Before noon on the 26th November, there cleared from the port of Sydney
the schooner, Currency Lass. The owner, Norris Carthew, was on board in
the somewhat unusual position of mate; the master's name purported to
be William Kirkup; the cook was a Hawaiian boy, Joseph Amalu; and there
were two hands before the mast, Thomas Hadden and Richard Hemstead, the
latter chosen partly because of his humble character, partly because he
had an odd-job-man's handiness with tools. The Currency Lass was bound
for the South Sea Islands, and first of all for Butaritari in the
Gilberts, on a register; but it was understood about the harbour that
her cruise was more than half a pleasure trip. A friend of the late
Grant Sanderson (of Auchentroon and Kilclarty) might have recognised in
that tall-masted ship, the transformed and rechristened Dream; and
the Lloyd's surveyor, had the services of such a one been called in
requisition, must have found abundant subject of remark.
For time, during her three years' inaction, had eaten deep into the
Dream and her fittings; she had sold in consequence a shade above her
value as old junk; and the three adventurers had scarce been able to
afford even the most vital repairs. The rigging, indeed, had been partly
renewed, and the rest set up; all Grant Sanderson's old canvas had been
patched together into one decently serviceable suit of sails; Grant
Sanderson's masts still stood, and might have wondered at themselves.
“I haven't the heart to tap them,” Captain Wicks used to observe, as he
squinted up their height or patted their rotundity; and “as rotten as
our foremast” was an accepted metaphor in the ship's company. The sequel
rather suggests it may have been sounder than was thought; but no one
knew for certain, just as no one except the captain appreciated the
dangers of the cruise. The captain, indeed, saw with clear eyes and
spoke his mind aloud; and though a man of an astonishing hot-blooded
courage, following life and taking its dangers in the spirit of a
hound upon the slot, he had made a point of a big whaleboat. “Take your
choice,” he had said; “either new masts and rigging or that boat. I
simply ain't going to sea without the one or the other. Chicken coops
are good enough, no doubt, and so is a dinghy; but they ain't for Joe.”
And his partners had been forced to consent, and saw six and thirty
pounds of their small capital vanish in the turn of a hand.
All four had toiled the best part of six weeks getting ready; and though
Captain Wicks was of course not seen or heard of, a fifth was there to
help them, a fellow in a bushy red beard, which he would sometimes lay
aside when he was below, and who strikingly resembled Captain Wicks in
voice and character. As for Captain Kirkup, he did not appear till the
last moment, when he proved to be a burly mariner, bearded like Abou
Ben Adhem. All the way down the harbour and through the Heads, his
milk-white whiskers blew in the wind and were conspicuous from shore;
but the Currency Lass had no sooner turned her back upon the lighthouse,
than he went below for the inside of five seconds and reappeared clean
shaven. So many doublings and devices were required to get to sea with
an unseaworthy ship and a captain that was “wanted.” Nor might
even these have sufficed, but for the fact that Hadden was a public
character, and the whole cruise regarded with an eye of indulgence as
one of Tom's engaging eccentricities. The ship, besides, had been a
yacht before; and it came the more natural to allow her still some of
the dangerous liberties of her old employment.
A strange ship they had made of it, her lofty spars disfigured with
patched canvas, her panelled cabin fitted for a traderoom with rude
shelves. And the life they led in that anomalous schooner was no less
curious than herself. Amalu alone berthed forward; the rest occupied
staterooms, camped upon the satin divans, and sat down in Grant
Sanderson's parquetry smoking-room to meals of junk and potatoes, bad
of their kind and often scant in quantity. Hemstead grumbled; Tommy
had occasional moments of revolt and increased the ordinary by a
few haphazard tins or a bottle of his own brown sherry. But Hemstead
grumbled from habit, Tommy revolted only for the moment, and there
was underneath a real and general acquiescence in these hardships. For
besides onions and potatoes, the Currency Lass may be said to have
gone to sea without stores. She carried two thousand pounds' worth of
assorted trade, advanced on credit, their whole hope and fortune. It
was upon this that they subsisted--mice in their own granary. They dined
upon their future profits; and every scanty meal was so much in the
savings bank.
Republican as were their manners, there was no practical, at least no
dangerous, lack of discipline. Wicks was the only sailor on board,
there was none to criticise; and besides, he was so easy-going, and so
merry-minded, that none could bear to disappoint him. Carthew did his
best, partly for the love of doing it, partly for love of the captain;
Amalu was a willing drudge, and even Hemstead and Hadden turned to upon
occasion with a will. Tommy's department was the trade and traderoom; he
would work down in the hold or over the shelves of the cabin, till
the Sydney dandy was unrecognizable; come up at last, draw a bucket
of sea-water, bathe, change, and lie down on deck over a big sheaf of
Sydney _Heralds_ and _Dead Birds_, or perhaps with a volume of Buckle's
_History of Civilisation_, the standard work selected for that cruise.
In the latter case, a smile went round the ship, for Buckle almost
invariably laid his student out, and when Tom awoke again he was almost
always in the humour for brown sherry. The connection was so well
established that “a glass of Buckle” or “a bottle of civilisation”
became current pleasantries on board the Currency Lass.
