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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The White Squall, by John Conroy Hutcheson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The White Squall
+       A Story of the Sargasso Sea
+
+Author: John Conroy Hutcheson
+
+Illustrator: J. Schonberg
+
+Release Date: April 15, 2007 [EBook #21088]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHITE SQUALL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
+
+
+
+
+The White Squall, by John Conroy Hutcheson
+________________________________________________________________
+Tom is a thirteen year-old whose father is a Naval Officer on
+the half-pay list.  This dates the events, for Tom has read two
+of Captain Marryatt's books, which were published in the 1830s,
+while his father would have been recalled to duty in time for
+the Crimean War, so we'll put the date down as the 1840s.
+
+The action starts in the West Indies, where Tom's father has
+bought a property.  Tom has an accident on his way to meet his
+father on the way from a short visit to another island.  Tom is to
+be sent to an English school, and on his recovery he is taken
+down to the harbour, and put in charge of a ship's Captain.
+
+The journey back to England has every misadventure that can be
+thought of, including a White Squall, which we would probably
+today call a Line Squall.  The vessel is capsized.  How do they
+recover it?
+
+Eventually they arrive in England. And that is the end of the
+story, which really is an introduction to ships for young
+persons of about thirteen years of age.
+
+It isn't too long, and you'll enjoy it.
+________________________________________________________________
+
+THE WHITE SQUALL, BY JOHN CONROY HUTCHESON
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+MOUNT PLEASANT.
+
+"Jake!"
+
+"Dat me, Mass' Tom."
+
+"Have you heard the gun fire yet?"
+
+"Golly, no, Mass' Tom."
+
+"Then you must go up the hill at once and see whether the mail steamer
+has been signalled or not.  She ought to have been in sight by now; for,
+she's been expected since early this morning, and we're all anxious
+about the news from England."
+
+"All right, Mass' Tom, me go for see, suah."
+
+"Look alive then, Jake, and lose no more time in starting.  Let me just
+see how quickly you can get up to the Battery and back again; and mind,
+Jake, if the packet should be in, you can saddle my pony when you return
+for me to ride into town."
+
+"Berry well, Mass' Tom.  I'se spec, railly for true, um go dere in brace
+of shakes, an' back 'gain hyar 'fore dat lazy ole niggah Pomp fetch him
+cutlash out o' stable an' go in bush to cut him guinea-grass for de
+hosses.  Golly, dat so, Mass' Tom--see if um don't for suah, yah, yah!"
+
+Jake broke off into a huge guffaw, as he shouted out these hurried words
+in high glee, laughing with all that hearty abandon which was such a
+strong characteristic of his genuine African nature.  Such was the
+intensity of his merriment, indeed, that he opened his wide red-lipped
+mouth almost from ear to ear, disclosing a brilliant set of shining
+teeth, whose ivory whiteness contrasted conspicuously with the jetty
+blackness of his sable skin.  The willing fellow then went off on his
+mission at a slinging jog-trot, evidently determined to make his promise
+good of outstripping his more lethargic rival Pompey, whom he was
+absurdly jealous of and ever eager to surpass in every way he could.
+
+I watched him on his onward way from the raised terrace, laid out as an
+ornamental garden, in front of our square, one-storied, shingle-roofed,
+verandah-encircled West Indian home--which lay nestled in a gorgeous
+wealth of tropical foliage and was perched half-way up the side of a
+mountain peak that protected it from hurricane blasts in the rear; and,
+I could see Jake spinning rapidly along the winding carriage drive,
+bordered with cocoa-nut trees and grou-grou palms in lieu of the oaks
+and elms of old England.  In another second, ere the sound of his merry
+chuckle had ceased to re-echo in the distance, he had passed through the
+swing-gate that gave admittance to the grounds.
+
+The lawn sloped downwards from the house, following the curve of the
+hill, and was studded with orange-trees, whose golden fruit peeped
+through their shining green leaves, shaddocks, and mangosteen, with many
+a stately palmiste rearing its tall feathery head above the others;
+while, in addition, the wild locust, or iron-wood tree, the mammee
+apple, the pomme-rose and the guava bush flourished between huge blocks
+of stone, with flat table surfaces and of probable volcanic origin, that
+seemed to have been thrown at random upon the surface of the grassy
+expanse, where they now rested, monoliths of the past.
+
+As the gate swung back upon its hinges with a clang, Jake's woolly head,
+surmounted by the veriest wisp of a ragged red handkerchief, disappeared
+behind the thick and impenetrable hedge of thorny cactus and spike-
+guarded prickly-pear that inclosed the plantation, separating it from
+the main-road forming its boundary and leading, some four miles or so
+beyond, over mountain and gully to Saint George's, the capital town of
+Grenada, the most southern of the group of the Windward Islands--a spot
+where the earlier days of my rather adventurous life were passed and
+which is endeared to me by all the vivid associations of youth, the fond
+recollections of memory.
+
+Our place was aptly named "Mount Pleasant," and well do I remember every
+salient feature of it--the forest of lofty silk-cotton trees, bordered
+on the left by a row of the curious _bois immortel_, with its blood-red
+branches that had blossomed into flowers; the mountain slope covered
+with green waving guinea-grass at the back; and in front the park-like
+lawn already described.  To the right was a long range of negro huts and
+stabling; and, beyond these again the kitchen-garden or "provision
+ground," prolific of sweet-potatoes, yams, and tanias, with plantain and
+banana trees laden with pendent bunches of their sausage-shaped fruit
+and hedged round with pine-apples.  Stretching away still further in the
+distance was the cocoa plantation, a sea of verdure, interspersed with
+the darker green foliage of the nutmeg and wax-like clove-tree.  Here
+reigned in all its majesty the bread-fruit tree, with broad serrated
+leaves, like a gigantic horse-chestnut, sheltering the more fragile
+trees that grow only beneath its shadow, and acting as the "mother of
+the cocoa"--el madre del cacao--as the Spaniards call it.
+
+But, I wish to go back now to the memorable day when Jake set off so
+briskly on his errand to see if the English mail steamer had arrived,
+leaving me on the terrace in front of our house wondering, as he speeded
+on his way, whether the packet was in sight; and, if she had been
+signalled, trying to surmise what news she would bring.
+
+I was really very anxious about the matter, and I will tell you the
+reason why.
+
+My father was an officer of the royal navy, who found it a hard thing,
+with an increasing family, to make both ends meet in the mother country
+on his half-pay.  At last, sick of waiting for active employment afloat
+during the long stagnation in the service occasioned by the interregnum
+of peace that lasted almost from Waterloo up to the time of the Crimean
+war, he determined, like Cincinnatus, to "beat his sword into a
+ploughshare."  In other words, he abandoned the fickle element on which
+he had passed the early days of his manhood and emigrated to the West
+Indies, to see whether he might not improve his fortunes by investing
+what little capital he had in a coffee and cocoa plantation in the
+island where my scene opens.  A couple of months or so before, he had
+taken a trip across the Atlantic to arrange some money matters with his
+London agent, and we were now expecting his return by every mail.
+Beyond this, my father had more than half-hinted that, as soon as he got
+back to Grenada, he would send me over to England in my turn to go to
+school, when, most likely, I would have to bid adieu to my West Indian
+home for good and all; for, my fervent desire was to follow in dad's
+footsteps and enter the navy as soon as I was able to pass the admiralty
+examination--a desire to which dad, in spite of the scurvy way in which
+he had been treated by an ungrateful country, did not say nay, his
+ambition being that I should succeed where he failed if possible, for he
+was a true sailor and hankered after the sea yet.
+
+It was not surprising, therefore, that I was so eager to learn whether
+the packet had come in, albeit her arrival would naturally bring to an
+end the little brief authority which I had been so proud to assume
+during dad's absence as the protector of my mother and sisters, besides
+being regarded by all the negro hands as "um lilly massa of um
+plantashun."  Really, I esteemed myself at that period to be a most
+important and highly dignified person, being only a boy of thirteen
+years old then, and small-grown for my age at that!
+
+Jake had scarcely been out of sight five minutes when I began to look
+out for his return.  My impatience, indeed, quite got the better of my
+reason, for I ought to have known well enough, if I had only considered,
+that he could not have yet half accomplished the journey to the signal
+station on Richmond Hill, much less thought even of coming back, the
+willing darkey being as unable as anyone else to annihilate distance or
+space!
+
+It was a terribly hot day, being close on to the noontide hour, the
+thermometer under the shade of the verandah where I stood marking over a
+hundred degrees; while, goodness only knew what it was out in the open,
+where the sun's blistering rays produced such intense heat that the
+paintwork of the green jalousie shutters outside the windows of the
+house fairly frizzled up in liquid blotches!
+
+The air, too, was oppressively close and warm, just as when the door of
+an oven is opened in one's face, not a breath of wind stirring to
+agitate the still atmosphere; but, neither did this fact, nor did the
+blazing power of the glowing orb of day, which looked like a globe of
+fire in the centre of the heavens, affect the wild luxuriance of nature
+at Mount Pleasant.
+
+As I gazed around, everything appeared to be invigorated instead of
+prostrated by the high temperature.
+
+This seems to be the natural order of things in the tropics, that is, in
+respect of everything and everyone accustomed to broiling weather, like
+hot-house flowers and coloured gentry of the kidney of Jake and his
+sable brethren, whose ancestors, having been born under the sweltering
+equator, handed down to their descendants constitutions of such a nature
+that they seem fairly to revel in the heat, and appear to be all the
+healthier and happier the hotter it is!
+
+Ruby-throated humming-birds, with breasts of burnished gold, fluttered
+about the garden on the terrace in front of me in dainty flight, or else
+poised themselves in mid-air opposite the sweet-smelling blossoms of the
+frangipanni, their little wings moving so rapidly as to make them appear
+without motion; broad-backed butterflies, with black stripes across
+their yellow uniforms, floated lazily about, purposelessly, doing
+nothing, as if they could not make up their minds to anything; and the
+scent of heliotropes and of big cabbage roses, that blossomed in
+profusion on trees larger than shrubs, almost intoxicated the senses.
+The eye, too, was charmed at the same time by the pinky prodigality of
+the "Queen of Flowers," and the purple profusion of the convolvulus,
+their colours contrasting with the soft green foliage of the bay-tree;
+while great masses of scarlet geranium, and myriad hues of different
+varieties of the balsam and Bird of Paradise plant were harmonised by
+the snowy chastity of the Cape jessamine and a hundred other sorts of
+lilies, of almost every tint, which encircled a warm-toned hibiscus,
+that seemed to lord it over them, the king of the floral world.
+
+I was watching a little procession of "umbrella ants," as they are
+called, that were promenading across the marble flooring of the
+verandah, each of the tiny insects carrying above its head a tinier
+piece of the green leaf of some plant, apparently for the purpose of
+shielding itself from the sun, for they held up their shades just in the
+same way as a lady carries her parasol; when, all at once, I heard a
+heavy step outside, advancing along the terrace from the direction of
+the stables.
+
+Without turning my head, or consulting watch or clock--or, even without
+looking up at the scorching sun overhead, had my eyes been sufficiently
+glare-proof to have stood the ordeal--I knew who the intruder was, and
+could have also told you that it was exactly mid-day.
+
+Why?--you may ask perhaps.
+
+You will learn in a moment.
+
+The heavy footstep came a pace nearer, and then paused; when, looking
+round, I beheld an old negro, with a withered monkey-like face, clad in
+the ordinary conventional costume of an African labourer in the West
+Indies.  His dress consisted of a loose pair of trousers and shirt of
+blue cotton check; and, on the top of his white woolly head was fixed on
+in some mysterious fashion a battered fragment of a straw hat, just of
+the sort that would be used by an English farmer as a scarecrow to
+frighten off the birds from his fields.
+
+This was Pompey, Jake's rival; and, as he politely doffed his ragged
+head-gear with one hand, in deference to my dignity as "the young
+massa," he held out to me with his other paw a wine-glass whose foot, if
+ever it had one, had been broken-off at some remote period of time.
+
+I knew what Pompey wanted as well as he did himself, but for my own
+amusement, and in order to hear him make his usual stereotyped
+announcement, I asked him a leading question.
+
+"Well, what is it?"  I said.
+
+"U'm come, rum!" was his laconic rejoinder--nothing more, but the
+sentence was sufficiently expressive.
+
+Every day of the week, with the exception of Sundays, it had been always
+Pompey's privilege to have a quartern of rum served out to him, as if he
+were on board ship, at twelve o'clock, the ordinary grog-time; and,
+punctually at that hour every day, in the wet season or dry, he never
+failed to come up to the house for his allowance, bringing with him the
+footless wine-glass to receive the grateful liquor.  His appearance,
+consequently, was an unfailing token that the sun had crossed the zenith
+and that it was time to "make it eight bells."
+
+Unlike the majority of his dark-complexioned brethren, who are generally
+loquacious in the extreme, Pompey was singularly reticent of speech,
+never varying this parrot-like formula of his when coming at twelve
+o'clock for his daily stimulant, without which he would never set about
+his afternoon work.
+
+"U'm come, rum!" was all he would say ever since he had been taken over
+by my father with the other belongings of the plantation; and, as he was
+an old "hand," the former proprietor related, and had always been
+similarly indulged with a quartern of rum at mid-day as far back as he
+could recollect, old Pompey--and precious old he must have been by this
+reckoning--had evidently grown into the habit, so that it was part of
+himself.
+
+Entering the house through one of the low window-less windows which
+opened out on to the verandah, like the ports in the side of a ship--
+ventilation being everything in the tropics and closed doors and shut-up
+rooms unheard of, as everybody was free to walk in and out of the
+different apartments just as they pleased--I soon brought out a case-
+bottle from the sideboard where it stood handy for the purpose.  Then,
+filling the old darkey's footless wine-glass, which he held with a
+remarkably steady hand considering his age, he tossed off the contents
+without drawing breath, the fiery liquor disappearing down his throat
+with a sort of gurgling "gluck, gluck," as if it had been decanted into
+the capacious orifice, Pompey not even winking once during the
+operation.
+
+"Tank you, Mass' Tom," said he, when he had sucked in the last drop;
+when, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he stalked off across
+the terrace again towards the stable to fetch his cutlass to cut the
+guinea-grass for the horses, according to his usual habit at this time
+of day.  This Jake well knew, by the bye, when he said he thought he
+would be able to return from his mission before the old fellow should
+have started, Pompey being as regular as clockwork in his movements,
+carrying out his daily routine most systematically.
+
+I did not expect to see him again until later on in the afternoon on his
+return from the mountain at the back of the house, laden with a bale of
+provender for the stable, which he had charge of; but, what was my
+surprise a few minutes afterwards, to see him hurrying up again to the
+house, without his customary companion the cutlass and in a state of
+great excitement most unaccountable in one generally so phlegmatic.
+
+"Hullo, Pompey! what's the matter now?"  I called out as he began to
+ascend the steps leading up to the terrace, his boots coming down with a
+heavy stamp on the marble surface.  He was a most peculiar old fellow;
+for, unlike again most of the negroes, who only wear any foot covering
+on Sundays, when they torture themselves horribly by squeezing their
+spreading toes into patent leather pumps if they can get them by hook or
+by crook, the old darkey invariably stalked about in a tall pair of
+Wellington boots that made him walk as gingerly as a cat with its paws
+in walnut shells.
+
+"Hey, Mass' Tom, look smart," he sang out in response.  "Um big 'guana
+down by de stable; come quick an' bring 'tick an' we kill him togedder!"
+
+An iguana?  This was something to make one excited; for, harmless though
+the reptile is, one does not come across one everyday.  Besides, it is
+capital eating, tasting just like a chicken, and that of the tenderest:
+you could not tell the difference between the two when well cooked.
+
+Catching up a thick stick, I was after Pompey in a minute, forgetting
+alike the heat of the sun's rays in the open--although but a short
+period before I had been forced to retreat under the shade of the
+verandah--and my anxious watch for Jake with news of the mail steamer,
+about whose delay I had been so impatient.
+
+I soon overtook the darkey, who never could make much headway in his
+boots.  They were so big for him that I believe his feet used to have a
+quiet walk inside them on their own account!
+
+"Where's the 'guana?"  I said.
+
+"Just dere, Mass' Tom," he replied, pointing with one of his lean, bony,
+mottled fingers, the black colour of which seemed to have been worked
+off them by years of rough usage.
+
+"Where?"  I repeated, for I could not see the animal as yet anywhere.
+
+"Dere, on manure heap--see?"
+
+"Yes, I see now," I replied, as, getting nearer to the stables, I
+noticed something on the top of a mound of straw rubbish.  It was a
+creature like a gigantic lizard, some five or six feet long and as broad
+about the head as a decent-sized pig.
+
+"Yah, yah, dere he is, dere he is!" shouted out Pompey.  "Golly, Mass'
+Tom, he am big 'guana, too!  Give me de 'tick, and dis niggah will soon
+'top um runnin' 'way."
+
+The green-looking creature had been basking in the sun, enjoying itself
+all the more, probably, from the warmth of the manure heap on which it
+lay; but now, on our nearer approach, it raised its serpent-like head
+and, puffing out its creamy throat, grew in an instant to double its
+former size, while the beautiful iridescent colouring of its skin became
+more conspicuous.
+
+Pompey raised the stick I had handed to him, and the iguana, as if
+likewise springing to arms to resist attack, elevated a sort of spiny
+fringe, resembling a mane, that reached from the crest of its head to
+the shoulders.  At the same time, it slung round its tail, in crocodile
+fashion, as if to give a blow with it to its assailant.
+
+The old darkey, however, was not frightened at the motion.  Stepping up
+to the animal's side, he gave it one smart stroke on the nose, whereupon
+the iguana was incontinently settled, turning over on its back a second
+afterwards.  The brightness at once faded from its green and gold skin,
+while the rich cream-coloured throat changed to a dirty-white in the
+hues of death, in the same way that a dolphin alters its colour when
+taken from its native element.
