SHIPPING A CREW.
“HUMPH!” said Guy to himself, as he shouldered his bundle and started
toward Rupert’s boarding-house, “there is no danger that I shall have
the police after me. If Flint is going out in the Morning Light of
course I must go too, for he is the only friend I have in the world, and
I am bound to stick to him. I don’t see what made that shipping agent
grow so very cold and distant all of a sudden. I wish now, since he has
shown himself so very independent, that I had examined that paper before
I signed it. He was very polite until he got me to put down my name, and
then he was almost ready to insult me. I can’t imagine what need I shall
have of all these thick clothes he made me buy,” added Guy, as he
shifted his heavy bundle from one shoulder to the other. “I thought it
was warm up the Mediterranean. I knew he tried to fool me when he told
me about the pearls and diamonds, but I don’t care. I shall see
something of the world and be my own master, and perhaps when I return I
will have money enough to take me out to the Rocky Mountains. I haven’t
given up my idea of being a hunter, and I never shall.”
Guy passed a dreary afternoon at the boarding-house, in spite of the
friendly efforts of the landlord to make things pleasant for him. That
gentleman talked incessantly and told wonderful stories about the rapid
promotions and sudden fortunes that were sure to fall to the lot of
everybody who was fortunate enough to go up the Mediterranean on the
clipper-ship Morning Light. But Guy, green as he was, did not believe
them. He did not care to talk either, for he was very lonely and wanted
to see Flint. Contrary to the landlord’s promise, the sailor did not
make his appearance at the supper table, the host accounting for his
absence by telling Guy that Flint did not feel very well and wanted to
sleep as long as he could.
“May I see him?” asked the boy.
“No, he doesn’t want to be disturbed,” was the reply. “I have just been
to his room to tell him you were here, and he asked me to tell you to go
aboard your vessel at six o’clock, and he will come as soon as he
awakes.”
Guy was not at all pleased with this arrangement. He did not believe
that Flint had sent him any such instructions, and neither did he want
to go away without seeing him. But he could not help himself, for at six
o’clock precisely Smith, the shipping agent, appeared and ordered him to
shoulder his bundle and come on.
The boy was obliged to obey. He followed the agent to the dock and into
a yawl manned by two sailors, who immediately shoved off toward a vessel
lying at anchor in the harbor.
Guy did not like the looks of her. If she was a clipper, he had hitherto
had very erroneous ideas of marine architecture, he told himself. She
looked more like the pictures he had seen of Dutch galliots.
When they reached her Guy followed the agent over the side, and one of
the sailors threw his bundle up after him.
“Here’s an A. B. I have brought you,” said the agent, addressing himself
to a man who came up to meet them.
“All right,” was the reply. “What’s his name?”
Guy started and looked sharply at the speaker. He was certain that he
had seen him before. He was dressed like the man who had introduced
himself to Flint as the second mate of the Santa Maria, and his voice
was wonderfully like the mate’s, too. Guy tried to get a glimpse of his
face, but it was effectually concealed by a tarpaulin and a heavy woolen
muffler.
“His name is John Thomas,” said the agent, seeing that Guy did not
answer the question.
“Take your dunnage into the forecastle, Thomas, and be ready to turn to
at any moment,” said the man.
“I declare, he’s an officer,” thought Guy, “and I really believe he’s
the second mate of the Santa Maria. If he is, how came he here on board
the Morning Light? Dear me, I wish Flint would come.”
“Good-by, Jack,” said the agent, shaking the boy’s hand. “I’ve got you
into tidy quarters, and shall expect to hear a good report of you.”
“What do you suppose keeps Flint?” asked Guy anxiously.
“I am sure I can’t tell. I have nothing to do with him, you know. Rupert
shipped him—I didn’t. No doubt he’ll be aboard directly. Good-by.”
