THE LAST ENTRY
NOVELS, ETC., BY W. CLARK RUSSELL.
Crown 8vo., cloth extra, 3s. 6d. each; post 8vo., illustrated boards,
2s. each; cloth limp, 2s. 6d. each.
ROUND THE GALLEY FIRE.
IN THE MIDDLE WATCH.
ON THE FO'K'SLE HEAD.
A VOYAGE TO THE CAPE.
A BOOK FOR THE HAMMOCK.
THE MYSTERY OF THE 'OCEAN STAR.'
THE ROMANCE OF JENNY HARLOWE.
AN OCEAN TRAGEDY.
MY SHIPMATE LOUISE.
ALONE ON A WIDE WIDE SEA.
THE GOOD SHIP 'MOHOCK.'
THE PHANTOM DEATH.
IS HE THE MAN?
THE CONVICT SHIP.
HEART OF OAK.
THE TALE OF THE TEN.
THE LAST ENTRY.
LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS, 111 ST. MARTIN'S LANE, W.C.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS
ON
THE LAST ENTRY
'"The Last Entry" is a rattling good salt-water yarn, told in the
author's usual breezy, exhilarating style.'--_Daily Mail._
'In this new novel Mr. Russell has cleverly thrown its events into the
year 1837, and there are one or two ingenious passages which add to the
Diamond Jubilee interest which that date suggests.... "The Last Entry"
is as certain of general popularity as any of Mr. Russell's former tales
of the marvels of the sea.'--_Glasgow Herald._
'We do not think it possible for anyone to dip into this novel without
desiring to finish it, and it adds another to the long list of successes
of our best sea author.'--_Librarian._
'In addition to mutiny and murder, "The Last Entry" contains many of
those good things which have made Mr. Russell's pages a joy to so many
lovers of the sea during the last twenty years.... "The Last Entry" is a
welcome addition to Mr. Clark Russell's library.'--_Speaker._
'The writer is as realistic and picturesque as usual in his vivid
descriptions of the stagnant life on board the homeward-bound
Indiaman.'--_Times._
'It is full of pleasant vigour.... As is always the case in Mr. Clark
Russell's books, the elements are treated with the pen of an
artist.'--_Standard._
'We expected plenty of go, of fresh and vigorous description of
sea-faring life, coupled with a story which would not be wanting in
interest. All this we have here.'--_Tablet._
THE LAST ENTRY
BY
W. CLARK RUSSELL
AUTHOR OF
'THE WRECK OF THE "GROSVENOR,"' 'MY SHIPMATE LOUISE,'
'THE TALE OF THE TEN,' ETC.
[Illustration: Decoration]
A NEW EDITION
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1899
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. MR. AND MISS VANDERHOLT 1
II. DOWN RIVER 28
III. 'ALONG OF BILL' 53
IV. CAPTAIN MARY LIND 82
V. ON THE EVE 119
VI. THE MURDERS 141
VII. CAPTAIN PARRY 169
VIII. IN SEARCH 196
IX. THE DISCOVERY 224
THE LAST ENTRY
CHAPTER I.
MR. AND MISS VANDERHOLT.
This story belongs to the year 1837, and was regarded by the generations
of that and a succeeding time as the most miraculous of all the recorded
deliverances from death at sea.
It may be told thus:
Mr. Montagu Vanderholt sat at breakfast with his daughter Violet one
morning in September. Vanderholt's house was one of a fine terrace close
to Hyde Park. He was a rich man, a retired Cape merchant, and his life
had been as chequered as Trelawney's, with nothing of romance and
nothing of imagination in it. He was the son of honest parents, of Dutch
extraction, and had run away to sea when about twelve years old.
Nothing under the serious heavens was harsher, more charged with misery,
suffering, dirt, and wretchedness, than seafaring in the days when young
Vanderholt, with an idiot's cunning, fled to it from his father's
comfortable little home. He got a ship, was three years absent, and on
his return found both his father and mother dead. He went again to sea,
and, fortunately for him, was shipwrecked in the neighbourhood of
Simon's Bay. The survivors made their way to Cape Town, and presently
young Vanderholt got a job, and afterwards a position. He then became a
master, until, after some eight or ten years of heroic perseverance,
attended by much good luck, behold Mr. Vanderholt full-blown into a
colonial merchant prince. How much he was worth when he made up his mind
to settle in England, after the death of his wife, and when he had
disposed of his affairs so as to leave himself as free a man as ever he
had been when he was a common Jack Swab, really signifies nothing. It is
certain he had plenty, and plenty is enough, even for a merchant prince
of Dutch extraction.
