_Friendly Advice and dismal Forebodings.--Once more upon the Waters,
yet once more.--Due North.--A Calm.--The Calm continues.--A terrible
Disclosure.--Despair of Corbet.--Solomon finds his Occupation
gone.--Taking Stock.--Short Allowance._
ANOTHER day was passed very pleasantly at the Magdalen Islands, and
then the boys concluded that they had seen about all that there was
to be seen in this place. As the question where next to go arose, they
Concluded to ask the skipper.
“Well, boys,” said he, “in the first place, let me ask you if you’ve ever
heard of Anticosti?”
“Of course we have,” said Bart.
“Well, don’t go there; don’t go near it; don’t go within fifty mile of
it; don’t speak of it; don’t think of it; and don’t dream of it. It’s a
place of horror, a howling wilderness, the abomination of desolation, a
haunted island, a graveyard of unfortunate sailors. Its shores are lined
with their bones. Don’t you go and add your young bones to the lot. You
can do far better with them.”
“Well, where do you advise us to go?” asked Arthur.
The skipper thought for a few moments without answering.
“Well,” said he, “you know Sable Island.”
“Yes,” said Bart, in some surprise.
“Well,” said the skipper, impressively, “don’t go there; don’t go within
a hundred miles of it; don’t speak of it; don’t think of it; don’t dream
of it.”
“But you’ve said all that to us before,” said Bruce. “We want to know
where we _are_ to go, not where we are _not_ to go.”
“Well,” said the skipper, “I am aware that I’ve said all this before,
and I say it a second time, deliberately, for the simple purpose of
impressing it upon your minds. There’s nothin like repetition to impress
a thing on the memory; and so, if you ever come to grief on Anticosti,
or on Sable Island, you’ll remember my warnin, and you’ll never feel
like blamin me.”
“But where ought we to go?” asked Bruce.
“Well, that’s the next point. Now, I’ve been thinkin’ all about it, and
to my mind there ain’t any place in all this here region that comes up
to the Bay of Islands, Newfoundland.”
“The Bay of Islands?”
“Yes, the Bay of Islands, on the west coast of Newfoundland. It’s a
great place. I’ve been there over and over, and I know it like a book.
Thousands of vessels go there every season. It’s one of the best harbors
in the gulf. It’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. The air
is bracing, the climate salubrious, the scenery inviting; and it only
needs a first-class hotel with all the modern improvements in order to
become a number one waterin-place. Yes, by ginger!” he continued, “you
plant a first-class hotel there, and let that there place become known,
and there’s nothin to prevent it from goin ahead of Long Branch or
Newport, or any other place you can mention.
“Then,” continued the skipper, “if you wanted to go any further, you
might go up the Straits of Belle Isle, and round Newfoundland. If you
had time, you might take a run over to Greenland; it’s gettin to be
quite a place, a fashionable resort in the hot summer; but perhaps
you won’t have time, and won’t care about doin more than cruisin round
Newfoundland, and then home.”
Once more the skipper’s tone seemed somewhat extravagant to the boys,
and they did not know how to take it.
“O, well,” said Bart, “we don’t want to go to Greenland this season.
When we do go there, we shall probably go for good; but just now, we
want to confine ourselves to the gulf. If you can really recommend the
Bay of Islands, perhaps we had better go there; that is,” added Bart,
“unless you think we had better go to Iceland.”
The skipper looked at Bart for a few moments in silence, and a smile
gradually passed over his face.
“Well,” said he, after a pause, “that’s the identical place that I was
just going to recommend, when you took the words out of my mouth.
The fact is, boys, with that old tub of yours you might as well go to
Iceland as anywhere else. Every time I look at it I am thunderstruck.
What were your fathers and mothers thinkin of when they let you come
away up here in such an old rattle-trap?--an old tub that isn’t worth
being condemned! Do you think you’ll ever get home again in her? Not
you. Do you know where that old tub’s bound to go before the end of this
season? Down to the bottom of the sea; and if you don’t go in her, you
may bless your lucky stars. I only wish I wasn’t otherwise engaged. I’d
make you all clear out at once, and come aboard the Fawn.”
