Chapter V: Part 5

The captain's boat was the first to come alongside. I saw them pass up a woman with a year-old baby, then an invalid man. Next came another woman, who proved to be the stewardess of the steamer; she was carrying a heavy parcel done up in a tablecloth, that rattled and jangled like a bag of doubloons. In an overloaded boat, in half a gale of wind, she had salvaged the ship's tableware! The rest of the crowd were indiscriminate; except for the women, of whom there weren't many, I couldn't tell passengers from crew. As I stood watching at the break of the poop, a man with a long beard and a blanket wrapped around him came up to me. He seemed half dazed; he was carrying in his hand a small hatchet, the blade stained with blood.

"What the devil are you doing with that thing?" I demanded.

"I killed the ox, sir" he answered wildly--it came over me in a flash that he must be the cook. "I couldn't leave him there to burn"

The captain was the last man from that boat to come over the side. I shook his hand, but had no time just then for conversation; a fact that he recognized at a glance, drawing a little way aft along the weather alley and leaving me alone. For everything had to be done at once, you know; these people saved, and my own ship looked after. We were in a ticklish position. With main yard aback, and every squall heavier than the last, we might easily get stern-way on and that would never do. I felt pretty confident of my gear aloft, but if anything carried away to hinder the handling of the sails, we should find ourselves in a pretty kettle of fish. Above all, I kept a sharp eye on the relative position of the burning steamer. Aback as we were, with so much canvas spread, we must, I thought, be drifting steadily down toward her; and it would be the end of us to run afoul of that inferno, or even to fall to leeward of her. Watching closely, I soon made out that we held our distance from the craft, or rather, that she held her distance from us; incredible as it seemed, she was drifting as fast as we were. I turned to her captain, calling his attention to this mystery.

"Yes, I noticed it" said he "It seems to me that the sheet of flame must in some way be acting like an enormous sail. I can think of no other explanation"

Neither could I--and I believe that he was right. She had been barque-rigged, as I said, and the foremast with its heavy yards, still standing, kept her head three or four points off the wind, so that she lay in the position of running free; her sides, too, were high, caught a lot of wind, and gave her headway. But the sheet of flame must have helped her progress. For here we were with a ship flying light, and sufficient canvas spread to drive us to leeward at a rate of four or five knots an hour, even with the main yard holding her dead.

Too much canvas, in fact; the wind had begun to come with a new weight and no time afforded for proper seamanship. No time. We had taken in the royals before we reached the steamer; had clewed them up, but been obliged to leave them hanging, we'd ranged past her so rapidly. As we backed the main yard, we had let all three of the topgallant yards run down, and hauled down the flying jib. All these light sails were threshing and pounding aloft, while the men who should have furled them were busy saving life in the lee channels; the jib was slatting itself to pieces on the end of the jibboom. At that very moment, under ordinary conditions, we should have been housed down under reefed upper topsails.

The captain of the steamer had been waiting for me to find a free moment. Now he pulled up beside me.

"My name is Potter, Captain Clark" said he "I just heard your mate call you by name. It's needless to say anything, sir, about what you are doing for us"

"Yes" I answered "save that for the coffee. We haven't got through the soup yet"

He gave a short laugh. "Speaking of grub, Captain, how about fresh water? We haven't much in the boats, and we're adding a good many to your ship's company"

"I've water enough to last a hundred men for a month" I told him "Water enough for washing, and all purposes" The iron tank below the main-deck, five thousand gallons, had just been filled in Liverpool.

He looked at me a little incredulously. "Thank God!" said he "I've been worrying about that ever since I came aboard. Your American ships go well provided for"

The third boat had then come alongside. "Is this your whole outfit, Captain Potter?" I asked.

"Good God, no!" he cried "There's another boat somewhere--if it hasn't gone down"

"We sighted only three. But we'll find it for you, all in due time" I reassured him.

"It's the second mate's boat" said he "The poor fellow was half blind from fighting the fire, but he insisted that he could take charge of a boat. He couldn't have lost her--he was no more heavily loaded than we were. I expect he's been left somewhere to windward, Captain; we have drifted away from him. You'd hardly believe it, but we had tough work, rowing our strongest, to keep up with the drift of the vessel. My orders were to keep her in company as long as she burned"

"Well, if your second mate is to windward, we may have difficulty in reaching him" I pointed out "You see how it is, sir; this will be a living gale inside of an hour. But we will do everything possible. Wait till it grows a little lighter. In the meantime, what about these boats of yours?"

"I'm done with them, Captain" he answered "You can do what you like"

There were two big steel lifeboats, and a smaller Whitehall boat. "I'll swing the lifeboats aboard, then, and let the other go" said I "We may have a fire of our own before we reach New York; and my boats would barely accommodate my own ship's company. Mr. Ridley, rig a preventor lift on the lee main yard-arm, and hoist those two big boats aboard"

My mate, I'm sorry to say, had lost his head in the excitement and confusion. A fine old man, an excellent seaman, came from down Deer Island way; but he had outlived his usefulness, as many of us do. He was running fore and aft the ship, accomplishing nothing, and chiefly whining about his sails being slat to pieces.

