CAPTAIN MARY LIND.
Next day they broached a cask of beef for the forecastle. The meat
proved fairly sweet, and that and a kidful of currant-dumplings kept the
men quiet. But on the following day the bad pork was served out again.
Captain Glew refused to hear the boatswain on the subject, and those of
the men who could not swallow the meat made shift for a meal with
pea-soup and ship's biscuit.
Not a word of this trouble, which Captain Glew must have known was
charged with one of the deadliest of all ocean menaces, reached Mr.
Vanderholt.
'I'll not have him worried,' said Glew to the mate. 'If you sent them a
Mansion House tuck-out, the fiends would growl, tell you it wasn't
Galapagos turtle, and that they'd hooked better salmon out of cans. I'm
responsible for the stores. I knew what I was about when I ordered them.
Surely you know Humph Lyons, the ships' chandler in Dock Street,
Limehouse? He's shipped for me before, and he's likewise shipped for my
owners, and I've never heard a murmur against him.'
'Was that the Lyons an action was brought against for selling condemned
Admiralty stores as good food for merchant sailors?' said Mr. Tweed,
with a grin.
'It was his brother,' said Captain Glew. 'A man can't be responsible for
his relations.'
'As to relations,' said Mr. Tweed, 'a man may try his darned hardest to
be all that's right, and in conformity with the law and piety, and still
find himself adrift at the end. I remember a skipper saying to me: "It's
all very well to say, 'Honour thy father and thy mother,' but I knew a
man who all his life did his fired best to honour his father, and when
his mother lay dying she told him, with the tears running over her
cheeks, that the man he'd been a-honouring all his life had never been
his father at all!"'
Here the groggy little man set up so loud a laugh that Captain Glew
walked away, and the conversation came to an end.
The days passed. The _Mowbray_ broke the seas of the Bay clothed to her
royal yard. Blue sky was over her, and sunshine bright as that of the
English June lighted up the rolling ocean. By this time Mr. Vanderholt
was perfectly recovered, and had ceased to apologize to Captain Glew for
being sea-sick. He smoked his long pipe. He stalked the deck arm-in-arm
with his daughter. He repeatedly asked her and Captain Glew how they
thought he was looking; and Captain Glew swore that in all his life he
had never seen any gentleman pick up so surprisingly fast.
'I'm quite sure,' the captain said, 'Miss Vanderholt will agree with me,
sir, when I say that you're looking ten years younger this same day than
at the hour of your starting.'
Miss Violet smiled, and Vanderholt stroked his beard, and grinned till
his eyes faded into little wrinkles.
One fine hot morning, when the _Mowbray_ was far to the southward of the
Madeira parallels, Mr. Vanderholt and his daughter came on deck from the
breakfast-table, and seated themselves under the shelter of a short
awning. The young lady held a novel. Mr. Vanderholt smoked his immense
and richly-coloured pipe. Captain Glew passed them in short to-and-fro
look-out excursions; and forward the little ship carried a busy face,
with seamen at work on the hundred jobs which, fair or foul, a vessel
exacts from her crew at sea. A soft wind blew. The sky was capacious
with the clarity of the horizon, and wondrous lofty with light cloud,
resembling froth that dries in curls upon a beach.
A ship was in sight on the starboard quarter, going away north-west,
under square yards. Her spires trembled in the moist, rich distance, as
though they were rays of starlight, twisting, burning, dying. She had
been too far off to signal, nor did Mr. Vanderholt seem particularly
anxious that the safety and whereabouts of his little ship should be
reported at home.
'Who is troubling his head about us, do you think?' he had said to his
daughter on one occasion when this question of reporting had arisen
between him and Glew. 'I am not insured. No man in the city is concerned
for me. And of our friends, how many are thinking of us?'
And he held up two fingers with a satirical smile, as though he should
say, 'D'ye think two are thinking of us?'
'If George returns before we do,' Miss Vi had said in reply, 'I should
like him to know that all was well with us down to the date on which we
were last heard of.'
