
schooner was under way, and kept just about the same distance ahead of
them all night. The next day they could still see her, with her flag at
half-mast for them; but they couldn’t get near enough for those on board
to see them. After they lost sight of her they were out two days longer,
both of them bright and clear. During that time they sighted and chased
five more vessels. Then the fog shut down again, and an hour afterwards
they were nearly run down by the schooner that picked them up. Now, if
they’d been in the fog all the time they would have taken things a great
deal more easy, and probably got picked up just as quick.”
“Yes,” admitted Wolfe, “that all may be very true; but I’m afraid
there’s another side to it. Hark! didn’t you hear a whistle?” he
exclaimed, resting on his oars to listen.
The next moment it came to them plainly, the hoarse warning whistle of
some great steamer. At first they could not locate the sound; but as
they heard it again, and this time much nearer, they fixed it as coming
from the direction in which they were heading, and knew that it
proceeded from some transatlantic liner, bound eastward. Then they
became filled with a fever of apprehension, of mingled hopes and fears.
What if she should run them down? What if she should pick them up? What
if she should pass without seeing or hearing them? These were the
questions they asked each other over and over again during the few
minutes that elapsed before the vast, formless object rushed by them
still concealed by the fog, but so near that they could hear voices from
her decks. They had not been seen, nor were their frantic shouts heeded,
if they had been heard.
In deep, dejected silence they sat motionless, listening to the sound of
the whistle until it was lost in the distance. Then Wolfe said, “That’s
the other side to it.”
“Yes,” replied Breeze, “and it’s a pretty dark side to have to look at
too. If the fog had only lifted, ever so little, even for one minute, we
might be on board that steamer safe and comfortable now, on our way
to--I don’t knew where and I shouldn’t have cared. At any rate, we
wouldn’t be here, lost, starved, and drifting through a fog-bank.” The
boy’s tone was very bitter, and it showed the heaviness of his heart.
“Take a biscuit, old man,” said Wolfe, sympathetically, “it’ll cheer you
up.”
For a moment Breeze tried to look angry, at what he considered an
ill-timed levity on the part of his companion; but the expression of the
other’s face changed his mood, and he laughed in spite of his
unhappiness.
“That’s right!” exclaimed Wolfe. “Laughing’s a sight more becoming to
you than crying, and whenever you ‘Point True’ to yourself, it’s plenty
of the first and little of the last you’ll be indulging in.”
“But it is hard to bear such a disappointment. Just think how near she
came to us!”
“Faith! It might have gone harder with us if she’d come nearer. For my
part I’m just thankful she didn’t run us down entirely. Those same
steamers are the terrors of the Banks. I mind well the last trip I was
here in the old _Walpus_. We were lying to an anchor in a fog every bit
as thick as this, and minding our own business, when one of them came
rushing down on us. They paid no attention to our shouting, or to our
horn, and turned neither to port nor starboard; but just came on tooting
their old whistle for all other folks to get out of their way. Well,
sir, we were all in the act of piling over the stern into the dories
when she drove past within a handshake of the end of our jib-boom, and
we could see the scared faces of the people on her deck looking down at
us. She was that close that the patent log towing behind her caught on
our cable and parted its line. We hauled it in the next day when we hove
up our anchor. No, sir! none of your steamers for me! They’re too
careless and overbearing-like, and I say we’ve just had a mighty lucky
escape, and should be thankful for it. Come, now, stand your watch like
a good fellow, and pull for Nova Scotia, or for some decent, easy-going
sailing-vessel that’ll pick us up.”
So Breeze took a spell at the oars, and thus rowing by turn, and telling
each other yarns of their own experience, or repeating what they had
learned from others to divert their thoughts, they passed the second day
in the dory.
The fog had not lifted for a single moment since morning, and when
darkness again shut down upon them it still infolded them in its clammy
embrace. Although the night was calm, they tossed their drag overboard
lest a wind should rise while they slept. Then, after eating their
scanty supper of a single biscuit each, they lay down, hugging each
other closely for warmth, and prepared to pass the night in such comfort
as their circumstances would permit.
Before they dropped asleep Breeze heard Wolfe say, as though talking to
himself, “We must have made something over fifty miles to-day, and at
the same rate we’ll soon reach the Nova Scotia coast now.”
Breeze smiled at this too evident attempt to cheer him; for he knew, as
well as Wolfe, that they had not made more than twenty or twenty-five
miles at the most, and that the coast towards which they were heading
was still several hundred miles from them. Three more days would finish
their biscuit at the rate they had been eating them, and even now he was
so hungry that he felt they might as well starve at once as to try and
economize them any longer. Their fresh water was already half gone, and
altogether their prospect was a very gloomy one.
The night passed uneventfully, but before daylight Wolfe was awakened by
an exclamation of dismay from his companion. “What is the trouble?” he
inquired, sitting up stiffly.
“The ball is closed,” answered Breeze.
“Closed?”
“Yes; it must have got pushed together somehow while I was asleep, and I
can’t get it open again.”
“And a good job, too,” said Wolfe. “Now we’ll have no excuse for rowing
this day, and I’m glad; for my back’s broke thinking of it.”
“But don’t you want to get to Nova Scotia?”
“Indeed, I do not! An out-of-the-way place like that? I’d prefer to be
picked up where we are by some craft that’ll take us into New York, or
Boston, or maybe Gloucester itself.”
An hour later the sun rose, and under its cheerful influence the last
trace of fog disappeared, and a perfect spring morning broke over the
sparkling waters of the Grand Bank. It was just such a morning as would
cause the New England birds to break forth in an ecstasy of song, and
Breeze almost expected to hear them as he sat up in the dory and looked
around.
His ears were not greeted by the songs of birds, but his eyes were
gladdened by a sight so welcome that his first joyful exclamation was
choked by his emotion.
Wolfe sprang up in alarm at the sound, only to see his friend pointing
with trembling finger to the southward. There, not more than half a mile
from them, he saw a square-rigged, deeply laden vessel, rising and
falling gracefully on the long swells.
The next moment Breeze had cut the line that held them to their drag
with a blow from his sheath-knife, and, under the impulse of two pairs
of oars, dory No. 6 was surging over the calm waters as it had never
before been driven in all its storm-tossed career.
The dorymates spoke no word to each other, nor looked around, until they
paused, breathless and panting, close beside the vessel. Although there
was not a breath of wind, they had feared that somehow she might sail
away and leave them. Now that there was no danger of that, they sat in
their boat and gazed at her curiously. Her bottom was covered with
sea-grass and barnacles, and she was weather-beaten to the last degree,
though her spars were all in place and she still looked stanch and
seaworthy. Not a human being was to be seen on board of her, nor did
their hail receive any answer.
The strangest feature of the brigantine, for such she was, lay in her
sails and rigging. Instead of showing a cloud of light canvas, as would
naturally be expected in such weather, she was under a double-reefed
main-sail, single-reefed fore-topsail, and fore-staysail only. Her
fore-course was clewed up but not stowed, and the royal was furled; but
the topgallant-sail seemed to have been blown away, judging from the few
streamers of tattered canvas that still hung from the yard. Her running
rigging was either hanging at loose ends, or tangled in the greatest
confusion. To crown all, a ragged American ensign drooped at half-mast,
and union down, from her main-peak.
[Illustration: NOT A HUMAN BEING WAS TO BE SEEN ON BOARD OF HER, NOR DID
THEIR HAIL RECEIVE ANY ANSWER.]
The boys pulled entirely around the vessel several times, wondering at
her condition, but still unable by their shouts to attract the attention
of her crew. On her stern they read her name, _Esmeralda_, of Baltimore.
Finally Breeze spied a rope hanging over her side near the fore-chains,
and proposed that they board her by it. Having tested it and found it
strong enough for their purpose, they went up hand over hand. Breeze was
the first to clamber over the bulwarks and gain her deck. It was
absolutely deserted, and he walked aft while Wolfe was making the dory
fast.
There was something mysterious and awful about this apparently deserted
brig that caused Breeze to shiver and gaze about him apprehensively. He
walked as far aft as the quarter-deck, and as he gained it a gaunt,
pale-faced man came slowly up the companion-way leading down into the
cabin, and stood looking at him. Breeze, too, stared for a moment, and
then sprang towards the trembling figure.
CHAPTER XV.
A WONDERFUL MEETING.
As Breeze came towards him, the white-faced man in the companion-way,
who was so weak and emaciated that he seemed to have just arisen from a
sick-bed, tried feebly to wave him back. The effort was made in vain;
for the next moment the boy had sprung to where he was standing, thrown
his arms about his neck, and, half laughing, half crying in his
excitement, was exclaiming,
“Father! oh, father! We knew you weren’t dead. We knew you’d come back
to us--mother and I did!”
“Gently, lad, gently. I’m not quite steady on my pins yet, and if you
don’t have a care you’ll pitch me down the steps,” answered Captain
McCloud, trying to speak calmly and to quiet the excited boy. But tears
stood in his eyes, and directly his weakness had mastered him. He cried
out, brokenly,
“God bless you, Breeze! God bless you, my boy! I’d thought never to see
you again, and in my heart I’d bidden you good-by, mother and you. But I
wasn’t reconciled to it. I couldn’t die without seeing you. You’d not
ask it, lad. You’ll not leave me again to the fever, will you?”
Then, overcome by his emotion, the man who had been so strong, but who
was now so weak and wellnigh helpless, bowed his head and sobbed like a
child.
This pitiful sight, and the piteous appeal just made to him, almost
unnerved Breeze, but he controlled himself by a strong effort, and led
his father to a seat, at the same time speaking soothing and loving
words to him.
“No, father,” he said, “of course I’ll not leave you. I’ve come to stay
with you, and take care of you, and carry you into port, where mother is
waiting for us. Only you must hurry and get well, for it would never do
to go back to her sick and looking like this, you know. It would
frighten her to see you so.”
Just then, walking stiffly on account of his wounded leg, Wolfe came aft
in search of Breeze, and was filled with amazement at what he saw. For
once his ready tongue failed him, and he stood staring at the little
group in silence. He wondered what could have affected them so deeply,
and if they had ever met before, or whether he were not witnessing the
effects of a mild species of insanity, as exhibited by the stranger.
“At any rate,” he said to himself, “I’ll not interfere with them, for
Breeze seems to have a quieting way with the old gentleman, and maybe
hearing another strange voice might send him off again.”
All at once his attention was attracted by the sudden appearance of the
most uncouth and altogether peculiar human face he had ever seen. The
head to which it belonged had just been lifted cautiously above the
cabin companion-way, and the great eyes, which seemed to Wolfe to be
wholly white, were rolling wildly at the sight of the strangers. The
face was the color of black ashes, the flat nose expanded into a pair of
enormous nostrils, while the lips were of unusual thickness, even for a
full-blooded negro. This strange face was set off, and in a manner
overshadowed, by a pair of most remarkable ears. Not only were they
large, but they projected almost at right angles from the head, which
gave them the appearance of always being pricked forward with an air of
extreme attention or curiosity. Above and in front of these the head was
covered with a thick growth of kinky hair, which had been for so long
brushed, pulled, or otherwise trained forward that it surrounded the
face like a sort of a furry hood. On account of it some wag in the
far-away country from which this odd-looking individual came had called
him “Nimbus,” and this name had clung to him ever since. He was so short
as to be almost a dwarf, but his body was thick-set, and powerful enough
to belong to a giant. The length of his arms was extraordinary, and so
was the size of his feet, but his legs were so ridiculously short that
he waddled rather than walked. He was as strong as two ordinary strong
men, and at the same time he was tender-hearted, obliging, good-natured,
a fair sailor, and a capital cook. He was a Guinea negro, from the west
coast of Africa, but had passed the greater part of his life in the
galleys of sailing-vessels, and had thus visited most of the principal
ports of the world. He was fond of occasionally returning to his own
country, which he managed to do about once in every two or three years.
Such was the individual who now appeared at the top of the
companion-ladder, and exclaimed,
"T’ank de good Lord, gemmen, you’s come at las’! Me an’ de cap’n, we’se
been habin’ a mons’rous hard time, an’ we’se mos’ gib up. You mus’ scuse
me, gemmen, fur not bein’ on de deck to receib you proper an’
ship-shape, but I ain’t had no sleep fur more’n a week, an’ I jus’
takin’ a nap. You see, fus’ de port watch on deck all night, den de cook
he busy waitin’ on de cap’n all night, den de starbor’ watch he up all
night, den de fus’ ossifer, den de secon’ ossifer, dey don’ get no sleep
all night, an’ I is all ob um. Yes, sah, ole Nim he ebberyt’ing but
cap’n ob de _Esmeral_ now. De res’ all dead an’ go oberboard. De feber
catch um. Sometime one, sometime two, t’ree togedder. De las’ one, he de
fus’ mate, die more’n t’ree day. De cap’n here, he mos’ die, but ole Nim
pull um troo; couldn’ be lef’ alone nohow. Where you’ ship, eh?"
As he asked this question Nimbus looked around with a perplexed air, in
search of the vessel from which he supposed these strangers must have
come.
Wolfe was delighted with this odd character, and now glad of a chance to
use his tongue, he told their story as briefly as possible, and ended by
saying that they were awfully hungry.
Nothing pleased Nimbus more than a chance to cook for strangers; and,
with a broad grin on his hooded face, he waddled away towards the
galley, saying,
“Dreckly, gemmen! dreckly ole Nim get you mons’rous fine breakfus.”
In the mean time Captain McCloud had recovered his composure, and now,
to Wolfe’s amazement, Breeze introduced him as his father. At the same
time he said, “Wolfe Brady is my dorymate, father, and next to you and
mother, my dearest friend. We haven’t known each other very long, but
what we’ve been through with has made us pretty well acquainted.”
[Illustration: “ME AN’ DE CAP’N, WE’S BEEN HABIN’ A MONS’ROUS HARD
TIME.”]
“Yes, sir,” said Wolfe, “we met only about three weeks ago, but in that
time your adopted son has twice saved my life at the risk of his own,
and we have been in some rather tight places together. I don’t mind
saying, now that it is all over with and we are standing on a good solid
deck once more, that drifting around in that dory, through the fog of
the last two days, was about the meanest fix of them all, and I hadn’t
much hope that we were going to get out of it either. I’d go through
with all its suffering and anxiety again, though, for the sake of being
present at such a wonderful meeting as this. I never heard of anything
like it.”
“It is truly a wonderful meeting,” replied Captain McCloud, “and there
have got to be a great many explanations made before we shall understand
how it was all brought about. Certainly we have been guided in
marvellous ways. You said your mother was well, Breeze?”
“Yes, sir, quite well,” answered Breeze, “and looking for you to come in
at any time.”
“So she hasn’t given me up yet! Bless the little woman! Well, there’s a
chance of getting there now. I didn’t think there was any hope of it
three days ago, when the mate died, and left Nimbus and me alone on the
old brig, and I too weak to lift a rope’s end.”
“Do you mean to say, father,” exclaimed Breeze, who had not comprehended
the true state of affairs before this, “that you two are the only ones
left aboard?”
“Yes,” replied the captain, sadly, “we have buried all the rest, and are
the only survivors of a crew of twelve souls.”
“That’s the reason, then, you’re under such short sail.”
“Yes, she was got under this canvas in a blow, two weeks ago, while the
mate and two others of the crew were alive, and still able to work.
Since then there has not been force enough on board to do anything with
them. Nimbus is as strong as an ox, and he can manage the head-sails
alone. I believe he got the course clewed up too; but the poor fellow
has had a hard time trying to steer, cook, wait on me, keep a lookout,
set the lights, ring the fog-bell, bury the dead, and in fact do all the
work of twelve men. He fell asleep last night on the cabin floor,
utterly exhausted. This morning I was going to try and shift for myself,
and let him have his sleep out. I was about to look for something to eat
when you came aboard. I’m feeling hungry for the first time in weeks.”
“Faith, sir!” cried Wolfe, “it must be catching. I’m so hungry myself
that if starving’s any worse it would take a wiser man than I am to
point out the difference. And to think, Breeze, of the elegant biscuit
we left behind in the dory! If we’d only eaten them yesterday, and had
the comfort of them! Never mind, we’ll have them up after a while for a
dessert, like, for of all the sea-biscuit ever I tasted those have the
finest flavor. But here comes breakfast now, praised be the cook!”
Nimbus was going to carry the breakfast down into the cabin, but Captain
McCloud said they had better eat on deck, on account of the fever that
had been in the cabin. “I tried to warn you, Breeze, against coming too
close to me when I first saw you,” he added, “but you didn’t seem to pay
any attention.”
“As if I could have, father, when I was so surprised and so happy!”
replied Breeze, reproachfully.
Never had a meal tasted better, or been more thoroughly enjoyed by the
dorymates than this one, and it seemed as though they could not stop
eating. Even Captain McCloud developed a wonderful appetite for a sick
man. He ate so heartily that Nimbus, who waddled around them, his face
beaming with pleasure, as he brought them this thing or that, began to
grow somewhat anxious and exclaimed,
“Take care, cap’n; you’ ’tomach’s powerful weak yet, an’ you mus’n’t
s’prise um too much!”
“Which are you now, Nimbus, doctor or cook?” asked Captain McCloud,
smiling at the faithful fellow’s anxiety.
“I’se bofe, cap’n. De ship’s doctor and de ship’s cook am de same.
P’r’aps de cook tell you eat, an’ de doctor tell you not eat. You min’
um bofe, den you all right. You min’ de cook, you eat too much. Berry
bad! You min’ de doctor, you eat too little. Berry bad too! You min’ ole
Nim, you all right. Berry good!”
Wolfe was immensely amused at all this, and the negro’s comical
appearance, together with his earnest manner, caused the young Irishman
to roar with laughter. He declared that Nimbus had more sense in his
woolly head than half the white folks he knew, and that if he were as
good a doctor as he was a cook, he ought to be a member of the Royal
College of Surgeons.
“Don’ know nuffin ’bout no surgins, sah,” replied Nimbus, showing the
ivory of his teeth in a broad grin, and highly flattered by this praise;
“but if de young gemman’s ready for anodder cup ob coffee, I’se got um
a-bilin’ in de camboose.”[G]
-----
Footnote G:
Camboose or caboose. Both are used in referring to a ship’s galley, or
place for cooking. Caboose is, however, the more common expression.
-----
“Will I have another cup of coffee? Of course I will! It’s the best I
ever tasted. I tell you what, Breeze, there’s nothing like drifting
around a few days without anything to eat to make a fellow appreciate a
meal like this.”
“We had the sea-biscuit,” said Breeze.
“Yes, sea-biscuit! But what did they amount to? Dry, tasteless things!
I’d almost as soon eat so many chips,” exclaimed Wolfe, in a scornful
tone, as he finished the last mouthful of a hot buttered roll.
“Then you are not going to have them up for a sort of a dessert?”
“Dessert! I should say not. I hope I’ll never have to see one, much less
eat one again. They would always remind me of drifting through a
fog-bank in an open dory.”
All of which goes to show how very differently a hungry man and a
well-fed man may view the same object.
The sea still remained unruffled by a breath, and after breakfast
Captain McCloud said, “So long as there’s nothing we can do until we get
some wind, we’ve a chance for a yarn. If you’d like to hear about it
I’ll tell you how I happen to be aboard this brig, and how she got into
the sad condition you see her in now.”
As both Breeze and Wolfe expressed the strongest desire to hear the
captain’s story, he related it to them as follows:
“You remember, Breeze, when I left home in the old _Sea Robin_ last
October for the Banks I said that if all went well I’d be back in time
for Christmas?”
“Yes, sir, I remember.”
“Well, we made a fair trip, but did not fill up as fast as I had hoped
we would, so that it got to be pretty near Christmas-day before we saw
our way clear to picking up our anchor and heading for Gloucester.
By-the-way, have any of the _Robin’s_ crew ever turned up?”
“No, sir; not one of them. You were reported as seen on the 15th of
December, but since then not a word has come from you until this day.”
"Poor fellows! they’re long since gone, then. Well, as I was saying, we
were all ready to start for home the day before Christmas, when there
came on such a gale of wind as I’ve rarely seen in these latitudes. By
night it was a hurricane, and such a sea was running that it seemed as
though each wave must swallow the schooner as it came rushing-down on
her. We were hove-to under a three-reefed foresail, and the riding-sail
with a bag-reef tied in it. About nine o’clock in the evening, I’d been
on deck so long, and was so drenched and chilled, that I stepped into
the forecastle to get a cup of coffee. There was one other man there,
poor Dick Simonds--you remember him, Breeze--and the cook. The rest were
either on deck or in the cabin.
"I had just braced myself between the foremast and the edge of a bunk,
and was reaching for the coffee, when the vessel seemed to give a great
leap in the air. When she dropped it was on her beam ends, and I could
feel her settling down. The cook got out someway, how I don’t know; but
Dick was met by the water pouring in the companion-way. He pulled the
slide to keep it out, thinking she’d right in a minute if she didn’t
fill first.
"At the first shock I was so braced that, lying on my back as I was, I
couldn’t move, and when I did get right side up, there we were, Dick and
I, shut up like two rats in a trap, and the schooner was bottom side up.
"Dick stood it as long as he could, which I suppose was some time the
next day. By then it had got so quiet overhead that we judged the storm
had gone down. At the same time we knew our air must be escaping, for we
could feel the water slowly but surely rising in the forecastle. The
rats were becoming troublesome, too, and swarming over us. Though we
couldn’t see them, we managed to catch and drown quite a number of them.
