the shouts up street. Hitherto they had been boisterous rallying cries,
now they were unmistakably hearty British cheers, expressing nothing but
approval and admiration. And they came not merely from the throats of
the sailors, but from the now considerable crowd that filled the street.
A few moments afterwards he saw the throng part, and through it Bulger
marching at the head of his mates, singing lustily. They came opposite
to the step on which he sat, and Bulger caught sight of him.
"Blest if it en't our supercargo!" he cried, stopping short.
A shout of laughter broke from the sailors. One of them struck up a
song.
Oho! we says good-bye,
But never pipes our eye,
Tho' we leaves Poll, Sue, and Kitty all behind us;
And if we drops our bones
Down along o' Davy Jones,
Why, they'll come and ax the mermaids for to find us.
"And what took ye, Mister Supercargo, to try a fall with the fourteen
stoner?"
"Oh, I was helping a friend."
"Ay, an' a friend was helpin' him, an' here's a dozen of us a-helpin' of
one supercargo."
"And I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Bulger. But what were you cheering
for?"
"Cheerin'! Why, you wouldn't guess. 'Twas General Clive, matey."
"General Clive!"
"Ay, General Clive, him what chased the mounseers out o' Fort St. George
with a marlin-spike. I didn't know him at fust, comin' up behind
t'other chap; but when I seed that purple coat with the gold lace and
the face of him above it I knowed him. In course there was no more
fight for us then; 'twas hip-hip hurray and up with our hangers. Clive,
he smiled and touched his hat. 'Bulger,' says he, 'you en't much
fatter----'"
"Does he know you, then?"
"Know me! In course he does. Wasn't I bo'sun's mate on board the
Indiaman as took him east twelve year ago or more? That was afore I got
this here button-hook o' mine. Ay, I remember him well, a-trampin' up
an' down deck with his hands in his pockets an' his mouth set tight an'
his chin on his stock, never speakin' to a soul, in the doldrums if ever
a lad was. Why, we all thought there was no more spirit in him than in
the old wooden figure-head--leastways, all but me. 'I may be wrong,'
says I to old Tinsley the bo'sun, 'I may be wrong,' says I, 'but I be
main sure that young sad down-in-the-mouth have got a blazin' fire
somewhere in his innards.' Ay, and time showed it. There was a lot of
cadets aboard as poked fun at the quiet chap an' talked him over,
awinkin' their eyes. From talkin' it got to doin'. One day, goin' to
his bunk, he found it all topsy-versy, hair powder on his pillow, dubbin
in his shavin' cup, salt pork wropt up in his dressin'-gown. Well, I
seed him as he comed on deck, an' his face were a sight to remember,
pale as death, but his eyes a-blazin' like live coals in the galley
fire. Up he steps to the cadet as was ringleader; how he knowed it I
can't tell you, but he was sure of it, same as I always am. 'Sir,' says
he, quiet as a lamb, 'I want a word with you.' 'Dear me!' says the
cadet, 'have Mr. Clive found his voice at last?' 'Yes, sir,' says
Clive, 'behave, an' something else.' Cook happened to be passin' with a
tray; a lady what was squeamish had been havin' her vittles on deck.
Mr. Clive cotched up a basin o' pea soup what was too greasy for madam,
and in a twink he sets it upside down on the cadet's head. Ay, 'twas a
pretty pictur', the greasy yellow stuff runnin' down over his powdered
hair an' lace collar an' fine blue coat. My eye! there was a rare old
shindy, the cadet cursin' and splutterin', the others laughin' fit to
bust 'emselves. The cadet out with his fists, but there, 'twas no
manner o' use. Mr. Clive bowled him over like a ninepin till he lay
along deck all pea-soup an' gore. There was no more baitin' o' Mr.
Clive that voyage. 'Bo'sun,' says I, 'what did I tell you? I may be
wrong, but that young Mr. Bob Clive 'll be a handful for the factors in
Fort St. George.'"
While this narrative had been in progress, Desmond was walking with
Bulger and his mates back towards the river.
"How was it you happened to be hereabouts so early?" asked Desmond. "I
didn't expect to see you till to-morrow."
Bulger winked.
"You wouldn't ax if you wasn't a landlubber, meanin' no offence," he
said. "'Tis last night ashore. We sailormen has had enough o'
_Waterman's Rests_ an' such-like. To tell you the truth, we gave Mr.
Toley the slip, and now we be goin' to have a night at the _Crown an'
Anchor_."
