TO THE SEA
From that out the days ran by with a marvellous swiftness. There was
much to do daily; in my humble way I had to get my sea-gear ready, which
kept my dear mother busy; and every day I was with Captain Marmaduke and
Lancelot and Marjorie, and every day we all worked hard to get ready for
the great voyage and to bring our odd brotherhood together.
It certainly was a strange fellowship which Captain Amber had gathered
together to sail the seas in the Royal Christopher.
Most of them were quiet folk of the farming favour, well set up,
earnest, with patient faces. There were men who had been old soldiers;
there were men who had served with Captain Amber. These were to be the
backbone of his colony. Some brought wives, some sisters; altogether we
had our share of women on board, about a dozen in all, including the
woman whose care it was to wait upon the Captain's niece.
But I did not see a great deal of them, for they lay aft, and it was my
Captain's pleasure that I should dwell in his part of the ship; and he
himself, though he carried them to a new world and to warmer stars, did
not mingle much with them on shipboard. For my Captain had his notion of
rank and place, as a man-at-arms should have. He passed his wont in
admitting me to his intimacy, and that was for Lancelot's sake.
As for the hands, the finding of them had been, it would seem, chiefly
entrusted to the hands of Cornelys Jensen. I saw nothing of them until
the day we sailed. What I saw of them then gave me no great pleasure,
for several reasons. Many of them were fine-looking fellows enough. All
were stalwart, sea-tested, skilled at their work; most seemed jovial of
blood and ready to tackle their work cheerily. Some of them were known
to me by sight and even by name, for Cornelys Jensen had culled them
from the sea-dogs and sea-devils who drank and diced at the Skull and
Spectacles. That was not much; many good seamen were familiars of the
Skull and Spectacles. But what I misliked in them was the regard they
seemed to pay to the deeds and words of Cornelys Jensen. It was but
natural, indeed, that they should pay him regard, seeing that he was
the second in command after Captain Amber. But it seemed to me then, or
perhaps I imagine--judging by the light of later times--that it seemed
to me then that their behaviour showed that they looked upon Jensen
rather than my Captain as the centre of authority in the ship. Certainly
most of them were more of the kidney of Cornelys Jensen than of
Marmaduke Amber.
I ventured to break something of my thought to Captain Amber, but he
laughed at me for my pains, saying that Jensen was a proper man and very
trustworthy, and a man with a better eye for a good seaman than any
other man in the kingdom. So I had no more to say, and Cornelys Jensen
went his own way and collected his own following unhindered.
Whatever I might think of the crew, there was but one thought for the
ship. A finer than the Royal Christopher at that time I had never seen
of her kind and size. She was a large ship of the corvette kind, with
something of the carack and something of the polacca about her. We boast
greatly of our progress in the art of putting tall ships together, and,
if we go on at the rate at which, according to some among us, we are
going, Heaven only knows where it will end, or with what kind of marine
monsters we shall people the great deep. But I cannot think that we
have done or ever shall do much better in shipbuilding than we did in
the days when I was young.
The hands of the clock wheeled in their circle, and the day came when
all was ready and we were to sail.
I was leaning over the side, looking at the downs and the town where I
had lived all my life, and which, perhaps, I might never see again. My
mother was by my side, and we were talking together as people talk who
love each other when a parting is at hand. All of a sudden I became
aware of a boat that was pulling across the water in the direction of
our ship. It contained a man and a woman, and when it came alongside I
saw who the man and the woman were, and saw that they were known to me;
and for a moment my heart stood still, and I make no doubt that my face
flushed and paled. For the woman was that girl Barbara who had made the
Skull and Spectacles so dear and so dreadful to me, and the man was that
red-bearded fellow who had clipped her closely in his arms on the day
when I went there for the last time. The man who was rowing the boat was
none other than the landlord of the Skull and Spectacles, Barbara's
uncle.
I drew back before they had noticed me, and I drew my mother away with
me. The pair came on board, but I kept my back turned, and they went aft
without noting me. It would seem as if Cornelys Jensen had been but
waiting for them to set sail, for now he gave the order that all should
leave the ship who were not sailing with her. Then there was such
sobbings and embracings and hand-claspings ere the relatives and friends
who were staying on shore got down the side into the craft that was
waiting for them. My mother and I parted somehow, and I saw her safely
into the dinghy which I had chartered for her benefit, handled by a
waterside fellow whom I knew well for a steady oar.
Everything then seemed to happen with the quickness of a dream. One
moment I seemed to see her sitting in the stern of the boat, waving her
handkerchief to me; then next there came a rush of tears, that blotted
out everything, my mother and the town and all; the next, as it seemed
to me, though of course the interval was longer, we were cutting the
water with a fair wind, and the downs and the cliffs seemed to be racing
away from us. The Royal Christopher had set sail for its haven at the
other end of the world.