"What!" I exclaimed joyfully; "Captain Miles! That jolly old fellow
who came out to Mount Pleasant last year and showed me how to make a
kite?"
"The same," replied dad. "But remember, Tom, he's not much over my age;
and I do not by any means call myself an old man yet! Besides, he and I
are friends of long standing, and you should not speak of him so
disrespectfully."
"Oh, dad, I didn't mean that, and I beg his pardon, I'm sure," I
interposed hastily at this. "What I wished to express was, that I
thought him so nice and pleasant, that I was very glad to have the
chance of seeing him again!"
"My dear boy, I know what you meant," said dad kindly, with his usual
bright smile, the sight of which eased my mind in a minute. "However,
Tom," he added quizzingly, "we must now see about getting out to the old
fellow."
But this was sooner said than done.
There was the ship, it was true, and there were we on the shore looking
at her; but, there between us stretched an expanse of nearly two miles
of blue water, which we certainly could not cross by swimming, although
dad was a pretty good hand at that, and had made me, too, a fair adept
in the art for my years.
How to reach the vessel, therefore, was the question.
Dad tried waving his handkerchief to attract the attention of those on
board; but the crew of the _Josephine_ appeared to be all asleep, for
nobody took any notice of the signal. Foiled in this hope, dad turned
round to me again with a puzzled expression on his face, as if wondering
what he should do next, though of course I could not suggest anything.
Just then Jake, who had been looking at my father very attentively all
this while, as if "taking stock" of his movements, so to speak, suddenly
burst into one of his huge guffaws.
"Yah, yah, massa, golly you no see for suah!" he cried out in an ecstasy
of enjoyment at what he considered a rare joke. "You am look de wrong
way. Look dere, look dere!"
"Look where?" asked dad, not quite making out what particular direction
Jake especially wished to draw his attention to, for the darkey was
whirling one of his arms round him like a windmill to each point of the
compass in turn; and, but that he had the bridles of the horses slung
over his other arm, he would probably have gesticulated as frantically
also with that.
"Dere, dere--t'oder way, massa," repeated Jake, nodding his woolly head
as he laughed and showed his teeth, this time indicating the extreme
left of the bay, to which our backs had been turned; but where, on our
now looking, we noticed a little jetty running out into the sea, with a
boat putting off from it towards the ship.
"Oh!" ejaculated dad; "what a stupid I am, to be sure!"
Dad's exclamation made Jake break out afresh into a loud cachinnation.
"Golly, dis chile can't 'tand dat," he shouted. "Massa um 'tupid, massa
um 'tupid, yah, yah!" and he almost doubled himself in two with
merriment, his hearty laughter being so contagious that both dad and I
could not help joining in. So there were we all chuckling away at a
fine rate at the idea of our not noticing either the jetty or the boat
before. We had been so blindly anxious to reach the _Josephine_ that we
had looked in every direction but the right one for the means of getting
on board her!
After a bit, dad was the first to recover his composure.
"Well, Tom," said he, "the best thing we can do now will be to ride
round the bay to the point where that boat has started out from. I
think I can see another craft of some sort lying alongside the jetty;
and, I daresay, we'll be able to get out to the vessel if we go there."
As he spoke he mounted Dandy again, while I jumped up nimbly on Prince's
back; and, in another moment we were cantering along the sandy beach
towards the point in question, with Jake running behind holding on to
Dandy's tail, and still laughing to himself in high glee.
On approaching the jetty, it looked much bigger than it had appeared to
be in the distance. It was a long wooden pier, indeed, that projected
some hundred yards or so into the sea, and it had a crane at the end for
hoisting and lowering the heavy hogs-heads of sugar. Dozens of these
were ranged along its length awaiting shipment, and a gang of negroes
were busily engaged under a white overseer in stowing some of them into
the launch of the _Josephine_, which was moored right under the crane.
The name of the vessel was painted in white letters on the stern of the
boat, which was turned towards us as we rode up so that we could easily
see it.
On dad's telling the overseer what he wanted, we learnt that Captain
Miles was on board his vessel, and that the launch would be going out to
her as soon as she was loaded; so we had nothing to do now but to wait
until she had taken in as many casks of sugar as she could carry.
