OUTWARD BOUND.
"Then come,
My friends, and, sitting well in order, strike
The sounding furrows, for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars until I die."
--TENNYSON.
A brighter morning never flung its golden beams upon the dancing
dominion of old Neptune than that bright May morning when the windlass
of the Queer Fish creaked with the rising anchor, and the mainsails,
topsails and top-gallants fluttered slowly out from her graceful spars.
All Boston knew we were going, and a large number of people were out
upon the piers to see us start. So we ran up the Stars and Stripes to
our peak, and gave a rousing salute with our guns, as we moved
majestically down the harbor. We were soon out of it, and "the world was
all before us," our path to choose. Taking the line of the southeast, we
got all of the gale into our bellying sails, and bowled along gleefully,
with a good lookout at the mast-head, to spy a prize, or sing out, if a
cruiser hove in sight.
How could the Queer Fish even _start_ to sea without something funny
happening? There was one incident which I must not omit mentioning.
We had been overwhelmed with peddlers, bumboat women and fruit-sellers,
for some time before our departure. Although they had all been warned to
leave the ship in time, one of them, a Polish Jew, allowed his avarice
to get the better of him, and remained parleying and auctioneering his
trinkets till the anchor was up and we were fairly under way. He then
coolly went to the captain, and requested to have a boat to be put
ashore, when he was greeted by a sound rating, and an assurance that he
couldn't leave the ship short of the Bay of Bengal.
The astonishment of the unfortunate Hebrew can better be imagined than
described. At first, he was simply crushed, and, like Shylock, kept a
quiet despair. Then, as the land grew beautifully less behind us, terror
and rage began to take possession of his soul.
"Mine Gott! mine Gott!" he exclaimed, tearing up and down the deck, and
wringing his hands. "V'at vill de vife of mine poosom zay v'en I comes
not vonce more to mine house? Oh, Repecca, Repecca, mine peloved vife,
varevell, varevell!"
We all enjoyed his misery to our hearts' content, for he was an arrant
skinflint, who had swindled three or four of the crew out of their very
boots. The captain also enjoyed the sight until we brought up alongside
a pilot-boat, on board of which we put the pork-despiser in a summary
way, and left him to find his way back to Boston as best he might.
A number of British cruisers were hovering along the coast, and we
expected to have some trouble before getting fairly to sea. Nor were we
disappointed. We were hardly four hours out before a sail was descried
on our starboard quarter and another on our larboard bow. We hoisted the
British jack and drove right between them, hoping to escape molestation,
as we had little doubt that the sails in view belonged to British
men-o'-war. We were correct in this. And, although we escaped the bigger
customer to the northward, the other stranger came so close that we were
right under her guns. She was a heavily-armed brig, and could have sunk
us at a single broadside, but contented herself with questioning us.
"What ship is that?" was bellowed from her quarter deck.
"The brigantine Spitfire," sung our little captain through his trumpet.
"What luck have you had?"
"Have destroyed sixteen smacks off Gloucester and are now in the wake of
an Indiaman that got out last night."
"All right."
And the unsuspicious brig drove by us with all sails set.
"We pulled the wool over _her_ eyes, at any rate," mused our little
captain, with twinkling eyes, as we continued on our course.
We next fell in with an American vessel, homeward bound, and gave her
directions how to escape the blockaders.
"Sail ho!" sung out the lookout, an hour later.
We were immediately in a stew of excitement, thinking that this, at
least, must be a prize. But this also proved to be an American, and we
were compelled to chew the cud of disappointment.
"Why in blazes ain't you a Britisher?" muttered Tony Trybrace, yawning
indignantly, as the true character of the stranger was discovered.
We kept our course, without incident, until the sun went down behind us,
and the stars, one by one, began to stud the darkening vault.
Behind us flowed our wake of fire; Tony Trybrace played several tunes on
his scrapy violin; and then, as it bade fair to be a peaceful night, we
gathered round old Bluefish for a promised yarn.