than this identical fo'c's'le where we're now sitting, I mean to say
that the trade of sailor-men like ourselves is a precious sight worse.
We're hard worked, badly fed, badly paid--not, mind you, that I'm
finding fault with the treatment we're getting aboard here--far from
it--the grub's good enough for anybody; and, as to work--well, we
haven't seen much of that yet. But this I _will_ say, I don't like the
looks of either of the mates, and as for the skipper, why, he's a good
enough man, but this ship is going to spoil him. Now you mark my words
if she don't--he's just finding out that he's got a flyer under him, and
what will be the consequence? Why, he'll be everlastingly carrying on,
driving the ship all she'll bear, carrying on to the very last minute,
and then it'll be `all hands shorten sail' to save the spars, instead of
handing his canvas in good time, by which means the watch could do all
the work. Now, you wait a bit, mates, and you'll see I'm right."
There were several melancholy shakes of the head at this, indicative of
a belief on the part of the shakers that these prognostications would
prove only too true.
"But what's all this got to do with piratin'?" persisted Parsons.
"Oh--well--why, everything," returned Williams. "Here we are, as I was
saying, hard worked, badly fed, and badly paid; whilst if we was the
crew of a pirate clipper we should have nothing to do but trim sails, we
should live upon the fat of the land, and in six months, if our cruise
was a lucky one, we could chuck up the sea and live like princes ashore
for the rest of our days."
Parsons burst into a hearty laugh.
"Why, Williams," he said, "I wouldn't ha' believed you was such a
greenhorn. You can't _mean_ what you're sayin', shipmate. I don't
suppose you've ever been a pirate, and I'm precious certain I never
have--or I don't believe we should either of us be sittin' in this here
snug fo'c's'le to-night--so I reckon neither of us knows very much about
the business. But anybody, not a born fool, must understand without
much tellin' that a pirate's life wouldn't be worth havin'. As to work,
he'd have to work just as hard as any of us, with the chance of bein'
shot at a minute's notice by the skipper or either of the mates, if he
didn't happen to do his work just exactly to their likin'. Then he'd be
in constant dread of bein' overhauled by a man-o'-war, and mayhap strung
up to the yard-arm; he daresn't venture into a civilised port, to save
his life. And then, what about the murders he has to commit? Faugh! no
piratin' for me, thank 'ee."
"Nobody's wanting you, Tim Parsons, or anybody else, to go pirating" was
the rejoinder. "I was only talking about the thing in a general sort of
a way. But, though, as you say, I never was a pirate myself, I happen
to know that the trade ain't quite such a bad one as you'd make out
after all. First and foremost, there's no occasion for murdering at
all. `Dead men tell no tales,' we know; but there's ways of stopping
the telling of tales without cutting men's throats. There's islands
enough scattered about here and there quite out of the regular tracks of
ships, the natives of which don't see the colour of canvas once in a
lifetime; what's to prevent a pirate-ship landing her prisoners there?
They'd have a jolly enough life of it in such a place, and be out of
harm's way. Then, as to work, I should keep just enough prisoners
aboard to do all the rough, dirty work, and let my regular crew have
easy times of it. And with such a ship as this, for instance, what need
to be afraid of a man-o'-war, even if there weren't a dozen ways of
bamboozling the `gold-buttons,' which there are. Then, as to going into
port--that's easy enough managed by a man with a good head-piece on his
shoulders; and, as I was saying, a lucky six months' cruise, and your
fortune's made. Then, what do you do? Why, you watches your chance,
scuttles your ship some fine night when the weather's favourable, and
goes ashore with your swag, as a castaway seaman whose ship has sprung a
leak and foundered. Pooh! don't tell me. The thing could be easy
enough done."
"Then, I s'pose you're one o' those chaps who wouldn't mind layin' hands
on other people's goods?" quietly inquired Parsons.
"Ah! I see you've misunderstood me altogether, or you wouldn't ask such
a question as that, shipmate," replied Williams. "No--if you mean by
`laying my hands on other people's goods,' would I go to any of your
chests and help myself--I would not. I'm not a thief; I'm as honest as
ever a man here. You've got nothing in any of your chests, I reckon,
but what I call _necessaries_--things a man needs and has a right to
have. But--it may seem a strange thing to say, mates, yet it's what I
think--no man has a right to more than he needs of anything whilst other
people have to go short. Why, for example, should some people have more
cash than they know how to spend--and that, too, without working for
it--whilst we poor sailor-men have to strive night and day, in fair
weather and foul, just to keep soul and body from parting company? I
say it ain't fair; things ain't evenly divided, as they should be.