Just as I gave the order to hoist in the boats, the third group of castaways, in charge of the steamer's boatswain, were coming over the rail. These men were mostly from the forecastle; for she had been heavily sparred, crossed a couple of royal yards, and carried fourteen men before the mast to handle her sails. The boatswain was an impudent little Londoner, every inch a sailor, and one of your old-fashioned chanty-men. He caught my eye from the maindeck, and whipped out his whistle.

"Shall I tyke the order, Captain?" he roared through the din.

"Go ahead!" I told him, waving my hand. Old Ridley hadn't heard me, anyway.

"Aloft there, men!" cried the boatswain with a swagger, giving a long blow on his whistle "Here's a bloomin' deck under yer feet again, an' Di-vy Jones'll wyt a while longer. D'ye hear the Old Man's orders? Preventor lift on the lee main yard-arm, there, and hoist in the bloomin' boats. Lively now, lend a hand, my lads, an' show 'em what ye knows"

They sprang up the ratlines like monkeys; heaven knows, a tarry rope must have felt good in their hands again! In a jiffy they had rigged the lift, and got a sling under the first boat. A few moments later, as the boat rose slowly across the rail, I heard the little Cockney's voice aloft, raised in a hauling chanty:

"Oh, Bony was a war-ri-or,
A-_way_! Ay-_yah!_
A war-ri-or, a ter-ri-or,
Jean Fran-swar!"

His men came in loudly on the chorus; their voices gave me a turn, to think of the vicissitudes of fortune. For they had been snatched from certain death, and they knew it already. As it happened, that tall fire in mid-ocean was not reported by anyone else; we were the only ship in all those waters to sight and come up with it. And in less than an hour after we had taken the last man aboard, we were stripped to three lower topsails, hove-to in a howling gale.

Full daylight had come while they were hoisting in the boats. We still lay with the main yard aback, to windward of the burning steamer; forty minutes, perhaps, had passed since we'd come into the wind. In a few minutes more we should be ready to get under way--and no sign yet of the fourth boat with her load of frightened humanity.

I caught a young scamp running by, a boy from home that I'd had for the round voyage. "Here, you young rascal, jump aloft and see if you can pick up another boat anywhere" said I "She's likely to be to windward. Hustle, now! You've been nothing but trouble all the voyage; now earn your salt" I knew that he had the sharpest pair of eyes aboard.

He was up the mainmast in a flash, slipped past the slatting topgallant-sail, and reached the sky-sail yard. In a few minutes he sang out

"I see a boat to leeward, sir!"

"Where away?"

"Just abeam, beyond the steamer"

I feared that his imagination had run away with him, so sent the second mate into the mizzen cross-trees with a pair of binoculars. He reported a boat sure enough to leeward--a boat with a tiny sail set.

"That accounts for it!" exclaimed Captain Potter "I forgot that leg-o'-mutton sail in the second mate's boat. But why has he used it, to run away from the steamer, when I ordered him to stand by her?"

"I'm afraid it means that he is hard pressed" I answered "He's had to run for it, in order to keep afloat. We must fill away at once. I hope we can manage to reach him in time"

While we were swinging the main yard, Captain Potter stood on the after house, alone beside the mizzen mast, watching his burning vessel. She was a splendid steamer, only a few years old. He watched her soberly. I left him to himself. After we had got the _Pactolus_ off before the wind, with things around decks a little under control, he said good-bye to his command, as it were, turned aft, and took his place beside me on the quarterdeck.

"Can you make out the boat yet from the deck?"

"She's dead ahead. They have seen her from the forecastle"

We looked aloft. Yards were groaning, gear was cracking; under full upper-topsails the ship swept down the wind like a racehorse, fairly leaping through the water. She must have been a splendid sight to those poor fellows in the second mate's boat, waiting for her at the door of death.

"You have a fine ship, sir" said Captain Potter. "I've never seen a ship handled so smartly, in such a breeze and under so much sail. You must avail yourself of any help that my crew can give you. My officers are thorough seamen, brought up under sail"

"Thank you, sir--I see that they are" I answered "But after we have things straightened around once more, I think we won't need any assistance" My pride was up, you know, now that the affair was beginning to turn out so well. She was a British steamer, and these officers, fine young Englishmen of the best breed, ambitious and well-trained in the school of sailing ships, were watching me and my vessel with critical eyes. I'd show them what it meant to be picked up by a Yankee clipper.

"I make this passage every year, Captain" I went on "and always carry extra men for it. After leaving my wheat in Liverpool, I have to get back to New York in the quickest possible time, to load again for California. It's much like your steamer with her schedule. With extra men I'm able to carry on sail a little longer, handle her in ordinary weather with one watch, and save the wear and tear on the crew. The wear and tear comes mostly on me. I'll have your crew to fall back on now, and will be able to hold my sail still longer. A sort of reserve force, you know, ready to jump in an emergency"

He glanced over the stern-rail, where the steamer lay blazing in our wake. In falling off we had swung a wide circle around her, to escape the path of the sparks as they whirled down the wind; and now had left her a couple of miles astern.