+
+"Guess um well kill' now, nohow," said Pompey grimly, taking up the
+animal by the tail; but it was such a big one that he couldn't lift it,
+so he had to drag it along the ground towards the quarters of himself
+and the other negroes.  Here it would, I knew, ere long be skinned and
+dressed in a very savoury way, known only to African cooks, when a
+portion of the banquet would be sent in anon to "the big house," for the
+kindly acceptance of the white folks there--my mother, and sisters, and
+myself--elegantly dished up in plantain leaves with red peppers for
+dressing.
+
+While I stood for a second watching old Pompey making off with his prey
+in high good-humour, looking in the distance, as he climbed the slope of
+the hill up to the huts, uncommonly like a lean monkey dragging away a
+centipede, the intense glare of the tropical noontide, of which I was
+for the moment oblivious, changed in an instant to a deep gloom
+resembling the blackness of night.  It seemed as if some interposing
+body had suddenly been placed between the sun and the earth.
+
+Then came a tremendous crash of thunder, like the sound of heaven's dome
+breaking in, it was so fearfully loud and awesome; and the reverberating
+roar was accompanied by a vivid flash of forked lightning, whose zigzag
+stream struck a tall tamarind-tree standing in front of me, splintering
+the trunk from top to bottom with a scrunching noise like that made in
+rending timber!
+
+I turned and ran back to the house for shelter as fast as I could,
+anticipating what was coming, such storms being of frequent occurrence
+in the tropics after exceptional heat and when there is no wind to
+agitate the pent-up air; but, ere I could ascend the half dozen steps
+leading up to the terrace, the rain-cloud overhead burst and a sheet of
+water came down as if poured over the side of some giant reservoir in
+the sky, wetting me to the skin by the time I had gained the shelter of
+the verandah.
+
+My mother was just coming out of the drawing-room to see where I was,
+when Jake came up racing behind me, shouting out at the pitch of his
+voice, above the sound of the sluicing rain, "De packet am in, Mass'
+Tom!  De packet am in!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+"MORE HASTE, WORSE SPEED."
+
+"Hurrah!"  I shouted out.
+
+I was so overjoyed at hearing Jake's announcement that the long-expected
+mail steamer had at last arrived that I was utterly oblivious of my
+soaking condition, although I had been so completely drenched in the
+brief space of time that had elapsed before I could get under shelter
+from the shower, that the water was now trickling down my dripping
+garments and running out of my boots.  "Look alive, old fellow," I added
+to the willing darkey, who was in an equally moist state, his black skin
+glistening as if it had received a fresh coating of Japan varnish.
+"Saddle my pony at once, for I must go into town, as I told you!"
+
+"But, Tom," interposed my mother at this juncture, "you cannot start in
+all this rain.  See how wet you are already, dear, and it is still
+pouring down, worse than ever!"
+
+"Oh, never mind that, mother, it will stop soon," I rejoined hastily,
+mortally afraid of her putting an embargo on my contemplated expedition
+to Saint George's.  "I will go in and change my things, and long before
+I'm ready it'll be fine again, you'll see!  Besides, you know, dad may
+have come by the steamer, and he'll be expecting me to meet him and want
+Dandy to ride home on.  Jake can take him down along with me, so as to
+be on the safe side, eh?"
+
+"Well, well, my dear, I suppose you must have your way," said my mother,
+whom this last argument of mine, in respect of my father's possible
+arrival, seemed to convince against her will, for she made no further
+demur to my setting out, in spite of the weather.
+
+This very material point being satisfactorily arranged in my favour, as
+Jake could see with half an eye, he having waited to learn whether my
+orders were to be carried out or not, the darkey now hurried off to the
+stables to execute them with a cheerful grin on his ebony face, fearing
+the rain as little as he did the burning rays of the mid-day sun; while
+I scurried off to my room upstairs to shift my wringing clothes and put
+on another suit of white flannel, which is the ordinary wear of all
+sensible people in tropical countries--just as it is becoming the
+fashion over here in summer, especially for fellows who go in for
+cricket and other athletic games provocative of perspiration.
+
+I had judged well of the climate and been a true weather prophet; for,
+albeit I was pretty sharp in dressing, long ere I could get below again
+the rain suddenly ceased falling, and, in another moment or so, the sun
+was shining down as potently as it had done before the thunder-storm,
+from an absolutely cloudless sky, whose burnished blue arc was only
+suggestive of heat and glare as usual.
+
+When I stood under the verandah once more, awaiting Jake with the
+horses, I noticed that the marble pavement of the terrace in front had
+dried up already, while the earth of the flower-beds scarcely looked
+damp.  As previously, lots of humming-birds, displaying their rainbow
+plumage to the best advantage, were flitting here and there between the
+shrubs, in pursuit of the myriads of flies and other insects that had
+come out for an airing after the shower, some of the tiny feathered
+mites poising themselves before some opening bud or blossom, or else
+peering into its interior, with their little wings moving at the rate of
+ten thousand bird-power per minute and creating a little halo of
+variegated light around them.
+
+The industrious ants, too, had reformed their parasol procession, which
+the temporary deluge had seriously disorganised; and, but that several
+solemn-looking blackbirds, of a larger species than the yellow-billed
+variety familiar to us in England, were now hopping about on the lawn
+under the orange-trees, digging up worms, and that a stray drop or two
+of crystal glittered on the petals of the roses like diamonds, or
+reflected the sunshine from the trumpet bells of the lilies, while there
+was a greener tint on the vegetation around, one could hardly have
+imagined that it had rained at all!
+
+Still, there was a perceptible coolness in the air now noticeable that
+was most refreshing after the suffocating heat, which I had found so
+oppressive an hour agone; and, this tempered tone of the atmosphere
+brought out more vividly the fragrant scent of the frangipanni and
+languid perfume of the jessamine, the whole atmosphere without being
+redolent of their mingled odours, harmoniously blended together in sweet
+unison, like a regular pot-pourri!
+
+The showery avalanche, besides cooling and sweetening the air with the
+balmy breath of the flowers which its influence extracted, left also
+other evidence of its effect behind.  This was especially apparent in
+the swelling torrent of muddy water, drained from the slopes of the
+mountain-side above the house and now impetuously rushing down an
+impromptu gully which the flood had scooped out for itself across the
+grounds, following the course of the carriage drive almost up to the
+entrance-gate, where the suddenly-created cataract, diverging into a
+hollow to the left, made another exit for itself through the cactus
+hedge into the cocoa plantation beyond.
+
+Jake was much longer in getting the horses saddled than I had expected;
+and I had to shout out for him more than once before he came up to the
+steps of the terrace with the especial animals he had charge
+of--"Prince," my pony, a skittish little bay from the Spanish main; and
+"Dandy," a sturdy dapple-grey Canadian roadster, that in appearance was
+quite the reverse of what his name would imply.  The old horse, however,
+was as sound and steady as a veteran drum-major and thoroughly reliable;
+and my father prized him highly, always riding him from choice and not
+minding any chaff about his charger's looks.
+
+On advancing to mount Prince, our darkey groom seemed put out about
+something, I noticed; but, before I could put any question to him or ask
+the reason of his being so tardy in bringing out the horses, he burst
+out full of his grievance.
+
+"I tole um so, Mass' Tom, tole um so!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Why, what is the matter?"  I inquired, rather surprised.
+
+"Golly, matter 'nuff for dis chile," grumbled Jake.
+
+"You savvy I tell you, Mass' Tom, I'se come back from de hill 'fore Pomp
+get him cutlash to cut um guinea-grass, hey?"
+
+"Yes, so you did, Jake," I said sympathisingly, remembering his boast
+when setting out.
+
+"I'se right den, massa!"
+
+"Indeed?"  I responded.
+
+"Iss, Mass' Tom.  Belieb me, dat lazy ole niggah not cut guinea-grass,
+not do nuffin'!" said Jake indignantly, thinking and hoping that Pompey
+would receive a rating.
+
+"Oh, he caught a 'guana before the rain came on, and that prevented him
+from going to cut the grass," I explained.
+
+Jake looked astounded.
+
+"Hey, Pomp catch him 'guana?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," said I.  "He killed it in the stable-yard, and has gone to cook
+it."
+
+This immediately fired Jake's jealousy.  It was, to him, just like
+adding insult to injury on his rival's park.  It seemed like poaching on
+his special domain.
+
+"What, Mass' Tom, he catchee 'guana, for suah?"
+
+"Yes, in the corner there," I answered, pointing out the exact place
+with the twisted rattan, or "supple Jack," which I used for a riding-
+whip and held loosely in my hand.
+
+"Dat for true, right on de mush heap dar?" repeated Jake, apparently
+unable to realise the fact of the other's success in the chase.
+
+"He did," I said briefly; and then, wishing to end the colloquy, I
+jumped on Prince's back, whereupon my skittish pony, as I had trained
+him to do on my once mounting, immediately started off at a brisk canter
+down the carriage drive.  So Jake had perforce to bestride Dandy and
+follow after me, without having the pleasure of calling Pompey to
+account for his misdeeds before we started--as he evidently expected and
+most decidedly wished to have done I've no doubt.
+
+Jake was very angry.
+
+This was not so much because the other darkey had omitted cutting the
+guinea-grass, which, of course, the horses would not now require until
+we returned from town, as from the circumstance of Pompey having had the
+chance of exhibiting his prowess in respect of the iguana.  Jake was
+evidently much dissatisfied with the whole proceeding; and I could hear
+him muttering anathemas against his rival as he trotted behind me
+through the grounds, and out at the entrance-gate into the main-road
+beyond.
+
+"Golly, dat most mystiferous, nohow!"  I heard him ejaculate after a bit
+as he got nearer up to me.  "I'se spec dat 'guana one big fool let Pomp
+grab him.  Nebber mine!  Me catchee big manacou byme-bye; an' dat heap
+betterer dan nasty fat-face 'guana.  Say, Mass' Tom, um like manacou?"
+
+"I can't tell you, Jake," I replied.  "I have never yet tasted one."
+
+"Den you jest wait an' see.  Dey is splendiferous, Mass' Tom, an' beat
+cock-fightin'.  Golly, I get you one, two, tree, five manacou to-morrer,
+dat ebber so nicer dan dat poor trash ob 'guana dat hangman tief Pomp
+catchee, you jest wait an' see!"
+
+"All right, Jake," I said kindly, to appease his jealous feelings; for,
+he was very fond of me and thought that his rival had eclipsed him in my
+estimation.  "I will come with you to-morrow, if my father doesn't want
+me, and then we'll hunt for manacous up the mountain."
+
+This promise delighted him, and very soon Jake regained his customary
+good-humour, satisfied with having prospectively outshone Pompey; for,
+he presently broke out with one of his happy African laughs, which told
+me as plainly as words the little unpleasantness of the past was now
+dismissed from his thoughts.
+
+As we rode on, at first downwards and then up a steep hillside again,
+the path winding by the edge of a precipice most of the way, we came
+across further traces of the force of the recent storm.  Large trees
+were at one place stretched across the road, their massive trunks having
+been rended by the lightning; while the sudden deluge of rain had
+channelled little streams through the red clay.  These coursed along
+like so many independent rivulets, right under our horses' hoofs,
+rippling onward light-heartedly, until they came to one of the many
+broad ditches or gullies, that intersected our track at intervals, the
+contents of which they swelled to such an extent that we frequently had
+great difficulty in fording them, the water reaching quite up to
+Prince's girths, and the current being so strong as to almost sweep him
+off his legs.
+
+The scenery on either hand was grand.
+
+On the right, plantations of cocoa and nutmeg trees stretched up the
+slopes of hills, which all converged towards a central mountain peak
+that overtopped all the rest by many hundred feet.  This was crowned by
+the extinct crater of a volcano, now filled with water and known as Le
+Grand Etang.  On the left, were valleys and gorges of the richest green,
+with here and there a tall silk-cotton tree or graceful palm elevating
+itself above the other wood-nymphs, the smoke of charcoal burners
+dotting the landscape from amid the thickest part of the forest growth
+of green with curling wreaths of grey.
+
+We soon reached a wide plateau just above Government House, where the
+best view in the whole island was to be obtained, above which towered
+the old battery on Richmond Hill, armed with obsolete and worm-eaten
+thirty-two pounders, once deemed sufficient protection for the Carenage
+or harbour below, which it commanded.  Fort George, another
+fortification equally powerless nowadays either for attack or defence,
+lay on the right; and looking beyond, over a series of terraces of
+villas and gardens, and negro provision grounds, the open sea could be
+seen stretching away to the Boccas of the Gulf of Paria and the Serpent
+Passage which divides the island of Trinidad from the main coast of
+British Guiana.
+
+I could see, on arriving at this point, the English mail steamer coaling
+at the jetty below, with gangs of negroes and negresses busily engaged
+going to and fro along the wharf, carrying baskets of fuel on their
+heads; so, setting spurs to Master Prince, I made him race down the road
+as if a drove of wild bulls were after him, heedless of every obstacle
+in my path and only intent on reaching the quay.
+
+"Top, Mass' Tom, 'top!" shouted out Jake behind me, putting Dandy into a
+heavy trot.  "De road am berry slippy, an' you go one big fall soon!"
+
+But, Jake's caution was all in vain, for the steamer was there, and the
+passengers had probably already landed with my father amongst them, so
+there was every reason for my hastening on quickly.
+
+I did not waste time, I can assure you!
+
+Cantering past groups of coloured people of every hue, from the palest
+copper tint up to the jettiest black, all returning to their huts in the
+hills after disposing of their market produce for the day and each
+giving me the customary patois greeting, "Bon j'u', massa, ken nou'?" as
+I raced by them; past cottage doors and overseers' houses I went on at
+full speed, until I came to a long street that sloped down with a
+gradient like that of one of those sharp-pointed, heavy-gabled roofs of
+Queen Anne's time.
+
+Even this, however, did not arrest my headlong course.
+
+I was much too anxious to get below to the harbour side before the
+coaling of the steamer should be completed and the vessel start off
+again on her intercolonial trip amongst the islands to deliver her mails
+from Europe; and so, deaf to all my darkey attendant's prayers and
+expostulations, I hit poor Prince over the head with my supple jack and
+galloped as if a drove of wild bulls was after me down the dangerous
+incline, which was paved with smooth slippery fixed boulders to make it
+all the more treacherous to a horse's hoofs unless rough-shod.
+
+"Golly, Mass' Tom, you break um neck for suah," I heard the terrified
+Jake call out far away in my rear; but I could not have stopped then
+even had I wished, Prince having too much "way" on him.
+
+"Come on!"  I cried.  "Come on!"
+
+These were the last words I remember uttering, for at that moment, the
+pony, with me clinging to his back with might and main, was tearing down
+the slope at a terrific pace; and then, just as we were passing the
+school-house at the corner of the market-place, some boys who were
+outside suddenly set up a loud yell at something or other.
+
+This frightened Prince so that he shied.
+
+The pony bounded up in the air first like a goat, lifting all his legs
+from the ground at once in true buck-jumper fashion, after which he came
+to a dead halt as if he had been shot; and then, placing his fore-feet
+straight out before him he sent me flying over his head right through
+the window of a little shop opposite with such force that I was picked
+up insensible.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+CONVALESCENT.
+
+The first face I saw when I came to myself was that of my father.  He
+was bending over me and looking very anxious.  I think he had been
+crying.
+
+"Better, Tom?" he said softly, as if afraid of making a noise and
+frightening me back into unconsciousness--everything seeming to be
+strangely still around me!
+
+"Oh, I'm all right," I answered joyfully, much pleased at seeing him.
+"Why, how did you come here?" and I tried to get up from the sofa on
+which I discovered that I Was lying.  But it was only an attempt, for I
+fell back again in a heap, feeling pain all over me.  It seemed just as
+if I had been broken into little pieces and somebody was now separating
+the bits!
+
+"Bress de Lor', him 'peak again!"  I heard Jake ejaculate, and then I
+noticed his black face behind dad's, while there was another gentleman
+there too.  The latter now took hold of my hand and felt my pulse, I
+suppose, although he didn't ask me to put out my tongue, as he generally
+did when he came up to Mount Pleasant specially to prescribe for me!
+
+"Hallo, Doctor Martin!"  I exclaimed, recognising him.  "What's the
+matter with me?  I can't rise, or move my legs, or do anything."
+
+"You confounded young rascal!" he rejoined in his hearty voice, "a nice
+mess you have got yourself into, alarming us all in this way.  What do
+you mean by galloping down Constitution Hill as if you were after a pack
+of foxhounds?  It's a mercy you haven't broken every bone in your body."
+
+"Poor Prince isn't hurt, is he?"  I asked abruptly, without answering
+him directly.
+
+"No, Mass' Tom," eagerly cried out Jake, glad of saying something to me
+in order to show his sympathy; "he berry well, no scrape um knees or
+nuffin', he--"
+
+"There, that will do," said Doctor Martin, interrupting the flow of the
+good-natured darkey's eloquence, "you mustn't agitate Master Tom now;
+he's in a very critical state, and any excitement is bad for him.  You'd
+better go and see after the horses."
+
+"Me no want agg-agg-tate um, Mass' Doctor," pitifully expostulated Jake,
+almost blubbering at the accusation of his possibly wanting to do me
+harm, "I'se only glad to hear him 'peak again, dat all;" and he went out
+of the room quite crest-fallen.
+
+"Oh, doctor!"  I cried, but then, all at once, a sort of sick sensation
+came over me.  Dad and Doctor Martin seemed to be waltzing round me,
+with the furniture and everything else following suit, and I fainted
+away again, I fancy; although I could hear their whispering voices, as
+of people who were far away in the distance.  Then, there was a blank.
+
+When I next opened my eyes, strange to say, I was in my own little bed
+at home, with my mother sitting by my side.
+
+I felt very weak, and one of my arms was tied up in bandages, while my
+other limbs didn't seem to belong to me; but, at first, I had no
+recollection of what had happened.
+
+I could not imagine what was the reason for my being laid up like that;
+and, seeing my mother there, I fancied for the moment that I had
+overslept myself, as was frequently the case, and that she had come to
+call me for breakfast.
