[Illustration: CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
Fourth Series
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.
NO. 744. SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 1878. PRICE 1½_d._]
ASHORE IN THE STRAITS OF MALACCA.
The corvette _Lyre_, one of Her Majesty’s vessels, is to be imagined
as lying at anchor off the mouth of the river Langhat, in the Straits
of Malacca, a long heavy ground-swell rolling her lazily from side to
side, as though even the sea found the climate too trying for much
exertion. It is a glorious scene which lies before us: a white beech
curtained with brilliant foliage, above which rises Parcelar Hill, a
cone-shaped mountain, with its steep sides covered with dense jungle;
but on board, the pitiless sun is pouring down his cloudless rays,
making the pitch bubble out of the seams of the deck even through
the double awning which is spread overhead. It is one o’clock in the
afternoon, the dinner hour, and the officers, clad in white tunics and
helmets, are listlessly lounging in long chairs abaft the mizzen-mast;
while on the forecastle, blue-jackets and marines are in little groups
smoking, and some who find even that amusement too hot, are stretched
about the deck sleeping or reading. Suddenly there is a slight stir
among them, and the shrill whistle of a boatswain’s mate is heard,
followed by a hoarse bellow at the hatchway: ‘D’ye hear there? A
seining-party will leave the ship at four bells [two o’clock]. All you
as wish to go give your names to the master-at-arms. Away there, first
cutters and dingey boys! Lower your boats!’
While the crews thus named are preparing their boats for the
expedition, volunteers in plenty are sending in their names; for a
seining, or in other words a fishing-party, which involves a run on
shore and a sort of picnic on the beach, is always popular on board a
man-of-war. At this time too, we had been nearly a month at sea, and
our store of fresh meat in the wardroom having soon been exhausted,
we had been living on the ship’s provisions for a fortnight past;
and H.M.’s salt beef (generally though disrespectfully known as
‘salt horse’), never very popular at any time, had become extremely
distasteful to our palates, though our Chinese cooks had exhausted
their science and our patience in inventing new methods of cooking
the obnoxious article. I may mention here that the _Lyre_ formed part
of a squadron which had assembled in the Straits for the suppression
of piracy, for the inhabitants of the Malay states have an interesting
custom, handed down from remote ages, of making indiscriminate war on
each other. The British government, not taking the view that this was
a wise dispensation of Providence for getting rid of a useless race by
mutual extermination, instead of leaving them to settle their disputes
like the famous Kilkenny cats, resolved to put down this lawless state
of affairs with a strong hand; so some of the powers that be, arranged
a scheme for sweeping the rivers of the piratical craft which infested
them.
The plan was beautifully simple and efficacious in theory: part of the
squadron was to ascend a branch of the Salangore River, and drive all
the boats they should find there round to the Langhat River, where
the remainder, of which the captain of the _Lyre_ had command, was to
catch them. It ought to have been a success; but somehow or other the
ungrateful pirates declined to come out of their hiding-places and be
captured; and after spending a fortnight at anchor without making a
single haul, our only duty being to send a detachment occasionally to
relieve the guard at a stockade we had taken, we began to get tired of
the cruise and the invariable ‘salt horse,’ boiled, fried, or devilled,
that formed the ‘standing part’ of every meal; so that any proposal
to break the monotony of our daily grind, such as this seining-party
promised, was eagerly welcomed both by officers and men.
At two o’clock a heavily laden cutter left the ship, towing the dingey,
with the large seine-net which is supplied to every man of war, coiled
up in it. Some of the older hands have taken a spare shift of clothes,
for a great deal of rough dirty work may be expected, and a wise man
likes to be prepared for emergencies; but the majority have been
content with putting on the oldest suits they can find. As we have no
chart in the boat, we find some difficulty in approaching the shore,
as a long reef runs off it, on which the heavy cutter strikes again and
again as we pull up and down looking for a passage. ‘Jump out there,
half-a-dozen hands, and look for deep water,’ sings out the lieutenant
in command of the party; and directly a number of men are overboard,
glad to cool themselves from the blazing heat; and they wade and
splash about in all directions, till the sudden disappearance of one
man, amidst the laughter of the rest, announces that he has found the
channel rather suddenly; and pulling in his direction, the boat reaches
the shore without difficulty.
