Chapter XX: Ralph Stumbles on a Discovery

Three nimble sailors were soon stretched along the slanting gaff of the great foresail, a perilous and quivering berth, with nothing for the hands to grasp but the shivering leech and shivered boom of the topsail. The crippled boom was soon lashed with pieces of spun yarn, and the damage thus temporarily repaired.

Ralph, after a comfortable meal in the galley for himself and Ben, was attracted to the grating over the main hatch by the strange noises that issued thence. Shading his eyes from the light, he peered below, and through the semi-darkness saw a sight that made him heartsick and disgusted. More than ever he wished that he had never gone on this luckless cruise.

The main hold was a place, perhaps sixty feet long by less than twenty-five wide. Into this "black hole," where the upright space between decks was less than seven feet, were crowded one hundred and seventy naked creatures, like hogs in a stock car.

They could not lie down unless a portion stood up to make room, neither could all remain seated except by drawing up their limbs in cramping and painful postures. The odors already arising from this pit of torture were such that the lad had to turn his face away for fresh air.

"It's awful!" he gasped to himself. "It's simply awful. I never had very much liking for niggers--as niggers, but such as this is enough to bring God's punishment on every one of us that have helped to bring it about. Jeemineddy! I wouldn't care much if that ship did overhaul us. Want water, do you?"

This last remark was brought out by Ralph's noticing several of the negroes make signs to him as of drinking from their hands. Ralph walked straight to Captain Gary and saluted.

"May I give those people below some water, sir?" he asked. "They seem to want some."

"No!" shouted Gary, not sorry to vent his spleen on so inviting an object as Ralph. "We'll all be wanting water if that fellow there drives us from the coast without another chance to fill the butts. Get forward there and don't let me hear from you till you're spoken to. D'ye understand?"

Ralph retreated, and Gary, after another unsuccessful trial at the cruiser's masts, gave orders to cease firing.

The wind was now a stiff breeze, and the Adams was holding her own. With the rising of the sea it was probable that the larger vessel would gain on the smaller one.

The cruiser also stopped firing, as the increased rolling of the ship rendered a long range shot too ineffective.

For an hour or more the relative positions of the two vessels remained comparatively unchanged. If there was any advantage it was on the side of the cruiser, though the Wanderer behaved beautifully.

But the wind steadily rose, and by the time eight bells was struck, and Neb announced dinner, the Adams was perceptibly gaining.

"Send that boy aft," ordered Gary, and when Ralph appeared the captain said sneeringly: "You seem to think so much of those black brutes below, I guess you can help deal out their rations. Go to Long Tom."

That worthy was buckling a brace of revolvers about his person, and had in his hand a sharp rawhide. Two sailors bore a great basket of corn bread and ship's hard bread. To Ralph was given a smaller one, containing meat minutely divided into about two ounce slices.

"'Ere we go," remarked the boatswain, heading for the lower gangway door.

At this place an armed sentinel stood day and night. As the four entered, a howl arose not unlike that of caged wild beasts. But it was more for water than for food.

"Eat first; drink afterwards," said Bludson, striking lightly right and left to restrain their eagerness. "That's the law aboard here. Mind, Ralph; one bit of meat apiece--no more."

One sailor bore a lantern, for the only light afforded outside of that was from the grated hatch above. Amid the half obscurity Ralph saw a jumble of swart, brutish faces and wildly gleaming eyes, and heard a babel of guttural sounds suggestive of a savage Bedlam where violence was restrained only by fear.

Up and down the rows of naked forms they passed, dealing to each one a ration of bread and meat, scanty and coarse enough, yet sufficient to sustain life. Then half a pint of water was served out to each.

Here the struggle to keep order was fiercest. The strong would attempt to deprive the weak of their share, and Bludson's whip was kept constantly going.

Once a brawny negro made a strong effort to seize the bucket, regardless of the cowhide, when Long Tom felled him at a blow with his pistol butt, then cocking the weapon, glanced sternly around at the circle of angry faces by which they were surrounded.

The negroes would have torn them in pieces had they dared, for the want of water was already rendering them desperate in that fetid hole.

Ralph returned to the deck pale, nauseated, and sick at heart. The captain noticed this and it angered him, as did nearly everything which the boy now did.

"Hark ye!" he growled. "D'ye think you'd like to spend all your time down there?"

"I would rather be dead," said Ralph half angrily, for his whole being rebelled against the atrocity of which he was being made, perforce, one of the perpetrators.

"Would, eh?" The captain eyed him with leering malevolence. "You'll mind your eye then while you're on this craft, and you'll obey orders, without a word, or--down you go among those demons for punishment. Go to my room and bring up my small glass--the double one. Stay--while you're there make up the berth and tidy things up a bit. Lively now!"

Ralph went below burning with a sense of futile rage. It was useless to rebel, however, for on a ship a boy is the most helpless of creatures.

As he moodily arranged things in the captain's stateroom, wondering for the hundreth time why Gary should appear to wish to persecute him after having been so courteous at Savannah, Ralph's eye fell on an open letter lying on the floor before the half open door of a small iron safe. Evidently Gary, in his haste or excitement over the approach of the warship, had left the safe in this condition. The letter had probably fallen there unnoticed.

Ralph picked it up, intending to lay it on the table, when a certain familiarity in the handwriting struck him as peculiar and he started to read the contents.

"My dear Cousin:--" it began; but after getting thus far the boy threw the sheet down upon the table.

"Why should I be reading the captain's letters?" thought he, and a flush of shame crept momentarily to his forehead. "And yet--it doesn't seem to be the one I gave him."

He remembered that Shard had mentioned an intention to write Gary by mail.

As Ralph hesitated, a desire strengthened within him to read further, despite the monitions of conscience. A vague idea that the strange and contradictory behavior of Gary might be explained was perhaps at the bottom of the lad's mental persistence.

He hesitated until his fingers burned, then made a sudden grasp at the letter.