Besides Violet, he had two sons, who will not make an appearance on this
little brief stage. They are dismissed, therefore, with this brief
reference--that both were in the army, and both, at the time of this
tale, in India.
Violet was Vanderholt's only daughter, and he loved her exceedingly. She
was not beautiful, but she was fair to see, with a pretty figure, and an
arch, gay smile. You saw the Dutch blood in her eyes, as you saw it in
her father's, whose orbs of vision, indeed, were ridiculously
small--scarcely visible in their bed of socket and lash. An English
mother had come to Violet's help in this matter. Taking her from top to
toe, with her surprising quantity of brown hair, soft complexion, good
mouth, teeth, and figure, Violet Vanderholt was undoubtedly a fine girl.
The room in which they were breakfasting was imposingly furnished. The
pictures were many and fine. One in particular took the eye, and
detained it. It was hung over the sideboard, which glittered with plate;
it represented a schooner, bowed by a sudden blast, coming at you. The
white brine, shredded by the shrieking stroke of the squall, hissed
shrilly from the cut-water. The life and spirit of the reality was in
that fine canvas. The sailors seemed to run as you watched, the gaffs to
droop with the handling of their gear. She came rushing in a smother of
spume right at you, and, before delight could arise, you had felt a
pleasurable shock of surprise that was almost alarm. Such is the effect
produced by Cooper's bull as, with bowed head and eyes of fire, and
horns of death, it looks to be bounding with the velocity of a
locomotive out of the frame.
Mr. Vanderholt and his daughter conversed for some time on matters of no
concern to us who are to follow their fortunes. Presently, after helping
himself to his second bloater--for his wealth had neither lessened his
appetite nor influenced his choice of dishes: he clung, with true Dutch
courage, to solid sausage; he loved new bread, smoking hot; he was
wedded to all the several kinds of cured fish, and often drank a pint of
beer, instead of coffee or tea, at his morning meal--he took his second
herring, and, whilst his gray beard wagged to the movement of his jaws,
an expression of pensiveness entered his face as he fastened his gaze
upon the picture of the rushing schooner.
'How beautifully she is painted!' said he. 'It is the greatest of the
arts. How with the pen could you make that vessel show as the brush
has?'
'It could only be done by suggestion,' said Miss Vanderholt, looking up
sideways at the picture. 'It is the hint that submits the pen-and-ink
sketch.'
'So that, if a man has never seen a schooner, you might hint and suggest
all your life, and the death-bed of that man would still find his mind a
blank as to a schooner?'
'True,' said his daughter.
'I am going to tell you what I have made up my mind to do.'
'Yes, and there she is,' interrupted the girl, with a sweep of her hand
at the picture. 'And pretty wet they are; and a fine handsome sea is
going to run presently, till the yacht shall swoop into the cataracts
like a wreck--veiled--strained! She is too small.'
'You consider one hundred and eighty tons too small? What would Columbus
have thought of you? Do you know that Mynheer Vanderdecken is battling
with the storms of the Cape of Good Hope at this very hour in something
under one hundred and eighty tons?'
'But I really don't think, father, that you need such an extensive
change.'
'My doctors are of my opinion. I require nothing less than three months
of the sea-breeze, and all the climates that I can pack into that time.'
'And George?' said Miss Vanderholt, her voice a little coloured by
vexation. 'He may arrive home and find us absent, and there will be
nobody in the world to tell him where we are--whether we are alive or
dead, and when we may be expected back.'
'George won't be home till June next.' said Mr. Vanderholt. 'There is
no chance of it. Meanwhile, I mean to escape the winter by heading
direct for the Equator and back.'
'I'm afraid it is likely that George will not be able to arrive in
England before the end of June,' exclaimed Miss Vanderholt. 'But if he
should return sooner, it would drive me mad to hear that he had come and
found me absent.'
'We shall be back by February,' said Mr. Vanderholt, in that sort of
voice which makes you feel that the man who speaks is used to having his
way.
'Shall you take any friends with you?'
'Not even a dog,' answered Mr. Vanderholt.
'Then it will be dull!' exclaimed his daughter. 'Nothing but sea and sky
and novels. Why not ask Mr. Allan Kinnaird? He is a very amusing man.'
