[Illustration: “WELL, SHIPMATE, OUT GUNNING?”]
THE QUEST OF THE
SILVER SWAN
A Land and Sea Tale for Boys
BY
W. BERT FOSTER
Author of “In Alaskan Waters,” “With Washington at
Valley Forge,” “The Lost Galleon,” “The Treasure
of Southlake Farm,” etc.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
CHATTERTON-PECK COMPANY
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Copyright, by Frank A. Munsey Co., 1894 and 1895, as a serial.
Copyright, 1907, by Chatterton-Peck Company.
THE QUEST OF THE SILVER SWAN.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE RAFT AT SEA 9
II. INTRODUCING BRANDON TARR AND UNCLE ARAD 21
III. AN ACCOUNT OF THE WRECK OF THE SILVER SWAN 34
IV. BRANDON COMES TO A DECISION 40
V. UNCLE ARAD HAS RECOURSE TO LEGAL FORCE 45
VI. RELATING A MEETING BETWEEN UNCLE ARAD AND THE SAILOR 51
VII. INTRODUCING “SQUARE” HOLT AND HIS OPINIONS 59
VIII. SOMETHING ABOUT LEAVING THE FARM 66
IX. ANOTHER LETTER FROM NEW YORK 72
X. BRANDON’S ARRIVAL AT THE METROPOLIS 79
XI. THE FIRM OF ADONIRAM PEPPER & CO. 85
XII. IN WHICH BRANDON VENTURES INTO RATHER DISREPUTABLE
SOCIETY 90
XIII. THE OLD SAILOR WITH THE WOODEN LEG 98
XIV. THE OLD SAILOR’S EXCITEMENT 103
XV. CALEB RECEIVES A STARTLING COMMUNICATION 110
XVI. TELLING HOW BRANDON BEARDED THE LION IN HIS LAIR 116
XVII. HOW THE OMNIPRESENT WEEKS PROVES HIS RIGHT TO THE
TERM 123
XVIII. BRANDON LISTENS TO A SHORT FAMILY HISTORY 130
XIX. TELLING A GREAT DEAL ABOUT DERELICTS IN GENERAL 137
XX. THE CONTENTS OF SEVERAL INTERESTING DOCUMENTS 144
XXI. IN WHICH MR. PEPPER MAKES A PROPOSITION TO CALEB
AND DON 151
XXII. INTO BAD COMPANY 156
XXIII. MR. ALFRED WEEKS AT A CERTAIN CONFERENCE 163
XXIV. HOW A NEFARIOUS COMPACT WAS FORMED 171
XXV. UNCLE ARAD MAKES AN ANNOUNCEMENT 176
XXVI. CALEB WETHERBEE OBSTRUCTS THE COURSE OF THE LAW 183
XXVII. WHEREIN BRANDON TARR CONCEALS HIMSELF 188
XXVIII. THE DEPARTURE OF THE WHALEBACK, NUMBER THREE 197
XXIX. THE STOWAWAY ABOARD THE SUCCESS 208
XXX. SHOWING WHAT MISS MILLY DOES FOR BRANDON 217
XXXI. WHEREIN NUMBER THREE APPROACHES THE SUPPOSED
VICINITY OF THE SILVER SWAN 224
XXXII. RELATING HOW THE SILVER SWAN WAS HEARD FROM 229
XXXIII. IN WHICH COMRADES IN COURAGE LAUNCH THEMSELVES
UPON THE DEEP 234
XXXIV. THE INCIDENTS OF A NIGHT OF PERIL 240
XXXV. SHOWING HOW CALEB APPEARED ON THE SCENE JUST
TOO LATE 250
XXXVI. THE CASTAWAYS ON THE BRIG SUCCESS 257
XXXVII. LEFT IN DOUBT 264
XXXVIII. HOW THE ENEMY APPEARED 270
XXXIX. SHOWING HOW MR. WEEKS MADE HIS LAST MOVE 278
XL. IN WHICH THE ENEMY IS DEFEATED AND THE QUEST OF
THE SILVER SWAN IS ENDED 286
THE QUEST OF THE SILVER SWAN
CHAPTER I
THE RAFT AT SEA
THE sun, whose upper edge had just appeared above the horizon, cast its
first red beams aslant a deserted wilderness of heaving billows.
