"It's all dark now," I said, glancing towards the galley, from which no
gleam came, as usual, across the deck, as was generally the case at
night-time; "I suppose the fire has gone out?"
"'S'pose it air," answered Hiram; "guess it's about time it wer, b'y,
considerin' I wer jest a-going fur to make it up when I seed Sam. I
reckon, though, if ye hev a mind fur to look in, ye can get a lantern
aft from the stooard. I seed him a-buzzin' round the poop jest now, fur
he hailed me ez he poked his long jib-boom of a nose up the companion;
but, I didn't take no notice o' the cuss, fur I wer outer sorts like,
feelin' right down chawed up!"
"All right," said I, anxious to display my courage before Hiram, his
fright somehow or other emboldening me. "I will get a lantern at once
and go into the galley."
So saying, I went along the deck aft, passing into the cuddy by the door
under the break of the poop, and there I found Morris Jones, the
steward, in the pantry.
He was putting a decanter and glass on a tray for the captain, who was
sitting in the cabin, preparing for a jollification after his exertions
of the day; for he had returned in high glee from his inspection of the
ship's position with Jan Steenbock, whom he took with him to explain the
different points of land and the anchorage.
Jan Steenbock was just leaving the skipper as I entered, refusing, as I
surmised from the conversation, his pressing invitation to have a
parting drink--a sign of great cordiality with him.
"Wa-all, hev yer own way, but a drop o' good rum hurts nary a one, ez I
ken see," I heard Captain Snaggs say. "Good-night, Mister Steenbock. I
guess we'll set to work in airnest ter-morrer, an' see about gettin' the
cargy out to lighten her; an' then, I reckon, mister, we'll try y'r
dodge o' diggin' a dock under her."
"Yase, dat vas goot," said the Dane, in his deep voice, in answer. "We
will dig oop the zand vrom her kil: an' zen, she vill vloat, if dere vas
no leaks an' she vas not hoort her back by taking ze groond."
"Jest so," replied the skipper; and Morris Jones having gone into the
cabin with the glasses and water on his tray, I heard a gurgling sound,
as if Captain Snaggs was pouring out some of his favourite liquor and
gulping it down. "Ah, I feel right chunky arter thet, I guess! Yes,
Mister Steenbock, we'll float her right off; fur, I don't think she's
started a plank in her; an' if we shore her up properly we ken dig the
sand from under her, ez ye sez, an' then she'll go off ez right ez a
clam, when we brings a warp round the capstan from the ankers astern."
"Ja zo," agreed Jan Steenbock. "We vill wait and zee."
"Guess not," retorted the skipper. "We'll dew better, we'll work and
try, me joker, an' dew thet right away smart ter-morrer!"
Captain Snaggs sniggered at this, as if he thought it a joke; and then,
I could hear Jan Steenbock wish him good-night, leaving him to his rum
and the companionship of Mr Flinders--who must have smelt the liquor,
for I caught his voice muttering something about being `durned dry,' but
I did not listen any longer, looking out for the steward, who presently
followed Jan Steenbock out of the cabin.
"Well, younker, what d'ye want?" Morris Jones asked me, when he came up
to where I was still standing alongside his pantry. "I didn't have time
to speak to ye afore. What is it?"
"I want a lantern," said I. "The galley fire's gone out."
"All right, here you are, you can take this," he replied, handing me one
he had lit. "Any more ghostesses about forrud? That blessed nigger's
sperrit oughter go ashore, now we've come to this outlandish place, and
leave us alone!"
"You'd better not joke about it," I said solemnly. "Hiram has seen
something awful to-night."
"What d'ye mean?" he cried, turning white in a moment, as I could see by
the light of the lantern, and all his braggadocio vanishing. "What d'ye
mean?"
"Only not to halloo too loud till you're out of the wood," said I, going
off forwards. "Hiram has seen Sam's ghost again, that's all!"
I felt all the more encouraged by this little passage of arms with the
funky Welshman; so, I marched up to the galley door as brave as brass,
holding out, though, the lantern in front of me, to light up the place,
Hiram, ashamed of his own fears, coming up close behind, and looking in
over my shoulder.
Neither of us, though, saw any cause for alarm, for there was no one
there; and I was inclined to believe that Hiram had fallen asleep and
dreamt the yarn he told me, the more especially as there was a strong
smell of tobacco about the place, as if some one had been there recently
smoking.
The American, however, was indignant at the bare suggestion of this.
"What d'yer take me fur, Cholly," he said. "I tell ye I seed him
a-sottin' down thaar in thet corner, an' heerd the banjo ez plain ez if
it wer a-playin' now! Look at the fire, too; ain't that streenge? It
wer jest a-staggerin' out when I comed hyar fur to put on some more wood
to make it burn up, an' thaar it air now, ez if some one hez jest been
a-lightin' on it!"
It was as he said. The fire seemed to have been fresh lit, for there
was even a piece of smouldering paper in the stoke hole.
It was certainly most mysterious, if Hiram had not done it, which he
angrily asserted he had not, quite annoyed at my doubting his word.
While I was debating the point with him, Tom Bullover appeared at the
door, with his usual cheerful grin.
"Hullo!" cried he; "what's the row between you two?"
Thereupon Hiram and I both spoke at once, he telling his version of the
story and I mine.