+
+"Why, mother," I said, "I'm sorry I'm so late."
+
+"You've been ill, Tom," she replied soothingly, without referring to my
+laziness as I expected; "I'm glad, though, you're recovering at last."
+
+"Hi!"  I exclaimed, much astonished.
+
+"Yes, my dear, very ill," she repeated.
+
+"Dear me! and for how long?"  I asked, in wonder still.
+
+"Well, it is more than three weeks since you were brought here, dear;
+but take this now, Tom," she added, before telling me anything further,
+putting her arm round me and lifting me up in a sitting position, so as
+to be better able to swallow something in a wine-glass which she held to
+my lips.
+
+"Medicine, eh?"  I said, making a wry face.
+
+"Yes, dear, but it doesn't taste badly," she whispered coaxingly.
+"Besides, Tom, if you won't take it the doctor says you are not to be
+allowed to speak, and of course I shall not be able to answer your
+questions."
+
+This settled the point; so I at once tossed off the draught she handed
+me, which, although slightly bitter, was not nearly as nasty as I
+thought it would have been, having a wholesome horror of doctor's
+mixtures.  The draught, at all events, put fresh vigour into me.  It
+certainly gave me strength to speak again as soon as I had gulped it
+down, for I was fidgeting to know what had occurred.
+
+"Now, mother," I said, "tell me all about it.  I can't be quiet till you
+do.  Have I had the fever again, or what?"
+
+I may mention in explanation of this question of mine that, the year
+before, I had been confined to bed with a sharp attack of a sort of
+tertian ague, which is the scourge of most tropical countries.  This was
+the only illness I had ever suffered from in my young life; so, I
+thought now that my old enemy had paid me another visit.
+
+"No, dear, you have not had the fever," she answered.  "Do you forget
+all about going to town to meet your father, and how your pony threw you
+over his head at the foot of Constitution Hill?"
+
+Thereupon the whole thing flashed back upon my mind in an instant.
+
+"But how did I get here?"  I inquired, puzzled at this part of the
+affair.  "I remember now about my tumble, and seeing dad and Doctor
+Martin at some place in Saint George's, with old Jake crying behind
+them, but I don't recollect anything else."
+
+"My boy," said my mother seriously, her lips trembling as she spoke,
+"you've had a very narrow escape from an awful death!  Do you know that
+had you fallen on your head in the street when Prince pitched you over,
+nothing could have saved your life?  As it was, you got your left arm
+broken and face cut, besides which you have been suffering from a slight
+concussion of the brain, Doctor Martin says.  It is the latter which has
+made you insensible for so long a time.  At one time, indeed, we all
+despaired of you!"
+
+"Really!"  I exclaimed, drawing a long breath of dismay at this
+catalogue of my injuries.
+
+"Yes, really, Tom," said she; "it is a wonder to me that you are now
+lying here in your right senses again."
+
+"But how did I get home, mother?"  I asked, pressing my inquiries so as
+to learn every incident of the accident.
+
+"Well, dear, being unconscious, and as moving you could not affect your
+head much, Doctor Martin thought you would recover sooner if removed to
+the fresh country air of Mount Pleasant than if you were allowed to
+remain in the stifling atmosphere of the town.  So you were brought up
+here, borne on the very sofa on which you were placed when they picked
+you up after your fall, four negroes acting as your palanquin bearers."
+
+"Jake was one, I bet!"  I here put in, interrupting her.  "I am sure he
+wouldn't have let anyone else carry me if he could help it."
+
+"Oh, yes, Jake assisted," she said; "and I gave him a fine scolding,
+too, afterwards, for allowing you to ride down that hill at such a pace.
+It was a mercy you were not killed outright!"
+
+"It wasn't his fault, mother," I interposed at this point.  Really, I
+was not going to let poor Jake be blamed for my obstinacy!  "I made
+Prince gallop into the town as hard as I could, in spite of all he could
+say, for I was anxious to get down to the wharf before the passengers
+had landed from the steamer.  I wished to be the first to meet dad."
+
+"And you've found out now, Tom, the truth of the old proverb, `more
+haste, worse speed,' eh, my dear?"
+
+"Yes, mother," I said with a laugh, "I never got there at all.  But, dad
+came all right, for I saw him, you know.  Where is he?"
+
+"He'll be here presently," she replied; "he has been very anxious about
+you, and has sat up every night with you."
+
+"I'm very sorry," I said; but then, feeling about my face and head with
+the solitary hand I was now only able to move, I noticed something
+strange.  "Why, hullo, mother!"  I cried out, "what is the matter with
+the top of my head--where is my hair gone?  All seems so smooth!"
+
+She couldn't help laughing--I suppose it was at my comical look of
+mingled astonishment and perplexity.
+
+"It had to be shaved off when you were delirious, Tom," she said with a
+smile; "you feel funny without it, no doubt, but it will soon grow
+again, my boy."
+
+"Oh dear, oh dear!"  I exclaimed lugubriously; "I suppose I will be bald
+and have to wear a wig, like old Mr Bunting!  My arm, too, mother,
+hurts awfully! and I can't move it at all."
+
+"Never mind, Tom, it might have been worse, you know," she said in her
+quiet soothing way.  "You ought to thank God for sparing your life,
+instead of grumbling at what your own recklessness has produced.
+However, my dear boy, you'll soon pull round and be yourself again if
+you will only keep quiet and obey all the doctor's directions."
+
+"But, mother, it's a terrible task for me to keep quiet," I cried in
+such a serious manner that I made her laugh again.
+
+"No doubt it is," she said, "but you must learn to do it if you wish to
+get well again; and, Tom, I can't help reminding you that your being
+laid up now has greatly interfered with our plans.  Your father wished
+to have sold the estate, and for us all to go home to England.  Indeed,
+but for your accident we would have gone by the last packet."
+
+This was news with a vengeance!  It almost made me jump out of bed,
+crippled as I was, and my mother had to put her hand on my shoulder to
+restrain me.
+
+"What! sell Mount Pleasant?"  I ejaculated.
+
+"Yes," she replied.
+
+"And all of us go home together, instead of my being sent to England
+alone to school?"  I continued.
+
+"That was what your father thought of," said my mother in answer to this
+question of mine; "but your illness has made him alter his mind
+somewhat, as you will learn when you are able to get up and move about.
+You must now, dear, remain quiet, and not excite yourself; otherwise,
+your recovery will be retarded and that will worry your father more."
+
+"All right, mother, I promise to be good," I said resolutely, nestling
+down amongst the pillows which had been comfortably fixed around me, and
+trying to be as still as a mouse.  "I will do all that you and the
+doctor tells me, if you'll only make me well again."
+
+"That's my brave boy," she murmured softly, smoothing my poor hairless
+head with her gentle hand in such a caressing way that it made me feel
+drowsy, and in another minute I had dropped off into a sound sleep.  I
+did not wake again until some hours afterwards, when I was so refreshed
+and hungry that I was able to demolish a large basin of jelly-like
+chicken broth with some thin toast, which did me much good.
+
+From that time I gradually got better; but my recovery was very slow, on
+account of the thorough shaking I had received from my fall, and it was
+quite another fortnight before I was able to be moved downstairs and
+allowed to sit in the verandah, where the fresh breezes from the sea and
+the scent of the flowers on the terrace completed my cure.
+
+For some days even after this, however, I had to keep perfectly quiet,
+in accordance with the orders of Doctor Martin, who feared that I had
+sustained some injury to my spine in addition to my other contusions.
+This suspicion of his turned out, fortunately for me, to be groundless;
+but the rest he enjoined was very much out of keeping with my buoyant
+and excitable nature, which was fidgety in the extreme.
+
+Still, this period of convalescence was by no means irksome to me on the
+whole, for I had plenty wherewith to occupy my attention and my sisters
+for companions, little Totty, the youngest, never being so happy as when
+with me.
+
+In order the better to amuse me, and make me remain in a recumbent
+position, dad rigged up an Indian grass hammock for me beneath the shade
+of one of the large silk-cotton trees by the side of the house; and here
+I used to swing at my ease for hour after hour, looking at the bright-
+coloured humming-birds flitting about and watching the busy "Jack-
+Spaniards," as the wild bees or hornets of the tropics are locally
+styled, building their clay nests under the eaves of the verandah, just
+in the same way as the sand-martens make their habitations at home.
+
+I also read a great deal, for a kind neighbour luckily lent me at this
+time a couple of odd volumes of Captain Marryat's works, so that I had
+now the pleasure of gloating over the wonderful history of Mr
+Midshipman Easy, besides enjoying the strange episodes of Peter Simple's
+eventful career.  Both of these books were previously unknown to my
+boyish ken, and I need hardly say how entrancing I found them.  Even
+now, after the lapse of so many years, I cannot hear the titles of
+either mentioned, without my memory taking me back in a moment to the
+garden of my old island home in the West Indies--the very perfume of the
+frangipanni and jessamine being almost perceptible to my vivid
+imagination, while my fancy pictures the scene around, and my listening
+ear catches the faint rustle of the wind through the tops of the cabbage
+palms!
+
+Once, I recollect, when lazily rocking to and fro in my hammock, I saw a
+large armadillo crawl out from amidst the brushwood under the trees, he
+having probably come down from his cave somewhere up in the mountains
+for change of air.  This animal is something like a tortoise, only ever
+so much bigger; and as the negroes esteem them very good eating, saying
+they are better than turtle, I at once gave Jake a hail to let him know
+of the arrival of the strange visitor, when my darkey hastened speedily
+to the spot, securing the armadillo without much difficulty.  Jake was
+all the more delighted with his prize from the fact that my accident had
+prevented me from going manacou hunting with him as I had promised.  He
+argued that the armadillo would serve as a set-off to Pompey's iguana,
+which had been constantly "thrown in his teeth," as it were, ever since
+his rival had killed it in my presence, the one capture neutralising the
+other.
+
+It may be wondered that I introduce all these little details of my
+illness and subsequent recovery, but, "there's a reason in everything,
+even in the roasting of eggs," says the proverb; and, when it is
+considered that, had it not been for my accident, dad and mother with my
+sisters and myself would all have gone to England in the mail steamer
+together, instead of my essaying the voyage alone in a sailing ship,
+these incidents are naturally relevant, quite apart from the strong
+impression they made upon me at the time, as but for what occurred I
+should have nothing of any importance to tell with reference to my
+subsequent adventures when alone on the Atlantic.
+
+However, to make a long story short, I may briefly state that, after a
+pretty long interval of lying still, Doctor Martin said one day that I
+might get up and move about; when the change from inaction to action had
+such an improving effect on me that, within a very short space, I was
+myself again--although, perhaps, a much paler and thinner sort of Tom
+Eastman than "the young rascal," as the doctor persisted in naming me,
+"who tried to break his neck by galloping down Constitution Hill, but
+couldn't because it was so tough!"
+
+All this while, dad had said nothing to me either about selling the
+estate or of my going home to school; but one morning when I was able
+again to mount on the back of poor Prince, who had grown quite fat
+during his long stay in the stable, he told me that I might accompany
+him, if I liked, to Grenville Bay, on the other side of the island.  Dad
+said that there was a large merchant vessel lying off there, loading
+sugar from one of the plantations, and he wished to consult the captain
+about sending home some bags of cocoa in her.  He added, that we would
+probably have to go off to her in a boat.
+
+This was about a week after the doctor had released me from my hammock-
+prison; so, as I had not as yet had a canter on Prince since my unlucky
+escapade, it may be imagined with what delight I prepared for the
+excursion, as, independently of the pleasure of a long country ride with
+dad, who was one of the jolliest companions anybody could be out with, I
+had never been on board a real ship before.  I had frequently observed
+vessels at a distance from the shore, when anchored in the Carenage, as
+the harbour of Saint George is called, or else sailing round the coast
+inwards or outwards bound, but had never inspected one closely.
+
+"Golly, Mass' Tom, dis sight am good for sore eyes!" cried Jake,
+laughing from ear to ear with joy at seeing me well again.  "Me nebber
+fought you ebber lift leg ober Prince again!"
+
+"Oh, I'm all right," I said gleefully, jumping into the saddle in my old
+style, the pony going off instanter at a canter in his customary way.
+
+"Take care, Tom, take care!" cried my mother after me anxiously; so, to
+ease her alarm at my venturing too much for one who had so recently been
+an invalid, I reined in Prince, and as soon as dad had mounted Dandy, we
+started away at a steady jog-trot, Jake following up close behind the
+heels of the horses, with which he could at any time keep pace when put
+to it, even when we went at a gallop.
+
+Dear me!  I shall never forget that ride.
+
+Part of our way was past a wide stretching extent of primeval forest
+that clothed the mountain-side with green.  Here were wonderful
+specimens of trees, some of which would rival the oaks of England--aye,
+even those in Windsor great park!  There was the sandbox, whose seeds
+are contained in an oval pod about the size of a penny roll; which when
+dry bursts like a shell, scattering its missiles about in every
+direction; the iron-wood tree, which turns the edge of any axe, and can
+only be brought low by fire; the caoutchouc-tree with its broad leaves
+and milk-white sap, the original source from which all our waterproof
+garments are made.  Besides these were a host of others, such as the
+avocado pear, soursop, sapodilla, and sapota, all of which, in addition
+to their size and grand appearance, bear excellent fruit.  But it would
+have puzzled anyone to explore this almost impenetrable forest growth
+without the aid of a cutlass to clear the path; for, tall vines, like
+ship's cordage, hung from the limbs of the trees and knitted their
+branches together in the most inextricable fashion, the lianas rooting
+themselves down into the earth and then springing up again for fresh
+entanglements, in the same way as the banyan-tree of India spreads
+itself.
+
+This was the outlook from one side only of our route.  On the other were
+to be seen patches of sugar-cane, planted with almost mathematical
+regularity and looking like so many fields of some gigantic species of
+wheat; green plantations of cocoa, with their ripe yellow fruit showing
+out between the leaves, similar to that of ours at Mount Pleasant; and
+several detached gardens, where the negro squatters were cultivating
+their yams and tanias, or else preparing their farina for cassava from
+the root of the manioc plant.  The process consisted in first squeezing
+out, by means of an old sack and a heavy stone for a press, the viscid
+juice, which is a strong poison--the same, indeed, with which the Caribs
+used to tip their arrows in the old days of the aborigines--and then
+baking the flour on a griddle over a charcoal fire.
+
+Passing through this varied scenery on either hand, our road led
+presently downwards through a series of valleys, clothed with vegetation
+and smiling in flowers.  We crossed now and again some little stream
+rippling along over its pebbly bed, wherein were crawfish and tiny
+things like whitebait playing amongst the water-cresses that grew over
+the banks; until, at last, we reached a wide horse-shoe bay facing the
+wide blue sea, that stretched out to the distant horizon, laving its
+silver sand with happy little waves that seemed to chuckle with a murmur
+of pleasure as they washed the shore in rhythmical cadence.
+
+There was but a single vessel here, and she was riding at anchor out in
+the offing some two miles from land, looking quite lonesome by herself
+in the distance.
+
+She was a barque of some four or five hundred tons, with a broad, bluff-
+bowed hull that rose well out of the water on account of her not having
+completed loading her cargo.  There was a long row of white ports along
+her side; and, as she rolled with the motion of the ground-swell, now
+setting inshore with the wind, she showed her bright copper sheathing
+almost to her keel.
+
+"Is that the ship, dad?"  I asked my father, gazing at her with longing
+eyes and wondering how we were to reach her.
+
+"Yes, Tom, that's the vessel I told you of, and we must now see about
+getting aboard if we can," said he, preparing to dismount from his
+horse, whose bridle Jake had already taken hold of.
+
+"And what's her name, dad?"  I then inquired, jumping down from Prince's
+back as I spoke and giving the reins also in charge of our darkey groom.
+
+"The _Josephine_ of London," he replied in regular ship-shape fashion;
+"Captain Miles, master and part owner."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+THE "JOSEPHINE."
+
+"What!"  I exclaimed joyfully; "Captain Miles!  That jolly old fellow
+who came out to Mount Pleasant last year and showed me how to make a
+kite?"
+
+"The same," replied dad.  "But remember, Tom, he's not much over my age;
+and I do not by any means call myself an old man yet!  Besides, he and I
+are friends of long standing, and you should not speak of him so
+disrespectfully."
+
+"Oh, dad, I didn't mean that, and I beg his pardon, I'm sure," I
+interposed hastily at this.  "What I wished to express was, that I
+thought him so nice and pleasant, that I was very glad to have the
+chance of seeing him again!"
+
+"My dear boy, I know what you meant," said dad kindly, with his usual
+bright smile, the sight of which eased my mind in a minute.  "However,
+Tom," he added quizzingly, "we must now see about getting out to the old
+fellow."
+
+But this was sooner said than done.
+
+There was the ship, it was true, and there were we on the shore looking
+at her; but, there between us stretched an expanse of nearly two miles
+of blue water, which we certainly could not cross by swimming, although
+dad was a pretty good hand at that, and had made me, too, a fair adept
+in the art for my years.
+
+How to reach the vessel, therefore, was the question.
+
+Dad tried waving his handkerchief to attract the attention of those on
+board; but the crew of the _Josephine_ appeared to be all asleep, for
+nobody took any notice of the signal.  Foiled in this hope, dad turned
+round to me again with a puzzled expression on his face, as if wondering
+what he should do next, though of course I could not suggest anything.
+
+Just then Jake, who had been looking at my father very attentively all
+this while, as if "taking stock" of his movements, so to speak, suddenly
+burst into one of his huge guffaws.
+
+"Yah, yah, massa, golly you no see for suah!" he cried out in an ecstasy
+of enjoyment at what he considered a rare joke.  "You am look de wrong
+way.  Look dere, look dere!"
+
+"Look where?" asked dad, not quite making out what particular direction
+Jake especially wished to draw his attention to, for the darkey was
+whirling one of his arms round him like a windmill to each point of the
+compass in turn; and, but that he had the bridles of the horses slung
+over his other arm, he would probably have gesticulated as frantically
+also with that.