Hemstead's province was that of the repairs, and he had his hands full.
Nothing on board but was decayed in a proportion; the lamps leaked; so
did the decks; door-knobs came off in the hand, mouldings parted company
with the panels, the pump declined to suck, and the defective bathroom
came near to swamp the ship. Wicks insisted that all the nails were long
ago consumed, and that she was only glued together by the rust. “You
shouldn't make me laugh so much, Tommy,” he would say. “I'm afraid I'll
shake the sternpost out of her.” And, as Hemstead went to and fro
with his tool basket on an endless round of tinkering, Wicks lost
no opportunity of chaffing him upon his duties. “If you'd turn to at
sailoring or washing paint or something useful, now,” he would say,
“I could see the fun of it. But to be mending things that haven't no
insides to them appears to me the height of foolishness.” And doubtless
these continual pleasantries helped to reassure the landsmen, who went
to and fro unmoved, under circumstances that might have daunted Nelson.
The weather was from the outset splendid, and the wind fair and steady.
The ship sailed like a witch. “This Currency Lass is a powerful old
girl, and has more complaints than I would care to put a name on,” the
captain would say, as he pricked the chart; “but she could show her
blooming heels to anything of her size in the Western Pacific.” To
wash decks, relieve the wheel, do the day's work after dinner on the
smoking-room table, and take in kites at night,--such was the easy
routine of their life. In the evening--above all, if Tommy had produced
some of his civilisation--yarns and music were the rule. Amalu had
a sweet Hawaiian voice; and Hemstead, a great hand upon the banjo,
accompanied his own quavering tenor with effect. There was a sense in
which the little man could sing. It was great to hear him deliver _My
Boy Tammie_ in Austrylian; and the words (some of the worst of the
ruffian Macneil's) were hailed in his version with inextinguishable
mirth.
Where hye ye been a' dye?
he would ask, and answer himself:--
I've been by burn and flowery brye,
Meadow green an' mountain grye,
Courtin' o' this young thing,
Just come frye her mammie.
It was the accepted jest for all hands to greet the conclusion of this
song with the simultaneous cry: “My word!” thus winging the arrow of
ridicule with a feather from the singer's wing. But he had his
revenge with _Home, Sweet Home,_ and _Where is my Wandering Boy
To-night?_--ditties into which he threw the most intolerable pathos. It
appeared he had no home, nor had ever had one, nor yet any vestige of
a family, except a truculent uncle, a baker in Newcastle, N.S.W. His
domestic sentiment was therefore wholly in the air, and expressed
an unrealised ideal. Or perhaps, of all his experiences, this of
the Currency Lass, with its kindly, playful, and tolerant society,
approached it the most nearly.
It is perhaps because I know the sequel, but I can never think upon this
voyage without a profound sense of pity and mystery; of the ship (once
the whim of a rich blackguard) faring with her battered fineries
and upon her homely errand, across the plains of ocean, and past
the gorgeous scenery of dawn and sunset; and the ship's company, so
strangely assembled, so Britishly chuckle-headed, filling their days
with chaff in place of conversation; no human book on board with them
except Hadden's Buckle, and not a creature fit either to read or to
understand it; and the one mark of any civilised interest, being when
Carthew filled in his spare hours with the pencil and the brush: the
whole unconscious crew of them posting in the meanwhile towards so
tragic a disaster.
Twenty-eight days out of Sydney, on Christmas eve, they fetched up to
the entrance of the lagoon, and plied all that night outside, keeping
their position by the lights of fishers on the reef and the outlines of
the palms against the cloudy sky. With the break of day, the schooner
was hove to, and the signal for a pilot shown. But it was plain her
lights must have been observed in the darkness by the native fishermen,
and word carried to the settlement, for a boat was already under weigh.
She came towards them across the lagoon under a great press of sail,
lying dangerously down, so that at times, in the heavier puffs, they
thought she would turn turtle; covered the distance in fine style,
luffed up smartly alongside, and emitted a haggard looking white man in
pyjamas.
“Good-mornin', Cap'n,” said he, when he had made good his entrance. “I
was taking you for a Fiji man-of-war, what with your flush decks and
them spars. Well, gen'lemen all, here's wishing you a Merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year,” he added, and lurched against a stay.
“Why, you're never the pilot?” exclaimed Wicks, studying him with a
profound disfavour. “You've never taken a ship in--don't tell me!”
“Well, I should guess I have,” returned the pilot. “I'm Captain Dobbs,
I am; and when I take charge, the captain of that ship can go below and
shave.”
“But, man alive! you're drunk, man!” cried the captain.
“Drunk!” repeated Dobbs. “You can't have seen much life if you call me
drunk. I'm only just beginning. Come night, I won't say; I guess I'll be
properly full by then. But now I'm the soberest man in all Big Muggin.”
“It won't do,” retorted Wicks. “Not for Joseph, sir. I can't have you
piling up my schooner.”
“All right,” said Dobbs, “lay and rot where you are, or take and go
in and pile her up for yourself like the captain of the Leslie. That's
business, I guess; grudged me twenty dollars' pilotage, and lost twenty
thousand in trade and a brand new schooner; ripped the keel right off of
her, and she went down in the inside of four minutes, and lies in twenty
fathom, trade and all.”