'We'll signal steam,' had been old Vanderholt's answer. 'Anything blown
along by canvas will not arrive at home very much earlier than we
shall.'
Now, on this morning--this fine hot morning--they sat together in very
comfortable deck-chairs, one trying to read a novel, the other finding
his tobacco delicious in the open air. Presently, directing her eyes at
some men who sat at work stitching upon a sail near the galley, Miss
Vanderholt said:
'How could any man be a sailor! How could you have survived such a
horrible life! See how hard those men are kept at work all day; and at
night they have to watch, wet or dry, for four hours at a time.'
'Ay; and the colder it is, and the damper it is, and the more abominable
in a general way the whole precious weather is, the harder they have to
watch,' answered Vanderholt.
'Have sailors no amusements?' inquired his daughter.
'How do sailors amuse themselves, Glew?' called Mr. Vanderholt.
And the man, arresting his look-out walk, stood up before father and
daughter.
'By growling, sir,' answered Glew.
Miss Vanderholt did not like the expression that entered Captain Glew's
eyes when he made that answer.
'A happy, well-disciplined crew are the jolliest company of men in the
world,' said Mr. Vanderholt. 'They have plenty to eat, no rent to pay,
dollars for the girls at the end of the voyage, and they behold the
wonders of the world at the cost of the ship-owner--poor fellow! For
diversions, think--they dance in the dog-watch, they sing songs and tell
stories, they play at cards, they fight----'
'A little, sir,' said Captain Glew.
'We made a sport of fighting in our time,' said Vanderholt. 'We'd take
two men, and nail them face to face on a sea-chest, with long spikes
driven through the stern of their trousers. It was good sport.'
He opened his mouth to let out a cloud, smiling at some forecastle
recollections, which perhaps caused him to regret that his daughter was
present, for he found Glew a good listener.
'Sailors take some pleasure in cards,' said Captain Glew. 'I remember,
when I was second-mate of a ship, having occasion to go forward. It was
night, a dead calm; a frightful thunderstorm was about us; the lightning
was hissing like snakes all over everything that was metal aloft, and
every crash of thunder was like the splitting of the heavens by God's
own hand in wrath. I took a peep down the forecastle, and in the midst
of this tremendous commotion, which was fit to subdue the heart of the
stoutest, sat four sailors at a chest, playing at cards, a lighted
candle in a bottle in the midst of them, all so intent on the game that
they heard and saw nothing.'
'Sail-ho!' at this moment sang out a fellow aloft, on the little
top-gallant yard.
'Where away?' shouted Glew, with the sharp of his hand to his mouth.
'Right ahead, sir!' cried down the seaman, in a sort of chant.
'If she's going to England you shall make our number, Glew--for George's
sake,' said Mr. Vanderholt, looking at his daughter.
Just then the boatswain hailed the sailor on the top-gallant yard, and
gave him some directions.
'That Jones is a fine-looking man,' said Mr. Vanderholt; 'such as he
should never want a ship. What's his nation?'
'London, sir.'
'A mighty nation!' exclaimed Miss Violet.
'Which does not believe in a God,' said Vanderholt, 'though it worships
a Madonna called Our Lady of Threadneedle Street.'
'There's many a pilgrim always bound to that shrine,' said Captain Glew,
trying to smile.
'I am of Dutch extraction,' continued Mr. Vanderholt; 'but never dropped
the letter H, nor found the V's and W's difficult. I have
out-generationed that trouble of the foreigner. But why is it that the
Cockney should drop his H? You speak of London. Think of the number of
H's which are dropped in it every day!'
'George once made a pun,' exclaimed Miss Vanderholt. 'We were talking of
a certain young lady, and I said: "Do you observe that she drops her
H's?" "Her sister does worse," he answered. "Address her and she drops
her eyes."'
