BEGINNING THE VOYAGE
Ruth bent a little lower over her coffee urn to hide the additional
flush that had come into her cheeks, and after that she guided the
conversation to safer ground and took care to leave no opening for
Drew's audacity.
The meal over, all went on deck. The captain took charge and sent
Ditty and Rogers, the second officer, below to get breakfast. The crew
had already breakfasted.
Tyke had been carefully helped up by Drew and Captain Hamilton and
placed in a chair abaft the mizzenmast, where his keen old eyes could
delight themselves with the activities of the crew. Ruth had fussed
around him prettily with cushions and a rest for his injured leg, until
the veteran vowed that he would surely be spoiled before the voyage was
over.
They had passed the Battery by this time, and were moving sluggishly
with the tide. Behind them stretched the vast metropolis, with its
wonderful sky-line sharply outlined by the bright rays of the morning
sun. The Goddess of Liberty held her torch aloft as though to guide
them in their venture. At the right the hills of Staten Island smiled
in their vernal beauty, while at the left, white stretches of gleaming
beach indicated the pleasure resorts where the people of the teeming
city came to play.
Ditty had come on deck again. Unpleasant though his countenance was,
and as suspicious as Drew was of him, it was plain that the mate of the
_Bertha Hamilton_ was a good seaman.
He looked now at Captain Hamilton for permission to make sail. The
latter signed to him to go ahead. Useless to pay towage with a
favoring wind and flowing tide.
Ditty bawled to the crew:
"Break her out, bullies! H'ist away tops'ls!"
The halyards were promptly manned. One man started the chorus that
jerked the main topsail aloft.
"Oh, come all you little yaller boys
An' roll the cotton _down_!
Oh, a husky pull, my bully boys,
An' roll the cotton _down_!"
In a trice, it would seem, her three topsails were mastheaded and the
foretopsail laid to the mast. The fore-braces came in, hand over hand,
the hawsers were tossed overboard and the tug fell astern. The _Bertha
Hamilton_ leaned gracefully to the freshening gale, and was shooting
for the Narrows.
"It is perfectly beautiful, isn't it?" cried Ruth.
"Magnificent," agreed Drew.
"It's the finest harbor in all the world, to my mind," declared
Parmalee.
"I wonder when we'll see it again," mused Ruth, with a touch of
apprehension in her voice.
"Oh, it won't be long before we're back," prophesied Parmalee.
"And when we do come back, we'll have enough doubloons with us to buy
up the whole city," joked Drew.
"Don't be too sure of that," smiled Ruth. "Those who go out to shear
sometimes come back shorn."
"We simply can't fail," asserted Drew. "Especially as we're taking a
mascot along with us."
"The mascot may prove to be a hoodoo," laughed Ruth. "I've thought
more than once that I shouldn't have teased my father to take me along."
"He'd have robbed the whole trip of brightness if he had refused,"
affirmed Parmalee.
"It's nice of you to say that," returned Ruth. "But if any serious
trouble should come up, fighting or anything of that kind, you might
find me terribly in the way."
"We'd only have an additional reason to fight the harder," declared
Drew. "No harm should come to you while any of us were left alive.
But really, there's nothing to worry about. This trip is going to be a
summer excursion."
"Nothing more serious to fear than the ghosts of some of the old
pirates who may be keeping guard over their doubloons and may resent
our intrusion," said Parmalee.
"I'm not afraid of ghosts," cried Ruth. "It's only creatures of flesh
and blood that give me any worry."
"If anything should come up," said Drew, "we're in pretty good shape to
give the mischief-makers a tussle. Your father has a good collection
of weapons down in the cabin."
"Yes," assented Ruth; "and I know how to load and handle a revolver."
Drew put up his hands in pretended fright.
"Don't shoot!" he pleaded.
Thus with jest and compliment and banter the time passed until they
were off Sandy Hook. The breeze, while brisk, was light enough to
warrant carrying all sails, and a cloud of canvas soon billowed from
aloft. One after another the sails were broken out on all three masts
until they creaked with the strain. The _Bertha Hamilton_ heeled over
to port, and with every stitch drawing before a following wind gathered
way until she boomed along at a gait that swiftly carried her out of
sight of land. Before long the Sandy Hook Lightship sank from view
astern, and nothing could be seen on any side but the foam-streaked
billows of the Atlantic.
When the schooner was fairly under way and the watches had been chosen,
the captain gave her into charge of the mate and rejoined Tyke.
That grizzled veteran was enjoying himself more than he had done at any
time for the last twenty years. As the old warhorse "sniffs the battle
from afar," so he already anticipated with delight the coming battle
with wind and waves.
"Well, Tyke, what do you think of her?" the captain asked.
"She's a jim dandy!" ejaculated Tyke enthusiastically. "She rides the
waves like a feather. Jest slips along like she was greased."