"She burns well, Captain" I observed "That's the hottest fire I ever felt, or ever wanted to feel"

He gave a bitter laugh. "They loaded her especially for it" said he "Cotton goods, and butter, and bacon, and hams" As if not caring to look at her any longer, he turned forward, mounted the steps to the top of the house, and took up his old position by the mizzen mast.

In twenty minutes after filling away, we had reached the second mate's boat. A look through the binoculars showed me that things were indeed in a bad way with them; there wasn't a moment to lose. The boat seemed momentarily on the point of filling, while half a dozen men along her sides baled frantically with buckets and other utensils. A man in the stern sheets was waving wildly at us, as if to communicate some information. I had a notion what it was; they were trying to tell us that they wouldn't be able to bring the boat into the wind. I saw that plainly. Captain Potter, coming hurriedly to the after end of the house, evidently saw it, too.

"How will you pick them up, Captain?" he asked nervously.

"I think we can do it without difficulty" I answered, as if such measures were a matter of course. In point of fact, I had never executed the manoeuvre that seemed necessary in this pass, and had never heard of its being tried by anyone else. As we approached the boat, I hauled the ship well out on their starboard quarter, passed them several hundred yards to port and left them a quarter of a mile astern; then swung the ship across their course, came up to leeward of them with a shock and a crash, backed the main yard, lost headway, and stopped in exactly the right position for them to fetch our stern as they ran before the wind. In other words, I cut a half circle around them and placed myself athwart their hawse, in the way of an old-fashioned naval manoeuvre.

We looked down on them from the quarter-deck as they raced toward us. Several men seemed disabled, water was washing nearly up to her thwarts, but a few oars were poised in readiness, showing intelligence and discipline somewhere aboard. In a moment she was on the point of our weather quarter, sweeping past our stern.

"Round the stern!" shouted Captain Potter and I together "Get under the lee, and jump for the main channels!"

But they had already seized their last and only opportunity. A smooth patch on the water favoured them; they made the turn nicely, let go their sail, and succeeded in paddling up under our quarter.

"Jump while it's smooth!" I cried "Let the boat go"

My crew had by this time become expert channelsmen. One of them caught the painter, others used their boathooks; and the last load of castaways from the steamer tumbled over the side, more dead than alive, but alive enough to know that they'd been saved. The painter was cast off, the boat drifted clear of the quarter, filled, overturned, and was whirled away on the top of a breaking sea. Safely on our decks, watching this symbol of elemental destruction, stood every soul of the steamer's company.

"I really must congratulate you again!" said Captain Potter heartily "That was a feat of seamanship, sir. You seem to be able to put your ship through the eye of a needle"

"She handles nicely, doesn't she?" I agreed. As a matter of fact, I felt like congratulating myself; I won't deny that I had a feeling of pride, as well as a prayer of thankfulness for our universal good luck. Things had gone without a hitch, at a time when a hitch might easily have called for payment in human life.

So here we were, with sixty people landed suddenly on our decks; with whole topsails set, and a gale of wind turned loose upon us. I'd been obliged to abandon the upper sails, while we were saving the first three boatloads; they had slat themselves to shreds before we could find time to furl them. The chief thing now was to get the upper topsails in. I made up my mind that we would shorten sail with our own crew. The crowd from the steamer were completely fagged out; they had been fighting fire and the Atlantic for twenty-four hours. I told them to go below, in the after cabin or the forward house, anywhere, have a smoke, and rest wherever they could find a chance to lie down; and instructed my steward to pass round a supply of dry tobacco.

When they had faded away and the decks were cleared for action, Captain Potter approached me again. "I hardly dare ask about provisions" he began "I'm sorry to tell you that we brought very little. The fire cleaned out our galley and store-rooms first of all, and we were barely able to save a meal or two of biscuits and canned grub"

I thought a minute, making a rough estimate. "We can furnish provisions to go with the water, Captain" I told him.

"What!--without allowance?" he cried.

"Without allowance" said I "I never liked the idea of putting people on an allowance; it's too much like starving yourself by degrees. I can guarantee you provisions to last us for a month or six weeks, three good meals a day; and we can't in common fortune be out that long. The best of provisions, I think you'll find"

"How does it happen, sir?" he demanded.

"It doesn't happen. We're always prepared for just such an emergency. More than once I've met a ship short of provisions, and furnished her with a boatload or two. You can't anticipate what is liable to happen; but a lazaret full of beef and flour and potatoes fills in almost anywhere"

He shook his head in amazement. "I've often heard it said that American ships were remarkably well-found" he observed "But I shouldn't have believed a yarn like this from my best friend. Let's see, we've brought you three times your ordinary ship's company; and you have provisions and water for all hands to last longer than twice your usual run to New York. Are you positive, sir?"