'I do not agree with you. Kinnaird is amusing for about half an hour.
Kinnaird and I never could get on at sea, locked up together as we
should be. He is always objecting to what I say, and he listens to my
jokes merely with the intention of enlarging upon their points so as to
defraud me of the laugh.'
'Will you carry a doctor?'
'I have thought over that. No; we will ship a medicine chest instead,
and a book treating of every disease under the sun. We do not go to sea
to be ill. A doctor will be in the way. He will be neither with us nor
of us. He might begin to bore you with his attentions, and you would
only think of him as a man who believes that he is under an obligation
to be agreeable.'
'But the _Mowbray_ has not been afloat for two or three years,' said
Miss Vanderholt.
'She has been well looked after. I have always liked the boat, and would
not sell her, though I have not used her of late,' said Mr. Vanderholt,
leaning back in his chair to contemplate to advantage the beautiful
picture over the sideboard. 'She is French built, and about twenty years
old. The French are better ship-builders than the English--infinitely
more choice in their lines and curves, and so scientific that you seldom
hear of a disaster in their experiments. Look at that vessel as she
rushes at you. How perfect is her entry! How insinuating the swell of
her bow, running into a beautiful roundness and plumpness of sides
instead of the up-and-down walls which the British yachtsman, who loves
to admire his yacht from the shore, conceives to be the one element
which gives a vessel stability! The more they narrow, the more they
blunder. You must have stability if you want seaworthiness. And in all
the years that I was at sea I never knew a crank ship a fast ship.'
It was easily seen by the expression of Miss Vanderholt's face that she
was thinking of George. Finding her father had ceased to speak, she
exclaimed:
'Who will be the captain?'
'I shall ask my friend Fairbanks to recommend a man to me. He, of all
the shipowners that I am acquainted with, is certain to know of a good
man.'
'Will he belong to the Royal Navy?'
'No.'
'Then, he will not be a gentleman?'
Vanderholt looked at her intently. His face relaxed. He combed down his
beard, and said:
'He will be a sailor; and if he is a sailor, he will be a man. Combine
these two things, and you produce an illustration of human existence
beyond the achievement of the most illustrious lineage and the most
ancient college.'
Miss Vanderholt was used to her father's views, and continued her
breakfast with a distant, listening air, which promised no further
expression of opinion upon this proposed voyage to the Equator. A
stranger listening at that table to Vanderholt would have guessed that
he was a man of hot temper, a Dutchman at root in his views and
prejudices, not a man, perhaps, of many friends, spite of his wealth. He
fixed his little eyes upon his daughter, and, after gazing at her for
some time, with a look of anxiety, he said:
'You know, Vi, I should not care to go without you.'
'No, father; nor should I wish to be left alone at home.'
'You will be happy in the old _Mowbray_. We will lay in a stock of good
things. We will make a fine holiday jaunt of it. Perhaps I shall be able
to show you some of the wonders of the deep. We will teach our crew to
sing litanies to break the spell of that demon the waterspout. We will
hook on to a whale, and thunder through it with foam to the figure-head,
with the velocity of the meteoric storm. We shall be at liberty to shift
our course as often as we please, and settle some marine problem for
good and all; not the sea-serpent--no. Who would defraud the newspapers
of that joke? But I am strongly of opinion that there is a distinct
difference between the dugong and the mermaid. The old idiots of the
fifteenth century no doubt confounded them; and the mermaid, shocked by
the hideous misrepresentation--for think of comparing some golden-haired
angel of an English girl with a New Zealand native woman, frightful with
the hues of her sky, and horrible with devices of the needle!--I say the
disgusted mermaid may have sunk into the ooze, resolved never again to
give man a sight of her face. Best of all, Vi, the voyage will do me
good, will do you good, and delightfully shorten the time of your
waiting for George.'
'It is the only feeling I have in the matter,' answered the young lady.
And now, having breakfasted, they arose and quitted the table.
Miss Violet Vanderholt, being acquainted with her father's character,
and knowing that he rarely changed his mind, went to her room, where in
peace she occupied a full hour in writing a long letter to George.
