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Las diagrammaa suivants ^ilustrant la mAthoda. 1 2 3 4 5 6 MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1.0 145 I.I 1.25 12.8 1^ 1^ iiiilM 13.6 14.0 luuu 1.4 I'M 2.2 2.0 1.8 A .APPLIED IM/IGE Inc 1653 East Main Street Rochester, New York 14609 (716) 482 - 0300 - Phone (716) 288- 5989 - Fax USA F^U-SSELl Ty t^> t*0 '^^i7 tJ c M ir Ia /€ ^' '^'j? ^ ',','V'\ ^' ^«*^ u-m I '01 )L HAUL 8"' W, CLAP Aimic- V- TV A:' A THi TOROJ^ffj •f!' ^'rv»/;^ SriStEt. COMPANY "fi^^i 'iicWi A NOBLE HAUL BY. , . W. CLARK RUSSELL AITTHOR OF The Copsford Mystery An Ocean Free Lance A Sailor's Sweetheart Toronto THE TORONTO NEWS COMPANY 42 YowGE Street p RB c .1. %-i COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY W. CLARK RUSSELL Cr Ct Cb :lenched as his ^«is side; his his breathing wreath or two i in the rig- his appear- to see him A Noble Haul. 19 a couple of the passengers, the three of them meanwhile keeping their eyes fixed upon the captain. "That's your doing, is it?" ex- claimed the skipper, glaring upon me as though he would devour me, and speaking in u voice hoarse and indistinct with rage, and pointing at the deck within a few feet of him, where I saw a marlinespike erect, its sharp point buried in the white plank. This was the object I had acci- dentally kicked out of the top! "I am very sorry, sir," I be- gan "Sorry!" he interrupted, heap- Jng in the same breath a dozen brutal, filthy, mortally insulting ao )i < ■ f'. A Noble Haul. words upon me. "Sorry! You meant that thing for my head!" "No, sir," I cried, fetching a deep breath and feeling my own hands shaping themselves into fists as his were, through the wrath aroused in me by his horrid, shock- ing abuse in the full hearing of the passengers and the sailors. What followed I must not at- tempt to describe. There are, I believe, but few words of his cm- el blasphemous abuse which have escaped my memory, so deeply chiselled upon my mind was this brief passage of my life, from what afterwards befell me through it; but I must not write what I recol-' lect. Spluttering out his brutal A Noble Haul. 21 fury of words, he approached me close, and then I let fall my arms which I had tightly folded, not doubting that he was about to strike me. One expression he lit- erally hissed into my face— a term that made a very devil of me; scarcely was it pronounced when my fist flashed fair between his eyes, and down he went, straight and stiff as a statue, with a blow of the back of his head upon the hard plank that I believed had done as effectually for him as though indeed his brain had been pierced by the marlinespike. It was a blow fit to fell an ox with. In my coolest hour I might almost have rated myself as strono- 'ill > '•/ i I ! i f] I ' 1 S 1 I 22 A Noble Haul. as any two men aboard that ship; but now the nerve of fury had been put into my muscle, and the cursing-, blasplieming, tyran- nous villain stretched his length as though felled by a blast of lightning. The mate and passengers came rushing along, there was a hurry of seamen from forwards, and in a moment the prostrate man and myself were in the heart of a little crowd. "Mr. Hollins," I cried, "you heard his language, sir. He is an infamous liar. I struck the mar- linespike out of the top by acci- dent. I did not see it— did not know it was there. I call upon A Noble Haul. 23 you to witness that what I have done was done in self-defence and out of such temper as the mildest being must have felt, so provokin^r^ insulting, monstrous in his lan- guage was that scoundrel. " The mate, kneeling by the fallen man, called for water, the sailors shuffled among themselves, but no man quitted his business of staring. Blood was flowing from the captain's nose, and it appeared to be draining from his lips; and in his insensibility and thus dis- figured he was an ugly sight and seemed a corpse. But on a sudden he breathed deep, rolled his eyes, and then touching his mouth with his hand ' .' I ^ A Noble Haul. looked at his fing-ers. The si^ht of the blood you would have thought electriiied him u^ " """• He sprang to his feet, and stood swaying with an odd nervous twitching of his fingers as though mechanically grabbing for support. With his head bent forward and breathing swiftly, he stared around him until h.s eyes lighted on me; then you «aw the fun perception of what had happened enterhis face; he poised his iigure as though he would rush upon me. The mate said some- thmg and put out his hand, on which the captain exclaimed, in a low voice : "Clap that ruffian in irons, and 'et him be locked up below until A Noble Haul. 35 the forepeak is got ready for him." So saying-, he covered his face with a hug-e red handkerchief and went with a reeling gait to the companion hatch, down which he disappeared. " Send the carpenter aft with the irons, one of you," said the mate, addressing the sailors, who still hung around staring, whimpering, here and there one of them grin- ning, all of them wearing counte- nances that defined no lack of secret satisfaction. "The rest of you turn in. Pull that marline- spike out." A man laid hold of it, but so deep had the eharp-ended bar 26 A Noble Haul. pierced the deck that it yielded only to a hearty drag- from the foU low's two hands. "Mr. Derbyshire," continued the mate, in his easy voice and with his quiet air, "I am sorry for this." " I am professionally ruined " I answered: " but you will find I will have done the ship's company a service. The fellow will remem- ber my fist, and for the future talk to his men as men. " " The captain has a foul mouth Mr. Holl{ns,"saidoneof thepas' sengers, who stood by with a pale face. "Had I known his character I should certainly not have taken passage in this ship," exclaimed a A Noble H.iul. a? second passenger, who was as pale as t/... other, but who, neverthe- less glanced aft with defiance, as thougli he would have had the cap. tain hear him. " If it came to the question of a lawsuit between you and him, Mr. Derbyshire, you may count upon testimony enough from me to cast him. " "I shall certainly take care to mark my opinion of him by my behavior," said the first passenger. The carpenter arrived, dangling the leg-irons as he walked. The mate, with a kindly gesture, put his hand upon my arm, and he and I and the carpenter went to the companion-hatch, for the main- hatch was closed, the 'tween-deck ( ' iii ! j ^S A Noble Haul, carg-o cominjr flush with it, and there was no other way of enter- mg the berth in which I was to be imprisoned than the companion- ladder. Some of the men forward raised a small cheer as the three of us moved aft; the mate looked behind him and lifted his hand, but said nothing. The Jimicau was somewhat cu- nously constructed in her internal fittings. The forward part of the cabin in which the passengers lived and ate, consisted of a very mas- sive, handsome bulkhead, some- what richly decorated, and embel- hshed with a wide sheet of mirror. The sleeping accommodation was aft. On the starboard side of the ■: A Noble Haul. 2^ bulkhead was a small door which provided access to a space of the 'tween-decks betwixt the cabin bulkhead and a very much lighter bulkhead that walled off this in- terior from a few feet abaft the main-hatch. There were four berths in this place, and they were severally occupied by the first and second mates and myself. The second mate, a man named Pater- son, and I shared one of the berths on the port side. Two of them were, therefore, unoccupied, and the sailmaker made use of them as lockers for the storage of a mass of the stuff over which he had con- trol. The three of us passed through so A Noble Haul. the bulkhead door and came to a pause. The place was in dark- ness, and the mate opened the door of his berth to obtain light from the scuttle or porthole in it. "Into what cabin am I to put you, Derbyshire?" said he. " I am afraid it will have to be one of the sailmaker's rooms. The captain Will mean you to be alone, or I am greatly mistaken. " "It will not matter," I answered bitterly. " He has treated me, as he has treated all the rest of us, like a dog from the very first of the voyage. And now the ruflSan talks of making a rat of me by flinging me into the forepeak. " A Noble Haul. 31 "1 he men '11 not let him do that, sir," said the carpenter. " Hold your jaw!" said the mate. "I'm here, and you've got to talk as though you knew it. " But there was no temper in his words. It was a mere me- chanical protest, devoid of signifi- cance. "Which will give you most space?" he continued, and after looking into the cabins he chose the port one. The carpenter then knelt and attached the irons to my legs. My face burned, and my heart so swelled that I could not have ut- tered a syllable for constriction of the throat. There was an old 33 A Noble Haul. black chest close against me, and I seated myself upon it. "Bring Mr. Derbyshire's mat- tress out of his cabin," said the mate. " ^ou will have to lie upon the deck, " said he. " I am heartily sorry for this. It is too late now; but you should have learned to bite your lip as I do." I could not speak to him. The carpenter dragged my mattress in. The mate said: " I will leave you to lock the door. Bring me the key on deck. " He delivered this in a tone of voice that must have conveyed his wishes to a duller intelligence than the carpenter's, and when he was gone the man acted upon the sug- A Noble Haul. 3^ gestion the mate had implied by asking me what I wished him to bring- from my cabin. "Nothing, nothing," I ex- claimed, heartsick, and speaking with difficulty. "Oh, yes, Mr. Derbyshire," said he soothingly, "there'll be com- fortable matters to fetch, I warrant ye. But let me bear a hand, or the old man'll be turning up," mean^ ing by the "old man" the captain. The second mate lay in the cabin I had occupied; I heard him ask- ing questions of the carpenter, and the other talked to him in a voice of inquiry. The carpenter then returned, bringing with him my pipe and tobacco, an armful of M A Nobie Haul. books out of my shelf, a bull's-eye lamp and matches, a bottle half full of rum (the property of the second mate, and sent to me with a friendly message of encourage- ment), my blankets and other mat- ters of a like kind. The worthy fellow then stood to take a look round, and was about to quit the berth when he halted and ap- proached me, and taking my hand in both his, squeezed it hard while he said: "Cheer up, sir. It'll all come right. The sailors are wi' ye to a man, and ye've got good friends in Mr. Hollins and Mr. Paterson." So saying he closed the door, locked it, and withdrew the key. A Noble Haul. 35 All this td happened so sud- denly that for some time I was un- able to realize the truth and grasp to its depth the wretchedness of my