I STRIKE A BARGAIN WITH THE YANKEE.
The captain put his cup down; the bowl was empty; I offered to brew
another jorum, but he thanked me and said no, adding significantly that
he would have no more _here_, by which he meant that he would brew for
himself in his own ship anon. The drink had made him cheerful and
good-natured. He recommended that we should go on deck and set about
transhipping whilst the weather held, for he was an old hand in these
seas and never trusted the sky longer than a quarter of an hour.
"This here list," says he, "wants remedying and that'll follow our
easin' of the hold."
"Yes," said I, "and I should be mighty thankful if some of your men
would see all clear aloft for me, that we might start with running
rigging that will travel, capstans that'll revolve, and sails that'll
spread."
"Oh, we'll manage that for you," said he. "Tru-ly, she's been bad froze,
very bad froze. Durned if ever I see a worse freeze."
So saying he called to "Bill," who seemed the principal man of the
boat's crew, and gave him some directions, and immediately afterwards
all the men entered the boat and rowed away to the ship.
Whilst they were absent I carried the captain into the hold and left him
to overhaul it. I told him that all the spirits, provisions, and the
like were in the hold and lazarette, which was true enough, wanting to
keep him out of the run, though, thanks to the precaution I had taken, I
was in no fear even if he should penetrate so deep aft. Before he came
out five-and-twenty stout fellows arrived in four boats from the ship,
and when we went on deck, we found them going the rounds of the vessel,
scraping the guns to get a view of them, peering down the companion,
overhauling the forecastle-well, as I call the hollow beyond the
forecastle, and staring aloft with their faces full of grinning wonder.
The captain sang out to them and they all mustered aft.
"Now, lads," said he, "there's a big job before you--a big job for Cape
Horn, I mean; and you'll have to slip through it as if you was grease.
When done there'll be a carouse, and I'll warrant ye all such a sup that
the most romantic among ye'll never cast another pining thought in the
direction o' your mother's milk."
Having delivered this preface, he divided the men into two gangs; one,
under the boatswain, to attend to the rigging, clear the canvas of the
ice, get the pumps and the capstans to work, and see all ready for
getting sail on the schooner; the other, under the second mate, to get
tackles aloft and break out the cargo, taking care to trim ship whilst
so doing.
They fell to their several jobs with a will. 'Tis the habit of our
countrymen to sneer at the Americans as sailors, affirming that if ever
they win a battle at sea it is by the help of British renegades. But
this I protest; after witnessing the smartness of those Yankee whalemen,
I would sooner charge the English than the Americans with lubberliness
came the nautical merits of the two nations ever before me to decide
upon. They had the hatches open, tackles aloft, and men at work below
whilst the mariners of other countries would have been standing looking
on and "jawing" upon the course to be taken. Some overran the fabric
aloft, clearing, cutting away, pounding, making the ice fly in storms;
others sweated the capstans till they clanked; others fell to the pumps,
working with hammers and kettles of boiling water. The wondrous old
schooner was never busier, no, not in the heyday of her flag, when her
guns were blazing and her people yelling.
I doubt whether even a man-of-war could have given this work the
despatch the whaler furnished. She had eight boats and sixty men, and
every boat was afloat and alongside us ready to carry what she could to
the ship. I wished to help, but the captain would not let me do so; he
kept me walking and talking, asking me scores of questions about the
schooner, and all so shrewd that, without appearing reserved, I
professed to know little. The great show of clothes puzzled him. He also
asked if the crucifix in the cabin was silver. I said I believed it was,
fetched it, and asked him to accept it, saying if he would give me the
smallest of his boats for it I should be very much obliged.
"Oh, yes," says he, "you can have a boat. The men would not sail with
you without a boat;" and after weighing the crucifix without the least
exhibition of veneration in his manner, he put it in his pocket, saying
he knew a man who would give him a couple of hundred dollars for the
thing on his telling him that the Pope had blessed it.
"Ay, but," says I, "how do you know the Pope has blessed it?"
"Then _I_'ll bless it," cried he; "why, am I a cold Johnny-cake that my
blessing ain't as good as another man's?"
I was glad I had hidden the black flag; I mean, that I had stowed it
away in the cabin of the Frenchman after he was dead. The Yankee needed
but the sight to make his suspicions of the original character of the
_Boca del Dragon_ flame up; and you may suppose that I was exceedingly
anxious he should not be sure that the schooner had been a pirate, lest
he might have been tempted to scrutinize her rather more closely than
would have been agreeable to me.