Not a promising place for a cast where we are landing—the mouth of a
deep rapid river, with steep banks of mud, behind which is a narrow
belt of sand and bushes and then a dense jungle; but the dingey—a
handy little boat—which has been sent to reconnoitre, returns with
a report of a shelving sandy beach a few hundred yards away, which
will just suit our purpose. So, telling off a few hands with axes
to cut down wood and light a fire—a very necessary precaution when
men are wet through—the remainder, after anchoring the cutter in the
river, march off to the spot where the dingey is paying out the seine
so as to inclose a large space of water. Long ropes are fastened to
each end of the net, one of which is already held on shore, and the
dingey soon brings in the other. Now comes the real hard work, as
the heavy net is slowly and laboriously hauled to land, the two ends
being gradually brought together by the direction of the experienced
fishermen in charge. As the centre part of the net approaches, the
excitement becomes great; and some of the men, regardless of sharks and
alligators, swim behind, splashing water to frighten back the fish who
are endeavouring to leap over the barrier which separates them from
freedom. Then, amidst the cheery notes of a fishing chorus, most of us
wading up to our waists in water, the purse or bulge of the net is run
high and dry on the sand, and we eagerly examine our spoil. A curious
collection they are, and many of them no use for cooking or any other
purpose that we can tell. There are crabs of all sizes and brilliant
colours, with claws out of all proportion to the size of their bodies,
which immediately make their presence felt by severely nipping the
bare legs and feet of the men nearest to them, of course much to the
amusement of the rest of the party.
Another peril to the unwary are the catfish, unpleasant creatures, that
have a playful knack of darting their poisonous spines into the flesh
of any one incautiously touching them, thereby causing excruciating
agony for some little time. Then come some little round fish, that have
a very peculiar habit of swelling themselves out when touched, until
they actually burst as it were with their own importance. I am not
naturalist enough to tell the name of this peculiar fish, but the men
used to call them ‘beadles.’ These and many others are thrown back into
the sea as unfit for food; but even after this wholesale rejection, we
have several buckets of good eatable fish, which are sent off to the
fire, which is now blazing brightly on the strip of sand at the mouth
of the river. A question now arises as to who shall be cook, and one of
the men is promptly chosen by the others, and placed in charge of the
fish. There is a joke about selecting this particular individual. Some
months previously, in the course of a chaffing-match with the wardroom
cook’s mate, he had made a retort so peculiarly cutting that the
enraged knight of the gridiron applied an _argumentum ad hominem_ in
the shape of a saucepan, which laid him on the deck with a broken head;
so whenever there was a question of cooking to be done after this, he
was invariably selected for the office, as the others said he must have
gone deeply into the subject.
We make cast after cast now, and fill all our spare buckets with fish,
getting rather tired ourselves with the exertion of hauling a heavy
net, up to our necks in water, till the night comes on apace, and we
edge off towards the fire, making a final cast in front of it, as the
glare attracts the fish in great numbers. We have become satiated with
sport by this time; so the net is coiled up in the dingey, and all
hands draw round the blazing fire; those that have taken the precaution
to bring dry clothes now donning them; and the others, who have been
less prudent, drying themselves in the grateful heat.
It is a strangely picturesque scene; the flickering blaze of the
fire lighting up the groups of men stretched on the sand in various
attitudes of negligent ease, their bare muscular limbs contrasting
in almost startling whiteness with their bearded faces, bronzed
almost black with exposure to the tropical sun. Some are drinking the
scalding hot tea, which is now passed round in pannikins; while others
are toasting fish, spitted on a stick for want of a more elaborate
apparatus, and served up on a biscuit; a few grains of powder from the
cartridges—which had been brought in case of an attack, supplying the
place of salt, which had of course been forgotten. Our hunger is too
great after our arduous exertions to notice any little defects in the
cooking, and a hearty meal is enjoyed by all. Soon a pleasant odour
of tobacco arises, as a circle is formed round a glorious fire, and a
measure of grog is handed round by a corporal to each man. This latter
luxury is supplied by the officers, who have in turn been indebted to
the men for the tea which they had hospitably pressed on them.
