_In Which the Gullwing Suffers a Ghostly Visitation_
“The words of Agur, the son of Jaketh.... There be three things which
are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an
eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, _the way of a ship
in the midst of the sea_....”
That old fellow whose wise sayings make up the final chapter of the
Book of Proverbs had a deal of experience and knowledge; but navigation
was a mystery to him. And to see a great ship sailing straight away on
her course, in the midst of the sea, without a sign of land anywhere
about, is like to make one think of the wonder of it.
We picked up many a sail after the mirage of our sister ship, during
the next few days; but none of them were the Seamew. The wind increased
and the Gullwing went snoring through green seas, her bow in a smother
of foam and a good deal of loose water inboard on occasion. But that
did not bother the captain. We were speeding up toward the Horn and
little else mattered.
We were getting into a colder latitude, too. Now we were down about to
the line where the Gypsey Girl had steamed in and out of the channels
after seals. But we never saw the land. The Gullwing was keeping well
off shore.
The keen wind blew a fitful gale. We were glad to get into the lee of
the deck-houses when we were on duty. Thanks to Captain Rogers of the
Scarboro, however, my chum and I were well dressed for colder weather;
but we got each a suit of tarpaulins and hip boots from Captain
Bowditch, for we had not owned them. We could safely dress in these
water-shedding garments every watch above, when the weather was not
fair; for the schooner was bound to ship a deal of suds.
In our watch besides old Tom Thornton, was another ancient mariner, and
the only man not an American born aboard the Gullwing--August Stronson.
He was a queer, gentle old man with the marks of dissipation strong
upon his face, although most of his spare time below he sat and read a
well-thumbed Swedish Bible. He was a man in whom Alcohol had taken a
strangle hold on Will. A more than ordinarily good seaman, when ashore
he soon became a derelict along the docks, finally ending in some
mission or bethel where he would be straightened out and a berth found
for him again. He was only safe aboard ship. Eternally sailing about
the Seven Seas was his salvation.
He was aboard the Gullwing, as Thank and I were, merely by chance. And
his reason for wishing to make the port of Baltimore was a curious
one--yet one that gives a sidelight upon the sailor’s character. As a
usual thing, Jack is grateful to anybody who does him a kindness, and
he does not often forget a favor done him. Besides, he prides himself
on “being square.” Yet it seemed to me that old Stronson was carrying
that trait farther than most seamen.
He had been picked up at Honolulu by Cap-Bowditch, after the two
men before mentioned had deserted the Gullwing to go with a native
trader into the South Seas. Stronson had already traveled by one craft
and another from Australia and would have traveled, when he reached
Baltimore, all of ten thousand miles to see just one man. He told me
this story in one watch below and I think it worth repeating.
“Captain Sowle, who iss de superintendent of that mission where dey
iss so goot to sailormans, lend me a dollar five years ago when I was
sick. I ban goin’ to pay dat dollar, me! I ban going to Baltimore to
pay him.”
“But why didn’t you send it to him by mail?” I asked the old fellow.
“Captain Sowle, gif me dat dollar in his own hand, and I haf to give it
back to him mit mine. I could nefer forget his kindness--no. In many
foreign ports I thought of him--how goot he wass. I long carry that
dollar note in my shirt--yes. In Sydney I went to the sailor’s mission
one night and heard an old song das Captain Sowle sung to me and odders
in Baltimore. I had that dollar note I haf saved mit me den. Why! I ban
shipwrecked once and safe only dot dollar and a jumper. Luck foller me
mit das dollar.
“I says to my mate dere in Sydney, ‘Bill,’ I says, ‘I got de old man’s
dollar yet. Meppe he need it for de poys when he sing dot old hymn
to-night over seas.’
“‘Do you feel uneasy like?’ Bill asks me.
“‘No,’ says I, ‘but I seems to hear the old man singing and I’m minding
the old Bethel and the winter night he ban givin’ me de dollar.’
‘Well,’ says Bill, ‘you must bring your cargo to port and get a
discharge. You must show de old man dat you sail straight. That’s my
verdict.’
“So we shook hands undt I go find me a berth to Manila--best I can do
just then. I makes Honolulu on a Pacific Mail; but she drops me there.
Then I finds de Gullwing. She iss de ship for me,” added Stronson,
smiling in his simple way. “She carry me straight for Baltimore, undt I
pay das dollar to Captain Sowle.”
Some of the men made a good deal of fun of Stronson because he was slow
of intellect; but he was an able seaman and even the sharp-spoken Mr.
Barney seemed to bear easy on the old man. He was stiff in his joints
at times, for the sailor’s chief enemy, rheumatism, had got a grip
on Stronson. Thank and I saved him many a job aloft, and in return
he patiently set about teaching us all he knew about splicing and
knotting--which was no small job for either the old man or for us.