The agent disappeared over the side and Guy shouldered his dunnage and
went down into the forecastle. Three or four of the bunks were already
occupied, and, selecting one of the empty ones, Guy made up his bed in
it, and then went on deck to look about him and await the arrival of
Flint.
There were a few men on deck, the owners of the beds he had seen in the
forecastle, but they did not notice Guy, and he was too much interested
in his own affairs to have anything to say to them. Flint’s absence was
the source of great anxiety to him. He could not account for it, and
neither could he explain the remarkable resemblance between the man who
met him as he came over the side and the second mate of the Santa Maria,
whom he had last seen in the public room of the boarding-house.
“Could it be possible,” he asked himself—and at the thought the blood
went rushing back upon his heart, leaving his face as pale as death
itself—“that the agent had made a mistake and brought him to the Santa
Maria instead of the Morning Light?”
“Great Cæsar!” thought Guy, catching his breath, “if that is the case
I’m among the ghosts in spite of myself. I’ll ask some of these men. Of
course they know the name of the vessel.”
As Guy was about to act upon this resolution his attention was attracted
by the sound of oars, and running to the side he saw a large yawl
approaching the ship.
His hopes arose wonderfully, but fell again when he discovered that
there were but three men in the boat—two plying the oars and the other
sitting in the stern with his hands on the tiller.
“Boat ahoy!” said the mate, leaning over the rail and speaking almost in
a whisper.
“Rupert!” was the answer, given in the same cautious tone.
“All right,” exclaimed the officer. “I thought you were never coming.
Stand by there, one of you, to catch the painter. Cap’n,” he added,
thrusting his head down the companion way, “the boat’s come.”
Guy, being the nearest at hand, caught the painter as it came whirling
up to him, and as he drew the boat up to the ladder that was quickly
lowered over the side, he was surprised to see that she was loaded
almost to the water’s edge.
A number of bundles and chests were piled in the bow, and the bottom was
covered with men—probably a dozen or fifteen of them in all—who appeared
to be asleep. Of those who managed the yawl one was Rupert, the
boarding-house keeper, and the others were two of his assistants, who
had rushed into the bar-room to quell the fight, or rather to help it
along.
Guy recognized them at once. He wondered what they were going to do with
the men who were lying on the bottom of the boat, and was not long in
finding out.
The men must have been slumbering heavily, for the landlord and his
assistants made no effort to arouse them, but lifting them in their
arms, one after the other, carried them up the ladder and laid them in a
row on the deck, as if they had been dead men.
The last one who was brought over the side was Dick Flint, limp and
lifeless like the rest. Guy was greatly horrified and disgusted to see
his friend in such a condition. He had been almost twenty-four hours
trying to sleep off the effect of the “blow out” at which he had
assisted. He must have been very drunk indeed.
“I wish to goodness I had stayed ashore,” said Guy, almost ready to cry
with vexation. “I don’t want a drunkard for my companion, and I’ll tell
Flint so at the very first opportunity. I believe home is the best place
for a boy after all. If he gets whipped and scolded sometimes when he
doesn’t deserve it, he always has plenty to eat, a good bed to sleep in,
and isn’t obliged to associate with such wretches as these. Halloo! what
is the captain up to, I wonder?”
The men had all been carried to the deck by this time, and now a piece
of iniquity was enacted that struck Guy dumb with amazement. The captain
and his mate, accompanied by the boarding-house keeper, approached the
place where the sailors were lying. The former held in his hands a pen
and a roll of paper, which proved to be the shipping articles Guy had
signed in the agent’s office; the mate carried an inkstand and Rupert a
lantern.
“What is this man’s name?” asked the captain, stopping at the head of
the row and pointing with his pen toward one of the prostrate sailors.
“Richard Flint,” replied the landlord, “and he is an able seaman.”