"What about the pressgang?"
"We takes our chance. They won't press me, sartin sure, 'cos o' my
tenter-hook here, and I'll keep my weather-eye open, trust me for that."
Here they parted company. Desmond watched the jolly crew as they turned
into the Minories, and heard their rollicking chorus:
Ho! when the cargo's shipped,
An' the anchor's neatly tripped,
An' the gals are weepin' bucketfuls o' sorrer,
Why, there's the decks to swab,
An' we en't agoin' to sob,
S'pose the sharks do make a meal of us to-morrer.
At the _Goat and Compasses_ Diggle was awaiting him.
"Ha! my friend, you did it as prettily as a man could wish. 'Solitudo
aliquid adjuvat,' as Tully somewhere hath it, not foreseeing my case,
when solitude would have been my undoing. I thank thee."
"Was the fellow attacking you?" asked Desmond.
"That to be sure was his intention. I was in truth in the very article
of peril; I was blown; my breath was near gone, when at the critical
moment up comes a gallant youth--'subvenisti homini jam perdito'--and
with dexterous hand stays the enemy in his course."
"But what was it all about? Do you know the man?"
"Ods my life! 'twas a complete stranger, a man, I should guess, of hasty
passions and tetchy temper. By the merest accident, at a somewhat
crowded part, I unluckily elbowed the man into the kennel, and though I
apologized in the handsomest way he must take offence and seek to cut
off my life, to extinguish me 'in primo aevo,' as Naso would say. But
Atropos was forestalled, my thread of life still falls uncut from
Clotho's shuttle; still, still, my boy, I bear on the torch of life
unextinguished."
Desmond felt that all this fine phrasing, this copious draught from
classical sources, was intended to quench the ardour of his curiosity.
Diggle's explanation was very lame; the fury depicted on the pursuer's
face could scarcely be due to a mere accidental jostling in the street.
And Diggle was certainly not the man to take to his heels on slight
occasion. But after all Diggle's quarrels were his own concern. That
his past life included secrets Desmond had long suspected, but he was
not the first man of birth and education who had fallen into misfortune,
and at all events he had always treated Desmond with kindness. So the
boy put the matter from his thoughts.
The incident, however, left a sting of vexation behind it. In agreeing
to accompany Diggle to the East, Desmond had harboured a vague hope of
falling in with Clive and taking service, in however humble a capacity,
with him. It vexed him sorely to think that Clive, whose memory for
faces, as his recognition of Bulger after twelve years had shown, was
very good, might recognize him, should they meet, as the boy who had
played a part in what was almost a street brawl. Still, it could not be
helped. Desmond comforted himself with the hope that Clive had taken no
particular note of him, and, if they should ever encounter, would
probably meet him as a stranger.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH
*In which several weeks are supposed to elapse; and our hero is
discovered in the Doldrums.*
The _Good Intent_ lay becalmed in the Doldrums. There was not wind
enough to puff out a candle flame. The sails hung limp and idle from
the masts, yet the vessel rolled as in a storm, heaving on a tremendous
swell so violently that it would seem her masts must be shaken out of
her. The air was sweltering, the sky the colour of burnished copper,
out of which the sun beat remorselessly in almost perpendicular beams.
Pitch ran from every seam of the decks, great blisters like bubbles rose
upon the woodwork; the decks were no sooner swabbed than--presto!--it
was as though they had not known the touch of water for an age.
For two weeks she had lain thus. Sometimes the hot day would be
succeeded by a night of terrible storm, thunder crashing around, the
whole vault above lacerated by lightning, and rain pouring, as it were
out of the fissures, in sheets. But in a day all traces of the storm
would disappear, and if, meanwhile, a sudden breath of wind had carried
the vessel a few knots on her southward course, the hopes thus raised
would prove illusory, and once more she would lie on a sea of molten
lead, or, still worse, would be rocked on a long swell that had all the
discomforts of a gale without its compensating excitement.
The tempers of officers and crew had gone from bad to worse. The
officers snapped and snarled at one another, and treated the men with
even more than the customary brutality of the merchant marine of those
days. The crew, lounging about half-naked on the decks, seeking what
shelter they could get from the pitiless sun, with little to do and no
spirit to do anything, quarrelled among themselves, growling at the
unnecessary tasks set them merely to keep them from flying at each
others' throats.
The _Good Intent_ was a fine three-masted vessel of nearly 400 tons,
large for those days, though the new East Indiamen approached 500 tons.