"At last Dick said he couldn’t die but once anyhow, and that he was
going to make a try for one more breath of fresh air and one more sight
of God’s blessed daylight. He succeeded in smashing off the
companion-way slide, and a faint light came in through the water, so we
knew it was day. I didn’t remember till afterwards that it was
Christmas-day, and I’m glad I didn’t.
"Dick’s plan was to dive through the opening with the hope that he’d
clear the rigging and sails underneath it some way or another. I tried
to dissuade him from trying it, and pointed out how slim his chance was;
but he was bound to go. He said it was better to drown at once and have
it over with than to stay in there and meet a slow death along with the
rats. He stripped off his clothes so as to have a better chance of
swimming, wrung my hand, and said, ‘Good-by, skipper. If I get out,
you’ll hear me pounding. If you don’t hear anything you’ll know what’s
happened.’ Then he drew in a long breath, and made a dive for the hole.
He got through it, I know, for I saw the ray of light darken and then
come again; but I didn’t hear a sound from him afterwards, though I
listened for more than an hour.
“But hello, boys! here comes a puff of wind and there’s more behind it.
If you and Nimbus can manage to get some sail on the old craft we will
make a start for home, and I’ll spin you the rest of my yarn some other
time.”
CHAPTER XVI.
NAVIGATING THE BRIG.
The brigantine, on which our dorymates now found themselves shipped as
able seamen under the command of Captain McCloud, had been almost left
to herself for nearly two weeks, during which time the current of the
Gulf Stream had carried her far to the northward of her course. No
observations had been taken on board in all this time, and the dense
fog, through which the vessel had been drifting for the past four days,
would have effectually prevented this work even had Captain McCloud been
strong enough to perform it. He was therefore not surprised to learn
from the boys that he was now on the Grand Bank, but he determined to
try and take an observation at noon that day, and discover their exact
position.
The promise of wind that interrupted the captain’s story was fulfilled
by a steady breeze from the southward, which, as their general course
was westerly, was favorable and satisfactory. While the captain took the
wheel, Nimbus and the boys hoisted the jib, got the foresail loosed and
sheeted home, shook the reefs out of the fore-topsail, swayed up the
heavy yard by means of a winch, and set the royal. They got one reef out
of the main-sail without much trouble, but when it came to the second
they found it so difficult to hoist the great folds of heavy canvas and
its weighty spar that the boys became wholly exhausted with their
efforts, and even the enormous strength of Nimbus was exerted to its
utmost. After bracing the yards, trimming the sheets of the head-sails,
and even getting in a bit of the main-sheet, they set to work
overhauling the running rigging, and bringing order out of its confused
tangle.
At this last work Wolfe, having sailed before the mast on a
square-rigged vessel, was more at home than Breeze, but the latter was
quick to comprehend, and so learned easily; for a ready comprehension is
more than half of learning. While the boys were thus employed Captain
McCloud called Breeze to take the wheel, as it was nearly noon, and time
to take his observation. Fortunately, amid all the trouble and disaster
that had overtaken the brig, her chronometer had not been allowed to run
down, and with the sextant, and other instruments belonging to her late
captain, it was still in a serviceable condition.
Bringing the sextant on deck, Captain McCloud gazed through it at the
sun, as reflected in a small mirror, until it had reached its greatest
altitude and stood exactly above the meridian, or, in other words, until
it was noon. By looking at the chronometer, which was set to Greenwich
time, the difference between the noon where they then were and Greenwich
noon was found to be three hours and twenty-six minutes, or two hundred
and six minutes. As the earth revolves from west to east at the rate of
one degree--which at the equator is sixty miles--every four minutes, the
whole number of minutes divided by four gave fifty-one and a half, or
51° 30´, as the longitude of the brig west from Greenwich.
The latitude of the place--its distance north or south from the
equator--was obtained by another observation of the sun, taken with the
sextant, for the purpose of finding the angle between it and the zenith,
or point directly overhead. A glance at the _Nautical Almanac_ under the
date of that day, and a minute’s figuring, gave the required result. The
latitude thus found was 43° 37´, and of course, being north of the
equator, it was north latitude, or 43° 37´ north.
Having obtained these two figures, Captain McCloud got out a chart of
that portion of the Atlantic, and drawing on it a fine north and south
line through meridian of longitude 51° 30´ west, and a delicate east and
west line to indicate parallel of latitude 43° 37´ north, he made a
small cross at their point of intersection, and showed it to Breeze as
the position of the brig at that moment. It was very near the southern
point of the Grand Bank and almost due east from Gloucester, but over
eight hundred miles from that port.
“There!” said Captain McCloud when he had finished these operations, in
all of which Breeze had been greatly interested. “If we steer due west,
and hold this wind, we ought to sight Sable Island by day after
to-morrow, and run into port inside of three days more. How would that
suit you, my boy?”
“It seems as though I couldn’t wait for the time to come, father. Won’t
it be glorious to sail into Gloucester harbor and take everybody by
surprise? But, father, while we are on this cruise I wish you would
teach me something of navigation. I never saw an observation taken
before. They don’t take them on board fishing schooners, do they?”
“Not often. Most fishing skippers trust to their lead, log, and compass.
They can generally tell by the sort of bottom the lead brings up where
they are. You have often, I dare say, noticed skippers examining the
sand and shells that stick to the tallow in the bottom of the lead.”
Breeze said he had, but that he should think it would be pretty hard to
remember what the whole bottom of the ocean was made of.
“We don’t try to,” laughed his father, “we only remember what sort of
material forms a few of the principal banks and reefs. For the rest we
examine the charts, where it is all laid down. Now I am going to show
you an old-fashioned-log, and how to use it. It is the only one I can
find aboard, though many vessels nowadays use patent self-registering
logs.”
“Of course I have often heard of heaving the log,” said Breeze, casting
an eye aloft at the sails, then glancing at the compass, and giving the
wheel a spoke or two to keep the brig on her true westerly course, “but
I never knew exactly how it was done.”
Captain McCloud called upon Nimbus to bring him the log and the glass,
and made ready to use them. The log was a triangular piece of thin
board, having its base rounded and weighted with lead. Three short lines
extending from the three corners fastened it to the log-line, much as a
kite is hung. The log-line was about a thousand feet long, and had a
number of red rags, or “knots,” tied to it, at distances of fifty-one
feet apart. Each of these long spaces was divided into ten short spaces,
called “fathoms,” by bits of leather twisted into the line.
The glass, which was to mark the time of the log’s running, was shaped
like an hour-glass, but was much smaller, and the sand contained in it
occupied only half a minute in running from one end to the other. Now,
half a minute is the one hundred and twentieth part of an hour, and
fifty-one feet is the same portion of a nautical mile, which is 6120
feet, or 840 feet longer than a geographical or land mile. Thus, when we
say that a vessel sails six knots (or miles) an hour, we mean that six
knots, or three hundred and six feet, of the log-line ran out in half a
minute. The log-line is wound on a reel that turns very easily.
In the present instance Nimbus dropped the log into the water over the
lee quarter of the brig, and held the reel in his hands. When the first
fifty feet, which is called the “stray-line,” and is sufficient to carry
the log clear of the vessel’s eddy, had run out, and Nimbus saw the
first red rag touch the water, he sang out, “Turn!” Captain McCloud
turned the half-minute glass, so that the sand in it began to drop to
the other end, and answered, “Done!” The instant it stopped running he
cried, “Stop!” and Nimbus held the reel, so that no more line should run
out.
“Seben knot, five fadom, sah,” he reported to the captain.
“Very good,” said the captain; “reel in.” Then to Breeze and Wolfe he
said, "That shows that we are running at the rate of seven and a half
knots, or miles, an hour. By heaving the log every hour, and keeping
note of all the courses steered, we shall not only know pretty nearly
the distance run, but can determine our position at the end of each sea,
or nautical, day, which is at noon. This is called ‘dead-reckoning,’ and
is useful as a check on observations, and also when on account of cloudy
weather no observation can be taken. Of course, for such reckoning we
must have some fixed point to start from, or ‘point of departure,’ as it
is called. Ours in the present case is the point, back here a few miles,
that we established by finding its latitude and longitude, and marking
it on the chart.
“There is one more thing to be thought of in our dead-reckoning, and
that is the leeway. This may be caused by ocean currents, or by a beam
wind, which not only acts upon the sails, so as to force the vessel
ahead, but to a certain extent drives her sidewise. This must be allowed
for, and every captain must use his own judgment to determine what
leeway his vessel is making, and how much her course should be altered
to allow for it. Now I am going to allow a couple of points for leeway,
and instead of keeping her due west, Breeze, you may make it
west-south-west.”
“Ay, ay, sir!” answered Breeze, promptly; “west-sou’west,” and he
altered the brig’s course slightly in obedience to these instructions.
“At the same time,” continued the captain, “we shall mark the course on
the chart, as though we were heading due west.”
All this had been so interesting to the young sailors that, though
already quite hungry again, they were almost sorry to hear Nimbus
announce dinner just at this point.
After dinner, and after Captain McCloud had rested for an hour in the
cabin, the boys asked him to tell them how he escaped from his awful
position in the forecastle of the capsized _Sea Robin_, and of his
experiences, since that time.
“Well,” he replied, “of course I will tell you the whole story; but I
hate so to think of that time that I shall make my yarn as brief as
possible.”
“You left off,” said Breeze, “just where poor Dick Simonds had dived out
of the forecastle, and you didn’t hear anything more of him.”
"Yes, I remember. Well, as you can imagine, I felt badly enough in that
place, all alone, with the water steadily gaining on me, and not the
faintest hope of escaping. I would have followed Dick Simonds in a
moment, but that I knew there was no chance of getting out that way. To
do so would simply have been to commit suicide, and that has always
seemed to me a pretty mean and cowardly way of escaping trouble.
"When we were first shut in there we could sit on the edge of the lower
bunks; but before Dick left the water had risen so that we were sitting
in it, and I soon had to stand on the bunks to keep out of it. It must
have been night again, for no ray of light came in through the broken
hatch, when I found the water so deep that I was obliged to climb up on
the foremast, and sit there with my head between two of the bunks on the
upper side. I knew this was the last move I could make, and I fully
expected to die there. I had no way of knowing how long I sat there; but
it seemed like many hours, and doubtless was.
"All of a sudden, I seemed to hear faint, far-away voices, then some
heavy object struck the hull of the schooner, and directly I heard
footsteps, as though men were walking upon the bottom above me. I nearly
suffocated in my efforts to shout; but somehow I couldn’t utter a sound.
I don’t know whether it was from excitement or weakness, but my voice
had left me. Then I tried to make them hear by pounding with my fists on
the planking overhead; but though I kept it up until my hands were
bleeding and numb, the sound did not reach them. At last I ceased to
hear the footsteps, and imagined that the men, having satisfied their
curiosity, were going to leave, which, as I afterwards found out, was
the case.
"At that moment I thought of my watch, which was still in my pocket, and
which, as you know, Breeze, had a very heavy silver case. Pounding on
the planking with it, I succeeded in making a sound that attracted their
attention just as they were about to pull away. I never stopped my
pounding for a moment until somebody sung out, ‘Hello in the schooner!
Is anybody inside there?’
"I found voice then to answer that I was in there all alone, that the
water had nearly reached me, and to beg them not to go away without
trying to do something for me.
"‘All right, shipmate,’ came the answer; ‘we won’t leave you as long as
there’s a chance of saving you. You may count on that. We are only going
for some tools to cut a hole with, and will be back in a few minutes. So
keep up a good heart.’
"I heard them go away and then return again; and by rapping on the
planking with my watch, I managed to show them a place between two ribs
where there was no inside sheathing. Here they began to cut, after
asking me how thick the planking was. They did not break through in any
one place until they had cut very nearly through all around, for fear of
making holes out of which the air would rush. In that case, you see, the
schooner would quickly sink, taking me with her.
“At last they sang out for me to keep from under, as they were ready to
break in. Then came three or four quick blows, a section about two feet
square was crushed in, and somehow I got out through the opening. I
think I must have been almost shot out by the confined air that rushed
out with a roar. At any rate, there was barely time for the men to drag
me into their boat and push back a few yards from the wreck when she
sank like a stone. The boat was spun around and around like a straw in
the vortex that it made, and for a moment they were afraid that it was
going to be sucked under. I knew nothing of this until afterwards, for I
became unconscious the moment I got into the fresh air and out of the
foul gases I had been breathing so long. When I recovered I was lying in
a berth in the _Esmeralda’s_ cabin.”
“The _Esmeralda’s_ cabin!” interrupted Breeze. “Was it this very brig,
father?”
"Yes; I was lying in the cabin of this very brig, which was bound for
the west coast of Africa, with a cargo of salt fish from the Provinces.
It seemed that, while lying becalmed that morning, they had drifted
close to the wreck of the _Sea Robin_, and the mate, with a couple of
men, had boarded it out of curiosity. They had got into their boat again
to leave, without a suspicion that anybody was in her, when they heard
the noise I made pounding with the old watch. The men said it was only
rats, and wanted to go on; but the mate insisted on finding out what it
really was.
"All hands, from the captain down, did everything for me; but it was a
long time before I recovered from the horror of those two days shut up
with the rats in that wreck. I was always on the lookout for some vessel
on which I might get a passage to the United States, but we only spoke
two on the whole voyage. One of these was bound for South America and
the other around the Horn, so I stuck by the brig.
"We made a quick run out, discharged our cargo promptly, and tried to
take in our return cargo of palm-oil quickly, so as to start back before
the sickly season set in. Somehow, though, everything seemed to work
against us. One delay followed another, until we had spent three months
on the coast cruising from the mouth of one pestiferous river to
another, picking up our cargo in small lots here and there.
"At last the fever broke out among us, and the captain was the first one
to go. Then the cook died, and we got Nimbus in his place. Fortunately
for us, he was visiting his old home at that time, and ever since he
came aboard he has proved one of the best all-round hands I ever had on
a vessel. The mate and crew begged me to act as captain and take the
brig home, which I finally consented to do. I got away from the coast as
quickly as possible, in hopes of saving the rest of them; but having
once got its hold, the fever would not let go, and they dropped off one
after another. I was taken down nearly a month ago, and the first mate
not until two weeks later; but the fever made short work with him, poor
fellow! When I got about again I found that Nimbus and I were the only
ones left, and nothing but his constant care and good nursing pulled me
through. The vessel has been left to drift for I don’t know how long;
but, fortunately, we have had no very severe weather, and with such help
as Nimbus could give her, she has taken care of herself.
“It’s a sad story, but it’s all past and done with now. After this
wonderful meeting with you, I think the hard luck of the old brig must
have left her, and within a few days more we’ll carry her, safe and
sound, into Gloucester harbor.”
Captain McCloud and Wolfe Brady stood watch for the first half of that
night, and at midnight they turned in, while Breeze and Nimbus came on
deck.
Two hours later Nimbus, who was steering, lashed his wheel, and said
they must heave the log, as the wind had freshened considerably. They
got a lantern on deck, and Breeze was to turn and watch the glass, while
Nimbus held the reel.
The line had run about half out when it was suddenly slacked by the
rising of the brig on a heavy sea. The slack caught on something, and
Breeze leaned far over the taffrail to clear it. As he did so the big
sea that had lifted her seemed to slide out from under the vessel, she
dropped into the hollow with a sharp lurch, and the boy was flung far
from her. Without a sound he disappeared, and the blackness of the night
closed over him as the brig swept on her course.
CHAPTER XVII.
OVERBOARD AND INBOARD.
Nimbus was of a peculiarly nervous temperament, and very apt to do
things in moments of excitement that he regretted exceedingly as soon as
he found time for reflection. So, in the present instance, acting
impulsively, as he saw Breeze flung overboard in the darkness, he did
just the wrong thing, and what, half a minute later, he would have given
anything to undo. He should have tossed overboard a life-preserver or
other object that would float, put the helm hard down, and thrown the
brig up into the wind, thereby checking her headway and putting her into
a position to sail back over the course she had just come. At the same
time he should have called Captain McCloud and Wolfe. Above all, he
should have instantly cut loose dory No. 6, which was towing astern by a
short but stout line, so that Breeze might have a chance of seeing and
reaching it almost as soon as he came to the surface after his plunge.
Instead of doing any of these things, the impulsive negro, who was still
a young and active man though very fond of calling himself “old,” slid
down into the dory, cut the line by which she was towing, and seized a
pair of oars. He had done all this as silently as Breeze had tumbled
overboard, and without making a single outcry to alarm the two sleepers
left on board the brig.
The instant he had cut the line and found himself adrift he realized the
folly of his act, and began to shout at the top of his voice, in the
hope that it was not yet too late to arouse Captain McCloud and Wolfe.
At the same time he began to pull wildly after the swiftly moving brig.
He quickly realized that this was of no use, for she was moving three
feet to his one, nor did his shouts bring any response from those on
board. In spite of his excitement, a certain instinct told him that, so
long as he could not catch the brig, the only thing remaining for him to
do was to face about and try to find Breeze.
His movements had been so quick that he was at no great distance from
where the boy had struck the water, and was now swimming in the
direction of the vanishing brig. He, at least, heard the cries uttered
by Nimbus, and answered them. He had retained his presence of mind
wonderfully, and now realized that somebody was searching for him. So he
swam as easily as possible, but continued to shout at regular intervals;
and in about five minutes he had the satisfaction of seeing the dory
loom out of the darkness close beside him. In another minute he had
caught hold of its gunwale, and been drawn in, dripping and chilled, but
very thankful for this escape from what had seemed a hopeless situation.
His first glance was towards the brig, but he could not see even a
shadow resembling her. She had disappeared in the darkness as utterly as
though she had never existed.
“They must have put her about and headed her this way by this time,” he
said to Nimbus. “I wonder that we don’t see her.”
“No, sah; dey don’ put um ’bout. Dey sailin’ away, an’ nebber know
nuffin. Ole fool Nim nebber tell ’em good-by. Come off an’ keep on
sayin’ nuffin at all to nobody.”
“You don’t mean to say, Nimbus, that you left without giving any alarm!
without waking my father or Wolfe!”
“Yes, sah,” answered the black man in a most crestfallen tone. “Didn’t
wake nobody. Didn’t t’ink ob nuffin scusin’ how to sabe young cap’n.
Jump quick in boat, cut um ’drif, an’ come. Bimeby catch um, pull um in.
Here he is! Here we is!”
“Yes, that’s certain enough, ‘here we is,’ and how we’re going to get
out of this scrape it would puzzle a sea lawyer to tell. I suppose you
did the best thing you could think of. If you’d only given an alarm,
though! Now, with the wheel lashed, the brig may sail on for hours,
always getting farther and farther away from us, before either of them
wakes up. Well, we’re not dead yet, and while there’s life there’s hope.
I’m very grateful to you, at any rate, for coming to me so quickly. Now,
perhaps you can do me another good turn by telling me how to keep from
freezing to death in these wet clothes.”
Yes, indeed, Nimbus could do that, and in a minute more Breeze had
stripped off his soaked garments, slipped into his oil-skin jacket and
trousers, which had fortunately been left in the dory, and was rapidly
getting warm by hard work at the oars. At the same time Nimbus, with
powerful hands, was wringing the wet clothing as dry as though it were
in a centrifugal steam-wringer. Of course the things were still damp and
cold when Breeze again put them on; but, with his oil-skins drawn over
them to keep out the wind, and still keeping up his exercise with the
oars, he was soon in a glow.
As he rowed he instinctively kept the dory headed on the same course the
brig had taken, by holding her broadside to the wind, which still blew
steadily from the southward.
At last the day broke, gray and cheerless, but free from fog. Each time
the boat was lifted on a wave its occupants scanned the ever-widening
horizon eagerly, in the hope of sighting some vessel. At last the day
had fully come, and they knew the full extent of their disappointment.
Their frail craft was the only object floating on the whole weary
expanse of tumbling waters.
For a long time they sat in silence. Neither had any words of comfort to
offer the other. Finally Nimbus said, mournfully,
“Who you s’pose cookin’ on de brig for de cap’n, now ole Nim done gone?”
“I don’t know,” answered Breeze, rousing up from his sorrowful
reflections, and making a brave effort to throw off the gloomy thoughts
that were taking possession of him, “but I guess they’ll manage to make
out somehow. I know I could in their place.”
“Dey habin’ all de grub, an’ no cook in de camboose. We habin’ de cook,
but no grub an’ no camboose,” continued Nimbus, following up the train
of thoughts suggested by his hunger.
“No grub! Why, yes we have, right on board this very blessed dory,”
cried Breeze, to whose memory the black man’s words recalled the
ship-biscuit, a dozen of which still remained in the little stern
locker. The stock of provisions which he thereupon produced seemed to
restore both strength and hope to Nimbus, and he fairly laughed when he
saw it.
“Ole Nim all right,” he declared, “so long he teef keep a-grindin’ an’
a-crunchin’.”
As they ate one apiece of the precious biscuit Breeze thought of Wolfe’s
praise and disdain of this same food the day before, and wondered if he
should ever again see his light-hearted dorymate.
In the fresh-water keg so little of the precious fluid remained that
they allowed themselves only a single swallow with which to wash down
the dry biscuit. On this account their simple meal was as prolonged as
though it had been quite a substantial feast.
After they had finished this very unsatisfactory breakfast, and had
resolutely put away the few biscuit that remained, in spite of their
longing to eat them all, Nimbus said, “Well, young cap’n, wot we do
now?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Breeze, “unless we try and row to
land.”
“Wot lan’? Ware he? How far?”
“Father said yesterday that Sable Island bore due west 365 miles from
where we were then. We must have come, let me see, seven and a half
knots an hour for fourteen hours would be 105 miles. From 365, that
leaves 260, and we have rowed perhaps ten. It must be about 250 miles
away from us at this minute. Do you think we could possibly row that
distance, Nimbus?”