Captain Corbet was not present, and did not hear these insulting
reflections upon his beloved Antelope, and therefore was spared the pain
which they would have caused to his aged bosom; but the boys were not
the ones to listen to such insinuations in silence. The Antelope was
dear to them from past associations, and they all began at once to
vindicate her character. They talked long and eloquently about her. They
spoke of her speed, soundness, and beauty. They told of her performances
thus far.
At all of which the skipper only grinned.
“Mark my words, boys,” said he; “that there tub is goin to the bottom.”
“Well, if she does, she’ll get up again,” said Bart.
The opinions of the two parties were so different that any
further debate was useless. The skipper believed that they were bound
for the bottom of the sea; the boys on the contrary had faith in
the Antelope. The end of it all was, that they concluded to take the
skipper’s advice in part, and sail for the Bay of Islands. This place
was one which they all were desirous of visiting, and they thought that
when they had gone that far, they could then decide best where next to
go.
They were to leave the next morning. That evening they took leave of the
friendly skipper.
“Boys,” said he, “I’m afraid we’ll never meet again; but if you do get
back safe from this perilous adventure of yours, and if any of you ever
happen to be at Gloucester, Massachusetts, I do wish you’d look me up,
and let me know. I’d give anything to see any one of you again.”
With these words the skipper shook hands with each one of them heartily,
and so took his leave.
Early on the following morning the Antelope spread her sails and began
once more to traverse the seas, heading towards the north. The wind
was fair, and all that day they moved farther and farther away from the
Magdalen Islands, until at length towards evening they were lost to view
in distance and darkness.
On the next day they were all up early. They saw all around a boundless
expanse of water. No land was anywhere visible, and not a sail was in
sight. This was a novelty to the boys, for never yet had any of them had
this experience in the Antelope. Some of them had been out of sight of
land, it is true; but then they were in large ships, or ocean steamers.
Being in such a situation in a craft like the Antelope, was a far
different thing. Yet none of them felt anything like anxiety, nor had
the slurs of the skipper produced any effect upon their affectionate
trust in their gallant bark, and in their beloved Captain Corbet.
Certainly on the present occasion there was little enough cause for
anxiety about the sea-worthiness of the Antelope. The sea was as smooth
as a mirror, and its glassy surface extended far and wide around them.
There was not a breath of air stirring. They learned from Wade that the
wind had gradually died away between sundown and midnight, until it had
ceased altogether. They were now in a dead calm.
None of the party was very well pleased at this. They all wished to be
moving. They disliked calms, and would have much preferred a moderate
gale of wind. The Antelope, however, was here, and there was no help for
it. She was far away from land. She lay gently rising and falling, as
the long ocean rollers raised her up and let her down; and her sails
flapped idly in the still air, at the motion of the vessel. The boys did
the best they could under the circumstances, and tried to pass away the
time in various ways. Some of them tried to sleep; others extemporized
a checker-board, and played till they were tired; others walked up
and down, or lounged about. All of them, however, found their chief
employment in one occupation, and that was eating. Ever since they had
been on the water their appetites had been sharpened; and now that they
had nothing else to do, the occupation of eating became more important
and engrossing. To prolong the repast while it was before them as far as
possible, and then to anticipate the next, were important aids towards
killing the time.
All that day the calm continued: on going to bed that night, the boys
confidently looked forward to a change of weather on the following day.
The night was calm. The following day came. They were all up betimes. To
their deep disappointment they found no change whatever. There was the
same calm, the same unruffled sea, the same cloudless sky. Not a sail
was visible anywhere, and of course there was no sign of land on any
quarter.
The second day the time hung more heavily on their hands. Some of them
proposed fishing; but they had no hooks, and moreover no bait. Pat
proposed fashioning a spike into a hook; fastening it on a line,
and fishing for sharks, and worked all day at a rusty spike for this
purpose. Unfortunately, he could not get it sharp enough, and so he had
at length to give it up.
Captain Corbet was perhaps the most impatient of all; and this seemed
singular to the boys, who thus far had known him only as the most
patient and the most enduring of men.