Captain Glew again tried to smile. Mr. Vanderholt, expelling a great
cloud of smoke, burst in:
'Yes; and I'll tell you what those girls' father once said to me at an
evening party. He took me aside, and said: "Did you ever 'ear of that
fine riddle in rhyme supposed to have been written by Lord Byron,
though it's attributed to a lady? I'll tell it you," and my friend, with
a grave face, began:
'"'Twas whispered in 'eaven; 'twas muttered in 'ell'"--
and so he went on to the end. "Well," says he, "what is it?" "I give it
up," says I. "The letter H," says he.'
'Did you ever see a funeral at sea, father?' inquired Miss Vanderholt,
watching the ship ahead, that was growing larger and whiter.
'Scores, my blessing; much too many. We shipped a heavy cargo at Bombay,
and amongst it was cholera. I can still hear, in that dead calm of
twelve days, the recurrent, sullen plunge of the shotted corpse.'
'The worst of being buried is, that you don't know what they're saying
about you,' said Captain Glew. 'That's true, whether ashore or whether
at sea. As the corpse goes along in the car, it might like to know what
sort of a following it had, how the people who'd been thought friends
had turned out. Yet, I dare say,' he went on, 'that if a man could get
up and listen a bit, and take a look round, he'd be glad to sneak
back.'
'Yes; if he had to hear his will read in a room full of relations,' said
Miss Violet.
'I have often thought this,' said Mr. Vanderholt: 'that a man who is a
genius and famous should provide by his will for a quiet funeral; for,
by doing so, he guards against the risk of neglect.'
This was a touch above Glew. Mr. Vanderholt rose, and went to the rail
to knock out the ashes of his pipe into the sea. Miss Violet began to
read, and the captain fell to walking the deck.
The ship ahead grew rapidly. It was first like the half of the crescent
moon leaning and shining, then it swelled into cotton-white canvas and a
green hull. But the sun ate up the wind at noon. The vessels were then
two miles apart, and it was not until about three in the afternoon that
they were wafted by cat's-paws within speaking distance. She was a
little barque, dingy with long travel. Her copper was green. Her
figure-head was a romantic imagination. It represented a nymph, with her
black hair fairly concealing her shape, extending her arms in a posture
of ecstasy at a large gilt star that was fixed within a foot or two of
her hands. Her canvas shone like satin, and at her mizzen-peak end
languidly swung the Stripes and Stars, a very large flag, looking
brand-new. A number of men, some of them coloured, lay over the
forecastle-rail, indolently watching the _Mowbray_. The barque had a
little poop, and upon it, with one foot resting on a hen-coop and one
hand grasping a backstay, stood the most extraordinary figure Mr.
Vanderholt had ever beheld.
It resembled a man dressed in what, in former ages, were known as
petticoat-breeches. Their plenty made them look like a frock. Inspecting
this figure through a binocular glass, Mr. Vanderholt perceived that the
rest of its garb consisted of a white shirt, a silk handkerchief, tied
in a sailor's knot under a wide turned-down collar, a braided jacket,
blue, and a cap with a naval peak, much after the pattern that is worn
by yachting men.
A short, square man stood at the wheel, that blazed in a brass circle to
the sun, and beside him stood another man, remarkable for nothing but a
long goatlike beard, and a blue cap, tasselled, pointed, and
overhanging, such as mutinous smacksmen wear in Italian opera.
'A queer ship's company!' exclaimed Mr. Vanderholt to Glew. 'In all your
going a-fishing did you ever see the like of such a sailor-man as that
chap yonder in the trousers?'
Captain Glew's reply was arrested by a hail from the little barque.
'Ho!' shrilled the strange figure in breeches. 'The schooner ahoy! What
schooner are you?'
'The _Mowbray_, of London, on a cruise. What ship are you?'
'The _Wife's Hope_, from Calcutta to New York! Eighty days out! Jute and
linseed! We're short of sugar: can you loan me some?'
All this was delivered in the voice of a bantam-cock, delirious with
continuous triumphant clarioning.