Here and there a flying fish, spurning its usual element, cut the air
like a swift ray of light, falling back into the sea again after its
short flight with a splash that sent myriad drops flashing in the
sunlight.
There were not a few triangular objects, dark in color, and looking
like tiny sails, darting along the surface of the sea, first in this
direction and then in that. There was a peculiar sinister motion
to these fleshy sails, an appearance to make the beholder shudder
involuntarily; for these objects were the dorsal fins of sharks, and
there is nothing more bloodthirsty and cruel than these “tigers of the
sea.”
It was quite noticeable that these monsters had gathered about an
object which, in comparison with the vast expanse of sea and sky, was
but a speck. It labored heavily upon the surface of the sea, and
seemed to possess a great attraction for the sharks.
It was really a heavily built raft, more than twenty feet in length,
and with a short, stumpy mast lashed upright amidships. Near each end
was a long sea chest, both placed across the raft, and there were also
a broken water butt and several empty cracker boxes lashed firmly (as
were the chests) to the strongly built platform.
At one end of this ungainly craft, behind one of the chests, lay two
men; at the further side of the opposite chest reclined another.
One might have thought the sea chests to be fortifications, for all
three men were heavily armed, and each was extremely careful not to
expose his person to the party behind the opposite chest.
Between the two boxes lay the figure of a fourth man; but he was flat
upon his face with his arms spread out in a most unnatural attitude. He
was evidently dead.
Of the two men who were at the forward end of the raft (or what was the
forward end for the time being, the ocean currents having carried the
craft in various directions during the several past days), of these
two, I say, one was a person of imposing, if not handsome, presence,
with curling brown hair streaked with gray, finely chiseled features,
and skin bronzed by wind and weather; but now the features were most
painfully emaciated, and a blood stained bandage was wrapped about his
brow.
His companion was a hearty looking old sea dog, well past the half
century mark, but who had evidently stood the privations they had
undergone far better than the first named.
He was burned even darker than the other, was of massive figure and
leonine head, and possessed a hand like a ham. One leg was bent up
beneath him, but the other was stretched out stiffly, and it took only
a casual glance to see that the old seaman had a wooden leg.
Every few moments the latter individual raised his head carefully and
peered over the chest, thus keeping a sharp watch on the movements of
the single occupant of the space behind the other fortification.
This person was a broad shouldered, deep chested man, seemingly quite
as powerful as the wooden legged sailor. Privation and hardship had
not improved his appearance, either, for his raven black beard and
hair were matted and unkempt, and his bronzed face had that peculiar,
pinched expression with which starvation marks its victims; and this
look did not make his naturally villainous features less brutal.
In truth, all three of these unfortunates were starving to death; the
fourth man, who lay so still upon the rough boards between the two
chests, was the first victim of the hardships they had suffered for the
last ten days.
These four men had been members of the ship’s company of the good brig
Silver Swan, bound to Boston from Cape Town and Rio Janeiro. After
leaving the latter port three weeks before, several severe storms had
arisen and the brig was beaten terrifically by the elements for days
and days.
Finally, after having every stick wrenched from her and even the jury
mast the crew had rigged, stripped bare, the brig, now being totally
unmanageable, was blown upon a narrow and barren reef several leagues
to the south and west of Cuba.
The crew, who had ere this most faithfully obeyed the captain and mate,
Caleb Wetherbee, now believing the vessel about to go to pieces, madly
rushed to the boats, and lowering them into the heavy sea, lost their
lives in their attempt to leave the brig.