"Positive. Give yourself no further worry on that score"

"Back there in the boats" said Captain Potter "I was thinking that, if God was good to us, we might be picked up by some Slavonian bark, with only macaroni enough aboard to take him to the Banks of Newfoundland, where he'd depend on catching a few codfish, and water or not according as it rained. Then it would have been a case of Halifax or St. Johns, or else a transfer in open boats to another vessel, with more danger to my passengers and crew. This, Captain, seems like a pleasant dream"

There was no necessity for telling him how it really did happen. In the line for which I was sailing, a captain had the fitting out of his own vessel, and was given practically a free hand. I'd found that there were many things that I could buy cheaper and better in Liverpool; and I always laid in a supply of these for the round trip. Things like hams, and bacon, and tobacco; yes, tobacco, the best American plug at a shilling a pound, the same article that I would have had to pay fifty cents for in New York. At Liverpool, too, we could get the finest French and Irish potatoes; though they wouldn't keep for the round trip, I used to lay in enough to last me to New York and down to the Line on the outward passage. We had a ton and a half of potatoes on board that trip, when we sailed from Liverpool; we reached New York with half a ton of them left, so you can judge how short of provisions we were. Then there were certain things, especially flour, and canned fruits, vegetables and preserves of all kinds, which I could buy cheapest and best in San Francisco; I'd supplied the ship there with these articles, for the round trip, and a good half of the stock still remained. Butter--we had barrels of it. In fact, we could actually have fed all hands of them for two or three months without allowance; but I didn't want to spoil the effect by overdoing it. I let them continue to think that this was the accepted fashion on board of an American ship crossing the Western Ocean.

That afternoon, when the _Pactolus_ was at last shortened down, the empty bolt-ropes unbent from the upper yards, and the decks cleared for heavy weather, the question of accommodations had to be disposed of. We started with the after cabin; the woman with her baby had one spare stateroom, the invalid man another. To Captain Potter I assigned a third spare stateroom, so that he could be by himself. My own room, with double bunk, sofa, and mattresses on the floor, I gave up to the rest of the women passengers; the stewardess slept on the sofa in the after cabin, and generally looked after the ladies' quarters.

This accounted for all the spare staterooms we had. For myself, I took the upper bunk in the mate's room, at the same time moving the second mate to this room, where he and the mate, having alternate watches, could share the same bunk. This left the second mate's room free for the accommodation of the steamer's three deck officers, with two single bunks and a knock-down of pillows and blankets on the floor. In the steward's room also there were two berths; my steward kept the lower, the first steward of the steamer had the upper, and her second steward another knock-down on the floor.

In the forward house there were the galley, carpenter's shop, and sail room, all narrow rooms running from side to side of the house, each with two doors and two windows; forward of the sail room were the two forecastles, separated from each other by a fore-and-aft partition in the middle of the house, and opening forward on either side of the fore hatch. I moved all of my crew into one forecastle, since my only watch would be sleeping at a time; and put the steamer's crew into the vacated one, where bunks and bed clothes were ready for them to use. The engine room crowd were assigned to the carpenter's shop; the rest of the men-folk, a miscellaneous lot, first, second, and third class passengers all together, were given the sail room.

We had on board quantities of second-hand burlap and old sails, rolls and rolls of them, to be put down under the cargo of wheat, enough to line the whole inside of the ship when she was loaded; these were rolled up in the 'tween-decks after we discharged at Liverpool, to be overhauled and repaired on the passage across to New York, before being stowed away for use again in San Francisco. They were just what we needed for beds and coverings. In the two narrow rooms in the forward house, spread plenty thick on the floors, they made the finest possible knock-downs; although they were packed in pretty tight, the men couldn't have been more comfortable in their own berths.

Captain Potter wanted me to put them below the hatches. We were ballasted with salt in the lower hold, but the 'tween-decks were clean and empty; she was in splendid trim for sailing, dry as a bone in heavy weather. Undoubtedly, the 'tween-decks would have made a comfortable place for the men, with plenty of room all around. But my objection was a perfectly practical one. Every one of these men had saved his pipe; in many cases it seemed to be about all that he had saved. Pipes had been going in every mouth since they'd come aboard. And the sight of that burning steamer was seared into my eyes. It gave me the shivers merely to think of sending all those pipes to sit on a bed of sail-cloth below the hatches. Some kind of a fire was only to be expected; but a fire in the forward house would be the lesser of two evils.

With all my care, I made a serious mistake in these arrangements; a mistake due to my ignorance of steamship etiquette. I assigned the chief engineer to a place forward with the engine-room crowd, and paid him no further attention. The status of engineers wasn't in my category; I thought of them, when I thought of them at all, as belonging to some indefinite lower region, and lumped them all together. But I was careful to make the proper distinction with the deck officers, for this was a matter within my own province.