“What's all this?” cried Wicks. “Trade? What vessel was this Leslie,
anyhow?”
“Consigned to Cohen and Co., from 'Frisco,” returned the pilot, “and
badly wanted. There's a barque inside filling up for Hamburg--you see
her spars over there; and there's two more ships due, all the way from
Germany, one in two months, they say, and one in three; Cohen and Co.'s
agent (that's Mr. Topelius) has taken and lain down with the jaundice on
the strength of it. I guess most people would, in his shoes; no trade,
no copra, and twenty hundred ton of shipping due. If you've any copra on
board, cap'n, here's your chance. Topelius will buy, gold down, and give
three cents. It's all found money to him, the way it is, whatever he
pays for it. And that's what come of going back on the pilot.”
“Excuse me one moment, Captain Dobbs. I wish to speak with my mate,”
said the captain, whose face had begun to shine and his eyes to sparkle.
“Please yourself,” replied the pilot. “You couldn't think of offering
a man a nip, could you? just to brace him up. This kind of thing looks
damned inhospitable, and gives a schooner a bad name.”
“I'll talk about that after the anchor's down,” returned Wicks, and he
drew Carthew forward. “I say,” he whispered, “here's a fortune.”
“How much do you call that?” asked Carthew.
“I can't put a figure on it yet--I daren't!” said the captain. “We might
cruise twenty years and not find the match of it. And suppose another
ship came in to-night? Everything's possible! And the difficulty is
this Dobbs. He's as drunk as a marine. How can we trust him? We ain't
insured--worse luck!”
“Suppose you took him aloft and got him to point out the channel?”
suggested Carthew. “If he tallied at all with the chart, and didn't fall
out of the rigging, perhaps we might risk it.”
“Well, all's risk here,” returned the captain. “Take the wheel yourself,
and stand by. Mind, if there's two orders, follow mine, not his. Set the
cook for'ard with the heads'ls, and the two others at the main sheet,
and see they don't sit on it.” With that he called the pilot; they
swarmed aloft in the fore rigging, and presently after there was bawled
down the welcome order to ease sheets and fill away.
At a quarter before nine o'clock on Christmas morning the anchor was let
go.
The first cruise of the Currency Lass had thus ended in a stroke of
fortune almost beyond hope. She had brought two thousand pounds' worth
of trade, straight as a homing pigeon, to the place where it was most
required. And Captain Wicks (or, rather, Captain Kirkup) showed himself
the man to make the best of his advantage. For hard upon two days he
walked a verandah with Topelius, for hard upon two days his partners
watched from the neighbouring public house the field of battle; and the
lamps were not yet lighted on the evening of the second before the enemy
surrendered. Wicks came across to the Sans Souci, as the saloon was
called, his face nigh black, his eyes almost closed and all bloodshot,
and yet bright as lighted matches.
“Come out here, boys,” he said; and when they were some way off
among the palms, “I hold twenty-four,” he added in a voice scarcely
recognizable, and doubtless referring to the venerable game of cribbage.
“What do you mean?” asked Tommy.
“I've sold the trade,” answered Wicks; “or, rather, I've sold only
some of it, for I've kept back all the mess beef and half the flour and
biscuit; and, by God, we're still provisioned for four months! By God,
it's as good as stolen!”
“My word!” cried Hemstead.
“But what have you sold it for?” gasped Carthew, the captain's almost
insane excitement shaking his nerve.
“Let me tell it my own way,” cried Wicks, loosening his neck. “Let me
get at it gradual, or I'll explode. I've not only sold it, boys, I've
wrung out a charter on my own terms to 'Frisco and back; on my own
terms. I made a point of it. I fooled him first by making believe I
wanted copra, which of course I knew he wouldn't hear of--couldn't, in
fact; and whenever he showed fight, I trotted out the copra, and that
man dived! I would take nothing but copra, you see; and so I've got the
blooming lot in specie--all but two short bills on 'Frisco. And the sum?
Well, this whole adventure, including two thousand pounds of credit,
cost us two thousand seven hundred and some odd. That's all paid back;
in thirty days' cruise we've paid for the schooner and the trade. Heard
ever any man the match of that? And it's not all! For besides that,”
said the captain, hammering his words, “we've got Thirteen Blooming
Hundred Pounds of profit to divide. I bled him in four Thou.!” he cried,
in a voice that broke like a schoolboy's.
For a moment the partners looked upon their chief with stupefaction,
incredulous surprise their only feeling. Tommy was the first to grasp
the consequences.
“Here,” he said, in a hard, business tone. “Come back to that saloon.
I've got to get drunk.”
“You must please excuse me, boys,” said the captain, earnestly. “I
daren't taste nothing. If I was to drink one glass of beer, it's my
belief I'd have the apoplexy. The last scrimmage, and the blooming
triumph, pretty nigh hand done me.”
“Well, then, three cheers for the captain,” proposed Tommy.
But Wicks held up a shaking hand. “Not that either, boys,” he pleaded.
“Think of the other buffer, and let him down easy. If I'm like this,
just fancy what Topelius is! If he heard us singing out, he'd have the
staggers.”
