Chapter XVI: Nearing the Gold Coast

The two men regarded each other steadily for a moment, then the mate heaved a sigh.

"I don't care for your threats," said he. "It's that same conscience of mine which you think so little of that troubles me. As long as I am your second mate I shall do my duty. But I give you fair warning: when we get to port, if there is another ship where a man can get a job I shall leave you."

"You'll leave without your pay, then," retorted the captain.

Duff, without replying, left the cabin. He had explained his sentiments, and that was all he could do at present. In his succeeding round of ship inspection he was halted in the forecastle by Ralph, who had lain down again.

"Oh, Mr. Duff, won't you please explain to me what the captain meant when he said we were bound after negroes for the Cuban market."

"It's plain as your nose, my lad. We are going to the west coast of Africa--somewhere about the Congo, I guess. There we take on a load of Gold Coast darkies, fetch 'em over to Cuba, run 'em in after night, then get away--if we can. If we get captured we'll all get a term in Morro Castle or some other Spanish hole, and lose everything we've got. Oh, it's a nasty business the----"

Here Mr. Duff broke off, remembering that he was saying too much before a cabin boy. But Ralph detained him by the sleeve.

"I thought the negroes were all freed."

"At home they are. But in Cuba and Brazil they are not, although the prospect is that they will be set at liberty before long. The best sentiment of the world is against slavery, you know.'

"And what we're up to is worse than all the rest, isn't it?"

"Yes; it is a vile business. But look here, my lad. Whether you like the job or not, you've shipped, and that means everything on shipboard. Make the best of it while you're with us; when you're away it's another thing."

"If you think so badly of it," persisted Ralph, "why did you ship, Mr. Duff?"

"Because, like most of the others, I went it blind for the sake of high wages. I had an idea we were on a smuggling trip. I suppose you were too green to know anything."

"I left everything to Captain Gary. But I say, Mr. Duff, I think with you that it is a low, mean business."

"H-s-s-h!" The mate made a warning gesture and turned away, just as Mr. Rucker thrust his bushy beard down the fore hatch, preceded by his burly legs and body.

The first officer looked sharply at Ralph as the boy lay in his hammock, which he had at last slung.

"You'll report for duty in the cabin tomorrow, my lad," said he. "Captain's orders. There won't be much shirking on this ship, whether or no."

After the storm, the wind and weather remained fair for many days, during which the Wanderer (as she was now called) glided into the tropics, and justified her fame on the score of speed.

One day a cry of "Land ho!" was raised. Half an hour later the irregular heights of the Cape Verde Islands began to be visible from the deck. But the schooner bore away to the southeast and no close view was obtained.

It was a lonely voyage. Scarcely any vessels were passed, and the captain avoided these in so far as he could. It was his policy to follow a route as little traveled as possible.

The glaring sun, bright skies, and even trade winds of these regions were like a new world to Ralph. At night the extreme brilliancy of the stars, framed in new and strange constellations, and the vivid play of phosphorescent waves, kept him on deck with Mr. Duff at times for hours.

These two, though so widely separated by rank, were congenial in a furtive way. Perhaps the mutual knowledge that both so heartily disapproved of the object of the voyage, was a subtle link between them.

Though awkward enough at first, Ralph persevered so faithfully in acquiring a knowledge of his new duties, that he slowly won the approval of every one on board, unless it might have been the captain. Gary preserved a sphinx-like attitude, never sparing the boy, never praising him, nor manifesting by any sign an atom of that feminine graciousness of manner that had on shore first won the lad over.

But Ralph's growing proficiency in a seaman's tasks was such, that on Rucker's advice, he was put before the mast altogether, after one of the sailors had broken several ribs by falling from aloft during a squall. The injured man, as soon as he was able, took Ralph's place in the cabin.

As they approached the African coast, alternate fogs and calms delayed their progress somewhat. The fogs were a protection from prying vessels, but the calms proved to be an unmitigated nuisance.

The ocean would be like shining glass beneath a vertical shower of the sun's rays that, at times, rendered the deck almost unendurable. Awnings were stretched and for hours and even days the Wanderer would lie almost motionless, except for the impalpable swell from which the bosom of the sea is never entirely free.

One dull, damp morning, when the decks were slippery with moisture and a curtain of mist veiled everything beyond a hundred yards, Ralph, who was in the foretop on the lookout, fancied that he detected a sound somewhat different from the usual noises surrounding a vessel even in a calm.