Captain Potter gave me a broad hint that afternoon. "My chief engineer is a fine man, sir" he said "There has never been friction between us. He is highly thought of by the office"

I received the news as something in the way of conversation; wasn't much interested just then in the affairs of his vessel. What did I know of steamers? I'd been brought up under sail; and a steamer to me was nothing but a new-fangled usurper of the ocean, a thing to be sneered at, and to be outsailed when possible. It wasn't till some years afterwards, I remember, that I learned by accident that the chief engineer of a steamer was next in position to her master, above all of the deck officers. The knowledge was a shock to me; I recalled Captain Potter's remark, realized what I'd done, and saw how nice they had been about it. Even to-day, it annoys me to think of the mistake, and of the comment it must have caused.

We lived like kings; I gave free access to the provisions, fore and aft. The first steward of the steamer said "I'll wait at table" Our forward cabin table, hauled out to its full length, would seat fourteen people; he had to set it up three times for each meal, for all the passengers ate aft. The second steward said "I'll wash dishes" So he stood all day in the pantry, digging away at an endless job; for of course there weren't dishes enough to go around three whacks. The cook joined my cook and steward in the galley forward; among them they kept us fed. Made up a barrel of flour into bread every day, for one item. By chance, I overheard the steamer's first officer say one evening after supper, that her fare at its best hadn't equalled ours.

They were frank in admiration of the ship; of her equipment, her sailing qualities, her cleverness, dryness, and general seaworthiness; I could see that they were a little envious, too, of the way we handled her. We had a crew of Liverpool toughs, hard men, but experienced sailors, bred to American ships and their ways. They had caught the spirit of the game, filled the steamer's crew full of tall yarns in the dog-watch, and performed feats of seamanship for them on deck whenever the opportunity offered. Once the excitement of that first day was over, old Ridley's superb knowledge of his position emerged again. My second officer was one of your tall, fiery down-east youths, twenty-one years old, smart as a steel trap and able as a whirlwind.

We put the _Pactolus_ through her paces, I can assure you; carried sail till all was blue. Luck sent us strong and favourable winds. In the dead of night I would often see the steamer's officers, dressed and wandering around the decks, or gathered in a group and holding low conversation; the ship would be scuppers under, the deck at a dangerous angle, masts and yards buckling and groaning, a spread of motionless canvas rising aloft as hard as a board; the whole hull humming like a top, as she raced through the water at a fourteen-knot clip. It made them nervous; they wanted to give me their advice, but being young and proud, they wouldn't do it. I suppose they called me a reckless Yankee. But I knew my ship and trusted in my gear, knew exactly what I could do with them; and didn't carry away so much as a rope-yarn throughout the passage.

Only once did I have to call on our visitors for help. Closing in with Nantucket, we had run full-tilt into another southerly wind. It wasn't more than half a gale, and I had kept her running under a heavy press of canvas. After twelve hours had gone by, I knew that soon the wind would jump into the westward in a flurry, as all southeasters do in the end. Feeling secure, with extra men to draw on in case I got caught aback, I held my sail and course till the last gun was fired. We were running with the wind on the port beam, under three whole topsails, whole mainsail and foresail, spanker, mizzen, main and foretopmast staysails, and inner jib.

And before I knew it, I had really got caught. The wind jumped without warning, jumped quick and hard; one minute it was our old half-gale from the southward, the next minute it was a howling westerly squall. Before we could possibly pay off to the northward, the ship was flat aback. Then it was "All hands on deck to shorten sail!" with a vengeance, the vessel lying down to port, the masts cracking, the shrouds slackening with an ominous sag, and things in general looking badly for a while. The officers of the steamer ran on deck feather white, feeling the ship go over to windward; her first mate ranged up close beside me, and kept glancing backward and forward from my face to the masts, as if he expected them to go over the side any minute and wanted to watch me when they fell.

As soon as I'd seen that we were caught aback, I had let the three upper topsails come down with a run. My crew were aloft now on fore, main and mizzen, furling these sails, which I couldn't afford to lose. Neither could I afford to lose the mainsail or break the main yard; but at that moment there were no men to spare from the topsails, where the second mate was working like a demon; while old Ridley had all that he could do on deck, letting go gear and attending to the three topsail yards. With every fresh puff of westerly wind, I saw the main yard bending like a bow; it was a big spar, over ninety feet long. The mainsail was a new piece of canvas, and probably would hold; but the tack or the weather brace might carry away under the unequal strain, and then the yard was gone.

"You can blow your whistle, sir" I said to the young officer who had been watching me so closely--they all carried whistles in their pockets, to call their men with. "Take charge of that mainsail, if you please, and get it off her as quickly as you can"

He needed no second invitation; was off in a flash, blowing a loud toot as he ran forward. I heard the call answered by another whistle in the waist; that little Cockney boatswain had been getting anxious, too. Out came the steamer's crew with a rush from their side of the forward house, where they'd fallen into the habit of loafing regardless of what went on outside. Clew-garnets and buntlines were manned with seamanlike precision, the tack was started, the sheet was eased away, and in a remarkably short time they had smothered the big sail and hauled it up to the yard.

But they didn't intend to leave the job half finished. "Aloft, boys, and out on the yard!" cried the mate. A moment later he sprang up the ratlines himself, to superintend the job; the little Cockney took the weather yardarm, piping a song as he perched above the water; they furled the sail smartly, reaching the deck along with our own men from the topsail yard.