'The _Wife's Hope_,' said Mr. Vanderholt, turning to his daughter.
'Here's some Yankee notion.'
'If that figure's not a woman,' answered Violet, 'it does not speak
with the voice of a man.'
After a brief consultation with Mr. Vanderholt, Captain Glew shouted:
'I think we can let you have some sugar--a cask of moist, and some lump,
to help you along to the next ship. We'll carry it aboard for you.'
The figure in breeches flourished its hand in a gesture of delight, and
then began to walk the short poop with superior stately strides,
constantly directing glances at the yacht. The _Mowbray_ carried three
good boats, and the boat amidships was the long-boat; this was promptly
got over the side. They broke out a cask of moist sugar and a case of
lump; and a crew having entered her, Mr. and Miss Vanderholt were
steered by Mr. Tweed to the _Wife's Hope_ over the glazed heave of the
deep-blue afternoon swell.
Very hot it was. The sunshine tingled in the water, and the trembling
fire rose roasting to the face.
'Do you think we shall be welcome, father?' said Miss Vanderholt, a
little nervously.
'We are here to see the wonders of the deep,' answered Mr. Vanderholt,
'whether they welcome us or not; and yonder figure seems to me to be one
of the greatest wonders in the world.'
'It is a woman, sir,' said Mr. Tweed.
'A female ship-master,' exclaimed Mr. Vanderholt. 'The _Wife's Hope_! It
should be the _Husband's Despair_.'
Miss Violet was gazing at the receding shape of the _Mowbray_. The
schooner lightly leaned with the swell, darting glances of flame as she
swayed. Tender, blue fingers of shadow, like an outstretched hand in
front of the sun, overran her sails, and the swing of her canvas was a
miracle of milk-white light and violet shade against the hot liquid blue
of the afternoon sky.
'A vessel like that is like a horse,' said Violet: 'you want to pat her
side, to whisper encouraging words to her, to thank her for the noble,
sweeping pace she has carried you at. How little she looks, and how
lonely!'
They were fast approaching the barque. The petticoat-trousered figure,
seeing that company was coming, had ordered a ladder to be thrown over
the side, and she--for a woman it was--stood in the open gangway to
receive the visitors.
'Have you brought what we asked you for?' she cried, the strain in her
voice lifting it to a shriek.
Tweed answered with one of those tumbling gesticulations--a peculiar
drunken, rounding fall of the arm and dropping of the head--which with
sailors stand for 'yes.'
'Jump aloft, a hand,' screamed the lady skipper, 'and make fast a whip
to the yard-arm! I'll want that sugar carefully hoisted!'
The boat drove alongside, and Mr. and Miss Vanderholt ascended the short
ladder. Now that they stood close, they found that by no possibility
could her garb make a man of the captain, with her large fine eyes and
delicate features, though sunburnt to deformity. She was a tall woman,
with a lofty, commanding air, which was not to be neutralized by
anything diverting in the suggestions of her apparel. She looked hard at
Miss Violet, and ran her eyes over her dress; her sex spoke in that,
spite of her cropped head and abundant breeks.
'I have brought a cask of moist sugar, and a case of broken lump,' said
Mr. Vanderholt, lifting his hat; 'and, madam, if you are in command of
this vessel, it gives me a very singular satisfaction to make your
acquaintance.'
'Don't call me "madam," I beg, sir!' exclaimed the other, showing a
white set of teeth in a cordial smile, full of spirit. 'I am Captain
Lind.'
'Captain Lind, then,' said Mr. Vanderholt, again lifting his hat, whilst
his eyes disappeared in a grin full of wrinkles.
'You are the owner of that yacht, I reckon?' said Captain Lind; and Miss
Vanderholt noticed the American accent in the skipper's speech.
'Ay, captain, that's my yacht, and this is my daughter,' answered
Vanderholt, continuing to grin with all his might, whilst he looked
first at Captain Lind, and then aloft, and then along the decks.
'What do I owe you for that sugar?' said Captain Lind.