We've just as much right to ride about in a carriage as any of them
swells ashore--we're just as good men as they are--and if I had the
chance I'd think I was doing no wrong to help myself to a little of
their spare cash to make myself comfortable with. That's what _I_ think
about it."
"Ay, ay," muttered one or two, "that sounds fair enough when you come to
overhaul the thing in all its bearings."
Others maintained silence; they instinctively recognised the falsity of
Williams' logic though their intellects were not acute enough to enable
them to put their fingers on the weak spot. Others, again, shook their
heads dissentingly. But Parsons, the irrepressible, after looking at
Williams in blank surprise for a moment or two, broke out in a tone of
mingled contempt and raillery:
"There, there, you've said enough, man; and now you'd better clap a
stopper over all. You're an uncommon smart man, Williams,--I won't deny
it--almost _too_ smart, it seems to me,--and you've just been talking
like this to give us an idee, as it were, of your smartness. You argufy
like a lawyer, shipmate, there's no mistake about that; but you can't
persuade me that you believe a single word of what you've been sayin'.
Why, man, if you hadn't already proved yourself to be the primest seaman
and the most willing hand aboard this here dandy little hooker I'm blest
if I shouldn't almost be inclined to believe you was a Socialist. Pah!"
and he spat contemptuously on the floor of the forecastle.
"There goes eight bells," he continued, "and on deck we goes, the
starboard watch. Whose wheel is it?"
CHAPTER THREE.
THE PLOTTER AT HIS WORK.
The little forecastle conclave made their way out on deck without
waiting for the formality of a call; and, there happening to be no sail-
trimming to attend to, and every prospect of a fine night, they made
themselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit under the
shelter of the bulwarks and elsewhere, excepting, of course, the man
whose trick at the wheel it was and the look-out, the latter of whom
stationed himself on the topgallant-forecastle, to windward, whilst the
former went aft. The men broke up into little knots, some to smoke,
some to chat, and some to snatch a cat-nap--if they could elude the
vigilance of the second-mate, which they had already discovered was no
very difficult achievement. The two apprentices in the watch were
keeping a look-out in the waist, the one to windward and the other to
leeward.
Williams and another man, named Rogers, lighted their pipes and settled
themselves on the lee side of the deck, just forward of the fore-
rigging, where they maintained a sort of perfunctory look-out on the
lee-bow whilst smoking and chatting.
"I say, Josh," began Rogers, in a low tone of voice, "don't you think
you pitched matters just a trifle too strong in the fo'c's'le just now?
Seems to me, mate, that you spoke out plainer than was altogether wise
by way of a starter. If 't had been me, now, I should ha' felt my way a
bit; talked more in a general sort of a way, you know. I tell you it
fairly took my breath away to hear you rap out about piratin' right off
the reel. I'm afraid that chap Parsons 'll get suspicious next time any
thing's said."
"Yes," Williams admitted, "I did overrun my ground-tackle a trifle; no
mistake about that. Parsons sort of provoked me into it. But don't you
trouble; it'll give the thing a start, and set the hands talking
together; and as for Parsons, you'll see I'll put everything right next
time we have a yarn together. He called me `smart,' and he's right; I'm
a precious sight smarter than he gives me credit for being, 'cute as he
is. And there's no harm done; I could see that I've given some of 'em a
new idea or two to overhaul and think about. I think that, even now, I
could name three or four in our watch who'll prove all right when the
time comes."
There was a great deal more said in the same strain which need not be
repeated; the pith of the conversation has been given, and will suffice
to suggest to the intelligent reader the idea that, even thus early in
her first voyage, there was something radically wrong on board the
_Flying Cloud_.
To the superficial eye, however, everything seemed to point to a
prosperous voyage. The wind continued slowly but steadily to haul round
from the northward, and by nine o'clock in the evening of the fifth day
out the good ship, with a breeze at about due north and fresh enough to
necessitate the stowing of all three skysails, was off Cape Finisterre
and bowling along upon her course with studding, sails, from the royals
down, set to windward, and reeling off her knots in a manner which
caused the mates to stare incredulously at the line every time they hove
the log.
