[Illustration: +Ben held the oars while Jake poised the spear for a
cast.+
--[See page 42.]
]
THE CASTAWAYS;
OR,
+On the Florida Reefs+.
+By+ JAMES OTIS,
_Author of_
“Toby Tyler,” “Tim and Tip,” “Mr. Stubbs’ Brother,” “Left Behind,”
“Raising the Pearl,” “Silent Pete,” etc.
ILLUSTRATED.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK:
A. L. BURT, PUBLISHER.
+Copyright 1888, by A. L. Burt.+
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I. 5
ON BOARD THE SEA QUEEN.
CHAPTER II. 14
A CONSULTATION.
CHAPTER III. 24
A QUACK DOCTOR.
CHAPTER IV. 34
AN ILL-TIMED EXCURSION.
CHAPTER V. 46
THE DRIFTING HULK.
CHAPTER VI. 55
ON THE SIMOON.
CHAPTER VII. 64
THE REEF.
CHAPTER VIII. 72
ON THE KEY.
CHAPTER IX. 81
A MIDNIGHT VISITOR.
CHAPTER X. 89
THE ISLAND SPECTER.
CHAPTER XI. 98
CATCHING THE GHOST.
CHAPTER XII. 106
AFTER THE NORTHER.
CHAPTER XIII. 114
A SINGULAR COINCIDENCE.
CHAPTER XIV. 124
AN OLD FRIEND.
CHAPTER XV. 134
THE FATE OF THE SEA QUEEN.
CHAPTER XVI. 144
ADIEU TO CONTENT KEY.
CHAPTER XVII. 153
A HEAD WIND.
CHAPTER XVIII. 162
AT KEY WEST.
CHAPTER XIX. 171
DESPERATE MEASURES.
CHAPTER XX. 180
FUGITIVES.
CHAPTER XXI. 190
AN OPPORTUNE ARRIVAL.
CHAPTER XXII. 199
WAITING AND WATCHING.
CHAPTER XXIII. 208
A STERN CHASE.
CHAPTER XXIV. 217
JAKE’S STORY.
CHAPTER XXV. 224
A PLACE OF SAFETY.
CHAPTER XXVI. 236
AN UNDISPUTED DEPARTURE.
CHAPTER XXVII. 245
SALVAGE.
CHAPTER XXVIII. 252
THE SHORE ANCHORAGE.
THE PAW-PAW HUNT. 260
THE LEATHER HARNESS. 271
THE CASTAWAYS.
CHAPTER I.
ON BOARD THE SEA QUEEN.
The noisy, consequential-looking little tug-boat which came alongside
the big three-masted schooner Sea Queen, as she lay at the dock in
Brooklyn, puffed and panted as if nearly overcome by the fervent rays
of the August sun, while down her dingy smokestack ran tiny streams of
water like perspiration, causing the cook of the vessel to say to the
boy who was leaning over the rail by his side:
“I never see them little boats in hot weather without thinkin’ they
feel the heat jest like we do. It seems as if they breathe harder in
the summer, an’ kinder hate to do very much heavy work.”
“That one don’t act as if she felt very bad about towing us down the
bay, Jake,” the boy said, with a laugh, as he watched the little craft
which danced about on the swell caused by a passing steamer as if
bowing and courtesying to the deeply-laden schooner which required her
aid. “Perhaps she feels badly to think that she has got to come back
here when it is so warm, while we are going out to sea where it will be
cool.”
“Yes, we’ll find a breeze outside most likely that’ll prevent us from
bein’ actually baked,” the cook said thoughtfully, as he gazed at the
sailors lowering fenders, making hawsers fast, and otherwise getting
ready to avail themselves of the services of the tug. “You mustn’t
think, though, that we’re going to have it comfortable very long,
Benny, my boy, for this won’t seem much more’n a nice warm day compared
to the weather in Tampico. Whatever made Captain Irwin agree to the
charter is more’n I can figger out.”
“He said if he hadn’t taken command of this vessel perhaps he wouldn’t
have got a job for two or three months, and you know she was pretty
near loaded before we came aboard.”
“That’s what he said, I’ll admit,” the cook replied as, having assured
himself that the tug had been made fast in a proper manner, he gave his
individual attention to the boy. “But if I don’t want to swaller all he
says there ain’t anything in the shippin’ papers to make me do it, is
there, Ben Clark?”
“Of course you can suit yourself; but I wouldn’t like to believe he’d
tell a lie.”
“Now that’s jest the pint of the whole thing,” and Jake seated himself
on a coil of rope where the shadow of a belaying-pin fell directly
across his nose. “If I was brought up in the same town with Captain
Jack Irwin, if I used to go in swimmin’ with him, traded jack-knives,
had the mumps the same time he had, an’ let him catch my measles, then
I oughter know him better’n you do who hadn’t seen him a year ago.”