To me, this delay was not very tedious; for, as the overseer made the
negroes "hurry up" with their task, I was much amused with the brisk way
in which they trundled the huge hogs-heads along, running them up to the
pier-head, slinging them to the chains of the crane, and then lowering
them down into the launch. There was much creaking of cog-wheels and
cheerful, "Yo-heave-hoing!" from the men in the boat below, as they
stowed them away in the bottom of the craft as easily as if they were
only so many tiny little kegs, the darkeys joining in the sailors'
chorus with much good-humour.
Bye and bye the job was finished, when, room having been reserved for
dad and myself in the stern-sheets, the seaman in charge of the boat
told us to jump in.
Then, some of the negro gang coming on board also to help man the long
oars, which, like sweeps, were ranged double-banked along the sides of
the launch, she was pulled away slowly from the jetty out towards the
_Josephine_ in the offing, Jake, who had been left ashore to mind the
horses, casting longing looks of regret after us. He, too, would have
dearly liked to have gone off to the ship.
It was heavy work, even with the aid of the sweeps, rowing such a
distance under the broiling mid-day sun, for there was no breeze to aid
the boat's progress through the water, and the heavy ground-swell that
was rolling in to the land of course greatly retarded the rowers. Every
moment the launch plunged almost bows under into the hollow of the sea,
then rising again suddenly as the waves passed under her keel, her stern
sinking down level with the surface at the same time and her prow being
high in the air. I thought it somewhat dangerous at first, but dad and
the other men took it so coolly that I was soon reassured and quite
enjoyed the motion.
It seemed ever so much nicer than swinging to me; for the up and down
movement was as regular as clockwork, in rhythmical harmony with the
undulations of the unbroken billows that swept in, one after another, in
measured succession from seaward--pursuing their onward course until
they broke on the curving shore of the bay, inside of us, with a dull
low roar, like that of some caged wild animal kept under restraint and
unable to exert its full strength.
After an hour's hard pulling, the boat got alongside the ship at last,
but the vessel floated so high out of the water that I could not help
wondering how we should ever be able to climb on board; for the square
portholes, which were the only openings in her massive wall-like sides
that I could see, were far above the level of the launch, even when the
swelling surge lifted us up every now and then on the top of a heaving
roller.
Dad, however, quickly solved the difficulty. At once catching hold of a
couple of side lines which hung down from above, he swung himself
dexterously on to a projecting piece of wood, like the bottom rung of a
ladder, fixed to the hull of the vessel, and stepping from this to
another cleat above he went up the side as easily as if he were
ascending an ordinary staircase, soon gaining the deck overhead and
disappearing from my view.
"My eye!" ejaculated the sailor beside me in the boat, surprised at
dad's familiarity with such a nautical procedure. "I am blessed if that
there gentleman ain't an old hand at it."
"You're right, my man," said I proudly, "my father was an officer in the
navy once."
"Guessed so," replied the sailor laconically. "I've been an old man-o'-
war's man myself and thought I knew the cut of his jib!"
I could not imitate dad's example, though, for all that; so, they had to
hoist me in like a cask of sugar, as I was not able to get up the side.
I confess I was mightily pleased to find myself landed, presently, safe
and sound on the poop of the _Josephine_ by the side of dad and Captain
Miles, both of whom seemed much amused at my rather ignominious entry on
board the vessel. Really, I must have looked very funny with my legs
dangling in the air when run up at the end of the derrick!
"Well, youngster, how did you like being strung up at the yard-arm?"
said Captain Miles, who had still a broad grin on his face. "Not many
fellows have been bowsed up in that fashion and cut down so speedily!"
"No," observed dad. "I'm glad, though, that mode of execution to which
you refer is now altogether abolished in the service; but I'm afraid,
captain, Tom does not understand your allusion."
"Oh, yes, I do, dad," said I, fresh from the pages of Mr Midshipman
Easy, and knowing all about the summary system of punishment in vogue in
the old days on board ship. "Captain Miles meant hanging."
"So I did, youngster," replied that worthy cheerily; "but you seem none
the worse for your experience of the operation."
"I didn't like it, however, captain," said I, a little bit put on my
dignity by being laughed at. "The next time I come on board I intend to
mount up the side-ladder the same as dad did."
"That's right, my lad, so you shall," rejoined the jolly old fellow.
"But, come below now both of you and have some luncheon. It has gone
eight bells, and as I feel a trifle peckish, I daresay you're pretty
much the same."