And who was George? One had but to peep over the girl's shoulder to
discover. 'My own darling George,' she began; and this sort of thing is
commonly accepted as the language of love. Captain George Parry was an
officer in the Honourable East India Company's service. When he was last
at home he had met Miss Violet, haunted her closely, and exhibited
himself in a variety of ways as deeply in love with her. Wonderful to
relate, Mr. Montagu Vanderholt took a fancy to the young man, and when
Ensign Parry called to ask his leave to consider himself engaged, he
was astounded by the cheerful 'Certainly, with pleasure, if you are both
satisfied,' which greeted him. A few questions and answers followed. Mr.
Vanderholt knew very little about the army, though he had two sons in
it. How long would Ensign Parry have to wait for his promotion? How long
was the engagement going to last? For his part, he did not like long
engagements: they made people ill. Many girls were hurried to their
graves by procrastination--that thief of sleep, the ice-cold 'lubbar
fiend' that bestrides women's hearts and keeps them shivering.
The interview terminated to the satisfaction of both gentlemen. In due
time, Ensign Parry returned to India, and now, as Captain Parry, he was
expected home in June; but in one or two of his letters to Violet he had
expressed a hope that he would be able to get home by an earlier date.
It had been settled that they should be married soon after his arrival
in England. And this was the posture of affairs as regarded Captain
Parry and Miss Vanderholt. The young lady, seating herself, dipped her
pen and wrote.
She wrote fast, and often with a flushed cheek when she underlined, or
doubly underlined, a word or a sentence. Her letter consisted mainly of
endearing expressions, such as, when read aloud in court after a couple
have quarrelled, excite merriment. She informed her sweetheart in this
letter that her father had made up his mind to go on a cruise for his
health as far as the Equator, in the old _Mowbray_. She was going with
him alone. George would know where she was, therefore, until her return
to England, which could not be delayed beyond February. She dared not
hope that George would arrive before the _Mowbray_ reached England. If
this should happen, then he might, perhaps, never receive this very
letter which she was writing. To provide against this, she said that
before she sailed she would write a second letter, and leave it with the
housekeeper.
On the afternoon of this same day Mr. Vanderholt entered his carriage
and drove into the City. He alighted at the offices of a firm of
shipowners in Fenchurch Street, and was immediately confronted by the
very person he had called to see. They shook hands.
'I want ten minutes with you, Fairbanks.'
'As long as you please, Mr. Vanderholt. Always happy to be of service to
you.'
It was plain that Mr. Vanderholt was not a skipper or a mate in search
of a situation on board one of the ships owned by this firm. They walked
through an office full of scribbling clerks; the walls were decorated
with pictures of ships in full sail, and odd configurations on glazed
yellow cloth, signifying cabin accommodation--first, second, and 'tween
decks. They reached a small back-room, and when Mr. Fairbanks closed the
door they were private.
Mr. Vanderholt was rendered a little uneasy by Mr. Fairbanks' look of
expectation, and began somewhat in a hurry, lest his friend's
anticipation should grow.
'It is a very trifling matter I have called to see you about, Fairbanks.
It concerns a skipper for my boat, the _Mowbray_. For some time past I
have been out of sorts, and have resolved to get clear of England during
the winter. I have a fine boat laid up in the Thames. She is 180 tons,
and I calculate, counting the cook and the fellow for the cabin, that a
skipper, a mate, and eight hands will suffice me. Do you know of a good
skipper?'
Mr. Fairbanks brought his fingers together in an attitude of prayer, and
said he thought that by dint of inquiry he might be able to find one.
'What pay?' said he.
'Ten pounds a month,' answered Mr. Vanderholt. 'I want a good man.'
'Do you take any company with you?'
'Only my daughter.'
'Then,' said Mr. Fairbanks, 'the skipper must not drink, and must not
swear. He must be a man of cleanly appearance, of considerable
experience, and able to hold his own in conversation.'
'So,' said Mr. Vanderholt.
'I believe,' said Mr. Fairbanks, 'that I know the man for you. He had
charge of a ship of ours, the _Sandyfoot_. It was but yesterday I
nodded to him outside these offices. If you take him you will carry a
romance in pilot-cloth to sea with you. This fellow--you will not
believe what I am going to tell you after you see him--was in love with
a girl. He broke with her in a quarrel, and went to sea, and by a
homeward ship wrote to ask her forgiveness and keep her heart whole for
him, as he would shortly return. He was swept overboard in a storm,
picked up floating on a buoy by a three-masted schooner, and carried to
China. On his arrival home, he found his sweetheart had gone out of her
mind. She recovered by degrees, under his influence, and they were to be
married. They proceeded together to church, and at the altar she went
mad again. Of course, the parson refused to officiate, and a few weeks
later the poor thing died.'