'Our visit fully discharges your obligations, captain. There is enough,
maybe, to keep you sweet till you get more.'
'Well, I thank you,' said the lady skipper; 'and when I have seen that
cask safely inboards, we'll go into the cabin and drink a cup of tea.'
Mr. Vanderholt pulled out his watch, then, hailing Glew, said that he
and Miss Vanderholt would remain another half-hour on board the barque.
'Don't let the vessels slide far apart, Glew!' he roared. 'Tweed, whilst
we're below keep a bright look-out on the weather.'
The mate of the _Mowbray_ touched his cap.
Miss Vanderholt stared with amazement at Captain Lind. A woman in charge
of a ship! A woman qualified to handle the complicated machinery of the
gear and sails of a barque of no mean tonnage, as tonnage then went! Did
the men obey her? Wasn't she afraid of her sailors? And Miss Violet
turned to inspect the seamen who were getting the sugar aboard in the
gangway, whilst others lay on the rail lazily staring at the _Mowbray_
from the forecastle-head. A rough lot they looked--rougher even than the
_Mowbray's_ crew, by virtue, no doubt, of their apparel, which was
showing very much like the end of a long voyage. They carried
sheath-knives on their hips, straw hats or Scotch caps on their heads;
their naked breasts disclosed the wool upon them through rents in the
flying wide dungaree shirt. And a woman had command of these fellows,
had held them obedient, and brought them and the ship in safety to that
part of the ocean in which the _Mowbray_ had encountered them! Who had
ever heard of such a thing? It was a fact worth going to sea to realize.
'How George will laugh and doubt when I tell him!' Miss Vanderholt
thought, as she looked with wonder, deepening ever, at the amazing
figure built up of petticoat-trousers and blue jacket, very plentifully
braided.
When the sugar was on board, Captain Lind, calling to the man in the
opera-cap, said:
'See that cask safely stowed. This is a chance that mightn't happen
again 'twixt here and New York; and I tell you, mister,' said she,
turning to Mr. Vanderholt, 'that I have missed the sugar in my cup of
tea. I have a sweet tooth. Who is that gent?' she continued, looking at
Mr. Tweed.
'He is the mate of my schooner,' answered Mr. Vanderholt.
'Then, see here, Mr. Prunes,' she cried, with a womanly yell that
broadened Tweed's mouth from ear to ear; 'whilst we're at tea below,
you'll see that this gentleman has some refreshment. He can ask for what
he likes, and if we've got it, he can have it. Send the boy aft, Mr.
Prunes.'
All this was addressed to the tasselled seaman who was apparently the
mate of the ship.
Captain Lind then conducted Mr. Vanderholt and his daughter below into
the cabin--a little interior, rude in comparison with the _Mowbray's_
cabin, yet comfortable and breezy with the panting of the heel of a
windsail, as the swing of the barque swelled the mouth of the tube
aloft. There were two little cabins aft, and two little cabins forward,
and a little square table amidships. A small black boy arrived.
'Bring tea and biscuit, and tell Mr. Prunes to give you some lump sugar.
Don't eat none. Now spring! Hurrah!'
The lad, with a grin, leapt up the ladder, and the soles of his naked
feet glimmered like bars of yellow soap as he disappeared.
'I never heard before of a lady taking command of a ship,' said Mr.
Vanderholt.
Captain Lind pulled her cap off, and disclosed a head of rich brown
hair, cut short, and divided in the middle.
'Well,' she answered, stretching forth her hand as an invitation to Miss
Violet to seat herself, 'I'm not what is called in your country a lady.
I'm just a plain Amurrican woman. Of course you've never heard of such a
thing as a woman in charge of a ship. Are you an Englishman, sir?'
'Why, yes. My name is foreign--Vanderholt; but I am an Englishman.'