Captain Tarr and mate Wetherbee were able to save only two of the
unfortunates--Paulo Montez, a Brazilian, and Jim Leroyd, the latter the
least worthy of all the crew.
These four had built the rude raft upon which they had now floated so
long, and not daring to remain with the brig during another storm that
seemed imminent, they set sail in the lumbering craft and left the well
built and still seaworthy brig hard and fast upon the reef.
This storm, which had frightened them from the Swan, was only severe
enough to strip their rude mast of its sail and rigging and drive them
seemingly far out of the course of other vessels, for not a sail had
they sighted since setting out on the raft.
Slowly their provisions had disappeared, while the now calmed sea
carried them hither and thither as it listed; and at last the captain
and mate had decided to put all hands upon still shorter allowance.
At this, Leroyd, always an ugly and brutal fellow even aboard ship,
had rebelled, and had tried to stir up his companion, Paulo, to mutiny
against the two officers; but the Brazilian was already too far gone
to join in any such scheme (in fact, he died the next forenoon), and
Caleb Wetherbee had driven Leroyd to his present position behind the
further chest, at the point of his pistol.
Captain Tarr, who had received a heavy blow on the head from a falling
block at the time of the brig’s wreck, was far less able to stand the
hardship than either of his living companions, and, now that ten full
days had expired since leaving the Silver Swan, he felt himself failing
fast.
Alone, he would have been unable to cope with Leroyd; but Caleb
Wetherbee stood by him like a faithful dog and kept the villainous
sailor in check. As Leroyd had demanded his share of the water and
scanty store of provisions, the mate had, with careful exactness, given
him his third and then made hint retire behind his chest again; for he
could not trust the fellow an instant.
“The scoundrel would put two inches o’ steel between both our ribs for
the sake o’ gettin’ the whole o’ this grub,” declared Caleb, keeping a
firm grip upon his pistol.
“He’d only shorten my time a little, Cale,” gasped Captain Tarr, a
paroxysm of pain weakening him terribly for the moment. “I can’t stand
many such times as _that_,” he added, when the agony had passed.
“Brace up, cap’n,” said the mate cheerfully. “You’ll pull through yet.”
“Don’t deceive yourself, or try to deceive me, Caleb,” responded
Captain Tarr gloomily. “I know my end is nigh, though I’m not an old
man yet--younger than you, old trusty, by ten years. And my life’s
been a failure, too,” he continued, more to himself than to his
companion.
“Tut! tut! don’t talk like that ’ere. Ye’ll have ter pull through for
the sake o’ that boy o’ yourn, you know.”
“I shall never see him again,” declared the injured man, with
confidence. “And how can I die in peace when I know that I shall leave
my son penniless?”
“Penniless!” exclaimed Wetherbee. “Didn’t you own the brig, an’ ain’t
you been makin’ v’y’ges in her for the past ten year?”
“I _did_ own the Silver Swan, and I _have_ made paying voyages with
her,” replied the captain weakly; “but, shame on me to have to say it,
all my earnings have been swallowed up by a speculation which turned
out to be utterly worthless. A sailor, Caleb, should stick by the sea,
and keep his money in shipping; I went into a mine in Nevada and lost
every cent I had saved.”
“But there was the Swan,” said the dumfounded mate; “there’ll be the
int’rest money on her--and a good bit it should be, too.”
“Aye, _should_ be,” muttered Captain Tarr bitterly; “but the brig is on
that reef and there’s not a cent of insurance on her.”
“What! no insurance?” gasped Wetherbee.
“No. When I left port last time my policy had run out, and I hadn’t a
cent to pay for having it renewed. So, if the old brig’s bones whiten
on that reef, poor Brandon will not get a cent.”
“_If_ they do,” exclaimed the mate in wonder.
