AN ACCOUNT OF THE WRECK OF THE SILVER SWAN
“TO what did these papers bear reference?” Brandon asked. “Father met
with heavy misfortunes in his investments last year, and every penny,
excepting the Swan itself, was lost. How could these papers have
benefited me?”
“Well, that I don’t rightly know,” replied the sailor slowly.
He looked at the boy for several seconds with knitted brows, evidently
deep in thought. Brandon could not help thinking what a rough looking
specimen he was, but remembering his father’s good opinion of Caleb
Wetherbee, he banished the impression as ungenerous.
“I b’lieve I’ll tell ye it jest as it happened,” said the man at
length. “Sit down here again, boy, an’ I’ll spin my yarn.”
He drew forth a short, black pipe, and was soon puffing away upon it,
while comfortably seated beside Don upon the rock.
“’Twere the werry night we sailed from the Cape,” he began, “that I
was--er--in the cabin of the Silver Swan, lookin’ at a new chart the
cap’n had got, when down comes a decently dressed chap--a landlubber,
ev’ry inch o’ him--an’ asks if this were Cap’n Horace Tarr.
“‘It is,’ says the cap’n.
“‘Cap’n Horace Tarr, of Rhode Island, U. S. A.?’ says he.
“‘That’s me,’ says the cap’n ag’in.
“‘Well, Cap’n Tarr,’ says the stranger chap, a-lookin’ kinder squint
eyed at me, ‘did you ever have a brother Anson?’
“Th’ cap’n noticed his lookin’ at me an’ says, afore he answered the
question:
“‘Ye kin speak freely,’ says he, ‘this is my mate, Cale Wetherbee, an’
there ain’t a squarer man, nor an honester, as walks the deck terday,’
says he. ‘Yes, I had a brother Anson; but I persume he’s dead.’
“‘Yes, he is dead,’ said the stranger. ‘He died up country, at a place
they calls Kimberley, ’bout two months ago.’
“That was surprisin’ ter the cap’n, I reckon, an’ he tol’ the feller
that he’d supposed Anson Tarr dead years before, as he hadn’t heard
from him.
“‘No, he died two months ago,’ says the man, ‘an’ I was with him. He
died o’ pneumony--was took werry sudden.’
“Nat’rally this news took the old man--I sh’d say yer father--all
aback, as it were, an’ he inquired inter his brother’s death fully.
Fin’ly the man drew out a big package--papers he said they was--wot
Anson Tarr had given him ter be sure ter give ter the cap’n when he
sh’d see him. Then the feller went.
“O’ course, the cap’n didn’t tell me wot the docyments was, but I
reckoned by his actions, an’ some o’ the hints he let drop, that they
was valible, an’ I--I got it inter my head that ’twas erbout money--er
suthin’ o’ the kind--that your Uncle Anson knowed of.
“Wal, the Silver Swan, she left the Cape, ’n’ all went well till arter
we touched at Rio an’ was homeward boun’. Then a gale struck us that
stripped the brig o’ ev’ry stick o’ timber an’ every rag o’ sail, an’
druv her outer thet ’ere rock. There warn’t no hope for the ol’ brig
an’ she began to go ter pieces to once, so we tried ter take to the
boats.
“But the boats was smashed an’ the only ones left o’ the hull ship’s
company was men Paulo Montez, and yer father, an’--an’ another feller.
We built the raft and left the ol’ brig, just as she--er--slid off er
th’ rock an’ sunk inter the sea. It--it mos’ broke yer father’s heart
ter see the ol’ brig go down an’ I felt m’self, jest as though I’d lost
er--er friend, er suthin!”
The sailor paused in his narrative and drew hard upon his pipe for a
moment.
“Wal, you know by the papers how we floated around on that ’ere raf’
an’ how yer poor father was took. He give me these papers just afore he
died, an’ made me promise ter git ’em ter you, ef I was saved. He said
you’d understand ’em ter oncet, an’,” looking at Brandon keenly out of
the corners of his eyes, “I didn’t know but ye knew something about it
already.”
Brandon slowly shook his head.
“No,” he said; “I can’t for the life of me think what they could refer
to.”
“No--no buried treasure, nor nothing of the kind?” suggested the man
hesitatingly.
“I guess not!” exclaimed Don. “If I knew about such a thing, you can
bet I’d be after it right quickly, for I don’t know any one who needs
money just at the present moment more than I.”
“Well, I believe I’ll go,” cried the sailor, rising hastily. “That
’orspital feller must hev forgotten ter mail them papers, an’ I’ll git
back ter New York ter oncet, an’ see ’bout it. I b’lieve they’ll be of
vally to ye, an’ if ye want _my_ help in any way, jest let me know.
I--I’ll give ye a place ter ’dress letters to, an’ I’ll call there an’
git ’em.”
He produced an old stump of a pencil from his pocket and a ragged
leather note case. From this he drew forth a dog eared business card
of some ship chandler’s firm, on the blank side of which he wrote in a
remarkably bad hand:
CALEB WETHERBEE,
NEW ENGLAND HOTEL,
WATER STREET,
NEW YORK.
Then he shook Don warmly by the hand, and promising to get the papers
from the “’orspital feller” at once, struck away toward the city again,
leaving the boy in a statement of great bewilderment.
He didn’t know what the papers could refer to, yet like all boys who
possess a good digestion and average health, he had imagined enough to
fancy a hundred things that they _might_ contain. Perhaps there was
some great fortune which his Uncle Anson had known about, and had died
before he could reap the benefit of his knowledge.
Yet, he felt an instinctive distrustfulness of this Caleb Wetherbee. He
was not at all the kind of man he had expected him to be, for although
Captain Tarr had never said much about the personal appearance of the
mate of the Silver Swan, still Don had pictured Caleb to his mind’s eye
as a far different looking being.
As he stood there in the path, deep in thought, and with his eyes fixed
upon the spot where he had seen the sailor disappear, the fluttering
of a bit of paper attracted his attention. He stooped and secured it,
finding it to be a greasy bit of newspaper that had doubtless reposed
for some days in the note case of the sailor, and had fallen unnoticed
to the ground while he was penciling his address on the card now in
Don’s possession.
One side of the scrap of paper was a portion of an advertisement, but
on the other side was a short item of news which Don perused with
growing interest.
SAVANNAH, MARCH 3. The Brazilian steamship Montevideo, which arrived
here in the morning, reports having sighted, about forty miles west
of the island of Cuba, a derelict brig, without masts or rigging of
any kind, but with hull in good condition. It was daylight, and by
running close the Montevideo’s captain made the wreck out to be the
Silver Swan, of Boston, which was reported as having been driven
on to Reef Number 8, east of Cuba, more than a month ago. The two
surviving members of the crew of the Silver Swan were picked up from
a raft, after twelve days of terrible suffering, by the steamship
Alexandria, of the New York and Rio Line. The Montevideo’s officers
report the brig as being a most dangerous derelict, as in its present
condition it may keep afloat for months, having evidently withstood
the shock of grounding on the reef, and later being driven off by the
westerly gale of February 13th.
Her position, when sighted by the Montevideo, has been reported to
the Hydrographic Office, and will appear on the next monthly chart.