A breeze, fresh and gripping with the taste of brine, swept over the
stern of the ship and filled the canvas which Cushner and Whitehouse
ordered set. The anchor was brought inboard and lashed to the cleats
close by the port cat. The crew, feeling their sea legs, brought out
hose and swabs and started cleaning up the shore litter and dunnage,
working to the old-time chantey: "'Rah for the grog--the jolly, jolly
grog."
Stirling turned the wheel over to the quartermaster after Marr had
indicated a compass point, then rolled across the quarter-deck and stood
by the green starboard light of the ship, which was turned out. He felt
the warm breath of the following wind, gulped the sea air, and squared
his shoulders, casting a shrewd eye at the poop-deck log, which was
outrigged from the starboard rail.
The land of California was a haze over the starboard quarter. It lifted
in places like a cloud bank, and the cleft which marked the Golden Gate
was crossed by the white water of the bar. The Ice Pilot smiled, as the
simplicity of clean living came to him as a flood.
He turned away from the land vision and studied the ship. On what
mission was she headed, he wondered? Upon what seas would they force the
taper jib boom? What trade stuff and spoil would be crammed between the
hatches? He revolved these questions over and over in his mind, and was
in the grip of the unknown. The little dapper skipper, the woman's
voice, the mention of Disko Island, and the seal rookeries, all wove
their spell:
"Though I plow the land with horses,
Yet my heart is ill at ease,
For the wise men come to me now and then
With their sagas of the seas."
He quoted this verse as he pulled out a great silver watch, gathered in
the log line, and timed fifty revolutions.
The _Pole Star_ was striking out into the Pacific on her first leg at
fourteen point three knots an hour.
"Somebody's pullin' the strings," Stirling said as he let the slack out
of the line and replaced the silver watch. "Maybe the Mazeka girls of
Indian Point," he added, striding to the poop rail.
He stared with idle interest at the crew which were still under the able
tutelage of Whitehouse and Cushner. The British whaler had a voice like
a costermonger, and "Blym me, yes" and "Heaven strike me pink" rolled up
the wind and burst like shrapnel upon the poop.
Stirling narrowed his eyes, and indeed the sight of the two mates in sea
boots and the ragged crew swarming along the waist was one to charm the
heart of a sailor. It brought to his mind other voyages, and he recalled
an expedition he had piloted to Point Barrow and the reaches of the
Mackenzie. A younger son, with money to spend, had chartered a whaler
and taken the Northern seas in search of new game. Game he had found in
plenty: walrus, seals--both hair and fur--killer whales, bowheads, polar
bears, and musk ox had fallen to the younger son's rifle or harpoon. The
crew, however, had proved too strong a stench for polite nostrils. They
were picked from the slums of the Barbary Coast.
The _Pole Star's_ foremast hands and the most of the harpooners and boat
steerers would have delighted the eyes of an ethnologist. Stirling
studied them and called their breeds. One was a cockney, like the mate.
Another was a blue-eyed Dane. Three Gay Island natives were mixed with
two Kanakas. Two bore the high cheekbones of Swedes. Four, at least,
were Frisco dock rats who had been gathered in by the boarding-house
runners and promised an advance, little of which they secured.
Stirling searched the faces for the sailor whom he had seen in the
Frisco room, but he was not in evidence. That sailor had impressed
Stirling as far out of the ordinary. It was not only the polished
fingernails and the resolute set to the jaw, but also the certain air
which the seaman had carried that led to the deduction that he had at
one time commanded other men.
Cushner mopped his face with the back of his sleeve and worked aft to
the break of the poop on the starboard side where he glanced up at
Stirling.
"Hello, old man!" he said, out of hearing of the busy crew. "What do you
think of the _Pole Star_ by now?"
"Good ship. Some crew, though."
The second mate mopped his brow for a second time, then squinted at a
gang working down the deck with squeegees. "Eighteen hands before the
mast," he said. "That ain't much for six boats. We'll need them all if
we lower for bowheads."
"Where's the sailor who came out with me?"
"He's below!" This was said expressively, with a heavy wink. "I think
he'll stay below for a watch or two. Somebody--maybe it was
Marr--bounced a belaying pin over his figurehead. It'll heal in time."
"What did you make of the sailor?"
"Maybe a spy. Maybe a good man gone wrong."
"He recognized Marr in the Blubber Room!"
Cushner shook his head. "We'll watch that fellow like a killer whale.
He'll walk straight under me and Whitehouse."
The second mate closed his jaws with a snap and glared forward, then was
off with a rolling lurch to where a slight spot showed on the deck.
Grasping a Gay Islander by the neck, he led him to the omission and
pointed downward. Stirling heard the racking volley of exclamations as
the native fell to work with vigour.
The _Pole Star_ plunged on. She took the long, oily rollers of the North
Pacific and parted them like a sharp knife going through frosting. She
was logging fourteen knots with reserve steam. The fore, main, and
mizzen sails filled and billowed and the foretopmast staysail and jib
held the following wind. Whitehouse, casting an eye aloft, ordered the
top-sails braced then sprang to the weather braces as the crew hauled
manfully under the directions of Cushner.
Marr leaned over the canvas of the poop and rested his elbows on the
light rail, searching the sea ahead with his glasses. He turned to the
wheelsman. "How you heading?" he asked as the last yard was braced.
"Nor'west by north."
"Hold her northwest by north. Hold her steady!"
The ship drove through the day and into a purple twilight, and the land
of California disappeared astern. It left to mark its position a low
line of gray clouds upon which the sun gleamed and paled and died to
darker hues.