“Yes, _if_ they do,” responded Captain Tarr, rising on his elbow and
speaking lower, so that there could be no possibility of the man at the
other end of the raft hearing his words; “for it’s my firm conviction,
Caleb, that we’d done better to stick by the old Swan. This last storm
drove hard from the west’ard. Suppose she’d slipped off again into
deep water? She didn’t leak enough to keep her sweet, in spite of the
terrific pounding she got from waves and rocks, and she might float
for weeks--aye, for months--and you know she’d have plenty of company
drifting up and down the Atlantic coast.”
“But that ain’t probable, cap’n, though I’ll grant ye that we might
have done better by stickin’ by her a while longer.”
“Probable or not, Caleb, I _feel_ that it is true. You know, they say a
dying man can see some things plainer than other folks.”
Caleb was silenced by this, for he could not honestly aver that he did
not believe his old commander to be near his end.
“And we had a valuable cargo, too, you know--very valuable,” murmured
Captain Tarr. “I put every cent I received from the sale of the goods
we took to Cape Town into this cargo, and would have cleared a handsome
profit--enough to have kept both Brandon and me in good circumstances
for a year. And then, there is something else.”
“Well, what is it?” Caleb asked, after taking a squint over the top of
their breastwork to make sure that Leroyd had not ventured out.
“If I’d got home with the Silver Swan, Caleb, I should have been rich
for life, and _you_, old trusty, should have had the brig just as she
stood, for the cost of makin’ out the papers.”
“What?” exclaimed Caleb.
He looked at his commander for several moments, and then shook his head
slowly. He believed that the privation they had suffered had at length
affected even Captain Horace Tarr’s brain.
“I’m not crazy, Caleb,” said the captain faintly. “I tell you I should
have been immensely wealthy. Brandon should have never wanted for
anything as long as he lived, nor should I; and I had already decided
to give the brig to you.”
“What--what d’ye mean if ye _ain’t_ crazy?” cried Caleb, in
bewilderment.
“Do you remember the man who came aboard the brig at Cape Town, just
before we sailed?” asked Captain Tarr, in a whisper, evidently saving
his strength as much as possible for his story. “He was a friend of my
brother Anson.”
“Anson!” interjected Caleb. “Why, I supposed _he_ was dead.”
“He is now,” replied the captain; “but instead of dying several years
ago, as we supposed, he had been living in the interior of Cape Colony,
and just before he actually did die he gave a package (papers, this
man supposed them to be) to an acquaintance, to be delivered to me.
I happened to touch at Cape Town before the friend of my brother had
tried to communicate with me by mail, and he brought the package aboard
the brig himself.
“He did not know what he was carrying--he never would have dared do it
had he known--for with a letter from Anson was a package, done up in
oil silk, of--diamonds of the purest water!”
“Diamonds!” repeated Caleb.
“Yes, diamonds--thousands of dollars’ worth--enough to make one man,
at least, fabulously rich!” The captain slowly rolled his head from
side to side. “After all these years the luck of the Tarrs had changed,
Caleb. Fortune has ever played us false, and even now, just when wealth
was in our grasp, it was snatched from us again.
“After wandering up and down the earth for forty years, Anson finally
‘struck it rich,’ and am I, who was to profit by his good fortune, and
the son whom I love more than I do anything else on earth, to lose this
treasure after all?”
He fell back upon the raft, and the exertion set the wound in his head
to bleeding again. A dark stream appeared beneath the bandage and
trickled down his forehead, while he lay, gasping for breath, upon the
bit of sailcloth which served him for a bed.
“What did you do with the diamonds?” the mate asked, when the dying man
had again become calm.
“I--I have written a letter to Brandon, telling him all about it,”
gasped the captain. “That is what I wrote the second day we were on the
raft. I dared not take them with me from the brig, and they are hidden
in the cabin. I know now that we made a grave mistake in leaving the
Silver Swan at all, for she may hold together for months.
“Take--take the papers from my pocket, Cale,” he added, feebly
unbuttoning his coat, “and keep them. If you are saved I charge you to
give them to Brandon with your own hands, and I can trust you to assist
him in every possible way to recover his fortune, should such a thing
be possible.”