He asked me if I had met with any money in her: and I answered evasively
that in searching the dead man on the rocks, I had discovered a few
pieces in his pocket, but that I had left them, being much too
melancholy and convinced of my approaching end to meddle with such a
useless commodity. From time to time he would quit me to go to the hatch
and sing down orders to the second mate in the hold. How many casks he
meant to take I did not know; when he asked me how much I would give, I
replied: "Leave me enough to keep me ballasted; that will satisfy me."
The high swell demanded caution, but they managed wonderfully well. They
never swung more than three casks into a boat, and with this cargo she
would row away to the ship that lay hove-to close, and the men in her
hoisted the casks aboard.
The wind remained light till half-past three; it then freshened a bit.
Though all hands had knocked off at noon to get dinner--and a fine meal
I gave them of ham, tongue, beef, biscuits, wine, and brandy--by
half-past three they had eased the hold of ten boatloads of casks,
besides clearing out the whole of the clothes from the forecastle along
with as much of the bedding as we did not require; and I began to think
that my Yankee intended to leave me a clean ship to carry home, though I
durst not remonstrate. Yet was my turn handsomely served too. The pumps
had been cleared and tried, and found to work well, and--which was glad
news to me--the well found dry. The running rigging had been overhauled,
and it travelled handsomely. The sails had been loosed and hoisted and
lowered again, and the canvas found in good condition. The jibboom had
been run out, and the stays set up. The stock of fresh water had been
examined and found plentiful, and the casks in the head brought out and
secured on the main deck. In short, the American boatswain had worked
with the judgment and care of a master-rigger, of a great artist in
ropes, booms, and sails, and the schooner was left to my hands as fit
for any navigation as the whaler that rose and fell on our quarter.
But, as I have said, at half-past three in the afternoon, the breeze
began to sit in dark curls upon the water, and there was evidence enough
in the haziness in the west, and in the loom of the shoulders of vapour
in the dark-blue obscure there, to warrant a sackful for this capful
presently.
"I reckon," says the captain to me, after looking into the west, "that
we'd best knock off now. There's snow and wind yonder, and we'd better
see all snug while there's time."
He called to one of the men to tell the second mate to come up from
below and get the hatches on, and bringing me to the rail, he pointed to
a boat, and asked if that would do? I said yes, and thanked him heartily
for the gift, which was handsome, I must say, the boat being a very good
one, though, to be sure, he had got many times its value out of the
schooner; and a party of men were forthwith told off to get the boat
hoisted and stowed.
"Now, Mr. Rodney," said the captain, standing in the gangway, "how can I
serve you further?"
"Sir," said I, "you are very obliging. Two things I stand sadly in need
of: a chart of these waters and a chronometer."
"I'll send you a chart," said he, "that'll carry you as high as San
Roque; but I've only got one chronometer, sir, and can't spare him."
"Well then," said I, "if, when you get aboard, you'll give me the time
by your chronometer, I'll set my watch by it; but I'll thank you very
much for the chart. The tracings below are as shapeless as the moon
setting in a fog."
"You shall have the chart," said he, and then called to Wilkinson and
the two negroes.
"Lads," said he, "you're quite content, I hope?"
They answered "Yes."
"You've all three a claim upon me for the amount of what's owing ye,"
said he, "and when you turn up at New Bedford you shall have it--that's
square. I see fifteen hundred dollars a man on this job, if so be as ye
don't broach too thirstily as you go along. Mr. Rodney, Joe here's a
steady, 'spectable man, and'll make you a good mate. Cromwell and Billy
Pitt are black only in their hides; all else's as good as white."
He then shook me by the hand, and, calling a farewell to Wilkinson and
the negroes, scrambled into the chains and dropped into his boat, very
highly satisfied, I make no doubt, with the business he had done that
day.
A boat's crew were left behind to help us to make sail. But the weather
looking somewhat wild in the west with the red light of the sun among
the clouds there, and the dark heave of the swell running into a sickly
crimson under the sun and then glowing out dusky again, I got them to
treble-reef the mainsail and hoist it, and then thanking them, advised
them to be off. Then, putting Cromwell to the tiller, I went forward
with the others and set the topsail and forestaysail (the spritsail
lying furled), which would be show enough of canvas till I saw what the
weather was to be like. I kept the topsail aback, waiting for a boat to
arrive with my chart, and in a few minutes the boat we had cheered
returned with what I wanted.
Meanwhile they were shortening sail on the whaler, and though she was no
beauty, yet, I tell you, I found her as picturesque as any ship I had
ever beheld as she lay with her main-topgallant-sail clewed up, her
topsail yards on the caps, and the heads of men knotting the reef-points
showing black over the white cloths, her hull floating up out of the
hollow and flinging a wet orange gleam to the west, a tumble of creamy
foam about her to her rolling, shadows like the passage of phantom hands
hurrying over her sails to the swaying of her masts, and the swelling
sea darkling from her into the east.