+
+"Dere, dere--t'oder way, massa," repeated Jake, nodding his woolly head
+as he laughed and showed his teeth, this time indicating the extreme
+left of the bay, to which our backs had been turned; but where, on our
+now looking, we noticed a little jetty running out into the sea, with a
+boat putting off from it towards the ship.
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated dad; "what a stupid I am, to be sure!"
+
+Dad's exclamation made Jake break out afresh into a loud cachinnation.
+
+"Golly, dis chile can't 'tand dat," he shouted.  "Massa um 'tupid, massa
+um 'tupid, yah, yah!" and he almost doubled himself in two with
+merriment, his hearty laughter being so contagious that both dad and I
+could not help joining in.  So there were we all chuckling away at a
+fine rate at the idea of our not noticing either the jetty or the boat
+before.  We had been so blindly anxious to reach the _Josephine_ that we
+had looked in every direction but the right one for the means of getting
+on board her!
+
+After a bit, dad was the first to recover his composure.
+
+"Well, Tom," said he, "the best thing we can do now will be to ride
+round the bay to the point where that boat has started out from.  I
+think I can see another craft of some sort lying alongside the jetty;
+and, I daresay, we'll be able to get out to the vessel if we go there."
+
+As he spoke he mounted Dandy again, while I jumped up nimbly on Prince's
+back; and, in another moment we were cantering along the sandy beach
+towards the point in question, with Jake running behind holding on to
+Dandy's tail, and still laughing to himself in high glee.
+
+On approaching the jetty, it looked much bigger than it had appeared to
+be in the distance.  It was a long wooden pier, indeed, that projected
+some hundred yards or so into the sea, and it had a crane at the end for
+hoisting and lowering the heavy hogs-heads of sugar.  Dozens of these
+were ranged along its length awaiting shipment, and a gang of negroes
+were busily engaged under a white overseer in stowing some of them into
+the launch of the _Josephine_, which was moored right under the crane.
+The name of the vessel was painted in white letters on the stern of the
+boat, which was turned towards us as we rode up so that we could easily
+see it.
+
+On dad's telling the overseer what he wanted, we learnt that Captain
+Miles was on board his vessel, and that the launch would be going out to
+her as soon as she was loaded; so we had nothing to do now but to wait
+until she had taken in as many casks of sugar as she could carry.
+
+To me, this delay was not very tedious; for, as the overseer made the
+negroes "hurry up" with their task, I was much amused with the brisk way
+in which they trundled the huge hogs-heads along, running them up to the
+pier-head, slinging them to the chains of the crane, and then lowering
+them down into the launch.  There was much creaking of cog-wheels and
+cheerful, "Yo-heave-hoing!" from the men in the boat below, as they
+stowed them away in the bottom of the craft as easily as if they were
+only so many tiny little kegs, the darkeys joining in the sailors'
+chorus with much good-humour.
+
+Bye and bye the job was finished, when, room having been reserved for
+dad and myself in the stern-sheets, the seaman in charge of the boat
+told us to jump in.
+
+Then, some of the negro gang coming on board also to help man the long
+oars, which, like sweeps, were ranged double-banked along the sides of
+the launch, she was pulled away slowly from the jetty out towards the
+_Josephine_ in the offing, Jake, who had been left ashore to mind the
+horses, casting longing looks of regret after us.  He, too, would have
+dearly liked to have gone off to the ship.
+
+It was heavy work, even with the aid of the sweeps, rowing such a
+distance under the broiling mid-day sun, for there was no breeze to aid
+the boat's progress through the water, and the heavy ground-swell that
+was rolling in to the land of course greatly retarded the rowers.  Every
+moment the launch plunged almost bows under into the hollow of the sea,
+then rising again suddenly as the waves passed under her keel, her stern
+sinking down level with the surface at the same time and her prow being
+high in the air.  I thought it somewhat dangerous at first, but dad and
+the other men took it so coolly that I was soon reassured and quite
+enjoyed the motion.
+
+It seemed ever so much nicer than swinging to me; for the up and down
+movement was as regular as clockwork, in rhythmical harmony with the
+undulations of the unbroken billows that swept in, one after another, in
+measured succession from seaward--pursuing their onward course until
+they broke on the curving shore of the bay, inside of us, with a dull
+low roar, like that of some caged wild animal kept under restraint and
+unable to exert its full strength.
+
+After an hour's hard pulling, the boat got alongside the ship at last,
+but the vessel floated so high out of the water that I could not help
+wondering how we should ever be able to climb on board; for the square
+portholes, which were the only openings in her massive wall-like sides
+that I could see, were far above the level of the launch, even when the
+swelling surge lifted us up every now and then on the top of a heaving
+roller.
+
+Dad, however, quickly solved the difficulty.  At once catching hold of a
+couple of side lines which hung down from above, he swung himself
+dexterously on to a projecting piece of wood, like the bottom rung of a
+ladder, fixed to the hull of the vessel, and stepping from this to
+another cleat above he went up the side as easily as if he were
+ascending an ordinary staircase, soon gaining the deck overhead and
+disappearing from my view.
+
+"My eye!" ejaculated the sailor beside me in the boat, surprised at
+dad's familiarity with such a nautical procedure.  "I am blessed if that
+there gentleman ain't an old hand at it."
+
+"You're right, my man," said I proudly, "my father was an officer in the
+navy once."
+
+"Guessed so," replied the sailor laconically.  "I've been an old man-o'-
+war's man myself and thought I knew the cut of his jib!"
+
+I could not imitate dad's example, though, for all that; so, they had to
+hoist me in like a cask of sugar, as I was not able to get up the side.
+I confess I was mightily pleased to find myself landed, presently, safe
+and sound on the poop of the _Josephine_ by the side of dad and Captain
+Miles, both of whom seemed much amused at my rather ignominious entry on
+board the vessel.  Really, I must have looked very funny with my legs
+dangling in the air when run up at the end of the derrick!
+
+"Well, youngster, how did you like being strung up at the yard-arm?"
+said Captain Miles, who had still a broad grin on his face.  "Not many
+fellows have been bowsed up in that fashion and cut down so speedily!"
+
+"No," observed dad.  "I'm glad, though, that mode of execution to which
+you refer is now altogether abolished in the service; but I'm afraid,
+captain, Tom does not understand your allusion."
+
+"Oh, yes, I do, dad," said I, fresh from the pages of Mr Midshipman
+Easy, and knowing all about the summary system of punishment in vogue in
+the old days on board ship.  "Captain Miles meant hanging."
+
+"So I did, youngster," replied that worthy cheerily; "but you seem none
+the worse for your experience of the operation."
+
+"I didn't like it, however, captain," said I, a little bit put on my
+dignity by being laughed at.  "The next time I come on board I intend to
+mount up the side-ladder the same as dad did."
+
+"That's right, my lad, so you shall," rejoined the jolly old fellow.
+"But, come below now both of you and have some luncheon.  It has gone
+eight bells, and as I feel a trifle peckish, I daresay you're pretty
+much the same."
+
+While saying this Captain Miles descended the poop-ladder, and,
+beckoning dad and I to follow him, ushered us into the cabin below,
+where we found a very appetising meal laid out.  It seemed just as if we
+had been expected and that preparations had been made for our
+entertainment.
+
+Dad passed a remark about this, but the captain laughed it off.
+
+"Oh, it's nothing," he said.  "Harry, my steward, thought he would make
+a spread, I suppose, because I told him I felt hungry just now.  It is
+only our ordinary fare, though; for, when we're in harbour like this now
+and have the chance of getting fresh grub, we always keep a good table.
+At sea, after a spell, we've got to rough it on salt junk frequently."
+
+"Not like what we poor fellows had to put up with in the service,"
+observed dad, shrugging his shoulders with a grimace.
+
+"Ah, we in the mercantile marine know how to enjoy ourselves," said
+Captain Miles with a satisfactory chuckle.  "You naval chaps are
+something like what the niggers say of white folks that have come down
+in the world out here, and try to keep up appearances without means.
+You have `poor greatness, with dry rations,' hey?"
+
+"That's true enough," replied dad; and then we all set to work with our
+knives and forks, demolishing, in less than no time, a grilled fowl and
+some delicious fried flying-fish, with the accompaniment of roast
+buttered yams and fresh plantains.
+
+I don't know when I ever had such a jolly tuck out.  The long ride after
+my forced quietness at home, and the sea air, combined with my novel
+surroundings--I was so overjoyed at being on board a ship, and having a
+meal in a real cabin, the very height of my ambition and what I had
+often longed for--gave me a tremendous appetite.  It was the first
+really hearty meal I had eaten since my illness.
+
+"Well, Eastman," said Captain Miles presently to dad, "I suppose you've
+come about the youngster.  Do you want me to take him home with me this
+voyage, eh?"
+
+Of course I pricked up my ears on hearing this question; but dad did not
+satisfy my curiosity, although he noticed that I almost jumped up in my
+seat and was all attention.
+
+"No," replied he, evading the subject, "I wanted to see you about
+shipping some cocoa.  I've got a good lot ready, and you may as well
+take it as anybody else."
+
+"Oh, I see," rejoined the captain, winking in a confidential way at dad,
+as if they had some secret between them.  "We can talk over the bills of
+lading and so on, while the youngster has a run round to see what a ship
+is like, eh?"
+
+"Yes," said dad; and turning to me he added, "You would like to go over
+the _Josephine_, would you not, Tom, now you are on board her?"
+
+"Rather!"  I replied, delighted at the idea, but still wondering what
+the captain had meant about "taking me home."
+
+There was evidently something on the tapis.
+
+"All right, my hearty, so you shall," said Captain Miles.  "The
+boatswain will take you round and show you the ropes, while your father
+and I have a chat about business matters."
+
+He then called Harry the steward, and directed him to give me in charge
+of Moggridge the boatswain, with instructions to show me everything that
+was to be seen alow and aloft in the vessel; whereupon the two of us
+went out of the cabin together, leaving the captain and dad to have an
+uninterrupted chat over their cigars.
+
+Moggridge turned out to be the very sailor who had been in charge of the
+launch which had brought us off to the ship; so, from the fact of his
+knowing that dad had formerly been in the navy, and that I wished to
+enter the same glorious service, we were soon on the most confidential
+terms, the good-natured fellow going out of his way to make me
+thoroughly acquainted with all the details of the _Josephine_.  He first
+took me down to the hold, where I saw the hogs-heads of sugar being
+stowed, the casks being packed as tightly as sardines in a tin box.  We
+then went through the ship fore and aft between the decks, from the
+forecastle to the steward's pantry.  After this the boatswain completed
+his tour of instruction by showing me how to climb the rigging into the
+main-top, telling me the names and uses of all the ropes and spars; so
+that, by the time he had ended, my head was in a state of bewildered
+confusion, with shrouds and sheets, halliards and stays, stun'-sail
+yards and cat-heads, bowsprits, and spanker booms, all so mixed up
+together that it would have puzzled me to discriminate between any of
+them and say off-hand which was which!
+
+However, the boatswain and I parted very good friends when he took me
+back to the cabin on the termination of our inspection of the ship--he
+promising to teach me how to make a reef-knot and a running-bowline the
+next time I came on board, and I shaking hands with him as a right good
+fellow whom I would only be too glad to meet again under any
+circumstances.
+
+Dad and I stopped with Captain Miles until late in the afternoon; when,
+the glare of the sun having gone off, we were rowed ashore in the
+captain's gig.  My friend Moggridge took charge of us, and a crew of
+hardy sailors made the boat spin ashore at a very different rate of
+speed to that which the heavy old launch displayed on our trip out to
+the vessel with the sugar hogs-heads.
+
+Jake met us at the jetty with the horses, which he had put up in the
+stables of the adjoining plantation during our absence; and as we rode
+along the shore of the bay homeward, the sun was just setting, while a
+nice cool wind came down from the mountains, making it much nicer than
+it had been in the earlier part of the day.  Skirting the bay, we could
+see the _Josephine_ in the distance gradually being shut in by a halo of
+haze, a thick mist generally rising up from the sea at nightfall in the
+tropics through the evaporation of the water or the difference of
+temperature between it and the atmospheric air.
+
+If our ride out to Grenville Bay had been jolly in the morning, our
+journey back was simply splendid.
+
+Almost as soon as the solar orb sank down below the horizon, which it
+did just before we turned away from the shore, the masts and spars of
+the _Josephine_, and each rope of her rigging, were all lit up by the
+sinking rays of light, their last despairing flash before their
+extinguishment in the ocean.  At the same time, the hull of the vessel
+and every projecting point in the coast-line of the bay stood out in
+relief against the bright emerald-green tint of the sea.  A moment
+afterwards, the darkness of night descended suddenly upon us like a vast
+curtain let down from heaven.
+
+But it was not dark long.
+
+As we passed our way up the climbing mountain path that led back to
+Mount Pleasant, our road--bordered on the one side by the dense
+vegetation of the forest, which seemed as black as ink now, and hedged
+in on the other by a precipice--was made clear by the light of the
+stars.  These absolutely came out _en masse_ almost as we looked upwards
+at them.  I noticed, too, that the sky seemed to be of some gauzy
+transparent material like ethereal azure, and did not exhibit that solid
+appearance it has in England of a ceiling with gold nails stuck in it
+here and there at random; for, the "lesser orbs of night" in the tropics
+look as if they were floating in a sea of vapour.  They appear a regular
+galaxy of beauty and splendour, and so many glorious evidences of the
+great Creator's handiwork.
+
+Every now and then, also, the air around us was illuminated with sparks
+of green-coloured flame, while the woods seemed on fire from a thousand
+little jets that burst out every second from some new direction,
+lighting up the sombre gloom beneath the shade of the forest trees.
+
+One could almost imagine that there was a crowd of fairies going before
+us, each carrying a torch which he waved about, now above his head, and
+then around lower down, finally dashing it to the ground with those of
+his comrades, as is the custom at the torchlight processions of the
+students in Germany on some festal night.  As dad and I trotted along
+towards home, the sparks of flame appeared now rising, now falling,
+vanishing here, reappearing there, finally converging into a globe, or
+"set piece," as at a pyrotechnic display, and then dispersing in
+spangles of coruscation like a fizzed-out firework.
+
+This beautiful effect, one of the wonders of a night in the West Indies,
+was caused by the fireflies.  Of these insects there are two distinct
+species, one really a small fly which seems to be perpetually on the
+wing, flitting in and out in the air always, and never at rest; while
+the other is a species of beetle that is only seen in woody regions,
+where it takes up a more stationary position, like the glowworm over
+here.  This latter has two large eyes at the back of its head, instead
+of in front in their more natural place; and these eyes, when the insect
+is touched, shoot forth two strong streams of greenish light, something
+like that produced by an electric dynamo, while, at the same time, the
+entire body of the "firefly," or beetle, becomes as incandescent as a
+live coal.
+
+The light which even one of these little creatures will give out is so
+great that I have often seen dad, just for the sake of the experiment,
+read a bit out of a newspaper on a dark evening with a firefly stuck in
+a wine-glass for a candle!
+
+For some time we jogged along silently; but just when we were nearing
+Mount Pleasant I could not help asking dad what Captain Miles had meant
+by that question he had asked him about taking me for a voyage.
+
+I had been dying to know what the remark referred to ever since I had
+overheard it, but waited, thinking that dad would tell me of his own
+accord; so now, as he didn't speak, I had to brave the ordeal of the
+inquiry.
+
+"He wanted to take you home to England to school, Tom," replied dad
+briefly in an absent sort of way, as if his thoughts were amongst the
+fireflies.
+
+"Really?" said I hesitatingly--"and--"
+
+"And, I have not quite made up my mind in the matter yet, Tom.  Besides
+which, there's your mother to be consulted," interposed dad, answering
+my second question before I could put it.
+
+"And if mother does not mind, you will let me go, then, in the
+_Josephine_ with Captain Miles, eh, dad?"  I asked anxiously.
+
+"I didn't say so, did I?" said dad quizzingly.
+
+"But you meant it, dad, you meant it, I know," cried I exultantly.
+"Hurrah, I am so glad!  I am so glad!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+GOOD-BYE TO GRENADA!
+
+"Are you really so glad to leave us all?" said dad somewhat
+reproachfully, as I could judge from his tone of voice; for, although
+the stars and fireflies illumined the landscape sufficiently for us to
+see our way, the light was too dim for me to observe the expression of
+his face.
+
+"Oh no, dad, not that," I cried out almost with a sob at such an
+insinuation.  "You know, you said I was to go to England this year to
+school; and, if I must, why I would rather sail in Captain Miles' vessel
+than any other."
+
+"All right, Tom, I did not think you quite so heartless as your
+exclamation implied," replied dad, still speaking in a sad tone; "but
+it's only the way of the world, my boy.  Young birds are always anxious
+to leave the parent nest, and you are no exception, I suppose, to the
+rule."
+
+I did not make any answer to this.  I could not speak, for my heart was
+too full.
+
+Presently we arrived at the entrance to Mount Pleasant, when Jake rushed
+forward and opened the gate leading into the grounds, and we proceeded
+up the carriage drive towards the house in silence, the moon, which was
+just rising over the tops of the mountains beyond, lighting up the
+garden on the terrace in front and making it look like a dream of
+fairyland.  The flowers and foliage shone out in relief as if tipped
+with silver against the dark background of the house; while the cool
+evening breeze was scented with the fragrance of the frangipanni and
+jessamine, now smelling more strongly than in the daytime, in addition
+to which I could distinguish the lusciously sweet perfume of the night-
+blooming cereus, a plant that only unfolds its luscious petals after
+sunset.
+
+The whole scene lives in my memory now!
+
+"Say, Mass' Tom," whispered Jake to me as he took hold of Prince's
+bridle on my dismounting to lead him away to the stables along with
+Dandy.  "I'se heard what you 'peak jus' now to Mass' Eastman.  Um railly
+goin' leabe de plantashun for true, hey?"
+
+"Yes," said I.  "I am to go to England in the _Josephine_, that big ship
+we saw to-day, if my mother consents."