“Don’ know. Ole Mim row hard, row long way for grub. But how you fin’
um? Got no compass. How you steer um due wes’?”
“That’s so. I didn’t think of that. I don’t suppose the wind will always
blow from the southward. Perhaps it has changed and is blowing from some
other direction even now, and we don’t know the difference. And to think
that I have got a compass here and can’t open it! I suppose I might
manage to force the ball open with my knife, but that might break the
compass.”
“Wot you say? You got um compass?” exclaimed Nimbus, who had listened
attentively, while his companion thus thought aloud.
“Yes,” replied Breeze, drawing the golden ball from its pocket and
unclasping the chain. “There’s a compass in this ball, but nobody knows
how to open it.”
“Let ole Nim see um,” said the other, extending his great black hand for
the trinket.
He examined it with the closest attention for more than a minute, and
then said,
“Nim can open um.”
“You can open it?” exclaimed Breeze, in great astonishment.
“I t’ink so. Seen plenty all de same like um in de Eas’ Injes.”
“Well, let me see you do it.”
After much fumbling in the thick mat of wool that served him for hair,
Nimbus drew from it a pin. With this he began to trace out, carefully
and very slowly, the lines of the quaint pattern engraved on the surface
of the ball. He followed one of them around and around, in and out, for
several minutes, often stopping, going back, and beginning all over
again. He did not speak, and Breeze, eagerly watching his movements, was
also silent.
At last the movement of the pin was stopped, and on the spot that it
indicated the pressure of a thumb-nail released a spring. The upper half
of the ball swung on its pivot, and once more its interior was displayed
to view.
“Well, if that don’t beat everything!” exclaimed Breeze. “How on earth
did you ever learn that trick, Nimbus?”
“Him a labyrim ball,” answered the black man.
“A what?”
“A labyrim. Same like you might get los’ in.”
“Oh, a labyrinth.”
“Yes, sah, a labyrim, an’ if you fin’ de p’int ob de startin’, an foller
to de end, den you open um.”
This was indeed the whole secret of the ball, and after it had been
explained to Breeze he too could trace the delicate line from its
beginning, which was plainly to be seen, to its end above the hidden
spring. There was no distinguishing mark to indicate this point, and it
was almost impossible to locate it, even after one had found it many
times, without first tracing out the labyrinth. The accident by which
Breeze had hit upon it and opened the ball while asleep was so unlikely
to occur that, knowing the secret, he now wondered more than ever that
it had happened. Nimbus had learned the secret of similar puzzles upon
one of his many voyages to East Indian ports, and was made proud and
happy by this opportunity of displaying his skill.
“Now,” he said, with a smile that exhibited two glistening rows of
ivory, “we got a compass, we go fur Saple Islan’. Ole Nim row like
steam-ingin’.”
And he did row like a steam-driven machine, with long, powerful strokes,
hour after hour, all through the day--never faltering, never stopping,
and never seeming to tire. To Breeze, who watched him with
ever-increasing astonishment, he was a marvel of endurance. Breeze also
rowed with the second pair of oars the greater part of the day; but he
was several times obliged to stop and rest. With such unflagging energy
was the dory urged forward that when night came he did not doubt they
had made fifty miles since morning. He really began to hope that they
might possibly reach Sable Island, though he still admitted that the
chances were largely against their doing so.
They had decided to eat but two biscuit apiece each day, and thus make
their scanty store last them three days; after which they looked forward
to two days of starving before they could hope to sight the island. Even
when they should have covered the required distance, they knew how
little chance there was of their finding the long, low sand-bank, which
is all that Sable Island is. The probabilities were that currents or
winds might carry them so far either to the north or south that they
would miss it entirely. They anticipated great suffering, and nerved
themselves to bear it; but, happily, they were not to be called upon to
undergo it.
Night had fallen, and as they could no longer see their compass, and the
sky still remained overcast, they had ceased to row. Breeze, tired out
with his day’s hard work, had fallen into a doze, while Nimbus sat
silently gazing into the darkness. Breeze had slept for about an hour
when he was awakened by a touch, and the voice of the black man saying,
“Young cap’n, dere’s a light!”
The boy sprang up and gazed eagerly in the direction indicated. For a
while he could see nothing; then he caught a momentary glimpse of it,
the red side-light of some vessel sailing past them far to the
southward. Nimbus had already taken to the oars, and was pulling like a
madman in that direction. Watching the light closely, Breeze soon saw
that it was moving too fast for them either to intercept or overtake it.
“It’s no use, Nimbus,” he said finally, “you are only wasting your
strength. We can never catch that fellow. Oh for a match, though! If we
could only make some kind of a flare!”
“Match!” cried Nimbus. “Yes, sah; dreckly, sah!”
With this he began to fumble again in his thatch of wool, which seemed
almost as well supplied with articles required by shipwrecked sailors as
was the famous bag in “The Swiss Family Robinson;” and in a moment he
drew a brimstone match from it.
Breeze was too busy cutting the oil-skin biscuit-bag into strips to
notice from what a curious safe the match was produced; and when it was
offered to him he only said, “Light it quick! and I believe we’ll start
a flare after all.”
In another moment one of the strips of oiled muslin was blazing finely;
and, standing on a thwart, Breeze held it as high as he could reach
above his head.
Before it had burned out another was lighted, and then another, but
still no answering signal was seen. The boy’s heart had almost failed
him as he lighted the last strip and waved it to and fro. Suddenly a
bright flame darted out of the blackness from the direction in which the
red light had just disappeared, and with a great blinding rush of joy he
knew that their signal had been seen and answered.
They still continued to row with all their might in that direction,
their hearts filled with the joyful emotions of unexpected hope.
Although they had no breath with which to express it, the thought that
it was the brig on her way back to look for them had entered both their
minds. Breeze saw visions of his father and Wolfe and home, with the
mother who awaited him there; while Nimbus revelled in thoughts of his
beloved camboose, and of all the good things he would cook and eat as
soon as he once more got into it.
A backward glance soon showed them both the sailing-lights of the
vessel, and told them that her course had been altered so that she was
headed in their direction. Then they began to shout, and at last heard
the welcome answering hail. Finally the ghostly outline of sails and
spars became visible. It was a schooner.
[Illustration: “BLESS MY SOUL, IF IT ISN’T BREEZE McCLOUD!”]
They could hardly believe it at first, so convinced had they become that
it must be the brig, but as she drew near they saw that she was indeed a
schooner, and a regular Gloucester Banker at that.
Five minutes later they stood on her deck, and as the light of a lantern
shone on his face, Breeze was seized by the hand, and a well-known voice
exclaimed, “Bless my soul if it isn’t Breeze McCloud!”
CHAPTER XVIII.
NEWS FROM HOME.
The voice that greeted Breeze so heartily was that of Captain Ezra
Coffin, and the schooner he had just boarded was the _Fish-hawk_. The
boy could hardly believe his senses. Could it be that he had again
fallen in with friends on the high seas? Was this really the schooner he
had left in Gloucester more than a month before? It did not seem
possible, and yet here was Captain Coffin shaking his hand, old Mateo
dancing about and trying for a chance to embrace him, and other familiar
faces, seen dimly by the lantern-light, crowding forward to greet him.
Mateo, the cook, could not contain his joy, but danced and shouted
extravagantly, “We found ’em! we found ’em! Me tella you fader we finda
you, Breeza. Where zat rasca, Nimba, zat Guinea boy? You bringa him, eh,
Breeza?”
“Here I,” cried Nimbus, who had stood back unnoticed as the crew crowded
around Breeze. “Who callin’ me rask? Wot he mean? Ware he?”
At the sound of this voice old Mateo, who had just succeeded in
embracing Breeze, left him, made one bound to where the black man stood,
and seizing him by his wonderful ears, began to shake his head
violently, exclaiming, “You no a raska, eh? you black pickaninny! Ole
Mateo teacha you! He pulla you ear many time! you forgetta him, eh?”
Nimbus was at first bewildered and thrown off his guard by this sudden
attack, but recovering himself quickly, he seized the little cook with
his powerful hands, and raising him clear of the deck, held him, kicking
and screaming, at arm’s-length above his head, while he executed a
waddling, uncouth sort of a war-dance. As he did so he shouted, or
rather chanted,
“Ah, you ole Mateo! Now I know um well! You ole Portugee man! You pull
Nimbo’s ears when he pickaninny! You show um de cookin’ ob de duff an’
de scouse! Now you gwine a-fishin’! You t’ink you catch um one time mo’,
but you is mistooken! He grown to be a whale! He catch you, an’ he eat
you! You ole rask yo’se’f!”
All this was shouted out in a singsong tone, to which the grotesque
dancing-steps of the black man kept time. The whole affair was so
ludicrous that the members of the crew screamed with laughter, and
rolled on the deck in the excess of their merriment. Even Captain Coffin
and Breeze were compelled to join in the general mirth, and the latter
laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks. It was a great relief
and pleasure to enjoy a hearty laugh once more after the sadness and
anxiety of the days just past, and it did the boy more good than
anything that could have happened just then.
The comical actions of Mateo and Nimbus were their peculiar modes of
expressing great joy at again meeting with each other. Years before,
Mateo, while cooking on board a vessel engaged in the African trade, had
picked up Nimbus, then a boy, and taken him as an assistant. They had
sailed together for several years, and had then lost sight of each
other. This curious encounter in mid-ocean was their first meeting since
that time.
When Nimbus set Mateo down, the old cook shook his fist in the face of
his former pupil. He said nothing to him then, for he had just bethought
himself of a neglected duty, and stepping over to where Breeze and the
captain were standing, he uttered the famous expression that had so
often proved a welcome one to the boy:
“Vell, Breeza, you hongry, eh?”
[Illustration: NIMBUS, RAISING HIM CLEAR OF THE DECK, HELD HIM AT
ARM’S-LENGTH ABOVE HIS HEAD.]
“I should say I was hungry. I guess anybody would be if he’d had only a
couple of dry ship’s biscuit to eat in more than twenty-four hours.”
“Holy feesh!” exclaimed Mateo, “you got ze ship’s cook an’ nottin’ do
for eat? zat lazy Nimba! heem no good!”
The two castaways certainly tried their best to lay in a liberal supply
of food for future use that evening, and it was hard to tell which was
the happier, old Mateo in seeing them eat, or they in eating. Of course
Nimbus found fault with each dish, and would not acknowledge that
anything was as good as he could have prepared it, had he been lord of
the galley, and of course Mateo treated his claims to be considered a
cook with scorn. Thus was begun the professional rivalry between these
two curious specimens of sea cooks, that offered infinite amusement to
the crew of the _Fish-hawk_, and made this voyage one long to be
remembered and laughed over.
When he had reached the stage at which he began to think of ship-biscuit
much as Wolfe had done after their first meal on the brig, Breeze left
the cooks to settle their differences as best they might, and went on
deck for a talk with the skipper. From him he learned that the
_Fish-hawk_ was only four days out from Gloucester, and that when he
last saw Mrs. McCloud she was well, though worrying sadly over the
unexplained disappearance of her boy.
“How did it all happen, Breeze?” asked the captain. “Wolfe Brady tried
to tell me something about it, but I hadn’t time to hear much.”
“Wolfe Brady!” exclaimed Breeze. “What do you mean? Where have you seen
Wolfe Brady?”
"Why, yesterday! Didn’t I tell you? How careless! I thought I told you
first thing after you came aboard that we fell in with the _Esmeralda_
yesterday; no, I mean to-day, for it isn’t midnight yet, about noon, and
seeing her signal of distress I went aboard of her.
“I was never more surprised in my life than when I found your father and
Wolfe Brady on the vessel, and all alone. You could have knocked me down
with a rope yarn. They were in terrible low spirits over losing you, and
didn’t know how to account for it. They had not waked until daylight,
and had no idea of how long you had been gone or what had happened.
Their only hope was that so long as the black man and the dory had gone
too, you were both drifting round somewhere in it. They would have put
their brig about and started back to look for you, but they hadn’t the
strength to swing the yards. Altogether they formed a melancholy ship’s
company.”
“That accounts for Mateo’s asking if I had brought Nimbus with me,” said
Breeze. “I wondered how he knew anything about it. Poor father and poor
Wolfe! Could you do anything to help them, captain?”
“Oh yes; I put two men aboard to take the brig into Gloucester, and
promised to sail over the course they had just come, and keep the
sharpest kind of a lookout for you. Wolfe Brady wanted to come with us,
but felt that his duty lay with your father. He said, though, he would
never go dorymates with anybody else if you shouldn’t turn up again.
Captain McCloud was very much broken down over losing you under such
circumstances, so soon after your wonderful meeting with each other, and
I was afraid he was going to have a relapse of his fever. For that
reason I made him promise, before I left him, that he would take the
brig at once into port, and not attempt to find you. I, of course, had
no idea that you could be found, and had not the slightest hope of ever
seeing you again. How did you manage to follow the brig’s course so well
without any compass and under a clouded sky?”
“We had a compass,” replied Breeze, smiling.
“Did you? They said on board the brig that there was none in the dory,
and that, provided you were in it, you would probably be lying to a drag
about where they left you.”
Then Breeze told Captain Coffin the whole story of the golden ball, and
the important part it had played in directing their movements.
When he had finished the captain said, “Well, it has certainly saved you
this time by bringing you to this point; for if I had kept the course I
was steering all night, and you had simply drifted before the wind, we
might have been anywhere from thirty to fifty miles apart by morning. I
don’t see now why you didn’t drift farther to the northward with this
southerly wind.”
“I guess it was because I made a pretty big allowance for leeway,”
replied Breeze.
“Oh yes; if you thought of that, I’ve no doubt it was.”
“By-the-way, captain, how does it happen that you are only just now on
your way to the Banks?” asked Breeze. “I thought you were to start
within a week after the _Vixen_ left Gloucester.”
“So we did,” replied the skipper, “and got as far as Banquereau. There
we lost our foremast in a gale, and ran back after a new stick. While we
were refitting I heard such bad reports from the Banks that I determined
to try a new ground to me, and make a trip to the Iceland coast after a
load of fletched[H] halibut.”
-----
Footnote H:
Fletch, a corruption of _flench_, or _flense_, meaning to strip off in
layers. A fletched halibut is one from which the meat is cut off in
strips and salted, to be afterwards smoked.
-----
“To Iceland!” cried Breeze, in dismay.
“Yes, lad, to Iceland. Sixteen hundred miles farther away from
Gloucester than we are now. Twenty-four hundred miles to go, and the
same distance to return, is a pretty long fishing trip, isn’t it? But it
will soon be over, and early next autumn we’ll land you safe and sound
in Gloucester again, in plenty of time to get ready for a winter’s trip
to George’s if you want to take one.”
The idea of going on such a long voyage, and having his return home
deferred for several months, was so startling to Breeze that for a few
moments he remained silent, not knowing what to answer.
“Why, lad,” said the captain, “what else is there for you to do? You
know I can’t afford to put back to Gloucester again simply to carry you
there. It would cost a thousand dollars to do that. Even if we should
put about now and try to find the brig again, it isn’t at all likely we
could do so. I am short-handed from having let two men go back with her,
and you and your black friend will just give me a full crew again.
Besides, your dunnage is already aboard and waiting for you. I meant to
have sent it up to your house before sailing, but I forgot it. But, I
say, Breeze, you haven’t told me yet how you happened to take French
leave and come off to the Banks the way you did. Your poor mother was
almost distracted when you didn’t come home that night, nor yet the next
day. She sat up all night long waiting for you, and was at my house by
daylight to get me to go and look for you.”
“Poor mother!” said Breeze, pityingly. “The worst of being carried off
so was the thought of her distress, and now she’ll have a new cause for
trouble when father and Wolfe get home and can’t tell her whether I’m
dead or alive.”
“You were carried off, then?”
“Of course we were. You don’t suppose I would have gone off in that way
of my own accord, do you?”
“No, not exactly; but there were ugly stories around town about your
having been seen at Grimes’s, and been chased by the police for creating
a disturbance on the streets. Of course your mother wouldn’t believe a
word of them, and I didn’t wholly either, for I know how such things get
exaggerated; but I was afraid you might have got into some sort of a
scrape.”
When Breeze had told Captain Coffin the whole story of that night, the
latter said, cordially,
“I believe every word you tell me, Breeze, and I think you acted just
right under the circumstances; in fact, I do not see how you could have
done anything else. Still, I think your long absence on this voyage will
prove a good thing for you. It will give Wolfe Brady plenty of time to
deny all the false stories, and will also give people time to believe
him. You know it always takes folks longer to believe good than bad
stories about a person.”
“Well, sir,” said Breeze, “under the circumstances, and as the only
other thing to do would be to get into dory No. 6, and drift away again,
I believe I’ll ship with you for this Iceland trip.”
“Yes, I think you had better,” replied the skipper, gravely.
Breeze was much pleased to find again the outfit of clothing that he had
transferred to the _Fish-hawk_ from the _Albatross_. After weeks of
wearing old garments, picked up here and there among his recent
shipmates on the _Vixen_, it was indeed a comfort to be able to dress
himself once more in a full suit of his own clothes.
The _Fish-hawk_ was a much larger and more comfortable schooner than any
he had sailed in before; and only the thought that there were sorrow and
anxiety in the little home cottage on his account prevented him from
thoroughly enjoying the prospect of a trip in her to far distant seas.
Even this cause of trouble was partially removed two days later, when
they sighted several fishing schooners, and the skipper offered to run
down to them, and ask the first one that should be homeward bound to
take letters, and also to report Breeze McCloud as safe and well.
As they drew near, one of these anchored vessels seemed strangely
familiar to Breeze, who, after looking at her through a glass, said, “I
do believe it’s the old _Vixen_.” He was right, and no men could have
been more surprised than were her crew, when, soon afterwards, he and
Captain Coffin rowed to her in dory No. 6. They welcomed Breeze as one
from the dead, and there was not a man on board but shook him heartily
by the hand and gave him a cordial greeting. Of them all, none appeared
so glad to see him as poor Hank Hoffer, who, still suffering greatly
from the effects of his exposure in the ice, had never ceased to mourn
the loss of his brave young rescuers.
They were intensely interested in the story he had to tell them of his
experiences since drifting away in the fog, and all declared that they
had never before heard of any one person having such peculiar adventures
during a single trip to the Banks. The _Vixen_ was to return to
Gloucester in two or three weeks more, and her skipper promised to
contradict any unpleasant rumors he might hear concerning Breeze, and to
tell the true story of his mysterious departure. He also promised to
deliver, immediately upon his arrival, the letter Breeze had written to
his mother, telling of his safety and where he had gone.
Before they left the _Vixen_ her skipper told Captain Coffin that his
anchor was caught on an ocean telegraph cable, and asked him whether he
thought he ought to try and haul it up, thus running the risk of
breaking the telegraph, or cut his own cable when he got ready to leave.
“Buoy your own cable and cut it, by all means,” replied Captain Coffin,
promptly. “The telegraph company will pay you the full value of all that
you lose, as soon as you send in a statement of the case to them. I did
the same thing myself only about a year ago.”
After getting the suit of shore clothes he had left on the _Vixen_,
Breeze bade his old shipmates good-by, and he and Captain Coffin
returned to the _Fish-hawk_, one of the _Vixen_ men going with them to
carry back dory No. 6. Breeze could not help watching the departure of
the old dory with regret, as he thought of all he had gone through with
in it, and how often it had served him in times of danger.
As they sailed away from the _Vixen_, the thought of her being fast to a
telegraph cable caused Breeze to ask the skipper how many cables there
were crossing the Atlantic.
“I believe there are ten in all,” was the answer. “Two of them run to
Newfoundland, and eight cross the fishing banks, and land either on the
Nova Scotia or New England coast.”
“Is the very first one still working?” asked Breeze.
“No, the first one, which was laid in 1858, was only able to transmit,
very feebly, one or two messages, and then it became silent, never to
speak again. The first one that was of any real service was laid in
1864, as I well remember, for I saw the _Great Eastern_ while she was
laying it; but I believe that also has been long since abandoned.”
While they were thus talking they lost sight of the _Vixen_, and were
once more alone on the broad ocean. Then Breeze, for the first time,
fully realized that he was really bound on a long voyage across the
stormy Atlantic to the distant coast of Iceland.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE DEVIL-FISH OF FLEMISH CAP.
Captain Coffin was an unusually well-informed man, and as Breeze was
always on the lookout for stray bits of information, he took advantage
of the opportunity afforded by this long voyage to ask the skipper a
great many questions. One day, soon after leaving the _Vixen_, the lead,
running out to a great depth, showed them to have crossed the Grand
Bank, and to be on the deep waters of the North Atlantic. While they
were talking of this, Breeze asked the captain how he supposed the Banks
had been formed.
“My theory is,” answered the skipper, “that they were formed, and are
constantly being added to, by icebergs. You see, every spring thousands
of these big fellows come sailing down through Davis Strait for their
summer outing. They bring with them tons and tons of gravel and sand,
collected while they formed part of slow-moving arctic glaciers, or
picked up off the bottom as they drifted along the Greenland and
Labrador coasts. Now, no matter how large an iceberg is above water, it
is more than twice as big below the surface--that is, we see less than
one-third of its whole bulk, while the rest is under water. I saw one
once aground in forty fathoms. Well, by-and-by the part that is under
water begins to feel the influence of the Gulf Stream, and to melt much
more rapidly than that which is above. As the bergs drift about in this
melting condition, they lose, here and there, quantities of the sand
they have brought with them. After a while they have melted away so much
under water that they become top-heavy and capsize with a tremendous
flurry, pitching overboard a great deal more of their cargo. Finally
they melt away entirely, and all the material they have brought down
from the north is swept up by the Gulf Stream, and deposited along its
northern edge on what we call the Banks. To form them has been the slow
but unceasing work of unnumbered centuries.”