It was soon after this that we got the four days’ gale that I, for one,
shall not soon forget. The wind, however, did not increase so suddenly
as before, and Captain Bowditch took warning in time and had the small
sails furled. But when the gale fairly struck us we had enough lower
canvas set in all good conscience. The ship fairly reeled under the
sudden stroke of the blast.
With the wind, too, came the snow. Such a snowstorm I had not seen
for several years, for we had had two or three mild winters in New
England before I had gone to sea. We were forced to reef down the big
sails, though every order from the skipper to this end was punctuated
by groans. The canvas was stiff and the snow froze on it, and we had a
mess. Glad was I that the work was not to be done in the tops.
A smother of snow wrapped the Gullwing about and we plunged on without
an idea as to what was in our path. The lookout forward could not see
to the end of the jib-boom. The sea was lashed to fury and, again
and again, a wave broke over our bows and washed the deck from stem
to stern. To add to the wonder of it, somewhere in the depths of the
universe above us an electrical storm raged; we could hear the sullen
thunder rolling from horizon to horizon. At first I had thought this
was surf on the rocks and believed we were going head-on to death and
destruction; but the officers knew where we were and they assured us
that the chart gave us an open sea.
The decks were a mess of slush and it was dangerous to go about without
hanging to the lifelines that checkrowed the Gullwing from forward
of the fo’castle to the after companionway. Yet how the staunch
craft sailed! She shook the waves off her back like a duck under a
waterspout, and seemed to enjoy the buffeting of the sea like a thing
alive.
While the storm continued we got just such food as we could grab in our
fists. Nothing was safe on the table. The doctor kept the coffee hot
in some magic way; yet there were times when the ship rolled so that
the lids flew off his stove and the fire was dumped on the deck of the
galley.
Sixty hours and more of this sort of weather dragged past. I once said
to Tom Thornton:
“It’s a pity the skipper didn’t try for the Straits, isn’t it?”
“And what would the Gullwing be doing in the Straits, in a blow like
this, my lad?” he demanded. “A big ship like her in that narrow way has
little chance in a storm. The tail of such a gale as this would heave
her on the rocks. There’s not seaway enough there for anything bigger
than a bugeye canoe.”
“But the Scarboro made a fair course through it,” I said.
“That greaser!” snorted the old A. B. “She can loaf along as she
pleases. Sea-anchor, if there’s a bit of a gale. But the Windjammer
has to make time. These days the big sailin’ ships hafter compete with
them dirty steam tramps. We can’t risk bein’ becalmed in any narrow
waterway--no, sir!”
It was on the fourth night, with the wind blowing a hurricane and the
snow as thick about us as a winding-sheet, that our watch had come on
deck at midnight. I was sent as second man with Bob Promise to the
wheel. It took both of us to handle the steering gear when the old
schooner kicked and plunged so.
We were under close-reefed mainsail and jibs and were battling fearful
waves. The sleet-like snow drove across her deck and all but blinded
us. I had to keep wiping the slush off the binnacle, or the lamp would
have been completely smothered and we could not have seen the trembling
needle.
Sometimes the officer on the quarter was hidden from our eyes, but his
voice reached us all right:
“Steady your helm! You lubbers act like your muscles were mush. Keep
off! Can’t you hear that sail shaking? You’ll have us under sternway
yet. Call yourselves sailors? You’re a pair of farmers! What d’ye think
you’re doing? Plowing with a pair of steers? Steady!”
Bob muttered imprecations on Mr. Barney’s head; but I knew better.
“He’s nervous, that’s all,” I said. “He’s always so when the skipper
ain’t on deck.”
“All he thinks of is whether we’re beatin’ the Seamew, or not,” growled
Bob.
“I notice that bothers him,” said I. “But he hasn’t bet a Greening
apple on the race, has he?”
“It’s bigger than that, I reckon. They say it’s something betwixt him
and his brother Alf. They’ve been sore on each other for a year or
more.”
I knew Mr. Alfred Barney was second mate of the Seamew, and I wondered
what the trouble was between the twin brothers.
But just as this moment something happened that gave our minds a slant
in another direction. The snow squall had thinned. We could see pretty
near the length of the deck from where we stood--Bob and I--at the
wheel.
Suddenly my mate uttered a stifled yell and his hands dropped from the
spokes.
“Looker there!” he gasped.
I hung to the wheel, although a kick of the schooner near sent me on my
head.
“Catch hold here, confound you!” I bawled.
“There!” he cried again, pointing with a terror stiffened arm into the
forerigging.
I saw a flash of light--a glow like that of a big incandescent lamp
bulb. It hung for fully thirty seconds to the very tip of one of the
fore-topmast spars. Again, another flashed upon another point of the
rigging. Bob Promise crouched by the wheel; he fairly groveled, while I
could hear cries and groans from many of the hands on deck.
“What’s the matter with you? What is it?” I demanded, still fighting
with the wabbling wheel alone; and I am afraid I kicked him. “Catch
hold here!”
“Corpse lights!” groaned Bob, not even resenting my foot. “We’re all
dead men. We’re doomed.”