JAKE’S STORY.
It was by no means a pleasant task sitting in the small cockpit
surrounded by the darkness as the little craft dashed on over the
foam-capped billows at imminent danger of being run down by a steamer
or sailing-vessel. To display lights would lessen the risk of such a
disaster very materially; but at the same time any signals would serve
to show their pursuers the proper direction.
“We’ve got to take our chances of havin’ some lumberin’ old hooker
stick her nose straight through us,” Jake said in a matter of fact
tone, when Ben spoke of the possible danger; “but I reckon we stand
more sight to sneak along all right this way, than if we hung out a
sign for that blessed doctor to follow.”
Ben remained silent for a time listening to the rushing, shrieking
wind and the sobbing of the waves, until it seemed as if the sound of
a human voice was absolutely necessary. Then he said with an evident
attempt at cheerfulness:
“It ain’t very nice sailing in such a small craft, but it might be
worse.”
“That’s jest where you’re right, lad,” and Jake spoke very
emphatically. “I’ve knocked about in the night on what would make this
boat seem like a big ocean steamer, to compare the two, an’ it was that
as first started me off to sea agin my own will.”
“Tell me about it, Jake. Things won’t be so lonesome, nor the night as
long if you are talkin’.”
“I reckon you’re right, lad. Leastways it’ll show you how snug we’re
fixed alongside of what I was one night.”
Then, as the necessary preparation for story-telling, Jake gave up the
tiller to Ben while he lighted his pipe, and when a coal of fire glowed
bright and cheery in the bowl he resumed his duty as helmsman, as he
began:
“Captain Irwin an’ me were raised by the side of a river, an’ I s’pose
that’s how he took so naturally to the water. In the summer we used to
knock about in any kind of a tub we could borrer, and winters, when the
ice covered it for fifteen or twenty miles, the skatin’ matches us boys
had would make your eyes stick out.
“The night I’m tellin’ about was in the spring, more years ago than I
care to count. The weather held warm for three or four days; but nobody
thought the ice had grown weaker, and a crowd of us boys started just
after sun down to kinder wind up the skatin’ season. The wind had been
blowin’ hard all day; but that didn’t hinder, ’cause by usin’ our coats
as sails we could scoot ’round mighty lively.
“There was about twenty in the crowd; but somehow Tommy Deacon an’
me got separated from the rest, an’ before we knowed much about our
bearin’s the bay was dead ahead with the waves churnin’ up agin the ice
pretty lively.
“I was for turnin’ back, but Tommy allowed that we’d keep on five
minutes longer, an’ fearin’ he might say I was afraid, fool-like, I
agreed.
“‘We’ll take a big circle round, an’ then go back,’ he said, an’ the
words wasn’t more’n out of his mouth before it seemed as if the ice was
lifted right up in the air while we pitched over on our noses.
“When I struck I went straight through into the water with the big
cakes on top, an’ by the time I knew what had happened I was scramblin’
about among the ice tryin’ to get my nose out for a breath of air.
“Somehow, more by good luck than wit, I got hold of a thick piece of
ice, an’ don’t think I didn’t kick mighty lively till I was on top of
it. The sea was runnin’ so high that I couldn’t a’ stood up even if
the cake had been big enough, which it wasn’t, an’ there I staid on my
hands an’ knees doin’ some mighty lively thinkin’ about the folks at
home; but poor Tommy never come into my mind till I heard a yell close
alongside.
“It was him of course, an’ after considerable hard work he crawled up,
while the ice went sailin’ out to sea, an’ our clothes frozen so hard
that they seemed more like boards than cloth. Cold? Well, you can’t
have any idea what the wind felt like. There wasn’t any chance to
move around, so we had to lay an’ take it, seein’ the lights on shore
growin’ dimmer an’ dimmer till they faded out entirely, an’ we was
alone on the ocean with our craft of ice bein’ chewed up mighty fast by
the waves.
“For as much as an hour Tommy kept groanin’ an’ fussin’; but all at
once he stopped, an’ I knew the cruise was pretty nigh ended for him.
I talked, an’ scolded; but he never said a word, only kept rubbin’ his
fingers up an’ down my arm till it made me feel creepy like. Then I
managed to get over on my side so’s I could chafe his face an’ hands,
an’ while I was doin’ it he kinder stiffened out an’ laid like a log. I
tell you, Ben, four weeks on a craft like this wouldn’t be nothin’ to
one minute on that cake of ice with a dead chum alongside.
“It was the horror that kept me alive, I reckon, for it didn’t seem as
if the cold could have any effect just then. After that I don’t know
whether I lost my senses, or if a kind of sleepy feelin’ came over me;
but I didn’t know much of anything till I felt somebody pullin’ an’
haulin’ to tear my clothes off the ice where they had been frozen on.
It was a boat’s crew from a ship which was hove-to about a mile off,
an’ we was well out to sea. They took me aboard, an’ in a couple of
days I was as chipper as ever; but whenever I’m out in the night like
this every little portion of that cruise comes back to my mind.”