'Names don't signify now in the nationalities of folks,' exclaimed
Captain Lind, smiling at Miss Violet. 'Look at Amurrica. They're coming
fast, and when they settle they call themselves Amurricans. I can tell
you, sir, there are very few Amurricans in Amurrica. Who's the Amurrican
of to-day? Is he Mr. O'Brien, or is he Herr Von Dunks?'
'You asked me if I was an Englishman,' said Mr. Vanderholt, who was
greatly entertained by the singular figure this strange, fine, original
woman presented, as she sat at table, talking, and waiting for a cup of
tea.
'Yes; because if you're an Englishman you'll be a century astern of us
in Amurrica. We had to show you the road in nearly everything of
consequence. We gave you steam,' said the lady, coolly making way for
the negro boy, who just then arrived with tea--a japanned tray with an
old silver teapot upon it and a bowl of broken lump sugar.
The captain instantly put one of these lumps into her mouth, and
continued to talk and suck while she poured out the milkless tea, and
shoved a plate of white biscuit towards Miss Vanderholt.
'We gave you steam, sir, and electricity. We taught you ship-building;
for, until the Amurricans began to build, shapeliness and speed weren't
known to the world. We offer you the double topsail. You'll take twenty
years to consider it,' she said, leaning back in her chair with a sneer,
while she lifted her saucer and teacup and began to sip in a ladylike
way.
'I had no idea that we were so much in your debt,' said Mr. Vanderholt.
'But I tell you what: if you can induce the ladies of Great Britain to
study navigation, and take charge of ships, after the example you are
setting, there are a great many husbands who will be everlastingly
obliged to you for indicating a new source of income for the family, and
a sure chance for peace at home.'
'You don't reckon, p'r'aps, that we Amurricans gave you electricity?'
said the lady skipper, who seemed to find something suspicious in Mr.
Vanderholt's answer. 'Who flew the kite? Who brought fire from the skies
so that a man might know what to do with it?'
Vanderholt, holding his countenance behind his beard, respectfully
bowed and sipped at his cup.
'Are there other female captains like yourself in your country?' asked
Miss Vanderholt.
'Two,' she answered; 'there may be more. I'm a third, certainly. Stop
till I spin the yarn. My father was a sea-captain, and when I was a girl
carried me with him on several voyages. My husband was the master of a
ship, and I always went to sea with him, and could discharge his duties
as well as he, and sometimes better. He died, and left me a childless
widow. But I was not poor. What with my father, and my husband, and here
and there a legacy, I had got to own a few thousand dollars, which I
didn't quite know what to do with, for I couldn't get value enough out
of the money to live upon.'
Mr. Vanderholt pricked up his ears. Any reference to dollars and
interest engaged him. He listened, and forgot he was at sea.
'Till one day,' continued Captain Lind, 'being at New York--I wasn't
then living in that city--I happened to pick up the _New York Hatchet_,
and, after reading it a bit, came across this passage----'
She left the table and entered an after-berth. Mr. Vanderholt exchanged
looks with his daughter. Captain Lind returned, holding an old
newspaper. She seated herself, and, popping another lump of sugar into
her mouth, sucked, with a grave face, whilst she opened the paper. Then,
when the sugar was gone, she read aloud:
'"Mrs. Sarah Davis, of New York, has just brilliantly passed her
examination for a certificate as shipmaster and pilot, and, on receiving
her certificate, will, it is announced, take the command of the yacht
_Emerald_. This lady is, it is said, not the first of her sex who has
been in command of a vessel. Mrs. Mary Miller, of New Orleans, obtained
a master's certificate a few years ago, and is now captain of the
full-rigged merchant-ship _Saline_."
'When I read this, an idea came into my head, and I wasn't long in
making up my mind. There's no obligation in my country to take out a
master's certificate, any more than there is in yourn; but I was
determined to let 'm know I was fit to command a ship, and I presented
myself, and received some handsome compliments on a quality of all-round
knowledge sights in excess of what the average captain carries to the
ocean with him. This is my third voyage in the _Wife's Hope_.'