‘Now, my lads, for a song,’ says the officer in command; and after some
little demur as to who shall commence, a man strikes up an old sea-song
describing the wreck of the _Ramilies_, near Plymouth, a number of
verses with a chorus to each:
With close-reefed tops’ls neatly spread,
She sought for to weather the old Rame Head.
A fine effect is produced as the chorus is taken up by thirty deep
voices, many of the men, with a sailor’s natural aptitude for music,
singing the second and bass; and the unusual volume of sound drowns
for a moment the deafening noises of the beasts and insects that are
holding their usual nocturnal concert in the neighbouring jungle.
‘Well done the starboard watch!’ says a man when the song is concluded.
‘Now the port.’ And soon another song begins:
’Twas in Cawsand Bay lying,
With the Blue-Peter flying,
And all hands aboard for the anchor to weigh,
There came a young lady,
As fair as a May-day,
And modestly hailing, this damsel did say—
I forget the exact words that the lady made use of, though the quaint
phraseology much amused me at the time, but I remember that she wanted
her true love, a seaman on board; but the captain declined her request,
although
He said with emotion,
‘What son of the ocean
But would his assistance to Ellen afford.’
In the climax, however, the lady unexpectedly turned the tables in her
favour, for
Out of her pocket she hauls his discharge!
Chorus—
For out of her pocket she hauls his discharge!
Song followed song after this, the crackling of the roaring fire and
the ceaseless din of the jungle forming an obligato accompaniment,
which somehow seemed appropriate to the occasion, till a gun from the
distant ship warned us that our time was up. Hereupon the officer in
charge sent a couple of hands to haul in the cutter, which had been
left at anchor in the river. Easier said than done, however, seeing
that after a prolonged absence they returned, looking somewhat alarmed,
and reported that they could not find the boat anywhere. This caused
rather a commotion among the party, which a whisper of ‘Pirates’ did
not diminish; so a rush was made for the rifles; and thus armed we
marched to the beach; but not a sign of the boat could be found. There
was just a chance that she had broken adrift; so the dingey was quickly
manned and shoved off in search; but almost directly a loud shout
announced that the cutter had been found full of water and apparently
sinking. A number of men swam off to her at once; but the steep banks
prevented our hauling her up; and we had just time, by dint of hard
work, to remove her sails, oars, &c., when she sank, leaving us to our
resources on the sand.
Our position looked unpleasant enough now, thus cast away in a
piratical district; and besides, the gathering clouds to windward,
of inky blackness, foretold to our experienced eyes that one of the
violent squalls of wind and rain called Sumatras, which are of daily
occurrence at this season, would soon be upon us. Seamen, however, are
the handiest of mortals; and in a surprisingly short space of time a
tent was rigged from the boats’ sails and spars, under which we all
huddled from the storm, which was now in full strength. How the rain
did come down! As if the very flood-gates of heaven were open! And how
the furious wind shook our frail tent till we expected every moment to
have it down about our ears. The situation was becoming every moment
the more trying, as with sails soaked through, we were subjected to
the full brunt of the awful drench. In spite of the trenches that we
had dug in the sand with our oars to serve as water-ways, we were soon
lying in a pool of water.
Strange to say, however, this was found rather a relief from the cold
breeze, and many men proceeded to deepen their beds so as to immerse
the whole body in water. Of the two elements the water was found to be
the warmer! All the mosquitoes within hail had of course made their
rendezvous in our tent; and even worse than they, the abominable
sand-flies commenced their assaults with such zeal that nothing was to
be heard but slaps and anathemas, bestowed with great impartiality.