As for the little party of passengers in the saloon, they were
delighted--charmed with each other, with the captain, with the
midshipmen, with the crew--who seemed to them an exceptionally smart and
steady set of men--with the ship, and with the weather; with everything
and every body, in fact, but the two mates, who both proved to be very
disagreeable men. There had not been a single symptom of _mal de mer_
among them, though the motion had been pretty lively during the passage
across the Bay of Biscay; and by this time they had thoroughly settled
down and become almost as perfectly at home in the ship as though they
had been born on salt water. The gentlemen chatted, smoked, walked the
poop, and played chess together, romped with the children, or read aloud
to the ladies whilst they reclined in their deck-chairs and pretended to
work, and otherwise made themselves generally useful. This was the
usual disposition of their day from about nine a.m. to about eight
o'clock p.m., the married ladies very frequently joining in their
husbands' post-prandial promenade on the poop until the latter hour,
when, the air getting cool, the whole party would adjourn to the saloon,
and, Dr and Mrs Henderson producing their violins and Mr Gaunt his
flute, Mrs Gaunt or Miss Stanhope would open the piano which formed
part of the saloon furniture, and the sounds of a very capital chamber
concert would float out upon the evening air, to the great delectation
of Captain Blyth, the officer of the watch, the helmsman, and--in a
lesser degree, because less perfectly heard by them--the watch clustered
forward on the forecastle-head.
In this quiet, methodical way life went on with the occupants of the
saloon for some time; but at length ambition entered into and seized
upon the imagination of Miss Stanhope, and she determined to learn to
steer. Hour after hour had she watched the helmsmen standing in more or
less graceful attitudes at the wheel, with their sinewy hands upon the
spokes, now drawing them gently toward them a few inches only to push
them as far away again a minute or two later. It looked ridiculously
easy; yet there was grandeur in the thought that, by these simple,
effortless movements, the destiny of the ship and all within her was to
a large extent controlled. There was something almost sublime, to her
imagination, in the ability to "guide the furrowing keel on its way
along the trackless deep," as she expressed it to herself; and she
determined she would learn how to do it.
At length, making her way up on the poop one glorious evening after
dinner--the ship being at the time about in the latitude of Madeira, and
close-hauled on the starboard tack, with a nice little eight-knot breeze
blowing, and everything set that would draw, from the skysail down, and
with the water as smooth as it ever is under such circumstances--she
descried Ned standing aft at the wheel, with his left arm resting on its
rim, his right hand lightly grasping a spoke at arm's-length, and his
eye on the weather leach of the main-skysail, as he softly hummed to
himself the air of a song she had sung a night or two before; and the
young lady at once arrived at the conclusion that this afforded an
excellent opportunity for her to take her first lesson. So she walked
aft, and opened the negotiations by saying:
"Good evening, Ned." (Everybody on board, fore and aft, called the lad
Ned; so she naturally did the same.)
"Good evening, Miss Stanhope," replied Ned, straightening himself up and
doffing his cap with a sweep which would not have disgraced a--a--well,
let us say, a Frenchman; "what splendid weather we are having! Here is
another glorious evening, with every prospect of the breeze lasting, and
perhaps freshening a bit when the sun goes down. If it only holds for
forty-eight hours longer I hope it will run us fairly into the trades."
"I hope it will, I am sure," said Miss Stanhope, "if `running fairly
into the trades' is going to do us any good. I presume you are
referring to the trade _winds_, about which Captain Blyth has been
talking during dinner."
"Precisely," acknowledged Ned.
"Could you not _tie_ that wheel, and sit down comfortably, instead of
standing there holding it as you are doing?" inquired Sibylla, by way of
leading up gradually to the proposal she intended to make.
Ned laughed. "It _looks_ as though one might as well do so," he said.
"But you've no idea how capricious a ship is. I've not moved the wheel
for the last ten minutes, and look how straight our wake is. Yet, if I
were to lash this wheel exactly as it is now, it would not be half a
minute before the ship would be shooting up into the wind."
"How very curious!" remarked Sibylla. "And yet, so long as you hold the
wheel the ship goes perfectly straight. How do you account for that?"
"I watch her," answered Ned, "and the moment I detect a disposition to
deviate from the right course I check her with a movement of the wheel.
The slightest touch is sufficient in such fine weather as we are having
at present."
"I see," remarked the young lady. "The ship is as obedient to her guide
as a well-trained child. And it seems easy enough to guide her. I
believe I could do it myself."
"Certainly you could. Would you like to try?" said Ned, who at length
fancied he could see the drift of his fair interlocutor's remarks.
