drink, flourishing an empty cocoanut shell as he went.
It was well that the natives could not understand Garnett’s remarks, or
there might have been trouble, but, instead of paying any attention
whatever to the white men, they shouted, laughed, and sang in the
highest good humor.
“Gad, Lord love ye, but what heads you’ll have in the morning,” muttered
Gantline, with a grin. “’Tis nearly half Norway tar the devils are
pouring into their skins. However, I suppose it’s best, after all, for
if ’twas the real stuff, like what we gave the missionary, they would
set fire to half the village before morning and probably murder us.”
“By thunder, I’m about tired of the racket as it is,” said Garnett;
“let’s see, if we can’t get a move on them anyhow,” and he poked one of
his pistols down the opening. “Yell together, Gantline.”
“Hooray! Let ’er go slow!” they roared as Garnett fired. “Hooray!” and
he banged away with the other, filling the place with smoke and smashing
the lantern on the table beneath him.
“Load her up, Gantline,” and he passed one of the pistols to the second
mate. There was wild scrambling for the door in the room beneath, but
before the frightened natives could get clear the mates had fired again,
yelling all the time like madmen, while the two sailors hove everything
they could get their hands on down upon the struggling crowd. In a few
moments Sangaan had retreated, but, as he carried the keg of rum along
with him, he doubtless thought it was not worth while to go back again.
The shouting gradually died away in the distance, and only a faint hum
from the direction of Sangaan’s abode told that the celebrating natives
were still in high good humor.
“After all, Gantline,” said Garnett, “now that these barkers are dry and
in good condition, we might decide who’s to be owner of that keg, if we
only had a little more light,” and he began to reload one of the
pistols.
“You’re the most bloody-minded devil I ever sailed with,” growled
Gantline; “but I’ll just go you this time, for there’s light enough for
me to see to bore a hole in that stove-in figure-head of yours. Here,
give me a bullet and powder and take your place over there by that
barrel of rice, and let Jim here give the word.”
“If it’s murder ye’re up to, I’ll be for calling the missionary,” cried
the sailor. “Faith, an’ who iver heard ave fi’tin’ a jewel in sich a
dark hole. As fer me, I won’t witness it,” and he started for the
ladder, closely followed by his shipmate.
“Go, and be hanged,” growled Garnett; “but mark ye, this is a fair fight
and don’t you go trying to make the missionary believe different, for I
never struck a sailor or mate under me that couldn’t have a chance to
strike back. I don’t belong to that kind o’ crowd.”
“Take your place and stop your jaw tackle; if you don’t hurry they’ll be
back with a crowd before we begin,” said Gantline, as the sailors
disappeared down the ladder and started off. “We ought to have stopped
them.”
“Darnation! but it’s dark. Where are you now?” asked Garnett from his
position.
“Ready. Fire!” bawled Gantline, and his pistol lit up the darkness.
Bang went Garnett’s, and then there was a dead silence.
“Garnett,” growled Gantline.
“Blast you! what is it?”
“Did you get a clip?”
“No, you infernal fool; but you came within an inch of my ear, and I
fired before I put the ball in my pistol. You owe me a shot.”
“It’ll be a hard debt to collect, mate, for I’ll be stove endways before
we try that again. Here comes Easyman with the men now.”
As he spoke there was a rush of feet, and the two sailors, followed by
the missionary and a crowd of half-sober natives, burst into the room
below.
“Hello aloft, there!” sung out a sailor.
“What’s the matter?” asked Garnett, quietly, from the opening above.
“Have you done him any harm?” asked the missionary, in a voice that
showed him to be a man of action when necessary.
“No,” answered Gantline; “there’s nothing happened.”
A lantern flashed in the room, and in a moment Father Easyman was upon
the ladder.
In another moment he was in the loft, and the sailors with a crowd of
natives followed.
“Now,” said the missionary, “hand over those pistols, or I will have to
assert my authority, even as the good King David did of old. I know you,
Garnett, a fierce and unholy man, but you have enough sins on your soul
now, so don’t force me to set these men upon you.”
“By thunder!” growled the mate, “it’s to protect ourselves we’ve been
forced to fire, to scare that drunken Sangaan out of the room below.
It’s a pretty mess he’s been making in a decent mission house, coming
here drinking that tar--I mean rum, and waking us out of peaceful
sleep.”
“Fact, he woke us up with his yelling,” said Gantline, “and we fired
down below just to scare the crowd away.”