When her keel was laid for the Honourable East India Company some twenty
years earlier, she had been looked on as one of the finest merchant
vessels afloat; but the buffeting of wind and wave in a dozen voyages to
the eastern seas, and the more insidious and equally destructive attacks
of worms and dry-rot, had told upon her timbers. She had been sold off
and purchased by Captain Barker, who was one of the class known as
"interlopers," men who made trading voyages to the East Indies on their
own account, running the risk of their vessels being seized and
themselves penalized for infringing the Company's monopoly. She was now
filled with a miscellaneous cargo: wine in chests, beer and cider in
bottles, hats, worsted stockings, wigs, small shot, lead, iron, knives,
glass, hubble-bubbles, cochineal, sword-blades, toys, coarse cloth,
woollen goods--anything that would find a market among the European
merchants, the native princes, or the trading classes of India. There
was also a large consignment of muskets and ammunition. When Desmond
asked the second mate where they were going, the reply was that if he
asked no questions he would be told no lies.
On this sultry afternoon a group of seamen, clad in nothing but shirt
and breeches, were lolling, lying, crouching on the deck forward,
circled around Bulger. Seated on an upturned tub, he was busily engaged
in baiting a hook. Tired of the "Irish horse" and salt pork that formed
the staple of the sailors' food, he was taking advantage of the calm to
fish for bonitos, a large fish over two feet long, the deadly enemy of
the beautiful flying-fish that every now and then fell panting upon the
deck in their mad flight from marine foes. The bait was made to
resemble the flying-fish itself, the hook being hidden by white
rag-stuffing, with feathers pricked-in to counterfeit spiked fins.
As the big seaman deftly worked with iron hook and right hand, he spun
yarns for the delectation of his mates. They chewed tobacco, listened,
laughed, sneered, as their temper inclined them. Only one of the group
gave him rapt and undivided attention--a slim youth, with hollow
sunburnt cheeks, long bleached hair, and large gleaming eyes. His neck
and arms were bare, and the colour of boiled lobsters; but, unlike the
rest, he had no tattoo-marks pricked into his skin. His breeches were
tatters, his striped shirt was covered with parti-coloured darns.
"Ay, as I was saying," said Bulger, "'twas in these latitudes, on my
last voyage but three. I was in a Bristol ship a-carryin' of slaves
from Guinea to the plantations. Storms!--I never seed such storms
nowhere; and, contrairywise, calms enough to make a Quaker sick. In
course the water was short, an' scurvy come aboard, an' 'twas a hammock
an' a round shot for one or other of us every livin' day. As reg'lar as
the mornin' watch the sharks came for their breakfast; we could see 'em
comin' from all p'ints o' the compass; an' sure as seven bells struck
there they was, ten deep, with jaws wide open, like Parmiter's there
when there's a go of grog to be sarved out. We was all like the livin'
skellington at Bartlemy Fair, and our teeth droppin' out that fast, they
pattered like hailstones on the deck."
"How did you stick 'em in again?" interrupted Parmiter, anxious to get
even with Bulger for the allusion to his gaping jaw. He was a
thick-set, ugly fellow, his face seamed with scars, his mouth twisted,
his ears dragged at the lobes by heavy brass rings.
"With glue made out of albicores we caught, to be sure. Well, as I was
saying, we was so weak there wasn't a man aboard could reach the
maintop, an' the man at the wheel had two men to hold him up. Things
was so, thus, an' in such case, when, about eight bells one arternoon,
the look-out at the mast-head----"
"Thought you couldn't climb? How'd he get there?" said the same
sceptic.
"Give me time, Parmiter, and you'll know all about the hows an' whys,
notwithstanding and sobeits. He'd been there for a week, for why? 'cos
he couldn't get down. We passed him up a quarter-pint o' water and a
biscuit or two every day by a halyard. Well, as I was sayin', all at
once the look-out calls down, 'Land ho!'--leastways he croaked it, 'cos
what with weakness and little water our throats was as dry as last
year's biscuit. 'Where away?' croaks first mate, which I remember his
name was Tonking. And there, sure enough, we seed a small island, which
it might be a quarter-mile long. Now, mind you, we hadn't made a knot
for three weeks. How did that island come there so sudden like? In
course, it must ha' come up from the bottom o' the sea. And as we was
a-lookin' at it we seed it grow, mateys--long spits o' land shootin' out
this side, that side, and t'other side--and the whole concarn begins to
move towards us, comin' on, hand over hand, slow, dead slow, but sure
and steady. Our jaws were just a-droppin' arter our teeth when fust
mate busts out in a laugh; by thunder, I remember that there laugh
to-day! 'twas like--well, I don't know what 'twas like, if not the
scrapin' of a handsaw; an' says he, 'By Neptune, 'tis a darned monstrous
squid!' And, sure enough, that was what it was, a squid as big round as
the Isle o' Wight, with arms that ud reach from Wapping Stairs to Bugsby
Marshes, and just that curly shape. An' what was more, 'twas steerin'
straight for us. Ay, mateys, 'twas a horrible moment!"
