Chapter V: Part 5

Here I must say a little something about the captain’s curious method of sleeping. We took two bunks aft, of course, and one of them had been the captain’s. The skipper himself slept in the chartroom on an old couch, and he was always so sleepy when he went to bed for a snooze that he would tumble asleep with everything in the world piled on top of him. The afternoon of the first day, taking advantage of a chance to sleep a bit, he tumbled on to that couch, where we, innocently enough, had put a great deal of our luggage. We saw him sleeping there with bags of oranges, suitcases, and everything you ever heard of piled on top of him, as well as a tangle of blankets. Since then he had complained more or less about that couch, and how difficult it was to sleep on. It seemed to account for part of his decided nonchalance towards his passengers.

♦ _The Square-rigged Cook_ ♦

Our crude meals were getting to be terribly awkward now. There was a decided withdrawal from the captain, shared by everybody. The meals had their amusing aspects, though, and sometimes I would come near laughing aloud. The captain immediately started talking in his long-winded way about something which he didn’t know the first thing about. The cook stood there, arms folded, glowering with solemn dignity, and the mate and I sat silently, now and then winking at each other. The only trouble was that we couldn’t laugh aloud as we always wanted to.

Then there was the cook’s feeling of superiority to the crew, in addition to his hatred of the skipper. There was a little sliding door which opened from the galley into the fo’c’sle--a door which the cook would open for a few seconds while he passed the crew’s food through. He would pass the food through scornfully, as if throwing it to dogs. And then the way he would slam that little sliding door! a slam of pure disgust. Once, when a dish of mixed grub was sent through, our friend Richardson ventured to say mockingly: “What’s that?” But it wouldn’t pass with the cook; no indeed! He said, with a mild oath: “You’d better shut your jaw, or you won’t get no more”; and _slam!_ went the sliding door.

The cook showed in many ways what a real sailor he had been, and in what real sailing days he had lived. Sometimes, when three or four of the crew were struggling with some difficult job, clewing a topsail, close-hauling a sail in a breeze, or unfurling the topsails, he would come out, with his apron tucked up before him in a business-like way, and with the strings always flopping behind, and he would stand by and watch their efforts a little disdainfully. Then he would begin to shout and encourage them, in the true square-rigged style. And every time they brought their weight down upon the rope, he would sing out a different phrase: “_Haul_ away! _Now_, boys! _All_ together! _Well_, then! _Heave_ away! _Heave_ ’n’ raise the dead!” It really did encourage them, too. I used to feel that he would break into a chantey, next.

♦ _Fo’c’sle Entertainment_ ♦

For two or three days I was mightily teased by the crew. They had discovered, much to my relief, that I wasn’t seasick, and in all probability shouldn’t be. So they had let up on that subject. But there was another possibility, which they noticed in a flash. It was the thought that I might be irritated if they accused me of being homesick. In vain I turned upon them. Even the mate, even the cook himself, shared the fun. If I were discovered looking down into the water, or up at the constantly swinging reef points; even if I sat on the saddle of the spanker boom and looked out over the sea, one of them would come along and tap me meaningly on the shoulder, saying: “Well, Barbara, gettin’ homesick?” Once the cook made me almost furious. I was sitting on his galley doorstep, silent for a moment, and suddenly he launched this remark at me: “Ye’re gettin’ terrible homesick, ain’t you?” I had discovered the futility of trying to prevent these taunts. I simply said: “I never get homesick, and I’m not now.” But when, after a little talk, I started to walk aft, the cook said: “You don’t need t’ go away mad!” “Mad?” said I. “What under the sun should I be mad about?” And then: “It’s just a saying,” said he.

It was the same if I expressed a desire for a little more wind, like what we had had before. Then I was accused of “wantin’ to get there too quick.” And even when, as we approached the entrance to the harbor a few days afterwards, I said something about how beautiful it was, they immediately asserted that I was eager “to be gettin’ ashore.” But I refused to be more than secretly irritated at the teasing of the crew I had so longed to sail with.

Roy had a harmonica. There was a great deal of merrymaking in the fo’c’sle with it. Oftentimes the bo’s’n, whose place is aft, and who is not supposed to join in with the crew too freely, would go into the fo’c’sle and ask Roy to play this tune or that. I used to ask Roy what were some of the things which he played--such things as “Oh, Katherina!” “’Twas three o’clock in the morning,” and “The Rosewood Casket.” He really managed his little harmonica very well, using a cup for a sounding-post. Sometimes Richardson played it; he was even more brilliant, but not so careful. Oftentimes Roy would play it out on deck, sitting on the covers of the hatchways; or he would play it from within the fo’c’sle.

Once when I was in the galley with the cook I heard music from the fo’c’sle, and on opening the little sliding door I beheld Roy, with his harmonica, playing a brisk waltz and waltzing gaily around the fo’c’sle to his own music[2]--

[Music]

all in a space about the size of an ordinary dining-table. He was turning round and round, taking tiny steps. This was one of the most amusing things I saw among the crew.

♦ _Dismal Weather_ ♦

He grinned rather sheepishly when he saw that I was watching him, and there followed quite a parley about dancing of one kind and another. This led to a gathering of the crew, and everyone got to talking about it. I happened, though somewhat in jest, to ask Bill if he could dance a sailor’s hornpipe. But Bill rather sadly shook his head, and Bob struck in scornfully, and said: “Oh, him! He couldn’t dance a cow’s hornpipe.”