“But why doesn’t this great quantity of sand and gravel pile itself up
until it finally reaches the surface and becomes an island or a lot of
small islands?”
“Because of the fierce currents that are continually sweeping over the
Banks and scattering the material far and wide. They are caused by the
mighty flow of the St. Lawrence River, by tides and winds, and very
largely by the Gulf Stream; for, with such a volume of warm water
flowing north and east all the time, there must be an equal quantity of
cold water flowing south and west to take its place.”
“That’s so;” said Breeze, “I might have thought of that.”
“Many persons,” continued Captain Coffin, “imagine the Banks to be
islands of mud rising to within a few feet of the surface, and even
showing above it in places; and I have been asked if navigation on them
was not very dangerous on account of the shoal water. I actually had a
man ask me once if we often went ashore on the Banks.”
“Of course, I have always known better than that,” said Breeze; “but I
don’t know how near they do come to the surface.”
“The shoalest waters of the Grand Bank,” answered the skipper, “are
three fathoms, on the Virgin Rocks, ninety miles to the southward of
Cape Race, and from that the depth increases to two hundred fathoms;
while to the south-east of the Bank soundings of six miles have failed
to reach bottom.”
“Well, there isn’t much danger of running aground in such waters,”
laughed Breeze, “and I’m very much obliged to you for this information;
but who do you suppose first found out that there were fish on the
Banks?”
“I don’t know; perhaps it was that old Iceland fellow, Lief Erikson, who
they say first discovered America. I have been told by the French
fishermen who come over here every summer that their countrymen knew of
these grounds as early as 1504, and that less than twenty-five years
from the time that Columbus made his first voyage, a fleet of more than
a hundred French, Spanish, and Portuguese fishing vessels were visiting
them regularly every summer.”
“I should think with such constant fishing the supply would give out,”
said Breeze.
“It would seem so, but it doesn’t; and I believe there are just as many
fish on the Banks now as there ever were. Of course, there are more in
some seasons than in others. This, for instance, appears to be an off
year, and that is the reason I am going to see if they haven’t gone to
the other side of the ocean for the summer.”
Soon after this the _Fish-hawk_ reached the small bank known as Flemish
Cap, about three hundred miles east of Grand Bank, and the most distant
of all the American fishing grounds. This was just twelve hundred miles
from Gloucester, or half-way to Iceland, and Captain Coffin determined
to set a few trawls, and see if they could not pick up some halibut
here. As, under reduced sail, the schooner moved slowly across the Bank,
several of the crew got out hand-lines and dropped them over the side.
Among these was Nimbus, who, never having been on a fishing vessel
before, was delighted to have a chance to try his luck at the new
business, and very anxious to catch a halibut.
Now, Breeze was possessed of the peculiar power of ventriloquism, or the
ability to so use his voice as to make it seem to come from other places
than that in which he stood. He had only recently discovered this power,
but had practised continually while on board the _Vixen_, and had become
fairly skilful in performing the trick. In the excitement of the past
week he had not thought of it; but now, as he saw Nimbus baiting a hook,
and, under Mateo’s direction, preparing to make his first attempt at
fishing, it flashed into his mind that here was a chance for some fun.
He stationed himself close beside the two cooks, and waited patiently.
After a while there came a tug at the line, and Nimbus began excitedly
to haul in. As the fish approached the surface old Mateo went in search
of a gaff, with which to get it on deck. Just as its nose showed out of
the water, and the black man was about to give a great shout of joy over
his success, a voice, coming apparently from the halibut’s mouth, cried
out,
“Let go, Nimbus, you hurt!”
For a moment the negro stood petrified with amazement, his mouth wide
open as it had been in readiness for his shout of triumph, and his
eyeballs rolling wildly.
Once more the fish spoke. “Let go, I say!”
This was too much. With a yell of terror the negro dropped his line,
which went whizzing out over the rail, and sprang backward. As he did so
he encountered old Mateo, just coming to his aid with the gaff. The
force of the collision sent the two cooks rolling on deck together.
Nimbus shouting, “Ow! ow! luff ole Nim alone; he nebber catch um no
mo’!” and Mateo clutching at the black man’s ears, and spluttering out
his wrath in Portuguese.
He was the first to scramble to his feet, and picking up the gaff, began
to belabor Nimbus over the head with its handle. Just then Breeze, who,
though choking with laughter, had caught the line and pulled the halibut
once more to the surface, called to him for help in getting it aboard.
As the little man, responding to this summons, reached over the
schooner’s side with the gaff, and prepared to hook it into the great
white fish, he nearly tumbled overboard with the fright of hearing a
voice directly beneath him say,
“What do you want with me, old Mateo? I ain’t your fish.”
Mateo bounded from the deck as though he had received an electric shock,
and had not one of the crew who stood near seized the gaff, it would
have dropped into the water as it fell from his hand.
The crew had by this time discovered the trick that Breeze was playing;
but they were trying to suppress their laughter in order that the two
victims of the joke might not suspect it.
As the halibut was lifted from the water and laid flapping on deck it
seemed to say, “Well, this is what I call a mean trick! We heard you
fellows were bound for Iceland, and--” There was no need to finish the
remark, for before this point was reached old Mateo, with a howl of
dismay, had darted forward and vanished in the forecastle, while Nimbus,
with a yell of affright, had rolled aft and sought the safety of the
cabin.
Then how those fishermen did roar with laughter, and stamp on the deck
with their heavy boots, and slap Breeze on the back in token of their
appreciation of his talent and its successful application! From that
time forward he was obliged to exercise it frequently for the benefit of
his shipmates; but it was long before Nimbus thoroughly understood it,
or could be persuaded that the mysterious voices that seemed to come
from all parts of the schooner were not produced by some invisible
being.
The readiness with which this first halibut had taken the hook
determined Captain Coffin to make at least one set of the trawls at that
point. It was to be a “set under sail.” That is, instead of coming to an
anchor, the schooner, under easy sail, would drop one dory with its
trawl, then another, and so on until all were out, when it would turn
back, pick them up in the same order, and stand off and on near the
buoys until it was time to haul. As each trawl was set at right angles
to the course of the schooner, and there were six of them placed at
intervals of half a mile, very nearly three square miles of bottom were
thus covered.
The rest of the crew had been paired off, and had chosen their dories
before Breeze and Nimbus came aboard, so these two naturally became
dorymates. This time Nimbus was the green hand, and Breeze his
instructor, in the art of trawl-setting. Everything went smoothly with
them until they had partially hauled their trawl, when such a fearful
thing happened to them that to this day Breeze cannot think of it
without a shudder.
Nimbus was in the forward part of the dory hauling in the line, while
Breeze stood just behind him, coiling it away. As they were thus
engaged, the trawl seemed to catch in some heavy body, and, in spite of
his strength, Nimbus was obliged to call upon Breeze for aid to move it.
[Illustration: MATEO, WITH A HOWL OF DISMAY, HAD DARTED FORWARD AND
VANISHED IN THE FORECASTLE; WHILE NIMBUS, WITH A YELL OF AFFRIGHT, HAD
ROLLED AFT.]
“Mus’ hab um whale on de hook,” he panted, as he tugged at the straining
line.
Directly the strain was slackened, so suddenly that they nearly tumbled
over backward. The water surrounding the boat became black as ink, and
from it darted something like a huge snake, that twined itself about the
black man’s body. He gave a cry of horror, and tried to tear it loose,
but at his first movement two more of the snake-like arms shot out from
the inky water and also seized upon him. These twined about his legs and
tripped him, so that he fell in the bottom of the boat, very nearly
upsetting it. As it was, it was drawn so far over to one side by the
weight of the creature attacking them that there was imminent danger of
its filling, and leaving them to struggle powerlessly in the water.
All this had happened so suddenly that Nimbus was flat on his back
before Breeze at all realized what was taking place. A glance over the
side showed him two of the cruelest-looking eyes he had ever seen. They
were quite round, very large, and projected from the base of the long
writhing arms, or tentacles, that had seized upon Nimbus. Snatching up
an oar, and using it as a sort of harpoon, Breeze aimed a furious blow
at one of the protruding eyes. Whether he struck it or not he could not
tell, for before he could recover the oar it was torn from his grasp and
drawn under the water. At the same instant another of the monster’s
tentacles was thrust upward and fastened upon him, pinning his left arm
to his body.
In the first shock of his terror, Nimbus rolled, screaming and helpless,
among the slippery fish in the bottom of the dory. Suddenly a cry from
Breeze of “Help, Nimbus! Help me! I’m being dragged overboard!” seemed
to restore his courage. He struggled to his knees, seized upon one of
the snake-like things that held him, and, with a mighty wrench,
literally tore it in two. This gave him some freedom of motion, and he
managed to reach over to where Breeze was clinging to a gunwale, and
drew the boy’s sheath-knife from his belt.
Now the black man became the attacking party, and with the keen-edged
knife began to slash right and left at the clinging tentacles, several
more of which had by this time risen from the water, and were
endeavoring to seize him. He fought so savagely, and with such effect,
that finally the monster, having lost five of his arms, sank sullenly
from their sight beneath the discolored waters.
For several minutes after their enemy had disappeared they watched
apprehensively for his return, dreading a renewal of the attack. Much of
their trawl had run out during the struggle, and now, making a tub fast
to it, they tossed it overboard, and while Breeze held up an oar as a
signal for the schooner to come to them, Nimbus began to row towards
her.
“What do you think it was, Nimbus?” Breeze asked, at length.
“Don’ know. Nebber see’d notting like um in all my sailin’. Mus’ be um
debbil-fish.”
Although Nimbus had never heard of Victor Hugo, he had applied to his
late enemy the same name given it by the great French writer, the
“devil-fish,” which is so wonderfully described in the “Toilers of the
Sea.”
“Well, I think it was a sea-serpent,” said Breeze, “and I’m not sure but
what there were half a dozen of them, too.”
When Captain Coffin heard their story, and saw the portions of the
monster that still remained in the dory, he fully realized the peril
they had been in, and congratulated them upon their escape from the
embrace of a giant cuttle-fish. He measured the largest of the arms that
Nimbus had cut from the creature’s body. It was bloodless, and composed
entirely of gristle, and from its length the skipper concluded the
creature must have measured twenty feet from tip to tip of two of its
arms.
“But what kind of a beast was it?” asked Breeze. “It had big eyes, and
seemed to be swimming in ink, but I could not see any tail or fins.”
“No, it did not have any. Its body was simply a round, leathery sack,
about as big as a medium-sized squash. It had a horny beak like a
parrot’s, and could have given you an ugly bite if it had got hold of
you. The ink that it threw out was the sepia of commerce, from which
India-ink is made. The creature was the giant squid, or octopus. He had
eight arms, and but for your knife would undoubtedly have dragged you
both to the bottom of the ocean.”
“Do they often attack people?” asked Breeze.
“No; they rarely appear on the surface of the water, and this fellow
would not have done so if one of your trawl-hooks had not caught him. He
belongs to the same family as the little squid we catch in such
quantities on the Banks for cod bait.”
“I’d hate to have to catch such a fellow as he was for bait,” said
Breeze, with a shudder.
“He’d make good whale bait,” replied the skipper. “There’s nothing the
sperm-whale likes better. I once saw a piece of the arm of a
cuttle-fish, thirty feet long, taken from a dead whale’s mouth, and we
calculated that the creature to which it had belonged must have measured
one hundred and twenty feet from tip to tip.”
“I thought a whale’s throat was too small to swallow a thing like that,”
said Breeze.
“Not the throat of a sperm-whale. That is large enough to swallow ’most
anything. You are thinking of the right whale. He couldn’t swallow a
mackerel, his throat is so small.”
One afternoon, ten days after this incident, by which time the crew of
the _Fish-hawk_ were heartily tired of the cold, stormy weather of the
North Atlantic, the cry of “Land, ho!” rang through the schooner. The
western sun, breaking through a bank of clouds, shone clear and full
upon a distant snow-covered mountain-top. The ocean had been crossed,
and Iceland was in sight.
CHAPTER XX.
ON THE COAST OF ICELAND.
This first glimpse of the great northern island so fascinated Breeze
that he could not take his eyes off the distant spot of glistening
whiteness. It seemed too wonderful to be true, that he, a poor
fisher-lad, should be about to visit the mysterious land of fire and
snow that the majority of travellers consider to be far beyond their
limit of time and money. He thought over all that he knew or had ever
heard of Iceland, and found that it was very little indeed. He knew that
it was an island, that it contained icy glaciers, smoking volcanoes,
vast deserts of broken lava, and was noted for its geysers, though he
had no clear idea of what a geyser was or even looked like. He had heard
that Mount Hecla was the principal volcano of the island, and he
wondered if the distant white object at which he was gazing might not be
it. This was about all that Breeze could remember concerning this
wonderful country, and I do not believe that many of the readers of this
story know any more about it than he did. Do you?
[Illustration: THE FIRST VIEW OF ICELAND.]
After gazing long through his glass at the snow-topped mountain they
were approaching, and carefully studying his chart, Captain Coffin said
it was not Mount Hecla, but must be the Snäfell Jökull, or mountain,
near the end of the long narrow promontory of Snäfells (snow-hills).
This projects from the western coast of the island, and separates the
two great bays, or fiords, of Breda on the north and Faxa on the south.
Although the halibut grounds, for which the _Fish-hawk_ was bound, lie
on the northern side of the island, while Reykjavik (pronounced
Rike-ya-veek), the capital, is situated at the head of Faxa Fiord, in
the south-western corner, Captain Coffin determined to run in there and
have a look at the place before beginning work. Besides having a desire
to see something of the capital city and the people of this
out-of-the-way corner of the world, the schooner’s supply of fresh water
was running short, and he was anxious to replenish it.
While Breeze is still gazing at the Snäfell Jökull, and Captain Coffin
is altering his schooner’s course a point more to the southward, so as
to fetch the light-house on Cape Reykjaines (smoking cape), let us take
a sort of a general look at the curious island, and see if we can find
out any more about it than these Yankee fishermen knew.
In the first place, everybody knows, or ought to know, that Iceland, as
well as Greenland, belongs to Denmark, and is ruled by a governor
appointed by the Danish king. Everybody, however, does not know that,
while Iceland is over six hundred miles from the nearest point of
main-land in Europe, it is only one hundred and forty miles from
Greenland, and is now generally regarded as being a part of America. It
is as large as Scotland and Wales taken together, or as the American
States of Maine and New Hampshire. Two of its northern points just touch
the arctic circle, but owing to the influence of the warm ocean-currents
surrounding it, its average winter weather is no more severe than that
of New England, though its summers are short, wet, and chilly.
The whole island is of volcanic origin, and though it was thrown up from
the sea thousands of years ago, it still smokes and steams in many
places, and displays every evidence of containing some of the principal
vents for the everlasting fires that rage just below the earth’s crust.
There are now no trees in Iceland, other than stunted willows and
birches, eight or ten feet high; but it is said to have been formerly
covered with fine forests of fir-trees, from which ships were built and
furnished with spars. Such of these forests as were not cut down were
destroyed by the awful volcanic eruptions of the last century, which
covered the whole country with lava, pumice-stone, sulphur, or ashes,
killed nearly ten thousand human beings, and immense numbers of horses,
cattle, and sheep, poisoned vast shoals of fish in the surrounding
ocean, and threatened the total destruction of everything living, both
animal and vegetable, on the unfortunate island.
Since that time the fortunes of Iceland have gone steadily from bad to
worse. Its climate is slowly but surely growing colder. Its people are
becoming poorer and poorer, and are leaving it for more favored lands in
ever-increasing numbers. Each winter thousands of icebergs and vast
fields of floe-ice drift across from Greenland, and pile themselves up
on its western coast, clasping the island in a deadly embrace, and
threatening its very life with their chill breath.
Only the coasts of the island are inhabited, while the interior is a
desolate, lifeless, and almost unexplored waste of lava plains, bogs,
volcanic mountains, and ice-filled valleys. The people live in huts
built of wrecked timbers, picked up in the western fiords, or of blocks
of lava roofed with turf. They cultivate forlorn little patches of oats
and watery potatoes, raise flocks of lean, long-legged sheep, herds of
black cattle, and shaggy ponies about the size of those that come from
the Shetland Islands. They gather and export sulphur, Iceland moss, and
the downy breast-feathers with which the eider-duck has lined her nest.
Above all, they fish for cod, halibut, ling, haddock, and herring. But
for the fish with which its surrounding ocean teems, the island would
have long ago been abandoned to its icebergs and volcanoes. To these
northern people fish is what bread and meat are to us. They eat it from
year’s end to year’s end, and exchange it for all the other scanty
necessities of their lives. They even feed their ponies, cattle, and
sheep on dried fish during severe winters, after their meagre supply of
coarse hay has given out. Fish are everything to Iceland, and it seems
to furnish everything to them; for they swarm by millions in its waters.
After them up into those wild seas go the fishing boats of England,
France, Denmark, Norway, and even far away Massachusetts in New England;
and after them had now come the good schooner _Fish-hawk_ of Gloucester,
bringing Breeze McCloud in her crew.
In this far northern latitude the midsummer sun is only out of sight,
below the horizon, for about two hours, or from eleven o’clock in the
evening until one o’clock in the morning; and at midnight, or the
darkest hour, the twilight is hardly to be distinguished from the high
noon of a cloudy day. As the time of the _Fish-hawk’s_ reaching Iceland
was about the middle of June, she sailed in unbroken daylight, and
consequently the lamps were not lighted in the only two light-houses of
which the island can boast, one on Cape Reykjaines and the other at the
entrance to Reykjavik harbor.
About nine o’clock in the evening they passed the Mealsack, which,
rising from the sea about fifteen miles from the Smoking Cape, is one of
the most remarkable rocks of the world. It is nearly round, about one
hundred and fifty feet in diameter, and its black, rugged sides rise
sheer and straight for two hundred feet above the surface of the water.
Its top is snowy white, from the excrement of the innumerable sea-fowl
that circle screaming above it, and find rude resting-places in its
crevices, or on its spray-wet ledges. It is perhaps needless to say that
no human being has ever trod its summit, or even effected a landing upon
it.
After leaving it, the _Fish-hawk_ skirted the coast of Reykjaines, which
presents as awful a scene of desolation, and of terrific struggles
between fire and water, as can be imagined. The beetling cliffs of black
lava are rent and broken into every conceivable shape. Deep fissures,
into which the waves rush and roar with a mad fury only to be churned
into foam, draw back their stony lips, as though grinning over the fate
of the vessel that shall approach them too closely. Dark caverns echo
the hollow booming of the waters that fill them. Peaks, pinnacles, and
spires rise sharp and forbidding above the chaotic masses piled about
their feet. Everywhere through the milk-white foam of the ceaselessly
dashing breakers jagged rocks show themselves, like the black fangs of
monstrous beasts cruelly eager for their prey. It was a sight to sober
even the merry face of Breeze McCloud; while poor Nimbus, after a single
glance at it, buried himself in the forecastle and refused to come out
so long as they remained in the vicinity of such a “Debbil place,” as he
called it.
A few hours later, after carefully threading her way through narrow
channels, between numerous rocky islets that rose boldly from the water,
the _Fish-hawk_ dropped her anchor, and furled her sails in the harbor
of Reykjavik. There were two or three square-rigged vessels in the port,
and a number of fishing boats; but though it was still broad daylight,
there were no signs of life aboard them, nor in the forlorn-looking
little town in front of them. A solemn stillness, broken only by the
occasional barking of dogs, brooded over the entire scene, and it was
hard to realize that this was the capital of one of the oldest nations
of the old world.
Breeze thought they must have made some mistake, and got into the wrong
place, and Captain Coffin would have been inclined to agree with him if
it had not been for the evidence of his chart; but there was no room for
doubt there. Probably no coasts on the globe have been more accurately
or thoroughly surveyed than those of Iceland, and no one who has a
knowledge of how they were made ever disputes the maps issued by the
Danish War Office.
“It’s all right, Breeze,” said the skipper. “This is the place we’ve
been hunting for, miserable as it appears. We’d better turn in now for a
few hours’ sleep, and perhaps things will look better to us to-morrow.”
But they did not; for under the lowering skies, and through the
drizzling rain in which they next came on deck, the scene looked, if
possible, more dreary than it had done the night before. About six
o’clock the schooner was boarded by a man wearing an official cap, a
long-skirted coat, and big boots, who was rowed off from the town in a
small boat carrying a green flag. He was very polite, and talked a great
deal of Danish, together with a few words of English, some French, and
another language, which Breeze afterwards discovered to be Latin.
In spite of all this, he finally succeeded in giving them to understand
that he was the Health Officer of the port, and wished to see the
schooner’s papers. Being shown into the cabin, he carefully inspected
these, though he was evidently unable to make anything from them, except
that the vessel came from the United States.
In return, he handed the captain a long printed paper, of which nobody
on board could read a word, and gravely selected a single silver coin
from the handful that was offered him in payment of the port charges and
his services. He satisfied himself by looking at them, that the crew
were all in good-health; and learning that the schooner was in need of
water, accepted one more dollar as a water fee, and pointed out a place
on shore where they could take all they wanted. Then politely lifting
his cap, he stepped into his boat, and was pulled back to the town.