The seamen, even Parmiter the scoffer, were listening open-mouthed when
a hoarse voice broke the spell, cutting short Bulger's story and
dispersing the group.
"Here you, Burke you, up aloft and pay the topmast with grease. I'll
have no lazy lubbers aboard my ship, I tell you. I've got no use for
nobody too good for his berth. No Jimmy Duffs for me! Show a leg, or,
by heavens, I'll show you a rope's end and make my mark--mind that, my
lad!"
Captain Barker turned to the man at his side.
"'Twas an ill turn you did me and the ship's company, Mr. Diggle,
bringing this useless lubber aboard."
"It does appear so, captain," said Diggle sorrowfully. "But 'tis his
first voyage, sir: discipline--a little discipline!"
Meanwhile Desmond, without a word, had moved away to obey orders. He
had long since found the uselessness of protest. Diggle had taken him
on board the _Good Intent_ an hour before sailing. He left him to
himself until the vessel was well out in the mouth of the Thames, and
then came with a rueful countenance and explained that, after all his
endeavours, the owners had absolutely refused to accept so youthful a
fellow as supercargo. Desmond felt his cheeks go pale.
"What am I to be, then?" he asked quietly.
"Well, my dear boy, Captain Barker is rather short of apprentices, and
he has no objection to taking you in place of one if you will make
yourself useful. He is a first-rate seaman. You will imbibe a vast
deal of useful knowledge and gain a free passage, and when we reach the
Indies I shall be able, I doubt not, by means of my connexions, to
assist you in the first steps of what, I trust, will prove a successful
career."
"Then who is supercargo?"
"Unluckily that greatness has been thrust upon me. Unluckily, I say; for
the office is not one that befits a former fellow of King's College at
Cambridge. Yet there is an element of good luck in it, too; for, as you
know, my fortunes were at a desperately low ebb, and the emoluments of
this office, while not great, will stand me in good stead when we reach
our destination, and enable me to set you, my dear boy--to borrow from
the vernacular--on your legs."
"You have deceived me, then!"
"Nay, nay, you do bear me hard, young man. To be disappointed is not
the same thing as to be deceived. True, you are not, as I hoped,
supercargo, but the conditions are not otherwise altered. You wished to
go to India--well, Zephyr's jocund breezes, as Catullus hath it, will
waft you thither: we are flying to the bright cities of the East. No
fragile bark is this, carving a dubious course through the main, as
Seneca, I think, puts it. No, 'tis an excellent vessel, with an
excellent captain, who will steer a certain course, who fears not the
African blast nor the grisly Hyades nor the fury of Notus----"
Desmond did not wait the end of Diggle's peroration. It was too late to
repine. The vessel was already rounding the Foreland, and though he was
more than half convinced that he had been decoyed on board on false
pretences, he could not divine any motive on Diggle's part, and hoped
that his voyage would be not much less pleasant than he had anticipated.
But even before the _Good Intent_ made the Channel he was woefully
undeceived. His first interview with the captain opened his eyes.
Captain Barker was a small, thin, sandy man, with a large upper lip that
met the lower in a straight line, a lean nose, and eyes perpetually
bloodshot. His manner was that of a bully of the most brutal kind. He
browbeat his officers, cuffed and kicked his men, in his best days a
martinet, in his worst a madman. The only good point about him was that
he never used the cat, which, as Bulger said, was a mercy.
"Humph!" he said when Desmond was presented to him. "You're him, are
you? Well, let me tell you this, my lad: the ship's boy on board this
'ere ship have got to do what he's bid, and no mistake about it. If he
don't, I'll make him. Now you go for'ard into the galley and scrape the
slush off the cook's pans; quick's the word."