“No,” said Bill, “none o’ the family are much good as dancers!”

“Dick’s a good dancer.”

“Yes, and a good waltzer, too.”

The difference between a dancer and a waltzer I never did find out. But I have always wished that Bill _could_ dance the sailor’s hornpipe.

* * * * *

The next day (the seventh out) the breeze was dying down. There was none of the whitecapped fierceness of the day before; nothing but a gentle, easy wash--a pretty good sailing breeze if only it had been from a different direction. But it was holding to northeast like grim death. It was a dull, sad day. Early, there was a curtain, a thick veil, of white sea fog over the coast, so that we couldn’t see it and didn’t know how near it was. This rather disturbed the old man, and he was afraid to pick up anchor. It was slightly warmer than the day before, because there was so much less wind. Later, the fog lifted, and we saw the long, low, very black and dismal shore line of Cape Sable, farther off than we had suspected, lying under the fog. There were large islands about, and the captain was kept at work for some time with his charts, finding out exactly where we were. He finally discovered that we were in what is called Pubnico Harbor. I didn’t feel that it was much of a harbor: we were exposed to the full force of nearly all weathers.

Dinner that day started out to be as awkward and uncomfortable as ever, what with the cook’s hatred and the mate’s and my embarrassment. The ship was still at anchor; indeed, the captain had definitely agreed with the mate that we should not get under way without the wind’s changing. But the captain seemed to be blissfully unconscious of all the awkwardness, and he sat there smiling away and rattling on endlessly. He was just saying: “When I came back from Florida--” and then he suddenly decided that he should like a cigarette to go with his strong black tea. He left us abruptly to get one. While he was gone, the cook had an opportunity of which he was not slow to take advantage. He leaned ’way over toward us from his sentinel’s post and said in a hoarse whisper: “Come back from Floridy, did he? Hm! It’s a wonder the turkey buzzards didn’t get him.” He said this in such a deep, ominous voice that I felt myself almost shivering. What a piratical little old man!

♦ “_But I Gest it will be Talk_” ♦

That was not the last of it. The captain returned, and we fell to talking about wolves. I don’t know what he knew about them, but he seemed to find plenty to say about anything at all, and a lot left over. The meal was shortly over, and again the cook bent down and whispered to us: “Hm! I guess the wolves wouldn’t want _him_ much--nothin’ there but bones.” Mutiny!

I’m sure that a mutiny would really have risen if we had had a crew of any spirit at all. I can readily imagine the cook standing up on top of a keg of rum, addressing the crew as ringleader, and I can imagine his carrying them with him--oh, how he would carry them!--and I can see them all drawing their cutlasses, flashing them aloft, and crying out: “All hail to the steward!” But it was a dull crew--a gloomy, sad, dejected, rather too good-natured crew, usually. Such things would not go with them. They were quite content to _talk_ about the old man, to criticize him in every way that they could think of.

* * * * *

I had a good talk with the mate that afternoon--or, rather, a good listening to the mate. The bo’s’n had been painting up the engine-room; he had painted the machinery red, black, and green. Very gay it looked, and he was rather proud of his work, and took me in to see it. I told him it was a fine job, and we had a minute of conversation, Bob telling me something about the machinery, with a sprinkling of talk concerning the old man. Then I went to see Bill, who was off duty at that moment. I asked him if he didn’t think Bob had done a good job in the engine-room. And this was his reply:

“Oh, yes, pretty good for Bob. But it’s nothin’ compared to the job I done once, when I was bo’s’n on a four-masted schooner. I allus did have a craze for neatness, everythin’ in _order_. Well, that engine-room o’ theirs was a _mess_ when they enlisted me as bo’s’n. I niver seen a worse mess. ’N’ I went right to work, ’n’ I scraped the floor, ’n’ the walls, ’n’ the ceiling, ’n’ I painted all the wheels and the engine all over agin, ’n’ I varnished the floor, ’n’ I scrubbed it all up spick and span as could be. Well, the skipper knowed that I was forrard, workin’ there, ’n’ one day he come forrard to see about it. Well, I had that place so clean that you could go in there in a clean white shirt ’n’ run the engine ’n’ niver get a speck of dirt or grease on it. Well, the skipper was awful pleased, ’n’ he said: ‘Bo’s’n, I’m proud o’ that job--I niver had a engine-room lookin’ so good as that.’ Well, I was a young man then, and I was proud, I tell you!”

♦ _A Fantasy in Fog_ ♦

That day proved, except for the wonderful remarks of the cook, to be quite monotonous. If we had been sailing, with the mudhook lifted, it really wouldn’t have made much difference, in that gloom and fog. The sea was very mysterious. The wild gale had vanished, but there was quite a swash left over. We stayed there all day, and rolled.

And we rolled in our bunks all night, to a jingling of bottles in the medicine-cabinet, the banging of doors, and the yelling of Bill as he strove to wake up Bob every four hours. The next day, waking up to find the schooner still rolling crazily about, we went out on deck, very curious to find out what the weather was doing. It gave us a cold, cold reception. The first thing I saw was the crazy motion of the deck, and next I saw the sea where the sky ought to be, and then the sky where the sea ought to be. The fog had gathered around us thickly and menacingly, saturating the air with brine, dismal and wet to breathe. It curled around us in weird and fantastic shapes, like mountain mist, but not so white and beautiful.