“Well, boys,” said the skipper, when this official had gone, “I suppose
it’s all right now, and we are free of the city, though I’m blamed if I
can make out who that chap was. He may have been the governor himself
for all I know. However, let’s get our water aboard, have a look at the
place, and get away again as soon as we can, for we’ll all have the
blues if we stay here many hours.”
When Captain Coffin and Breeze went on shore, soon afterwards, they
found the city to consist of about a hundred one-story houses, painted
black, and containing two or three rooms each, half a dozen stores in
two-storied buildings, a comfortable-looking governor’s residence, a
university, a forlorn-looking hotel, a stone church called the
cathedral, and a windmill. These were crowded together, without any
attempt at regularity, on a narrow strip of rocky land between the
harbor and a lagoon.
Drawn up on the beach, in front of a row of rickety old wooden
warehouses, were scores of fishing boats, and the whole place reeked
with the smell of fish, fresh, dried, and decaying. Everywhere were
nets, oars, and piles of fish. Brawny, hard-featured women trudged along
the ill-paved streets carrying great loads of fish on frames like
stretchers; while the men of the town lounged at the corners, with pipes
in their mouths, and watched them. A drove of ponies fastened in a line,
each to the tail of the one ahead of him, bore immense packs of
merchandise on their backs; and between the houses prowled lean,
villanous-looking dogs in search of something to eat or a chance to
fight.
Inside of an hour Breeze and the captain had seen all they wanted to see
of the city, and began to retrace their steps towards the landing. Just
before they reached it they heard a great noise of shouting and
laughter, and upon turning a corner they came upon a most comical sight.
Surrounded by a crowd of men, women, children, ponies, and dogs stood
Nimbus, who was evidently the greatest curiosity these Icelanders had
seen in many a day. He had stopped to examine one of the ridiculous
little Iceland ponies that appear to be more than half mane and tail.
Its owner thought he wanted to buy it, and had tried to tell the
stranger what a splendid, strong animal it was. Somehow Nimbus gathered
an idea of what he was saying, and, to show his utter contempt for such
a specimen of horse-flesh, he had suddenly thrown his great arms about
the little beast and lifted it from the ground, kicking, squealing, and
trying to bite. Other horse-traders had hurried to the spot, dragging
their ponies after them, and a crowd had quickly collected to stare at
the black man who could carry a horse.
Finally Nimbus seized and lifted from the ground a pony with a man on
his back, at which feat the crowd roared with delight. Suddenly the
struggling pony screamed out,
“Wow! wow! put me down, or I’ll kick you!”
Nimbus dropped him like a hot coal, the man on his back tumbled off in
affright, and the crowd scattered from about the marvellous beast as
though he had been a roaring lion.
“Come, Nimbus, let’s get back to the schooner,” said Captain Coffin, who
had slipped up behind him; and, turning, the black man now for the first
time noticed Breeze, and understood how the pony had been gifted with
the power of speech.
They hurried away without explaining the wonder to the bewildered
natives, and probably to this day that pony is regarded with awe and
veneration as having once opened his mouth and talked.
Three days after this, Reykjavik had been left far behind, and the
_Fish-hawk_ was sailing over the stormy waters that wash the desolate
northern shore of the island. This was where Captain Coffin had supposed
the halibut, or “spraka,” as the Icelanders call them, would be found,
but thus far there was no sign of them. In order to search the ground
thoroughly, he decided to drop dories at intervals of about a mile
apart, and give those in them an opportunity to fish with hand-lines, by
which means he hoped some feeding-ground of the halibut might be
discovered.
Near each dory was left an anchored buoy, bearing a flag with a number
painted on it, and each crew was instructed to fish in a circle about
its buoy, but on no account to lose sight of it. As the schooner sailed
away the skipper carefully noted the bearing of each of these flags, and
the distance between it and the next one, so that there might be no
difficulty in returning to it.
Breeze and Nimbus were in the first dory thus left, and the flag on
their buoy was marked No. 1. In less than three hours after they had
been dropped, the _Fish-hawk_ returned to pick them up. All the other
dories had been sighted as she came back, and the crews of two of them
were catching fish hand over hand. The buoy bearing flag No. 1 was
easily found, but to the dismay and distress of Captain Coffin and old
Mateo, who were the only ones left aboard the schooner, no trace of the
dory to which it belonged, nor of its occupants, was to be seen.
CHAPTER XXI.
TEMPTED FROM DUTY.
For a whole day the _Fish-hawk_ cruised back and forth and in great
circles in the vicinity of the deserted buoy, with a man constantly at
the mast-head scanning the surface of the sea for some trace of the
missing dory. Then leaving the spot, she ran into the coast, from which
the buoy was about twenty miles distant, and made inquiries at several
of the tiny fishing villages that nestle at the heads of the deep
fiords. It was all in vain. Nothing was seen, nothing had been heard,
and the cause of the dory’s sudden and complete disappearance could not
even be satisfactorily guessed at. The only bit of information gained
from the islanders was, that on the day the dory was lost a steamer had
been seen skirting the coast, on her way to the southward, which was
such an unusual circumstance that it was something to be talked about
and wondered over.
Finally the crew of the _Fish-hawk_ sailed sorrowfully back to the
halibut grounds, convinced that their well-loved young shipmate and his
black dory mate had been swallowed by the cold waters of that northern
sea, and that they should never again see them in this world. Captain
Coffin and old Mateo were especially distressed over what had happened,
for they had loved the boy as an own son, and could not become
reconciled to the fate which they supposed had overtaken him. It was the
harder to bear because of its uncertainty. If they could only be sure of
what had happened to him, and that he were not still drifting about,
starving or perishing from thirst on that cruel sea, or stranded on some
rocky islet of the inhospitable coast from which there was no escape!
With all this, the cause of the dory’s disappearance was a very simple
one. Its occupants had merely been led astray, as many another has been
and will be, in the pursuit of riches. They had hardly been left on
their station, and begun fishing, when the negro’s quick eye detected a
small lump of grayish matter floating on the water but a short distance
from them. At the sight he uttered an exclamation of joy, and hastily
hauling in his line, he seized the oars and began to pull towards it.
“What is the matter?” cried Breeze, who had not noticed the floating
object, and would not have known what it was if he had. “Where are you
going?”
“Ole Nim catch um dreckly, young cap’n, den you see. Better’n fish!
better’n gole! better’n ebberyting!”
What could he mean? And when Nimbus stopped rowing, and, stretching out
his arm, lifted the little gray lump, about the size of a man’s fist,
from the water, Breeze was no wiser than before.
“What is it, Nimbus, and what is it good for?” he asked, in perplexity.
“Amble grease! Good for sell! Heap money! P’r’aps fin’ more!” answered
the black man, smelling of his prize and patting it with his great
hands, while his eyes roved over the water in search of another like it.
“Ambergris!” shouted Breeze, who had heard from old fishermen stories of
this precious substance, and of its fabulous value, but had never before
seen it. “You don’t mean, Nimbus, that that dirty-looking stuff is
ambergris!”
“Yes, sah. Him amble grease sure ’nough,” answered the black man, who
had more than once seen this most valuable of all the products of the
sea on his native African coast.
“Well, if that’s ambergris, I believe there’s another bit of it over
there,” said Breeze, standing up and looking eagerly in the direction
from which the wind blew.
He was right; there was another bit, and beyond that they found another,
and still another, until they had gathered up a number of the small
floating lumps that had been strung out over several miles of water.
“What is ambergris, anyway?” asked Breeze, while Nimbus was rowing
towards one of these pieces.
“Don’ know,” was the answer. “Sick whale heave um up.”
“Sick whale!” exclaimed Breeze, in a tone of disgust. “I hope you don’t
expect me to believe such a yarn as that, Nimbus.”
In spite of the boy’s disbelief, the black man was right; for ambergris
has been found in the intestines of sperm-whales, but only of such as
were very thin and evidently diseased. It has also been thrown up by
such whales in their death-struggles after being harpooned. It is
valuable on account of its delightful odor, and is used in the
manufacture of most of the delicious perfumes for the handkerchief that
chemists devote so much time and ingenuity to preparing and naming.
Nothing has ever been found to take its place, and it brings, according
to the state of the market, from twenty-five to thirty-five dollars an
ounce, or about five hundred dollars per pound.
Although Breeze and Nimbus had no distinct idea of the value of what
they were finding, they knew enough about it to become intensely excited
as they discovered piece after piece, and the little pile in the bottom
of the boat began to assume very respectable proportions. In their eager
search they forgot everything else, and paid no attention to where they
were going, nor how far they had come. They even failed to notice the
little squall of rain and fog that came whirling past them, bringing
with it a change of wind. That they neglected to observe this was
because, just at that moment, they sighted the great parent mass of gray
stuff from which all the little pieces they had been picking up had
broken off and drifted away.
If they were excited before, they were wild with excitement now, and
both of them very nearly pitched into the water in their eagerness to
secure their prize and get it into the dory. They estimated its weight
to be nearly, if not quite, a hundred pounds; and its bulk was so great
that they had hard work to squeeze it into the boat.
When at last this had been safely accomplished, they sat and gazed at it
and at each other.
“I shouldn’t wonder if it was worth a thousand dollars,” said Breeze, at
length.
“Mo’ like a millium!” answered Nimbus, whose ideas of the value of their
prize were even more vague than those of his young dorymate.
“Well,” said Breeze, “let’s head back for the schooner; Captain Coffin
will know pretty near what it is worth. I suppose we’ll have to share
this find with the rest of the crew, though;” and with the shadow of
covetousness creeping over his soul, the boy thought sadly of how much
pleasanter it would be to divide their prospective profits between two
than among fourteen.
The same thought was evidently weighing upon Nimbus, as he slowly picked
up his oars and made ready to pull--where? Now for the first time since
sighting the first bit of the stuff that had lured them from their post
of duty they began to look for the buoy-flag, which they had been warned
not to lose sight of.
“There it is!” cried Breeze, pointing to a distant speck on the water.
They pulled towards it; but, when they had approached close enough to
discover its real nature, they found it to be but a bit of floating
drift-wood, and though they did not know it, they had gone another
half-mile in the wrong direction.
“Well,” said Breeze, “it can’t be very far off, and so long as we pull
with the wind we must get near enough to it for the schooner to sight
us. The ambergris drifted with the wind, and we were pulling against it,
you know.”
Yes, Nimbus remembered that, and agreed that they must now go with the
wind in order to retrace their course. But neither of them knew that the
wind had changed.
So, for more than an hour they pulled, in what they imagined to be the
right direction, and every stroke carried them farther away from the
schooner.
At length they realized their true position. They were once more adrift
on the open sea in a frail dory, and this time without food or water.
This time, too, they had only themselves to blame; for only their own
carelessness and direct disobedience of orders had brought them into
this miserable plight. There was but little chance of their being picked
up, for vessels were rare in these waters. As for seeking to gain the
horrible, rock-bound coast of the island, the mere thought of what they
had seen of it caused them to dread it almost as much as the open sea.
Still, this seemed to be the only thing left for them to do, and once
more the tiny compass that had already proved such a true friend to
Breeze was brought into service.
Upon getting the ball open and looking at the card, they were greatly
puzzled to account for its movements, and thought it must be out of
order. One side of it was so drawn down, and the other so lifted up,
that the ball had to be inclined at a sharp angle to get the card to
move at all. Neither of them had ever heard of the dip of the magnetic
needle, nor did they know that they were within about ten degrees of the
magnetic north pole, or the point at which a compass-needle, if allowed
to move freely in every direction, would incline directly downward.
However, where they were it still worked sufficiently well to give them
a course towards the land, of which they could as yet see nothing, and
with heavy hearts they began to row in the direction thus indicated.
The mass of ambergris in the dory seriously interfered with their
movements, and left room for only one of them to row at a time. At last,
when they had rowed thus for several hours--though in this region of
perpetual daylight they had no means of knowing what time it
was--Breeze, tired, hungry, and discouraged, pulled in his oars, and
exclaimed,
“I’ve a great mind to heave that stuff overboard, and I wish with all my
heart that we’d never set eyes on it. The idea of its getting us into
such a scrape!”
In saying this, Breeze was only dropping into the fault, so common to us
all, of trying to lay the blame of his own wrong action upon somebody or
something else; but Nimbus was wiser in this respect than his young
companion.
“No, no!” he said. “De amble grease all right. He don’ do nuffin. Now we
got um, we keep um. Bimeby be berry glad ob um. Now let ole Nim row.”
“I don’t care,” replied Breeze, changing places with the negro. “I’d
give the whole of it this minute for a loaf of bread. I don’t believe I
ever was so hungry in my life.”
“Bimeby we get um bread,” said Nimbus, encouragingly, as he took the
oars, “an’ hab um amble grease too.”
For an hour or two longer the dory was urged forward by the powerful,
steady strokes of the black man, who seemed never to tire or to grow
impatient at their hard fate.
At length Breeze exclaimed, “There’s land, Nimbus; I see it!”
Nimbus, turning, saw it too--a long black line of coast; and beyond it,
rising dimly through the mist-laden atmosphere, the huge forms of the
snow Jökulls. An hour later they were close enough to it to distinguish
the features of the forbidding-looking cliffs, pierced by deep fiords,
and to begin to consider which of these they should enter.
As they talked the matter over in low tones, awed by the impressiveness
of the scene, and the unbroken stillness that brooded over it, Nimbus
suddenly raised a warning hand, and his great ears seemed to prick
forward with the intentness of listening. He leaned over the side of the
dory until one of his ears was close to the water, and when he again
raised his head he said, “You hear um steamboat?”
“Hear a what?” exclaimed Breeze, for as yet he had heard nothing.
“Steamboat! You no hear um steamboat coming?”
“No, I’m sure I don’t, nor you either. There aren’t any steamboats in
these waters. What you hear must be the surf on the rocks.”
But Nimbus insisted that he did hear a steamboat, and after a while
Breeze began to think that he too heard it. In a few minutes more there
could be no doubt of it. It was the regular, unmistakable throb of a
screw propeller; and though they could not for some time be certain from
which direction it came, it was surely approaching them, and renewed
hope sprang within their breasts as they listened to it.
At length they saw a thick column of smoke rising beyond a long
promontory to the north of them, and soon afterwards the low, black hull
and raking masts of a steam-yacht rounded the point and bore swiftly
down upon them.
[Illustration: THE YACHT CAME DIRECTLY TOWARDS THEM.]
For fear they would not be noticed, Breeze stood up and waved his hat.
But there was no necessity for this. The yacht came as directly towards
them as though their dory were the object for which it was steering, and
it even began to look as though they were going to be run down. At last,
when they could see the water jetting up like a fountain before her
sharp prow, and could distinguish the features of the seamen, who gazed
curiously at them from over her bows, she sheered a little to one side,
as though about to pass them.
“Stop! Hold on!” screamed Breeze. “Don’t go off and leave us!”
“Well, by Jove! that’s odd,” said a young man who stood on the yacht’s
bridge to an older one who occupied it with him, though of course those
in the dory did not hear him; “I thought those fellows were native
fishermen, and here they are hailing us in English.” As he spoke, he
gave a brass handle in front of him a quick pull.
A gong clanged down in the engine-room, and almost instantly the motion
of the screw was stopped. The momentum of the yacht was so great that
she was shooting past the dory, when two more strokes of the engine-room
gong set the screw to backing furiously. A single stroke stopped it
again, and the yacht lay motionless.
“What’s up, and what do you fellows want?” demanded the young man,
looking down into the dory from over the canvas side of the bridge.
“We are lost from an American fishing schooner,” replied Breeze, “and we
are nearly starved, and we beg that you won’t go off and leave us.”
“Leave you!” exclaimed the warm-hearted young Englishman--for such he
was--“leave you here on this beastly coast! Of course we won’t. Come
right aboard, both of you. Mr. Marlin, be so good as to have the
side-ladder lowered, and get those poor fellows on board.”
A minute later Breeze McCloud, once more rescued, in an almost
miraculous manner, from a position of great peril, stood on the deck of
the steel steam-yacht Saga, in which her owner was making a summer’s
cruise in those far northern latitudes.
Breeze had hardly reached the deck, and was about to speak to this
gentleman, who was approaching him, when the gong in the engine-room
clanged, and the vessel began once more to move ahead.
Just then came a most distressed cry from the side-ladder, on the lower
step of which Nimbus was still standing, holding the painter of the dory
in his hand:
“Oh, de amble grease! de amble grease!”
“What does the fellow say?” asked the gentleman, in a perplexed tone, of
Breeze.
“Oh, sir, won’t you have the yacht stopped again, before she swamps our
dory? It’s full of ambergris,” cried Breeze, who had entirely forgotten
the precious cargo of the boat he had just left.
“What! ambergris? You don’t say so! Yes, of course. Mr. Marlin, stop her
at once, and get that queer-looking craft, with its cargo, on deck. Why,
young man, if that stuff you’ve got in there is truly ambergris, you are
carrying a small fortune about with you.”
Acting under the orders of Mr. Marlin, the sailing-master of the yacht,
half a dozen of her active, trimly dressed crew sprang to one of her
quarter-boats, unhooked it from the davits, and took it in on deck. Then
a couple of lines were passed entirely around the dory, which beside the
dainty boats of the yacht looked to be a clumsy, ill-shaped craft, and
it was lifted clear of the water, and swung up to the level of the rail.
“There,” said the gentleman; “your boat and its contents will be safe
enough for the present. What did you say your name was?”
“I did not say,” replied Breeze, “but it is McCloud--Breeze McCloud.”
“And mine,” said the other, “is Seabright.”
“Thank you,” said Breeze, “and I’m very grateful to you for picking us
up, Mr. Seabright.”
The boy could not imagine why Lord Seabright stared at him for a moment,
and then burst out laughing, at hearing himself thus addressed, for the
first time in his life, as plain mister.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE STEAM-YACHT “SAGA.”
There was something so gentlemanly in the appearance of Breeze McCloud
that Lord Seabright at once noticed it; and, in spite of the boy’s rough
clothes, and declaration that he was one of the crew of an American
fishing schooner, could not regard nor treat him as an ordinary
fisher-lad. While Nimbus was sent forward, to be cared for in the
forecastle and at the mess-table of the crew, Breeze was shown into the
ward-room, or quarters occupied by the sailing-master, mate, and chief
engineer of the yacht. Here the cabin steward was sent to him, with
orders to make him as comfortable as possible.
The first thing this individual noticed was that Breeze was soaked to
the skin, and shivering as though in a chill, and he hurried away to
find him some dry clothes. A few minutes later he returned with an old
but complete yachting suit, belonging to Lord Seabright, which, as the
latter was but a few years older than Breeze, and of about the same
build, fitted the boy as though made for him.
[Illustration: BREEZE’S WELCOME TO THE “SAGA.”]
While he was changing his clothes in the tiny stateroom which he was
told he might occupy as long as he remained on board the _Saga_, the
steward spread a table with the remains of the cabin dinner, which, as
it was now about half-past eight in the evening, had been just finished
when the dory was picked up.
As the steward announced that his dinner was ready, and asked him if he
were not hungry, Breeze was reminded of old Mateo, and his cheery “Vell,
Breeze, ma boy, you hongry, eh?” It gave him a homesick feeling, and he
thought how gladly he would, if he could, exchange his present luxurious
surroundings, in the company of strangers, for the forecastle of the
_Fish-hawk_, and its narrow mess-table surrounded by the faces of his
friends. There is nothing more true than that the humblest abode in
which are a person’s own people is a happier place to him than a palace
without them.
Having eaten nothing since very early that morning, Breeze did not allow
these thoughts to interfere in the slightest with his enjoyment of the
meal set before him. To him it seemed one of the most sumptuous dinners
he had ever sat down to, though the cabin steward apologized for it,
saying that their cook had unfortunately fallen overboard and been
drowned while they were cruising off Jan-Mayen, and since then they had
been obliged to get along as best they could.
It was wonderful to note how differently this man treated Breeze since
he had appeared in Lord Seabright’s clothes. He had been kind before,
but now he was respectful. All of which goes to show that, while clothes
do not make the man, they have a great deal to do with the estimation in
which he is held by strangers. Consequently it is very important that
everybody, boys as well as men, should always dress as neatly and
becomingly as their circumstances will allow.
Lord Seabright always commanded his own yacht, in which he took great
pride, and which he was capable of managing in every detail. Whatever
this young man undertook he performed thoroughly, and at present he
found his chief pleasure in yachting, a pursuit in which his great
wealth enabled him to indulge without a thought of the expense attending
it. This was the _Saga’s_ first cruise, and it had been extended as far
northward as the wild land of Jan-Mayen, which is about two hundred
miles nearer the north pole than Iceland. It is also a volcanic bubble
of the earth’s crust, though much smaller and even more desolate than
its neighbor on the south.
Since leaving these, and reaching the coast of Iceland, the Saga had
penetrated several of the deep northern fiords, and Lord Seabright had
visited a number of the fire Jökulls, boiling sulphur springs, and other
interesting objects and places of that part of the island. Now the yacht
was on her way to Reykjavik, from which an inland expedition was to be
made to the famous geysers.
After Breeze had finished his dinner the steward informed him that his
lordship would like to have a few words with him in the cabin.
The cabin, or main saloon, was located as nearly as possible in the
centre of the yacht, though forward of the engines and boilers. As
Breeze was ushered into it, he was for a moment bewildered by its
elegance and its luxurious appointments, which far surpassed anything he
had ever dreamed of. Mirrors, carvings, silken curtains, rich furniture,
velvet carpets, a sideboard glistening with silver, a small upright
piano built into the oak wainscoting, an open fireplace with a
chimney-piece of carved oak above it, a small library of choice books,
and many other beautiful things, of which he did not know the names or
uses, greeted the boy’s astonished gaze. Although it was still daylight
outside, the sky was so overcast that the saloon would have been in
comparative darkness had it not been for the floods of light coming from
four opaque globes set into the ceiling and softening the electric
flames that flashed behind them.