+
+"Den, I go too!" replied Jake impressively.
+
+"Nonsense!" cried I, laughing at this determination of his.  "Captain
+Miles won't take you."
+
+"Won't him, dough--me 'peak to him byme-by, an' you see den!"
+
+"You can speak if you like," I replied in an off-hand way as he went
+away with the horses; while I ascended the terrace steps and proceeded
+into the house to hear what mother had to say on the subject of my going
+away.
+
+I found, however, when I got in, that dad had already told the news; and
+it came out presently that the matter had really all been arranged
+beforehand.
+
+My father, I heard now, had received an offer to sell his plantation, as
+my mother told me, but my illness had prevented him from closing with
+it; and so the opportunity had slipped.  Consequently, as he would still
+have to remain at Mount Pleasant for possibly an indefinite time, he had
+made up his mind to adhere to his original plan and send me home to
+school without further delay.  He and my mother had settled to arrange a
+passage for me with their old friend Captain Miles even before we
+started on our ride to Grenville Bay, dad and the captain having seen
+each other in the town and spoken about the matter previously, fixing
+the very day of our visit, as the substantial luncheon we had on board
+showed.
+
+Now, therefore, that my inclinations chimed in with dad's views and
+arrangements, the thing was finally settled; and it may be imagined what
+a state of mind my mother and sisters were in about my going.  They
+hugged and kissed me as if I were going to start that very minute!
+
+Dad said that the _Josephine_ would complete loading her cargo at
+Grenville Bay in about a week or ten days.  She would then call round at
+Saint George's for orders, and I should have to go on board at a
+moment's notice, as she might sail almost immediately.
+
+The next few days were all hurry and bustle, everybody being busy in
+preparing my traps--my mother and sisters seeing to my outfit, and the
+negro servants, with all of whom I was a great favourite, contributing
+all sorts of little presents, some of the most unwieldy and useless
+character, which they thought would either add to my comfort during the
+voyage or were absolutely necessary for "de young massa agwine to
+England!"
+
+But, at last, all my belongings, useful and useless alike, were packed
+up; and one fine morning in August--I remember well, it was the day
+after my birthday--a regular procession set out from Mount Pleasant,
+consisting of my mother and dad and my sisters, not omitting myself, the
+hero of the occasion.
+
+We were all mounted on horseback; for no wheeled vehicle could overcome
+the engineering difficulties of the mountain road, rugged as it was and
+intersected by wild gullies and little brawling streamlets at intervals,
+the latter sometimes only bridged by a narrow plank, as I have mentioned
+before.
+
+To a stranger, our cavalcade would have presented quite an imposing
+appearance, as behind the mounted portion of the procession came a
+string of negroes, headed by old Pompey, carrying the three large trunks
+and odd boxes containing my paraphernalia, those whose services were not
+absolutely required to carry anything volunteering to go with the rest
+in order to see me off.
+
+I had been so excited all along with the idea of going to school, which
+I was looking forward to as something awfully jolly from the description
+I had read about other boys' doings in books--for I was utterly ignorant
+of what English life really was--that up to now I had scarcely given a
+thought to anything else, never realising the terrible severance of all
+the dear home ties which my departure would bring about.
+
+But, when I mounted Prince for the last time, as I suddenly recollected
+all at once, and gazed round at my old home, which I was probably about
+to bid good-bye to for ever, my feelings overcame me.  At that moment I
+would gladly have stopped behind, sacrificing even the pleasure I
+anticipated from my voyage in the _Josephine_, and all that the future
+might have in store for me, rather than desert so summarily the scenes
+of my childhood and all the loved members of the home circle.
+
+Dad noticed my emotion and he recalled me to myself.
+
+"Come on, Tom," he said kindly but firmly, "you must be a man now, my
+boy!  Be brave; for if your poor mother sees you crying she will break
+down utterly, and I'm sure you would not like that."
+
+This speech of his made me stifle my sobs; and, although I couldn't get
+out any words to answer him, I swallowed something hard that was
+sticking in my throat.  Then, putting Prince in a canter, I rode up to
+the side of my mother, who was in front with Baby Tot.
+
+By that time I had regained my composure and was able to talk and make
+fun with my little sister, who, not knowing, of course, the purport of
+our expedition, thought it was a party of pleasure got up especially for
+her gratification.  She was in a state of supreme delight, crowing and
+chuckling away in the greatest possible glee, every now and then putting
+up her little rosebud of a mouth to be kissed by mother and me.
+
+Jake, I observed, looked very serious as he ran along by the side of
+Prince, resting one of his hands on my pony's flanks, as was his habit
+when he accompanied me out riding.  The other negroes, who were carrying
+my luggage down to town on their heads, in their customary fashion of
+bearing all burdens whether light or heavy, were laughing and jabbering
+together like a parcel of black crows; but he never spoke a word either
+to his dark-complexioned brethren or to me, exhibiting such a striking
+contrast to his ordinary demeanour that even dad noticed it and asked
+him the reason, wondering what was the matter with him.
+
+"Me not berry well, massa," however, was all the answer he could get out
+of Jake; but the faithful fellow looked at me so wistfully whenever I
+caught his eye that I recalled what he had said about wishing to go in
+the ship with me, on the night when we returned from Grenville Bay.
+
+He had not alluded to the subject since, though, so I really thought he
+had forgotten it; and now, as he did not appear inclined to talk, I
+believed it best to let him alone, not wishing to hurt his feelings by
+dwelling on the impossible.
+
+I could see that he was much put out about something; so I came to the
+conclusion that his change of manner, so unlike his usual light-hearted
+merry self, was due to his grief at parting with me, he having been my
+constant companion ever since I had been able to toddle about, when my
+father first settled down on the plantation, at which time I was only a
+little five-year-old boy and he a darkey stripling.
+
+There was no racing down the road now at breakneck speed, like that time
+when in my hurry to meet dad I had come to grief some two months
+previously.  Our cavalcade went on at a sober respectable pace, reaching
+the town in about an hour and a half from our start.
+
+As we were passing by the bend in the road, opposite Government House,
+whence there was such a good view of the harbour below, Jake spoke to me
+for the first time during the journey.
+
+"Dar am de ship, Mass' Tom!" he said, pointing out the _Josephine_ lying
+out in the anchorage under Fort Saint George.
+
+She was looking much smarter and trimmer, I thought, than when I had
+first cast eyes on her in Grenville Bay; for her sails were partly
+loosed, making her have the appearance of an ocean bird ready to be on
+the wing.  I noticed, too, that she floated lower in the water, having
+evidently taken in a lot more cargo since I had been on board.
+
+When we reached the lower part of the town by the harbour side, after
+descending the perilously steep Constitution Hill, dad escorted us all
+to a famed establishment close by, known as "Jenny Gussett's Hotel," and
+kept by a gigantic coloured woman nearly seven feet high, where all the
+passengers by the mail steamers who had no friends in the island, used
+invariably to put up.  Here, after ordering an early dinner, dad took me
+out with him to call on a shipping agent at whose place of business he
+had agreed to meet Captain Miles, leaving my mother and sisters with
+their crowd of darky attendants at the hotel until we should come back.
+
+The captain was punctual to his appointment like most sailors.
+
+"Ha, Eastman," he said when dad and I entered the agent's store, "you're
+just in the nick of time.  I was only speaking of you a minute ago to
+our friend here.  Got the youngster I see."
+
+"Yes, here he is," replied dad.
+
+"That's all right then," said Captain Miles.  "How are you, Master Tom--
+glad to go to sea, eh?"
+
+"Well--" I stammered hesitatingly, not liking to tell an untruth.
+
+"Oh, I know," said he interrupting me.  "Sorry to leave mother and the
+girls, I suppose?  Never mind, my boy, these partings must come some
+time or other, and the sooner they are over the better.  I shall start,
+Eastman," he added, turning to dad, "late in the afternoon, as soon as
+the wind sets off the land; so, you'd better send the boy aboard when
+the sun begins to sink.  My boat is now waiting at the end of the wharf
+to take his traps."
+
+"Thanks, Miles," replied my father; "but, won't you come round with us
+to Jenny Gussett's Hotel and have some lunch?  My wife will be glad to
+see you."
+
+"Oh, has she come in to town to see the youngster off?" asked the
+captain.
+
+"Yes, we all rode in," answered dad.  "The whole kit of us are here."
+
+"All right; I'll come then, as soon as I've finished arranging matters
+and signing bills of lading with my agent here," said Captain Miles
+cordially, adding, with one of his knowing winks to dad, "I've no doubt
+your missis wants to give me all sorts of directions about young Master
+Hopeful, eh?"
+
+"You might be further out in your guess," rejoined dad with a laugh; and
+presently the three of us went back to the hotel together, it being near
+the hour at which dad had ordered our early dinner, or luncheon, to be
+got ready.
+
+The time soon slipped by at our meal, which none of us seemed to enjoy
+very much save the captain, who, of course, was not affected by any sad
+thoughts of parting, the same as dad and mother and I and my sisters
+were--that is excepting Baby Tot, for she looked still upon the whole
+thing as a joke and continued in the best of spirits.
+
+When we rose from table, mother got hold of Captain Miles and began
+whispering earnestly to him, something about me, I was certain; so, in
+order not to overhear their conversation, I went towards the open door
+leading into a wide passage-way that terminated in the usual verandah
+common to all West Indian houses.  The hotel, however, did not command
+such a pretty prospect as ours at Mount Pleasant, for it looked on to
+the street, which could be gained by descending a short flight of steps
+at the end of the alcove.
+
+But, would you believe it, hardly had I reached the verandah, when,
+there on the top step I saw old Pompey standing in an attitude of great
+expectancy, with his footless wine-glass in hand, the same as was his
+habit at home on the plantation, although it was more than two hours
+past his usual grog-time!
+
+No sooner had I appeared than out came his stereotyped formula:
+
+"Hi, Mass' Tom! um come rum."
+
+I felt sad enough at the moment, but the sight of Pompey with his wine-
+glass, and his quaint well-known way of expressing himself, made me
+burst into a fit of laughter which brought out dad from the dining-room.
+
+"Hullo, Tom, what's the matter?" he cried.  "Ah, I see!  Why, Pompey,
+you old rascal, you're past your time," he added, catching sight of the
+old negro at the end of the verandah.  "What do you mean by coming for
+your grog at four bells, eh?  I suppose, though, as Master Tom's going
+away we must let you have it."
+
+So saying, dad went back into the dining-room, bringing out presently a
+tumbler filled with something which he handed to Pompey, the old darkey
+swallowing the contents with his usual gusto, and, needless to say,
+without any very great amount of exertion.
+
+"There," said dad when Pompey returned the empty glass with a bow and
+scrape, "go and tell the others that Master Tom wants to say good-bye,
+as he will start in a minute or two, and that he wishes them to come
+round and drink his health too."
+
+Pompey thereupon shuffled off awkwardly in his boots, returning soon
+with two of the other negroes who had come down with us from the
+plantation.  These now had each a glass of wine in honour of my
+departure, Pompey managing to come in for an extra one on the sly by the
+artful way in which he looked at me and showed his footless measure.
+
+"But where is Jake?" asked dad suddenly, after the darkeys had emptied
+their glasses.
+
+"Me no see him," replied Pompey, acting as spokesman for the rest.
+Indeed, on this occasion he seemed to abandon his customary taciturnity,
+for he wished me "um berry fine v'y'ge, Mass' Tom," when drinking my
+health.
+
+"Not seen him!" repeated dad, much surprised.  "Where can he be?"
+
+"Dunno, massa.  He put him Dandy an' Prince in 'table an' den him say um
+feel berry bad, an' go way."
+
+"Poor fellow, he may be really ill!  I must look after him," said my
+father putting on his hat and proceeding round to the stables; but as he
+could see nothing of Jake he soon returned, for the afternoon was
+getting on and it was time to have my luggage carried down to the boat
+of the _Josephine_ as well as for me to see about going on board also.
+
+While my trunks were being taken to the wharf by Pompey and the other
+two darkeys, I had to pass through the painful ordeal of bidding
+farewell to my mother and sisters.  The less I say about this the
+better!
+
+Baby Tot could not grasp the idea that I was really going away from her
+until the very last moment, when, seeing the others overcome with
+emotion, especially my mother, who was crying as if her heart would
+break, my little sister clung round my neck so tightly that dad had to
+unclasp her tiny fingers one by one before she would release her hold of
+me.
+
+As for my mother's last kiss and her broken words, telling me always to
+fear God and be good, whatever might betide, I can never forget them.
+
+At length the parting was over, when dad calling me in a husky voice to
+come along, I proceeded with him down to the wharf, where the
+_Josephine's_ boat was lying alongside the steamboat landing-stage,
+waiting for me to start.
+
+Here another farewell had to be taken of old Pompey and the negro
+servants who had brought my traps from the hotel; but, strange to say, I
+could see nothing of Jake, so I had to commission one of the others to
+say good-bye to him for me.
+
+At the last moment, too, Doctor Martin came up and gave me one of his
+hearty hand-shakes, bidding me "always tell the truth and shame the
+devil," pointing out at the same time that he had sent down a lot of
+fresh cocoa-nuts for me that had been stowed in the ship's boat with my
+luggage.  He thought they would "come in handy," he said, for assuaging
+my thirst during the hot weather I might expect before getting out of
+the tropics.  Then came the final wrench of dear old dad's last embrace
+and sad God-speed, after which the boat shoved off from the shore,
+bearing me, almost heart-broken, with all my belongings out to the
+_Josephine_, which anchored at the mouth of the harbour with her blue
+peter flying, her sails loosed, and every sign of departure.
+
+"Cheer up, my sonny!" said Moggridge, my old friend the boatswain, as I
+sat in the stern of the boat with my face buried in my hands, for I had
+not the courage to look back at those I was leaving; "I thought you were
+a reg'lar chip of the old block, and your father told you mind, sir, to
+be a man."
+
+These words put me on my mettle, so I picked up a bit and waved my
+handkerchief to dad, whom I could see standing still gazing after me;
+and, when the boat got alongside the vessel, I clambered up the side-
+ladder instead of allowing myself to be hoisted in as before.
+
+"That's your sort," said Moggridge, who followed me up closely, in order
+that he might catch me should I tumble back.  He also helped me into the
+entry port and on to the deck of the _Josephine_, where I found Captain
+Miles waiting to receive me.
+
+"Ha, here you are at last, youngster!" he cried out in welcome.  "I
+thought you were never coming out, and that we would have to start
+without you.  Wind and tide, you know, wait for neither man or boy!
+Hoist in his traps, boatswain," he added to Moggridge, "and be as sharp
+as you can about it too, for the breeze is just beginning to come off
+the land."
+
+I may here mention a meteorological fact that Captain Miles subsequently
+explained to me.  He said that this regular alternation of the sea and
+land breeze in warm latitudes, as in the tropics generally, when the
+wind blows for so many hours in the day on and off-shore, is owing to
+the different powers for the radiation and absorption of heat possessed
+by land and water, so that when the day temperature is highest on the
+land the alternating breezes will be stronger, and _vice versa_.  During
+the day, to illustrate this fact, the radiation of the sun's heat on the
+land causes the air to expand and so rise from the surface, which,
+creating a vacuum, the air from the sea rushes in to fill the void.  At
+night this process is reversed, for, while the surface of the soil will
+frequently show in the West Indies during the daytime a temperature of a
+hundred and twenty degrees and more under the meridian sun, the
+thermometer will sink down in the evening to fifty or sixty degrees;
+whereas, the sea, being a bad radiator and its temperature rarely
+exceeding eighty degrees, even at the hottest period of the day, it is
+alternately colder and warmer than the land, and the direction of the
+wind accordingly oscillates between the two.  The minimum temperature
+being at a little before sunrise in the early morning and the maximum
+somewhere about two o'clock in the afternoon, the change of these
+breezes usually occurs at some little time after these hours, the one
+lulling and the other setting in in due rotation--that is, of course,
+near the coast, for out in the open sea their effect is not so apparent.
+
+In August, which is one of the "hurricane months" of the tropics, when
+the _Josephine_ left Grenada on her voyage to England, the winds are
+more variable, blowing at odd and uncertain times; so, there was every
+reason for Captain Miles' taking advantage of the first cat's-paw of air
+off the land now, as otherwise, perhaps, he might not have been able to
+make an offing before morning, when he would lose the advantage of the
+current amongst the islands towards Saint Vincent, where he had to call
+in for some puncheons of rum and coffee to complete his cargo.
+
+Under the direction of Moggridge, the crew made short work of hoisting
+in my traps and innumerable boxes, including the cocoa-nuts Doctor
+Martin had sent down for me, all of which Captain Miles ordered to be
+taken into the cabin he allotted to me on the starboard side of the ship
+near his own; and then, the boat itself was hauled on board by the
+derrick amidships which had been used for getting in the cargo, there
+being no davits at the side as in a man-of-war.
+
+After seeing this operation satisfactorily accomplished, I went up the
+poop-ladder and walked aft to the side of Captain Miles, who was now
+busy about getting the vessel under weigh.
+
+"Hands up anchor!" he roared out with a stentorian shout, and
+immediately there was a bustle forward of the men with much thumping of
+their feet on the planks and a clanking of the chain as the windlass
+went round under their sturdy hands.  Mr Marline, the first mate, I
+noticed, had charge of the crew engaged in heaving, while Moggridge went
+on the forecastle to see that everything was clear for catting and
+fishing the anchor as soon as it was run up out of the water and the
+stock showed itself above the bows.
+
+"Clink, clank! clink, clank!" came the measured rattle as the slack of
+the cable was wound round the windlass and carried along the deck to the
+chain locker; and then, after another spell of hard heaving, Moggridge
+sang out, "Swings clear, sir!"
+
+"All right," responded Captain Miles, jumping up on a hen-coop by the
+taffrail so as to make his voice go further, as well as to command a
+clear view of all that was going on, "Hands, make sail!"