As a matter of fact, Topelius accepted his defeat with a good grace;
but the crew of the wrecked Leslie, who were in the same employment and
loyal to their firm, took the thing more bitterly. Rough words and ugly
looks were common. Once even they hooted Captain Wicks from the saloon
verandah; the Currency Lasses drew out on the other side; for some
minutes there had like to have been a battle in Butaritari; and though
the occasion passed off without blows, it left on either side an
increase of ill-feeling.
No such small matter could affect the happiness of the successful
traders. Five days more the ship lay in the lagoon, with little
employment for any one but Tommy and the captain, for Topelius's natives
discharged cargo and brought ballast; the time passed like a pleasant
dream; the adventurers sat up half the night debating and praising their
good fortune, or strayed by day in the narrow isle, gaping like Cockney
tourists; and on the first of the new year, the Currency Lass weighed
anchor for the second time and set sail for 'Frisco, attended by the
same fine weather and good luck. She crossed the doldrums with but
small delay; on a wind and in ballast of broken coral, she outdid
expectations; and, what added to the happiness of the ship's company,
the small amount of work that fell on them to do, was now lessened by
the presence of another hand. This was the boatswain of the Leslie; he
had been on bad terms with his own captain, had already spent his wages
in the saloons of Butaritari, had wearied of the place, and while all
his shipmates coldly refused to set foot on board the Currency Lass, he
had offered to work his passage to the coast. He was a north of Ireland
man, between Scotch and Irish, rough, loud, humorous, and emotional, not
without sterling qualities, and an expert and careful sailor. His frame
of mind was different indeed from that of his new shipmates; instead of
making an unexpected fortune, he had lost a berth; and he was besides
disgusted with the rations, and really appalled at the condition of the
schooner. A stateroom door had stuck, the first day at sea, and Mac (as
they called him) laid his strength to it and plucked it from the hinges.
“Glory!” said he, “this ship's rotten.”
“I believe you, my boy,” said Captain Wicks.
The next day the sailor was observed with his nose aloft.
“Don't you get looking at these sticks,” the captain said, “or you'll
have a fit and fall overboard.”
Mac turned towards the speaker with rather a wild eye. “Why, I see what
looks like a patch of dry rot up yonder, that I bet I could stick my
fist into,” said he.
“Looks as if a fellow could stick his head into it, don't it?” returned
Wicks. “But there's no good prying into things that can't be mended.”
“I think I was a Currency Ass to come on board of her!” reflected Mac.
“Well, I never said she was seaworthy,” replied the captain: “I only
said she could show her blooming heels to anything afloat. And besides,
I don't know that it's dry rot; I kind of sometimes hope it isn't. Here;
turn to and heave the log; that'll cheer you up.”
“Well, there's no denying it, you're a holy captain,” said Mac.
And from that day on, he made but the one reference to the ship's
condition; and that was whenever Tommy drew upon his cellar. “Here's to
the junk trade!” he would say, as he held out his can of sherry.
“Why do you always say that?” asked Tommy.
“I had an uncle in the business,” replied Mac, and launched at once into
a yarn, in which an incredible number of the characters were “laid
out as nice as you would want to see,” and the oaths made up about
two-fifths of every conversation.
Only once he gave them a taste of his violence; he talked of it, indeed,
often; “I'm rather a voilent man,” he would say, not without pride; but
this was the only specimen. Of a sudden, he turned on Hemstead in the
ship's waist, knocked him against the foresail boom, then knocked him
under it, and had set him up and knocked him down once more, before any
one had drawn a breath.
“Here! Belay that!” roared Wicks, leaping to his feet. “I won't have
none of this.”
Mac turned to the captain with ready civility. “I only want to learn him
manners,” said he. “He took and called me Irishman.”
“Did he?” said Wicks. “O, that's a different story! What made you do it,
you tomfool? You ain't big enough to call any man that.”
“I didn't call him it,” spluttered Hemstead, through his blood and
tears. “I only mentioned-like he was.”
“Well, let's have no more of it,” said Wicks.
“But you ARE Irish, ain't you?” Carthew asked of his new shipmate
shortly after.
“I may be,” replied Mac, “but I'll allow no Sydney duck to call me so.
No,” he added, with a sudden heated countenance, “nor any Britisher that
walks! Why, look here,” he went on, “you're a young swell, aren't you?
Suppose I called you that! 'I'll show you,' you would say, and turn to
and take it out of me straight.”
On the 28th of January, when in lat. 27 degrees 20' N., long. 177
degrees W., the wind chopped suddenly into the west, not very strong,
but puffy and with flaws of rain. The captain, eager for easting, made
a fair wind of it and guyed the booms out wing and wing. It was Tommy's
trick at the wheel, and as it was within half an hour of the relief
(seven thirty in the morning), the captain judged it not worth while to
change him.
The puffs were heavy but short; there was nothing to be called a squall,
no danger to the ship, and scarce more than usual to the doubtful spars.