They were nearing the land, as the captain's last reckoning showed, yet soundings taken not half an hour previous, had discovered no bottom at a depth of several hundred feet. Ralph called to a sailor below to ask the second mate to come forward.

"Well, what now, Granger?" demanded Duff from the main deck.

Ralph had hardly explained, before the mate sprang up the rigging to the lad's side. The trained ear of the officer instantly divined what might be the matter.

"Down with you, Ralph," said he, hurrying to the deck himself. "Pipe up all hands and shorten sail!" he shouted to the boatswain, then emerging from the forecastle. "Lively now!"

The schooner was under full canvas, with the purpose of making the most of what little air might be stirring. A moment before, the most profound repose was reigning, but with the shrill call that instantly rang out, all was changed to a scene of the most intense activity.

Men came tumbling up to join the watch on deck in lowering two of the jibs, and reefing a third, while the great fore and aft sails were reduced to less than half their size in a twinkling.

Orders came sharp and fast, three seamen in each top were hastily lowering and lashing the topsails, when the sound heard by Ralph, and which had rapidly increased to a sputtering roar, was split as it were by a crash of thunder. The fog melted away like a dissolving dream, showing beyond the burst of sunlight, a coppery cloud that swept the ocean to windward, driving before it a line of hissing foam.

By this time captain and first mate were up. The Wanderer lay without headway, though bobbing slowly as a slight whiff of air stirred the flattened mainsail.

"Meet her! Meet her, Mr. Duff!" shouted Gary, instantly realizing the coming peril.

The men were tumbling from the tops, Ralph among the last, for though ordered down by the considerate mate, he returned with the others when the topsails were to be stowed.

Duff and two old hands were at the wheel; others were lashing loose articles, when with a scream and a screech, the squall was upon them.

At that season and on that coast, these sudden commotions are especially treacherous and full of peril. Coming, as it were from nowhere, either on the heels of fog or calm, their advent is doubly dreaded by the unwary mariner. When the blast struck the schooner, over she heeled, and in a trice the lee scuppers were seething with brine. Each man clung to something for life, as the deck sloped like a house roof.

"Ease her! Ease her!" roared the captain from the main weather bobstays. "For your lives, men! Shove her nose up in the wind."

The scud, as it struck the port bow, flew like shot across the deck. So acute was the shriek of the wind, even shouted orders could hardly be heard.

The Wanderer, trembling like a living thing, slowly--at first almost imperceptibly--rose from the blows hammering at her sides like thunder. There was a long moment of intense, even agonizing suspense, then she began to forge ahead, buffeted, battered, heeling dizzily still to leeward, yet--saved, for the time being at least.

"That was a close call, captain," remarked Duff as the two stood together five minutes later, clinging to the weather shrouds.

"I should say so. Who first heard the thing coming?"

"Young Granger, I believe. There's good stuff in that lad, I make bold to say."

These words shouted into Gary's ear, for the squall was still at its height, caused a deep scowl to settle on the captain's brow. He turned away without a word.

"Gary doesn't like that boy for some reason," was the mate's inward comment. "I wonder why?"

After twenty minutes of wind so furious that the sea was fairly flattened, the squall ceased almost as suddenly as it had begun, before the great ocean billows had time to rise. But in that short interval a jib had been blown into ribbons and the foresail torn loose from its treble reefing points. A great rent was made by its violent flappings before it could be again secured. In the struggle one man was knocked insensible, so severe were the surgings of the boom, as the heavy canvas jarred the whole ship with its cannon-like reports.

One result was a fair after breeze and a clear sky. The schooner bowled along at a nine knot gait, while the men worked cheerily to repair the slight injuries occasioned by the squall.

That day the trailing smoke of a steamer was indistinctly seen in the southern horizon. The helm was instantly put about and the Wanderer hauled up on a northeast course, which was maintained all day.

The captain and first mate took careful reckonings more than once, verifying each other's castings of their latitude and longitude. It became generally understood that land was close at hand and an air of expectancy became general on board.

The succeeding night was cloudless in the earlier part. Later on a mist slowly inclosed them as they neared the coast.

Ralph sat up late, for he was vaguely excited at the prospect of beholding what was to him a new world. But he gave out at last and turned in, intending, however, to be on deck at the first notice of land. Youth sleeps sound, and his next conscious sensation was that of being rudely shaken.

"On deck with you, boy," said the sailor who had roused him. "Going to snooze all day?"

He leaped from his hammock, and ran up the companionway. Then an exclamation of astonishment burst from his lips.