+
+On hearing this order those of the crew who were not engaged at the
+windlass swarmed up the rigging and threw off the gaskets of the
+foresail and mainsail, while a couple of hands ran out on the bowsprit
+and unloosed the lashings of the jib, the topsails having been dropped
+before I came on board.
+
+"Man the topsail halliards!" then sang out the captain, and with a
+cheery cry the yards were run up with a will and the halliards then
+belayed.
+
+"Sheet home!" was the next command, whereupon the sails were stretched
+out to their full extent, swelling out before the off-shore wind; and
+one of the men, by the captain's orders, now going to the helm, a few
+turns of the spokes brought the vessel's head round.
+
+"Now, look alive there forward and heave up the anchor!" shouted Captain
+Miles.
+
+In another minute the stock of the kedge showed above the bows, when the
+catfalls being stretched along the deck, and laid hold of by Moggridge,
+the rest of the crew tacking on after him, the flukes were run up to the
+cat-head to a rhythmical chorus in which all hands joined, the men
+pulling with a will as they yelled out the refrain--
+
+"Yankee John, storm along!  Hooray, hooray, my hearties!  Pull away,
+heave away, Hooray, hooray, my hearties!  Going to leave Grenada!"
+
+The clew-garnet blocks now rattled as the main-sheet was hauled aft,
+when, the broad sail filling, the _Josephine_ paid off before the wind;
+and shortly afterwards she was making her way to leeward towards Saint
+Vincent, passing almost within a stone's throw of Fort Saint George, as
+she cleared the northern point of the harbour and got out to sea.
+
+The jib and flying-jib were now hoisted as well as the topgallant-sails
+and spanker, to get as much of the breeze as we could while it lasted,
+so that the vessel began to make fair progress through the water; and
+the hands under the superintendence of the two mates were then set to
+work coiling down ropes and getting in the slack of the sheets as well
+as making things ship-shape amidships, where the deck was still littered
+with a good deal of cargo that had not yet been properly stowed.
+
+I was all this time standing by the side of Captain Miles on the poop,
+alternately looking at the men jumping about the rigging like monkeys
+and at the fast-receding shore, which, as soon as the sun set, became
+dimmer and dimmer in the distance, until it was at length finally shut
+out from my gaze by a wall of mist.
+
+"Fo'c's'le ahoy, there!" sang out Captain Miles presently, when it began
+to grow dusk.
+
+"Aye, aye, sir!" responded the voice of Moggridge, the boatswain, from
+forward.
+
+"Keep a good look out, my man, ahead, or we may be running down some of
+those coasting craft inward bound."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir, I'm on the watch myself," sang out Moggridge; but hardly
+had he given this answer than, all at once, he cried out suddenly in a
+louder tone, "Hard a-port, hard a-port!  There's something standing
+across our bows."
+
+The man at the wheel immediately put the helm up, letting the head of
+the vessel fall off from the wind; but, at the same instant, there came
+a sudden crash ahead, followed by a loud yell.
+
+"Gracious heavens!" cried out Captain Miles, rushing forwards to the
+forecastle, where several of the hands had also hurried on hearing the
+cry of the boatswain--I going after the captain in my turn to see what
+was the matter, dreading some fearful disaster.
+
+There were several short and quick exclamations, amidst which I saw, in
+the dim light, Moggridge in the act of heaving a rope overboard towards
+some dark object in the water.
+
+"Hooray, he's got it and has clutched hold!"  I then heard somebody say.
+"The line has fallen just over his shoulders, and he has got the bight
+of it."
+
+"Haul him in gently!" cried the captain.  "Pull easy--so!"
+
+Next I saw a couple of the seamen bending over the side, and in another
+moment they helped a dripping figure to scramble on to the deck; when,
+as I pressed nearer to see who the rescued person was, I heard a well-
+known voice exclaim, in tones of earnest thankfulness and joy:
+
+"Bress de Lor', I'se safe!"
+
+It was Jake, the very last person in the world, most certainly, whom I
+could have expected to meet on board the _Josephine_, if I had guessed a
+hundred times!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+THE CAPTAIN'S COW.
+
+"Why, Jake!"  I cried out.  "How have you contrived to come here?"
+
+"Am dat you, Mass' Tom?" he answered catching sight of me behind the
+captain.  "Golly, I tole you so; I'se tole you I come 'board ship wid
+you somehow or nudder.  Who 'peak de trute now, hey? golly, yah, yah,
+I'se so berry glad!" and the poor faithful fellow commencing with one of
+his hearty African laughs ended in his voice breaking into a sob of joy
+that evidently came from the bottom of his heart.
+
+From hearing his words Captain Miles immediately began to "smell a rat,"
+as the saying goes.
+
+"You impudent black rascal!" he said, half in joke, pretending to be
+angry, and yet partly in earnest.  "What the dickens do you mean by
+shipping yourself aboard my vessel in this fashion without leave or
+license?"
+
+"I'se come for to go wid Mass' Tom," answered Jake meekly.
+
+"But how did you get off from the shore and overhaul the ship?"
+continued Captain Miles, pursuing his inquiries, the hands around
+meanwhile commencing to nudge one another and exchange grins as the
+colloquy waxed warm between the two principal performers.
+
+"I tell you for true, massa, beliebe me," said Jake earnestly.  "Dis
+forenoon wen I see Mass' Tom agwine I'se go down to de warf an' dere I
+see um lilly boat lyin' widout nobody a-mindin' it; so I'se jump in and
+row out ob de harbor an' git roun' by de ole fort till I see de ship
+make sail.  Den I'se pull, an' pull, an' pull, like de debbel, to come
+up wid you, an' I tinks I nebber reach de bessel, wen, jus' as I'se git
+'longside an' cotch you up, de ship gib one big lurch an' squash in de
+boat, wen I'se trown in water an' you fish um out; dere, massa, dat's de
+trute, s'help me!"
+
+"Lucky for you you didn't go squash, too," observed the captain grimly.
+"But, was there no one else with you?"
+
+"No, massa, only me," replied Jake.
+
+"Thank God for that!" said Captain Miles fervently.  "I was afraid I had
+run down one of those fishing sloops from Cariacou, and that all hands
+were drowned but you.  Whose boat was it?"
+
+"Dunno, massa, I'se tell you," answered Jake with great nonchalance,
+apparently giving but little thought to the little craft whose broken
+timbers were now floating away, far astern of us.
+
+"Well, you're a cool hand anyway!" exclaimed Mr Marline the first mate
+drily, whereat Moggridge and the rest of the crew burst into a general
+shout of merriment.  In this even the captain himself could not help
+joining, although he still tried to preserve a grave demeanour before
+Jake, as if annoyed at his coming on board.
+
+Jake, however, was much hurt at being laughed at; and he went on now to
+justify his conduct with such native dignity that those who had been
+making fun of him before seemed almost ashamed of their ill-judged
+ridicule.
+
+"I'se know Mass' Tom ebber since he was lilly pickaninny, an' I lub
+him," he said, speaking with a feeling and earnestness which no one
+would have thought of his possessing, and uttering the words in a thick
+choked voice.  "I took de boat 'cause de boat was dere; but if dere was
+no boat, I'd hab swam off to de ship, for I'se boun' to go were Mass'
+Tom go, an' if he go in ship I'se go too!"
+
+"But, my poor fellow," put in Captain Miles kindly to him, "your young
+master does not want a servant to wait on him on board the _Josephine_,
+and we haven't room for any idlers.  I shall have to put you ashore at
+Saint Vincent, from whence you'll be easily able to get a passage back
+home again."
+
+"For de Lor' sake don't do dat, Massa Cap'en!" implored Jake, utterly
+overwhelmed at such an unexpected downfall of his hopes, falling on his
+knees on the deck and holding up his hands in the most supplicating
+manner.  "Only let dis poah nigger go wid you an' Mass' Tom an' he do
+any ting you want."
+
+"But, what can you do?" said Captain Miles, who, I could see, was
+relenting.  He really had no idea of carrying out the stern intention
+which his words implied.  "We've got no horses to groom here."
+
+"Ah, you dunno all I can do, Massa Cap'en," replied the darkey eagerly,
+rising again to his feet now, all animation.  "'Fore I go wid Mass'
+Eastman, I'se help my fadder in fishin'-boat, an' know how to make sail
+an' reef an' steer.  You jus' try dis chile an' see!"
+
+"Very good, we will try you," said Captain Miles good-humouredly.  "But,
+mind, my darkey friend, you'll have to work for your passage!"
+
+"All right, Massa Cap'en, me work safe 'nuff.  See now, I'se handy boy
+aboard ship!"  So saying, Jake at once scrambled up the rigging and in a
+minute or two was away up in the foretop, waving his arms about and
+shouting with laughter in great glee.
+
+"Yah, yah!" he cried.  "I'se go higher, if um like."
+
+"No, that will do now," sang out Captain Miles, "you can come down and
+go and warm yourself, after your wetting, by the galley fire, where
+you'll find another darkey to keep you company.  You must enter his name
+in the list of the crew, Mr Marline," added the captain, turning to the
+first mate; "and see, too, about messing him in the fo'c's'le.  I
+daresay we'll make something out of him during the voyage."
+
+During this little interlude, the _Josephine_ had been making away from
+Grenada with the land breeze, aided by a current setting to the westward
+at the rate of a couple of knots an hour; so that, by the time it got
+dark, we had sunk the island to windward, Captain Miles having caused
+the royals to be hoisted, in order to take every advantage of the light
+air, for we had to make the best of a north-east course on the starboard
+tack.
+
+Towards nine o'clock, however, the wind freshened, and as the navigation
+was rather ticklish, we being not yet in the open sea, the lighter
+canvas had to be taken in, the vessel proceeding during the remainder of
+the night under double-reefed topsails, courses, topgallant-sails, and
+her jib and spanker--for, these could be easily handed in case of any
+sudden shift of wind, which frequently veers round without warning under
+the lee of the land.
+
+I, of course, only learnt all this afterwards, picking up my nautical
+knowledge by degrees from my old friend Moggridge, who took me under his
+tuition, promising to make a sailor of me ere the voyage was over, for I
+was told to turn in by Captain Miles at nine o'clock, when the lights
+were put out in the cabin.
+
+In the morning, when I came on deck again, we were off Saint Vincent;
+but, as the current and wind were both against us, although our port was
+well in sight we had to beat up to make the harbour, not dropping our
+anchor until late in the afternoon.
+
+It was a beautiful spot, for we lay as it were in a circle of mountains,
+the tall Souffriere with its volcano peak overtopping them all.
+
+Although we arrived late, Captain Miles did not lose any time in
+shipping his cargo of rum, going on shore immediately in his gig, which
+was still hanging to the davits astern, not having been taken on board
+with the other boats before leaving "my island," as I always call
+Grenada.  Soon afterwards, a couple of heavy launches manned by negroes
+and each stored with several big puncheons came off to us, the rum being
+at once hoisted in and lowered away into the hold--the operation being
+achieved in less time nearly than I can describe it, for it was
+necessary for us to be off again by nightfall to take advantage of the
+land breeze; or else we might be detained at Saint Vincent another day.
+
+Besides the puncheons of rum another piece of cargo was brought on
+board.  This subsequently caused quite a little commotion as well as
+giving us all a good deal of entertainment.
+
+Our new freight was a cow.
+
+Captain Miles, you must know, was a bit of a gourmand, liking to have
+good eating and drinking when he could get them; and, as he was
+particularly fond of coffee with plenty of milk in it, he always carried
+a cow with him in his different voyages.
+
+During his last trip from home, however, his old milk purveyor had died;
+and, as such animals are rather scarce in the West Indies, he was not
+able to procure one either for love or money at Grenada, and was at a
+complete nonplus till we got to Saint Vincent.
+
+Here, fortunately, or unfortunately as it happened eventually for the
+poor cow, the captain heard at the last moment of a fine Alderney which
+a planter was anxious to dispose of, and had brought down to the town to
+send off to Barbadoes, hoping to find a market there for her.  Captain
+Miles, therefore, at once closed with the planter, and the last of the
+launches conveying the rum puncheons to the _Josephine_ brought off in
+addition this cow.
+
+But, taking an animal of this sort away from the shore, and out to a
+ship lying some distance from the land is one thing, and getting it on
+board is another!  This the captain found presently, when, having
+completed all his business ashore and cleared the last of his cargo, he
+was rowed out in his gig to regain the vessel.  He had intended making
+sail the moment he stepped on the deck again; but, instead of finding
+everything stowed and the anchor tripped ready for the _Josephine_ to
+start on his arrival, he saw that her cable was still out, while the
+barge containing the cow was yet alongside.
+
+Captain Miles was awfully angry.  Everybody could see this; as he
+ordered the men in the gig to row her astern, and in a very harsh tone
+of voice, as he scuttled up the side-ladder and turned into the main-
+deck port; hook on the falls ready for hoisting her up again to the
+davits.
+
+"Mr Marline!" he cried out to the first mate when he reached the deck,
+"what is the meaning of this?  I expected you'd have been all ready to
+sail, and here is that launch alongside yet and the cargo not aboard!"
+
+"All the rum's in, sir," replied Mr Marline quietly, for he was a dry
+old stick and seldom said a word more than necessary.
+
+"But the cow, man, the cow!" retorted the captain.  "Why is she not
+hoisted inboard as well?"
+
+"We couldn't manage her, sir," replied Mr Marline with a sly grin.
+"The brute butts everybody that comes near her."
+
+"Why didn't you sling her?" inquired Captain Miles.
+
+"We tried to, but couldn't," said the mate.  "She kicks so that she
+tumbled back twice and nearly went into the sea."
+
+"Oh, you're all a parcel of nincompoops!" exclaimed the captain quite
+roused at this.  "I'll show you how a seaman can manage it!"  With that,
+catching hold of the side lines, he went down the ladder again like
+winking and into the launch alongside.
+
+Here, the cow, which looked even more enraged than Captain Miles, stood
+in the centre of the boat, with the negroes who had pulled out the live
+load from shore, standing up in the bows and on the gunwales, so as to
+be out of the reach of the infuriated animal, which every now and then
+made a rush at some black leg or other, making the owner yell out and
+try to avoid the butt.
+
+"Pass down a whip with a spare bit of canvas," sang out the captain,
+sitting down in the stern-sheets; and on receiving these articles he set
+to work to make a sort of broad belt to pass under the cow's stomach, in
+the same way as is done with horses about to be shipped on board
+transports when cavalry regiments are embarking.
+
+When he had made the sling to his satisfaction, satisfying himself that
+it was strong enough by attaching it to his own person and then making
+the crew haul him up, his sixteen stone weight being some criterion to
+go by, he ordered those at the derrick to lower him down again; and
+then, with a halter all ready, which he threw over the animal's head, he
+advanced bravely towards the cow to arrange the belt under her body,
+thinking he could do it easily enough.
+
+Mrs Brindle, however, was too quick for him.
+
+Tossing off the rope bridle like a piece of straw, she lowered her head,
+and catching the captain in the stomach sent him head over heels
+backwards into the bottom of the boat, where one of the thwarts only
+prevented her from pursuing him further, which she would most
+undoubtedly have done judging by her vicious look.
+
+At that moment, Jake, who had been looking over the side of the ship,
+seeing what had happened and anxious to be of service, slid down the
+whip-tackle into the boat.  Arrived here his first task was to pick up
+Captain Miles, after doing which he took hold of the canvas belt the
+captain had prepared and dropped in his confusion at the unexpected
+assault.
+
+"You let dis niggah try, Massa Cap'en," he said.  "I'se able to ride any
+wild hoss, and tinks I can settle de rampagious animile."
+
+"All right, fire away," replied Captain Miles, rather out of breath from
+his tumble as well as from the punch the cow had given him "right in the
+wind."
+
+Jake thereupon, shoving the other darkeys away, climbed on to the
+gunwale of the launch.  Then, advancing gingerly until he was right
+opposite the cow, and seizing a good opportunity, he jumped suddenly on
+her back.  In a moment or so, he cleverly fixed the slings round her;
+while one of the other negroes, emboldened by his success, threw a noose
+over her head, which kept her from plunging about any longer, or at all
+events, from butting at everybody as she had done previously.
+
+"By Jingo, you're a smart fellow!" exclaimed Captain Miles with much
+gusto.  "You're worth all the rest of those stupid lubbers of mine
+boiled down together!  Haul away now, Mr Marline," he added, looking
+up; "I think we've fixed the cow this time."
+
+He was right; for, as soon as the hands on board manned the derrick and
+turned the winch handle the poor animal was raised in the air, kicking
+out spasmodically all the while, and wondering, no doubt, how she lost
+hold of her footing.  When she had been hoisted high enough to clear the
+bulwarks, the derrick was then swung inboard and the cow lowered safely
+on the deck.
+
+The empty launch with the negroes was now cast-off, and preparations
+made for raising the anchor again and making sail.
+
+However, this was not the end of the cow episode by any means; for, as
+luck would have it, all Captain Miles' hopes of milk with his coffee
+during the voyage home to England were soon summarily dispelled, the
+career of the animal which was to have supplied the lacteal fluid having
+terminated most unexpectedly.
+
+All hands being busy getting the ship under weigh, the animal had been
+left standing for the time where she had been set down in the waist, the
+sling being unloosed from her and the end of the halter, which Jake had
+put over her head when she had been secured, tied to the mainmast
+bitts--so as to prevent her moving until the long-boat amidships, which
+was to form her quarters, should be made ready for her reception.
+
+Then, when the canvas of the _Josephine_ was once more spread to the
+breeze and the vessel was working out from Saint Vincent, Captain Miles
+told the steward to serve dinner in the cabin, it being now near sunset
+and long past the usual hour for that meal, which was generally on the
+table at "eight bells," or four o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+I went into the cabin with the captain and second mate, Mr Marline
+being left in charge of the poop; and, presently, I could see through
+the sliding-doors leading from the main-deck into the cuddy, which were
+of course left wide open, as we were still in the tropics, the steward
+Harry, a freckle-faced mulatto of the colour of pale ginger, bringing in
+a tureen of soup from the cook's galley forward.