Strange to say, many men actually slept calmly through all the din; but
most of us kept awake, singing and smoking; and so the wretched night
passed away till the last touch was given to our misery by seeing the
fire put out by an unusually heavy squall and rain. To supplement even
the last touch, a cruel stop was put to our smoking, as our matches had
become soaked and useless. Our pipe was literally put out; and as the
last drop of grog had been served out, we had to content ourselves with
singing and yarning till the first faint streaks of dawn appeared and
the rain ceased.
What miserable, bedraggled creatures we were when the morning sun
broke bright and cloudless on the beach, our dripping clothes stained
with mud and sand, and our faces so swollen with bites that it was
with difficulty we could recognise each other! However it did not do
to stand and shiver—that is an absurdity which Jack has never been
guilty of—so one party set to work trying to light a fire with the
help of a cartridge (a futile endeavour, everything being so soaked);
while others endeavoured to launch the cutter, which was lying high
and dry on the mud, a large hole in her bottom explaining the hitherto
unaccountable mystery of her sinking. Our ingenuity was fully taxed in
our attempts to again wed the somewhat unwieldy craft to the water;
but Jack’s resources seem never to fail him, as with many an ingenious
artifice we at length succeed in patching the leak and floating the
cutter.
We were hungry enough by this time to eat anything; but it was no use
piping to breakfast, for we had no food; and even had we caught some
more fish, they were no use without a fire, and all attempts to create
even a spark had been in vain. So we sauntered about the beach or tried
to penetrate the jungle; in the latter case getting well bitten for our
pains by the red ants, till our eyes were gladdened by the sight of two
boats pulling in our direction from the ship. This was lucky, for we
had just decided on risking the passage in the cutter. It was a long
time before the boats could reach us, for they too had a difficulty
in finding the channel; but at last they pulled into the river and
landed with some provisions. Oh, how enjoyable was that glass of rum!
How precious the matches wherewith to rekindle the beloved baccy! Even
the raw pork was pleasant enough to our hungry stomachs. But after
we had lit our pipes, we forgot all our troubles, and expressed our
willingness to remain another night and have some more fun. It was
not to be, however. Our relief brought us orders to return aboard
immediately; and in another hour we found ourselves alongside the ship,
receiving the congratulations and chaff of our shipmates, and after all
none the worse for our seining-party.
HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.
CHAPTER XVII.—AT OLD PLUGGER’S.
London boarding-houses being regulated by no statute law, and as little
liable to the supervision of the police and the interference of the
Right Honourable the Secretary of State for the Home Department as are
other free commercial concerns, are very much harder to classify than
are London hotels, inns, and public-houses. Their very exterior, which
is decorated by no gaudy signs or gold-lettered inscriptions relative
to viands, neat wines or cordials, might cause them to be mistaken for
schools, workshops, or private dwellings. Even when a brass plate on
the door bears the name of Bloss or Grewer or Pawkins—people who keep
boarding-houses do appear, for some inscrutable reason, to parade the
oddest patronymics—nobody not enlightened enough to know who Pawkins,
Bloss, or Grewer may be, would gather much information from the laconic
announcement. In all London there was not, taking one place with
another, a much queerer boarding-house than one which stood on the
Southwark or Surrey side of the Thames, and so nearly opposite to the
Tower that the gaunt turrets of the grim old fortress were always (save
in a fog of peculiar density) visible from its upper windows. This
boarding-house, at the corner of what was called Dampier’s Row, was
very solidly built, chiefly as it would seem, of the massive timbers
of ships dissected in the breakers’ yards close by; and with its
bow-windows and bulging outline, seemed to stand hard by the water’s
edge, like some sturdy collier craft that had accidentally got stranded
and was trying to accustom itself to life ashore. This particular
boarding-house, the green door of which bore no distinguishing mark,
was known in the neighbourhood and far along the river below bridge, as
‘Old Plugger’s.’