While saying this Captain Miles descended the poop-ladder, and,
beckoning dad and I to follow him, ushered us into the cabin below,
where we found a very appetising meal laid out. It seemed just as if we
had been expected and that preparations had been made for our
entertainment.
Dad passed a remark about this, but the captain laughed it off.
"Oh, it's nothing," he said. "Harry, my steward, thought he would make
a spread, I suppose, because I told him I felt hungry just now. It is
only our ordinary fare, though; for, when we're in harbour like this now
and have the chance of getting fresh grub, we always keep a good table.
At sea, after a spell, we've got to rough it on salt junk frequently."
"Not like what we poor fellows had to put up with in the service,"
observed dad, shrugging his shoulders with a grimace.
"Ah, we in the mercantile marine know how to enjoy ourselves," said
Captain Miles with a satisfactory chuckle. "You naval chaps are
something like what the niggers say of white folks that have come down
in the world out here, and try to keep up appearances without means.
You have `poor greatness, with dry rations,' hey?"
"That's true enough," replied dad; and then we all set to work with our
knives and forks, demolishing, in less than no time, a grilled fowl and
some delicious fried flying-fish, with the accompaniment of roast
buttered yams and fresh plantains.
I don't know when I ever had such a jolly tuck out. The long ride after
my forced quietness at home, and the sea air, combined with my novel
surroundings--I was so overjoyed at being on board a ship, and having a
meal in a real cabin, the very height of my ambition and what I had
often longed for--gave me a tremendous appetite. It was the first
really hearty meal I had eaten since my illness.
"Well, Eastman," said Captain Miles presently to dad, "I suppose you've
come about the youngster. Do you want me to take him home with me this
voyage, eh?"
Of course I pricked up my ears on hearing this question; but dad did not
satisfy my curiosity, although he noticed that I almost jumped up in my
seat and was all attention.
"No," replied he, evading the subject, "I wanted to see you about
shipping some cocoa. I've got a good lot ready, and you may as well
take it as anybody else."
"Oh, I see," rejoined the captain, winking in a confidential way at dad,
as if they had some secret between them. "We can talk over the bills of
lading and so on, while the youngster has a run round to see what a ship
is like, eh?"
"Yes," said dad; and turning to me he added, "You would like to go over
the _Josephine_, would you not, Tom, now you are on board her?"
"Rather!" I replied, delighted at the idea, but still wondering what
the captain had meant about "taking me home."
There was evidently something on the tapis.
"All right, my hearty, so you shall," said Captain Miles. "The
boatswain will take you round and show you the ropes, while your father
and I have a chat about business matters."
He then called Harry the steward, and directed him to give me in charge
of Moggridge the boatswain, with instructions to show me everything that
was to be seen alow and aloft in the vessel; whereupon the two of us
went out of the cabin together, leaving the captain and dad to have an
uninterrupted chat over their cigars.
Moggridge turned out to be the very sailor who had been in charge of the
launch which had brought us off to the ship; so, from the fact of his
knowing that dad had formerly been in the navy, and that I wished to
enter the same glorious service, we were soon on the most confidential
terms, the good-natured fellow going out of his way to make me
thoroughly acquainted with all the details of the _Josephine_. He first
took me down to the hold, where I saw the hogs-heads of sugar being
stowed, the casks being packed as tightly as sardines in a tin box. We
then went through the ship fore and aft between the decks, from the
forecastle to the steward's pantry. After this the boatswain completed
his tour of instruction by showing me how to climb the rigging into the
main-top, telling me the names and uses of all the ropes and spars; so
that, by the time he had ended, my head was in a state of bewildered
confusion, with shrouds and sheets, halliards and stays, stun'-sail
yards and cat-heads, bowsprits, and spanker booms, all so mixed up
together that it would have puzzled me to discriminate between any of
them and say off-hand which was which!
However, the boatswain and I parted very good friends when he took me
back to the cabin on the termination of our inspection of the ship--he
promising to teach me how to make a reef-knot and a running-bowline the
next time I came on board, and I shaking hands with him as a right good
fellow whom I would only be too glad to meet again under any
circumstances.
Dad and I stopped with Captain Miles until late in the afternoon; when,
the glare of the sun having gone off, we were rowed ashore in the
captain's gig. My friend Moggridge took charge of us, and a crew of
hardy sailors made the boat spin ashore at a very different rate of
speed to that which the heavy old launch displayed on our trip out to
the vessel with the sugar hogs-heads.