“But what is this the men say about you two fighting?” asked the
missionary.
“Oh, they were as badly frightened as the niggers. Hey, Jim, ain’t that
so?” said Garnett, and he gave the sailor so fierce a look that the
fellow stammered out, “Faith, an’ it must ’a’ been so; it was so dark we
couldn’t see nothing at all.”
“Well, come with me, anyway,” said the missionary. “It won’t do for
Sangaan to take it into his head to come back here if he gets drunk. He
is easy enough to manage sober, but you remember the Petrel affair.”
“Sangaan be blowed,” grunted Garnett. “I can take care of any crowd o’
niggers that ever saw a mission, but if you insist on our cruising with
a sky-pilot, why, we’re agreeable. Come on, Gantline.”
They followed the good man down the ladder and up the village street to
his house. When they were in the starlight the mates noticed that
several of the natives who had followed the men back carried short
spears, and one or two had long knives in the belts of their grass
cloths. When they saw this they began to realize that perhaps the
missionary was right after all, and it was just as well that they
changed their sleeping quarters for the remainder of the night.
The next morning they patched the stove-in plank on the boat’s bottom,
and after getting all the gear into her, including the keg into which
they had put their treasure the day before, they ran her out into the
surf and started off. Several natives helped them until they were beyond
the first line of breakers, but Garnett was in a bad humor and accepted
this favor on their part in very bad grace.
When the men and Gantline put good way on the craft with their oars, the
mate swore a great oath and rapped the nearest native, holding to the
gunwale, a sharp blow across the head with his boat-hook and bade them
get ashore. This fellow gave a yell which was taken up by the crowd on
the beach, and instantly several rushed into the surf carrying short
spears.
“Give way, bullies,” grunted Garnett, “or the heathen will be aboard of
us.” And the men bent to their oars with a hearty good will.
As it was, several managed to get within throwing distance, and a spear
passed between the mate’s bow-legs and landed in the bottom of the boat.
He instantly picked it up and threw it with such wonderful aim at a
native that it cut a scratch in the fellow’s shoulder. This had the
effect of stopping the most ambitious of the crowd, and they contented
themselves with yelling and brandishing their weapons.
“Steady, bullies,” said Garnett, as they neared the outer line of
combing water; “if we miss it this time there’ll be trouble.”
The old mate balanced himself carefully on his bow-legs and grasped the
steering oar firmly as they neared the place where the sea fell over the
outer barrier.
They went ahead slowly until there came a comparatively smooth spell,
then they went for the open water as hard as they could.
As they reached almost clear, a heavy sea rose before them with its
crest growing sharper and sharper every moment. Garnett, with set jaw
and straining muscles, held her true, and with a “Give way, bullies,”
hissed between his teeth, the boat’s head rose almost perpendicular for
an instant on the side of the moving wall. Then with a smothering roar
it broke under and over her and she fell with a crash into the smooth
sea beyond.
“Drive her!” he roared, as the half-swamped craft lay almost motionless;
and Gantline, bracing his feet, gave three gigantic strokes and his oar
snapped short off at the rowlock.
“Drive her through!” he roared again, as one of the men turned with a
scared look at the sea ahead. “Drive her or I’ll drive this boat-hook
through you!” and he made a motion towards the bottom of the boat. The
two remaining oars bent and strained under the pressure, and in another
instant they rose on a smooth crest and went clear, while the sea fell
but two fathoms astern.
“Lord love ye, Garnett, but that was a close shave,” panted Gantline;
“give us the bailer and let me get some of this water out of her. It’s
astonishing how those seas deceive one, for from here it looks as smooth
on the reef as the top of Easyman’s head. It’s evident that you
calculate to go out of the island trade on the profits of this voyage.
They would have handled us rough enough had we been stove down on the
reef again.”
Garnett muttered something, as he glared astern at the crowd on the
beach, and passed Gantline the bailer from the after-locker.
He then headed the boat for the schooner, which had been working in all
the morning, and now lay hove-to about a mile distant.
In a little while they were on board and Captain Foregaff was handed
the receipts of his trade, which he carried below and deposited in a
strong box; making a note afterwards, in a small book, of the percentage
due his mates. Then he came on deck, and as the boat was dropped astern
he drew away his head-sheets and stood to the eastward.
On going forward he noticed the keg they had brought back with them and
instantly demanded to know its contents.
“It’s a find o’ grease,” said Garnett, as he picked it up and carried it
aft, where he deposited it carefully in the cockpit.