As the saloon door was thrown open by the cabin steward, and Breeze was
confronted by all this blaze of light and color, he hesitated for a
moment, and felt almost afraid to enter. Then the Yankee independence to
which he had been educated asserted itself, and he stepped inside the
gorgeous apartment.
Lord Seabright did not at first recognize the handsome, gentlemanly
appearing fellow who, clad in a becoming blue yachting suit, now stood
before him, and for an instant looked inquiringly at him. He had risen
from the easy-chair in which he had been seated, and the moment he
realized who the visitor was, he stepped forward, instinctively held out
his hand to Breeze, and bade him welcome to the _Saga_. Then he
introduced him to the only other occupant of the saloon, a tired-looking
young man, who lay upon a lounge smoking.
"Without rising, this gentleman greeted Breeze with, “Ah, pleased
awfully! Have a weed?”
“No, I thank you,” replied Breeze, who could hardly help laughing. “I
have not learned to smoke yet.”
“Ah, good boy! Advise you not to. Beastly habit. Rough on the
constitution.”
“Oh, Whyte! Whyte!” laughed his friend. “If you would only practise the
half of what you preach, what a fine fellow you would become!”
“Yes,” replied the other, “I fancy my theory is very nearly perfect, but
it is really too much of a grind, don’t you know, to put it into
practice. I’d rather let some other chap do that.”
This was a fair example of Mr. Whyte Whymper’s character. He was
good-natured, easy-going, blessed with most excellent mental and
physical qualities, but was too indolent to improve either the one or
the other. He was not exactly the companion the owner of the _Saga_
would have chosen for this northern trip, but several other friends had
disappointed him at the last moment, and he was obliged to make the best
of the one who was at liberty, and willing to accompany him.
“Well, McCloud,” said Lord Seabright, after a few moments’ pleasant chat
that served to make the boy feel quite at home, “sit down and tell us
how you and your black friend happened to get lost, and to be drifting
about on the open sea in that queer-looking craft of yours. It strikes
me that you were in a pretty nasty position, and I’m curious to hear
about it.”
Although Breeze confined his story to his experiences while on the
_Fish-hawk_, and after leaving her, his hearers were much interested in
what he had to tell them. They seemed to consider it a very plucky thing
for a small schooner, such as he described, to cross the Atlantic for
the purpose of fishing in those stormy northern seas, and they asked him
many questions in regard to the American methods of fishing.
“What do you expect to do, now that you have lost your schooner?” asked
Lord Seabright, at length.
“I don’t know, sir,” replied Breeze. “If I knew of any way to find her
again I’d try it; but I can’t seem to think of any.”
“Neither can I, and I don’t see that there is anything for you to do but
to come with us to Reykjavik and see what offers when you get there.
Perhaps there will be some vessel in port bound for America, on which
you can engage a passage.”
“Well, sir,” said Breeze, “I suppose that will be the best thing for us
to do, and we’ll be very glad to work our passage if you’ll let us.
Nimbus is a good cook, and as yours got drowned, perhaps you can make
him useful in that way. I am willing to do anything I can. At any rate,”
he added, brightening at the thought, “if you’d take ambergris, we might
pay for our passage in that.”
Both the gentlemen were highly amused at this suggestion, and as soon as
he could control his voice, Lord Seabright said,
“My dear fellow, yachts are not allowed to receive payment for carrying
passengers. Even if they were, you must not think so meanly of us as to
fancy that we would consider the aiding of distressed mariners any less
of a pleasure than it is a duty. I shall be only too glad to employ your
black friend, and if he proves a good cook will pay him liberal wages.
As for yourself, it is a pleasure to have your company, and I am
especially glad to have somebody on board who has been at least once
into Reykjavik harbor, and can give us some information as to the
channel and the place itself.”
“I shall be only too glad to do anything I can to earn my passage, and
will give you all the information I have,” replied Breeze, “but I am
afraid it won’t amount to very much.”
“Whatever it is, I feel certain it will be worth the having,” said the
other, politely, “and now I move that we all turn in, and prepare by a
good sleep for our grand entrance into the capital to-morrow.”
After Breeze had gone, Lord Seabright remarked to his friend, “I like
that fellow, Whyte. He seems to be an uncommonly bright and manly sort
of a chap.”
“Oh yes,” replied the other, indifferently. “He’s not half bad for a
Yankee.”
After satisfying himself that Nimbus was comfortably provided for, and
that the ambergris, upon which he was now building many hopes and no
longer wished to exchange for a loaf of bread, was safe, the tired boy
sought his bunk, feeling very grateful for the snug quarters in which he
found himself.
On the following day, Nimbus, to his own intense satisfaction, was
installed in the galley, and given charge of more pots, pans, kettles,
and other kitchen utensils than he had ever dreamed could exist in one
ship. He also found that he had full authority to order about as he
pleased, a young lad who filled the position of scullion in his
department. With the gaining of this knowledge, he assumed such an air
of dignity as made him appear comical enough to all eyes except those of
the unfortunate boy for whose especial benefit it was put on. The
originality of the black man’s appearance was further increased by a
white jacket, a large white apron, and a cook’s white linen cap. When
this cap was perched on the back of his head it seemed to rest upon his
immense ears; while his grotesque thatch of wool projected several
inches in front of it. In spite of the absurdity of his appearance, he
proved to be a capital cook, and managed his department in a manner
thoroughly satisfactory to his new employer. The good-natured fellow’s
sole regret, which he expressed to Breeze many times, was, that “Dat ole
rask Mateo” could not see him in his present exalted station, “at de
head ob a camboose fit fo’ de King ob Africa hissef.”
During this day, too, the grayish mass in the dory was pronounced to be
ambergris, beyond a doubt, was carefully weighed, and stored in stout
boxes made by the yacht’s carpenter. Its weight was found to be a few
ounces over one hundred and twenty pounds, and Lord Seabright told
Breeze that its value in the London market would not be far from fifty
thousand dollars.
Quite dazzled by the magnitude of this sum, Breeze for a while thought
of himself as a young man of fortune, and indulged in delightful dreams
of what he would do with the money as soon as it came into his
possession. Suddenly the remembrance of Nimbus came upon him like a
blow. Was not the black man, who had been his faithful dorymate,
entitled to an equal share in it? Of course he was, though it was with
reluctance that Breeze admitted the fact to himself. Still, even such a
division would leave him twenty-five thousand dollars. It would be
enough to purchase several fishing vessels, and make him a person of
considerable prominence in Gloucester.
The thought of Gloucester brought another with it. On what terms was the
fishing business carried on there? Was it not on the basis of one-half
the catch to the vessel and half to the crew? To be sure it was, and
this ambergris was one of the incidental profits of the _Fish-hawk’s_
voyage to Iceland. But, then, had not he and Nimbus found it all by
themselves and risked their lives in obtaining and saving it? It would
be easy enough to sell it, keep the money, and say nothing about it.
So, locked in his tiny state-room, the boy struggled with the right and
the wrong of this question for more than an hour. Finally the right
triumphed, and when he became conscious of the fact, Breeze felt as
light-hearted and happy as though he had been crushed under the whole
weight of fifty thousand dollars in gold, and it had suddenly been
lifted from him.
When, soon afterwards, he was congratulated by Mr. Whyte Whymper upon
the amount of his fortune, he replied, “Yes, sir, seventeen hundred
dollars is a good deal of money for a boy like me to have at once.”
“Seventeen hundred dollars!” exclaimed the other. “Why, I thought it was
ten thousand pounds?”
“So it is, sir, in all; but, according to Gloucester rule, half of it
goes to the schooner, and the other half must be divided among her crew
of twelve others besides Nimbus and myself.”
When he made this statement of the case to his black dorymate, he was
put to shame by discovering that the honest fellow had never taken any
other view of it.
At the same time Mr. Whyte Whymper was saying to Lord Seabright, “I have
just discovered that our young Yankee friend is possessed of a degree of
honesty that, to me, would be worth all his other good qualities put
together.”
About noon the yacht passed the Snäfells and entered the waters of Faxa
Fiord. As she approached Reykjavik, and began to thread her way among
the islands that enclose its harbor, Breeze stood on the bridge with
Lord Seabright and Mr. Marlin. He had already pointed out on the chart
the course taken by the _Fish-hawk_ a few days before, and the same one
was now held by the _Saga_. There was one very narrow channel that
Breeze bore in particular remembrance on account of the huge, isolated
mass of lava that had risen from and partially leaned over one side of
it. Both he and Captain Coffin had wondered if it might not some time
topple over and block the passage. Now he looked for it in vain. Could
he be mistaken in the place? Again he studied the chart intently. No,
the other landmarks were all right, but this one had disappeared. The
_Saga_ was just about to enter the channel. He was not absolutely sure
that he was right, but he felt impelled to call out, “Stop her, sir!
Stop her, please, and back her!”
“Why, what is the matter, McCloud?” exclaimed Lord Seabright, as he
complied with this request and rang the engine-room bell.
When Breeze had told them of his fears Mr. Marlin went with a boat’s
crew to sound the channel. Upon his return he reported an ugly rock
rising to within a few feet of the surface, almost in the middle of it,
with deep water on both sides.
So the _Saga_, which was carefully worked through the narrow place to
one side of the danger, was saved from almost certain wreck only by
Breeze McCloud’s keen observation and retentive memory. They afterwards
learned that the huge mass of rock had fallen into the sea with a
tremendous crash on that very day.
Although hospitably received and entertained by the governor and other
members of Reykjavik society, the two English gentlemen were almost as
much disappointed in the Icelandic capital as Breeze had been on his
former visit to it. Lord Seabright, however, anticipated great pleasure
from the proposed trip to the geysers, and hurried forward the
preparations for it as rapidly as possible. His friend was by no means
so enthusiastic as he, and finally decided that he would rather remain
in comfortable quarters on board the _Saga_ than to undertake the
tedious journey to the geysers merely for the sake of seeing what he
termed a fountain of boiling water.
Nothing could alter this decision, and finally, declaring him to be
altogether too lazy to live, Lord Seabright turned to Breeze and said,
“Will you go with me in his place, McCloud? I know the invitation comes
rather late; but if you will overlook that, and accept it, I shall be
most happy to have your company on this trip to the geysers.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
PONIES AND GEYSERS.
As there were no vessels in the harbor of Reykjavik, save one that was
taking in a cargo of ponies for Norway, besides the native fishing
boats, and Breeze saw no chance of returning to America at present, he
gladly accepted Lord Seabright’s invitation to accompany him to the
geysers.
Nimbus was to go, of course, to cook for the little expedition, and he
looked forward with considerable anxiety to mounting and riding one of
the shaggy little ponies that he had treated with such contempt upon the
occasion of his former visit to the capital. He had never ridden on
horseback in his life; but it was certain he must do so now if he
expected to reach the geysers, for his own short legs would never carry
him that distance, and there was not a wagon, cart, or carriage to be
had in all Iceland. So horseback it must be, or not go at all; and
during the several days of preparation for the trip, Nimbus occasionally
went on shore, and gazed in silence and sadness at the little shaggy
monsters that were being collected by the guide, evidently trying to
determine upon which one of them it would be safest to trust himself.
The guide was a grave, fresh-faced young Icelander named Haik Gierssen,
who had conducted tourists to the geysers ever since he had been old
enough to do so, and whose father, Gier Zöega, had been a guide before
him. He had undertaken to buy the ponies for the expedition, and in
consequence was the most eagerly sought man in the town. Everybody had
ponies to sell; and though the trip would probably occupy less than a
week, it was necessary to carry tents, provisions, blankets, and extra
clothing, even for that short time, and they must all be carried on
ponyback. Thus, for the party of four, including the guide, twelve
ponies were required, two apiece to be alternately ridden and rested
over the rough roads, and four to carry the camp outfit. It is necessary
to travel thus in Iceland, because there are no hotels on the whole
island but the one at Reykjavik. The country-people are very hospitable,
and will gladly share with a stranger the best they have; but they are
also very poor, and most of their huts are so small and filthy that one
is not apt to accept their kind offers of food and shelter more than
once.
At last all was in readiness, and the morning set for the departure
arrived. It was dreary, wet, and chilly; but in spite of all that, an
enthusiastic and curious crowd of towns-people had assembled to see them
start. They were principally attracted by the sight of Nimbus, who had
become quite a celebrity among them, and whom they regarded as by far
the most important personage of the party. Breeze had found it hard to
persuade his black dory mate to leave behind the white cap, jacket, and
apron, which were his robes of office. Nimbus had finally yielded, and
in their place now wore a fisherman’s sou’wester, with ear-tabs to it,
tied firmly on his head, a monkey-jacket the sleeves of which were
several inches too short for his long arms, white duck trousers, and a
pair of the carpet slippers, run down at the heel, without which no sea
cook is happy.
The moment he found himself on the pony’s back, from which his short
legs stuck out almost at right angles, Nimbus leaned down over the
animal’s neck, twined both hands into its shaggy mane, and resigned
himself to his fate. He could not be induced to hold the bridle, and
would not have known what to do with it if he had. All the pack-ponies
and spare animals were fastened, each to the tail of the one in front,
to keep them from straying. As Nimbus was evidently incapable of
steering his, it was made fast to the tail of the last pack-pony, and
thus the unhappy cook brought up the rear of the procession.
At last, with much cracking of his leathern whip and shoutings of
“Hur-r-r! hur-r-r!” and “Ga, ga!” (go on), the guide succeeded in
getting the long line of ponies started. As Nimbus clung for dear life
to his, the comical workings of his face aroused the spectators to yells
of applause and shouts of laughter. It was more like a circus than
anything they had ever before seen. So amid the cheers of the multitude,
the barking of dogs, the cracking of whips, and the squealing of the
ponies, the party clattered through the rough streets of the fishy,
evil-smelling town into the rougher roads of the black, desolate-looking
country beyond, and were fairly off for the geysers.
These are about sixty miles inland, and nearly due east from Reykjavik.
They are the largest and most famous objects of their kind in the world,
even surpassing in size and the wildness of their surroundings those of
our own Yellowstone Park, or the valley of the Russian River in
California.
The road for the first day’s journey led over rugged lava plains, up and
down the foot-hills of the snow-capped Jökulls, and most of the time
through a country so barren as to contain no trace of human occupation.
It often skirted dark lagoons and quaking bogs dotted with queer
head-like tussocks of grass. In one of these poor Nimbus came to grief.
For greater ease in travelling, the ponies had been unfastened from each
other when they had got some miles out from Reykjavik, and were urged to
proceed at full gallop over the rough roads. This drew forth groans of
anguish from Nimbus, who felt that he would not be able to retain his
seat from one moment to another. He tugged at the pony’s mane, dug his
heels into its ribs, and finally so worked upon its feelings that it
laid back its ears, and turned directly towards one of the black
bottomless bogs, of which there were several in that vicinity. In vain
did the unhappy rider shout “Whoa!” and in vain did the others pursue
the flying beast. It would not stop until it began to feel the soft
ground of the bog under its feet, and then it drew up so suddenly that
its rider was flung far over its head, and landed at full length in the
treacherous mud.
Dismounting and tossing his bridle to Breeze to hold, the guide,
skipping from tussock to tussock, quickly made his way to where Nimbus
was wallowing, in imminent danger of being suffocated. He got a rope
under the negro’s arms, and the others, catching hold of it, literally
dragged him ashore. Here he sputtered and choked and rolled his eyes,
and dripped mud from every point, and presented such a woe-begone and
ridiculous aspect that even the grave Icelander laughed at the sight. As
for Breeze, his excess of merriment caused the tears to roll down his
cheeks, and he had hardly strength enough to help scrape the worst of
the mud from the comical figure.
[Illustration: “YOU OUGHT TO HAVE WORN A DIVING SUIT, NIMBUS,” SAID
BREEZE.]
“You ought to have worn a diving suit, Nimbus,” he exclaimed between his
outbursts of laughter.
“Oh, g’way now, young cap’n. You oughter be ’shamed makin’ fun er ole
Nim when he in a heap er trouble. I tell you, sah, dis cruisin’ on dry
lan’ ’s dangersome work, an’ ef ebber ole Nim git back to salt-water he
stick to um.”
As a precaution against further mishaps of this nature, they lashed him
fast to his pony after the manner of a pack, and once more the
procession was got under way.
That afternoon they passed through a wonderful gorge known as the
Almannajau, with sides of shining black lava rising as sheer and regular
as though it had been hewn out by giants. Beyond it lay the valley of
Thingvalla, showing scattered patches of fresh green grass upon which
sheep were grazing. In it stood a small church, and the house, or rather
cluster of huts, in which dwelt the pastor of Thingvalla and his
numerous family.
They camped for the night beside the church, though the hospitable
pastor begged them to consider his dwelling as theirs for as long as
they chose to use it, and urged them at least to sleep in his Bädstove,
or guest-chamber. One breath of the foul, suffocating air of the
interior of the house was enough for Lord Seabright, and to the great
relief of his young companion, he courteously declined in very good
Latin the proffered hospitality.
As fuel was one of the scarcest articles in that vicinity, they accepted
a pot of coffee from the pastor’s wife, and made their dinner from it
and what cold provisions they had brought along. They tried to eat some
of the bowl of skeyer, or cheese curds, which the good man pressed upon
them; but it was so rank that they were unable to swallow a single
mouthful. It was thereupon turned over to Gierssen, who found no
difficulty in eating the whole bowlful. In return for these favors, Lord
Seabright presented the pastor with several tins of meat, with which he
was greatly pleased, and for which he expressed thanks in the choicest
Latin.
The next morning, after poor Nimbus, stiff, aching in every joint, and
groaning at the hard fate that had dragged him thus far away from the
sea, had been lashed firmly to his pony, an early start was made. For a
few miles the riding was comparatively smooth, and then the road plunged
into the most awful country ever traversed by men and horses. It became
an indistinct trail only marked by occasional piles of stones, and the
savage region through which it led was torn and rent to pieces as though
it had been the battle-ground of demons. It was inconceivably blasted,
scorched, and strewn with chaotic masses of lava. It was traversed in
every direction by deep chasms, between which the trail, often but a few
feet wide, wound its perilous way, and into which a single misstep would
have hurled horse and rider, to be lost beyond recovery. Numerous
rushing torrents were forded, and in one foaming river, the Bruara, a
bottomless fissure cleft in the middle of its channel was crossed on a
bridge of planks that were actually laid below the surface of the water
and were not seen until they were reached.
The frightful nature of this journey at first drew from poor Nimbus
groans, prayers, and entreaties to be left where he was and not taken
any farther into what he termed “de home ob ole Satan hissef.” Finally
he closed his eyes, and passively allowed himself to be borne onward to
what he believed was certain destruction.
It was a tedious day’s ride; but after passing the Bruara the country
became somewhat better, and showed occasional little green valleys, in
one of which the travellers rested for an hour and ate their luncheon.
Here and there lonely huts were passed, and some flocks and herds were
seen, as well as an occasional human being in the distance. Finally they
reached the world-famed valley of the geysers, where, within a space of
half a mile, some forty or fifty springs of all sizes and shapes boiled,
bubbled, and sent up clouds of steam and sulphurous vapors.
Of them all, the two best worth seeing are the Great Geyser and the
Strokhr, or churn. The latter can be made to go off, but the former only
displays his superb fountains of boiling water when it pleases him to do
so. Often tourists have waited near him for days, and then been
compelled to leave without having seen an eruption.
A camping-place was selected on a plot of grass but a short distance
from the basin of the Great Geyser, the tents were pitched, and Nimbus,
with his spirits somewhat restored by reaching the journey’s end, began
to cook dinner. He had no need to make a fire, and there was nothing to
make it with if he had wanted one. He simply followed Haik Gierssen’s
directions, and made coffee, tea, and a delicious soup in a boiling
caldron of beautifully clear water that hissed and steamed on a rocky
ledge a few yards back of the tents. Nimbus would not believe it was hot
enough to cook meat, until he had made a test by thrusting a finger into
it. Then the howl of pain with which he snatched back his hand convinced
the others that he was fully satisfied with his experiment.
While he was preparing dinner the others busied themselves in cutting
sods with which to make the Strokhr “sick,” as Haik Gierssen said.
Breeze did not understand what he meant; but he was one of those rare
boys who would rather wait a little for information that he was sure
would come to him, than to try and force it by useless questions; so he
held his tongue, and busily cut sods with the others.
The Strokhr is a funnel-shaped hole in the rock, about six feet across
at the top, in which, some twenty feet below the surface, water boils
and tumbles uneasily. In its depths are heard groans and rumblings,
while occasional jets of hissing steam and upward rushes of water
indicate its great uneasiness and desire to burst from its rocky prison.
After a huge pile of sods had been cut and stacked on its edge, Haik
Gierssen said there was enough to make him very sick, and pushed them
all into the steaming opening.
A terrible commotion followed, and peering over the edge, they could see
the sods swirling and dashing about in the angry waters, while the
rumblings and roarings were louder than ever. Suddenly, almost without
warning, a vast column of ink-black water, flecked with foam and dotted
with sods, was belched forth and shot up nearly a hundred feet into the
air. It was a magnificent sight, and looked like a hundred fountains
joined in one, and surrounded by clouds of steam and hissing spray.