We could just see the bow of the vessel from where we were, aft, and we could clearly see that thick fog wafting across through the jibs, above the bowsprit. The schooner was in a mysterious little world of her own--a world of about a hundred feet on all sides; beyond it, blankness and silence. It was tangible space; you could see nothing--the nothingness--so clearly. The ghostly ocean had turned to a silver-gray, and it slipped away beneath us and fell back, then rose and rose again, slidingly, mingling with the sky. We could not distinguish between the swells even so much as when it was clear. I would be looking steadfastly at what used to be the sky: then, suddenly, I would see nothing but those shifting waters there, and then they would fall back, and down, and again there was a wheeling sky of fog.

* * * * *

While I was still down in the cabin, early that morning, a strange sound had startled me--a roaring drone, very sinister and terrible. At first, alarmed, I had wondered in vain what it was. But when I went on deck and saw that fog I knew immediately: the ship’s foghorn. Do you know what I thought of when I first recognized it? I thought of Billy Bones, who used to blow through his nose “like a foghorn.” I was curious to see how it was worked, but there wasn’t time before breakfast. I went down with a hearty appetite, encouraged by that strong briny smell.

♦ _The Skipper’s Pet Month_ ♦

I don’t know when I had been amused by the old captain so much as I was just after the meal, when, as we all started to go out on deck together, he began to explain. We went up the steep, small steps before him, but he followed us. He began down in the cabin to ejaculate: “Well, folks, this is a mull! A regular mull. It’s a June mull! A regular June mull.” And then, following us out on to the deck, he kept on in a low monotone: “Yes, folks, it certainly is a mull--a regular mull--a June mull--a regular June mull! We have these regular mulls every June. Yes, folks, it’s just what I expected. A mull! That’s what it is! A regular June mull!” (When I got home, after adventures yet to be reported, I immediately went to my dictionary to look up the word “mull.” It seems to have all meanings except that of a spell of foggy weather. And I don’t at all know what was meant, if not that. Possibly it was Captain Avery’s own invention--that word; and possibly that was why he enjoyed saying it so much.)

Captain Avery had about ten thousand calendars in that after cabin; calendars, apparently, from all parts of the world. They lined the walls of every bunk compartment. (Actually, I think there were about nineteen, or some odd number like that.) Of them all, there were a very few of 1927, from which they reached back as far as 1922. I went exploring among them, on the suggestion of my shipmate, to see in what months they left off. And, strange to relate, I found only three which got as far as December. A few left off in April, May, July; a large majority stopped short in various _Junes_.

“I believe the old man’s been keeping count of June mulls!” said my shipmate.

“It certainly looks so,” said I.

This was about the wettest day we had; certainly the wettest so far. The sheets were dripping, and when, later, we got under way we found them cold, stiff, and very hard to handle. As for the sails, it was quite impossible to sit under or near them: they kept shedding icy drops of concentrated sea fog down the back of one’s neck.

Two or three times we went into the galley to get warm. Its stove was always roaring during this cold weather, and the door was kept shut, seemingly to keep the gravy smell in as well as the heat. Always our visits were made exciting by piratical remarks. Once I was sitting on the galley doorstep with my head out in the fog; my shipmate was farther back inside; and the cook was standing by the cupboards, making dough. The remark was not intended for my ears, but I overheard it. He had begun by saying, in all probability, profane things about Captain Avery, crowning his talk with this: “’F you folks wasn’t aboard, I’d be tempted to p’ison the food!” I was so stunned by this that I couldn’t believe I had heard aright, and I turned upon the steward, saying: “What was that, cook?” Then he felt abashed, I think; anyway, he said: “Hm! I guess it’s as well you didn’t hear.”

♦ _Up with the Mudhook_ ♦

* * * * *

The old man sat still at anchor for a great part of the day. Then he had an idea the wind was shifting slightly to the south. Really it was just a little whim of the breeze, but the old man was evidently eager to arrive at Bridgewater, and, without any _yoho_-ing from that gloomy crew, the engine was started, and the mudhook came up through the intense fog, looking more than ever like a ghostly skeleton.

Shortly after that the mate and I had a marvellous talk behind the fo’c’sle, sitting side by side on the roof of it. The mate began by saying what a blankety-blank fool he thought the old man was:

“Here we was, sitting comfortable at anchor, knowin’ where we was, in Pubnico Harbor. Now here the breeze swings off a quarter point to sou’. Well, the old man takes that too serious, specially when there ain’t no wind nohow. So up with the mudhook, and up with the sails into the fog, and off we starts. _Now_ look at us! There are the sails flappin’ and flappin’, and here is we rollin’ and beatin’ around. The fool! He’ll lose his reck’nin’, sure. I know he will! Well, if _I_ had anything to say about it, I wouldn’t ’a’ tried it!

“Well, Barbara, how you feeling now?”

“Oh, I’m first-rate, mate!”

“Well, you’ve done fine. I thought sure you’d be sick.”