situation. Scarcely more than twenty minutes had passed from the moment of my striking the marlinespike out of the top down tc this time of being imprisoned, sitting with my legs loaded with iron, in an atmosphere that was hardly more than a weak glimmer- ing of daylight. I cast my eyes around me. The berth was plenti- fully loaded with rolls of sailcloth, masses of twine, coils of small gear, new canvas buckets, and a variety of stuff of that sort. The little space that remained was filled 36 A Noble Haul. by my mattress and the chest on which I sat, and which, as I might suppose, was filled with th.) machinery for sailmaking-palms and prickers and needles and the like. The glass of the scuttle or porthole was grimy, for here was a berth that was no more than a locker, and that demanded no care in the shape of polishing or cleaning. The bunk that had stood under the scuttle had been removed, and the little window was therefore ac- cessible to me providing I was able to drag my ironed legs to it; for which I was thankful, since we were already in the hot latitudes, and every day would intensify the A Noble Haul. 37 ardency of the sun ; and I easily guessed what the temperature of this little dark interior must rise to if the porthole was kept closed when the white blaze of the sun should be all day long upon the sand-colored steaming planks over my head, putting such fire into them that the steel-hard pitch be- twixt the seams would grow fluid as butter on a dog-day. But I would not immediately open the porthole lest the captain should arrive and think me too comfortable and cool, and order me to be flung into God knows what part of the ship, if it were not the forepeak. He had spoken of that forepeak as you know; threatened 38 A Noble Haul. '6 J me with it as a man would who means what he says; and I do not mind owning that every instinct in me recoiled from the horrors cf such a jail. The forepeak of a ship is a sort of black well right in the bow, under the forecastle, where it is customary to keep the odds and ends of a vessel's wants— paint-pots, and slush-pots, and tar- pots, and coal, and much more that I need not weary you by cata- loguing. A ship's forepeak, too, is a playground for the rats. Down in it they may be heard squeaking their loudest. They crawl up out of it into the mariner's bed- room — the forecastle — and de- vour what they can find, and A Noble Haul. 59 •uld who I do not Lstinct in Trors of ak of a ^11 right recastle, eep the wants — . md tar- 1 more by cata- , too, is Down leaking" up out J bed- id de- 1, and gnaw the toe-nails of the sleeping Jacks. If the captain had made up his mind to imprison me in the fore- peak there could be no help for it; he was Lord Paramount— the des- pot of the little floating kingdom he commanded— and his will was law; and in those days marine Acts of Parliament were few, if any, so that a captain's power was out and away greater than it now is, and he could fearlessly give play to every ruffianly quality of his soul. If this Captain Scudder ordered me to be conveyed into the fore- peak, he would find men to execute his commands. The sympathies K ! -I, ' 'i '<' 40 A Noble Haul. 1(1 « of the crew might be wholly on my side, but they were not likely to ^nutiny and forfeit their wages, ^nd heavily suffer for their be- havior, should the captain be able to carry them to a port, merely be- cause they were sorry for me. I sat with this fear of being locked up in the black forepeak maddeningly active in my brain. For what would such an imprison- ment signify? Our rate of prog- ress had been horribly slow so far; the Equator was still leagues and leagues distant; there might he another four months, a long four months, before us ere the Australian shore should heave in- to sight; during all which time I A Noble Haul. 41 ly on my likely to wages, leir be- be able rely ba- te. being )repeak brain, prison- ■ prog- low so eagues might L long e the v^e in- ime I might be left to lie in that dark, noisome, rat-ridden cavern under the forecastle, fed on bread and water, lowered or flung down to me, almost forgotten by the crew, to be charged at the expiration of the passage with assault and mutiny, the punishment for which might consist of many more weeks of imprisonment ashore. Added to these thoughts was the reflection that I was professionally ruined. That is to say, I might go on fol- lowing the sea before the mast, but that my career as . mate, with the prospect of one day commanding a aip, was at an end. My mother was a widow, and I was her only son, and we were very poor. She 42 A Noble Haul. I it after I The ship ' through he twink- 3se under >b of the luggishly ts a dim with the )ck, aT^e • chafing lip upon - azure :> bells 45 sounding— signifying one o'clock. The key of the cabin door was in- serted, the lock shot back, and the steward entered with a lime-juice jar in one hand and a parcel in the other. He placed these things upon the deck, and then, holding the door closed by one hand as though to prevent his voice from being heard, he exclaimed, with an air of mystery, yet of hurry too, speaking very softly; " My orders was to furnish you with a small supply of ship's bread and water. That there jar's full o* cold water. In that there parcel you'll find biscuit and a few other matters which I ventured to wrap up. You'll please keep 'em out of 46 A Noble Haul. sight, case th' old man should show hisself. You've done werry well, sir. All hands is proud of you, Mr. Derbyshire. Don't take on about it, sir; the crew'll stand up for ye when the time comes for you to want 'em. " I answered in the same soft voice he had used : " I am very much obliged to you, steward. Do nothing that is likely to bring you into difficulties. What are the captain's intentions concerning me, do you know?" He hung in the wind a moment and then said awkwardly ; *' Well, sir, to be plain, he talks of locking you up in the forepeak. He's been all bluster during lunch, A Noble Haul. I should le werry )roud of n't take II stand )mes for 'ft voice to you, s likely culties. entions iV loment I talks epeak. lunch. 47 swearing all sorts o' revenges; that in all his time he never was so sarved. He calls you a wild beast; and that you must lie in the fore- peak till you're tamed, and that, he reckons, won't happen till he's able to hand ye over to the police ashore. That's been the nature of his talk, sin' you ask me. But I allow that if he's got courage enough to lock you up in that stinking hole under the forecastle the crew'll ha' courage enough to smartly whip you out of it again and keep you out of it. But I can't stop now," with which he slipped through the door and locked it. I was thirsty and drank freely 48 A Noble Haul. from the lime-juice jar. I then opened the parcel of food and found, in addition to a quantity of ship's bread, the half of a ham, a lump of such salt beef as they put upon the cabin table, and two or three tins of preserved meats opened ready for use. There was also a knife and fork and a small tin pannikin. Having eaten, I concealed the victuals in the chest, which I used as a seat, then lighted a pipe and gave myself up to reflection. All the time I was troubled with the thought that the cabin door might be flung open, giving me a view of the captain and a couple of seamen whom, with purple face and infuri- I then od and ntity of ham, a liey put two or meats re was small id the [ used e and All h the night ew of amen ifuri. A Noble Haul. 49 ate gesture, he would order to con- vey me to the forepeak. I had no hope of the crew rescuing me from that dungeon. The steward might suggest this, but I knew Jack's character, and that with him to be out of sight is too often to be out of mind. The day passed slowly. I took • a book from the little heap that had been brought me, but could not fix my attention. The inci- dent of the day coupled with the sense of wretchedness born of it had somewhat unmanned me, per. haps weakened my mind a little ; and at times fits of nervousness' would seize me. Suppose any dis- aster to befall the ship, locked up 50 iff ill -; !■< A Noble Haul. and heavily ironed I should be left to miserably perish like a rat in a hole: I figured the vessel founder- ing—the water gushing into this little berth slowly enough to render the contemplation of death a long agony. Then I imagined the days to pass and myself for- gotten, the broiling deck for a roof, and no water to drink and my cries unheard; for it needed but a little breeze to raise noises enough on deck to render my shouts through the porthole inau- dible, while there was assuredly no virtue in my lungs to penetrate the stout bulkheads and deck which formed the walls and ceiling of my prison. A Noble Haul. 5, The weather continued veiy quiet. When the evening came I stood with my face at the circular porthole, viewing- the dark liquid heaven in the east, upon which floated a few delicate clouds, with their western shoulders exquisitely bronzed by the crimson in the west. My dejection was beyond expression, and I could think of nothing but my poor mother, my mined prospects, what I should ^o, what spirit I should have to bear the fearfully long imprison- ment that was threatened, whether in this narrow berth or in the blackness of the forepeafc. The darkness came swiftly, and the porthole framed a little dance 4 52 A Noble Haul. of soft and glorious stars. They slided up and down with the gentle heave of the ship, and the reflec- tion of one of them lay in a little rill of gold under it, widening and contracting upon the swell. I . They e gentle i reflec- a little ing and I WAS lying broad awalce iipon my mattress, unable to sleep, as much through the heat and my miserable thoughts as through that horrible sensation of weigh ^ and iniDrisonment at my ankles, when A heard seven bells — half past '^I'iveu. The hush upon the ship m profound. The silence was accentuated rather than disturbed by an occasional dull, muffled creak, and by the light yearning noise of water dreamily floating off the side of the ship as she stooped. On a sudden my attention was Ill f ' h i 56 A Noble Haul. caught by a sound of scraping out- side, and a moment or two later my name was pronounced in a whisper. I instantly sat up and turned to the porthole, and found It eclipsed by the interposition of a dark object. " Can ye hear me, Mr. Derby- shire?" was said in a hoarse whisper. "Ay; who are you?" I an- swered. "Hush!" he exclaimed; "r^ Jim Dixon. " This was the man in the chief mate's watch^a very likely, lively and willing sailor, as I had always found him. "What are you holding on by?" A Noble Haul, said I. "Mind you don't 57 go over- board. " "I'm right enough," he an- swered; "snug in a bowline with Bill Watson at the belaying-pin keeping a lookout." By which he signified the pin to which the bow- line in which he swung was se- cured. "What do you want?" said I. "I'm here to say that Bill and me is willing to .eave the ship in one of the quarter-boats if so be as you'll come along too," he said. I was startled by the proposal, and was silent some moments with surprise. Then said I; "Leave the ship! Ah, willingly indeed, Dixon. I'd leave her this f il ! 