The spectators sprang back, and running for dear life, were barely
beyond reach of the boiling torrents as they fell back, drenching the
ground for fifty feet about the mouth of this terrible churn. Again and
again did the vast column of water shoot upward, as though the Strokhr
had been made deadly sick by the sod pills administered to it and was
determined to get rid of them. It was a fearful yet fascinating
exhibition of the hidden forces of nature, and Lord Seabright said that
if he saw nothing more of the geysers he should feel fully repaid for
all the hardships of the trip by this one display.
To Breeze it was so marvellous that he could find no words to express
his awe and delight at the wonderful phenomenon.
The effect of the eruption upon poor Nimbus was such, that after one
glance at it he threw himself, face downward, flat upon the ground,
where he lay kicking and screaming with fright long after it had
subsided.
The eruptions were continued at intervals through the night, and the
sleep of the tired travellers was sadly broken by the heavings and
groanings of the monster whom they had made so sick. Towards morning, in
the midst of these, a heavy booming sound, apparently far down in the
depths of the earth, was added to the other weird noises of this uncanny
place, and a shout from the guide warned them that something important
was about to happen. As they sprang from their tent there was a
tremendous report, as of a park of artillery, and before them, sparkling
in the red light of the newly risen sun, towered the vast watery mass of
the Great Geyser. It was snowy white, in striking contrast to the
blackness of the Strokhr, and sprang upward in a series of great domes.
For ten minutes they stood fascinated by the superb exhibition, then,
with a few gurgling gasps, the waters sank back into their underground
boilers, and the show was over.
There was nothing more to wait for. They had been so unusually fortunate
as to see both the Great Geyser and the Strokhr within a few hours, and
so long as they lived the marvellous fountains would remain with them as
vivid mind-pictures. Now, to hasten back to the Saga, and leave this
dreary land of fire and snow, ice, and boiling waters behind them as
soon as possible was the one desire both of Lord Seabright and Breeze.
The companionship and strange experiences of this trip had drawn the
English lord and the Yankee fisher-lad together with a feeling that, had
their stations in life been more equal, would have been a warm
friendship; and on their way back to Reykjavik the one invited the other
to be his guest for a while longer.
“Come to England with us, McCloud,” said Lord Seabright. “There you can
sell your ambergris, get the best market price for it, and go home by
steamer whenever you choose. If you stay here you may have to wait in
the beastly place a year before finding a chance to go to America.”
Of course this kind offer was gratefully accepted by Breeze, who only
asked that he might be set ashore at Queenstown, in Ireland.
CHAPTER XXIV.
A DORYMATE’S HOME.
Upon accepting Lord Seabright’s offer of a passage to England in the
_Saga_, Breeze had instantly thought of Ireland, and of Queenstown, the
home of his beloved dorymate, Wolfe Brady. Amid all the strangeness of
the Old World, it was pleasant to think that there were at least two
people in it who, for the sake of their boy, would be glad to see him.
Then, too, they would have heard from Wolfe by this time, and thus he
would learn the home news for which he so longed. So, just now,
Queenstown seemed the most desirable place in all Europe for him to
visit; and Breeze was made happy by Lord Seabright’s answer, which was,
“Why, certainly; we can run into Queenstown if you must go there. It
will not be far out of our course to Cowes. But whatever can you want to
go there for?”
When Breeze explained that the only friends he had on that side of the
Atlantic lived there, he could see that the other was wondering what
sort of people his friends could be to live in Queenstown.
When, on the fifth day after leaving it, the little cavalcade of tired
men and weary ponies clattered back into Reykjavik, the place really
seemed quite like a town, as compared with the wilderness they had just
traversed, and they wondered they had not noticed before how much there
was going on in it. Poor Nimbus feasted his eyes on the sea, and drew in
long breaths of the salt and fishy air. The moment he was unlashed from
his pony, although he was almost too stiff and lame to walk, he waddled
off towards the landing.
While Lord Seabright was having a settlement of accounts with Haik
Gierssen, and Breeze was collecting the articles that were to be
returned on board the _Saga_, they both heard strange rumors of a fire
that had taken place in the town the night before. Their informants told
them excitedly about a certain stranger who, at the peril of his own
life, had saved three of the inmates of the burning building, and then
mysteriously disappeared.
“He was a plucky fellow, whoever he was, and I wish we had been here to
help him,” was Lord Seabright’s comment upon this story.
When all the business had been settled, and they returned once more to
the _Saga_, the yacht seemed to Breeze delightfully home-like and
comfortable, and he was more than ever glad that his cruise on her was
to be extended. Nimbus was already hard at work in the galley, from
which came a happy clatter of pots and pans, and the tones of his voice
as he told his awe-stricken young assistant marvellous tales of his
thrilling adventures and hairbreadth escapes during the trip to the
geysers.
“But where is Mr. Whymper?” asked Lord Seabright of Mr. Marlin, who
replied that the gentleman was turned in, recovering from his recent
exertions.
“Lazy dog!” exclaimed his friend; “I’ll soon stir him up.” And after
giving orders for the yacht to put to sea, he went below. As he entered
the saloon, Mr. Whyte Whymper, who was lying on a lounge, threw down the
semi-monthly Reykjavik paper, which, as it was wholly printed in
Icelandic, he had been trying in vain to read, and exclaimed,
“Awfully glad you’ve come back, old fellow! Haven’t had a thing to do
since you left except read this stoopid paper. Went ashore once, but got
mixed up in a beastly row, and haven’t been off the ship since. Awfully
glad, ’pon honor. What sort of a trip have you had? and how did our
young Yankee friend enjoy it?”
“What sort of a row did you get into?” inquired Lord Seabright, without
answering these questions, and gazing suspiciously at the bandages with
which his friend’s head and hands were swathed. “Was it in connection
with a fire?”
“Well, yes,” admitted the other, hesitatingly, “it was a sort of a fire,
and some children were left in rather an uncomfortable position, because
the beggars outside were too stoopid to know what to do.”
“And you showed them?”
“Yes, I put them up to a wrinkle that I thought might be useful to them
at some future time.”
“Whyte, you are a splendid fellow!” exclaimed Lord Seabright,
enthusiastically. “You saved those children’s lives at the risk of your
own, and then hurried away to avoid being thanked for it. After this I’d
like to hear anybody call you lazy and selfish again!” With this he
stepped forward to grasp his friend’s hand.
“Keep back! No demonstrations! Hands off!” cried the other,
apprehensively drawing back his bandaged members. “My flippers are still
a little tender.”
And no wonder; for the poor brave hands were so terribly burned that
they would be scarred and disfigured for life.
“I tell you, it made me feel more than ever proud of being an
Englishman,” said Lord Seabright, in talking of the affair to Breeze,
“to see the pluck with which that fellow concealed his sufferings, and
made light of them.”
This incident taught Breeze that appearances are often very deceitful,
and first impressions are apt to be unjust ones; also, that some of the
noblest natures are only developed by extraordinary circumstances.
After steaming out of the harbor, and rounding Cape Reykjaines, the
_Saga_ skirted the wild southern coast of Iceland, with Mount Hecla in
sight, for nearly a day. Then, turning due south, she was headed for the
Färöe Islands. This rocky group of thirty-five small islands, of which
about twenty are inhabited, belongs to Denmark, and lies half-way
between Iceland and Scotland. It was intended that the Saga should stop
here for a day or two, and remain in the picturesque harbor of
Thorshavn, on Strömöe Island, the largest of the group, while her
passengers explored the surrounding waters and country. Now, on account
of the serious nature of Mr. Whyte Whymper’s injuries, which demanded
skilful medical attention, this plan was abandoned, and the yacht was
urged with all possible speed towards England.
After the Färöes, the Shetland Islands were passed, then the Orkneys,
and a day later the _Saga_ sailed through the channel known as the
Minch, between the Hebrides and the main-land of Scotland. Then down,
past the western islands, through the north channel between Scotland and
Ireland, across the Irish Sea, close to the Isle of Man, and finally,
five days after leaving Reykjavik, she steamed into the mouth of the
Mersey, and came to an anchor off the Liverpool docks.
Here it was decided that the injured man must be at once removed to
London, and although he still made light of his wounds, Lord Seabright
insisted upon accompanying him and seeing that he was properly cared
for. He ordered Mr. Marlin to take the yacht to Queenstown, where he
would try and rejoin him within a day or two.
To Breeze he said, “Of course you will go to Queenstown with the yacht,
McCloud, and if you fail to find your friends, you are to make yourself
as comfortable as you can aboard until I come. Then we shall run around
to Cowes, from which place it will be easy to send your ambergris up to
London and dispose of it.”
Breeze was very grateful for the great kindness shown him by this young
Englishman, and tried to tell him so, but was checked by “Oh, nonsense,
man! Don’t give it a thought. It’s no more than you would do if you were
in my place, and I in yours, and no more than any true sailor would do
for another whom he found in trouble. I should apologize to you for
running off and leaving you in this way, but that you understand the
necessity of the case as well as I.”
By this kindness and politeness to one who was apparently so greatly his
inferior in social station, as well as almost a stranger to him, Lord
Seabright proved himself a thorough gentleman by breeding as well as by
birth; for a true gentleman will treat with equal courtesy all persons
worthy of respect with whom he is thrown in contact.
A few hours after she had entered the Mersey the _Saga_ sailed out
again, and stood down the Irish Sea, with Breeze McCloud as her only
passenger. Had he been a young prince he could not have travelled more
luxuriously. Sitting alone in the beautiful saloon, and surrounded by
all its luxury, it was with a curious sensation that he traced the
wonderful chain of events that had led him from the forecastle of the
old fishing schooner _Vixen_ to this exquisitely appointed yacht.
The following day the _Saga_ steamed into the magnificent harbor of
Queenstown, ran up past the forts, and dropped anchor near a huge
American steamer, just in from New York, that was sending ashore her
mails and a number of passengers. These, and those who remained on board
the great steamer, gazed with admiration at the dainty yacht, and many
of them cast envious glances at the young man standing on her bridge,
whom they imagined to be her owner.
Breeze waited until after dinner before leaving the yacht. Then he was
set ashore in the gig, which Mr. Marlin said would be sent for him
whenever he should come down to the landing and blow the shrill little
silver whistle that he loaned him.
Breeze had no sooner stepped ashore than he was surrounded by a
clamorous throng of men, who wanted him to ride in a jaunting-car, or
take a carriage for the Queen’s hotel, who would show him all the sights
of the city, including the new cathedral, for a shilling, or would serve
him in any way he chose to name.
Now, for the first time Breeze remembered that he had not a cent of
money in his pockets, and anxious to get rid of his noisy persecutors,
he pushed his way through the crowd as quickly as possible, without
paying any regard to where he was going. He did not wholly escape the
attentions showered upon him, for one old woman succeeded in thrusting a
bit of shamrock into a button-hole of his coat, and evidently expected
to be paid for so doing. Breeze thanked her politely, but did not
succeed in getting rid of her, until he had walked rapidly through
several short, steep, and remarkably dirty streets, when he found
himself in the main business street of the city.
[Illustration: THOSE ON BOARD THE GREAT STEAMER GAZED WITH ADMIRATION AT
THE DAINTY YACHT.]
Here he asked a man if he could tell him where Mr. Brady’s store was.
“Is it Mike Brady the tinman, yer honor ’ll be wantin’ to find? or Pat
that kapes the grane-grocery? or mayhap ’tis Tim the alderman who has no
thrade at all, excipt for the bit of law he do pick up?”
Breeze said he did not think it was any of these, for the one he wanted
to find sold linen.
“Thin ’tis Peter the Squire you’ll be manin’; and by the same token, his
is the shop f’ninst ye, across the way.”
Breeze afterwards learned that, having held some small political office,
Wolfe’s father had been dignified by his fellow-townsmen with the title
of “Squire.” He was very proud of this, and always insisted upon being
addressed by it.
Now, looking in the direction indicated, the lad saw the sign, “Peter
Brady, Linen Draper,” staring him in the face, and thanking the man, he
hurried across the street.
An old porter, who was putting up the shutters, told him that the squire
had driven away in a carriage a few minutes before with a stranger, and
had left word that he should not be back that night.
Where did he live! Why, about two miles from there, away out on the edge
of the city, but a cab would take him there in no time.
There were no cabs for Breeze that evening, and so he walked, and
inquired his way from one and another. At last, after more than two
hours’ persevering labor, he found himself lifting the knocker of a
small but neat-looking house some distance outside of the town, in which
he had been told that Squire Brady lived.
The maid who answered the knock said the squire was at home, and
wouldn’t the gentleman step into the parlor. When she asked what name
she should announce, he told her to say that it was a friend of the son
who was in America.
After she had gone, he could not help overhearing a whispered
consultation that took place in the hall. While he was wondering about
it, a quick footstep approached the room, and the next moment the door
was opened by his old dorymate, Wolfe Brady.
It would be hard to tell which of the two boys was the more astonished
at this meeting. Perhaps Wolfe had the better reason for amazement, at
seeing the friend from whom he had been parted thousands of miles from
there, under circumstances that led him to fear he was dead.
“Breeze!”
“Wolfe!”
These were the only words the dorymates uttered for a full minute, as
they stood holding each other’s hand, and gazing into each other’s face.
“How _do_ you happen to be here?” asked Breeze at length.
“Oh, my coming is simple enough,” answered Wolfe. “I got a thousand
dollars salvage money for helping to carry that brig into port, and
thinking I would like to see father and mother once more, I came. I only
just got in on the steamer from New York. But where in the name of all
that’s wonderful did you come from, and how?”
“I,” said Breeze, “have just got in from Iceland on the steam-yacht
_Saga_.” Then in a few words he gave his friend the briefest possible
outline of his adventures since their parting.
“Well!” exclaimed Wolfe, when he had finished, “if it doesn’t beat the
‘Arabian Nights,’ or ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ or anything else I ever heard
of, then I’m a mackerel. And to think that I should stand on that
steamer’s deck and watch you sail into the harbor only three hours
since, and not know it was you any more than Adam! But I must tell
father and mother. They’re nearly crazy already from seeing me, and I
only hope it won’t upset them entirely when I tell them who you are.”
If it did not quite upset them, it certainly did greatly agitate the
stout, ruddy-cheeked Irishman, and his equally stout but pleasant-faced
wife, whom Wolfe introduced as his father and mother, to meet the person
who had saved their son’s life.
The latter started when she saw Breeze, and after shaking hands with
him, and thanking him profusely for all that he had done for her boy,
she sat down and gazed at him keenly whenever he was not looking at her.
Her husband, too, appeared to be greatly interested in the lad’s face,
and although cordial and hospitable in the extreme, he seemed uneasy in
his presence. When he learned that Breeze had come in on the _Saga_, he
remarked to his wife that she was Lord Seabright’s yacht.
“You know him?” asked Breeze, innocently.
“To be sure I do,” answered the other. “I’ve known him since the day he
was born. Sir Wolfe was his grandfather on his mother’s side, and it’s
likely our boy has told you how intimately we were connected with Sir
Wolfe’s family.”
Breeze acknowledged that Wolfe had told him.
About this time the “squire” disappeared for a few minutes, and when he
returned he was followed by the maid bearing a tray, on which were a
plate of biscuit and some bottles and glasses.
Filling the glasses with wine from one of the bottles, the master of the
house said, “I want to propose the health of the distinguished visitor
from across the ocean, who honors our humble home with his presence
to-night. I refer to Mr. Breeze McCloud.”
As Wolfe instinctively stretched out his hand towards one of the
glasses, Breeze said, in a low tone, “Point true, Wolfe.”
Wolfe’s face flushed, as he quickly withdrew his hand, saying, “Thank
you, Breeze. I own I had almost forgotten.”
At the same time, both the squire and his wife set down their untasted
glasses, and the latter, turning to Breeze, said, in a trembling voice,
“May I ask you, sir, where you heard them words?”
“I did not hear them,” answered Breeze, “but I saw them; and if you are
at all interested I can show them to you; for, oh, Wolfe!” he added,
turning to his dorymate, “I have learned the secret of the golden ball.”
With this he unclasped the slender chain from about his neck, opened the
locket, and handed it to Wolfe’s mother.
She cast one glance at it, uttered an exclamation of joy, and very
nearly fainted from the excess of her emotion.
CHAPTER XXV.
STARTLING DISCOVERIES.
Breeze stared in amazement at Wolfe’s mother, and wondered what could
possibly have affected her so greatly. Wolfe sprang to her side and
helped her into a chair; while the squire, who had caught the golden
ball as it was about to drop from his wife’s hand, now gazed at it as
intently as though it were some charm that fascinated him.
“What is it, mother?” inquired Wolfe, anxiously.
“The Tresmont coat of arms,” she answered, faintly, “and the very locket
my young lady gave to Mr. Tristram just after they were married. Oh,
tell me, sir,” she said, turning to Breeze, “how did it come into your
keeping? and what do you know of them it belonged to?”
“It has belonged to me,” answered Breeze, “since before I knew anything;
for it was clasped about my neck when I was a baby, and picked up at sea
floating in a cask.”
[Illustration: BREEZE STARED IN AMAZEMENT AT WOLFE’S MOTHER.]
“Then,” exclaimed Wolfe’s mother, standing up in her excitement, “you
must be the son of our own Mr. Tristram, and the heir to Tresmont! Don’t
you see the likeness, husband? He is the very image of Mr. Tristram.”
Yes, the squire saw it, and had noticed it the very moment he set eyes
on the young gentleman. Now it was plainer than ever to him. There were
the same blue eyes, the same closely curling yellow hair, and the same
tall straight figure. There could not be the slightest doubt of it.
Breeze was so bewildered by this wonderful turn of events, and by the
tumult of conflicting emotions aroused by what he had just heard, that
for a few moments he was speechless, and appeared like one in a dream.
Finally finding his voice, he said to the squire,
“If you knew my real father and mother, sir, won’t you please tell me
something of them?”
“Of course I will, sir; but it will make a long story to tell, even the
little I knew of them. So we’d better seat ourselves comfortable-like;
and with my wife here to help me where my memory fails, I think perhaps
I may come at the telling of it understandingly.”
Thus saying, the worthy man began, and in spite of many interruptions
from his wife and the questions asked by both Breeze and Wolfe, he
finally succeeded in relating the following tale:
"As you already know, sir, before we were married both my wife and I
lived in the family of Sir Wolfe Tresmont, of Tresmont in Lincolnshire,
England, she as lady’s-maid and I as butler. When I first took service
there Mr. Tristram was a fine young gentleman of about your own age,
although the missis, having been brought up in the family, had known him
from his boyhood.
"After I had been in the family for five years, one of which we had been
married, Mr. Tristram got through with his college, and was sent off on
his travels around the world. His mother died while he was gone, but his
father heard from him regular.
"At last there came a long letter, telling as how Mr. Tristram had got
married to an American young lady, who was the daughter of a ship
captain. She went with her father to the East Indies, and somewhere out
there Mr. Tristram met them, and engaged passage to New York on the same
ship. They fell in love with each other on the voyage, and were married
as soon as the ship reached port. Then he wrote to his father what he
had done, and asked if he might bring his wife home.
"Sir Wolfe was very angry at all this, for he had no love for the
Yankees, begging your pardon, sir, and he could not bear the thought of
his only son marrying one of them. What he wrote to Mr. Tristram I never
knew, but at any rate they did not come home for nearly two years, when
they brought their baby, which must have been you, sir, with them. Mrs.
Tristram, as we called her, was one of the sweetest young ladies as ever
I laid eyes on; but Sir Wolfe would not see her, and they stayed with
Mr. Tristram’s elder sister, who was my Lady Seabright.
"While they were there, I met the nurse one day wheeling the baby in his
little carriage, and when I stopped to look at him I took notice of this
very identical gold ball hanging around his neck. The nurse said it was
one of them puzzle-balls that Miss Merab--that was your mother, sir--had
got in the East Indies, and had had fixed up as a present for Mr.
Tristram. It was he himself fastened it to a gold chain and hung it
around the baby’s neck. I never saw the inside of it, but my wife there
did many a time, for she was stopping with my Lady Seabright, in place
of her own maid, who was sick all the time Mr. Tristram and his wife
were there.
"Finally they decided to go back to America, and as the doctor said a
long sea voyage would be the very best thing for Mrs. Tristram’s health,
they took passage on a sailing-ship, of which I mind the name well, it
being such a queer one. It was _Señora_, and from the day she left
Liverpool docks to this never a word has come from her, good or bad.
"Soon after that I left Sir Wolfe’s service, and he helped me start the
little business that I’ve followed ever since here in Queenstown, with
fairly good success, thanks to the Americans. I never saw him again; but
I heard he was never the same man after the ship his son had sailed in
was given up for lost. He died about six months ago, rest his soul, and
at that time the newspapers all over the world, but particular in
America, had advertisements in them asking for any information of Mr.
Tristram, or his wife, or their son, who would, if he was alive, be heir
to Tresmont. I saw some of the advertisements myself, and heard of
others from my American customers; but I never knew of any answer coming
to them, and I don’t suppose there ever was one.
“And now, sir, I have no doubt in the world that you are the son of Mr.
Tristram and his sweet young American wife, and the same little baby
that I saw in its carriage. If you are, you are heir to Tresmont, own
cousin to Lord Seabright, and your name is Tristram Coffin Tresmont.”
“Why,” said Breeze, “was my mother’s name Coffin?”
“Yes, Merab Coffin; and her father came from a place in America they
call Nantucket, I believe.”