'What is the name of our friend?' inquired Mr. Vanderholt, who had
listened without much interest to this romantic story.
'Thomas Glew.'
'Originally a nickname, meant to stick,' said Mr. Vanderholt dryly.
'Send him to me. You will oblige me by doing so.'
'I'll endeavour to find him this afternoon, and you shall see him
to-morrow,' answered the other. 'And you really enjoy the prospect of a
cruise to the Equator and home?'
'Would I go if I did not?'
'But is not such sailing like running to and fro between wickets when
there's nobody bowling?' said Mr. Fairbanks, placing a decanter of old
Madeira and a box of cigars on the table.
Mr. Vanderholt brimmed a deep-hearted wineglass, and lighted a cigar,
saying betwixt the puffs:
'If there is no good in the pursuit of health, you are right.'
'Well,' said Mr. Fairbanks, 'for my part I never could contemplate a
voyage of any sort without associating it with a port and business.'
'Thank the North Star,' said the gentleman of Dutch extraction, 'with me
that time has passed!'
'But to think of the Equator as a port of call!' exclaimed Mr.
Fairbanks; and they both began to laugh.
The term 'port of call' set them conversing about trade, how matters
went in the City. Mr. Vanderholt talked fluently on all affairs
connected with shipping. After enjoying his cigar and his chat, he
re-entered his carriage, and was driven away.
Next morning, at about eleven o'clock, he was in his study, writing some
letters. His daughter sat with him, reading a newspaper. A man-servant
opened the door, and said that a seafaring gentleman was in the 'all,
and had called by request. On a silver salver lay Mr. Fairbanks' card,
and Mr. Vanderholt, after glancing at the card, told the footman to show
Captain Glew in.
There entered soon, with a quick, resolved, quarter-deck stride, a short
but powerfully-built man, shell-backed by ocean duties, with a face that
might have been cast in light bronze, that might have served as a ship's
figure-head in that metal, so roasted had it been in its day, so hard
set was it, as though fresh from the pickle of the harness-cask. The
flesh of the countenance had that sort of tension which does not admit
of much, or perhaps any, play of emotion. The man might expel a laugh
from his throat, but was he physically equal to a smile? He held a round
hat, and was soberly attired in blue cloth. He looked swiftly and
lightly around him, but seemed unmoved by the splendour of the
apartment. He sent a keen, gray, seawardly glance at Miss Vanderholt,
and fastened his gaze with an expression of attention upon her father.
Miss Vanderholt viewed him with curiosity and disappointment.
'Captain Glew?' said Mr. Vanderholt.
'That's my name, sir,' answered the captain, in a voice as decisive as
his walk and air. 'I was asked to call upon you by Mr. Fairbanks.'
'Right. Sit down. I had a good many years of it myself, but did not
reach the quarter-deck,' said Mr. Vanderholt. 'My end was plumb with the
fore-top.'
The captain seated himself, but did not smile, nor did he look as if he
wanted to.
'Many years at sea, Captain Glew?'
'Thirty, sir.'
'Did you run away, as I did, from home?'
'No. I was put apprentice by my father, who had charge of a Bethel, and
was a man of education.'
'Did Mr. Fairbanks explain what I wanted to see you about?'
'Yes, sir. I believe you'll find me a suitable man. I confess I'd like
the job. I know the _Mowbray_.'
Mr. Vanderholt's face lighted up.
'I was off her in a wherry not above a fortnight ago, and we stopped to
admire her. I never saw prettier lines.' Here he raised his eyes to the
picture over the sideboard, as though observing it for the first time,
but his face discovered no marks of enthusiasm or admiration whilst he
let his sight rest for a moment on that square of splendid,
spirit-moving canvas. 'My uncle was a shipbuilder,' he continued, 'and I
have some knowledge of that trade. The finest examples of seaworthy
craft are, in my opinion, the Baltimore clippers--some of them, at all
events. The _Mowbray_ might be the queen of that fleet, sir.'
Mr. Vanderholt glanced at his daughter, as if he should say, 'This is
our man.' He then rang the bell. A footman quickly appeared.
'Wine,' said Mr. Vanderholt.
'Not for me, if you please,' said Captain Glew, lifting his hand, and
bowing with a motion that made his refusal emphatic.