"I should very much," answered Miss Stanhope. "But I did not like to
ask, fearing that such a request would be a transgression against
nautical etiquette."
"By no means," said Ned. "Captain Blyth is one of the most gallant of
men; he would never dream of opposing so very reasonable a desire on the
part of a lady--at least, not _now_, when no possible harm can come of
it. If you will take my place on this raised grating, I shall be
delighted to initiate you into the art. _This_ side, please--the
helmsman always stands on the weather side. That is right. Now grasp
this spoke with your left hand, and this with your right, so--that is
precisely the right attitude. Now, you feel a slight tremor in the
wheel, do you not? That indicates that the water is pressing gently
against the rudder--the ship carries a small weather-helm, as a well-
modelled and properly rigged ship should--and if you were to release the
wheel it would move a spoke or two to the right, and the ship would run
up into the wind. Now, at present we are steering `full and by,' which
means that we are to steer as near the wind as possible, and at the same
time to keep all the sails full. You see that small sail right at the
top of all on the mainmast? That is the main-skysail. It is braced a
shade less fore and aft than the other sails; so if you keep it full you
will be certain to also have all the rest of the canvas full. Now you
will observe an occasional gentle flapping movement of the weather leach
of that sail--the _edge_ of it, I mean. That indicates that the sail is
just full and no more; and you must keep your eye on that weather leach
and maintain just precisely that gentle flapping movement. If it
ceases, the sail is unnecessarily full, and you are not keeping a good
`luff,' and you must turn the wheel a shade to the right; if it
increases, you are sailing rather too near the wind, and must press the
wheel a trifle to the left. Do you understand me?"
"I think so," answered Sibylla, compressing her lips, grasping the
spokes tightly, and concentrating her whole attention upon the weather
leach of the skysail.
She proved an apt pupil; and though for the first ten minutes or so the
course of the ship was a trifle erratic, and steering in a straight line
proved to be not quite so simple and easy a matter as she had deemed it,
Miss Sibylla soon caught the knack, and at the end of half an hour the
_Flying Cloud_ was making as straight a wake again as though the best
helmsman in the ship had her in hand.
"Why, this is _splendid_!" exclaimed Ned. "You are evidently a born
helmsman--or _helmswoman_, rather--Miss Stanhope. Permit me to
congratulate you on your success. Not a man in the ship could do better
than you are now doing. I foresee that, before long, whenever any extra
fine steering has to be done, we shall have to request you to take the
wheel."
"Thank you; that is a very neatly turned compliment," remarked Sibylla.
"But I am afraid I do not wholly deserve it. For the last five minutes
I have been steering, not by the little sail up there, as you told me,
but by that small dark object right ahead. It is so much easier--"
"Small dark object! where away?" interrupted Ned. "Ah! I see it. Sail
ho! right ahead Mr Bryce," he reported to the chief-mate.
The mate, who was sitting smoking on a hen-coop, to leeward, close to
the break of the poop, rose slowly to his feet, walked to the weather
side of the deck, and, shading his eyes with his hand, looked ahead, but
was apparently unable to see anything.
"There she is, just over the weather cat-head!" exclaimed Ned, as he
placed himself in line with the mate.
"All right! I see her," responded the mate, as he at length caught
sight of the small purple-grey spot on the south-western horizon, and he
sauntered back to his seat.
At this moment Captain Blyth made his appearance on the poop. "Did I
hear a sail reported ahead, Mr Bryce?" he asked, as he reached the
poop.
"Very likely. There _is_ one," answered the mate, without offering to
point her out.
Captain Blyth looked annoyed at this boorishness of speech and conduct,
but it was habitual with the mate--he apparently knew no better--the
skipper was becoming accustomed to it by this time, and, without
noticing it, he walked aft and said:
"Where is she, Ned?"
Ned pointed her out.
"Ah, yes," said the skipper. "Is she coming this way, think you?"
"I should fancy not, sir," answered Ned. "It was Miss Stanhope who
first sighted her; she has been steering by her for fully five minutes;
and had yonder ship been coming this way I think we should see her more
distinctly by this time than we do."
"I'll bet any money that it's the _Southern Cross_!" exclaimed the
skipper with animation. "Get your glass, Ned, my boy, and slip up as
far as the fore royal-yard, and see what you can make of her. I'll stay
here, meanwhile, and see that Miss Stanhope doesn't run away with the
ship."
And as Ned hurried away to execute his errand, Captain Blyth turned to
Sibylla and laughingly began to banter her upon her new accomplishment.