Wolfe was even more excited than Breeze over the tale they had just
heard; the facts of which, if proved, would make such a difference in
the fortunes of his dorymate. The glittering prospects of the future
seemed to make but little impression upon Breeze; but they instantly
flashed across Wolfe’s mind in all their brilliancy, and he asked his
parents many questions concerning Tresmont. From them the boys learned
that it was situated in the northern part of Lincolnshire, and
overlooked the Humber with its broad fen-lands. They also learned that
much of the family property was invested in the fisheries of Grimsby,
which is the largest fishing port in the world.
“That alone would go a long way towards proving you the son of the
family, ‘Sir Breeze,’” laughed Wolfe, “for you have taken as naturally
to fishing as a dory to water. I told you that you were a prince in
disguise, and you promised to remember me when you came into your
kingdom. Now I claim the captaincy of your largest smack.”
“You shall be admiral of the whole fleet!” answered Breeze, with a
smile. “You know, old man, that no matter what might happen, I could
never forget the dorymate with whom I had drifted through the fogs of
the Newfoundland Banks. By-the-way, how did you manage to get the brig
into port after Nimbus and I left you in such a hurry?”
Wolfe told him of the cruise, of their safe arrival in Gloucester, of
the meeting between Captain McCloud and the loving wife who had never
given him up for lost, of the sadness occasioned by their boy’s absence,
and of how his adopted mother still watched for him with a firm faith
that he would yet return to her, of the salvage money received, and of
so many other things, that more than an hour was occupied in the telling
of them all.
Then Breeze had to narrate his adventures after tumbling overboard from
the brig, and tell of being picked up by the _Fish-hawk_, of the great
cuttle-fish, of finding the ambergris and losing the schooner, of
Iceland and its wonderful geysers, and, in fact, of all that had
happened to him since the dorymates had last seen each other on the deck
of the _Esmeralda_. “And to think, Wolfe,” he said, “that this meeting
is but the end of the cruise on which we started together so long ago,
against our will, in the old _Vixen!_”
“It only goes to prove,” said Wolfe, “how very much stranger truth is
than fiction. If all your adventures were written in a book, no one
would ever believe they had ever actually happened. Would they, father?”
“Well, no, my son,” replied the squire. “I can’t say that they would,
and I don’t know that anybody could be blamed for the doubting of them.
Sir Wolfe used frequent to tell of the remarkable adventures of a
gentleman of the name of Polo; but to my mind, these here of Mr.
Breeze--begging his pardon, I mean Sir Tristram--beats them away out of
sight.”
Thus talking, they all became hungry; and by the time they had finished
the nice little supper that Wolfe’s mother prepared for them, and were
ready to go to bed, it was long past midnight.
Breeze had been told one thing that evening that troubled him greatly,
and it was that, in case he had not been found, Lord Seabright, who was
now the executor of Sir Wolfe’s estate, would have inherited it. He
could not bear the thought of thus stepping in and claiming a property
that would otherwise belong to one who had shown him such great
kindness.
It was this thought that caused him to assent rather reluctantly, when,
after a late breakfast the next morning, Wolfe proposed that they should
go on board the _Saga_, and see if her owner had rejoined her. At any
rate, he said, he would like exceedingly to visit the yacht, and to
renew his acquaintance with Nimbus.
When they reached the landing-place, the shrill sound of the silver
whistle that Breeze carried soon brought a boat from the yacht to them;
and as they were rowed off Breeze was relieved to learn that Lord
Seabright had not arrived.
Wolfe was astonished, as well as delighted, with all that was shown him
on board the beautiful craft; but nothing pleased him so much as the
meeting with Nimbus, to whom he had taken a great fancy during their one
day’s acquaintance on board the _Esmeralda_.
Nimbus was just lifting down a pan of flour from a high shelf as Wolfe
appeared, unannounced, at the galley door. The black man started so
violently at the sudden sight of one whom he supposed to be on the other
side of the ocean that the pan of flour was upset, and he was instantly
covered from head to foot as with a mantle of snow. Quickly recovering
his presence of mind, the good-natured cook exclaimed,
“Golly! Misto Wolfe Brady. You scare um pore brack man so he turn white!
Where you leab um ole _Esmeral_’ an’ de cap’n?”
Amid his shouts of laughter at the negro’s comical appearance, Wolfe
helped to brush him off, and at the same time explained his own presence
on board the _Saga_.
After a lunch, which Nimbus insisted upon getting for them, the young
men returned to the city. As they were walking up the main business
street, a carriage that was driven rapidly towards them suddenly drew
up, and a cheery voice called out, “Hello, McCloud!”
It was Lord Seabright, who had just arrived, and was on his way to the
yacht. He asked Breeze if his companion were the friend whom he had
expected to meet. When Breeze answered that he was, and that his name
was Wolfe Brady, the other exclaimed, “What! not the son of the Brady
who used to be butler to Sir Wolfe Tresmont? I believe he did come to
Queenstown to open some kind of a shop.”
Breeze said that was the very person, and, moreover, that they were
stopping in front of his shop at that very moment. Upon this his
lordship said he must step in and speak to the old fellow, whom he
remembered very well.
Squire Brady was greatly flustered by the sudden appearance in his
humble establishment of this titled visitor; but, reassured by his
cordial greeting, he gathered up his wits, and saying that he had a
communication of the greatest importance to make to him, begged his
lordship to step into his private office for a moment.
Somewhat puzzled, and wondering what it could be, the young man
good-naturedly consented. After the door had been carefully closed, and
his visitor had refused an offered chair, the worthy shopkeeper and
ex-butler said, mysteriously,
“My lord, I have every reason to believe that the heir to Tresmont has
appeared.”
“Yes, so have I.”
“And that he is a young man.”
“Yes.”
“From America.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Who was picked up at sea when an infant.”
“Certainly; I know that. Anything else?”
“He is the own son of Mr. Tristram and his American wife.”
“Of course he is.”
“And he’s got evidence to prove who he is.”
“I examined his evidence in London yesterday.”
“But he was not in London.”
“I saw him there, I tell you.”
“He spent last night in my house, your lordship.”
“Who on earth are you talking about, Brady?”
“The young gentleman who came on your lordship’s yacht, and who calls
himself Breeze McCloud, but who is really your lordship’s own cousin,
Sir Tristram Coffin Tresmont.”
“Come, come, Brady! you don’t know what you are talking about,” said
Lord Seabright, impatiently. “I left Sir Tristram Coffin Tresmont in
London yesterday, and he is no more Breeze McCloud than I am. Whatever
have you got into your head?”
“But, your lordship,” persisted the shopkeeper, now considerably
excited, “this young gentleman wears the golden puzzle-ball fast to a
chain around his neck that was give to Mr. Tristram by his wife, which I
saw it with my own eyes on him when he was a blessed infant in his
carriage.”
“So does the Sir Tristram Coffin Tresmont now in London wear a golden
chain from which hangs a golden puzzle-ball, as you call it, that was
fastened around his baby neck by his father, to whom it was presented by
his wife. Is there anything more?”
“Well, I am beat!” gasped the astonished shopkeeper, wiping the
perspiration from his forehead.
“So am I,” said Lord Seabright. “It’s bad enough to have to give up a
fine property that I have for some time considered my own; but to have
two claimants to it appear at once, and each of them producing the same
proof of his identity, is a little too much. Have you any other reason
for thinking this young friend of yours is what he claims to be?”
For answer the shopkeeper opened the door, and calling Breeze into the
office, asked him to show his lordship the locket he wore about his
neck.
Breeze produced the ball, opened it, and offered it for Lord Seabright’s
inspection.
“Exactly the same,” said he, looking at it carefully.
Then Breeze touched the inside spring, and displayed the three tiny
locks of hair, and the inscription on the under side of the plate.
“Hello! This is something new,” exclaimed Lord Seabright. “This proof
goes away ahead of the other chap’s. We must look into this matter more
closely.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
PROUD OF BEING A YANKEE.
To explain the curious state of affairs disclosed in the last chapter,
it is necessary to go a long way back in our story, and recall the New
York jeweller who had shown Breeze that his locket could be opened, and
had then tried to obtain it from him. This man had seen the
advertisement asking for any information concerning Mr. Tristram
Tresmont, or his son, and it had made such an impression upon him that
he had studied it carefully. He had even looked up the Tresmont coat of
arms in a book on heraldry, that contained colored plates of such
things.
When Breeze brought the golden ball to him he was at first interested in
it as a puzzle, and then startled at the sight of its contents. He
hastily compared its coat of arms with the one in his book, and noted
the little compass that it contained. So hurried was his examination,
however, that he did not discover the second spring, and consequently
knew nothing of the locks of hair or the inscription.
It had flashed across the mind of this bad man that if he could obtain
possession of the ball, he might receive a reward for it, or perhaps use
it in making a claim upon the Tresmont estate; for it had been mentioned
in the advertisement as one of the proofs by which the missing child
might be known. He did not tell Breeze of what he had discovered, for he
hoped to make more out of his information in another way.
Failing to buy the trinket, he had tried to have it left with him at
least overnight, that he might study it more carefully; but this plan
was spoiled by the lad’s prompt action and the interference of the
police. Then the jeweller procured a second labyrinth ball, and aided by
the book on heraldry, fitted its interior with enamelled plates of thin
gold bearing the Tresmont coat of arms. While doing this he planned a
bold scheme, which he thought might be safely carried out, for obtaining
at least a share of the Tresmont property.
This was nothing more nor less than the taking of his own boy, who was
about the same age as Breeze, to England, and by means of the false
locket persuading people to believe him to be the son of Mr. Tristram
Tresmont. Having carefully worked out every detail of this wicked plan,
the jeweller finally appeared with his son, whom he had trained to be as
bad as himself, before the Tresmont family lawyer, and claimed to have
discovered the true heir to Sir Wolfe’s property.
The lawyer listened to all that he had to say, and became almost
convinced that he was telling the truth, but declined to commit himself
to one thing or another until Lord Seabright, who was then in Iceland,
should return. The false locket was even shown to a number of old
Tresmont and Seabright family servants, who declared it to be the very
same that had been clasped by Mr. Tristram about the neck of his infant
son.
When Lord Seabright returned to London the whole case was submitted to
him; and although he disliked exceedingly the appearance and manner of
the young man who claimed to be his cousin, he could not help admitting
that all the evidence seemed to be in his favor.
The wicked father had been recalled to America upon urgent business
about a week before Lord Seabright’s return to the city; but his case
seemed to be progressing so favorably that he had not hesitated to leave
it for a short time in the hands of a lawyer whom he had engaged. He
never dreamed that the Yankee fisher-lad would succeed in opening the
ball; or that if he did he would understand the meaning of its contents,
or realize their value.
Thus the case stood when Squire Brady introduced an entirely new feature
into it by drawing Lord Seabright’s attention to Breeze McCloud and the
locket that had been placed about his neck when he was a baby.
The young Englishman was as decided in his character and as prompt in
action as Breeze himself. Now he determined to sift this matter to the
very bottom, and to make a personal investigation of all the facts
regarding it that could be discovered. Having rapidly thought out his
plan, he said to Breeze, as they left the linen-draper’s shop together,
“Look here, McCloud, I like you a thousand times better than I do that
other chap, and should be pleased to acknowledge you as a relative. I
think, too, that your story is a much more likely one than his; but I am
not yet wholly satisfied that you are my cousin Tristram. Now, I have a
plan to propose, which is this: If you will stay quietly here in
Queenstown with the Bradys for a few days, until I can attend to some
business affairs in London, I will come back for you, and take you to
America in the _Saga_. There we will see what we can discover in regard
to your early history. In the mean time Mr. Marlin can sell your
ambergris for you in London. What do you say?”
What could Breeze say to this generous offer except to thank his kind
friend for it, and to accept it gladly?
Although expecting the return of the _Saga_ from day to day, and
consequently not writing home, Breeze waited two weeks in Queenstown
before Lord Seabright’s business would permit him to start for America.
When at last the yacht did arrive, Wolfe Brady, who had been
disconsolate at the idea of again losing his dorymate, was made
supremely happy by the offer of a mate’s position on her.
At the same time Breeze was astonished to learn that the ambergris he
and Nimbus had picked up had been sold for fifty-six thousand dollars,
which, when divided, according to Gloucester fishing law, among the crew
of the _Fish-hawk_, would give them two thousand dollars apiece.
Ten days after leaving Queenstown, the _Saga_, having on board Lord
Seabright, the dorymates Breeze McCloud and Wolfe Brady, and their
highly prized friend Nimbus the cook, rounded Eastern Point, and steamed
swiftly up Gloucester harbor.
It was late in the afternoon, and as Breeze eagerly turned his gaze
towards the little white cottage on the eastern heights--that was the
only home he had ever known--it was radiant with the glory of the
setting sun, and seemed to be smiling a welcome to him. How the boy’s
heart thrilled as he looked upon the familiar sights of the harbor, and
thought of all that had happened to him since he had left it, an
unwilling prisoner on board the _Vixen_. Why, there she lay now, at
anchor in the stream, the same shabby, disreputable-looking old craft.
And there, too, was the _Albatross_. What recollections the sight of her
aroused in the minds of the dorymates!
The yacht had hardly dropped anchor before Breeze had been set ashore,
and was climbing the hill towards the little cottage. He was alone, for
his friends would not intrude upon his first meeting with those whom he
loved so dearly.
Captain and Mrs. McCloud had just sat down to supper, when, without
warning, the door was flung open, and their boy, alive, well, and
handsomer than ever, stood before them.
So long as he lives Breeze will never forget his mother’s cry of “My
boy! my boy! my darling boy!” as she sprang to him, clasped him in her
arms, and sobbed out her great joy upon his neck.
There were even glad tears on Captain McCloud’s weather-beaten cheeks,
as he held both the lad’s hands in his sturdy grasp and exclaimed,
“Thank God, my son, that you have been brought in safety back to us.”
[Illustration: BREEZE’S WELCOME HOME.]
The happy inmates of the cottage got but little sleep that night, and
the next day all Gloucester rang with the joyful news that Breeze
McCloud, who had long since been given up for lost, had come back safe
and sound, and bringing a fortune with him. Above all, it was whispered
that he had come as dorymate of a real, live English lord, who had
picked him up somewhere near the north pole, and brought him home in the
finest steam-yacht that ever was seen.
Soon after breakfast that morning Lord Seabright and Wolfe Brady
appeared at the McCloud cottage, and were warmly welcomed--the former
for his great kindness to Breeze, the latter for himself. The English
gentleman had asked both Breeze and Wolfe not to say anything at present
regarding his errand to America. After a while he led the conversation
to Breeze, the mystery surrounding his parentage, and his rescue from
the floating cask when a baby.
Then Captain McCloud showed them the very cask that had proved so truly
a life-boat to the boy. He told them the date of its discovery, and
pointed out on its bottom a partially erased stencil-mark, over which he
said he had often puzzled in vain. It was something like this,
PE--IP--ÑORA, and although Lord Seabright did not say so at the time, he
felt pretty sure that it had originally been “PER SHIP SEÑORA.”
Next, Mrs. McCloud brought out the baby-clothes Breeze had worn when
first laid in her arms, and on one dainty little garment showed them the
embroidered letters “T. C. T.”
After a while they all went on board the _Saga_, where her owner had
invited them to luncheon. Here the unbounded joy of Nimbus at again
meeting with the “cap’n,” in whose company he had suffered so much on
board the _Esmeralda_, was touching to witness.
After luncheon, as they stood on the deck of the yacht, a weather-beaten
fishing schooner, with her flag at half-mast, came sailing slowly up the
harbor.
“She is bringing sorrow to some poor souls,” said Mrs. McCloud, as she
noted the mournful sign.
“Why, mother, it’s the _Fish-hawk!_” shouted Breeze, springing up in
great excitement.
In a short time the vessel had approached so closely that there could be
no doubt of it. She was the very schooner that he had left so long ago
off the coast of Iceland. At length she drew so near that they could
distinguish the features of those on her deck.
Suddenly one of them shaded his eyes with his hand, and gazed earnestly
at the yacht. Then, with a joyful cry, he sprang to the signal-halyards,
and in a moment the schooner’s colors streamed out full and free from
her mast-head, while a wild cheer broke from her crew.
“Hurrah for Breeze McCloud! Hurrah for Nimbus!” they shouted over and
over again.
“The flag was at half-mast for us, mother,” said Breeze, his voice
choking with emotion. At the same moment the deep-mouthed roar of the
yacht’s cannon answered the cheers of the _Fish-hawk’s_ crew.
They, poor fellows, had had little enough cause for joy, for their whole
weary cruise had been nearly barren of results, and they had come home
poorer than when they left. Their sadness was, however, exchanged for
great rejoicing, and their poverty for riches, when they heard of the
good-fortune of Breeze and Nimbus, and knew that, owing to it, their
schooner was “High-line” of the fleet for that season, and that they
were worth two thousand dollars apiece.
As soon as his anchor was dropped, Captain Coffin went on board the
yacht to see Breeze, and to hear the wonderful story he had to tell.
Then Breeze went back with him to the _Fish-hawk_, to be the bearer of
his own good news to her crew, who shouted themselves hoarse in greeting
him. Never was there a happier home-coming to any schooner of the
Gloucester fishing fleet.
Of all those men who had just sailed down from the icy northern seas,
none was so overjoyed at the sight of Breeze as old Mateo. He regarded
the lad as his boy, and had been inconsolable over his loss. Now his
happiness was so great that he could not control himself. He sobbed and
laughed in the same breath, as he exclaimed, “Ah, Breeza, ma boy! ma
boy! You is come back, an’ ole Mateo could sing an’ dance an’ holler, he
vas so hap.”
It was a day of joyful meetings, and one long to be remembered. The
skipper of the _Vixen_ came to welcome Breeze, and to tell him that a
hundred dollars had been placed to his credit, as his share of that
schooner’s catch on the Grand Bank. Hank Hoffer came; and many another,
who had felt a diffidence about venturing on board the English lord’s
yacht, rowed out to the _Fish-hawk_ to greet him there. Was it not worth
all that he had gone through to be thus welcomed home? Breeze thought it
was, and as much more.
The next day the _Saga_ sailed away, leaving Breeze behind, and it was a
week before she returned. The first notice the McClouds had of her
coming back was the appearance of Lord Seabright at their cottage late
one evening.
He greeted Mrs. McCloud and the captain, and then, turning to Breeze
with out-stretched hand, he said, “Cousin Tristram, I am proud to
welcome you as a relative, and as master of Tresmont. How soon will you
go back to England with me?”
Before Breeze could answer, Lord Seabright turned to the others, and
told them the whole story. He ended it by stating that he had discovered
the rascally jeweller in New York, and compelled him to own up to his
villany and admit the falsity of his claim upon Tresmont.
“Now,” he said, “I want to take Cousin Tristram home with me, and place
him where he may become fitted to take charge of the great English
estate that will be his as soon as he comes of age.”
“But I don’t want to become an Englishman!” exclaimed Breeze, now
finding a chance to speak. “I am an American by birth, I have grown up
as an American, and an American I mean to be, just so long as I live.
Oh, sir! if you are truly my cousin, as you say you are, I would a
thousand times rather you would keep whatever English property might be
mine, and leave me here to live with those whom I love and who love me.”
No entreaties nor inducements in the shape of the brilliant career open
to him in England could alter his determination. He said that while he
should be proud to be an Englishman if he had been born in England,
having been born in Yankee land, he was more proud than anything of
being a Yankee, and that he would not exchange that title for any other
in the world.
Finally Lord Seabright, who had always been anxious to possess the
Tresmont property, which adjoined his own, said,
“Well, Cousin Tristram, I do not know but that you are right. A man can
have but one country, and the one he will always love the most is the
one in which he was born and has passed the first twenty years of his
life. Such being my belief, I will make you this offer: I will purchase
Tresmont of you, if you are willing to sell it, when you become of age,
paying you its full money value. Besides this, you will have a handsome
income from the invested property left by your grandfather. The only
conditions that I attach to my offer are that in the mean time you will
complete your education in the best American university, and that you
will spend every summer vacation for the next three years with me in
England.”
“It’s a bargain, sir,” cried Breeze, “provided I can have money enough
now to pay Wolfe Brady’s expenses through college as well as my own.”
“My dear fellow,” replied Lord Seabright, “there is money enough already
held in trust for you from Tresmont to pay the expenses of every boy in
this town through college, and you would be welcome to as much more if
you wanted it.”
Here, with a parting word, we must leave the manly young fellows whose
adventures on the Fishing Banks we have followed so closely. Breeze--or
“Sir Breeze,” as his college friends delight to call him--and Wolfe are
no longer dorymates, but classmates. The former means to study law, and
says that, though he had an English father, his mother was an American,
and as he was born in America, he may some day be President of the
United States. Who knows?
Wolfe says that although, having been born an Irishman, he can never be
the head of the nation, he would like to be Secretary of the Navy. He
begs that his friend will bear this in mind when he becomes President,
and Breeze gravely says he will.
Wolfe does not like to study, but Breeze keeps him up to it, while he
keeps Breeze from studying too hard.
With a portion of the wealth that is soon to become his, Breeze expects
to build a steam-yacht which shall be the equal, in every respect, of
the _Saga_. Her name is to be _Merab_, and her private signal a blue
flag bearing a golden ball, while on her bows, in letters of gold, is to
be engraved the legend, “Point True.”
THE END.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and
are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.
The following issues should be noted, along with the resolutions.
117.16 and make a start.[”] Added.
140.24 ten or twelve knots [an hour] _sic_:
redundant.
179.17 [“]We had better make a drogue Removed.
204.4 [“]Where you' ship, eh?” Removed.
243.24 disappearance of her boy.[”] Removed.
282.18 to preparing and naming[.] Added.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Dorymates - A Tale of the Fishing Banks" ***
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