“Yes, and you acted kind of as though it would have been a grand joke if I had been, too.”

“Oh, but I was just teasin’ you. I niver had a young sister to play with, and now one comes along quite handy, and I can’t help it.”

“Yes, you were teasing, all right! But as for the cook, I think he’d have been awfully glad if I had been moderately sick.”

“The steward? Sure, he’d ’a’ been glad enough to see you sick. But as for me, I hoped you wouldn’t be--’cos, I’ll tell it to you before your face or behind your back, you’re the smartest li’l girl I ever seen aboard of a vessel yit. Ye’re not afraid t’ ask questions, an’ ye’re not afraid t’ work, neither.”

“Well, mate, I’ve always wanted to go sailing, and now that I’m doing it I might as well chip in and help, and learn.”

“Sure! Well, not everyone would.”

And then, after that gallant remark, the mate fell to telling me about the state of affairs at home.

♦ _Bill in Private Life_ ♦

“You know, Barbara, when I got married, I was married on a Monday, and I went off t’ sea agin Tuesday. I didn’t come back home fer six months. ’n’ then I stayed home all day Monday, ’n’ went off t’ sea agin Tuesday. Well, it did seem kind of tough at the time, but now I’m glad I don’t see m’ wife very often. Y’ see, it keeps us from gettin’ tired of each other. Now, when I go home, we have more fun! We’re just like a couple o’ kids. We sit together and bicker and bicker all th’ time.

“Well, my wife does a great deal in the line of fancy ’mbroidery. She can do all kinds of work of that kind, and she does love to do it. So she sits at one end of the table, evenings, with some work of that kind, and I sit at the other end, whittlin’ or carving with wood, and we do have a good time.”

“Do you do much whittling and wood-carving, mate?”

“Yes, I do quite a bit. And I have a lot of fun doing it, too. I like nothin’ better than to take a block of good wood, and a good knife (only I never have one), and sit by the fire in the stove, to carve something. I did a full-rigged ship model once--oh! I wish you could ’a’ seen her, Barbara; she was a beauty! It took me about two weeks around Christmas-time to make her. Well, a friend of mine, a sea captain, came t’ see me, ’n’ he asked if he could have her. ‘What’ll you give for her?’ I says. ‘Well, shipmate, what do you ask?’ ‘Oh, you can have her fer five dollars,’ I says. So he give me five dollars fer her. Then, later, he told me that he had been offered sixty dollars for that ship of mine, ’n’ that he had refused to sell her fer that!

“Yes, I seem to be gifted in that line. I did a violin once, from a model of an old one that a friend o’ mine had. I worked on it all summer, ’n’ another friend played on it fer a long time. I had a lot of fun making it. But the hardest part was making the holes fer the pegs. Y’ see, they are so much narrower on the inside than on the outside that it’s very hard to get at them. Well, I strung her up, ’n’ she made a good little violin.

“’N’ I do quite a little in the painting line, too. I used t’ do water-color sketches of full-rigged ships, with the sky ’n’ the sea all painted in, and painted good, too. I used t’ sell ’em fer a dollar apiece. Yes, I had considerable thought of bein’ an artist. But there wasn’t enough money, ’n’ I had t’ get out and earn, so I went t’ sea. ’N’ at sea I stayed, ’n’ I guess I always will. Y’ see, I can carve, and I can paint, but here I am wasting my life with Cap’n Avery--sixty per month. It seems hard. I think I’ll resign at Bridgewater. But, ye see, I don’t want t’ do the old man any harm. I wouldn’t harm him fer worlds; not me. ’N’ if I did resign, then the hull crew would. Didn’t ye hear what Richardson said about me holdin’ the crew together? Well, that’s a fact.”

“How many are there in your family?”

♦ _Souvenir_ ♦

“Well, there was twenty births in the family, but there are only eight now. Some o’ them died in the war, some o’ them died of sickness. I have one little brother that I haven’t seen since he was five months old. An’ when Mother died, there I was, th’ oldest of the family, with a little sister ten years old, and another one only eight--an’ I tell you, I felt powerful lonely. Well, I went right off to sea, and left the young children with an aunt. Now they’s almost all married, and has children of their own. As fer myself, I have three children--two sons and a daughter.”

He picked up a little sliver from a board which was left over from the lumber cargo, opened his knife, and carved away at it. (It is funny about Bill’s knives. He told me he had about four around on the schooner somewhere, and that they kept cropping up here and there and then disappearing, and that Bob had two or three of them. Almost every one is broken. It seems that Bill isn’t wealthy enough to buy real knives, so he buys a thousand cheap tin affairs which last about five minutes. I told him, partly in joke, that I should certainly buy him a jackknife the first thing when I got back to New Haven, and send it up to Bridgewater before the schooner sailed.) He carved that sliver, with amazing speed, into a delightful little rowboat with a very accurate keel and lovely lines along the gunwales. He tossed it over to me immediately. I have that little boat now--just about my only tangible remembrance of Mate Bill and the _Norman D._

It was Bill’s watch above, but he didn’t seem to have anything in particular to do, and he was evidently glad to have someone to talk to. The silence and gloom, with blasts from the foghorn every now and then, struck home upon everyone’s senses. I began to ask Bill the names of various things aboard. I learned, on that day, a lot of ropes and blocks; he answered every question carefully and clearly. He was probably glad to air his knowledge a little.