All hands were on deck in their oilskins, expecting breakfast; the
galley smoked, the ship smelt of coffee, all were in good humour to be
speeding eastward a full nine; when the rotten foresail tore suddenly
between two cloths and then split to either hand. It was for all the
world as though some archangel with a huge sword had slashed it with the
figure of a cross; all hands ran to secure the slatting canvas; and in
the sudden uproar and alert, Tommy Hadden lost his head. Many of his
days have been passed since then in explaining how the thing happened;
of these explanations it will be sufficient to say that they were all
different and none satisfactory; and the gross fact remains that the
main boom gybed, carried away the tackle, broke the mainmast some three
feet above the deck and whipped it overboard. For near a minute the
suspected foremast gallantly resisted; then followed its companion; and
by the time the wreck was cleared, of the whole beautiful fabric that
enabled them to skim the seas, two ragged stumps remained.
In these vast and solitary waters, to be dismasted is perhaps the worst
calamity. Let the ship turn turtle and go down, and at least the pang is
over. But men chained on a hulk may pass months scanning the empty sea
line and counting the steps of death's invisible approach. There is
no help but in the boats, and what a help is that! There heaved the
Currency Lass, for instance, a wingless lump, and the nearest human
coast (that of Kauai in the Sandwiches) lay about a thousand miles to
south and east of her. Over the way there, to men contemplating that
passage in an open boat, all kinds of misery, and the fear of death and
of madness, brooded.
A serious company sat down to breakfast; but the captain helped his
neighbours with a smile.
“Now, boys,” he said, after a pull at the hot coffee, “we're done with
this Currency Lass, and no mistake. One good job: we made her pay while
she lasted, and she paid first rate; and if we were to try our hand
again, we can try in style. Another good job: we have a fine, stiff,
roomy boat, and you know who you have to thank for that. We've got six
lives to save, and a pot of money; and the point is, where are we to
take 'em?”
“It's all two thousand miles to the nearest of the Sandwiches, I fancy,”
observed Mac.
“No, not so bad as that,” returned the captain. “But it's bad enough:
rather better'n a thousand.”
“I know a man who once did twelve hundred in a boat,” said Mac, “and he
had all he wanted. He fetched ashore in the Marquesas, and never set a
foot on anything floating from that day to this. He said he would rather
put a pistol to his head and knock his brains out.”
“Ay, ay!” said Wicks. “Well I remember a boat's crew that made this very
island of Kauai, and from just about where we lie, or a bit further.
When they got up with the land, they were clean crazy. There was an
iron-bound coast and an Old Bob Ridley of a surf on. The natives hailed
'em from fishing-boats, and sung out it couldn't be done at the money.
Much they cared! there was the land, that was all they knew; and they
turned to and drove the boat slap ashore in the thick of it, and was
all drowned but one. No; boat trips are my eye,” concluded the captain,
gloomily.
The tone was surprising in a man of his indomitable temper. “Come,
Captain,” said Carthew, “you have something else up your sleeve; out
with it!”
“It's a fact,” admitted Wicks. “You see there's a raft of little bally
reefs about here, kind of chicken-pox on the chart. Well, I looked 'em
all up, and there's one--Midway or Brooks they call it, not forty mile
from our assigned position--that I got news of. It turns out it's a
coaling station of the Pacific Mail,” he said, simply.
“Well, and I know it ain't no such a thing,” said Mac. “I been
quartermaster in that line myself.”
“All right,” returned Wicks. “There's the book. Read what Hoyt
says--read it aloud and let the others hear.”
Hoyt's falsehood (as readers know) was explicit; incredulity was
impossible, and the news itself delightful beyond hope. Each saw in his
mind's eye the boat draw in to a trim island with a wharf, coal-sheds,
gardens, the Stars and Stripes and the white cottage of the keeper;
saw themselves idle a few weeks in tolerable quarters, and then step on
board the China mail, romantic waifs, and yet with pocketsful of money,
calling for champagne, and waited on by troops of stewards. Breakfast,
that had begun so dully, ended amid sober jubilation, and all hands
turned immediately to prepare the boat.
Now that all spars were gone, it was no easy job to get her launched.
Some of the necessary cargo was first stowed on board; the specie, in
particular, being packed in a strong chest and secured with lashings to
the afterthwart in case of a capsize. Then a piece of the bulwark was
razed to the level of the deck, and the boat swung thwart-ship, made
fast with a slack line to either stump, and successfully run out. For a
voyage of forty miles to hospitable quarters, not much food or water
was required; but they took both in superfluity. Amalu and Mac, both
ingrained sailor-men, had chests which were the headquarters of their
lives; two more chests with handbags, oilskins, and blankets supplied
the others; Hadden, amid general applause, added the last case of the
brown sherry; the captain brought the log, instruments, and chronometer;
nor did Hemstead forget the banjo or a pinned handkerchief of Butaritari
shells.
It was about three P.M. when they pushed off, and (the wind being still
westerly) fell to the oars. “Well, we've got the guts out of YOU!” was
the captain's nodded farewell to the hulk of the Currency Lass, which
presently shrank and faded in the sea. A little after a calm succeeded,
with much rain; and the first meal was eaten, and the watch below lay
down to their uneasy slumber on the bilge under a roaring shower-bath.