[Illustration: +Jake seated himself on a coil of rope and reasoned with
Ben Clark.+]
“That’s a fact.”
“Well this is how it stands. Captain Irwin is way up as a skipper. If
I was a ship-owner, I’d rather have him on board a vessel of mine than
any other four men I ever saw; but he won’t tell the truth when he’s
talkin’ about himself. To hear him you’d think he wasn’t anything
more’n a common, everyday captain; but I know him better, as I’ve got
a right to do, an’ I tell you he could a’ had his pick outer the ships
layin’ in this port if he’d only hung round long enough for folks to
get acquainted with him, an’ then we shouldn’t be bound for Mexico in
the summer.”
Ben looked relieved at thus learning that, according to the cook’s
ideas, deprecation of his own abilities was the only charge brought
against the captain, and he asked, as he gazed over the rail at the tug
which was laying quietly alongside, much as if resting after her severe
exertions:
“Why don’t we start, Jake? The schooner is ready to leave, an’ the
captain went ashore most an hour ago.”
“I ’spose he’s up at the owner’s office. The mate told me we were goin’
to have some passengers, so I must be cookin’ all the time to satisfy
’em. There’s no use in talkin’; I do hate to be aboard a vessel where
there are a lot of swells snoopin’ round askin’ why this thing ain’t
served in this way or that. It may pay the owners, but it’s awful
wearin’ on the cook.”
“But perhaps these passengers ain’t very fussy, an’ you won’t have any
more to do than if they wasn’t on board.”
“Don’t believe yourself, my boy. They’ll be jest like all the rest, an’
after they get over bein’ sick you’ll think they own the schooner an’
all the cargo.”
“Do you suppose there will be many?” Ben asked, a look of alarm
overspreading his face.
“I don’t know, an’ so far as I’m concerned it don’t make very much
difference, for one will be the same trouble as a dozen.”
Jake sighed, broke a splinter from a stick of wood which lay on the
deck, and began chewing it with an expression of deepest sorrow on
his face. Fortunately for Ben’s peace of mind he knew there was not
nearly as much woe in the cook’s heart as one might suppose from
his countenance; it was a peculiarity of his to look sad because of
trifles, and, as Captain Irwin often said, “his greatest pleasure was
found in grief.”
It was not long, however, that either the man or the boy were left
to speculate as to the number of passengers which the Sea Queen was
to carry. In a very few moments after Jake had begun his lunch of
pine wood Captain Irwin came on the pier, and with him was a dark,
stern-looking man whose face was so nearly covered with whiskers that
little more than his eyes and nose could be seen; but these features
were sufficient, so Ben thought, to prove that he would be a very
disagreeable passenger. It was hardly fair for Master Clark to thus
form any opinion as to the gentleman’s character, for he had only
bestowed one brief glance upon the mass of hair, and had then given
his undivided attention to a little girl who was being led--one might
almost say being dragged along--by the stranger.
Even if the child had not been thus forced to walk toward the Sea
Queen, one would have said she was an unwilling passenger, because of
the timid glances which she cast from time to time at the schooner.
She was a pale, fragile-looking little thing, with big, brown eyes,
which Ben fancied were filled with tears, and a profusion of chestnut
hair, that would persist in falling in wavy tress or curl, despite all
attempts at confining it with ribbon or comb.
“There’s one passenger who won’t give you very much trouble, Jake,”
the boy said as he turned to look at the cook, whose grief appeared to
have suddenly departed.
“If them two are the only ones who are comin’ with us, we’ll get along
all right, pervidin’ the man is seasick from the time we cross the bar
till we sight the Mexican coast,” the cook replied in a tone of relief,
and then the new-comers were so near that any further conversation
would have been overheard.
Two trunks and several large boxes were wheeled onto the pier by
porters, who followed a short distance behind the captain and his
passengers, and in less than ten minutes from the time Ben caught the
first glimpse of the girl’s face, the Sea Queen was being escorted down
the bay by the panting, perspiring tug.
Ben Clark was nominally the cabin-boy of the schooner. Captain Irwin
had promised to care for him as he would for a son, giving him such an
education as should fit him for the position of ship-master after he
had served an apprenticeship as seaman. Therefore, he was a privileged
character on board; required to perform all the duties of captain’s
boy, but allowed to spend his leisure time as best pleased him. Yet
very far from being a sailor, and having been on shipboard but once
before, during a voyage from Savannah to New York, Master Clark found
plenty of amusement in all that was taking place. He saw the passengers
go into the cabin at the moment that the orders were given for getting
under way, and then he paid no further attention to the new-comers
until the novelty of sailing down the bay had in a measure passed away.