“By the way, mate,” said I, “I thought that when the booms and sails are to starboard, then you’re on the port tack, and that when the booms and sails are to port, then you’re on the starboard tack. Is that so?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Well, when I asked the cook this morning about the foghorn, he said that there is one blast when you’re on the port tack, two when you’re on the starboard tack, and three when you’re running. We’re on the port tack now, according to you, but they are giving the horn two blasts.”

“No, the steward’s got you all twisted round. It’s one on the starboard tack, two on the port, and three running.”

“Well, I wondered who was wrong.”

♦ _Deep Sea Clay_ ♦

“Now, I don’t like that at all,” said Bill. “That’s just like the steward, to fool you that way. Now, I like to answer questions that are asked me, as well as I know how. But him! No, you can never tell with him. And, you see, he makes you disbelieve me, and then I get in wrong there.”

“No, I didn’t disbelieve you, mate. I thought that, ten to one, the cook was wrong.”

“Yes, he’s wrong. That is, I was always learned the way I told you. That may not be right, but it’s the way I was learned.”

So we sat there in that ghostly fog, and discussed multitudinous little subjects--about sailing vessels, mostly--and I began to think that I had never known anyone more entertaining than Mate Bill. He was my idea of a real sailor.

When we dropped anchor during that wild night, it had evidently been over a clayey bottom; the anchor had three or four good-sized lumps of sticky gray clay on it. I fell to scraping it off, and Bill scraped some off, too. I started molding it in my hands until I had got it to the right texture; then I showed Bill how I had been taught to make pottery out of it, first making a smooth round of clay for the bottom, then rolling out long slender coils of it, and coiling it on to that bottom round, coil after coil, and in that way building up a jar or bowl. I loved that clay, because it was full of little shells and pebbles which had become stuck into it; I found some delightful ones. Then I started making two blocks, absolutely smooth, and with sharp corners. I put them down on the bulwarks beside the cathead to dry. It was a secret between Bill and me that they were to heave at the old man, when they dried and became hard, if he came forward interfering in what was none of his business.

* * * * *

♦ _High Hopes_ ♦

Bill and I must have been talking and playing there on the fo’c’sle well over an hour, when suddenly there came a whoop from aft. Immediately everyone was excited. It was that infernal “Here, boys! Here, boys! Here, boys!” Since it was the mate’s watch, or supposed to be, and since it was probably growing upon Bill’s conscience that he had been idling for longer than he should have, he left me with a bound, crossed the rolling deck in three more leaps, and was beside the skipper. As for me, I was eager to find out what the disturbance was, and I started to climb down from the roof of the fo’c’sle to see for myself. But I was unable to cross the deck with the speed and agility of the mate; I walked slowly, though steadily, and climbed with some difficulty up the poop deck stairs. I beheld a very amazing sight. The captain had a boat hook down over the port side of the schooner, with something hooked on to the end of it--a crate or box of some kind, as it looked. Evidently, when he had once got it hooked, it had been too heavy for him, and he had been unable to hold it, but, unwilling to let go, on the chance that it might be something worth having, he had started whooping for help. Now the whole crew had gathered there, and they all had boat hooks down, and were hauling it up. It was a large, heavy, mysterious box, and it rattled meaningly from within. _What_ could it be? Was it gold? Mightn’t it be treasure? Supposing it were! Oh, how marvellously piratical! My imagination reigned supreme over my common sense then.

But things were becoming confused now. There were so many of the crew there, and so many boat hooks all struggling for a grasp on that one box, that everyone was getting in everyone else’s way, and the captain, as was his custom, was becoming terribly excited. The red spot was glowing on his cheek, and his eyes were flustered and wild. The mate was trying desperately to shove him out of the way, but he held on to his boat hook stubbornly, and held the boat hook around the rope with which the thing was tied, and, in resistance to the mate, he was yelling out in a horrible voice: “Let go! Let go! Let go! Let me go! Let go!”--followed by a furious cascade of oaths. But the mate gently ushered the old man out of the way, where he sank back upon the deckhouse, exhausted, still grasping the boat hook.

That helped a lot; there was much less confusion. And, although the captain still gurgled out delicious oaths now and then, the crew kept their heads pretty well, and brought the great box slowly over the taffrail. What was within? I could hardly contain myself. By the wicked glint in the old man’s eyes--a glint like that of an eagle’s or a hawk’s--I knew that he had some avaricious hopes that it was a box of gold.

The crew slid off the rope, and opened the crate. Was it gold? What was it? Everyone peered over everyone else’s shoulders. _Was_ it gold--gleaming gold? It was--

It was--

I can hardly bear to say. Not that it was disappointing to me particularly, because my sense had begun to come back and take revenge on my piratical imagination. Of course, thought I, in this modern time it couldn’t be gold; if this had happened in the days of Blackbeard or John Flint, it might have been. Besides, a box of gold would sink, not float serenely past. It was--No shrinking, now; I have got to tell. One more effort!