The twenty-ninth dawned overhead from out of ragged clouds; there is
no moment when a boat at sea appears so trenchantly black and so
conspicuously little; and the crew looked about them at the sky and
water with a thrill of loneliness and fear. With sunrise the trade set
in, lusty and true to the point; sail was made; the boat flew; and by
about four in the afternoon, they were well up with the closed part of
the reef, and the captain standing on the thwart, and holding by the
mast, was studying the island through the binoculars.
“Well, and where's your station?” cried Mac.
“I don't someway pick it up,” replied the captain.
“No, nor never will!” retorted Mac, with a clang of despair and triumph
in his tones.
The truth was soon plain to all. No buoys, no beacons, no lights, no
coal, no station; the castaways pulled through a lagoon and landed on
an isle, where was no mark of man but wreckwood, and no sound but of the
sea. For the seafowl that harboured and lived there at the epoch of my
visit were then scattered into the uttermost parts of the ocean, and
had left no traces of their sojourn besides dropped feathers and addled
eggs. It was to this they had been sent, for this they had stooped all
night over the dripping oars, hourly moving further from relief. The
boat, for as small as it was, was yet eloquent of the hands of men, a
thing alone indeed upon the sea but yet in itself all human; and the
isle, for which they had exchanged it, was ingloriously savage, a place
of distress, solitude, and hunger unrelieved. There was a strong glare
and shadow of the evening over all; in which they sat or lay, not
speaking, careless even to eat, men swindled out of life and riches by
a lying book. In the great good nature of the whole party, no word of
reproach had been addressed to Hadden, the author of these disasters.
But the new blow was less magnanimously borne, and many angry glances
rested on the captain.
Yet it was himself who roused them from their lethargy. Grudgingly they
obeyed, drew the boat beyond tidemark, and followed him to the top of
the miserable islet, whence a view was commanded of the whole wheel of
the horizon, then part darkened under the coming night, part dyed with
the hues of the sunset and populous with the sunset clouds. Here the
camp was pitched and a tent run up with the oars, sails, and mast. And
here Amalu, at no man's bidding, from the mere instinct of habitual
service, built a fire and cooked a meal. Night was come, and the stars
and the silver sickle of new moon beamed overhead, before the meal
was ready. The cold sea shone about them, and the fire glowed in their
faces, as they ate. Tommy had opened his case, and the brown sherry went
the round; but it was long before they came to conversation.
“Well, is it to be Kauai after all?” asked Mac suddenly.
“This is bad enough for me,” said Tommy. “Let's stick it out where we
are.”
“Well, I can tell ye one thing,” said Mac, “if ye care to hear it. When
I was in the China mail, we once made this island. It's in the course
from Honolulu.”
“Deuce it is!” cried Carthew. “That settles it, then. Let's stay. We
must keep good fires going; and there's plenty wreck.”
“Lashings of wreck!” said the Irishman. “There's nothing here but wreck
and coffin boards.”
“But we'll have to make a proper blyze,” objected Hemstead. “You can't
see a fire like this, not any wye awye, I mean.”
“Can't you?” said Carthew. “Look round.”
They did, and saw the hollow of the night, the bare, bright face of the
sea, and the stars regarding them; and the voices died in their bosoms
at the spectacle. In that huge isolation, it seemed they must be visible
from China on the one hand and California on the other.
“My God, it's dreary!” whispered Hemstead.
“Dreary?” cried Mac, and fell suddenly silent.
“It's better than a boat, anyway,” said Hadden. “I've had my bellyful of
boat.”
“What kills me is that specie!” the captain broke out. “Think of all
that riches,--four thousand in gold, bad silver, and short bills--all
found money, too!--and no more use than that much dung!”
“I'll tell you one thing,” said Tommy. “I don't like it being in the
boat--I don't care to have it so far away.”
“Why, who's to take it?” cried Mac, with a guffaw of evil laughter.
But this was not at all the feeling of the partners, who rose, clambered
down the isle, brought back the inestimable treasure-chest slung upon
two oars, and set it conspicuous in the shining of the fire.
“There's my beauty!” cried Wicks, viewing it with a cocked head. “That's
better than a bonfire. What! we have a chest here, and bills for close
upon two thousand pounds; there's no show to that,--it would go in
your vest-pocket,--but the rest! upwards of forty pounds avoirdupois of
coined gold, and close on two hundredweight of Chile silver! What! ain't
that good enough to fetch a fleet? Do you mean to say that won't affect
a ship's compass? Do you mean to tell me that the lookout won't turn to
and SMELL it?” he cried.
Mac, who had no part nor lot in the bills, the forty pounds of gold, or
the two hundredweight of silver, heard this with impatience, and fell
into a bitter, choking laughter. “You'll see!” he said harshly. “You'll
be glad to feed them bills into the fire before you're through with ut!”
And he turned, passed by himself out of the ring of the firelight, and
stood gazing seaward.
His speech and his departure extinguished instantly those sparks of
better humour kindled by the dinner and the chest. The group fell again
to an ill-favoured silence, and Hemstead began to touch the banjo, as
was his habit of an evening. His repertory was small: the chords of
_Home, Sweet Home_ fell under his fingers; and when he had played the
symphony, he instinctively raised up his voice. “Be it never so 'umble,
there's no plyce like 'ome,” he sang. The last word was still upon his
lips, when the instrument was snatched from him and dashed into the
fire; and he turned with a cry to look into the furious countenance of
Mac.