“Find o’ what?” asked Foregaff, as he and Gantline followed hard in his
wake.
“Find o’ whale grease,” said the mate. “It’s the stuff that sells so
high in the States. I found it in the surf, and Gantline here has been
trying to prove half of it his because he was along with me.”
“Well, where, in the name o’ Davy Jones, do I come in on this deal?”
bawled Foregaff. “Ain’t we running this business on shares, I want’er
know?”
“So far as concerns trade, you’re right; but d’ye mean to say that what
I find ain’t my own?” said the mate in a menacing tone.
“Trade be blowed! Gantline and I come in on this, share an’ share alike.
Knock in the head o’ the keg an’ let’s have a look at it.” And the
skipper’s eyes gleamed with anticipation.
Gantline reached an iron belaying-pin and quickly knocked in the top of
the keg and tore off the pieces.
“You see, it’s ill-smellin’ stuff,” grunted Garnett, “and its value is
according to its smell.” He bent over the keg and peered into it. “It’s
pretty hard,” he continued, “when a man’s been through all the danger
and trouble o’ getting a prize to have to divy up with them that ain’t
in the contract----”
“Gord A’mighty! Hard down the wheel there! Spring your luff!” he roared,
as he sprang to his feet. “Pig grease! s’help me, the scoundrel’s robbed
us!”
The men rushed to the sheets as the schooner came up on the wind and
headed for the island again, while Gantline and Foregaff bent over the
open keg.
“’Tis as good lard as ever fried doughnut,” said the skipper, as he
stuck his finger into the mass and then drew it through his lips, while
Gantline glared at it as though it was the ghost of Father Tellman’s
pig.
“Clear away the gun for’ard, and get----”
“Hello, what’s the matter?” asked the skipper, as Garnett was getting
ready for action.
“Why, we can’t get ashore there again. They well-nigh murdered us as it
was,” said the mate.
“Well, what good can we do with that gun, then? It won’t throw a ball
across the surf, let alone to the village. You must have been up to some
deviltry ashore.” And the skipper eyed the mates suspiciously.
“Devil be hanged! We were as soft as you please, but they were for
mischief from the time we rolled over in the surf. I guess, perhaps,
you’d better go ashore, though, for old Easyman don’t like me.”
“Not by the holy Pope,” said the skipper, with a grin. “You don’t catch
me on that beach for all the whale grease afloat, or ashore either, for
that matter. If that’s the game, we might as well stand off again.”
“Let’s at least have a try at that sky-pilot’s house,” growled Garnett.
“Give me a couple of charges and I’ll see what I can do, anyhow.”
“As for that, go ahead; but no good’ll come of it,” muttered the
skipper.
Garnett was on the forecastle in a few minutes with several cartridges
for the old twelve-pounder.
The schooner was rapidly nearing the surf, and Foregaff could see the
natives with great distinctness through his glass.
When she was as near as was safe to navigate, she yawed and Garnett
fired.
The shot struck the crest of a comber, in spite of all he could do to
elevate the gun, and ricochetted on to the sand, where a native picked
it up and danced a peculiarly aggressive dance while he held it aloft in
his hand.
The flag on the mission dipped gracefully three times while Garnett
loaded for a second shot.
“If I only had a shell I’d make those niggers see something,” he
muttered, as he rammed home the charge.
“Fire!” And the gun banged again.
The flag dipped again in the breeze, and several natives, joining hands,
danced wildly to and fro.
“Keep her off!” bawled the skipper, with a broad smile on his face.
“Done by a nigger chief,” he muttered to himself. “I want’er know, I
want’er know.”
_THE LE MAIRE LIGHT_
It had been calm all day, and the dull light of the overcast sky made
the sea have that peculiar black tint seen in this latitude. It rolled
silently with the swell, like a heaving world of oily ink, and, although
we were almost midway between the Falklands and the Straits of Magellan,
Captain Green determined to try a deep-sea sounding. This proved barren
of result with a hundred-fathom line on end.
The silent calm continued, and the weird, lonesome cry of a penguin
greeted our ears for the first time on the voyage.
Late in the afternoon a light breeze sprang up from the westward. As the
ship gathered headway, a school of Antarctic porpoises came plunging and
jumping after her. The toggle-iron was brought out, and the carpenter
tried his luck at harpooning one on the jump. After lacerating the backs
of several he gave it up and turned the iron over to Gantline, with the
hope that he might do better.