From that day Desmond led a dog's life. He found that as ship's boy he
was at the beck and call of the whole company. The officers, with the
exception of Mr. Toley, the melancholy first mate, took their cue from
the captain; and Mr. Toley, as a matter of policy, never sided with him
openly. The men resented his superior manners and the fact that he was
socially above them. The majority of the seamen were even more
ruffianly than the specimens he had seen at the _Waterman's Rest_--the
scum of Wapping and Rotherhithe. His only real friend on board was
Bulger, who helped him to master the many details of a sailor's work,
and often protected him against the ill-treatment of his mates; and, in
spite of his one arm, Bulger was a power to be reckoned with.
At the best of times the life of a sailor was hard, and Desmond found it
at first almost intolerable. Irregular sleep on an uncomfortable
hammock, wedged in with the other members of the crew, bad food, and
over-exertion told upon his frame. From the moment when all hands were
piped to lash hammocks to the moment when the signal was given for
turning in, it was one long round of thankless drudgery. But he proved
himself to be very quick and nimble. Before long, no one could lash his
hammock with the seven turns in a shorter time than he. After learning
the work on the mainsails and try-sails he was sent to practise the more
acrobatic duties in the tops, and when two months had passed, no one
excelled him in quickness aloft. If his work had been confined to the
ordinary seaman's duties he would have been fairly content, for there is
always a certain pleasure in accomplishment, and the consciousness of
growing skill and power was some compensation for the hardships he had
to undergo. But he had to do dirty work for the cook, clean out the
styes of the captain's pigs, swab the lower deck, sometimes descend on
errands for one or other to the nauseous hold.
Perhaps the badness of the food was the worst evil to a boy accustomed
to plain but good country fare. The burgoo or oatmeal gruel served at
breakfast made him sick; he knew how it had been made in the cook's
dirty pans. The "Irish horse" and salt pork for dinner soon became
distasteful; it was not in the best condition when brought aboard, and
before long it became putrid. The strong cheese for supper was even
more horrible. He lived for the most part on the tough sea-biscuit of
mixed wheat and pea-flour, and on the occasional duffs of flour boiled
with fat, which did duty as pudding. For drink he had nothing but small
beer; the water in the wooden casks was full of green, grassy, slimy
things. But the fresh sea-air seemed to be a food itself; and though
Desmond became lean and hollow-cheeked, his muscles developed and
hardened. Little deserving Captain Barker's ill-tempered abuse, he
became handy in many ways on board, and proved to be the possessor of a
remarkably keen pair of eyes.
When, in obedience to the captain's orders, he was greasing the mast,
his attention was caught by three or four specks on the horizon.
"Sail ho!" he called to the officer of the watch.
"Where away?" was the reply.
"On the larboard quarter, sir; three or four sail, I think."
The officer at once mounted the shrouds and took a long look at the
specks Desmond pointed out, while the crew below crowded to the bulwarks
and eagerly strained their eyes in the same direction.
"What do you make of 'em, Mr. Sunman?" asked the captain.
"Three or four sail, sir, sure enough. They are hull down; there's not
a doubt but they're bringing the wind with 'em."
"Hurray!" shouted the men, overjoyed at the prospect of moving at last.
In a couple of hours the strangers had become distinctly visible, and
the first faint puffs of the approaching breeze caused the sails to flap
lazily against the yards. Then the canvas filled out, and at last,
after a fortnight's delay, the _Good Intent_ began to slip through the
water at three or four knots.
The wind freshened during the night, and next morning the _Good Intent_
was bowling along under single-reefed topsails. The ships sighted the
night before had disappeared, to the evident relief of Captain Barker.
Whether they were Company's vessels or privateers he had no wish to come
to close quarters with them.
After breakfast, when the watch on deck were busy about the rigging or
the guns, or the hundred and one details of a sailor's work, the rest of
the crew had the interval till dinner pretty much to themselves. Some
slept, some reeled out yarns to their messmates, others mended their
clothes. It happened one day that Desmond, sitting in the forecastle
among the men of his mess, was occupied in darning a pair of breeches
for Parmiter. Darning was the one thing he could not do satisfactorily;
and one of the men, quizzically observing his well-meant but really
ludicrous attempts, at last caught up the garment and held it aloft,
calling his mates' attention to it with a shout of laughter.
Parmiter chanced to be coming along at the moment. Hearing the laugh,
and seeing the pitiable object of it, he flew into a rage, sprang at
Desmond, and knocked him down.
"What do you mean, you clumsy young lubber you," he cried, "by treating
my smalls like that? I'll brain you, sure as my name's Parmiter!"