'Why the _Wife's Hope_?' exclaimed Mr. Vanderholt. 'You told me you were
a widow.'
'I named her the _Wife's Hope_,' answered Captain Lind, 'that she might
encourage married women cussed with drinking, loafing, idling, gambling,
worthless husbands, to direct their attention to a noble pursuit which
would carry them leagues clear of the troubles of home, put money in
their pockets, enable them to see the world and life, and help them,'
said she, putting another lump of sugar into her mouth, 'to acquire that
spirit of independence without which woman must always be meaner than
the plantation slave, and her case a gone sight more hopeless.'
This little speech was delivered with some dignity. Mr. Vanderholt was
impressed, and ran his eyes over her figure, and looked at her face with
a countenance of earnest respect. The sugar in her mouth did not impair
the stateliness of her manner and utterance.
'It would be more respectable and quiet than a divorce,' the captain
went on. 'You'd find no bad husband going to sea with his wife. The cuss
wouldn't have the liver for it.'
'The star of your figure-head,' said Miss Violet, 'I suppose, is the art
of seamanship, and the figure stretching her hand towards it symbolizes
woman rapturously greeting a new calling?'
'You've hit it down to the heels,' answered Captain Lind. 'It was my
notion. Quite a pome, ain't it? Were you pleased with it as you came
along?'
'We were delighted,' said Mr. Vanderholt. 'I said to my daughter, or, if
I did not say it, it was in my mind to speak it, "There is in that
barque a strong original genius." America should distinguish you,
captain.'
The captain bowed and smiled, and pushed the sugar-bowl away, that she
might not be tempted by its contents.
'Aren't you afraid of your sailors?' asked Miss Vanderholt.
'Afraid!' echoed the captain, bridling. 'What is there in sailors to be
afraid of? I have revolvers, and I know how to load and shoot, and I
should no more hesitate to send a ball through a mutinous seaman's nut
than put one of them lumps into my mouth. Don't you ever be afraid of
any man, miss. Why man bosses woman's jest a question of muscle. My crew
soon learnt the art of jumping to the music of my voice. I'm a little
shrill--don't reckon that I sink my sex in these clothes--and it may be
that sailors, being accustomed mainly to voices deep with drink and
hollow with vice, run the more nimbly for being called to in their
mother's tender notes. Will you have a cigar, sir?'
And, without awaiting Mr. Vanderholt's reply, she entered a cabin, and,
after a short absence, returned with a box of cigars, a couple of loaded
revolvers, and two long, dangerous knives.
'They need no better discipline whenever it comes to it,' said she,
helping herself to another lump of sugar. 'Take a cigar, sir?'
Meanwhile, on deck the mate of the _Mowbray_ conversed with the mate of
the _Wife's Hope_. Mr. Tweed had asked for no other refreshment than a
glass of rum and cold water. He stood sucking a pipe in the gangway,
ready for the appearance of Mr. Vanderholt and his daughter on deck, and
beside him was Mr. Prunes. The first dog-watch had begun; it had seemed,
however, to Mr. Tweed that it was all dog-watch with the crew of the
_Wife's Hope_; they only appeared to lounge a little more now that one
of them had struck eight times on the forecastle bell. The sun was still
high, but his splendour was deepening, and the lights which sparkled
about the decks of the barque and in her sides were rich; she floated in
the silence upon the dark-blue sea, with the whole lazy spirit of the
hour in the sleepy droop of her canvas and the indolent roll of her
hull.
'That's a fine schooner of yourn,' said Mr. Prunes to Mr. Tweed. 'It's
like having the Wight aboard to see her. Bound to the Equator, eh? And
what are you going to load there?'
He pulled his long goatee, with a laugh that struck a shudder through
his cap.
'This seems a pretty comfortable old barkey,' said Tweed, slowly looking
round him. 'Eighty days in finding your way here? Well, yer might have
done worse,' he added, with a look aloft. 'Doomed if I could keep my
face when I saw your skipper! It isn't that all that's becoming in a
female don't unite in her; it's her sex that makes me laugh.'