“Did they carry you right home?” Ben asked, forgetting in the interest
caused by Jake’s story the possible danger which menaced Gertie.
“Not a bit they didn’t. The ship--she was the Golden Age--had jest left
port for the west coast of Africa, an’ I had to go along whether I
wanted to or not.”
“It must have been two or three years before you saw your mother again.”
“It was more than six when I turned up at home, lad, an’ then she was
dead.”
“Why did you stay away so long?”
“Mostly ’cause I couldn’t help myself, an’ here’s another yarn if you
want to hear it. Take the tiller while I fill my pipe once more, an’
I’ll finish the spinnin’.”
The wind did not sound so desolate, nor the swish of the water so
mournful as Ben sat by the helm thinking of the ex-cook’s story, and
it seemed as if the boat had suddenly increased in size because of
comparison with the cake of ice on which one boy had died and another
drifted all night over tempest-tossed waters.
“This was the way of it,” Jake said, as he resumed his seat at the
helm, and Ben crouched behind the weather rail.
“We had a long run, for the Golden Age was an old tub, and got short
of water--vessels in them days was mostly always short of something.
So we had put in at a little island to fill the casks. I was one of
the boat’s crew, though I was a mite of a shaver, an’ when we lowered
away the captain shoved in a couple of muskets an’ some ammunition. We
hadn’t seen anybody on shore, but in them days there wasn’t as much
known about foreign parts as now.
“I couldn’t do a great deal toward fillin’ the casks, an’ when the
crew found a spring not far from the beach, I loitered out through
the woods, lookin’ at the parrots an’ other gay-colored birds, an’
travelin’ over what seemed to be an old path. It didn’t appear to me
that I was a cable’s length from the boat, when with a sudden crash
everything turned blank, an’ by the time I knew anything more there was
half a dozen natives around me grinnin’ like so many monkeys.
“They must have carried me quite a ways, for we were near a lot of
huts, an’ I was trussed up like a chicken ready for roastin’. A short
bit off was a whole crowd of nigger-lookin’ men an’ wimmen, an’ I says
to myself, ‘your last day has come, my lad.’ But it hadn’t, of course,
or I wouldn’t be here a smokin’ of this ’ere pipe. Pretty soon I saw
the crowd bringing up the muskets, oars and a lot of truck which I
knew belonged to the crew, so there was no question but that the whole
boatload had been killed, which made me think I was saved only to be
made into a stew.
“I had an ugly cut on my head from which the blood flowed in a
decent-sized stream, an’ the pain was so great that I didn’t care very
much what was done providin’ I was put out of my misery; but bless you,
they hadn’t any idea of such a thing. I laid there two days, the old
women shovin’ food enough into my mouth from time to time to keep five
men alive, an’ when the tribe got through celebratin’ the victory, I
was as whole as ever.
“Then I learned why I hadn’t been killed. They wanted me as a slave,
an’ for nigh onto three years I was everybody’s pack-horse. If anything
was to be carried Jake had to do it; if fish were wanted Jake caught
them, an’ between you an’ me, Ben, I did pretty much the whole work for
that lazy lot of niggers until life was a burden.
“How I stood it nobody knows; but I did, an’ grew fat into the bargain.
Then one day while I was fishin’ a whaler put in for water, an’ perhaps
I didn’t take to my heels. Forty thousand niggers couldn’t have stopped
me then, an’ to make a long story short, I got on board. Oh, how good
Christian vittles tasted! Talk about the pleasure of hearin’ people
talk! why that captain’s swearin’ sounded like music for the next week.
“It was hard lines on board the Betsy, however, as I s’pose it is
anywhere in this world, but I was young an’ tough. I stuck by the ship
’cause I was afraid to run away agin, an’ in course of time we landed
at New Bedford, which was the end of my cruise for four weeks. Then I
saw Captain Irwin, all my friends were dead or had moved away, an’ I
shipped with him. Since that day I’ve follered him like a shadder till
we saw that blessed turtle, an’ the rest you know.”
“So goin’ to sea wasn’t your fault?” Ben said after a long pause.
“Indeed it wasn’t, or I might a’ been cured of it years ago; but
what’s done an’ gone can’t be helped now, an’ I’m lookin’ ahead for the
time when we’ll all be settled on shore in the house Captain Jack tells
about.”
Then Jake relapsed into silence, and from that time until sunrise but
little conversation was indulged in by the two who were making such
strenuous efforts to escape from Dr. Harlan.
Once during the night Ben went into the cuddy for food, not because
either he or Jake were hungry, but in order that by eating they might
be more wakeful, and with the first grey light of dawn both were
eagerly scanning the surrounding waters.
Far away to the southward could be seen the chain of keys; but when the
golden rays of the sun dispelled the clouds of vapor not another sail
was in view on that vast, beautiful expanse, and Jake cried joyously:
“So far we’re all right, lad, an’ now it’s our business to get up to
that lawyer’s house in Key West before the quack knows where we are.”