“I'll be damned if I stand this!” cried the captain, leaping up
belligerent.
“I told ye I was a voilent man,” said Mac, with a movement of
deprecation very surprising in one of his character. “Why don't he give
me a chance then? Haven't we enough to bear the way we are?” And to the
wonder and dismay of all, the man choked upon a sob. “It's ashamed of
meself I am,” he said presently, his Irish accent twenty-fold increased.
“I ask all your pardons for me voilence; and especially the little
man's, who is a harmless crayture, and here's me hand to'm, if he'll
condescind to take me by 't.”
So this scene of barbarity and sentimentalism passed off, leaving behind
strange and incongruous impressions. True, every one was perhaps glad
when silence succeeded that all too appropriate music; true, Mac's
apology and subsequent behaviour rather raised him in the opinion of
his fellow-castaways. But the discordant note had been struck, and its
harmonics tingled in the brain. In that savage, houseless isle, the
passions of man had sounded, if only for the moment, and all men
trembled at the possibilities of horror.
It was determined to stand watch and watch in case of passing vessels;
and Tommy, on fire with an idea, volunteered to stand the first. The
rest crawled under the tent, and were soon enjoying that comfortable
gift of sleep, which comes everywhere and to all men, quenching
anxieties and speeding time. And no sooner were all settled, no sooner
had the drone of many snorers begun to mingle with and overcome the
surf, than Tommy stole from his post with the case of sherry, and
dropped it in a quiet cove in a fathom of water. But the stormy
inconstancy of Mac's behaviour had no connection with a gill or two of
wine; his passions, angry and otherwise, were on a different sail plan
from his neighbours'; and there were possibilities of good and evil in
that hybrid Celt beyond their prophecy.
About two in the morning, the starry sky--or so it seemed, for the
drowsy watchman had not observed the approach of any cloud--brimmed over
in a deluge; and for three days it rained without remission. The islet
was a sponge, the castaways sops; the view all gone, even the reef
concealed behind the curtain of the falling water. The fire was soon
drowned out; after a couple of boxes of matches had been scratched in
vain, it was decided to wait for better weather; and the party lived in
wretchedness on raw tins and a ration of hard bread.
By the 2nd February, in the dark hours of the morning watch, the clouds
were all blown by; the sun rose glorious; and once more the castaways
sat by a quick fire, and drank hot coffee with the greed of brutes and
sufferers. Thenceforward their affairs moved in a routine. A fire was
constantly maintained; and this occupied one hand continuously, and the
others for an hour or so in the day. Twice a day, all hands bathed in
the lagoon, their chief, almost their only pleasure. Often they fished
in the lagoon with good success. And the rest was passed in lolling,
strolling, yarns, and disputation. The time of the China steamers
was calculated to a nicety; which done, the thought was rejected and
ignored. It was one that would not bear consideration. The boat voyage
having been tacitly set aside, the desperate part chosen to wait there
for the coming of help or of starvation, no man had courage left to look
his bargain in the face, far less to discuss it with his neighbours. But
the unuttered terror haunted them; in every hour of idleness, at every
moment of silence, it returned, and breathed a chill about the circle,
and carried men's eyes to the horizon. Then, in a panic of self-defence,
they would rally to some other subject. And, in that lone spot, what
else was to be found to speak of but the treasure?
That was indeed the chief singularity, the one thing conspicuous in
their island life; the presence of that chest of bills and specie
dominated the mind like a cathedral; and there were besides connected
with it, certain irking problems well fitted to occupy the idle. Two
thousand pounds were due to the Sydney firm: two thousand pounds were
clear profit, and fell to be divided in varying proportions among
six. It had been agreed how the partners were to range; every pound of
capital subscribed, every pound that fell due in wages, was to count for
one “lay.” Of these, Tommy could claim five hundred and ten, Carthew one
hundred and seventy, Wicks one hundred and forty, and Hemstead and Amalu
ten apiece: eight hundred and forty “lays” in all. What was the value of
a lay? This was at first debated in the air and chiefly by the strength
of Tommy's lungs. Then followed a series of incorrect calculations; from
which they issued, arithmetically foiled, but agreed from weariness upon
an approximate value of 2 pounds, 7 shillings 7 1/4 pence. The figures
were admittedly incorrect; the sum of the shares came not to 2000
pounds, but to 1996 pounds, 6 shillings: 3 pounds, 14 shillings being
thus left unclaimed. But it was the nearest they had yet found, and the
highest as well, so that the partners were made the less critical by the
contemplation of their splendid dividends. Wicks put in 100 pounds and
stood to draw captain's wages for two months; his taking was 333 pounds
3 shillings 6 1/2 pence. Carthew had put in 150 pounds: he was to take
out 401 pounds, 18 shillings 6 1/2 pence. Tommy's 500 pounds had grown
to be 1213 pounds 12 shillings 9 3/4 pence; and Amalu and Hemstead,
ranking for wages only, had 22 pounds, 16 shillings 1/2 pence, each.