"Well, don't let such foolish nonsense make you ill friends," said Tom,
grinning. "I dare say you're both right, if matters could only be
explained--Hiram, in thinking he saw Sam's ghost, and you, Charley, in
believing he dreamt it all out of his head. As for the fire burning up,
I can tell you all about that, for seeing it just at the last gasp, I
stuck in a bit of paper and wood to light it, so as to be more cheerful.
I likewise lit my own pipe arterwards, which fully accounts for what
you fellows couldn't understand."
"Thaar!" exclaimed Hiram triumphantly; "I tolled you so, Cholly."
"All right," I retorted. "It's just as I said, and there's nothing
mysterious about it."
Each of us remained of his own opinion, but Tom Bullover chaffed us out
of all further argument, and we presently followed the example of the
other hands, who were asleep snoring in the fo'c's'le, and turned into
our bunks; while Tom went aft to relieve Jan Steenbock as look-out,
there being no necessity for all of the watch to be on deck, the ship
being ashore, and safer even than if she had been at anchor.
In the morning, I was roused up by the cooing doves again, and the very
first man I met after turning out was Morris Jones, who looked seedy and
tired out, as if he had been awake all night.
"What's the matter?" I asked him, as he came into the galley, where I
was busy at my morning duty, getting the coppers filled for the men's
coffee, and poking up the fire, which still smouldered, for I had banked
it, so as to keep it alight after I turned in. "Anything happened?"
"You were right, Cholly, in tellin' me not to holler till I was out of
the wood last night," he said solemnly. "I seed thet arterwards the
same as Hiram!"
"Saw what?"
"The nigger's ghost."
"Nonsense!" I cried, bursting out into a laugh, his face looked so
woe-begone, while his body seemed shrunk, giving him the most
dilapidated appearance. "You must have been taking some of the cap'en's
rum."
"None o' your imperence, master Cholly," said he, aiming a blow at my
head, which I dexterously avoided. "I never touches none o' the
skipper's ruin; I wouldn't taste the nasty stuff now, after all I've
seen it's done. No, I tell you straight, b'y, I ain't lying. I see Sam
Jedfoot last night as ever was, jest soon arter you went away from the
cuddy with the lantern."
"You did?"
"Yes, I'll take my davy on it. He comed right through the cabin, and
walked past my pantry, stepping over the deck jest as if he was alive;
and then I saw something like a flash o' light'ing, and when I looked
agen, being blinded at first, there he were a-floating in the air, going
out o' sight over the side."
"Did you go to see what had become of him?" I said jokingly, on hearing
this. "Where did he make for when he got over the side?"
"I didn't look no more," answered the steward, taking my inquiry in
earnest. "I were too frightened."
"What did you do, then?"
"I just stopped up there in my pantry all night, locking the door, so as
to prevent no one from getting in. Aye, I kep' two lights burning, to
scare the ghost if he should come again; and theer I stop't till
daylight, when I heard you stirring, and comed here to speak to you,
glad to see a human face agen, if only a beast of a b'y like you--far
them sperrits do make a chap feel quar all over! Besides, too, the fear
o' seeing the blamed thing agen, I thought the skipper, who was drinking
awful arter Jan Steenbock left, he and Flinders having a regular go in
at the rum, might have another fit o' the horrors, and bust out on me
with his revolver. Lor, I 'ave 'ad a night on it, I can tell you!"
"Poor fellow! wait and have a pan of coffee," said I sympathisingly,
pitying his condition and not minding his polite allusion to me as a
`beast of a boy,' which no doubt my manner provoked. "It will soon be
ready."
"I will," he replied, thoroughly beaten and speaking to me civilly for
the first time. "Thank ye, kindly, Cholly!"
By-and-by the crew turned out; and, after having their coffee, began
again the same work they had been at the previous day of lightening the
ship, Captain Snaggs superintending operations, and not looking a bit
the worse for his drinking bout in which Morris Jones said he had spent
the night with his kindred spirit, Mr Flinders.
The scene on the beach all that day and the next was a busy one, all
hands hard at it unloading the _Denver City_, preparatory to our trying
to restore her to her native element, the sea--which latter rippled up
along her dry timbers forward, as far as the mizzen-chains, the furthest
point where she was aground, with a lisping sound, it seemed to me, as
if wooing her to come back and float on its bosom again once more, as of
yore!
A great deal more had to be effected, however, before this could be
accomplished, for a sort of dock, or trench, had to be dug out beneath
the vessel's keel, so as to bring the water beneath her and help to lift
her off the sandbank where she was stranded; and this could not be done
in a day, work we our hardest, despite the men taking shifts turn and
turn about by watches at the task.
Fortunately, while unloading the cargo, a lot of pickaxes were found
amongst the miscellaneous assortment of `notions' stowed in the
main-hold; and these now came in handy, the hands learning to wield them
just as if they had been born navvies, after a bit, under the
experienced direction of Captain Snaggs, who said he had been a
Californian miner during a spell he had ashore at one period of his
life.
On the third day of this labour, the dock was becoming perceptibly deep
amidships and the water beginning to ooze through the sand; when, all at
once, Tom Bullover, who was wielding a pick like the rest, struck the
point of it against something which gave out a clear metallic ring.
After a dig or two more, he excavated the object, which, preserved in
the lava that lay beneath the sand and shells on the beach, was found to
be an image of the Virgin, such as you see in Roman Catholic countries
abroad. It was of a bright yellow colour and shining, as if just turned
out of a jeweller's shop.
It was a golden Madonna!