1 1 w f 1 1 i' } 1 V i; 5S A Noble Haul, instant, and if it were a whole ten- mile swim to the nearest port I'd venture it to escape what's before me. But how am I to join you, ironed and locked up as I am? And how are you going to get away with the boat? Do you reckon upon the mate of the watch and the man at the wheel turning in and giving you a chance of escape?" "See here, s.V" he exclaimed, whispering hoarsely, and talking with rapid but distinguishable ut- terance, "the job's in hand, and can be managed providing you'll consent to come along with us. Mr. Paterson's your friend. He'll see nothen. He's willing to be I, ( A Noble Haul. 59 gagged and secured by turn upon turn of rope. Whoever may be at the wheel will see nothen either. There's no man aboard this vessel as has got eyes for the capfn's use. That you know, sir. " "Wait a moment," said I, feel- ing my heart beating fast. I struggled on to my feet, and as quietly as possible dragged myself close to the porthole that I might converse without being obliged to raise my voice. " I am close to you now," said I, speaking with my mouth in the orifice, the glass of which, it is needless to say, had stood open since I first unscrewed it. "Right!" he answered. 6o A Noble Haul. I I ' " ■" am perfectly willing to join you," said I; "but how am I to be released?" "The carpenter has charge of the key," he answered, referring to the padlock on the irons, which were of an antiquated fashion; "he's willing to let it be stole.' The steward's got the key of that there berth. He's likewise willing that it should be stole. " "This conspiracy has been swiftly arranged!" cried I. "Hush, sir! If the capt'n should come on deck " he paused as though listening, then softly called to the fellow above, but the reply was inaudible to me.' "The long and short of it's this," A Noble Haul. 6i he continued; "there's nothen afore ye, Mr. Derbyshire, but a spell of the forepeak, that's like to last till we gets to Australia. Mr. Paterson is heartily consarned for ye; so is Mr. Hollins I allow; but he's to know nothen. The thing'll happen in his watch below. Us two men are sick of the voyage, and by us two men I mean Bill Watson and me, and as the Ca- naries ain't fur off we're agree- able to start fur 'em providing you make one of us. Otherwise, whose to navigate the boat?" "Do you mean to leave to- night?" "Ay!" he answered; "by one bell in the morning watch we 1 l; i 1 i i ■ 1 Y. 1 i; 6a A Noble Haul. ought to be well clear of this bloomin' hooker." " But I cannot help you. I am lying here, as you know, fettered —locked up." No caii for you to help us," he answered; -we'll g« everything ready, and then sneak down and release you. " ''You will have to water and provision the boat, and put a com^ pass and sextant and such matters into her. And how is all this to be done?" " Is it settled?" he interrupted. "Yes," I exclaimed, "it is set- tled. But if the captain should come on deck?" "We shall be three to one," he A Noble Haul. 63 cried, in a voice as though he spoke with his teeth set. " Three to one," he added, "with no fear of anybody interfering. " "Right," I said, and a moment later the porthole lay clear to the sliding stars. I dropped on all fours, wriggled on to the mattress, and lay waiting and thinking. How unnerved I was I might know by the hurry and agitation of my thoughts. The undertaking was a frightfully bold and audacious one. First of all, it would involve an act of felony, by which I mean that we should steal the boat. Next we should be committing ourselves to a tiny ark in the heart of a great iV I f 64 A Noble Haul. ocean, for the nearest land— the Canaries— was certainly not less than a hundred and fifty to two hundred miles distant. Then, if we were picked up or arrived at a port, we should have to invent a story-tell a lie, and a long one- with a heavy chance on top of being suspected and detained, or handed over for further inquiries. But against these and other con- siderations I had to weigh the misery and suffering that lay be- fore me. Moreover, the mere act of leaving the ship, even as a thief, could not greatly deepen the dark hue of my professional outlook. Indeed my thoughts landed me finally in a single apprehension; A Noble Haul. 65 that the captain might come on deck when we were in the very- act of lowering the boat, in which case some wild deed of violence was sure to follow, and this I ab- horred the idea of. I was greatly moved when I re- flected upon the sailorly sympathy of Paterson and the others, who were to assist me in a negative way to escape the horrors of an im- prisonment that must last for months, and that was certain to be promoted by a long term of cap- tivity ashore. Had Dixon sound- ed the second mate, or was the scheme Paterson's? To think of the worthy fellow consenting to be gagged and bound ! I believed that 66 A Noble Haul. • J I I lay dreaming, but a single move- ment of my legs sufficed to tell me that I was bitterly wide awake in- deed. The length of twenty nights seemed to have bern compressed into this time of waiting. I heard no sounds; I strained my ears, but all was dumb as the tomb, saving the summer note of flowing waters floating through the open scuttle, and now and again a light straining of the cargo in the hold. I lay in the deepest blackness, being un- willing to !ijht the buL's-eye, for I was constantly fancying hat the captain would at any momen- open th* door and look in, d thi might happen now, though I waj» A Noble Haul. 67 on the e of escaping his brutal tyranny, and if he looked in and saw me v ith a light and lying on a mattress, and as comfortable, sav- ing to be sure the irons on my legs, as if I were in my own berth, ai 1 at liberty, he would give such or- ders as might utterly frustrate our project. I heard eight bells strike— four o'cl^ -k— and the second mate came out of the opposite cabin and went on deck. He rapped twice on my door as he passed, the meaning of which was as intelligible to me as a look or a whisper. There was another interval of dead hush; the light night wind ^eemed to have perished, as I might fancy from i v^^ 68 A Noble Haul. f|) i ' r the muffled Found of canvas softly- swaying in and out from the masts. One bell was struck— half-past four— and the solitary chime was yet trembling when I heard a sound outside, the key was in- serted, and the door quickly opened. "Hain't ye got a light?" said Dixon's voice. "Yes," said T. "Are you alone?" "Ay. For God's sake bear a hand and show a glim, sir. All's ready up above. " I passed my hand about, felt for and found the lamp, and lighted it. Dixon immediately kneeled, put a key into the padlock of the irons, '* I A Noble Haul. <9 and released me. It was not a moment for asking questions. He laid the irons softly down upon the mattress, then threw the bull's-eye lamp into the sea through the port- hole, and told me to follow him. I whispered : " Is the captain stirring?" " He was on deck at eight bells. He's been below since. Come along, sir." There was no light in the sa- loon cabin, as I may call it. We sneaked like shadows to the com- panion-steps and gained the deck, and the moment we emerged Dixon shut-to the companion-doors and secured them, so that the cap- tain was as effectually imprisoned 70 A Noble Haul. below as ever I had been. This was a plain remedy that should have occurred to me when I sat thinking on what might follow if the captain showed himself; yet, strangely enough, it had not en- tered my head. But, indeed, as I have before said, my mind had been somewhat weakened by the trouble and grief of that day. The man Watson stood at one of the falls of the forward quarter-boat on the starboard side. The Mohi- can carried four quarter-boats in davits, a captain's gig over the taffrail, and a long-boat under the booms in the waist. The helms- man stood motionless as an iron figure at the wheel. All the wind A Noble Haul. 71 was gone, as I had supposed. The water stretched in an oil-like black- ness of surface spotted with star- flakes, and the sky was filled with sparkling and twinkling lights which flung a faint sheen upon the moonless morning, amid which the three spires of the ship hovered in ghostly pallor. "Where is Mr. Paterson?" I ex- claimed. Dixon pointed forward to the port rail, where the shadow of the main -shrouds hung in a deep dye of obscurity. I instantly dis- tinguished the figure of the second mate and hastily went to him. His motith was buried in some sort of gag, a line was wound round 75 A Noble Haul. I i and round his figure, imprisoning his arms and legs, and I could make out that he was secured to the rail by further ligatures. " God bless you for your good- ness, my dear friend," I whis- pered; "this is my one and only chance, I believe, and I shall never forget you." Dixon called; I pressed Pater- son's hand as it lay strapped upon his thigh, and with a swelling heart glided over to the boat. •' Is everything in readiness?" I exclaimed -''Water, provisions, my sextant, a compass. " I swiftly ran through the cata- logue, and an affirmative answer was murmured as I pronounced A Noble Haul. 73 each item. As noiselessly as pos- sible we eased away the falls and let the boat sink to the water. The ship was without an inch of way upon her, and the boat rested alongside as though on the water of a lake. I softly cried a farewell to the fellow who was at the wheel, and the three of us went down hand over hand, unhooked the falls, and Dixon breathlessly thrust the boat off with an oar, giving her impulse enough to float her to some little distance astern. It wanted now about a quar- ter to five. We could therefore reckon upon another long hour of darkness. Without as much as a whisper we lightly laid our oars 74 A Noble Haul. betwixt the thole-pins, and fell to gently dipping them, lest dripping of the water from the blades and the splash of their immersion should pass to the captain's ears through his port, which was large and which we might conceive would be wide open on such a sultry silent night as this. When we believed ourselves out of earshot we went to work with a will, and the boat hummed through the still surface. What strength my fears and resolution put into my own oar I might know by having the other two oars against me, and by my often hav- ing to slacken that I might keep the boat's head straight. The V A Noble Haul. 75 wake stretched