Whether there was a Plugger still in existence or not, it may be
surmised that the original and veteran possessor of that name had
enjoyed a widespread connection among mariners, for most of the present
inmates of the house were seafaring persons. Most, but not all. And of
the nautical boarders at Plugger’s none were common seamen. The title
of ‘Captain’ was in as constant requisition within its weather-bleached
porch, overgrown with scarlet-runners, as it could possibly be at a
military club farther west. Two-thirds of the swarthy, restless-eyed
customers claimed to have a right to that honorary prefix, or at
the least to have been ‘officers’ of one branch or another of the
mercantile marine. The remainder, apparently attracted to the spot by
the smell of the tar and paint from the neighbouring wharfs, or by
the sight of the forest of masts that rose up between them and the
Middlesex shore, or by congenial company, had much to say as to gulches
and placers and auriferous river-bars, and gold-dust which, after
months of toil and hunger, had been fooled away in a week’s mad revel;
and colossal fortunes that could infallibly be realised by any one who
had a pitiful thousand pounds at command, and would be guided by sound
advice as to its investment.
It was not a cheap boarding-house, according to the tariff of such
establishments, this one of Old Plugger’s. Rivals and humbler imitators
held it in respect, for it was a thriving concern. Its rooms seldom
stood empty for long, and its frequenters somehow found the wherewithal
to pay their score. It was not a noisy place; by no means comparable
to the riotous dens about Tiger Bay and elsewhere, or to the sailors’
publics at Wapping or Rotherhithe; but now and then there was a din
from within it, a shouting of hoarse voices, a trampling of heavy feet,
a crashing of woodwork or of glass, and then silence. And if just then
a patrol of the police happened to be passing down the main street, and
some one said that the disturbance was at Old Plugger’s, the sergeant
would shake his head as meaningly as Lord Burleigh in the _Critic_. But
nobody seemed to care to inquire too curiously into the nature of the
altercation in what was euphemistically known, among the trades-folk of
the vicinity, as the captains’ boarding-house.
It was, as has been said with reference to contemporary events at
Carbery, sultry August weather, and if it was hot even on the spurs
of breezy Dartmoor, assuredly it was hotter in the east of London.
The strong sun brought out with great effect the combined perfumes of
pitch and paint, of gas refuse and train-oil, of tide-mud and fried
flat-fish, of old tarpaulins, rotten timber, and animal and vegetable
refuse, never so pungent as beside the Thames. Society, gasping for
air of purer quality than that town-made article which during the
season and the parliamentary session it had respired perforce, had left
London. But the captains who patronised Plugger’s bore the loss of
Society with philosophical equanimity, and were content to incur, by
stopping where they were, a reputation for being wholly unfashionable.
A controversy might have been waged with reference to Old Plugger’s as
to which was the back and which the front of that hospitable mansion.
The main-door certainly opened on the street, or rather row, named
in honour of Dampier, and by the position of a main-door that of a
house-front is commonly to be determined. But then Plugger’s turned
all its smiles, all its attractions towards the river. The best rooms
were on that side, with their bow-windows and lumbering balconies; and
there was even a narrow strip of garden, where snails ran riot among
the neglected cabbages and tall sunflowers, and where the half of an
old boat, set on end and festooned with sweet-pea and the inevitable
scarlet-runner, did duty for an arbour, perilously near to the wash and
ripple of the flood-tide.