Captain Potter, who had come on deck in the interval, was watching his men with manifest pride. I was glad that it happened so, and took especial pains to compliment the chief officer before all hands. He blushed like a school girl, now that the emergency was over. The little Cockney, however, couldn't resist a stroke of impudence.

"We thanks ye, Captain" he sang out loudly "That's the w'y we does it aboard of a bloomin' lime-juicer"

The sally brought a roar from the whole main-deck, in which I'd have been a stick if I hadn't joined.

"What do you do with such saucy rascals?" I called to Captain Potter "Shall I keel-haul him, or serve him an extra pint of grog?"

"Myke it a pint o' grog all around, Ol' Bo-ri-i" giggled the boatswain, dodging around the mast.

"I would if I could, my men" I laughed "But as you know, we have no grog or lime-juice in a Yankee ship. Beef and biscuit, work and wages, is what we sail on. You need no grog, if that's a sample of the way you feel" And I pointed aloft to the neatly furled mainsail.

With stern way on, we had by this time hauled out to port, braced the yards sharp up, and caught the wind in the foresail and three lower topsails. Our visitors perhaps had saved us from a serious accident; at any rate, they'd demonstrated their ability. It gave them something to brag about on their own account; while the effect on my crew was only to intensify the spirit of rivalry. In fact, the incident brought a great improvement to the tone of the ship; for I had noticed during the last couple of days a growing animosity between the steamer's forecastle and ours, due to the forced inactivity of the former.

On the following day the westerly breeze blew itself out; in the early afternoon a steamer overtook us, bound in for New York, passing about four miles to windward. We were then off to the southward of Nantucket, having come about on the starboard tack during the night. I set a string of signals "Come closer. Have important news to communicate" The steamer made them out, changed her course, and ran down within hailing distance. She was a German vessel, one of the first oil-tankers to cross the Atlantic, they told me in New York; her name was the _Energie_. Her captain couldn't speak English fluently; but he had picked up a New York pilot somewhere on the Banks, a man who'd been carried to sea by another vessel in a storm. He was the fellow who talked to me from the bridge, although I didn't know it at the time.

"Steamer ahoy!" I hailed; "The British steamer _Santiago_ has burned at sea. I have on board her entire ship's company, and am taking them to New York. No one was lost, either passengers or crew. Please report us all well"

They held a consultation over this news on the bridge of the _Energie_. Soon I was hailed in a familiar South Street twang.

"Captain, don't you want to be relieved of your guests? You must be short of provisions"

I heard Captain Potter chuckle behind me.

"There's your chance to get to New York ahead of us" said I, turning to him. It was a smooth day on the water, with little prospect of wind.

"Do you want to be rid of us, Captain?" he asked.

"No, sir" said I emphatically.

"Then we'll stay aboard, if you don't mind, and reach New York when you do"

I hailed the steamer again. "We need no assistance, thank you. Please report us all well, and inform the steamship company"

The _Energie_ went on about her business, and soon passed out of sight ahead. Late in the afternoon a fresh breeze sprang up unexpectedly from a little to the eastward of north; a breeze that was destined to carry us all the way to harbour. We braced the yards around to starboard, set every rag of sail, and laid a course for Sandy Hook with the wind a couple of points free on the starboard quarter.

Throughout the next day we were running along the southern shore of Long Island, in smooth water, the breeze still fresh and steady, every stitch of canvas drawing, and the ship at her best point for sailing, logging some fifteen knots an hour. The days of the extreme clipper ship had long since gone by, at the time I'm telling of; but many a moderate clipper of the later years, with fuller cargo carrying capacity, but retaining many of the fine lines of the greyhound of the seas, and embodying all the best of their experience, could reel off a day's run that might astonish the nautical historian. I'll never forget that wonderful reach in the _Pactolus_ under the lee of the Long Island shore. She was a trim and lofty vessel, lean and graceful on the water; a cloud of canvas aloft, she heeled at a constant angle, as if moving through a picture, while the long curl of a wave rolled out steadily from her lee quarter, as she swept like a bird over the smooth sea.

At three in the afternoon, a steamer was reported dead ahead, some ten or a dozen miles away. Within half an hour, it was apparent that we were crawling up on her; and in an hour's time, we could estimate that we had overhauled her by something like five miles. I had a strong suspicion that she was our old friend, the _Energie_, but said nothing about it just then. Every one aboard was excited over the race, the _Santiago's_ company no less so than my own. In fact, the young British officers could hardly contain themselves, wouldn't for anything have seen us fail to overtake her, kept running to me and suggesting this and that, or asking if the wind would hold.

Another hour of this terrific sailing brought us near enough to read her name. And she was the _Energie_, sure enough. I thought that handsome young first officer of the _Santiago_ was going to fling his arms around me, when I took my eye from the long glass and told them the news.