behind us in a thin line of green fire, and to every rise of the oars the water poured off the blades in glowing sheets. We took no heed of how we headed, for our business was to put the ship at the widest distance our arms could measure ere sun- rise should flash out the whole scene of ocean. We continued to row with might and main for half an hour. The loom of the tall ship, pale in the starlight, swiftly melted into the general obscurity, and in that half- hour we had probably put between three and four miles between her and us. A light catspaw of air then tarnished the water, and it mi m ii 76 A Noble Haul. freshened into a pleasant breeze while we continued to ply our oars. This being so, we threw our oars in, stepped the mast, and hoisted the big lug-sail that be- longed to the boat, and then, set- ting a course for the Canaries by the little compass upon which we flashed the light of a bull's-eye lamp, we hauled the sheet aft, and drove through the gloom, looking up to our course by within a point and a half. We had now leisure to breathe and talk. Daybreak was not yet at hand, and the breeze that was now blowing must so widen the in- terval between the ship and us that there was very little chance of our A Noble Haul. 77 being within sight of her when daylight came, though the topmast of her cloths, glancing in silver in the far blue gleam of the horizon, might be visible to us. •'Supposing the captain, on find- ing his boat stolen, should reckon on our heaiTing for the Canaries, and up helium in pursuit of us; how then?" said Dixon. " How is he going to catch us> A ship don't answer her helium like a boat, mate. No fear of the old man following," exclaimed vVatPon. '* How long a time was to elapse, " said I, "before the second mate should be released?" "That wasn't consarted, sir,'" m If M il 1 1^ n 78 A Noble Haul. answered Dixon ; " it was old Tom Jorkins as had the wheel. If the capt'n fell a-knocking upon the closed companion Tom wasn't to let him out ; his business being to steer the wessel, and not to leave the wheel on any account what- ever. If so be as the sounds of the knocking should reach forrards, well and good. Some of the men might lay aft to inquire into the meaning oft— all very leisurely, as you may take your haffidavit, sir, II "Mr. Paterson '11 not hurt," said Watson, "if he was to be kep' all fast for twenty.four hours. We took care to bind him to his lik- ing." fi i ' A Noble Haul. 79 "And you two men have run away because you are discon- tented," said I. "Discontented!" growled Wat- son; "is there a cusseder wessel afloat? It 'ud a come to my knif- ing the captain had I stayed," he added, in a cold, dangerous voice. "I've run to save my neck, and my running saves his life." " But why you two only of the whole ship's company?" said I. "There were three others will- ing to join us," exclaimed Dixon, " but they backed out of it at the last." "With whom did this scheme originate?" I inquired. "With me," said Watson; "I I ; hi 8o A Noble Haul. ■; il'i ( ■ was at the wheel when *^he econd mate came and stood alongside of me. He asked if I knew whether the car-eni-r or the mate had the key of them bloomin' leg- 1 ions. After answering him, I says, reck- less-like, *Mr. Derbyshire's done the ship's company a good turn. It'll be hard if he's to be locked up in the forepeak for the handsome sarvice he's p' rformed. If he could be got out o^ th ship, here stands a man willi ig to help.' One thing led to ant ^her, and be- tween him and me this here roose was consarted, though sooner than peach ag'in him — he's a true-born gen'leman, is Mr. Paterson, with the feelings of a man. " A Nt jle Haul. 8i "And the heart of a sailor," said I. " And Mr. Hollinb, .o, is of the right sort," broke in Dixon; "he took no notice while we dodged about wittling this here boat and seeing all ready. He helped you in his fashion as much as Mr, Pat- erson did, sir. " " But this rui ,g job will cost you your clothes and your wages, and I'm too poor a man to be able to do more than thank you for my liberty." "We don't want thanks, sir. It's our liberty we were after, and we've got it," said Watson. "What's to be the yarn if we fall in with a vessel?" said Dixon. t ml- MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1.0 I.I 1.25 i^ |2.8 ■ 5.0 "S-= l|i:i fc£ M 2.2 u 1^ £ 1^ 2.0 ii. li u lijuu 1.8 1.4 1.6 A .APPLIED IIVMGE Inc 1653 East Main Street Rochester, New York 14609 (716) 482 - 0300 - Phone (716) 288- 5989 - Fax USA 82 A Noble Haul. ,. 1 " We shall have to tell a lie," said I. " Sorry for it; but what's to be done? I can invent nothing better than to say that we were sent to pick up a man that had fallen over- board, and that we lost the ship in a squall." "Ain't we too well wittled for that to be believed?" said Watson. "We must heave everything overboard on sighting a ship," said I. "But nc* afore we're sure she means to pick us up," says Dixon. Thus we chatted while we con- tinued to run pleasantly through that pause of darkness which seemed to deepen as the moment of daybreak approached. A Noble Haul. 83 I was too old a seafarer to be astonished by the two men's be- havior in leaving the ship. Jack's proverbial quality is recklessness. The pair were already sick of the voyage, hating the captain, in short, to a degree that came peri- lously near to a sentiment of murder, and they would, have quitted the vessel on a spare boom and have taken their chance of being rescued sooner than proceed. An insensibility to what the future might hold and a hearty hatred of his current existence was the char- acteristic of the sailor of my time. The forfeiture of money owing was not like the sacrifice of money in the pocket. The distant dollar "im il^ 84 A Noble Haul. 3. , J i Si i i it< ' was an intangible thing; and it seldom influenced Jack's resolu- tions. For myself, now that the ship was out of sight, and the great world of dark water stretched around me, my one emotion was that of deep rejoicing over my unexpected deliverance from the misery and degradation of a long voyage of imprisonment in a stifling hold. For I had not the least doubt, had I remaintd in the vessel, this same day that was about to dawn would have wit- nessed my confinement in the fore- peak. I knew the brutal captain's character. The r- \ory of my blow would operate u^e a gangrene '■ I A Noble Haul. 85 in his mind, and short of absolutely murdering me by starvation, there was no inhuman treatment to which the scoundrel soul of the fellow would not have subjected me. The dawn broke, and the line of the horizon ran in a stirless streak of inky blackness against the cold dull gray. The moment the light grew I sprang on to a thwart with my arm around the mast to take a view of the scene, but there was nothing in sight. The breeze that had blown us one way had blown the ship the other way, and allow- ing that what with rowing and sail- ing we had made seven miles since we first shoved off, then the added \ f ^1 !•' tV > I \ f ( '■ ' ' ! ! 1 ■ i 1 1 'Ml-: K 86 A Noble Haul. distance measured by the Mohican had carried the loftiest of her sails out of the range of our vision, and we were alone. The horizon was flawless the whole way round. The dawn is but a brief passage of light in those latitudes; the sun follows rapidly on the heels of day- break, and a few minutes after the granite-like line of the eastern sky had changed into glowing rose, the upper limb of the luminary was sending a noble, sparkling beam across the wide sea, flashing up heaven and ocean into a silver bril- liance of blue. But now with the coming of the sun the wind failed; the pleasant noise of crisping waters ceased; A Noble Haul. 87 the boat lost way, and her lug-sail fanned to and fro as the little fabric leaned from side to side on the rise and run of the long-drawn swell. But the Mohican was out of sight, and this stagnation, there- fore, did not greatly vex us. Our liberty was as complete indeed as if a thousand leagues separated us from the ship. I got down from the thwart and fell to overhauling with my eyes the instruments and stock of pro- visions and water with which the two fellows had equipped the boat. I found a liberal store— fresh water enough to last us a fortnight, a good supply of biscuit and tinned meats, and Dixon, lifting the lid !i tl w 'Mi !i f,i 88 A Noble Haul. i\, N lu m I'll ii ( of a locker in the stern-sheets, showed me a chart of this part of the ocean, my sextant, the Nauti- cal Almanack, and other furniture of a like sort, all which had be- longed to me, and had been carried from my cabin while I lay locked up, waiting to be released. We broke our fast, lighted our pipes, and, there being no wind, boomed the sail out with oars to serve as an awning. We could find much to talk about in this ad- venture, and I took care to thor- oughly digest and impress upon the minds of my companions the story we were to relate should we be picked up, so that our recitals might tally; and this would hold A Noble Haul. 89 good whether we should be taken aboard a ship, or arrive at a Ca- nary Island port. I often think, when I look back, that no man but a sailor would have engaged in such an adven- ture as this. Here were the three of us courting all the perils and horrors of an open boat to escape a form of existence which, even in my case, and allowing that black forepeak to have been a condition of it, need not prove one-tenth as formidable as the risks and suf- ferings which might attend our method of escaping from the ship. But, fortunately for Jack, a large portion of his character is made up of dare-devilism. To the three of 90 A Noble Haul. us the sea was a haunt as familiar to nerve and heart and brain as the fingers of our hands to our eyes. We could look over the low gun- wale and stretch our sight into the blue and sunny distance, that showed boundless as we rose to the brow of the swell, with no more emotion than we should have ex- perienced in gazing over the bul- wark-rail of a line-of-battle ship. There was no sense of littleness, of miserable helplessness induced by the infinity of waters in which we floated — a mere speck. We yarned cosily, puffed at our pipes, laughed over Mr. Paterson's mas- querading device, wondered how it would be when Captain Scudder A Noble Haul. 91 made his way throu^>-h the hatch and found his boat and two of his crew g-one, and the imprisoned bird flown. Yet often would I fetch a sigh, for it was a miserable busi^ ness : the bitterer to my temper in that I had been driven to it by a ruffian. Had my professional ruin been brought about by an act of negligence or stupidity as a sea- farer, I might have cursed myself for my blunder, but I could not have felt as I now did when I re- flected that I had been betrayed by the most horrible, the most injuri- ous