The old mate took the iron in his right hand and balanced it carefully.
Then he took several short coils of line in his left hand, and, bracing
himself firmly on the backstays just forward of the cathead, waited for
a “throw.” Almost instantly a big fellow came jumping and plunging
towards the vessel, swerving from side to side with lightning-like
rapidity. He passed under the bowsprit end so quickly that Gantline’s
half-raised arm was hardly rigid before it was too late to throw.
Suddenly back he came like a flash across the ship’s cut-water. There
was a sharp “swish,” and the line was trailing taut through the
snatch-block with three men heaving on it as hard as they could. It was
done so quickly that it seemed less than a second from the time the
animal flashed past to when he hung transfixed a few feet above the sea
beneath the bowsprit end.
Chips, who had harpooned many a porpoise in the low latitudes, was
filled with admiration, and instantly lent a hand to get the striped
fellow on deck.
I went aft, for it was my watch on deck, and we expected to sight land
before darkness compelled us to stand off to the eastward. At five
o’clock a man stationed in the mizzen-top sung out that he could see
something on the weather-beam to the westward, and soon by the aid of
the glass we made out the high, grim cliffs of Staten Land looming
indistinctly through the haze on the horizon. The first land sighted for
seventy days.
The ship’s head was again pointed well up to the wind to try and turn
the “last corner” of the world,--Cape Horn.
Captain Zack Green stood looking at the land a long time, and then
remarked,--
“I would have gone through the Straits ten years ago, but I don’t want
to get in there any more.”
“What!” I asked, “would you take a vessel as heavy as we are through the
Straits of Magellan?”
“Straits of thunder!” he replied. “Who said anything about going through
the Straits of Magellan with a deep loaded clipper ship? Man alive!
That’s the way of it. Whenever anybody talks of going through the
Straits, every eternal idiot thinks it the Magellan, when he ought to
know no sailing ship ever goes through Smith’s Channel. Strait of Le
Maire, man, between Staten Land and Tierra del Fuego. It would have
saved us thirty miles westing, and thirty miles may be worth thirty days
when you are to the s’uth’ard.”
I admitted that what he said was true, but as people knew very little of
this part of the world, they usually associated the word “Straits” down
here with the Magellan.
“Well,” said he, “they ought to know better, for nothing but small
sailing craft and steamers could go through there without standing a
good chance of running foul of the rocks. It’s the Le Maire Strait I was
thinking of; but even that is dangerous, for there is no light there any
more, and the current swirls and cuts through like a tide-race. I’ve
been going to the eastward since they had trouble with the light and
can’t get any one to stay and tend it.”
“What’s the matter?” I asked; “is it too lonely?”
“No,” he answered, slowly, “it isn’t that altogether, though I reckon
it’s lonely enough with nothing but the swirling tide on one side and
barren rocks and tussac on the other. I was ashore there once and saw
the fellows who ran the light, before they died, and the head man told
me some queer things. It’s a bad place for the falling sickness, too,
and that’s against it, but the mystery of the light-keepers was enough
to scare a man.
“I knew old Tom Jackson, the skipper of the relief boat, and he asked me
to go over to the light with him. It’s only a day’s run from the
Falklands, and, as I was laid up with a topmast gone, I went.
“We had a whaling steamer to go over in. A vessel about one hundred
tons, with an infernal sort of cannon mounted for’ard which threw a
bomb-harpoon big enough to stave the side of a frigate.
“On the way over Jackson told me how hard it was to get any one to stay
at the light, and how he came across the two men who were now keepers.
“Two men had drifted ashore near the settlement lashed to the thwarts of
a half-sunken whale-boat. They were all but dead and unable to speak.
Finally, after careful nursing, one began to show some life, and he
raved about a lost ship and the Cooper’s Hole.
“You see, over there in the South Orkneys there is a hole through the
cliffs about a hundred feet wide, with the rocks rising straight up
hundreds of feet on both sides. Inside this narrow passage, which is
like an open door, is the great hole, miles around inside, with water
enough for all the vessels afloat to lie in without fouling.
“This fellow raved about driving a ship through the hole during a storm.
He talked of revenge, and would laugh when he raved about the captain of
the ship.
“When these men were well again they told a straight story about the
loss of the ship Indian. As near as they could make out, they had been
fifteen days in that open boat, which they clung to when the vessel
foundered off the Horn. They had nothing saved but the rags they came
ashore in, so they were glad enough to take Jackson’s offer of two
hundred pounds a year to tend the Le Maire light.