The captain wrote Flint’s name and rate on the shipping articles, and
then kneeling down beside him, placed the pen between his nerveless
fingers, and seizing his hand in his own, described a cross with it upon
the shipping articles. This done, the captain passed the pen over to his
mate, who signed his own name opposite Flint’s, and the latter stood on
the shipping articles in this way:
his
RICHARD X FLINT, A. B.
mark
JACOB SCHWARTZ,
Second Mate, and witness to signature.
Although the whole proceeding was most outrageous, the form was
according to law, and Flint, had he recovered his senses at that moment,
would have been held for the cruise in spite of himself. Remonstrance
would have been of no avail, and resistance would have rendered him
liable to punishment.
But this was not all the wickedness that was perpetrated upon the
unconscious seaman. While the mate was signing his name to the articles
the captain produced his pocket-book and counted out forty dollars in
bills, which he placed in Flint’s hand, and closing his fingers over
them, turned to the man who lay next to him, and whom he shipped and
paid in the same manner.
Guy had been a puzzled witness of the whole proceedings, but now he
thought he begun to understand it.
“I have been lied to and cheated,” said he to himself. “Rupert and Smith
both told me that Flint had signed articles and received his advance all
fair and square; and if that was the truth, how does it come that he is
being shipped and paid over again? I am afraid I have got myself into a
scrape.”
Guy did not know just what sort of a scrape he had got into, and he
could not stop to think about it then, for another matter demanded his
attention. He was interested in Flint’s affairs, and knowing that the
sailor could not take care of his money while he was in that condition,
he started toward him, intending to take possession of it, and give it
to him when he became sober; but what was his surprise to see Rupert
step up to the insensible man, and coolly unclasping his fingers, put
the money in his own pocket. In other words, he deliberately robbed
Flint, and that, too, before the face and eyes of the captain and his
mate, who, although they must have observed the act, did not pay the
least attention to it. This was more than Guy could stand. He walked up
to the captain and boldly charged Rupert with the theft.
“Captain,” said he, “do you see what this landlord is doing? He is
stealing the advance as fast as you pay it to the men.”
The result of this exposure of the boarding-house keeper was just what
Guy might have looked for had he taken time to consider the matter
before acting. He supposed, in his simplicity, that the landlord would
turn pale and tremble, like the guilty wretch he was, and that the
captain, after compelling him to return the money, would arrest him on
the spot, or unceremoniously kick him off his vessel. But nothing of the
kind happened. Rupert looked a little surprised, but only gave Guy one
quick glance and held the lantern lower, so that the captain could see
to sign another name. The latter, however, arose hastily, placed his pen
between his teeth, and seizing Guy by the throat, choked him until he
was black in the face; and then, with a strong push, sent him sprawling
on deck.
“There, now,” said he, “that’s the first lesson; and if it don’t learn
you to keep a civil tongue in your head, and speak when you’re spoken
to, I’ll give you another that’ll sink deeper. Turn to and carry that
dunnage into the forecastle.”
The severe choking to which Guy had been subjected, and the jarring
occasioned by his heavy fall on deck, had well-nigh proved too much for
him. His head whirled about like a top, sparks of fire danced before his
eyes, and his legs for the moment refused to support him. He was in no
condition just then to carry heavy burdens, but he had heard the order
and dared not disregard it. His last week’s experience on board the
Ossipee had taught him that instant obedience and unquestioning
submission is the whole duty of a foremast hand. He is looked upon as a
slave, a beast of burden, an unreasoning brute, who has no right to any
desires, feelings, or will of his own. If he receives a blow from a
handspike that would brain an ox, he has no business to become
insensible or get sick over it, but must jump up at once and resume his
work with cheerfulness and alacrity. Guy, however could not do this, for
he had not yet been sufficiently hardened. He pulled himself up by the
fife-rail and clung to it several minutes before his head became steady,
so that he could walk.
Was this the beginning of the “better times” which, according to Flint,
he was to enjoy when once he was “fairly afloat?” Guy asked himself; and
then seeing the captain looking his way, he released his hold on the
fife-rail, and staggered toward the bundles belonging to the sailors,
which lay where Rupert and his assistants had thrown them. With great
difficulty, for he was still very weak, he raised one of them to his
shoulder, and carrying it to the forecastle, threw it into one of the
empty bunks.