usage, into acting in a manner for which the law of the land and the discipline of the sea could find no justification. » 92 A Noble Haul. The time passed ; now and again the burnished heave of the deep that looked to be rolling in molten brass imder the sun would be tar- nished by a catspaw; but the weak draught died quickly, and dov i to about five o'clock that afternoon the boat hung as though made fast to a buoy. But a little while after that hour the northern waters darkened to a breeze, and pres- ently we were reaching with flat- tened sheet into the northeast, with a little glancing of foam off the keen bows of the boat, and the wrinkles upon the slopes of the swell melting in slender lines of yeast to the brushing of the hot and gushing wind. i We k( A Noble Haul. brighl 93 for lookout ships, for this was a breeze that might at any minute heave a sail into view; and when the darkness came we settled ourselves into watches, taking care to keep the bull's-eye lamp brightly burning, that we might see how to steer, and also have a signal ready to our hand should the dark shadow of a ship shape itself against the stars suddenly. The wind was dead ahead for the course I wanted to make, and several times that night we put the boat about. We were all three of us anxious to be picked up. The chance of our tale being accepted seemed to us to be like- lier should we fall in with a vessel f! ^ II 94 A Noble Haul. than were we to take it ashore among suspicious foreigners. We had our liberty indeed, but the boat was a prison in its way too, and, sailors as we were, we felt the discomfort of our confinement that night. We could not stretch our limbs in a walk. There was noth- ing but the hard bottom of the boat to lie upon, and when I was aroused a little before daybreak, from a sleep of three or four hours, every bone in my body ached, and I felt as though I were eighty years old. The weather was fine and tropi- cal ; . the warm night wind was sweetened with dew, and the sun- rise was of surpassing glory. A A Noble Haul. 95 nobler and more gorgeous tapestry of heaven never did I behold in the east. The calm sea caught the early light and flowed in twenty dyes of magnificence. No north- ern sunset ever had more splendor than this tropic sunrise on the second morning of our escape. Dixon and Watson, two plain, matter-of-fact sailors, with no more of sentiment in them than there is gravy in f 'p's beef, lay upon the gimwale with their eyes fixed upon the shining many- colored sea and sky, silent with ad- miration, as though awed; and I marked how their emotions v/orked in them by their manner of gnawing upon the quid that 96 A Noble Haul. I I .-s stood in a knot out upon their cheek-bones. "What's that?" cried Dixon, suddenly pointing to the left, or, as I should say, to the north of the wide, fan-shaped stream of fire that was flowing down to the boat on the eastern quarter. "Sail ho!" exclaimed Watson. I stood up, and on sheltering my eyes from the flaming waters, on the right I immediately descried a vessel between four and five miles distant from us. I believed at first she was standing to the south, then I thought to the north, and we watched her without speak, ing until Watson presently called out: A Noble Haul. 97 "She looks to me abandoned, Mr. Derbt hire." He had ciie best eyes among the whole of the crew of the Mohican, and was as good as a telescope to us here. " She's under very small canvas,, isn't she, Watson?" said I. He peered hard, making rings of his fingers to look through, and then said : "Seems to me as if she'd nothen but a foretops'l and fores'l set. I can't rightly make out whether she's got any sticks standing abaft. She shows a tall side; but she's too far off to make anything of. " "We'll head for her," said I; and with that I slackened away thj 98 A Noble Haul. sheet, and the boat blew languidly along before the faint fiery wind that was gushing like the breath of a blast-furnace out of the south- west. There was nothing but that ship in sight. Watson said he saw a tip of white down in the west, but I could not see it; and when pres- ently he looked for it again, it had melted out like some feather of s*eam. In about half an hour we had sufficiently neared the vessel to obtain a clear view of her. We could not yet say that she was dere- lict, but she had all the appear- ance of an abandoned craft. Seemingly she had been barque- rigged, but her mizzen-mast was »..■■, A Noble Haul. 99 gone almost flush with the deck; her maintopmast was also gone, and her mainmast showed like a black and riven pillar, naked and forlorn as some lightning-withered pine, saving a shroud or two that held it from going overboard. The full fabric at the fore, how- ever, was intact, even to the top- gallant-yard that lay crossed upon the stump topgallantmast. The foretopsail, foresail, and a big standing jib were set. She sat tall upon the water, with the green streak of her copper well above the line of immersion, but the ends of rigging trailing overboard, thick shrouds making into the water, along with the splinters of some 7 100 A Noble Haul. I \ ! fathom or two of smashed bill- warks abreast of the mainmast, gave her a most abandoned, mel- ancholy look. We lowered our sail and threw a couple of oars over, pausing upon them to gather whether there were living people aboard her, in which case if we made up our minds to enter her it would be necessary to throw our little freight of provisions and the other furniture of the boat overboard, that the story we meant to tell might be credited. "I don't see no signs of life," says Watson. "Nor I, "says Dixon. " Let's close her yet, men," I ex- A Noble Haul. lOI claimed. "She'll make a refuge for us, and we may want what we have to support life on. If she's derelict we shall stand a better chance of being taken off her than of being rescued out of this boat, and our being found aboard a wreck will make our yarn a likely one. " The two men fell to their oars, and I kept my eyes fastened upon the ship. Nothing stirred upon her, if it were not a little hurrying of shadows upon her canvas as the cloths hollowed and swelled to her rolling. When we were within hail I bade the men cease rowing, and stood up and shouted. My lungs were a pair of powerful en- loa A Noble Haul. gines in those days, and my voice swept in a roar to the vessel; but there was no response. I hailed her several times, the three of us keenly watching meanwhile for the sight of a human head showing above the rail. I then said: "She is an abandoned craft. Let's board her," and we drove alongside. Dixon made fast the end of the boat's painter to a channel-plate, and we scrambled aboard. I* ' IT my voice essel; but I hailed fee of us le for the showing d: id craft. ^e drove d of the lel-plate, CHAPTER III. r, ^Bl I vK' * :' , Wtl n ml t / J Watson, who was the first to drop over the rail, uttered a loud cry, and stood pointing with a countenance of horror to a couple of human bodies lying dead at the foot of the seared and blackened mainmast. They were naked to the waist: their shirts seemed to have been ripped off them; the color of the flesh was chocolate; putrefaction had set in. But I need not go on describing the dreadful and ghastly sight. It was easy to see that the vessel had been struck by lightning that had totally dismasted her abaft. '■•? , • '*] HI, IJ df-\ix f-i ii I \o6 A Noble Haul. It was beyond question that the electric fluid had blackened and stripped the two men whose bodies laj' at the foot of the mainmast But from what we presently dis- cc^vered I could not persuade my- self that they were alive when the bolt had fallen. There was a scuttle-butt or large watercask lashed upon the deck against the bulwarks. I kicked it, and from the note it returned gathered that it was about two- thirds full. A tin dipper was at- tached to it. I dropped the long thin drinking-vessel through the hole in the cask, and brought it up full of water, which I tasted and found fresh, though as hot from A Noble Haul. 107 1 i the sun striking down upon it :,^ i^' standing to cool after being boiled. However, even supposing there was no more /-resh water in the vessel, here, added to our own, was stock enough to provide us with a plentiful allowance every- day for several weeks. Meanwhile, my two companions had been slowly moving forwards, staring about them with the dull motions of the merchant sailor as they advanced, but on their ar- rival at the little caboose or ship's kitchen, which stood uninjured a few yards sbaft the foremast, they both cried to me to come and see. It was another dreadful picture they had called me to witness; io8 A Noble Haul. •.A K In % four dead men in a strange, wild heap upon the caboose floor. Two of them were negroes. They were variously apparelled in blue or red shirts, drill or dungaree trousers, and wide straw hats, which lay fallen from their heads upon the deck. Corruption made loathsome objects of them. The countenance of one of the whites was already undistinguishable as a human face. Watson, backing away, expec- torated violently. Dixon cried, "Them men ain't dead of light- ning!" "No," I exclaimed, recoiling, for what I have described I saw in a single glance; "there has been some pest aboard this ship—some A Noble Haul. mge, wild 3or. Two rhey were lue or red trousers, vhich lay upon the [oathsome mtenance s already tnan face. Ty expec- )n cried, of light- iling, for saw in a as been p — some 109 man-killing fever born of the cargo, or of the African coast from which she may have last hailed. Let us look aft." There was a long, low deck- house, painted green, with three windows of a side, and this struc ture ran a little way before the wheel to a little way abaft the main-hatch. The deck of it was sunk below the level of the main deck, and you gained the door by descending two or three steps. This door we opened and looked in. The blaze of light without rendered the interior somewhat darksome to the eye at first. I ad- vanced a step, but came to a dead halt on hearing a sudden, low, no A Noble Haul. ^fi]: f. I (; 1 weak but menacing' growl. The two seamen stared over my shoul- ders. Flat upon its back, with its arms extended, and one foot over another, the head on one side, in the very posture in short of a cru- cified figure, lay the figure of a man. As I stood looking, horror- stricken by this further apparition of death, a tall, long-legged, phan- tom-like shape of a dog stood up from the side of a locker beside which it had been lying, and, mov- ing with a dreadful suggestion of weakness, as though at every step it must fall on its side, the gaunt, ragged, unearthly creature, utter- ing a second weak growl, stag- gered over to the body, and, put- 1. The Y shoul- with its 'ot over side, in a cru- •e of a horror - )arition , phan- ood up beside I, mov- tion of J step gaunt, utter- stag-- i, put- A Noble Haul. n, ting its forepaws upon the dead man's breast, lay down growling afresh, while it watched us with eyes burning dimly with the fires of famine, like cinders as they die out of their redness after falling upon the hearth. "Poor beast!" cried Dixon, "For God's sake get it some water," I exclaimed. Watson ran out, and in a few moments returned with some wa- ter in a tin dish, which he had taken from the galley. He put it down before the dog, which growled on his approach, but when it saw the water the faithful, wretched brute stretched its neck across the dead man's breast to ill lU 112 A Noble Haul. i lap; but it seemed to have no power to drink; its tongue pro- truded and hung, and even as we watched, the dying creature ut- tered a low moan, so like to a hu- man wail that one's eyes instinc- tively sought the face of the corpse, then fell on its side, and after a few rapid pants lay dead. "A floating graveyard!" ex- claimed Dixon, combing the sweat from his brow. The corpse was that of a finely built man; his hair was long and he wore a beard in the American style, and his face was that of a typical Yankee. One might have thought he had expired only with- in the hour, so fresh was his com- have no gue pro- en as we iture ut- to a hu- s instinc- of the side, and ' dead, •d!" ex- he sweat a finely long and American hat of a ^[■ht have ily with- his com- A Noble Haul. n^ plexion. But one could witness the agony of his death yet in the twisted grin of the lips, which ex- posed the teeth, and in the curl of his fingers, as though the nails were buried in the palms of the hands. "He'll ha' been the captain, I ai:jw," said Dixon. "What's to be done, Mr. Derby- shire?" said Watson. " If this 'ere vessel's a pest-house it'll be our turn next. " ^ "We'll sound the well, and see if she's a tight ship anyhow," said I. We found the rod close against the pumps, dropped it, and it came up showing no more water than . r I 'ill;!! H 114 A Noble Haul. i^ might have been looked for in the •stanchest ship- whose pumps had not been manned for some days. " Lift the hatches, and see what the cargo is," said I. We peered down, and spied a quantity of ballast in the bottom of the hold, but forward, in the shadow, I could see the outlines of a number of white cases. I paused a moment to take a view of the vessel. She was a little barque of about 250 tons, and her being where we had found her, coupled with her dimensions and aspect, and the presence of the aeven dead men, put a fancy into my head. "This is a Yankee craft," said I. for in the )umps had le days. 1 see what d spied a tie bottom rd, in the le outlines cases. I ke a view LS a little 3, and her 3und her, sions and :e of the ancy into :," said I. A Noble Haul. nj "If I am not greatly mistaken she is a West African trader. Her clean hold makes me believe her to be homeward bound. If so, then she has exchanged her commodi- ties, and somewhere down aft, by exploring, we may meet with a precious cargo-ivory, gum, gold- dust." The two men stared at me and then at each other. "If that be so, sir," cried Dixon, fetching his thigh a mighty whack,' "there'll be a fortune in sal- vage for each man of us three, if so be as we can carry her to a port. " The notion that this little barque, or what remained of her, « ■' ii6 A Noble Haul. SK t \>»* might be an American trader to Ethiopia waters, rich in West Afri- can commodities, drove all fear of there being a plague aboard her out of my head. It was certain at all events that she had no cargo to breed a pestilence, and the bodies I saw were undoubtedly those of men who had perished, not, as I had first supposed, by lightning, but by some fever of the Bonny, or Gabboon, or Ljnguela type, which at first, perhaps, had blinded them, and then left them to die a fearful death in darkness and help- lessness. In those days numbers of vessels of various sorts of rig hailing from Boston and other American ports, trader to Vest Afri- lU fear of Doard her certain at > cargo to be bodies those of not, as I ightning, i Bonny, !la type, i blinded to die a md help- •f vessels ing from m ports, A Noble Haul. ,,y but mainly from Salem, did a great trade in bartering on the African coast. Their business lay in ob- taining gold-dust and palm-oil . from the Gold Coast, ivory from the Gaboon River, gum from Ben- guela, camwood and peanuts from other places, in exchange for old muskets, cutlasses, flints, brass ket- tles, wooden clocks, leaf-tobacco, and the like. That this mutilated craft we were aboard of was one of these vessels I was very certain. vShe was a sott-wood built ship, with the clean bows and yacht-like run of the Yankee clipper; and now I observed written over the doorway of the long deck-house the words, " Mary Carver-Salem - Ml to *l I n ii8 A Noble Haul. It ' 'f which went far to confirm me in my hopes of our having lighted upon a noble haul. Without further speech to my companions I entered the deck- house, followed hy them, and made my way aft to where stood four cab- ins, two of a side. They all showed as though they had been lately occupied. They had probably been shared among the captain, mates, and boatswain or sailmaker. There were blankets in the bunks, and wearing-apparel dangling at the bulkheads, along with a sea- chest in each berth, and other such details of marine furniture. The captain's cabin, however, was easily conjectured, first by the su- rm me in ^ lighted :h to my he deck- and made four cab- U showed in lately probably captain, lilmaker. e bunks, gling at 1 a sea- her such e. The 5r, was the su- A Noble Haul. 119 perior quality of the fittings, and next by a table on which were several nautical instruments, com- prising a very good chronometer and a new sextant. There were a couple of big chests standing side by side in this cabin; they were heavily clamped with iron, and massively padlocked. There was also a long, brown-painted locker near the door. This I opened, and found it well stocked with clothes and a great quantity of black cake tobacco; but though I hunted throughout this locker and explored some shelves, and sought for the things in other directions, I could nowhere meet with the ship's papers. I' 1 1; « J t I i: \i 'I \ ■', 120 A Noble Haul. *' Will they be in them chests?" said Dixon. Watson laid hold of the huge padlocks and tugged at them. We sought in vain for the keys; then said I: " The body that lies in the cabin is probably the captain's. Go and feel in his pockets, Watson. The keys may be there. And, Dixon, get you on deck and take a look at the boat, and see that all is right with her, and let me know if there's anything in sight; for if there be a fortune in this hulk it must be ours only, lads, and we must stand by and not let strangers board us. " They hurried grinning, and ex- ir. '- f i chests?" he huge im. We ys; then le cabin Go and 1. The Dixon, look at is right now if for if hulk it md we angers nd ex- A Noble Haul. uj claiming to each other in hio-h spirits. I looked at the two chests, and felt mv heart beat strongly. Just now I was a ruined man, profes- sionally extinguished, with no bet- ter prospect before me than a bitter, hard life of seafaring be- fore the mast, filled with wretched- ness by thoughts of my mother, whom I should be unable to help, pursuing, as I should be compelled, the humblest walk in the worst- paid, most hardly used calling in the world; just now, I say, I was full of these thoughts, and now I stood on the deck of a vessel whose freight might prove to me and my two associates as though we had \l. ) SI f ] i U ) r i 122 A Noble Haul. fallen on a mine of precious ore. But softly! thought I to myself, checking the mood of exultation that burnt like a blush on my face ; those chests may be empty, and the contents in the run and forward scarcely of more value than the ballast which keeps the Marj^ Carver upright. In a few minutes Watson arrived holding a large key, to which was attached a metal plate merely en- graved with the numbers 1-2. "Overhauling a dead man's a horrible job," he exclaimed, with a loathing shake of his crimson face that discharged a shower of perspiration. "But this'll be the key, I hope." nous ore. 3 myself, exultation my face ; pty, and i forward than the e Mary 1 arrived lich was 2rely en- -2. nan's a ed, with crimson ower of be the A Noble Haul. 123 Dixon entered. "The boat's all safe, sir; and there's nothen in sight. But them bodies nigh the mainmast '11 have to be got over- board. The hatmosphere's full of 'em," and he fell a-sniffing and spitting. The key fitted both padlocks. The first chest I opened was empty, and the three of us stood looking down into it with stupid faces, and I with a sickened heart. 1 opened the second. "Ha!" cried Dixon. Stowed in rows in this chest were a number of little barrels. I picked one up, and found it heavy as gold. They were small wooden barrels, holding about half a pint . k '4i i ll 124 A Noble Haul. Mm each, and with my knife I cut open the head of the one I held and found it full of gold-dust! I lifted them all one after the other, and every one was of the same weight as the first. "Is it gold?" exclaimed Dixon in a breathless voice. "Ay, pure gold," said I, half stupefied by delight and astonish- ment. "What'll the lot be worth?" cried Watson, peering into the chest, with his damp, oyster-like eyes protruding from their sock- ets. "I've heard say," said I, "that gold-dust fetches about four pounds an ounce. " ')! !. I \ I cut open held and ! I lifted Dther, and ne weight ed Dixon I I, half astonish- worth?" into the >^ster-like sir sock- I, "that r pounds A Noble Haul. 125 "Lord!" thundered Dixon. "Why, there'll be pounds oft in that there chest, I allow. " "We must carry the ship home," I cried, beside myself with excite- ment. "What's in that there case?" called Watson, pointing- to a large square box that lay in a corner of the chest, the little barrels running stowed to the side of it. I found the lid free and lifted it, and discovered a quantity of lumps of gold and rudely manufactured rings of the same metal, orna. ments, as I afterwards learned, which had been worn by African kings and their wives, and which had been washed down in the sand \m. 