I hollowed my hands, and, hailing the captain, who was on the
quarter-deck, asked him for the time by his chronometer. He flourished
his arm and disappeared and, presently returning, shouted to know if I
was ready. I put the key in my watch and answered yes, and then he gave
me the time. My watch, though antique, was a noble piece of mechanism,
and I have little doubt, as trustworthy as his chronometer. But I was
careful to let it lie snug in my hand. I did not want the negro at the
tiller nor the others to see it. They would wonder that so fine a
jewelled piece as this should be in the possession of the second mate of
a little brig, and it was my business to manage that they never should
have cause to wonder at anything in that way.
The dusk of the evening came quick out of the east, and the wind
freshened with a long cry in our rigging as if the eastern darkness was
a foe it was rushing out of the west to meet. I brought the schooner
north-north-east by my compass and watched her behaviour anxiously. The
swell was on the quarter, and the wind and sea a trifle abaft the
larboard beam; she leaned a little to the weight of her clothes, but was
surprisingly stiff considering how light she was. Wilkinson and the
negro came and stood by my side. The sea broke heavily from the weather
bow, and the water roared white under the lee bends and spread astern in
a broad wake of foam. The whaler did not brace his yards up till after
we had started, and now hung a pale faint mass in the windy darkness on
the quarter. A tincture of rusty red hovered like smoke coloured by the
furnace that produces it, in the west, but the night had drawn down
quick and dark; the washing noise of the water was sharp, the wind
piercingly cold; each sweep of the schooner's masts to windward was
followed by a dull roaring of the blast rushing out of the hollows of
the canvas, and she swung to the seas with wild yaws, but with
regularity sufficient to prove the strict government of the helm.
But it was being at sea! homeward bound too! There was no wish of mine,
engendered by my hideous loneliness on the ice, by my abhorred
association with the Frenchman, that I could not refer to as, down to
this moment, gratified. My heart bounded; my spirits could not have been
higher had this ocean been the Thames, and yonder dark flowing hills of
water the banks of Erith and the Gravesend shore.
I turned to the three men: "My lads," said I, "you prove yourselves fine
bold fellows by thus volunteering. Do not fear: if God guides us
home--to my home, I mean--you shall find a handsome account in this
business."
"Six more chaps would have jined had th'ole man bin willin'," said
Wilkinson. "But best as it is, master, though she's a trifle
short-handed."
"Why, yes," said I; "but being fore and aft, you know! It isn't as if
we'd got courses to hand and topsails to reef."
"Ay, ay, dat's de troof," cried Billy Pitt. "I tort o' dat. Fore an' aft
makes de difference. Don't guess I should hab volunteer had she been a
brig."
"There are four of us," said I. "You're my chief mate, Wilkinson. Choose
your watch."
"I choose Cromwell," said he; "he was in my watch aboard the whaler."
"Very well," I exclaimed; and this being settled, and both negroes
declaring themselves good cooks, we arranged that they should
alternately have the dressing of our victuals, that Wilkinson should
have the cabin next mine, and the negroes the one in which the Frenchman
had slept, one taking the other's place as he was relieved.
I asked Wilkinson what he thought of the schooner. He answered that he
was watching her.
"There's nothing to find fault with yet," said he; "she's a whale at
rolling, sartinly. I guess she walks, though. I reckon she's had enough
of the sea, like me, and's got the scent o' the land in her nose. I
guess old Noah wasn't far off when her lines was laid. Mebbe his sons
had the building of her. There's something scriptural in her cut. How
old's she, master?"
"Fifty years and more," said I.
"Dere's nuffin' pertickler in dat," cried Cromwell. "I knows a wessel
dat am a hundred an' four year old, s'elp me as I stand."
"I don't know how the whaler's heading," said I, "but this schooner's a
canoe if we aren't dropping her!"
Indeed she was scarce visible astern, a mere windy flicker hovering upon
the pale flashings of the foam. It might be perhaps that the whaler was
making a more northerly course than we, and under very snug canvas,
though ours was snug enough, too; but be this as it may, I was mighty
pleased with the slipping qualities of the schooner. I never could have
dreamt that so odd and ugly a figure of a ship would show such heels.
But I think this: we are too prone to view the handiwork of our sires
with contempt. I do not know but that their ships were as fast as ours.
They made many good passages. They might have proved themselves fleeter
navigators had they had the sextant and chronometer to help them along.