♦ _Questionable Spoil_ ♦

It was--a box of clams! hundreds and hundreds of clams. At first we thought that they were good, and this rather tickled the cook, who, as usual when anything was going on, had come out of the galley, his apron strings flopping behind him. But after they had broken open five or six and tasted them--

The old man had pretty well recovered by this time, and in exasperated tones he ordered the bo’s’n to heave the box overboard. But they had already dumped about half of the clams out upon the deck in sorting them over, and there was an oily mess there. The bo’s’n picked up the box, staggered under it, and almost had it over the taffrail, when the weight overwhelmed him, and again he staggered backwards under it, spilling out most of the clams. A mighty oath followed from the enraged bo’s’n; then he shouted out to the mate: “Here, give a hand with the cursed thing!” Together they got it over; whereupon the bo’s’n fetched a shovel and scooped the rest of the mess over.

That was done, and it certainly did leave the crew in a sullen, mutinous condition. “The idea,” they cursed “--to put us to that trouble over an old box of rotten clams!” The skipper, his greediness disappointed, was shamefacedly pacing the deck, while the cook retired into the galley, muttering: “Oh, Lordy! Lordy!”

* * * * *

The sea still heaved and pulsated strangely, rose and slid back into its own deep hollows. All day the fog scudded across, with its briny smell. It seemed to be clutching you in its cold, wet arms, and it saturated you. All you could breathe was that damp, salt wetness. There were times when we could barely see the tip of the flying jibboom from aft, and there were other times when the sun tried its best to shine through, and we could see up there the feeble yellow splotch of it. And it was bitter cold--a wet, miserable cold, not the fresh cold of the former breeze.

♦ _A Buoy in Fog_ ♦

There is nothing more uncanny than passing a bell buoy or a whistling buoy in such weather. All sense of direction is lost. To tell which way we were heading, or from which way the wind was coming, I saw even the crew go up aft to look at the compass. Everything was a moving space, swirling slowly around and around us. Approaching a buoy, you hear first a loud whistling and droning somewhere far off in the future; and, because you can’t see it, it makes you shudder. Sometimes you think it’s to starboard, and sometimes you are sure it’s to port, and then you have the strangest feeling that it’s dead astern. But how can it be astern, you ask yourself, when you haven’t yet passed it? You can’t definitely tell where it is until you come within sight of it, or unless you have sea ears trained for such things. You become haunted with the strange music of that whistler, and you listen and listen for it, to find out _where_ it is. But it mocks you, and dodges you, and plays hide and seek with you, knowing itself quite safe beneath the curtain of fog.

Yes, you feel that it is a mournful and mocking sound, that calling. And then, perhaps the fog breaks for an instant, and you see the thing which has been playing with you. You see it looming vaguely, strangely, from sea and fog all mixed together--a great red monster lifting up its head to howl, a haunted brick-red castle, rocking there amid the swell. And then it roars or tolls its bell again, and you feel that it has lifted its voice in despair at being discovered.

Watching a buoy, we could see very clearly how slowly the ship was making headway, and how fast she was making leeway. We felt, seeing a thing like that looming at us from the depths of the sea, more alone and queer, more desolate than ever. Again that sense of solitude overwhelmed us.

This happened once or twice that day. But the captain had lost his reckoning--absolutely lost it! His instruments depended upon the sun, and there was none of that. Dead reckoning was of no use, because of the leeway, and the no wind, and the swell. When we passed a buoy which the captain didn’t understand, he and the mate got together on the cabin floor, on their knees and elbows, over the chart, one on each side of it, to work out the position. Neither could come to a definite solution of that buoy, and the captain appeared nervous and worried. He would come on deck, saying: “If there’s anything I hate, it’s these June mulls!” And then the mate would say, very confidentially, to me: “It’s his own fault, the withered old fool. If he’d done what he oughter have done, stayed right there where he knew where he was, we wouldn’t have got into this trouble. Sometimes I think the old fellow’s got no more sense than a baby.”

There was nothing much to be done; at least, if there were anything the captain certainly showed his ignorance of it. Some of the crew thought that he ought to drop anchor now, before they got into a hole somewhere alongshore. But the old man kept a-going, and we beat about, blowing that infernal horn, all day. What with the gloom, the silence, the fog, the wetness and coldness, and that horn at regular intervals, we were pretty tired by evening, and ready enough to drop into our bunks. I had tried pumping the horn a little, and found that I enjoyed the sound somewhat more when I helped to make it.

♦ _Impudence from the Foghorn_ ♦

There is one amusing detail connected with that horn which I mustn’t forget. It was a rather rickety old affair, and if you pumped it too furiously it would stop its long, steady drone and go off into croaking falsetto whoops. It was a commonly agreed fact among the crew that, when it did this, it was exactly like the old man’s voice. When the old man pumped his voice too hard, it, too, would go off into the same sort of croaking whoops. And the crew--especially, of course, Bob, who, when it was his trick at the horn, always, after pumping it correctly for a few seconds, let it go off into those whoops--thought it a great joke to make the horn echo the old man’s excitement. It all disgusted the old cook very much. He would sit in the galley door, with a roaring fire in the galley stove (to which we would come in at frequent intervals for a warming-up), muttering his favorite mutter of “Oh, Lordy! Lordy!” and saying that it was all nonsense, that business. But it seemed rather to tickle the mate, who, with his customary malicious chuckles, would pretend to be rather disgusted, but whose eyes would twinkle in that piratical way which made me think that he really enjoyed the joke.