The machinery of the tug, which he could see from the schooner’s
deck, the maneuvers to thread the way in and out among the craft of
all kinds, with which the harbor appeared to be crowded, and the
rapidly moving panorama spread out before him, all served to enchain
his attention until after Staten Island had been left astern, when he
suddenly became aware that the most attractive of the two passengers
was standing close beside him.
“Do you belong on board this vessel?” she asked as the boy looked
toward her with something very like admiration in his eyes.
Ben hesitated, hardly knowing what reply to make. He had been on the
Sea Queen but a few days, and in that time his duties were so light,
while every one was so kind, that it seemed more as if he was a guest
than one of the crew.
“I s’pose I do,” he stammered, after a pause of such duration that the
girl began to look surprised. “I’m the cabin-boy; but Captain Irwin
says I’ll have to take my chances as a green hand on the next voyage.”
“Will we be a good many days going to Mexico?”
“Well, now, you see I don’t know anything about it,” Ben said as he
rubbed his chin in perplexity. “I never went to sea but once before,
and that was when poor little Jim an’ me got wrecked coming up from
Savannah.”
“Who is Jim?”
“He was my brother, an’ when mother died, after father got lost at sea,
I had to be kinder like a sister to him. Captain Irwin let us go to
New York in a vessel of his, ’cause I thought I could earn more money
there.”
“Where is he now?” the girl asked, laying her soft, white hand on Ben’s
brown fingers, as she saw the big tears rolling down his cheeks.
“The old lady who took care of him when he was sick said God had to
have more angels, so he died. I don’t know what I’d a’ done after
little Jim went away if the captain of this schooner hadn’t wanted me
to come with him, an’ I’m to go wherever he does until I’m old enough
an’ know enough to sail a vessel myself.”
“Is he kind to you?” the girl asked in a whisper, glancing around when
she spoke, much as if afraid that a third person might have heard the
question.
“Kind? Why, he’s as good as if I was a candy image. He did all he could
for Jim, an’ since the poor little chap was buried he bought me these
clothes, gave me a swell jack-knife, an’ two dollars in money. All I
have to do is help Jake an’ keep the cabin clean, an’ that don’t ’mount
to anything. Say, what’s your name?”
“Gertrude Morris.”
“I s’pose that was your father you came aboard with?”
“Indeed it wasn’t,” she replied indignantly and with a glance of
apprehension toward the cabin door. “My own papa died years and years
ago while I was a baby, and this man married my mother before I can
remember. I don’t think he was kind to her, for he went away ever so
long ago and didn’t come back even when she got sick and had to leave
me. Mrs. Martin let me live with her until last week, when he came to
New York and said he was going to take me to Mexico. I cried and cried,
until he shook me awfully, and then made me go with him to a dirty,
stuffy hotel over in Hoboken, where I had to stay till this morning. If
he had let go of my hand just for one little minute when we were coming
here, I’d have run away.”
“Is he ugly to you?” Ben whispered.
“He had a rope stretched across the room and made me try to walk on it.
I didn’t know how to, of course, and every time I fell off he whipped
me with a strap till--it--it----”
She could say no more, for the tears from her eyes seemed to have
gotten into her throat, and with her face pressed close to Ben’s hand
she sobbed and cried until her companion grew alarmed at the vehemence
of her grief. He tried to say something which would console her, but
the words refused to come at his bidding, and before he could do the
least thing to assure her of his sympathy, her step-father came out of
the cabin looking more disagreeable and ill-tempered than before, as he
called sharply:
“Gertrude! Instead of trying to excite the pity of the sailors by a
recital of your imaginary troubles, it would be better to go to your
state-room, for there will be so much motion to the vessel presently
that you will undoubtedly be sick.”
The child ceased crying the instant she heard his voice, and for a
moment Ben thought she was about to disobey this command, which had
been given under the cloak of advice. She brushed the tears from
her eyes quickly and turned as if to make some reply; but standing
irresolutely several seconds, she walked silently into the cabin, her
step-father following, after he had taken a long and deliberate survey
of the boy.
“You ought to have your head thumped; that’s what you are aching for,”
Ben said in a low but angry tone as he shook his fist threateningly
toward the cabin door. “I jest hope you’ll be sick before we cross the
bar, an’ that you can’t so much as lift your finger till the voyage is
ended. Poor little girl! I wonder if Jake an’ me can’t manage to get
her clear of that old heathen? I’ll jest tell him the whole story an’
see what he says.”