From talking and brooding on these figures, it was but a step to
opening the chest; and once the chest open, the glamour of the cash was
irresistible. Each felt that he must see his treasure separate with the
eye of flesh, handle it in the hard coin, mark it for his own, and
stand forth to himself the approved owner. And here an insurmountable
difficulty barred the way. There were some seventeen shillings in
English silver: the rest was Chile; and the Chile dollar, which had been
taken at the rate of six to the pound sterling, was practically their
smallest coin. It was decided, therefore, to divide the pounds only,
and to throw the shillings, pence, and fractions in a common fund. This,
with the three pound fourteen already in the heel, made a total of seven
pounds one shilling.
“I'll tell you,” said Wicks. “Let Carthew and Tommy and me take one
pound apiece, and Hemstead and Amalu split the other four, and toss up
for the odd bob.”
“O, rot!” said Carthew. “Tommy and I are bursting already. We can take
half a sov' each, and let the other three have forty shillings.”
“I'll tell you now--it's not worth splitting,” broke in Mac. “I've cards
in my chest. Why don't you play for the slump sum?”
In that idle place, the proposal was accepted with delight. Mac, as the
owner of the cards, was given a stake; the sum was played for in five
games of cribbage; and when Amalu, the last survivor in the tournament,
was beaten by Mac, it was found the dinner hour was past. After a hasty
meal, they fell again immediately to cards, this time (on Carthew's
proposal) to Van John. It was then probably two P.M. of the 9th
February; and they played with varying chances for twelve hours, slept
heavily, and rose late on the morrow to resume the game. All day of the
10th, with grudging intervals for food, and with one long absence on the
part of Tommy from which he returned dripping with the case of sherry,
they continued to deal and stake. Night fell: they drew the closer to
the fire. It was maybe two in the morning, and Tommy was selling his
deal by auction, as usual with that timid player; when Carthew, who
didn't intend to bid, had a moment of leisure and looked round him. He
beheld the moonlight on the sea, the money piled and scattered in that
incongruous place, the perturbed faces of the players; he felt in his
own breast the familiar tumult; and it seemed as if there rose in his
ears a sound of music, and the moon seemed still to shine upon a sea,
but the sea was changed, and the Casino towered from among lamplit
gardens, and the money clinked on the green board. “Good God!” he
thought, “am I gambling again?” He looked the more curiously about the
sandy table. He and Mac had played and won like gamblers; the mingled
gold and silver lay by their places in the heap. Amalu and Hemstead had
each more than held their own, but Tommy was cruel far to leeward, and
the captain was reduced to perhaps fifty pounds.
“I say, let's knock off,” said Carthew.
“Give that man a glass of Buckle,” said some one, and a fresh bottle was
opened, and the game went inexorably on.
Carthew was himself too heavy a winner to withdraw or to say more; and
all the rest of the night he must look on at the progress of this folly,
and make gallant attempts to lose with the not uncommon consequence of
winning more. The first dawn of the 11th February found him well-nigh
desperate. It chanced he was then dealer, and still winning. He had just
dealt a round of many tens; every one had staked heavily; the captain
had put up all that remained to him, twelve pounds in gold and a few
dollars; and Carthew, looking privately at his cards before he showed
them, found he held a natural.
“See here, you fellows,” he broke out, “this is a sickening business,
and I'm done with it for one.” So saying, he showed his cards, tore them
across, and rose from the ground.
The company stared and murmured in mere amazement; but Mac stepped
gallantly to his support.
“We've had enough of it, I do believe,” said he. “But of course it was
all fun, and here's my counters back. All counters in, boys!” and he
began to pour his winnings into the chest, which stood fortunately near
him.
Carthew stepped across and wrung him by the hand. “I'll never forget
this,” he said.
“And what are ye going to do with the Highway boy and the plumber?”
inquired Mac, in a low tone of voice. “They've both wan, ye see.”
“That's true!” said Carthew aloud. “Amalu and Hemstead, count your
winnings; Tommy and I pay that.”
It was carried without speech: the pair glad enough to receive their
winnings, it mattered not from whence; and Tommy, who had lost about
five hundred pounds, delighted with the compromise.
“And how about Mac?” asked Hemstead. “Is he to lose all?”
“I beg your pardon, plumber. I'm sure ye mean well,” returned the
Irishman, “but you'd better shut your face, for I'm not that kind of a
man. If I t'ought I had wan that money fair, there's never a soul here
could get it from me. But I t'ought it was in fun; that was my mistake,
ye see; and there's no man big enough upon this island to give a present
to my mother's son. So there's my opinion to ye, plumber, and you can
put it in your pockut till required.”
“Well, I will say, Mac, you're a gentleman,” said Carthew, as he helped
him to shovel back his winnings into the treasure chest.
“Divil a fear of it, sir! a drunken sailor-man,” said Mac.
The captain had sat somewhile with his face in his hands: now he rose
mechanically, shaking and stumbling like a drunkard after a debauch. But
as he rose, his face was altered, and his voice rang out over the isle,
“Sail, ho!”
All turned at the cry, and there, in the wild light of the morning,
heading straight for Midway Reef, was the brig Flying Scud of Hull.