+
+As he passed by close to where the cow was tethered, whether the smell
+of the savoury compound aroused the animal's hunger, or because Harry,
+coming too near, reminded her of the recent indignities to which she had
+been subjected, the cow all at once made a plunge at him with her head.
+
+Harry sheered off, spilling a portion of the soup; and he was so
+frightened that he ran full speed with the remainder into the cabin.
+
+He was not, however, quick enough for Mrs Brindle; for the sudden dive
+she made, throwing her whole might on the halter, caused the rope to
+snap like a piece of pack-thread.  The next instant, the cow made a
+plunge after the mulatto steward, giving him a lift by the stern-post as
+he was entering the cuddy door which pitched him right on to the cabin
+table, where he fell amidst all the plates and dishes.  There was a
+terrible smash, all the dinner things coming to grief, as well as the
+soup tureen, which he still held in his hands, the boiling contents
+passing over the second mate's head, and scalding his face, besides
+making him in a pretty pickle.
+
+"Oh Lord, oh Lord, I'm blinded!" screamed Davis, the thick pea-soup
+having gone into his eyes; while the captain had scarcely time to use
+his favourite ejaculation, "By Jingo!" before the cow, which had
+followed up her successful attack on the steward by galloping after him
+into the cabin, catching the arm-chair that Captain Miles was ensconced
+in sideways, started the lashings that held it to the deck, hurling the
+terrified occupant in a heap in the corner--the captain being utterly
+ignorant of the cause of the whole catastrophe, for he was sitting with
+his back to the door and so had not seen the steward's somersault nor
+the approach of the animal like I did from the beginning of the affair.
+
+As for me, being on the other side of the table, I escaped any harm,
+although I immediately bolted into the steward's pantry near me, where,
+shutting the half-door, I looked out from this coign of vantage
+surveying the scene of havoc which the cabin presently presented, for
+the cow tossed about everything she could reach bellowing like one of
+the wild bulls of Bashan all the while.
+
+The steward had fainted away, from fright I believe; and he lay
+stretched on the table as if he were practising swimming in Doctor
+Johnson's fashion.  As for Davis, the second mate, he had his face bent
+down in his hands, apparently unmindful of everything but his own pain,
+but Captain Miles speedily sprang to his feet and was starting to attack
+the cause of the uproar with one of the broken legs of his chair when
+just at that moment Mr Marline poked his nose down the open skylight
+from the poop above.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked suavely.  "What is all the row about?"
+
+"Come down and see," said Captain Miles savagely.  "Talk of a bull in a
+china-shop; why, that would be child's play to a cow in a cabin!"
+
+Mr Marline burst out laughing at this, and so too did Captain Miles
+himself as soon as he had spoken the words, while I couldn't help
+joining in, it was all so funny.  Then the first mate came down with two
+or three of the hands to remove the violent animal, which had now jammed
+itself under Captain Miles' own cot in his private sanctum beyond the
+cuddy.
+
+But, Mrs Brindle was not so easily dislodged, one of the sailors having
+to get through the stern port in order to raise the cot while the other
+men pulled at her legs.
+
+She was evidently determined not to be moved against her will; for, on
+being lugged out again into the main cabin, she quickly shook off the
+grasp of her captors, cantering out of the sliding-doors, with her tail
+in the air, bellowing still furiously and butting at those in her way.
+
+Her course was soon arrested, however.  As she bounded forwards along
+the deck she came to the open hatchway leading to the hold, where
+tumbling down on top of the rum puncheons, before anyone could
+interpose, she broke her neck instanter.
+
+"It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good," says the old proverb, the
+truth of which was exemplified in this instance.  If the captain lost
+his milk, the crew gained a plentiful supply of fresh meat by the
+accident, faring sumptuously for many days afterwards on roast beef and
+all sorts of delicate dishes which Cuffee concocted out of the carcass
+of the unfortunate animal.
+
+"I wouldn't have lost her for twenty pounds!" said Captain Miles on the
+poop later on, when he and the first mate were talking over the strange
+way in which the thing all happened.
+
+"Humph!" observed Mr Marline slyly in his dry way; "I think she gave
+you one or two on account before she performed the happy despatch, eh?"
+
+"Funny dog!" exclaimed Captain Miles, giving him a dig in the ribs by
+way of acknowledging the allusion to the thumps poor Brindle had treated
+him to, before she came on board and after; and, there, the matter
+ended, as far as everybody was concerned, the steward recovering from
+his fainting fit, and the eyes of Davis the second mate being none the
+worse as it turned out for their deluge of hot pea-soup, while the
+damages in the cabin were soon repaired.  Only the poor cow came to
+grief!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+AMONGST THE ISLANDS.
+
+In spite of all Captain Miles' endeavours to effect an early start from
+Saint Vincent, we were not really able to weather the island that
+evening until many hours after our anchor was tripped and all plain sail
+made.
+
+This was not due, however, either to the delay caused in hoisting the
+obstreperous cow on board or to the embarrassing episode that occurred
+after she was shipped.  It was entirely owing to the failure of our
+moving spirit the wind; for we lay becalmed until morning under the lee
+of the giant Souffriere, whose dark shadow prevented the land breeze
+from reaching the vessel, while the next day was far advanced before we
+could gain an offing so as to take advantage of the light airs that then
+sprang up from seaward.  But, then, the _Josephine_, bellying out her
+canvas, bore away on her voyage.
+
+The wide gulf of sea which we were traversing--named after the
+aboriginal Caribs who ruled over its domain lang syne, and hedged in
+from the Atlantic Ocean by the semicircular group of the Lesser
+Antilles, or "Windward Islands" of the West Indies--presents great
+difficulties to the navigators of sailing ships; as, while the wind
+throughout its extent blows almost constantly in one direction, a series
+of cross currents set in another, making it a hard task for even
+experienced seamen to preserve a straight course towards any particular
+point when going to windward, the result of which is that "the longest
+way round," as in other matters pertaining to shore life, is frequently
+"the shortest way home!"
+
+Taking up the chart casually, a novice would imagine that our direct
+route from our port of departure to the English Channel would be
+indicated by a line drawn between the two points and passing through the
+Azores; but, a sailor accustomed to tropical latitudes would know that,
+however feasible this might appear in theory, we could not possibly have
+adopted such a course.  It would have presupposed, in the first case,
+our possessing the ability to sail straight in the teeth of the north-
+east trade wind, and, in the second case, that we took no account of the
+influence of the equatorial current, the stream of which setting
+westwards into the Caribbean Sea, would have drifted as so far to
+leeward that at the end of the day's run we must have been pretty nearly
+where we started from, any progress we made ahead being neutralised by
+the action of the stream carrying us in a lateral direction.
+
+For these reasons, all navigators up to their work, when making the
+passage home from the West Indies and _vice versa_, instead of fighting
+against the forces of nature as some old seamen of the past used to do,
+now make both winds and tides run harmoniously in their favour by
+meeting them half-way, so to speak.  Captain Miles, in our instance,
+therefore, did not wear out his crew by trying to beat to windward in
+order to get to the open Atlantic immediately.  On the contrary, he kept
+his vessel well away to leeward, shaping a course for Saint
+Christopher's, so as to pass afterwards through the Anegada Channel,
+between the Virgin Islands, and reach the ocean in that way.  In other
+words, following the example of the ready-witted Irishman who drove an
+obstinate pig to market by pulling him back by the tail, he deliberately
+steered to the north-west while really wanting to go to the north-east.
+But, circuitous as such a route looked, the captain was in the end a
+gainer by it; for, not only did he keep the wind well abeam of the ship
+all the way on the starboard tack, but he had the additional advantage
+of having the strong north-westerly current in his favour in lieu of
+trying to work against it.
+
+During this portion of our voyage the weather was beautifully fine, the
+sky being of a clear transparent opal tint without a cloud and the sea
+of the purest ultramarine blue, with little merry dancing wavelets
+occasionally flecking its changing surface into foam.
+
+The air, too, was balmy, and not unpleasantly warm, a fine healthy
+breeze blowing, which filled our good ship's sails, so that they
+expanded to the furthest limits of the bolt-ropes, speeding her on her
+way at the rate of some eight knots an hour, as rising and falling she
+surged through the sparkling water and left a foaming wake astern that
+spread out in the shape of a fan behind her track, widening until it was
+lost in the distance.
+
+When I mentioned my going to visit the _Josephine_ as she lay at anchor
+while taking in cargo at Grenville Bay, I think I said that I had never
+before been in a vessel.  This, however, was not strictly accurate, for
+when dad came out to the West Indies from England with my mother and
+sisters some few years previously, I, of course, accompanied them; and
+as we had to cross the Atlantic in order to reach Grenada, and there was
+no other mode of overcoming the three thousand odd miles of ocean that
+lay between us and our destination except by our adventuring the passage
+in the ordinary way, I was then really for the first time taken on board
+a ship.  But it must be remembered that I was only at that period a tiny
+baby about the size of my little sister Tot; and, therefore, my
+recollections of the time being rather hazy, my first real experiences
+of the sea and all the incidents of the voyage came upon me with all
+that novelty and interest which unfamiliarity alone can produce.  It is,
+nevertheless, only right that I should make this correction of my former
+mis-statement, for I wish to give a true and impartial account of all
+that happened to me from first to last.  I am not "spinning a yarn"
+merely, as sailor's say, but telling a true story of my life with all
+its haps and mishaps.
+
+Now, therefore, as the _Josephine_ dashed along, all was new and strange
+to me; the limitless expanse of blue water shimmering in the summer sun,
+with flocks of flying-fish rising in the air occasionally to seek refuge
+from their enemies of the deep, only to fall back again below the
+surface after a short curving flight, to avoid the grey pelicans
+hovering above to attack them there; the fresh bracing breeze, which
+blew in my face so exhilaratingly; the swaying motion of the vessel that
+gave a lurch now and then, heeling over when the wind took her suddenly
+on the quarter as she rose on the swell; the whistling of the cordage
+and creaking of timbers and rattling of blocks, combined with the cheery
+yo-ho-hoing of the sailors as they slacked a sheet here and tightened a
+brace there.  Really, I was so pleased, excited, and delighted with the
+whole scene and its surroundings that it seemed as if I were in the ship
+of a dream sailing on an enchanted sea!
+
+Presently there arose out of the deep on our starboard bow the Pitons of
+Saint Lucia, two twin conical rocks like the Needles, only ever so much
+bigger, being over three thousand feet in height.  They were festooned
+from base to summit with beautiful evergreen foliage; and the entrance
+to the harbour of the island was to be seen within and beyond these
+outlying sentinels, stretching up inland towards a mass of purple
+mountains from a beach of yellow sand.
+
+Next, we passed to the leeward of Martinique; and, then, towards sunset
+of the same day, as we approached Saint Kitts, islet after islet jumped
+up out of the sea in front of us, to the right hand and to the left.
+They were all misty at first, but changed their colours from slaty grey
+to green as we approached them nearer, although their shape was all
+pretty much the same--tall sugar-loaf peaks surrounded by verdure
+sloping down in graceful curves to the water's edge, the surf breaking
+against the shore of those to leeward in clouds of spray, while the
+waves washed the rocky feet of those on the windward side without a
+ripple.
+
+When the sun disappeared below the western horizon, Montserrat, Redonda,
+Nevis, Saint Christopher, and Saint Eustatius were all in sight around
+us; and, just at ten o'clock at night, when the moon was at the full,
+lighting up the scene with its silvery beams as brightly almost as if it
+were day, we passed between Saint Eustatius and the island of Saba.  We
+approached the latter within two miles, but when its north point bore
+west we steered for Dog Island, clearing the reefs somewhere about the
+middle watch.
+
+Soon after sunrise next morning we weathered Sombrero, the last of the
+Antilles, and thus got fairly out into the Atlantic, leaving the West
+Indies behind us as we hauled our wind and bore away for the Azores--
+although a long stretch of ocean had to be crossed ere we might hope to
+reach this half-way port on our voyage.
+
+But I have not yet described our ship and those on board.
+
+The _Josephine_ was an old-fashioned barque of about five hundred tons
+burden, built with a high poop and a topgallant forecastle, "or
+fo'c's'le," as seamen call it.
+
+She was a roomy vessel, possessing great breadth of beam, which made her
+a staunch sea-boat in rough weather, for she could tumble about as much
+as she pleased without causing much damage to her timbers or risk of her
+stability; and this roominess, besides, allowed good accommodation aft
+for a large number of passengers, although in this instance I was the
+single solitary "landsman" aboard--that is, if a young shaver of
+thirteen can be dignified with such a high-sounding title!
+
+Her officers and crew consisted of eighteen hands all told; and amongst
+the former Captain Miles, her master, a sturdy old sea-dog of forty-five
+or thereabouts, is entitled to be the first described.  He had a broad
+honest face, with a pair of bushy, reddish-brown mutton-chop whiskers,
+for, unlike the sailors of to-day, the captain was always clean shaven
+as to his chin and upper lip, esteeming a moustache an abomination,
+"which only one of those French Johnny Crapaud lubbers ever think of
+wearing."
+
+The next officer in rank after Captain Miles was Mr Marline, the first
+mate, a thin wiry north countryman, with a lot of latent fun and dry
+humour in him; and then came Davis, the second mate, a thick-set bull-
+necked dark-haired Welshman, not more than twenty-four or five years of
+age.  He had been promoted from the foremast on account of his
+predecessor having died on the passage out.  Davis was a very good
+seaman and up to his work; otherwise, his education being sadly
+deficient, as even I, a boy, could perceive, and his temper and
+disposition being none of the best, he was certainly not very well
+fitted to command those with whom he had formerly associated as an
+equal.
+
+My old friend Moggridge, the boatswain, and Adze, the carpenter,
+completed the list of those in authority; and, besides these, must be
+enumerated Cuffee, the king of the cook's galley; Jake, who had been put
+on the muster-roll as an ordinary hand; Harry, the captain's tawny
+mulatto steward; and ten able seamen--the finest and strongest of all
+these being Jackson, a smart young Cornishman hailing from Plymouth, who
+stood some six feet two in his stockings and gloried in such a broad
+pair of shoulders that he was worth any three of the other hands put
+together.
+
+To complete the description of our ship, the lower portion of our cargo,
+stowed in the ground tier of the hold above the dunnage, was sugar and
+coffee, with some odd bags of cocoa from my father's plantation to make
+weight; but our chief freight, fortunately for us, as you will learn
+later on, was rum.  The puncheons containing this were packed as tightly
+as possible fore and aft the ship above the heavy produce, reaching up
+amidships to the level of the main hatch, all the spaces between being
+so compactly filled in with the lighter samples of cargo that not even a
+cockroach could have squeezed itself in sideways.
+
+In the waist of the vessel on the upper deck, ranged along the inside of
+the bulwarks on either hand, from the entrance to the cabin under the
+break of the poop to right away forwards just abaft the foremast, was a
+row of water-casks.  A couple of these had their tops sawn off
+lengthwise and contained several live turtle which Captain Miles was
+hopeful of carrying home safely in time for the next ensuing banquet at
+the Mansion House on lord mayor's day, an enterprising ship's chandler
+in the Minories having given him an order to that effect before he left
+England on his voyage out to the West Indies.  In a similar way, against
+the sides of the poop were fixed what looked at first sight to be
+benches for sitting down upon, but which on closer inspection I
+discovered to be hen-coops,--their occupants projecting their long necks
+and heads therefrom, in much perplexity evidently at their strange fate
+in being thus brought to sea; for, as was the case with myself, this was
+their first experience of what life on board ship was like, and the
+exigencies of the cabin table would most probably cause it to be their
+last!
+
+It was not until the fourth day after we had set sail from Grenada that
+I was able to note all these particulars.  Up to that time I had been
+too much interested with the moving panorama around me to notice things
+inboard; and, besides, the motion of the _Josephine_, when she got
+lively in the seaway amongst the islands, produced an uneasy feeling
+which led me ere long to retire below and bewail my old home and those
+from whom I had been so ruthlessly severed with greater grief than I had
+felt before.  I suffered from that fearful nausea which Father Neptune
+imposes as a penance on the majority of his votaries, and it was
+wonderful how very melancholy the sensation made me.
+
+However, I struggled gallantly against the fell foe, and, one morning, I
+crawled out of my bunk early, just as the men began to wash down the
+decks, the first work of the day aboard ship.  This was shortly after we
+had cleared the island of Sombrero, and when the _Josephine_ was working
+her way out to sea.
+
+At first I stopped in the waist, near the entrance to the cabin, but
+Davis, the second mate, who stood with his trousers tucked up showing
+his bare feet and legs, superintending the hands sluicing the water
+about from the hose attached to the head pump out on the forecastle,
+told me politely to sheer off, as they wanted no idlers in the way; so,
+I ascended the poop-ladder, and was commiserating the poor fowls in the
+hen-coops along the rails, when Captain Miles, who was standing close to
+the helmsman at the wheel, addressed me.
+
+"Hallo, Master Tom," said he, "got your sea-legs again?"
+
+"Yes, captain," I replied, "I'm all right now, thank you."
+
+"Beginning to feel peckish, eh?"
+
+"Not very," said I, for I was qualmish still, although the fresh air had
+considerably revived me even in the short time since I had come out of
+the close cabin.
+
+"Ah, but you must eat, though, my boy," observed Captain Miles kindly,
+giving me a kindly pat on the back.  "An empty stomach is the worst
+thing in the world to voyage on.  Why, you haven't hardly eaten a bite
+since the other evening when that poor cow knocked our dinner all into
+the middle of next week!  Never mind, though, breakfast will be ready at
+eight bells, and we'll see whether we can't get some lining upon your
+ribs, my little skillygalee."
+
+"I have already asked Jake to get me a cup of coffee, sir," I said in
+reply to this; but, before the captain could answer me again, we both
+had our attention drawn to the deck below.  There seemed to be some sort
+of commotion going on in the cook's galley away forward, for all the men
+had their faces turned in that direction, and they were laughing as if
+at some good joke.