The mate bent over the unfortunate owner of the Silver Swan, and with
trembling hands removed several thick documents from his pocket and
thrust them into the breast of his flannel shirt.
As he did so and turned again, he saw the scowling visage of Jim Leroyd
peering at them above his chest. Quick as a flash he seized his pistol
and aimed it at the sailor; but Leroyd dodged out of view at once.
Without doubt, however, he had seen the papers passed from the captain
to mate Wetherbee.
“Take good care of them, Cale,” whispered Captain Tarr. “And let nobody
else see them. I believe that Leroyd suspected something back there at
Cape Town, for he came into the cabin on an errand just as that friend
of poor Anson gave the package into my hands, and I caught him snooping
about the companionway several times afterward. It was he I feared most
when we left the brig, and therefore dared not take the diamonds with
me.”
“I’ll shoot him yet,” muttered the old seaman fiercely, with his
weather eye cocked over the top of the chest. “I hated the sight o’
that fellow when he first boarded the brig at New York. His face is
enough to bring bad luck to any ship.”
But the captain was not listening to him. He had floated away into a
restless slumber, from which he only awoke once to whisper, “Remember,
Cale!” and then passed into a dreamless sleep from which there could
be no awakening in this world.
Caleb Wetherbee closed the captain’s eyes tenderly, wrapped him in the
bit of sailcloth which had served as his bed, and fastened his lifeless
body so that no unexpected roll of the raft would precipitate it into
the water. Then he took the scant share of food left of the captain’s
hoard, and religiously divided it into two equal portions.
“Jim!” he said, when this was done, allowing himself but a moment to
gloat over the pitifully meager supply which he laid on the chest lid.
“Aye, aye, sir!” responded the sailor gruffly, cautiously raising his
head from behind his fortification.
“Captain Tarr is dead, Jim, and I have divided _his_ share o’ the grub.
Put down your weapons and come forward to the chest and take your part.
Remember, no slippery business or I’ll bore a hole in ye! Step out now.”
Suddenly the sailor arose, his ungainly, dwarfish proportions being
more manifest now that he was on his feet, and approached his officer,
stepping over the body of Paulo without a glance at it.
His fierce eyes lighted eagerly as he saw the little supply of food (he
had already consumed all his own), and he seized it at once. While he
did so he looked at the wooden legged sailor with a crafty smile.
“Wot was it the old man give ye, Caleb?” he asked familiarly.
The mate scowled fiercely at him, and did not reply.
“Oh, ye needn’t act so onery,” went on Leroyd. “_I_ knowed there was
somethin’--money I bet--that was given to the old man at the Cape.
He’s acted like a new man ever since, and if there’s anything in it,
I’m goin’ ter hev my share, jest like this share o’ the grub, now I
tell ye!”
“You take that food and git back to your place!” roared Caleb, pointing
the huge “bull dog,” which had a bore like a rifle, at the fellow’s
head. “An’ let me tell you that I shall be on the watch, I shall, an’
it’ll be a long say afore you catch Caleb Wetherbee asleep. Ef I ain’t
saved, _you_ won’t be, let me tell you, for ef I feel myself a-goin’ to
Davy Jones, _you’ll go along with me_!”
Leroyd sneaked back to his place again, and crouched behind the chest.
In that position he could not see the movements of Caleb, who, after a
few moments’ thought, deposited the packet of papers where he believed
no one would think of looking for them.
“There!” he muttered grimly. “If I _do_ foller Cap’n Tarr, I reckon
these papers’ll never do that scoundrel any good, an’ he can throw this
old hulk to the sharks and welcome. If the cap’n’s boy don’t profit by
’em, _nobody_ shall.”
Then he folded his arms, the pistol still in his grasp, and continued
his task of watching for the rescuing sail, which it seemed would never
come.