'm ■St oily <[ '(^ ;i f y/ II ! » 126 A Noble Haul. of the rivers from the golden mountains. Well, even supposing there was not another ha'porth of property aboard this Marj^ Carver, yet there was treasure enough in the great chest at which we stood star- ing to set up the three of us as gentlemen ashore for the rest of our lives, though our days should prove as long as a parrot's. I burst out singing in my joy, and grasped my companions by the hand. "Mates, you took your fortunes along with me and risked your lives, and that chest, let alone what may be below, answers the question I have again and again -,( ^ e golden there was property 'ver^ yet rh in the tood star- of us as 2 rest of ^s should rot's. I joy, and by the fortunes sd your it alone i^ers the d again A Noble Haul. 127 been putting-How is this adven- ture to end? Thanks be to heaven, it will end in a fortune! But we must carry it home, boys. If ever we turned to as sailors we must now. " I locked the chest and went out with the men. One pressing, im- mediate business was to get rid of the dead bodies and sweeten the ship as best we could, since she .v-as to be our home for we knew not how long, seeing that she had only one mast that was of any use, and that we made but three of a crew. Dixon laid hold of the poor dog and tumbled it over the rail. Ceremony was impossible with the dead. The condition of all of ■n f\ f 128 A Noble Haul. ! ^' i m i| ; M' them, saving the remains in the cabin, would not suffer us to think of a patient and a solemn burial. We took a watch, a pocket-book, and a few pounds in American money from the pockets of the cap- tain, as I believed the body to be, and then, attaching a length of chain which had formed a portion of the running-gear to his legs to serve as a sinker, we dropped him over the side. I asked God to have mercy upon the poor sailor's soul as his body struck the clear, blue surface and vanished, and this was the prayer I uttered over the others of them, though the sight of two of them made the words hard to pronounce, so hor- ns in the s to think [in burial. ;ket-book, American f the cap- dy to be, ength of 3, portion s legs to ►ped him God to r sailor's le clear, led, and red over igh the ade the so hor- A Noble Haul. ,2^ nble was the disfigurement of putrefaction, and so unbearable the atmosphere till they were g'one. It was blowing: a light air fron. the westward, the sky was a deep, hollow of blue, pale with the rain- >ng of the white sunshine: there, was not a cloud, and the iirm line of the horizon swept the confines of the heavens without the tiniest break of ship. All the bodies that we had discovered being over- hoard, our next step was to ex- Plore the forecastle. I cautiously dropped through the little scuttle not more afraid of the air that was to be breathed below than of the sights which might be in store for ' ii W' 'if f.1' \m 130 A Noble Haul. us. However, though the atmos- phere was burning hot, it seemed as pure as one might hope to find it in a little forecastle. There were no bodies here, and I was heartily thankful that it should be so. The furniture was of the cus- tomary rough quality: bunks and ■straw stitched in coarse canvas for bedding, a few sea-chests, here and there a dangling oil-skin. It was enough for us that the place was sweet, and we crawled out of it and went to work to purify the vessel. This we contrived by burning pitch and boiling tar, kettles and pots of which we found in a bit of a compartment bulk- headed off from the galley. The f1 m . f- ■ It ' * J :■ ■ I i r ' ; I'. I i > atmos- seemed to find There i I was ould be the cus- nks and ,nvas for ts, here skin. It tie place d out of iirify the ived hy- ing tar, ive found nt bulk- ^y. The A Noble Haul. Ui galley fire burned well, and while we waited for the pitch to boil we took a survey or the vessel's re- maining spars. Everything stood complete at the fore; she was fully rigged there, as I have said, and her bow- sprit and jib-booms, with their gear and sails, were uninjured. But abaft she was naked, withered, and lightning-blackened. I said to the men : " She'll only do with a fair wind, and that we're not going to reckon upon. We must turn to presently and secure this mainmast. I be- lieve we shall be able to rig up some sort of a trysail upon it, and that must help us whenever the in I 1 < 1 • I 133 A Noble Haul. wind draws ahead. The question is, what place shall we steer for? The Canaries are our nearest land, but I don't like the notion of tak- ing our chance o: salvage at the hands of Spanish authorities." "Nor I, sir," said Dixon; "they'll plunder us to our shirts." "Why not go straight away for home?" exclaimed Watson. "It is a long voyage," said I, looking up at the solitary towering fabric of foremast. "Oh, but it can be done," said the man ; " you know the road any- how, Mr. Derbyshire." "Yes, I can steer you home," said I, "but I don't know about H N i A Noble Haul. question Leer for? est land, 1 of tak- e at the es." Dixon; to our away for I. " said I, towering ne," said road any- 1 home," ow about ^33 sailing you home," I added, send- ing another look aloft. "It's to be done, sir," said Dixon, "and it must be done by ourselves. If so be as others jine they'll be making shares, and the more that comes the less we shall have to take up, and since it's all ourn by right of finding it I'm for having every farden's worth of the salvage. " I reflected a little, and then said: "Be it so. We'll make up our minds to steer for home. " The two fellows uttered a cheer. We securely closed the cabin, galley, and forecastle, that the fumes and stench of the tar and pitch within might be confined and 1: a « tl if i I: 134 A Noble Haul. do their work. We tried the wheel and found the rudder and steering- gear sound, but the lightning had affected the binnacle compass — had apparently extinguished its polar- ity — and it revolved with the ship instead of swinging to the lubber's mark. But this was no great matter, for I had observed a tell- tale compass in the captain's cabin; besides which we had a small com- pass of our own in the boat. I set Dixon and his mate to work to bring all the contents of the boat out of her, and we then sent her adrift, the Mary Carver having two good boats of her own in davits, and a small long-boat or cutter stowed keel up forward. A Noble Haul. 135 We then thoroughly examined the foremast, going aloft to make sure that nothing was sprung, and hav- ing set the topgallantsail we braced the yards round and got the vessel's head to the north. She felt the impulse of the wind, and floated slowly along, though the light breeze was off the beam. We tried her with the foretopmast- staysail and flying- jib, but her head fell off with this canvas with her helm hard down. This was a thing to be ren "'led, and without delay; for should the wind com«^ "Strong out of the west- ward ^^■Q stood in a very short time to find ourselves un omfortably close in with the African coast. Jra i f 1 ■ H I' If hi A Noble Haul. It was now somewhat past noon, and after making a hearty meal off the provisions we had brought with us in the boat we turned to — tak- ing care to secure the helm — and by five o'clock had not only strengthened the mainmast with preventer stays, but had seized a block to the masthead, by means of which we hoisted and set a big spare jib which we had met with in the sail-room forward. By this hour the wind that still hung in the quarter whence it had been blowing in the morning had breezed up to a degree to enable us to form a good opinion of what this jib-headed sail at the main was going to do for us, and my mind A Noble Haul. 137 was instantly eased on ascertaining- that it allowed the ship to look well up and to carry her staysail and jibs besides. Under this can- vas and a main staysail she an- swered her helm as satisfactorily as though she had been clothed fore and aft, and on heaving the log my two companions sent up another cheer, in which I heartily joined, when I found that the clipper fabric under us was nimbly sliding over the long, blue, crisped swells of the evening sea at the rate of a little less than six knots in the hour. We were too exhausted, what with the heat and the labor of the day and the sleeplessness of the M, I i ' I 138 A Noble Haul. t » two previous nights, to explore the hold; our first step was to make ourselves comfortable, and this we did by ventilating the cabin, pre- paring beds on the lockers, and finding out where the cabin pro- visions were stored. We then ar- ranged to steer and keep a lookout thus — one man at the wheel, a second man on deck; the third man below, to lie handily at the foot of the companion-steps ready to jump to the first shout. In this fashion we got through the first night, and all went well with us. The weather was wonderfully beautiful and gentle, the sky rich with stars and the hovering dust of exploded meteors, with a crystal A Noble Haul. U9 ore the ) make this we :n, pre- rs, and in pro- hen ar- iookout heel, a i third at the ready- In this le first ith us. erfully :y rich lust of crystal scar of moon low down in the west at eight o'clock that night, while we were grouped at the wheel, smoking our pipes and talking of the events of the day, scarcely able to realize the existence of the treasure we had lighted upon be- low, and watching the pale and dusky mass of canvas forward, stirless as carven marble to the breathing of the night wind, but bravely doing its work, as you \^^>t:dd have known by the slopping sounds of water alongside. At midnight a large full-rigged ship passed us. She floated noise- lessly by in a phantom shape, close enough for us to hear the mellow chimes of the bell sounding twelve ■I m 140 A Noble Haul. o'clock. She made no sign, but ft would have been all the same had she hailed us; we were determined not to take any help, our resolution being to navigate the Mary Carver to England and then claim the sal- vage; and my waking dream as I walked the deck during my v/atch was all about the money I should earn by this adventure, my moth- er's happiness, how I should in- vest what came to me, how I was to escape the consequences of my action in running from the Mohi- can and helping to steal her boat. Early next morning, after sound- ing the well and finding all right with the little ship, Dixon and I, armed with mallets and chisels for A Noble Haul. 141 n, but it ame had ermined solution ' Carver the sal- im as I 7 v/atch should f moth- uld in- V I was of my : Mohi- boat. sound- l right and I, els for purposes of exploration, entered the hold, leaving Watson at the helm. We first attacked a number of white cases stowed forward of the main-hatch, and found them filled with articles for trucking: kettles, needles, pieces of cotton cloth, powder-flasks, clocks, boots and shoes, tobacco, and so forth. All this stuff remaining proved that the Mary Carver had sailed in a hurry, no doubt in consequence of the sickness which had ended in killing her unhappy crew. It was not to be supposed that she would otherwise have quitted the coast with half the freight she had started with from Salem unbar- tered for the precious commodities I; I 142 A Noble Haul. she had made the voyage for. We also found in this part of the hold a number of barrels and