“We arrived off the light the next afternoon. There was no place to land
except on the rocks, where the heave of the swell made it dangerous. It
was dead calm this evening, so we got ashore all right. As we climbed
the rocks towards the light the fellows there came out of the small
house to meet us.
“The head keeper walked in front, and he was the queerest-looking
critter that ever wore breeches. His hair was half a fathom long and the
color of rope yarn, and his eye was as green and watery as a
cuttlefish’s. The other fellow was somewhat younger, but he seemed taken
up with the idea that his feet were the only things in nature worth
looking at, so I paid little attention to him.
“The older fellow with long hair grunted something to Jackson and held
out his hand, which the skipper shook heartily.
“‘Well,’ he roared, ‘how’s things on the rocks? Damme if I don’t wish I
was a light-keeper myself, so’s I could sit around and admire the sun
rise and set.’
“‘I wish to blazes you was,’ grunted the long-haired heathen; ‘as for
me, I’m about tired of this here job, and you might as well tell the
governor that if he gives me the whole East Falkland I wouldn’t stay
here through another winter.’
“‘That’s just the way with a man soon as he gets a soft job. Never
satisfied. Now, here’s my friend Green just waiting to step into your
shoes the minute you think two hundred pounds a year is too infernal
much for a gent like you to live on.’
“The old fellow looked hard at me with his fishy eyes, but said nothing.
“‘No,’ went on Jackson, ‘you wouldn’t be satisfied with ten thousand.
What’s the matter, anyhow? Have you seen the bird lately?’
“At this the fellow glanced around quickly and took in every point of
the compass, but he didn’t answer.
“Finally he mumbled, ‘To-night’s the night.’ Then he turned to me and
asked, ‘Be you going to stay ashore to-night?’
“‘No,’ I answered, ‘not if we can get back on board.’
“Then the fellow turned and led the way to the light and Jackson and I
followed after him.
“The light-house was built of heavy timber, brought ashore from a
vessel, and the lantern was one of those small lenses like what you see
in the rivers of the States. It had a small platform around it, guarded
by an iron hand-rail, which, I should judge, was about fifty feet above
the rocks. Outside the lens was the ordinary glass covering, making a
small room about the lantern, and outside of all was a heavy wire
netting to keep birds from driving through the light during a storm.
“There were some repairs needed, and the lampist had to go back on board
the steamer for some tools. He had hardly started before the dull haze
settled over the dark water, and in half an hour you couldn’t see ten
fathoms in any direction.
“‘By thunder! Green, we are in for a night of it, sure,’ said Jackson to
me. ‘There’ll be no chance of that boat coming back while this lasts.’
“‘Let her go,’ I replied; ‘I’d just as soon spend a night in the lantern
as in that infernal hooker soaked in sour oil and jammed full of
bedbugs. I don’t know but what I’d rather like the change.’
“‘Like it or not, here we are, so we might as well take a look around
before dark.’
“We hadn’t gone more than half a mile through the gigantic tussac-grass
when I felt a peculiar sensation at my heart. The next moment I was
lying flat on my back and Jackson was doing all he could to bring me to.
I had the falling sickness, and I realized what the governor meant by
the order that no person should be allowed to travel alone on the
Falklands.
“In a little while I grew better, and with Jackson’s help managed to get
back to the light, faint and weak.
“That old long-haired fellow was there waiting for us, and he expressed
about as much surprise and feeling at my mishap as if I had been an old
penguin come ashore to die. However, after I had a glass of spirits and
eaten some of the truck he had cooked for supper, I felt better. Then
the old fellow went into the lantern and lit up for the night. He then
came back and joined us in the house, where we sat talking.
“‘It’s the first quarter o’ the moon an’ third day,’ said he, coming in
and sitting down at the table and lighting his pipe from the sperm-oil
lamp.
“‘I never made any remarks to the contrary,’ said Jackson.
“‘It’s this night, sure, and the Strait will be crowded before morning;
then he’ll be here.’
“‘Who?’ I asked.
“Old man Jackson laughed. ‘That’s his friend the bird,’ he said, looking
towards me. ‘He has a visitor every now and then, you see, so it isn’t
so blooming lonesome here after all.’
“The keeper looked hard at me with his fishy eyes, and then continued.
“‘He has been here twice before,’ he said.
“‘Well, suppose he has,’ snapped Jackson.
“‘If you can get another man, get him. I don’t want to be here when he
comes again.’