* * * * *

We beat about, hard-aleeing, all the afternoon. That awful “Hard alee!” whoop of the skipper sounded inexpressibly dismal, echoing through the fog, and echoed by the foghorn. After a diverting yarn from the steward, which I shall soon repeat, we slept in the midst of the roll, and were grateful for the privilege.

The cook, returning after supper from the cabin with his basket of food and dirty dishes, saw the two of us promenading the decks in the fog, apparently doing just about nothing, and he decided that it was a bully good chance for talking. He stood there securely, holding his basket, and rattled on and on and on until I felt pretty sure there would be no finish, ever. I missed, unfortunately, the beginning of the tale; not realizing what we were in for, I had started walking forward, looking over the bulwarks. When I returned, the yarn was _in medias res_. The cook, it seemed, was in a three-masted schooner which was going to race a four-masted schooner from somewhere to somewhere else, to find out which was the better vessel. As I missed the beginning, I don’t know any more about it. The cook was just saying, with the most dramatic gesticulation I had ever seen:

♦ _A Sporting Event_ ♦

“--Well, it was a fine day, that day we was goin’ to race; good sailin’ breeze, everythin’ just dandy. But luck seemed to be agin us. We manned the capstan at the same time as the crew of t’ other vessel, an’ we was workin’ away good and brisk, but it didn’t seem t’ work right. Well, we had t’ stop heavin’ and see what was the matter. It took a good long time t’ get it fixed, ’n’ then ’twarn’t fixed right, so we had a bully hard time gettin’ the anchor up. By this time, the four-master was out o’ the harbor, gettin’ a good breeze, ’n’ a’most out o’ sight. Then we started t’ get our centerboard down. But that didn’t work right, neither, and try as we might, we couldn’t get her down. We got grease ’n’ poured it down, and I brought soap from the galley, ’n’ we worked away ’n’ worked away at it. Well, finally we got her down, ’n’ then we got our sails up ’n’ were off.

“I thought we was niver goin’ out o’ that harbor. There wasn’t much wind there, ’n’ we went so _slow_! Well, we got a good breeze after a time, ’n’ then we did tear along. But the _Edward Coles_ was ’way out o’ sight, ’n’ we was pretty sure we was niver goin’ to catch up with her. The next mornin’ there was quite a argyment in the after cabin as t’ where she was. Some held she was t’ windward of us, some held to leeward, and some says she was straight astern. The cap’n said she was t’ windward. But I knowed better. Says I: ‘No, sir, she ain’t t’ windward, she’s astern of us,’ ‘Oh, Si, it’s impossible. I know she’s t’ windward.’ ‘I’ll wager with you she’s astern,’ says I. ‘I won’t wager with you, Si, ’cause you’ll on’y lose yer money. She’s t’ windward.’ ‘what do you think, mate?’ says I t’ the chief mate. ‘Oh, I think she’s t’ windward.’ ‘Sir,’ says I, ‘I ’nsist I’ll wager with you. Now I’ll put up ten dollars agin your ten cents, ’n’ we’ll see ’bout it.’ ‘No, Si,’ says he, ‘I won’t make a wager like that.’ ‘Oh, sir,’ says I, ’y’ ain’t got no sportin’ blood in you. Come on, now, wager ten cents aginst my ten dollars! We’ll see who’s right this time!’

“‘Now, Si,’ says he, ‘y’ must know where th’ schooner is, t’ make a wager like that. Otherwise ye’d niver put up ten dollars aginst ten cents.’ ‘Oh, go on, sir, wager with me!’ says I. ‘Well, Si, but you must know something t’ make a wager like that.’ Well, I coaxed, ’n’ I coaxed, ’n’ I coaxed, but fer the life of me I couldn’t make him put up ten cents. Then says I: ‘Sir, y’ ain’t got no sportin’ blood in you, ’n’ I’m goin’ t’ tell you what I know. You go up halfway in th’ mizzen riggin’, ’n’ you’ll see the _Edward Coles_ astern of us.’ Well, the skipper banged his fist down on th’ cabin table, ’n’ jumped up ’n’ ran on deck. He went right up halfway into the mizzen rigging, ’n’ then he slapped his leg ’n’ hollers out: ‘By Godfrey almighty, there’s the _Edward Coles_! You’re right, Si, there she be.’ How’d I know? Well, o’ course I’d a been up in the mizzen riggin’ early that mornin’, ’n’ I seen her astern of us.

“Well, we won that race by a good long shot, I’ll say, now!”

And then I saw the apron strings dangling, as the old man walked sedately back into the galley with his basket of dishes, leaving us alone in the cold, wet fog.

♦ _Ghostly Weather_ ♦

* * * * *

The fog swept about the little ship all night. The first thing I saw when I thrust myself out of the cabin was Richardson, at the helm. He was bunched up in a massive overcoat, and his shoulders were shrugged up the way they always were in cold weather. He was dripping wet, and standing in the center of a cloud of fog, which swept around him menacingly, like the white, floating shroud of a ghost. However, it was not so thick, and the sun made on it a kind of shimmering rainbow, which the crew called a “fog eater.” It was very mysterious and lovely to see that path of faint iridescence, glimmering in a ghostly way through the monotonous whiteness. There was no more wind than the day before, perhaps not even so much, and I think there was more of a roll than I had known on any of the previous days. I had a great deal of fun practising walking about on the decks. If there had been much more of a roll, the crew said, she would have been rolling water on her decks. As it was, I saw none of that.