tierces and casks of rum, pork, and beef; all which articles, I afterwards heard, were used in this sort of traffic with the natives. We then made our way aft, and in a very roomy lazarette found a large quantity of small teeth and large tusks, together with a num- ber of casks of palm-oil. The value of the small teeth I did not know, though we afterwards ascer- tained that they were worth about four shillings a pound; but during a v^ ige I had made to the Cape I had been told that the worth of large tusks such as those which we I , X A Noble Haul. «45 or. We the hold tierces id beef; erwards sort of ift, and bund a ith and i num- The lid not ascer- about luring IJape I rth of ch we found in the Mary Carver aver- aged from twenty-five to thirty pounds apiece. I will not speak of the new de- light which this discovery raised in us. It was indeed a stroke of for- tune not to be credited as falling to the lot of a plain merchant mate and two seamen. The value of the palm-oil I was ignorant of, nor could I imagine what was the weight of the gold-dust and the lumps and rings of the same pre- cious metal in the great chest; but I very well recollect returning on deck with Dixon, and going aft to Watson and telling him of what we had found, and then sitting down with pencil and paper and making \ \{ u 144 A Noble Haul. a rough calculation of the value of our booty, as I may call it, which in my figures worked out at be- tween ^20,000 and ^30,000, to my own and the joyous astonish- ment of my two shipmates. The narrative of our progress home would, I fear, make but very tedious reading. Three days after we had boarded the Afary Carver a squall blew the triangular sail away, and we came very near to losing our foretopmast. There then followed a succession of light head winds, which worried us to the heart with the delay they caused. In fact, being one day sickened by the spectacle of Mary Carver points off her course, the value of i, which at be- 000, to stonish- rogress ut very ^s after arver a ir sail ear to There f light us to they e day Mary e, the A Noble Haul. ,45 yards braced fore and aft, and a ^"^ii^^ surface of oil-smooth wake streaming off at a sharp angle from her steri-post, I seriously pro. posed making for Madeira, to the northward of which island we had ty this time managed to creep. But my two men said no; better the Canaries than Madeira; for at those islands you had the Span, iards, whereas at Madeira the auth^ critics were Portuguese. " Rogues to a man," said Dixon; "who, when they open the chest and see the gold and then spy the tusks ^nd oil in the lazarette, would vamp up some charge against us and throw us into a stinking dripping jail, where we might lie ■f 1 i ■ (46 A Noble Haul. and rot, merely as an excuse to effectually plunder us. " So we continued to thrust on as best we could; but with that one tnast and a bit of a triangular sail aft, it was slow and dreary work and I own that my heart would fail me, and often I would again and again look round the sea for a ship, willing in the moods which at such times possessed me to have hailed the first passing vessel and solicited help. • We met with a number of craft as we struggled northwards, and one or two signalled us, but as we were without flags or code-book we could make nothing of their colors. Once in a dead calm a large A Noble Haul. ,^_ schooner.yacht bound south, that ay mirroring her radfant canvas at "" '"'^"<=^ °f -^'""t a league, sent a boat to inquire as to our condi- t.on and if we required help; but we had been mating fair progress for some days; there was nothing -n this interval of calm to diminish o« confidence in our being able to safely navigate the Mary Carver to England, and we therefore very thankfully and civilly declined the proffer of help The boat hung alongside with the yacht's master in her; his curi- -■ty was active, his questions ""merous. and I was obliged to spm him the yarn we had concocted '"'"If -re to say nothing a'^oui l\\ % I 148 A Noble Haul. the gold-dust and the ivory in the vessel. We feigned that our ob- ject in navigating the ship was to pick up a trifle of money for the saving of her; and this was per- fectly true so far as it went. The captain returned to his yacht, and shortly afterwards the boat came away for us again with a present of cigars and a case of champagne from the owner, who was on board, Lord Edward . This yacht was the only vessel we spoke until our arri\al in the mouth of the English Channel, exactly two months and ten days from the date of our escape from the Mohican. We then fell in with a Deal lugger with four men on in the )iir ob- was to for the as per- . The ht, t'ind t came isent of npagne board, vessel in the lannel, n days 2 from in with len on A Noble Haul. 149 board cruising- bout in search of a job; they spied our condition, and wanted to board us. I answered that we could manage very well without them. "No, no," cried they; -you are only three hands, you'll want help." And they made as if to come aboard. If ever a or a of thcvi put his foot overthesidehe' ad as much right to a share of the salvage as our- selves, who had had all the perils and labor of the navigation of the Mary Carver through many hun- dred leagues of sea. This was not to be borne. I cried : "The first of you that shows himself I'll chuck overboard." I50 A Noble Haul. They looked at my big figure and the iron belaying.pin I flour- ished, and seeing the temper and meaning in my face they hung in the wind a bit, then shifted their helm, and went away howling a hundred execrations, and using such language as one must go to Deal, that village of public-houses, to hear the like of. We had made shift among us before entering the Channel to get the anchor to the cathead, and see all ready for bringing up. The anchor was a small one and there was no lack of purchases and tackle, and with the help of a good forecastle capstan we managed very well. My intention had been A Noble Haul. ,5, to make Falmouth harbor, as being the nearest and most convenient spot to let go our anchor in. There was, to be sure. Mount's Bay, but I did not relish the notion of anchoring in that wide space of water, where it might come on to blow before we could get a second anchor ready, or before help could reach us from the shore. And yon must tnow, besides, that in these salvage jobs your prize is not your own until your anchor is down, in a harbor, and the vessel safe. Had we brought up off Pen- zance, and bad weather followed necessitating assistance, the people who helped us would have been in a position to claim salvage equal- 152 A Noble Haul. I) m ri h* ,1 ly with ourselves. Therefore I steered for Falmouth harbor, but the wind headed us, and for three days we were driving about the Channel, until a slant enabled me to stand for Plymouth, past whose fine breakwater we brought up on a Thursday morning, after a pas- sage that had been interminable to my anxiety, though in reality it was a specimen of fairly speedy navigation of which we had cer- tainly no reason to be ashamed. The story I related was credited; the J/arj' Carver was taken posses- sion of by the Receiver of Wrecks, but it was four months before the award was made by the Court. The value of the cargo was as- 1 A Noble Haul. 153 sessed at ;^32,ooo, of which ^^7,000 was given to us for salvage— ^3,500 to me, and the balance be- tween the two men. I remained very quiet until the money was paid. My fear was that Captain Scudder might liave communicated the intelligence of my escape to a passing ship home- ward bound, and that the truth of the story would reach the ears of the owners of the Mohican, who for all I could tell might be able to take such steps as would preclude me from participating in the award of the Admiralty Court. The owners knew I was at home, and believed my story; they had con- gratulated me upon the treasure I (I '54 A Noble Haul had stumbled upon, and on the merits of my good fortune, per- baps, had even offered me a berth as second mate. This offer I pro- fessed myelf unable to accept until the decision of the Court, along with the money, had reached me. I had some thought of quitting the country, and of awaiting in France the news of the arrival of the Mohican, and secretly watching from a secure retreat the shaping of events; but I could not have asked my mother to leave her home without explaining my mo- tives, nor indeed could I have with- drawn from England alone without telling her my reasons, and this I had not the heart to do, not only A Noble Haul. '55 for fear of grieving her, but be- cause I knew that her high prin- ciples and resolved religious char- acter would insist upon my going to the owners of the Mohican and confessing Myself; and this as- suredly I was in no temper to do either, remembering how greatly I had suffered, how insupportable had been the provocation, and how, also, I might count wiih certainty upon the owners taking the side of Captain Scudder, influenced not a little also by thoughts of their lost boat. It was not until the arrival of the Mohican in ty,^ River Thames that my mind was eased. Mr. Hollins, the chief mate, had 156 A Noble Haul. r > brought the ship home in the room of Captain Scudder, who had died of a blow he had received from the carpenter, whom he had barbar- oush' attacked on heariDg; that I had escaped, and who, in striking out for his ovrn defence, had dealt the rascal a very much heavier blow than I had delivered. The carpenter had been charged with manslaughter at Adelaide, but ac- quoted, so overwhehriiiig was the testimony in his favor by all the hands, including the passengers. When this news reached me I wrote to Hollins and Paterson, and we went together to the offices of the owners, to whom I communi- cated the full particulars of the A Noble Haul. 157 captain's brutal behavior to me, my imprisonment, his barbarous threat of the forepeak, and my subsequent escape in the boat. The two mates were at hand to confirm every word I said. I of- fered to pay for the boat, but the partners, much to my surprise, very generously declined to allow me to do so. They said that they had for some time doubted Captain Scudder's fitness for the respon- sible berth he filled, and had re- solved that this should be the last voyage he should make in their employ. They were satisfied that I had been wantonly outraged, and by way of making amends for the indignity and suffering which had '58 A Noble Haul. been caused me by the shipmaster in their service, they repeated their offer of a post as second mate on board the Mohican, that would next voyage be sailing tinder the com- mand of Captain Hollins, with Paterson as her chief officer. Thus terminated this strange passage of my seafaring career, which is now made public for the first time. lA THE END, ''I