'What will you take?' said Mr. Vanderholt.
'Nothing whatever, I thank you, sir.'
'Are you a teetotaler?' said Mr. Vanderholt, signing to the footman to
be gone.
'No, sir. I am one of those men who drink only when they are thirsty,
and as I am seldom thirsty it follows that I drink little.'
'Do you know anything about fore and aft seamanship?'
_Now_ Captain Glew smiled, but the expression was like a passing spasm.
'I do, sir. I have held command in several types of ships in my time.
Seven years ago I had charge for three voyages of a fruiter from the
Thames to the Western Islands.'
'That will do,' said Mr. Vanderholt, with an appreciative flourish of
his hand, and a laugh of satisfaction.
'Five years ago, being in distress for a position, and having a wife and
two children to maintain, I took command of a three-masted schooner to
the Brazils, where I left her and returned in charge of a little barque.
I then got a berth in Mr. Fairbanks' employ----'
He was proceeding, but Mr. Vanderholt had heard enough.
'I am quite satisfied,' said he. 'Now let us settle the matter straight
off. That is my way of going to work. I'm not for easing away
handsomely; I'm for letting go with a run. We shall want a mate, and we
shall want a crew. Can I trust you to see to this business?'
'You can, sir.'
'Let the crew be blue-water men. I shall want real sailors aboard the
_Mowbray_.'
'There's nothing like them, sir.'
'The craft lies dismantled, as you know. I leave the whole work of her
being made ready for sea to you. Employ your own labour. Call upon me
as the work proceeds. I shall make you several visits from time to time,
for I am a man of leisure.'
'Does the young lady go with us, sir?'
'Yes.'
'You'll wish her cabin specially fitted?'
'I will see to that myself, Captain Glew.'
'Right, sir. And the voyage, I understand, is to be a cruise in the
North Atlantic?'
'It is to be a run to the Equator and home.'
'It seems such an odd place to steer for,' said Miss Vanderholt,
breaking the silence for the first time.
'It's as determinable as a rock, anyhow!' exclaimed Mr. Vanderholt. 'I
want to be able to report a wonder when we return.' Here his Dutch
countenance put on the air of good-humoured cunning with which he
usually prefaced a joke. 'There is about a quarter of a mile of
Equatorial water which possesses a remarkable property. Sink an object
in it, and you draw it up gilt. If we strike this wonderful patch of
sea, we will gild the _Mowbray_ from waterway to truck; boats,
ground-tackle--everything--shall be resplendent, and we shall be the
marvel of London as we sail up the Thames.'
Miss Vanderholt watched Captain Glew, to see how he relished this sort
of thing.
The skipper exclaimed austerely:
'It's a tract of water written of in books for the marines. It's not to
be found at sea, sir.'
'We must strike it, man, so that we may return covered with glory.'
'Patch got any colour, sir?'
'I believe it is a blood-red. A man I once sailed with claimed to have
sighted it. He was in the foretop-mast crosstrees, and saw the patch off
the bow, and hailed the deck, but he squinted damnably. You can't keep a
true course for anything when you squint. The captain missed the patch.
No other man saw it; and the sailor, who was a Dane, was, or is, the
only man in the world who has ever seen that miraculous bit of
Equatorial water.'
He looked at his daughter, clearly enjoying his own imagination; and
Captain Glew uttered a hollow laugh, and stood up.
'I will visit the vessel to-morrow, sir, and report. I will bring my
papers along with me----'
'No need,' interrupted Mr. Vanderholt; 'Mr. Fairbanks' introduction is
enough.'
The man made a nautical bow to the father and daughter, and was going,
when he suddenly stopped to say:
'Are you particular as to the nationalities of the men, sir?'
'English and Dutchmen, in such proportions as may please you,' said Mr.
Vanderholt; 'but never a Dago, Captain Glew. I was once stabbed by a
Dago.'
'And a Dago would have stabbed me if I hadn't killed him,' said the
captain. 'We'll ship no Dagos, sir.'
He made another nautical bow, and departed.
'I like him,' said Mr. Vanderholt, turning in his chair so as to resume
his letter-writing; 'but I guess the crew will find him a taut hand.'
'What is a taut hand?' inquired his daughter.
'A man who breeds mutinies,' he answered.
He looked thoughtful for a few moments, as though visited by some tragic
memories; then, taking up his pen, he went on writing his letters.