As he was about to return to the deck he met two of the crew coming down
the ladder carrying the insensible form of Dick Flint between them. They
did not handle him very gently, but pitched him into one of the bunks as
if he had been a log of wood, and laughed and passed some rough joke
when his head came in contact with the hard boards.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!” said Guy, indignantly. “This
man is my friend, and too good a fellow to be jammed about in that way,
even if he is drunk.”
“Well, now, who are you that comes here giving orders and making
yourself so free?” demanded one of the men, turning fiercely upon Guy.
“I am a sailor like yourself, and a better one than you dare ever be,”
retorted the runaway, little dreaming how soon he would be called upon
to make good his boast.
“I ain’t saying nothing against that,” said the man, with a little more
respect in his tones; “but I’d like to know what port you have sailed
out of all your life that you can’t tell the difference between a man
that’s drunk and one that’s drugged!”
“Drugged!” exclaimed Guy, utterly confounded.
“Yes; that’s what’s the matter with your mate. The last glass he took
was doctored. You might pound him to death with a belaying-pin and never
hurt him.”
“Drugged!” repeated Guy, some scraps of the conversation he had held
with Flint at the boarding-house coming vividly to his mind. “What ship
is this?” he asked suddenly.
“Why, didn’t you sign articles?”
“Yes, but I’m afraid I’ve been cheated.”
“No, I guess not,” said the sailor. “You came aboard with a clear head
on your shoulders, so you’re all right.”
But Guy was quite positive that he was _not_ all right. He would have
given a month’s wages to know the name of the vessel he had shipped on,
but dared not press the man to give a direct answer to his question, for
fear that some strong suspicions that had suddenly arisen in his mind
would be confirmed.
“I just know this is the Santa Maria,” said the boy to himself, at the
same time casting a quick glance around the dimly lighted forecastle. “I
know it as well as I know that I am alive. Everything goes to prove it.
In the first place the men Rupert brought here in his boat are the same
ones I saw playing cards in his house. Flint predicted that they would
all be drugged and shipped aboard the Santa Maria, and things have
turned out just as he said they would. But how did Flint himself manage
to be caught in the trap? That’s what beats me. In the second place the
mate, who witnessed the signatures on the shipping articles, is the same
man I saw at Rupert’s, and who said he was an officer of the Santa
Maria. I know him in spite of his tarpaulin and woolen muffler, for he’s
got the same clothes on. Dear me! I wish Flint would wake up and tell me
what to do.”
While Guy’s thoughts were running in this channel, he was working
industriously at his task of carrying the sailors’ bundles into the
forecastle, and finally he found Flint’s among them.
Hastily untying it, he took out two blankets, and rolling up one of them
to serve as a pillow, he put it under his friend’s head and spread the
other over his shoulders. As he was making his way up the ladder to
bring down the last bundle, he heard the splashing of oars close by, and
running to the side, saw a yawl approaching.
“Ship ahoy!” cried one of the men in the yawl.
“Halloo!” replied the mate.
“What ship is this?”
Guy listened with all his ears to hear the mate’s reply, but the officer
leaned as far over the rail as he could, and spoke in a tone so low that
Guy could not catch his words.
“When are you going to sail?” asked the man in the yawl.
“Just as soon as we can haul up our mud-hook,” replied the mate.
“Got your crew all aboard?”
“Yes.”
“Have you one among your hands of the name of Guy Harris?”
“Merciful Heavens!” thought Guy. “Who in the world can that be, and what
does he want of me? Is it the detective who arrested Bob Walker in
Chicago? Great Scott!”
Guy did not wait to hear any more of the conversation, but hastily
catching up the bundle, threw it over his shoulders and ran into the
forecastle.
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