"She's a sweet sailer," declared the captain proudly. "Just wait till
you see how she manages against head winds. Even when she's jammed up
right into the wind, she's good for six knots, and with any kind of a
fair gale, she's good for ten or twelve."
"With ordinary luck, then, we ought to git to the Caribbean in ten or
twelve days," said Tyke.
"Unless we meet up with something that strips our spars," returned the
captain confidently. "Of course, a hurricane might knock us out in our
calculations. Taking it by and large though, and allowing for the time
we may have to cruise around before we find the island we're looking
for, I'm figuring that we'll make Sandy Hook again in two months all
right."
"Better count on three and be sure," cautioned Grimshaw. "You know it
isn't a matter of simply finding the island, staying there mebbe a day
or two an' coming away again. This is more'n jest sending a boat's
crew ashore for water. We may be a month hunting around and trying to
find the pesky thing."
"And even then we may not find it," laughed the captain.
"Well, it'll be some satisfaction if we even find the hole it used to
be in," said Tyke. "That'll show that we weren't altogether fools in
taking the paper an' map for gospel truth."
"I don't know that there'd be much comfort in that," returned Captain
Hamilton. "If you're hungry it doesn't do much good to look at the
hole in a doughnut. There isn't much nourishment except in the
doughnut itself," and he grinned over his little joke.
The wind held fair for the rest of the day, and the schooner kept on at
a spanking gait, reeling off the miles steadily. By night the
increasing warmth of the air showed how rapidly the South was drawing
near.
Ruth was a good sailor and felt no bad effect from the long ocean
swells as the ship ploughed over them. Drew, too, who had no sea-going
experience at all and had inwardly dreaded possible sea-sickness, was
delighted to find that he was to be exempt.
Parmalee, however, although he had traveled extensively, had never been
immune from paying tribute to Neptune. He ate but little at the
noon-day meal, and when the rest gathered around the table at night he
did not appear at all.
Drew felt that he should be sympathetic, and, to do him justice, he
tried to be. He visited Parmalee in his cabin, condoled with him, and
offered to be of any possible service. But Parmalee wanted nothing
except to be let alone, and, with the consciousness of duty done, Drew
left him to his misery and joined the rest at the table.
"I'm awfully sorry for poor Mr. Parmalee," remarked Ruth, as she poured
Drew's tea.
"Poor fellow," chimed in the young man perfunctorily.
"You don't say that as though you meant it at all," objected Ruth
reprovingly.
"What do you expect me to do?" laughed Drew. "Weep bitter tears? I'll
do it if you want me to. In fact, I'll do anything you want me to
do--jump through a hoop, roll over, play dead, anything at all."
"I didn't know you had so many accomplishments," remarked Ruth, with a
touch of sarcasm.
"Oh, I'm a perfect wonder," replied the young man. "There isn't
anything I can't do or wouldn't do--for you," he added, dropping his
voice so only she could hear it.
Ruth, however, pretended not to hear, and addressed her next remark to
Grimshaw.
"How do you like Wah Lee's cooking?" she asked.
"Fine," replied Tyke. "There's no better cooks anywhere than the
Chinks. Want to look out that he don't slip one over on you, though,
if the victuals run short. Might serve up cat or rat or something of
the kind an' call it pork or veal. An' he'd probably git away with it,
too."
Ruth gave a little shudder.
"Cat might not be so bad at that," remarked her father. "Down in
Chili, for instance, they haven't any rabbits and they serve up cats
instead. 'Gato piquante' they call it, which means savory cat. I've
never tasted it, but I know those who have, and they say that it makes
the finest kind of stew."
"Why not?" commented Drew, with a grin. "Catfish is good. So is
catsup. Why not cat stew?"
"I think you men are just horrid!" exclaimed Ruth. "Taking away poor
Wah Lee's character like this behind his back."
"Well, I guess we won't have to worry about his falling from grace on
this cruise," laughed her father. "We're too well stocked up for him
to be driven to try experiments."
When they went up on deck, the moon had risen. Its golden light tipped
the waves with a sheen of glory and turned the spray into so much
glittering diamond dust. Under its magic witchery, the ropes and
rigging looked like lace work woven by fairy fingers.
The crew were grouped up in the bow, and one of them was playing a
concertina. Mr. Rogers paced the deck, casting a look aloft from time
to time to see that the sails were drawing well. The wind had a slight
musical sound as it swept through the rigging, and this blended with
the regular slapping of the water against her sides as the _Bertha
Hamilton_ sailed steadily on her course.
The air was the least bit chilly, and this gave Drew an excuse for
tucking Ruth cozily into the chair he had placed in a sheltered
position behind the deckhouse. His fingers trembled as he drew the
rugs and shawls around her. She snuggled down, wholly content to be
waited on so devotedly, and perhaps--who knows?--sharing to some degree
the emotion that made the man's pulse race so madly.