"Hurrah for the _Pactolus_!" he shouted, running forward and waving both his hands "By Gad, they won't have the chance to report us this time! We'll do our own reporting"

"She must be foul--although these freighters don't pretend to any speed" observed Captain Potter, a little concerned, I thought, for the reputation of steam.

"She's making about ten knots" said I "And we are logging fifteen steady, and sixteen by spurts, when the breeze puffs a little"

"You don't tell me!" he exclaimed, glancing over the side. Then he looked up at the clumsy old steamer, ploughing along a quarter of a mile to leeward. "By Jove, Captain, we're passing her as if she were standing still!"

Indeed, we were; the spectacle, from a romantic point of view, was an inspiring one, although it must have been a jealous sight for the German captain. But now we were drawing in toward the approaches to New York harbour; our race had been with daylight as well as with steam. For I'd promised myself that, by hook or crook, we would arrive that night. I scanned the horizon anxiously for a pilot boat--in those days the New York pilot boats were small but exceptionally sea-worthy two-masted schooners; and at seven o'clock in the evening, with half an hour of daylight still remaining, caught sight of one standing toward us on the weather bow. We came together rapidly. By this time we had left the _Energie_ a couple of miles astern.

When the pilot boat was within a mile of us, I called Mr. Ridley and the mate of the _Santiago_, and had a private conference with them; gave them instructions to place all hands in position for certain manoeuvres, but to keep the men out of sight behind the bulwarks. Stepping to the after companionway, I sang out below "Captain Potter, ask the ladies to come on deck and see us take the pilot on board" They hurried up in a flutter of excitement, the captain in their wake. A glance along the maindeck told him that something unusual was about to happen, but he kept his own counsel. It's hard to educate a taciturn Britisher to new ways, but the constant surprise of the experience through which Captain Potter was passing had begun to make an impression.

The pilot boat was now running down to us on the opposite tack, about four points on our weather bow. She expected us, of course, to heave-to and wait for her. We kept on, however, at a racing clip, making not the slightest movement to check our terrific progress. To add zest to the game, the wind puffed substantially at that moment, sending us through the water with a rush really magnificent.

I could see that, on board the pilot boat, they didn't know what to make of it. As we drew up on them, changing the angle of their bearing, they shifted their course little by little, letting their craft fall off before the wind and following us with her nose. In another moment she stood directly abeam of us, less than three hundred yards away. With a gesture of dismissal, as it were, they hauled the schooner up again on the port tack, prepared to stand away to sea and leave us to our own devices.

At that instant, I waved my hand, and gave a sharp order to the helmsman. The men jumped from their concealment under the bulwarks; up went the courses like a piece of magic, down went the helm, and ship and main yard swung together, as if both controlled by a single turn of the wheel. The _Pactolus_ came into the wind with a bird-like swoop, felt the main yard aback, checked her pace, and stopped dead in her tracks; there she lay, nodding sweetly to the slight swell, the last rays of the setting sun striking through her sails.

A shout went up from the pilot boat. They fell off immediately, jibbed to the port tack, crossed our stern waving their hands, and dropped their skiff overboard. In a few moments the pilot nosed up under our lee quarter.

"Good Lord, Captain!" he cried, as he came over the rail "What are you running here, a packet ship? I haven't seen a trick like that turned since the days of the Black Ball Line"

"I'm in a hurry to get in" I answered "and I don't want to waste time over it. I have a double crew aboard to help me. This is Captain Potter, pilot, of the British steamship _Santiago_, burned at sea"

Later that evening we took a towboat off the lightship, and clewed up our sails. I thought I'd be extravagant and have a second tug, since I saw another coming toward us; the wind had suddenly shifted into the northwest, dead ahead, and every one was anxious to get in. A hard enough tow it turned out, even with two boats ahead, for the wind soon settled down in earnest for an old-fashioned off-shore gale. I told our passengers to go to bed as usual; that all was safe now, and they would wake up next morning to find the ship at anchor.

At three o'clock in the morning we came to off the Statue of Liberty, and dropped a hook into the bottom. They had passed us through quarantine under extraordinary dispensation, meanwhile sending word of the disaster and its happy outcome up the bay ahead of us. At daylight, the _Santiago's_ company hurried their biggest tugboat alongside, stocked with emergency provision, if you please, for they expected us to be half starved. Captain Potter met the representative of his company at the rail; when they had talked for a while in private, I broke in on them.

"Captain" said I "it would give us the greatest pleasure if you and your ship's company would stay on board and have a last breakfast with us. Permit me to extend the invitation to this gentleman. Tell your tug to wait for you alongside until we're through"

"Thank you, sir--we'll do it" he answered heartily "Mr. Folsom, this is my good friend Captain Clark. He has treated us to a reception aboard the _Pactolus_ unique in the annals of the Atlantic, as you'll be able to see for yourself when you go below. I'll promise you as good a breakfast as you would find ashore"

So the tugboat with her emergency provisions waited, while we enjoyed a hearty breakfast. I finished as soon as possible, however, and said good-bye to my guests; for a tugboat from my owners had come alongside in the meanwhile, and I was in a hurry to get ashore. Reaching the deck with my papers, I found the German tanker _Energie_ churning past us, bound somewhere up the East River. She had already been discovered from our forecastle; all hands lined the bulwarks forward, laughing and jeering, waving their caps at her.