'I shall be blamed glad when the voyage is ended,' said Prunes, pulling
off his cap, and wiping his forehead with it; and now Mr. Tweed was not
a little astonished to remark that this seaman wore his hair in a net.
'I signed more for a lark than for a berth. They told me that the
_Wife's Hope_ was in want of a chief mate. She was in Calcutta, and I
hadn't been long out of 'orspital. I knew she was commanded by a woman,
and reckoned upon being treated as captain, in fact, though _she_ might
call herself the old man. Never was a chap more mistaken. If she hasn't
held her own as master of this vessel from the moment the pilot left us,
I'll swallow that pipe.'
'D'ye tell me she understands all about the manoeuvring of a ship?' said
Tweed.
'There's no man out of the Thames or Mersey who's got a trick above her,
blow high, blow low, bet all you're a-going to take up!' exclaimed
Prunes. 'See her put this craft about! It's yachting for nice
discernment. I never knew any master keep his weather-eye lifting as
this female do. She can smell what's coming along. She's reefed down
when the sky's been blue as it is, all hands have been growling and
laughing at her, and a quarter of an hour later the barque's been on her
beam-ends, and the sea just one yell o' froth!'
'Doomed if it 'ud be a believable thing, if it couldn't be seen,' said
Tweed. 'What made t'other mate leave the ship?'
'The same as'll make me glad to get to New York,' answered Mr. Prunes,
putting on his cap, and caressing the tassel, whilst his eyes met in a
squint of earnestness in the grog-flowered countenance of Mr. Tweed. He
paused, and seemed to reflect.
'What is it?' said Mr. Tweed.
Mr. Prunes began to nod at him, and then said in a low, confidential
voice, and a glance aft at the companion-hatch:
'She's in want of that sort of mate which ashore they calls a husband.'
'Ha!' said Mr. Tweed; 'and it drove the other chap out of a good berth?'
'Well, there was a many quarrels, I believe, afore they got to Calcutta.
Thinking that I might stand the better with her, seeing that I'm
middling young, and that the sea hasn't robbed me of all that I owe to
my mother, who was the handsomest woman in Shadwell, I kept dark about
my 'ome, and to this bloomed hour she don't know that I've got a wife
and three young uns awaiting my return in the little house I left 'em in
at Stepney.'
'I'd up and tell her the truth, if I were you,' said Tweed.
A gleam of cunning twinkled in Mr. Prunes's eyes.
'I've been pretty comfortable for eighty days,' said he, 'under an
error. There's no call now to correct it, seeing that the end of the
voyage isn't fur off.'
Whilst he spoke, Captain Lind and Mr. and Miss Vanderholt were coming on
deck. The captain sang out in a shrill, bantam-like voice, that caused
Prunes to glance somewhat sheepishly at Tweed:
'The lady and gentleman are going aboard their schooner! See their boat
all ready!'
Then, springing on to the rail with wonderful activity, she hailed the
_Mowbray_, and asked Captain Glew for his latitude and longitude. This
she received, and entered upon a piece of paper with a face of triumph.
Then, turning to Mr. Vanderholt, she exclaimed:
'See here, sir! A mile out, and the error may be his.'
'I am lost in admiration, I assure you,' said Vanderholt. 'I would
rather have met this barque than the _Flying Dutchman_. It will be far
more interesting to me to talk about than an apparition. It is really,
captain, an extraordinary departure! I wish you prosperity, I am sure,
ma'am.'
He bowed low. The captain of the _Wife's Hope_ then shook hands
cordially with Miss Vanderholt. Tweed got into the boat, and the party
returned to the _Mowbray_. Just before sunset a breeze came right along
the red, shortening shaft of glory, as though it blew out of the sun.
Both vessels immediately trimmed for their respective courses, and in an
hour's time the _Wife's Hope_ had vanished in the starlit dusk of the
evening.