Of course the sails, the booms, the rigging, the tackle were all making their infernal racket--a racket which wears on your sense even more than the silence of the fog. Here the mate gave me a very quaint descriptive sentence. Said he: “I hate to sit here and listen to her flap her wings and shake her feathers.” How like flapping wings and shaking feathers it sounded!

We went in pretty close to some land or other, but as the captain had not yet got his bearings, we didn’t know what it was. We had an idea that we were somewhere near the mouth of the Lahave River, where we wanted to go. There was nothing much to be done except drive on until the weather cleared off. The captain said that there was no earthly use in trying to keep a-going without any wind. “We’ve got t’ have a breeze t’ sail, ’n’ that’s all there is to it.” So he decided to drop anchor, before we should be carried ashore by our leeway. “Get down the outer jib, boys!” he bellowed out, “flyin’ jib, ’n’ jib!” Then the mate, on the fo’c’sle deck: “Get down the outer jib, sir!” Then the bo’s’n, from the jib halyards: “Get down the outer jib, sir!” in his usual mocking voice. But then, just as they were about to get down the forestaysail also, the captain’s voice rang out again: “Hold on the forestaysail a minute!” And the mate: “Hold on the forestaysail a minute, sir!” And the bo’s’n: “Hold on the forestaysail a minute, sir!” The captain had noticed a tiny breath of air rising, and now he commanded the jibs to be hauled up again. Once more we set sail--or set jibs, rather--and started off. We were going a little bit faster, but still the schooner was flapping her wings and shaking her feathers.

♦ _Lost Bearings_ ♦

I went forrard to have a small talk with the mate. “Quite a little trouble to no purpose, wasn’t it?” said I.

“Well, ’s long ’s it pleases him, all right,” replied Mate Bill.

“Well, mate, are we still off Cape Sable?” (This was a great joke among the crew, because of waking up so many mornings in succession to be told that we were off Cape Sable.)

“Hanged if _I_ know where we are! The old man doesn’t know, neither, ’n’ we can’t find out ’ntil this pesky fog clears away. But I wish th’ skipper would get some sense in ’s head ’n’ let us stay at anchor, afore we gets into any worse scrape ’n this. We’ll be aground, next.”

Indeed, the old man did appear to be extremely nervous. “If there’s anything I hate, it’s these June mulls!” he would say, over and over. He always appeared to be shivering and shaking, and he had acquired a terrific cold in his head. When he came down for meals, I noticed that he could barely eat and drink, his hands were quivering and shaking so. Yes, the old man was certainly alarmed over something--over losing his bearings, and being shut in by fog. But he didn’t anchor. While there was a breath of air stirring, he kept the schooner to her course, and we went sailing very, very slowly up the coast of Nova Scotia.

About the only happening that afternoon that was in the least piratical occurred when I went forward to have a chin with the crew, and found no one there. The galley and the fo’c’sle were both quite deserted. The captain strode by once as I was talking to Bob at the wheel, and said: “Don’t talk to the helmsman, Barbara--it distracts him.” So I hadn’t talked again with anyone at the wheel. Yes, the helmsman was at his trick, the lookout was at the foghorn, and--there was no one else in evidence. How strange! I went exploring. I happened to look into the engine-room--and, lo! there they all were. The cook was there, leaning against the wall with one elbow, the other hand on his hip, his legs crossed, looking very important. The mate was there, and his dark, piratical eyes were full of the light of mutiny. The bo’s’n was there, with his customary careless, fresh look. Irish Bill was there, and his rather wicked Irish eyes were gleaming. _What were they doing?_ I asked myself.

“What’s going on?” said I. “You look as mischievous as though you were concocting a mutiny. _Are_ you?”

“Oh, we’re just talkin’,” explained Bill.

“’N’ plannin’ some deviltry,” said the cook.

♦ _Brewings of Mutiny_ ♦

“I see,” said I.

I really had an idea that they weren’t so innocent as they pretended. They probably wouldn’t have let me into their secrets anyhow. But I knew the man to go to--a special friend of the cook’s, to whom the cook confided everything in fullest detail: my shipmate.

From him I discovered startling things. I didn’t inquire too closely, but I imagine they came from the cook. It seems that the crew had gathered in the engine-room for the purpose of a conference on writing a _letter of complaint against Captain Avery_. They were agreeing to stand by each other in this mutiny like brothers--_and to sign their names to this letter_! I’d wager all the pirate treasure ever buried that it was the cook who suggested it.

“I guess the cook would sign _his_ name, all right!” said I.

“Oh, he’d sign his name all over the letter,” said my shipmate.

That set me thinking, I tell you. I really wished that the cook or Mate Bill would confide in me enough to tell me the story. But evidently they would go up to a certain point with me, such as jesting about the old man, but not far enough to reveal to me such deep and dangerous secrets. They didn’t need to worry: for the world I wouldn’t have betrayed them!

* * * * *