UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS
“They can’t call us sundowners, with this grub on board,” Tempest said,
shouldering the parcel. “I don’t mind having a lazy time now and again
when I’ve earned it, but no man breathing shall call me a sundowner.”
“What’s that,” asked Dave, trudging along.
“A sundowner, my son, is a peculiar breed of creature that would as
soon fondle a rattlesnake as do a day’s work. He is born tired and
never gets over it. He faints right away at the sight of a pick or
shovel; and if he should happen to do an honest day’s labor, he talks
about it for years afterward. He has reduced the art of dodging work to
a science. Most all farms in Australia will give a man a square meal
and some sort of place to sleep in in return for a few hours’ help,
but the sundowner is foxy. When he sees a farm on the horizon he lies
down and basks till evening. Then, just when it’s getting dark and too
late for him to be put to anything useful in the fields, he rolls up
for free board and lodging.”
“Talking of somewhere to sleep,” Dave said, “can you tell me where we
are likely to spend the night?”
Tempest laughed.
“It’s about ten hours too early even to think of that,” he said; “and
anyway we don’t need to worry, or else we sha’n’t sleep so well. What’s
wrong with a hay-stack for a bed? Once you’re fast asleep you might be
there just as well as in the best bed money can buy.”
The two amateur tramps had a total of thirty miles to walk to reach
Albany, and more than half that distance had been covered by the time
they decided to halt for the night. A barn containing plenty of dry hay
stood temptingly near.
“What could one want better than that?” Tempest asked, after a brief
inspection of the place. “There’s no electric light, but one mustn’t
expect too much at the price, and there’s a full moon. Neither of us
will need rocking to sleep to-night, and we shall want a good rest,
because we have a big walk in front of us to-morrow.”
Dave, having grown accustomed to strange sleeping-places, was in a
sound slumber five minutes after his head touched the pillow of hay.
When Bruce Tempest heard his deep, regular breathing he took his old
pipe from a pocket, sat on a fence near, and smoked placidly for half
an hour. He always made a point of not smoking in a barn when he was
appropriating it for a night’s lodging, partly because there was
always the danger of losing his lodgings by burning the barn down, and
partly because he felt the farmer might appreciate the little act of
courtesy if only he knew. As one who had not a care in the world he
knocked the ashes from his pipe at last, hummed a sailors’ ditty, and
then strolled to his primitive couch. He, too, was soon in the land of
dreams.
The sun was just peeping over the horizon when the two wanderers awoke;
and before having breakfast they went down to the adjacent beach for a
refreshing plunge into the sea. Afterward they pushed on, covering ten
miles before the sun “was over the yard-arm,” as Tempest put it, when
they fell in with a party of road-menders taking their midday rest.
With typical Australian hospitality, the road-menders invited Dave and
his companion to join them in their noon meal.
It was evening when the two arrived in Albany, tired, hungry, and with
the price of one scant meal in their possession.
“It would be fun if we could both get fixed up on the same boat,” Dave
suggested. “You’re not particular which way you go, are you?”
“North, south, east, or west, will do the same,” Tempest replied.
“Well, I’d rather go east,” Dave said, “if luck will let me. It isn’t
as though my dad had seen me off and all that sort of thing. I told him
when I wrote that I should be back by now, and I guess he’s kind of
expecting me. Goodness only knows when I shall get home again if I have
to sign on some ship bound westward from here.”
“Don’t worry, sonny. Things nearly always pan out right by themselves,
as I’ve said before. So long as you live clean, pay your way, and can
look every man straight in the eyes, there’s hardly a thing in the
world that is worth a wrinkle. Besides, if you fuss over every blessed
thing that comes along, you’ve got no steam left in you when the time
comes for you to make a big effort.”
“Such as what?” asked Dave, wondering what manner of thing could give
Bruce Tempest a wrinkle.
“Oh, I don’t know for the minute,” the man said. “Just once or twice
in everybody’s life there comes a time that he thinks it worth while
to forge ahead, whatever it costs. It doesn’t need to be something
selfish. Some people keep themselves tuned up all the time. I don’t.
Perhaps I’ve got too slack,” he added ruefully, glancing down at his
tattered coat. He was wearing his “best” trousers, having left the
other disreputable-looking garments behind when he sallied forth from
the log-cabin. “I wonder whether I should have enough pep left in me to
make a real effort now if I wanted to. Anyway, there’s a chance to get
a move on to-night if we want a berth to sleep in.”