In the broad wooden balcony that projected from the low first-floor
of Plugger’s and in part overhung this delectable garden, were some
six or seven men in their shirt sleeves mostly, for coolness’ sake,
but otherwise not ill clad. Through the open bow-windows of the
long room of which the balcony was an appendage, glimpses might be
caught of some ten or twelve other customers, very similar in garb
and bearing to those outside. It was early as yet, and breakfast—as
betokened by the empty cups, empty bottles, and confusion of knives
and forks and dirty plates—was already over. Some of the company
were smoking a solemn morning pipe of the yard-long ‘churchwarden’
variety, affected by sea-going persons when on shore; two seated at a
round-table were engaged in a game at cards; and one copper-visaged
and gray-haired captain, with a glass of steaming rum-and-water at
his elbow, sat on the flat top of the wooden balustrade itself, and
alternately swept the waters with the aid of a gleaming brass-bound
telescope, or glanced critically at the cards and the players. In all
this there was nothing to distinguish Plugger’s from many another
long-shore boarding-house, wherein mates and skippers take their
spell of rest, as it were, between the hardships of the last voyage
and those of the next; and those who have seen much of men of this
class are aware how much of sterling worth is apt to underlie the
harmless peculiarities traditional to the calling. But a physiognomist
who should have, himself unseen, accompanied some Asmodeus bent on
taking a bird’s-eye view of the company, could scarcely have failed
to draw his own deductions from the countenances thus beheld. There
were faces there in plenty which would have seemed in keeping with
their surroundings had they been seen above the bulwarks of a long,
black-hulled schooner, rakish as to her masts, and clean and sharp as
to her run and cut-water, beating to windward off the Isle of Pines,
or within sight of the mountain mass of Cuba. There were others,
newly shaven, that would have harmonised well with a shaggy beard and
tattered cabbage-palm hat, surmounting the red shirt and pistol-studded
belt of the Australian bushranger. And again, others which might be
conceived to have been tanned to their mahogany hue by the reflection
of the sun from the tawny surface of some African river, where,
behind the mangrove swamp, might be seen the cane-thatched top of
the barracoon, where the cargo of ‘live ebony’ lay shackled. A very
dangerous set of scamps, unless their looks belied them, were the bulk
of Plugger’s patrons, and the more dangerous perhaps because they were
not reckless—because they knew how to abstain from the overdose of
liquor that sets the brain afloat and loosens the tongue.
‘Let me tell yew, mister, yew’d be riddled, yew would, like any
catamount treed, ef yew played thet sorter game in Georgia, whar I war
raised, yew would,’ suddenly exclaimed one of the card-players, whose
nasal drawl would of itself have revealed his nationality. ‘Thet’s
three times I’ve seen yew try to pass the king.’
‘Don’t cry afore you ’re hurt,’ retorted his adversary, whose air and
tone were those of a sailor, and whose muscular wrists, emerging from
shirt-cuffs linked by heavy sleeve-buttons of silver, were ornamented
by mermaids and anchors and true-lovers’ knots in blue tattooing
of the true salt-water pattern. ‘Guess this child wasn’t born last
week, shipmate! Haven’t I sported the pasteboard at New York with
Dead Rabbits; at New Orleans with Plug-uglies; and in California with
fellows that stuck the points of their bowies in the table afore they
set to a hand at poker! You’re a nice hand to tax a man with cheating,
you, with two court cards up your sleeve now!’
The American, who was spare and lightly built, compared with the
opposite player, scowled as he thrust his bony right hand into an
inner pocket of the loose coat which he alone of all the occupants of
the balcony wore. It may have been for the concealment of the cards
alluded to; it may have been to get a grasp of some hidden weapon. The
latter was the supposition that the most commended itself to the other
gamester.
‘Shew your hand, Sam Barks!’ he said roughly, grasping a Dutch bottle,
probably containing Schiedam, which stood in company with two glasses
on the table, ‘or I’——
‘Belay there, you brace of babies!’ interrupted the copper-visaged
captain, thrusting his flashing telescope and his metallic face betwixt
the disputants. ‘Dog don’t eat dog, my mates! I always was agin play
between friends.—Sam, my lad, you won’t make much out of Captain
Hold.—Dick, my Trojan, you’ll not find the American quite as green as
spinach. Draw your stakes, my heroes, and let’s shake hands and have
a drink all round, for the renewal of friendship!’ And this singular
specimen of a peacemaker flourished his glass, swallowed its contents,
and rattled the teaspoon against its sides until this substitute for a
bell attracted the notice of a watchful attendant, wearing a striped
cotton jacket, such as cabin-boys in hot latitudes affect.