Jake met us at the jetty with the horses, which he had put up in the
stables of the adjoining plantation during our absence; and as we rode
along the shore of the bay homeward, the sun was just setting, while a
nice cool wind came down from the mountains, making it much nicer than
it had been in the earlier part of the day. Skirting the bay, we could
see the _Josephine_ in the distance gradually being shut in by a halo of
haze, a thick mist generally rising up from the sea at nightfall in the
tropics through the evaporation of the water or the difference of
temperature between it and the atmospheric air.
If our ride out to Grenville Bay had been jolly in the morning, our
journey back was simply splendid.
Almost as soon as the solar orb sank down below the horizon, which it
did just before we turned away from the shore, the masts and spars of
the _Josephine_, and each rope of her rigging, were all lit up by the
sinking rays of light, their last despairing flash before their
extinguishment in the ocean. At the same time, the hull of the vessel
and every projecting point in the coast-line of the bay stood out in
relief against the bright emerald-green tint of the sea. A moment
afterwards, the darkness of night descended suddenly upon us like a vast
curtain let down from heaven.
But it was not dark long.
As we passed our way up the climbing mountain path that led back to
Mount Pleasant, our road--bordered on the one side by the dense
vegetation of the forest, which seemed as black as ink now, and hedged
in on the other by a precipice--was made clear by the light of the
stars. These absolutely came out _en masse_ almost as we looked upwards
at them. I noticed, too, that the sky seemed to be of some gauzy
transparent material like ethereal azure, and did not exhibit that solid
appearance it has in England of a ceiling with gold nails stuck in it
here and there at random; for, the "lesser orbs of night" in the tropics
look as if they were floating in a sea of vapour. They appear a regular
galaxy of beauty and splendour, and so many glorious evidences of the
great Creator's handiwork.
Every now and then, also, the air around us was illuminated with sparks
of green-coloured flame, while the woods seemed on fire from a thousand
little jets that burst out every second from some new direction,
lighting up the sombre gloom beneath the shade of the forest trees.
One could almost imagine that there was a crowd of fairies going before
us, each carrying a torch which he waved about, now above his head, and
then around lower down, finally dashing it to the ground with those of
his comrades, as is the custom at the torchlight processions of the
students in Germany on some festal night. As dad and I trotted along
towards home, the sparks of flame appeared now rising, now falling,
vanishing here, reappearing there, finally converging into a globe, or
"set piece," as at a pyrotechnic display, and then dispersing in
spangles of coruscation like a fizzed-out firework.
This beautiful effect, one of the wonders of a night in the West Indies,
was caused by the fireflies. Of these insects there are two distinct
species, one really a small fly which seems to be perpetually on the
wing, flitting in and out in the air always, and never at rest; while
the other is a species of beetle that is only seen in woody regions,
where it takes up a more stationary position, like the glowworm over
here. This latter has two large eyes at the back of its head, instead
of in front in their more natural place; and these eyes, when the insect
is touched, shoot forth two strong streams of greenish light, something
like that produced by an electric dynamo, while, at the same time, the
entire body of the "firefly," or beetle, becomes as incandescent as a
live coal.
The light which even one of these little creatures will give out is so
great that I have often seen dad, just for the sake of the experiment,
read a bit out of a newspaper on a dark evening with a firefly stuck in
a wine-glass for a candle!
For some time we jogged along silently; but just when we were nearing
Mount Pleasant I could not help asking dad what Captain Miles had meant
by that question he had asked him about taking me for a voyage.
I had been dying to know what the remark referred to ever since I had
overheard it, but waited, thinking that dad would tell me of his own
accord; so now, as he didn't speak, I had to brave the ordeal of the
inquiry.
"He wanted to take you home to England to school, Tom," replied dad
briefly in an absent sort of way, as if his thoughts were amongst the
fireflies.
"Really?" said I hesitatingly--"and--"
"And, I have not quite made up my mind in the matter yet, Tom. Besides
which, there's your mother to be consulted," interposed dad, answering
my second question before I could put it.
"And if mother does not mind, you will let me go, then, in the
_Josephine_ with Captain Miles, eh, dad?" I asked anxiously.
"I didn't say so, did I?" said dad quizzingly.
"But you meant it, dad, you meant it, I know," cried I exultantly.
"Hurrah, I am so glad! I am so glad!"