Fifty years hence perhaps mankind will be laughing at our crudities; at
us, by heaven, who flatter ourselves that the art of ship-building and
navigation will never be carried higher than the pitch to which we have
raised them!
Cromwell being at the tiller, I told Billy Pitt to go below and get
supper, instructing him what to dress and how much to melt for a bowl,
for as you know there was nothing but spirits and wine to season our
repasts with. I saw Cromwell grin widely into the binnacle candle flame
when he heard me talk of ham, tongue, sweetmeats, marmalade and the like
for supper, together with a can of hot claret, and knowing sailor's
nature middling well, I did not doubt that the fare of the schooner
would bring the three men more into love with the adventure than even
the reward that was to follow it.
I had noticed that the bundles which had been sent from the whaler as
belonging to the poor fellows were meagre enough and showed indeed like
the end of a long voyage, and I detained Billy Pitt a minute whilst I
told them that there was a handsome stock of clothes in the cabins,
together with linen, boots, and other articles of that sort; that,
though the coats, breeches, and waistcoats were of bright colour and
old-fashioned, they would keep them as warm as if they had been cut by a
tailor of to-day.
"These things," said I, "you can wear at sea, keeping your own clothes
ready to slip on should we be spoken or to wear when we arrive in
England. To-morrow they shall be divided among you, and they will
become your property. The suit you saw me in to-day is all that I shall
need."
Both negroes burst into a most diverting laugh of joy on hearing this.
Nothing delights a black man more than coloured apparel. They had seen
the clothes in the forecastle and guessed the kind of garments I meant
to present them with.
Whilst supper was getting, I walked the deck with Wilkinson, both of us
keeping a bright look-out, for it was blowing fresh; the darkness lay
thick about us, there might be ice near us, and the schooner was
storming under her reefed mainsail, topsail, and staysail through the
hollow seas, thundering with a great roaring seething noise into the
trough, and lifting to the foaming slope with her masts wildly aslant. I
talked to my companion very freely, being anxious to find out what kind
of person he was, and I must say that there was something in his
conversation that impressed me very favourably. He told me that he had a
wife at New Bedford, that he was heartily sick of the sea, and that he
hoped the money he would get by this adventure, added to his _lay_,
would enable him to set up for himself ashore.
"Well," said I, "we will see to-morrow what cargo Captain Tucker has
left us. But that you may be under no misapprehension, Wilkinson, if we
are fortunate enough to bring the ship safely to England, I will enter
into a bond to pay you five hundred pounds sterling for your share one
week after the date of our arrival."
He answered that if he could get that sum he would be a made man for
life. "But it's too much to expect, sir," says he.
I told him that he had no idea of the value of the cargo. The wines and
spirits were of such a quality I would stake my interest in the schooner
in their fetching a large sum of money.
"That'll depend," said he, "on how much the capt'n left us."
"He helped himself freely," I answered, "but we are well off too. You
shall judge to-morrow. Then there's the schooner--as she stands: besides
a noble stock of stores of all kinds, sails, ropes, tools, ammunition
and several chests of small arms. I tell you I will give you five
hundred pounds for your share."
His satisfaction was expressed by his silence.
"But," continued I, "we must act with judgment. What we have we must
keep. Are the negroes trustworthy men?"
"Yes, they are honest fellows. I wouldn't have shipped with them else."
"We shall not require much for ourselves," said I, "and the rest we'll
batten down and keep snug. There'll be some man[oe]uvring needed in
order to come off clear with this booty when we arrive: but there's
plenty of time to think that over, and our business till then is to look
after the ship and pray for luck to keep clear of anything hostile."
And then we fell to other talk; in the course of which he told me he was
an Englishman born, but having been pressed into a man-o-war, deserted
her at Halifax and made several voyages in American ships. He was
wrecked on the Peruvian coast and became a beachcomber, and then got a
berth in a whaler. He married at New Bedford and sailed with Captain
Tucker--this was his second whaling trip, he said, and he wanted no
more. I told him I was glad to learn that he was a countryman of mine,
but not surprised. His speech was well-larded with americanisms, "but,"
said I, "the true twang is wanting, and," added I, laughing, "I should
know you for Hampshire for all your reckons and guesses if I had to eat
you should I be mistaken."
"The press-gang's the best friend the Yankees has," said he a little
sheepishly. "Do any man suppose I hadn't sooner hail from my native town
Southampton than from New Bedford? Half the American foksles is made up
of Yankees who'd prove hearts of oak if it wasn't for the press."
His candour gratified me as showing that he already looked upon me as a
shipmate to be trusted, and, as I have said, this first chat with the
man left me strongly disposed to consider myself fortunate in having him
as an associate.