There were several coastal boats tied up at the various wharves, and
Dave and his companion began a systematic search for work. The third
vessel they tried wanted hands, but she was bound up the west coast,
farther away from America than ever; so they left her, undecided,
pending a further search. At last fortune favored them. The _Neptune_,
a rusty old tramp, was leaving the following day on a leisurely trip
eastward, picking up cargo where she could for any port on the way
to Sydney; and she could do with a couple more deck-hands. Dave’s
experience hardly justified him in signing on as a deck hand, but no
question was raised as to his age, his build being equal to that of
many a boy two years older.
The mate who engaged him asked Dave several questions, which were
answered satisfactorily.
“You’re a bit young,” the mate said, “but I guess you’ll do.” And Dave
flushed with pride when he found himself enrolled as an ordinary member
of the crew.
It was fortunate that he had spent as much of his time at sea as
possible learning the ins and outs of his trade, for this knowledge
became of great value to him now. Bruce Tempest, too, gave him some
quiet coaching, and after a week as an able-bodied seaman Dave found
little difficulty in carrying out the routine duties of a tramp’s
deck-hand. He was in the watch of Mr. Slazenger, the mate who had
engaged him, and when that officer found the boy a hard worker and
willing to learn, he made allowance for his inexperience.
The _Neptune_ made slow headway, but she was a fairly good sea-boat,
and Dave enjoyed this ambling trip more than he had being on either
of the other vessels. So long as the crew did their work the captain
did not interfere with them unduly, though, as one of the older hands
explained: “When he do want to put up a kick he wears his heaviest
boots.”
On more than one occasion the captain, a Queenslander named Phelps,
gave Dave a kindly word of encouragement and chatted pleasantly. The
boy was coiling a rope when Captain Phelps showed how it could be done
more expeditiously.
“Do you come of a sea-going family?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Dave replied. “My father was a ship’s master, and so were
his brothers.”
“Your dad at sea now?”
“No, sir. He’s been retired for a good many years. He used to run
clippers, chiefly in the North Pacific trade.”
“Hallard, Hallard,” said the captain, rubbing his chin reflectively.
“I seem to remember the name somehow. It’s a long time since I traded
out of America to China, but the name seems familiar. What is his given
name?”
“Andrew.”
Suddenly the captain glanced at the boy with a gleam of amusement in
his eyes.
“Did you ever hear him speak of a clipper called the _Bessie M.
Dobbs_?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” said Dave. “That was the boat that he made a record run in.”
“Bless my soul!” exclaimed Captain Phelps. “Why, I was in ’Frisco when
the _Bessie M. Dobbs_ shot through the Golden Gate on her thirty-fifth
day out of Hong Kong.”
“Thirty-third day, sir,” said Dave, never likely to be inaccurate about
that little bit of family history.
“Thirty-third, was it? Well, I know it just beat the record of the
schooner _Sierra Nevada_ by a day, and there was a lot of talk about
it at the time, because it was reckoned that the _Sierra Nevada’s_
record could never be beaten by a sailing ship. The _Bessie M. Dobbs_
nearly had her sticks torn out of her on the way. Captain Hallard only
shortened sail once during the whole run across, and that was when she
was poking her nose under water. Bless my soul, and here’s his slip of
a kid learning sailoring on the old _Neptune_! Well, Captain Hallard
wouldn’t remember me, though I was one of those who shook hands with
him after he landed, but when you get back home tell him I say he’s got
a son who’ll make a sailor.”
“Thank you, sir, I will,” said Dave, immensely pleased.
During their watch below, Tempest and Dave often had time for a yarn,
and sometimes during the hot, moonlight nights they would spend hours
on deck, chatting, under the wondrous spell of the Southern Cross.
“It is a mystery to me,” Tempest said one evening while they
were leaning over the rail and watching the antics of a shoal of
flying-fish, “how people can spend their lives cooped up in cities and
factories, working like slaves to pay big rents and getting mighty
little pleasure out of it all, when a life like this is possible. I
suppose, really, we can’t all go to sea, and lots of folk would think
this was rotten compared with an evening in a movie palace, but I know
which I like best, yes, siree. Why didn’t you wait till your father
said you could come, Dave? What was it about the old sea that got you?”
“Don’t know,” replied Dave reflectively. “It seemed to be growing on
me gradually without my knowing it, though of course I always knew I
should be a sailor sooner or later. I think what really set me off was
talking to an old man who was painting the side of a ship. He yarned
for about an hour, and after that I didn’t feel like waiting much
longer.”
“Well, was it anything like what the old man said?” Tempest queried.
“I don’t remember much of what he did say. One queer thing he told me,
though. It was about a derelict they’d found half buried in the sand
on some island in the South Seas. I didn’t forget the vessel’s name,
because it had been called after Cape Hatteras. When I got home I told
Dad about it, and he said there was a boat called the _Hatteras_ that
had been lost years and years ago with a lot of platinum on board.”