On this occasion, however, his patience seemed to have departed. He
fidgeted about incessantly. He kept watching the sea, the sky, and the
horizon, and occupied himself for hours in all the various ways common
among seamen, who indulge in the superstitious practice of trying
to “raise the wind.” One mode consisted in standing in one position
motionless for half an hour or more, watching the horizon, and
whistling: another was a peculiar snapping of the fingers; another was
the burning of some hairs pulled from his own venerable head. These
and other similar acts excited intense interest among the boys, and
helped to make the time pass less slowly. Unfortunately, not one of
these laudable efforts was successful, and the obstinate wind refused to
be “raised.”
That day the boys detected something in their meals which seemed like a
decline of skill on the part of Solomon. There was a falling off both
in the quantity and in the quality of the eatables. Only four potatoes
graced the festive board, and a piece of corned beef that was quite
inadequate to their wants. The tea was weak, and there was very little
sugar. There was only a small supply of butter, and this butter seemed
rather unpleasantly dirty.
On the following day all this was explained. Hurrying up on deck at
early dawn, they saw the scene unchanged. Above was the cloudless sky,
all around the glassy sea, and before them stood Captain Corbet, the
picture of despair. By his side stood Solomon, with his hands clasped
together, and his head hanging down.
“It’s all my fault, boys,” said Captain Corbet, with something like
a groan. “I was to blame: But I declare, I clean forgot. And yet what
business had I to forget? my fustest and highest duty bein to remember.
And here we air!”
“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Tom, who, like all the rest was struck
by Captain Corbet’s despairing attitude and words.
“I won’t hide it any longer, boys,” said he; “it’s this calm. I didn’t
calculate on bein becalmed. I thought only of head winds, and then we
could hev put back easy; but a calm! Why, what can you do?”
“Hide it?” Cried Bruce. “Hide what? What do you mean by this? What would
you want to put back for?”
Captain Corbet groaned.
“For--for pro--provisions, dear boys,” he said mournfully, and with an
effort.
“Provisions!” repeated Bruce, and looked very blank indeed. All the
boys exchanged glanced, which were full of unutterable things. There was
silence for some time.
Tom was the first to break it.
“Well, what have we?” he, asked, in his usual cheery voice. “Come
captain, tell us what there is in the larder.”
“Ask Solomon,” said Captain Corbet, mournfully.
“Well, Solomon, tell us the worst,” said Tom.
But Solomon would not or could not speak. He raised his head, looked
wildly around, and then hurried away.
Captain Corbet looked after him, and heaved a heavy sigh.
“Wal, boys,” said he, “the fact is, Solomon and me, we’ve been talkin it
all over. You see, he considers himself cook, and cook only, and looks
to me for the material. It’s all my fault. I forgot. I thought there was
lots till yesterday mornin. Then Solomon told me how it was. I’d ort to
have laid in a supply before leavin Bay de Chaleur; but as I said, I
forgot. And as for Solomon, why, he’s been calmly a continooin of his
cookery, same as if he was chief cook of a fust-class hotel, and all the
time he was in a becalmed schewner. He told me all about it yesterday
mornin; but I says, ‘Don’t tell the boys; mebbe the wind’ll change, and
I’ll sail for the nighest port.’ So he didn’t, except so far as you
might have guessed, from the meals which he served up; pooty slim they
were too; but he did his best.”
“Well,” said Tom, with unaltered self-possession, “it would have been
better for us to have known this yesterday morning; but that can’t be
helped. So we have no more provisions?”
“Precious little,” said Captain Corbet, mournfully.
“Have we any?” asked Tom.
“Wal,” said Captain Corbet, “the tea’s all gone; and the coffee, and all
the potted meats, and the apples, and the taters, and the turnips and
carrots, and all the vegetables, and the smoked provisions, and you had
the last mite of corned beef yesterday.”
“But what is there left?” asked Tom.
“Only two or three papers of corn starch,” said Captain Corbet, with an
effort, “and, I believe, a half box of raisins, and a little rice.”
“And nothing else?”
“Not a hooter,” said Captain Corbet, despairingly.
Tom was silent. The boys all looked at one another with anxious faces,
and then began to talk over the situation.
The result was, that first of all they made Solomon produce everything
in the shape of eatables that remained on board. Solomon ransacked the
vessel, and laid everything out on the cabin table.
It was not a very large supply, and the display created additional
uneasiness in the minds of the boys.