Active as a cat, Ned soon reached the royal-yard, upon which he
composedly seated himself, preparatory to bringing his telescope to bear
upon the stranger. A little manoeuvring sufficed him to find her; but
she was so far away--quite fifteen miles--that he could make out nothing
beyond the fact that she was apparently a ship of about the same size as
the _Flying Cloud_. He remained on his elevated perch watching her for
fully a quarter of an hour, a period long enough to satisfy him that
both ships were standing in the same direction, and then he descended.
"Well; what do you make of her?" demanded the skipper, as the lad joined
him on the poop.
Ned stated fully all that he had seen and all that he surmised--for a
sailor is often able to shrewdly guess at a great deal when he sees but
little; and when he had replied to the somewhat severe cross-examination
to which he was subjected, Captain Blyth reiterated his former opinion:
"It is the _Southern Cross_, for a cool hundred! Mr Bryce"--to the
mate--"be good enough to muster the watch, sir, and see if you cannot
get those sails to set something less like so many bags than they are at
present."
There had been a pretty heavy shower earlier on in the evening, which
had sensibly stretched the new canvas, and now that it was again dry it
hung from the spars and stays, as the skipper had said, "like so many
bags"--a terrible eye-sore to a smart seaman--yet the mate had
apparently not noticed it; or, at all events, had made no attempt to
have the matter rectified.
Mr Bryce made no reply; but, rising nonchalantly from his seat, he went
slowly down the poop ladder and sauntered into the waist, where he came
to a halt, and shouted:
"For'ard, there! lay aft here, all hands, and take a pull upon these
sheets and halliards, will ye!"
"Confound the fellow!" muttered Captain Blyth. "I told him to muster
_the watch_; and he must needs set all hands to work."
The men moved aft, very deliberately, clearly in no amiable mood at
being given such a job in the second dog-watch, and began upon the main
tack and sheet, gradually working their way upward, and from thence
forward.
"What did I say, mates?" commented Williams, as they slowly brought the
canvas into better trim. "This is the `old man's' work--this swigging
away upon sheets and halliards just upon night-fall; and there he is
upon the poop looking as black as thunder, because, I suppose, we're not
more lively over the job. And what's it all for? Why, simply because
that young sprig, Ned, happens to sight a sail ahead of us; and because
we happen to be a smart ship the skipper won't be satisfied until we've
overhauled her. This is just the beginning of it; it'll be like this
every time we happen to see anything ahead; you mark my words."
"D'ye twig the new helmsman?" laughed another, jerking his head aft to
direct attention to Sibylla, who still held the wheel.
"Ay, ay, mate; we see her," answered Williams, who seemed to think
himself called upon to play the part of spokesman. "We see her; and a
pretty creature she is. But do you think, mates, she'll ever give any
of _us_ a spell when it's our trick? Not she! It's all very well when
it's a smart young sprig of an apprentice--or midshipman, as they call
themselves--that she can laugh and talk with; but it's a different
matter with us poor shell-backs. The swells won't have anything to say
to _its_."
"Now, you're wrong there, Josh, old shipmate, as I can testify," spoke
up Jack Simpson, a smart young A.B. "Mrs Henderson and Mrs Gaunt has
both spoke to me; and it was only a night or two ago that, when it was
my wheel, Mr Gaunt gived me a cigar; and a precious good one it was
too, I can tell ye."
"Ay; and I suppose when he handed it to you he made you feel as if you
was a dog that he was giving a bone to; didn't he?" said Williams.
"No, he didn't; not by a long ways," answered Jack. "He looked and
spoke like a thorough-bred gentleman; but he was as perlite and civil as
ever a man could be."
"Civil!" grunted Rogers. "Well, I don't make no account of that; it's
his business to be civil. He's what they calls a civil engineer; though
hang me if I know what an engineer wants aboard of a sailing ship."
"How come _you_ to know he's a civil engineer?" demanded another man.
"Because, d'ye see, mate," replied Rogers, "I was one of the hands as
was told off to pass the dunnage up when the passengers came alongside;
and I read on one of the boxes `Mr William Gaunt, C.E.' The mate saw
it, too; and he says to the skipper, as was standin' close alongside of
him, says he:--
"`Mr William Gaunt, C.E.'--what does C.E. stand for? And the skipper,
he says: `What, don't you know? Why, C.E. stands for Civil Engineer,
which is the gentleman's purfession,' says he. And that's how I come to
know it, matey."