“Was it the same boat?” Tempest asked, lazily.
“Don’t know,” said Dave. “It sounded to me as though it might have
been, but Dad didn’t seem to think so.”
“Then your old friend the sailor didn’t get the treasure, eh?”
“He didn’t know anything about it. You see, his ship was only sheltering
off there, and they rowed ashore just to have a look at the derelict.
Perhaps they would have been a bit keener if only somebody had
remembered that there was a lost treasure-ship called the _Hatteras_.”
“Did the old man say exactly where it was?”
“No. He just mentioned that they were running between Christmas Island
and some other island, when they had to take shelter.”
“Well, there’s many a syndicate taken a sporting chance on a thing like
that and made a little fortune,” Tempest commented. “Now, after your
father told you there was a treasure-ship called the _Hatteras_, why
didn’t you go back and pump the old man to find out the exact bearings
of the island?”
“In the first place, as I say, Dad didn’t think it was any good after
all that time; and in the second place the old man’s ship had put to
sea again.”
“Where to?”
“Don’t know. I didn’t ask him.”
“Heigh-o,” Tempest laughed. “They say opportunity knocks at every man’s
door once in his life, and it seems to me, David Hallard, that you
weren’t listening when your turn came. You’ve kind of lost that island,
eh?”
“But you don’t think the stuff would be there, do you?”
“Me? How do I know, laddie? Maybe――and maybe not. Anyway, it isn’t any
use shedding tears over it now, is it?”
“I never did shed any tears over it,” Dave said. “I got excited about
it at the time, naturally, not because I wanted the money for myself
exactly, but――”
“But what?”
“Well, perhaps it was silly, but it struck me it would be great to find
the treasure and fix up my dad again as he was before he lost all he
had in New York.”
“The spirit is all right,” commented Tempest, grinning, “if only you
hadn’t gone and lost your island as soon as you’d found it! Old Man
Opportunity doesn’t usually knock twice at the same man’s door, but if
ever he does come again, mind you listen with both ears, Dave.”
Port after port they called at, once they got through the Bight, and
Dave was filled with interest by the busy scenes of dock life. At
some places the _Neptune_ was only tied up for a few hours while the
chattering winches hauled several tons of cargo from her capacious
hold: at others they spent several days. Tempest was familiar with most
of these ports, and Dave found in him a most entertaining guide when
they got the opportunity of stretching their legs ashore.
While off Cape Otway, running towards Melbourne, the _Neptune_
encountered one of the great mail boats, with her engines stopped for
some trifling repair. The _Neptune’s_ course took her close to the side
of the big ship which towered like a mountain over the wallowing little
tramp.
Dave, having taken a message to the captain, happened to be on the
bridge as they ran alongside. Hundreds of passengers leaned over the
rail looking at the small steamer, which dipped her flag and received
the same polite salutation.
Captain Phelps, recognizing the grey-whiskered skipper of the liner,
waved his hand.
“Want a tow?” he called out laughingly.
“Not to-day, thanks,” replied the skipper of the liner. “You’re a bit
too fast for us. Where’re you bound?”
“China to Japan with hot water,” replied Captain Phelps, as the little
_Neptune_ waddled out of earshot.
Dave and Tempest had only signed on the tramp for the trip as far as
Sydney, and the boy was sorry when the run was drawing to a finish, for
the _Neptune_ was a comfortable ship, as tramps go, and the weather had
been almost perfect.
“I suppose you’ll join a vessel bound from Sydney to New York,” Tempest
said as they sat on the hatches, watching the coast of New South Wales
slide past.
“I was thinking of it,” Dave replied.
“What about a run in one of those trading vessels through the South
Sea Islands?” Tempest suggested. “There’s nothing like it in the wide
world. They poke about buying that dried cocoanut stuff they call
copra, and other things, from the natives, going from one island to the
other till they get a full cargo. I know the skippers of two or three
of the ships, and we could be almost certain of getting a berth. Like
to come?”
“I’d like to, of course,” Dave said. The romance of the South Sea
Islands had always appealed to him greatly. “About how long should we
be away?”
“Between two and three months, I guess. It depends on what sort of luck
the captain has in picking up a cargo.”
“I might not get a chance again in years,” Dave said thoughtfully.
“Perhaps Dad wouldn’t mind so much. I could be back in Brooklyn before
Christmas, anyhow.”
“Just as you say, sonny,” Tempest observed. “I don’t want to upset your
plans, but there’s the chance staring you in the face, and there’s
thousands of youngsters would give their ears for one like it.”
“I’ll go,” Dave agreed, unconsciously taking yet another step in the
direction Fate was drawing him.