MYSTERIES.
All that day, against head winds and tides, Captain Briggs' schooner
clawed her way around Staten Island. Nightfall found her making her
way up the staked channel in Raritan Bay with a fair breeze, and the
bibulous skipper was in good humor. He even condescended to joke and
laugh with Ned, who stood glumly by the wheel, watching the clumsy
handling of the broad-beamed old craft.
Ned had indulged in much speculation concerning Captain Briggs and his
craft since he had become what he felt was virtually a prisoner on
board her. He was puzzled to make out the vessel's mission. Captain
Briggs waxed more and more mysterious as the contents of the bottle and
the sun together grew lower. From time to time he threw out hints,
which only served the purpose of further mystification.
The Dreadnought Boy began to think that he was on board a smuggler. It
was the only conclusion he could reach, although he was actually miles
beside the mark in his guess.
As it grew dusk, the schooner was brought up opposite a sandy,
desolate-looking stretch of ground on the Jersey shore. It was a
brush-grown point with here and there steep, reddish-colored miniature
cliffs, where landslides had occurred in the sandy earth.
On the summit of the point a tall, white semaphore, like some grotesque
skeleton, spread its arms against the sky. A chill wind blew off shore.
Ned felt that he had reached the last spot in civilization, even though
off in the distance on the Staten Island shore the smoke from the
factory chimneys of Tottenville could be seen like a dark and sooty
pall.
Ned was wondering whether they were going to anchor there, when his
unspoken question was answered by the rattle of the schooner's hawser
as the rusty mud-hook dropped into the yellow, turbid tide.
"Well, of all queer cruises, this is the queerest," mused Ned, as he
leaned against the rail and watched Captain Briggs bringing his craft
to an anchorage.
He could not forbear smiling at the captain's importance as he issued
his orders. A rear admiral on his own quarter-deck could not have been
a bit more pompous or consequential.
At last all was arranged to Captain Briggs' satisfaction, and the
schooner, under bare poles, swung at anchor.
"What's coming now?" wondered Ned, as he saw the captain come sidling
toward him like a red-nosed crab, if such a thing can be imagined.
He was not left long in doubt. The captain eyed him with an oddly
embarrassed air for a few seconds and then he spoke.
"Seeing as how I'm looking to get a bit of money out of you, mate,"
he said at length, with a sidewise squint out of his red-rimmed eyes,
"maybe what I'm agoin' to do ain't just right. But," and here the
captain strengthened his resolution with a draft out of his bottle,
"but," he resumed, wiping his lips with the back of his hand, "what's
got to be has got to be, ain't it?"
"Certainly," said Ned, with a smile at the captain's rather obvious
logic.
"And that bein' the case, it will be, I reckon?" pursued the captain
with the air of one propounding a profound question.
Again Ned agreed. This time he signified his entire understanding of
the captain's views by a nod of his head.
"Well," resumed the skipper, "it's got to be that you've got to go
below, and----"
"Go below?" repeated Ned indignantly. "See here, Captain Briggs, don't
you think you're carrying this thing a little far?"
"I dunno as I am, and if I am, why, then, I dunno as it's any of your
clamjamfried business," retorted the captain. "You wasn't asked to come
on board this here fine vessel, was yer?"
"Certainly not, and as you know I'm more grateful than I can say to you
for saving my life. But when----"
The captain shut Ned off with a wave of his hand.
"Least said, soonest mended," he remarked. "You an' me 'ull have our
talk 'bout that later on. Cap'n Briggs, he gets paid fer his salvage,
be it human or 'totherwise. The p'int is this, you've got to go below."
"But what is your object in confining me in that stuffy cabin?"
objected Ned. "Let me stay on deck and I'll pledge you my word that I
wouldn't have a chance to escape from you,--that is, if you persist in
your insane idea that I have wealthy relatives who will pay handsomely
for my ransom."
"'Tain't ransom, it's a man's rights," objected Captain Briggs; "but as
I said before, tain't no manner o' use wasting of words. Below I want
yer to go, and below you will go."
"If I refuse?"
"Wa'al," insinuated Captain Briggs, with a glance at his crew, who, as
if they had been warned in advance, stood watching the scene, "wa'al,
I op-pine t'wouldn't be just healthy like fer you to refuse. There's
a heap of persuasion in a handspike and plenty of good argument in a
capstan bar."
"What, you would dare to use violence on me? Maybe two can play at that
game."
Ned's eyes flashed; his fists clenched. Yet he knew that he must
control his temper with this pig-headed old mariner.
"I'll use violence, or anything else I please, to hev my orders carried
out," flared out Captain Briggs. "Now then, are you going below
peaceable or do we hev ter make yer?"
"Why are you so anxious to have me out of the way?" asked Ned. "What
sort of nefarious business are you in?"
"Ain't in no 'farious business," bellowed the captain. "I'm an honest
man, I am. But I'm on secret business,--business of the navy, ef you
must know. Business fer the Blue fleet, as they calls it, ef you must
know. Now will you go below?"
"Very well, if I must, I must," muttered Ned, with feigned reluctance,
for at that instant he would not have left Captain Briggs' shabby
little schooner for a king's ransom.
"Business for the Blue fleet." Could it be that Fate, by ways devious
for even that uncertain goddess, had led his feet into the arcanum of
the Blue fleet's secrets?
As Ned descended the cabin stairs into the malodorous little cabin, he
determined to find out before he was many hours older the exact meaning
of Captain Briggs' remark.