At my appearance on the quarter-deck, a group of three men, led by the Cockney boatswain of the _Santiago_, detached themselves from the others forward and met me at the break of the poop.

"Committee from the crew o' the _Santiago_, sir" announced the boatswain "We has to inform you, sir, that we votes your ship is a beauty, your officers is gentlemen, and yourself is a man we'd like to sail with whenever you're looking for a crew. You've treated us like kings, sir--and we're the boys as knows when we're well treated. We thanks ye, sir, from the bottom of our hearts"

I was taken aback for a minute, not being a ready speechmaker: "Well, boys" said I at last, blinking back a tear of emotion "it's been a pleasure to me to be able to make you comfortable. I can only answer you in the same words, in a way we all understand: if I needed a crew, I'd rather have you in the forecastle than any crowd I ever saw. You have handled yourselves like seamen under trying circumstances. And, well, I'm damned glad that I came along!"

I jumped aboard the tug, then, to forestall any further demonstration. But as I drew away from the ship's side, Captain Potter, with Folsom beside him, mounted the after-house.

"Now, my lads!" he cried "Three cheers for Captain Clark! And give them with a will!"

They gave them.

"Three cheers, now, for the good ship _Pactolus_! And when we're cast adrift again, pray God she picks us up!"

You could hear the cheer all over the upper harbour. The Staten Island ferryboat, on her way from the Battery to St. George, changed her course and passed close beside us, to see what the excitement was.

*UNDER SAIL*

*UNDER SAIL*

*I*

It was at the time of New England's success and prosperity on the sea that young Captain Bradley took the ship _Viking_ on her maiden voyage. In those days the building and sending forth of a ship was a community enterprise. One sharp November morning, the seaport that had seen her keel laid down the previous winter, had watched her rise on the stocks through the long days of summer, and had launched her successfully in the early fall, turned out to bid the _Viking_ good-bye and Godspeed. Her crew was made up of home boys; Captain Bradley himself had been born and reared in the town. He had started out before the mast at the age of fifteen; now, at twenty-four, he had set his foot on the top rung of the nautical ladder. The town was proud of him. It was proud of all its boys; but especially of one who had shown such steadiness and ability as young Frank Bradley, the old man Jabez Bradley's son.

Perhaps Captain Bradley was a little proud of his own achievement. He could look back over a clean, hard record. In his nine years of seafaring he had not spared himself. Obey, work, learn, develop judgment and decision, be able to handle any job or meet any emergency; these principles had ruled his life, the _sine qua non_ of old-fashioned seamanship. The reward had come unexpectedly. Captain Marshall, the leading shipowner of the town, whose fortune and influence lay behind the building of the _Viking_, had offered him the ship that summer as she stood on the stocks.

"I've had my eye on you for a long time, Frank" the old man had told him "I knew your father before you, and you're a chip off the same block. I guess you're just the man for my new ship"

But young Bradley had already received too many hard knocks, had learned too thoroughly how to discipline himself, to be unduly puffed up over success that came in the course of a deserved advancement. His real pride, from that moment, was in his ship. She was the finest square-rigger that had ever been launched in the town, a ship of eighteen hundred tons, crossing three skysail yards. Her lines were those of the moderate or commercial clipper. As he looked up from the quarter-deck at her lofty spars that November morning, while they waited for the tide--at the maze of freshly tarred rigging and new manila running gear, at the brightly varnished yards, at the furled sails that stretched from yardarm to yardarm like caps of snow--a thrill of genuine sentiment coursed through his blood. His ship--and he loved her already. Soon those white sails would be set to the breeze, soon those strong, slender masts would sway against the sky, bearing aloft their press of flattened canvas, soon those new ropes would snap and sing, settling into a taut network from deck to truck and from masthead to masthead, whose every strand would have its use and meaning. Soon the ship would surge beneath him--his to control, to guide, to learn, to play upon, as an organist brings out the tone and volume of his instrument. His trust, too, and his future; at moments like this responsibility weighed with crushing force. The greater the chance, the greater the danger; the greater the success, the greater the failure if things went wrong.

"I won't fail her!" he cried in a rush of emotion "We're going on together, the _Viking_ and I. By God, I'll sail her as long as she stays afloat. She shall be my first and last command"

Suddenly he thought of the face that would be appearing every few minutes, on this morning of his departure, at the southern window of a house in town. He could see the house plainly, a high brick mansion facing the bay. "It will be only a year" he had told her the previous evening "Then I'll be back, dear, and we can be married, and you can go to sea with me. No more of this sailing and staying at home alone; it's a miserable business"

She had looked up at him bravely. "Yes, Frank, I know. But come back safely. Think what might happen in a year!" It was the cry of the sailor-woman. She had learned it from her mother--and from her father, who had been lost at sea with all hands on one voyage when his family had remained at home.