‘Three grogs, steward, and a goodish squeeze of lemon in mine, d’ye
hear?’ called out he of the copper countenance; and the dark-skinned
mulatto lad who was called ‘steward,’ as factotums in _The Traveller’s
Rest_ were called Deputy, nodded his woolly head, and was not long in
bringing the desired refreshment. The kettle must have been kept always
boiling, even on hot August mornings, at Plugger’s, so ready was the
supply of steaming spirits and water.
‘Ah! my boys,’ said the venerable founder of the feast, as he took a
second sip at the potent liquor, ‘here’s a blue blazing day for ye—puts
me in mind, and you too mayhap, of a morning in the doldrums, where
sun is sun, and the very sea seems to simmer like a can of hot broth.
I’d like to smell blue water again, I would. I’d an offer, Monday,
to command a decentish brig, West Ingies and Demerary way; regular
molasses wagon; but old as I am, I’d rather have another bout in the
South Seas. Black-birding for the Fiji and Queensland labour market is
about the best sport a man can have, since they spoiled the fun we used
to have off the West Coast.’
‘Ay, but that game’s pretty near played out too,’ answered Hold
meditatively. ‘Why, you yourself, Captain Grincher, lost your schooner
that the man-o’-war captured off the Solomons, and were tried at Sydney
for what the government fellows called kidnapping. No; give me Chinese
waters, and a handy crew aboard a bit of a fast-sailing lorcha to’——
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen!’ broke in the American, now in a good temper;
‘allow me to say it air a pity to see men of your talents a-huddling of
’em into corners wheer they’ll fail of their just reward. Now, listen,
ef I could but get together a few spirited citizens and, mind ye, the
handful of coin necessary for preliminary expenses, this child could
point the place where lies, in fourteen fathom water, the treasure-ship
_Happy Land_ that left San Francisco, bound for New York, in the fall
of ’49, and never was heard of more. She had the value, in dust and
bars, of’——
But the precise amount of the golden freight which, on board the _Happy
Land_, awaited the bold explorers who should reach that sunken vessel,
is not destined to be set down in these pages, for the coloured steward
at this juncture appeared holding a letter between his dusky finger and
thumb. ‘For Cap’en Hold,’ said the mulatto; and Hold, recognising the
handwriting, jumped to his feet in a trice, and snatched rather than
received the envelope which the dark Ganymede of Plugger’s held out to
him; and tearing it open, read as follows: ‘Come, and come at once.
There is no time to lose. Something has occurred—something which makes
your presence necessary. Come by noonday train. I will be at the park
gate to the north soon after ten o’clock. Meet me there.’ The letter
was signed ‘Ruth Willis.’
Hold’s mind was instantly made up. ‘I must heave anchor in a hurry,’
he said, as he thrust back the letter into his pocket. ‘So good-bye,
Grincher; and good-bye, Barks!’ and without further delay, he withdrew
to prepare for the journey to Carbery. To pay his reckoning, to push
some needful articles into a bag, and to consign his sea-chest to the
custody of the authorities of Plugger’s, well used to similar trusts,
took but half an hour; and when the mid-day train started for the west
of England it carried with it a second-class passenger, whose only
luggage was a black bag, and who could easily have been mistaken for
a man-o’-war’s man bound for Plymouth, there to rejoin one of those
_Hornets_ or _Monkeys_ which have superseded the _Arethusas_ and
_Hermiones_ of the past.
Arrived at the station most convenient for his purpose, Hold trudged
sturdily on until he reached his old quarters at _The Traveller’s
Rest_, where he installed his bag in one of those single-bedded rooms
which were always at the service of so solvent a customer as Mr Hold,
who, while inland and among shore-going folks, dropped his titular
distinction of captain. After supper, the fresh arrival at _The Rest_
sallied forth, and making his way to Carbery, waited, pacing softly to
and fro, under the shelter of the park wall.