+
+"Waist ahoy, there!" shouted out Captain Miles, going to the edge of the
+break of the poop and looking down.  "What's the row forward?"
+
+"Hanged if I know, sir," answered Davis somewhat surlily, adding more
+gruffly still to the hands around him, "Here, you lazy lubbers, lay
+along to your work, or I'll give you something else to grin about!"
+
+"You need not haze the men like that for nothing," said the captain
+sharply, muttering something under his breath about "setting a beggar on
+horseback, and he'll ride to the--"
+
+However, his further words were cut short by a loud shout of laughter
+from the men all together, as if with one accord; and then the commotion
+in the cook's galley increased, for I could now distinguish the sound of
+some violent altercation, voices being raised in anger, mingled with the
+noise of shuffling feet and the crash of crockery-ware.
+
+"By Jingo, they're going it!" exclaimed Moggridge, who stood in the
+waist immediately below us.  "They'll be like the Kilkenny cats, and
+leave only their tails behind!"
+
+"What's the matter?" again asked Captain Miles.  "Anybody fighting, eh?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said the boatswain, "the two niggers.  They've been at it in
+the caboose ever since we began to wash down decks."
+
+"Then it's high time to stop them," cried the captain darting towards
+the poop-ladder with the intention of ending the fray, whatever it was.
+
+But, before he could descend two steps, the half-door of the galley
+burst open outwards with a crash, when two dark figures, locked in a
+tight embrace and pommelling one another with immense fury, came rolling
+out upon the deck.  They then scrambled and tumbled into the lee
+scuppers, where they continued to struggle still, unmindful of the foot
+deep or more of water, into which they were suddenly plunged, that was
+swishing to and fro with the motion of the ship.
+
+"You take dat now," I heard Jake's voice say excitedly.  "I mash um face
+well."
+
+"An' you take dat, you hangman tief," cried the other with equal
+earnestness.  "Golly, I gib you gosh!"
+
+Then came the thud of blows, easily distinguishable above the splashing
+of the refuse water that had accumulated to leeward from the sluicing of
+the decks, with the convulsive movements of two pairs of arms and legs
+mingled together in a confused mass--one woolly head being occasionally
+uplifted above the other and immediately as quickly dragged down again.
+The crew all the while screamed with laughter, enjoying the combat with
+the utmost relish, and without attempting to interfere in any way
+between the angry antagonists.
+
+"Stop the rascals, stop them!" sang out Captain Miles, jumping down into
+the waist and hurrying to the scene of action.  "They'll either kill or
+drown each other!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+POOR JACKSON.
+
+As soon as the seamen heard the captain's words, uttered as they were in
+a tone which they well knew from experience was meant to be obeyed,
+several of them at once rushed to where the two darkeys were still
+struggling in the lee scuppers; when Jackson, the tall young sailor whom
+I had already noticed for his smartness, stepping forward in advance of
+the others and stooping down at the same time, lifted up the combatants
+on to their feet, holding one in each hand as easily as if the two big
+negroes had been only little dolls.
+
+"Be quiet, I tell 'ee," he cried, giving Cuffee, the cook, who was the
+most obstreperous, a shake as he clutched him by the back of his woolly
+head in the same way as a terrier holds a rat; "be quiet, I tell 'ee, or
+I'll pitch you overboard!"
+
+So saying, and emphasising the threat by raising Cuffee at arm's length,
+to the level of the bulwarks, he dragged the irate pair along to where
+Captain Miles was standing by the mainmast bitts, there setting them
+down before him for judgment.
+
+"Now, you quarrelsome black rascals!" exclaimed the captain confronting
+them, "what the dickens do you mean by kicking up all this bobbery?  I
+don't allow any fighting aboard my ship."
+
+"It ain't me, Mass' Cap'en," said Jake eagerly, "it's dat nasty niggah
+dere dat make all de muss 'bout nuffin' at all!"
+
+"Dat one big lie," retorted the other scornfully.  "He come 'teal de
+coffee out ob de coppers, an' w'en I 'peak to him like gen'leman he hit
+um in the eyeball, him."
+
+"Belieb me, Mass' Cap'en, I'se no tief," said Jake indignantly, drawing
+himself up and looking very much as if he were going to pitch into
+Cuffee again.  "I'se only go in de galley to get um coffee for Mass'
+Tom, an' I'se ax dat poor trash dere to gib um cup in de most perliteful
+way as um please; an' I no sooner done dis dan he catch um crack wid one
+big ladle on de shin--golly, um hurt now!  Den, ob course, I hit um back
+in brace ob shakes, an' we go down in rough an' tumble togedder."
+
+"My, what big 'tory!" exclaimed the cook in apparent amazement at Jake's
+mendacity.  "Me go forrud to clean de fis' for breakfus, an' w'en um
+come back in galley, dere I see dat hangman tief takin' de coffee, an'
+den--"
+
+"Then you had a scuffle together, I suppose," interposed Captain Miles,
+interrupting Cuffee's further harangue at this point.  "Well, well, as
+far as I can see you were both in the wrong.  Jake, you had no business
+to enter the cook's galley without his leave, or touch anything there,
+for remember he's as much captain of the caboose as I am on the poop."
+
+"Golly, Mass' Cap'en, me no go dere afore widout Cuffee ax me," put in
+Jake as Captain Miles made a pause in his lecture.
+
+"Well, don't you do it again," continued the captain.  "And as for you,
+Cuffee, I'd advise you not to be so handy with your soup-ladle again in
+striking your brother darkey, before ascertaining what he wants when he
+comes to your galley, and who sent him.  There, my fighting cocks, you'd
+better shake hands now and make friends, as the row's all over!"
+
+This the two at once did, with much grinning and showing of their ivory
+teeth; and they then went away forwards again together on the most
+amicable terms, albeit arguing good-humouredly as to which of them had
+got the best of the fray.  Jake believed that he had come off with
+flying colours, while Cuffee persisted that he was the conqueror, the
+upshot of the matter being that Jackson, to whom they referred the
+knotty question, decided that it was "six for one and half a dozen for
+the other."  With this Solomon-like settlement of the difficulty both
+were quite satisfied and were sworn chums ever after.  I, indeed, was
+the only loser by the little difference between the two, having to go
+without my coffee until the proper breakfast hour, "eight bells," when,
+possibly, I enjoyed my meal all the more from not getting anything
+before.
+
+Towards mid-day, we had sunk the land entirely to the westwards, the
+ship being then on the wide-spreading ocean, with not a thing in sight
+but water--"water everywhere!"
+
+In front, in rear, to right, to left, all around was one expanse of
+blue, like a rolling valley, as far as the eye could reach, while the
+sky above was cloudless and the wind blowing steadily, a little to the
+southward of east, right on our starboard beam as we steered north-
+eastwards.
+
+We were not altogether alone, however, for the ubiquitous flying-fish
+were springing up every now and then from the azure deep, taking short
+flights from one wave crest to another, or else entangling themselves in
+the rigging of the ship, and then falling a gasping prey on the deck for
+Cuffee bye and bye to operate upon in his galley, whence they would
+emerge again fried into a savoury dish for the cabin table at dinner-
+time.
+
+Bonitoes and albacore also played round our bows, and the many-hued
+dolphin could be seen disporting himself astern in our wake; while, at
+one time, a large grampus swam for some considerable period abreast of
+the vessel, as if showing how easily he could keep pace with us and
+outstrip us too when he pleased, for, later on in the afternoon, he
+darted away and was soon lost to sight.  I had now got over all the
+effects of sea-sickness, a hearty breakfast having restored my
+equilibrium, thus enabling me to enjoy all that was going on around.
+The captain especially claimed my attention when he "took the sun" at
+noon, an operation which I watched with the most absorbed interest; and
+I found out afterwards the use of the sextant, and the way in which the
+difference between the ship's mean time and that of the chronometer
+below in the cabin--which showed what the hour was at Greenwich--enabled
+Captain Miles to tell almost to a mile on the chart what was our
+position with regard to our longitude, our latitude being "worked out"
+in a different fashion.
+
+Then, there was the heaving of the log at stated intervals to ascertain
+the speed of the ship through the water, and the constant trimming of
+the sails; for more canvas was piled on as the breeze fell light during
+the afternoon, as we wanted everything spread that could draw in order
+to catch the slightest breath of wind there was.
+
+Oh, yes, there was plenty to see for a novice like me!  The _Josephine_
+was fresh out of port, and there were lots of things that had to be done
+to make her ship-shape for the long voyage before her; and, besides, had
+there been nothing else for the hands to do beyond taking their trick at
+the wheel and attending to the braces--the ordinary routine of their
+duty with a fair wind such as we had--the captain and first mate would
+have felt bound to find them something to keep their minds from
+mischief.  Sailors are never allowed a minute to be idle on a vessel at
+sea save on Sundays, and then they find work for themselves, as a rule,
+in the way of mending their clothes and putting their chests in order.
+
+I noticed this device on Captain Miles's part to provide employment for
+the men when he came on deck after luncheon; when, seeing some of the
+seamen lounging about in the waist, he immediately set them to pump out
+the bilge.  This, however, did not occupy them very long, the ship being
+pretty dry; for, after a thick dirty stream of ill-smelling water, mixed
+with a portion of molasses, leakage from the casks of sugar below, had
+poured into the scuppers for a few minutes, the pumps sucked, thus
+showing that the hold was clear down to the well bottom.
+
+A second washing-down decks followed, to efface the traces of the nasty
+bilge-water; and then, Captain Miles looked about for another task to
+keep the hands busy.
+
+"How is she going?" he asked Mr Marline, who had just seen to the
+heaving of the log, the man assisting him having not quite yet reeled in
+the line.
+
+"Six knots, sir," answered the chief mate.
+
+"By Jingo! that'll never do with this breeze," said the captain.  "We
+must get the starboard stunsails on her."
+
+"All right, sir," responded Mr Marline; and thereupon a couple of men
+went aloft to reeve the studding-sail halliards through the jewel blocks
+at the end of the yard-arms, while others stood below preparing the
+tackle and getting the booms ready, with tacks rove for hoisting, sail
+after sail being speedily packed on in addition to the canvas we were
+already carrying.
+
+The log was then hove again, and a couple more knots of way somewhat
+pleased the captain; but, a moment afterwards, seeing that the hands
+were out of work once more, he thought of a fresh task for them.
+
+"Mr Marline," he sang out presently, as he paced up and down the poop,
+eyeing the spars aloft and then casting his eyes forward.
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," was the prompt answer from the chief mate, who was
+standing by the taffrail behind the man at the wheel, looking aloft to
+see how the sails drew and then glancing round the ship occasionally, in
+a similar sailor-like way to the captain.
+
+"What say you to getting the anchors aboard and unshackling the cables,
+eh?  I don't think we shall want to use them again now before we get
+into soundings, and she seems a little down by the head."
+
+"All right, sir," said the mate.  "I'll go forwards and see to the job
+at once.  Here, you idlers," he added as he descended the poop-ladder,
+"spring up there on the fo'c's'le and see about getting the anchors
+inboard!"
+
+This operation, I may explain, is generally undertaken soon after a ship
+leaves harbour and clears the channel when outwards bound across seas;
+for, not only do the anchors interfere with the vessel's sailing trim
+from their dead weight hanging over the bows, even when properly catted
+and fished, but they are a great deal in the way.  In addition to this,
+the ship is liable to take in water through the hawse-holes, which can
+be plugged up, of course, when the cable chains are unshackled, although
+not before.  As we had been, however, up to this time navigating the
+narrow passages between the clustering islands of the Caribbean Sea and
+the dangerous reefs in their vicinity, where we might have had occasion
+possibly to anchor at any moment should the wind fail us and the cross
+currents near the land peril the safety of the ship, the anchors had
+been left still ready for instant service; but, now that we were in the
+open sea, we would have no necessity for having recourse to their aid
+until we fetched our home port, so they might just as well be stowed
+away till then.
+
+"May I go, too, and see what they are doing, Captain Miles?"  I asked as
+Mr Marline and the crew scampered forwards.
+
+"Yes, my boy," he said kindly.  "Only, mind you don't get into any
+danger!  I promised your father, you know, to look after you."
+
+"Oh, I'll take care," I replied with a joyous laugh at getting the
+permission; and, away I followed the others to the forecastle, where I
+had been longing to go ever since the early morning, when, it may be
+remembered, Davis ordered me back to the poop on my attempting to pass
+forwards as I first came out of the cabin.
+
+If it was jolly watching the progress of the ship from aft, it was ever
+so much more delightful from my new coign of vantage; for, as she dived
+her head and parted the waves with her bows, the water dashed up on
+either side in a column of spray like a fountain.  The sunlight falling
+on this refracted the most beautiful prismatic colours, a perfect
+rainbow being formed to leeward which was ever being broken up and then
+arching itself anew into a sort of emerald and orange halo in front of
+the vessel's prow.
+
+From where I stood on the knight heads, in the centre of the forecastle,
+just under the shadow of the bellying sails, the sea appeared much
+nearer to me, swelling up to the lee-rail as the _Josephine_ tore along
+through it in ploughing her course onward; and yet, the outlook conveyed
+a better idea of its vastness than when I was on the poop aft and more
+elevated above the surface level, for the immense plain of water, in
+constant surging motion--now flat as a meadow, now ridged with curling
+waves as far as the eye could reach, and then again scooped out into a
+wide hollow valley covered over with yeasty foam, looking as if a giant
+custard had been poured over it--extended to where the curving horizon
+met the sky-line in the distance, our ship, in comparison with the
+limitless expanse, being only as it were a tiny cork, floating on the
+ocean of blue and blown along as lightly before the wind!
+
+The fore-staysail, which had only recently been hoisted when the
+studding-sails were set, being now found to be in the way of getting in
+the anchors, as it prevented the hands from working freely, Mr Marline
+ordered the downhaul to be manned as soon as the halliards were cast-
+off.  The sail was then loosely stowed for a while, and a double-
+purchase block and tackle rigged up in its place on the stay.
+
+Mr Marline then sang out to Moggridge to cast-off the shank painter
+securing the best bower to the starboard side of the ship, this being
+the easiest anchor of the two to handle, for it was to windward, clear
+of the sheets of the head-sails; whereupon, the lifting gear being
+attached, the ponderous mass of metal was soon hoisted up above the cat-
+head and swayed inboard by means of a guy-line fastened to one of the
+flukes.
+
+The command was then given to lower away, when, the anchor being
+deposited on the deck of the forecastle, it was made snug close to the
+foremast bitts, so that it could not shift its new moorings as the
+vessel rolled.
+
+The chain-cable was next unshackled from the ring in the anchor-stock
+and rattled down into the locker in the fore-peak; after which, the
+starboard hawse-hole was plugged up to prevent any water from finding
+its way below through the orifice.  Thus, in a very little time, half
+the task the captain had set the men to do was accomplished, the seamen
+working with a will and singing cheerily as they laid on to the falls of
+the tackle, "yo-ho-heaving" all together, and pulling with might and
+main.
+
+The other anchor, however, being to leeward, was a little more difficult
+to manage, for it was submerged every now and then as the ship canted
+over, pitching her bows into the sea and splashing the spray up over the
+yard-arm; but, sailors are not soon daunted when they have a job on
+hand, and soon the shank painter of this was also cast-off and the
+purchase tackle made fast.
+
+"Hoist away, men!" cried Mr Marline.
+
+"Run away with the falls, you lubbers," echoed Moggridge, who was as
+busy about the matter as the first mate and doing two men's work
+himself; but, although the usual chorus was raised, and the sailors
+tugged away with all their strength, the anchor would not budge from its
+resting-place on the cat-head.
+
+"The tackle has fouled the jib-sheet," said Jackson, who had been
+pulling like a horse at the rope's end, and now looked over the side to
+see what prevented them from lifting the port bower.  "Shall I get over
+and clear it, sir?"
+
+"Aye, do," replied the mate; when Jackson got over the bows in a jiffey,
+holding on with one hand while he used the other to disentangle the
+purchase tackle, and not minding a bit the water, which rose up as high
+as his neck when the ship dipped.
+
+"Haul away, it's all clear now!" he called out presently; and he was
+just stepping inboard again when, the _Josephine_ suddenly luffing up to
+the wind, the jib flapped, and, the sheet knocking the poor fellow off
+his balance, he tumbled backwards into the sea, without having time even
+to utter a cry.
+
+"Man overboard!" shouted Mr Marline at the top of his voice.
+
+For a moment, the wildest confusion seemed to reign throughout the
+vessel, the hands scurrying to the side; and looking over into the sea
+below, where we could see Jackson's head bob up for an instant; but as
+we gazed down he was drifted rapidly astern and quickly lost to sight in
+the trough of the waves.
+
+The hubbub, however, only lasted an instant; for almost as soon as the
+mate's shout had been heard aft, Captain Miles's voice rang through the
+vessel in brief words of command, sharp and to the point.
+
+"Stand by, men," he cried.  "Hands 'bout ship!"
+
+The crew at once jumped toward the braces, singing out "Ready, aye,
+ready," as they cast them off, some going to the lee-sheets to haul in
+there.
+
+"Helm's a-lee!" then came from aft, followed by the orders "Tacks and
+sheets!" and "Mainsail haul!" when, the _Josephine's_ bows paying off
+under the influence of the tacked head-sails, the yards were swung round
+in a trice; and, within less than five minutes the vessel was retracing
+the same track she had just gone over in quest of the missing man.
+
+A man was sent up in the foretop, while Captain Miles himself ran up the
+ratlines of the mizzen shrouds to look out; and, at the same time,
+preparations were made for lowering the gig, which fortunately was still
+slung from the davits astern, not having been yet housed inboard with
+the other boats amidships--that being the next job the captain intended
+seeing to after the anchors were got in.
+
+I, of course, was as much excited as anyone, and remained on the
+forecastle, looking out eagerly for any sign of Jackson, although I
+could not see him anywhere.  I believe I was so confused with the ship
+having gone round on the opposite tack, in order to go back on her
+course, that I hardly knew in which direction to look for the
+unfortunate man, for what had before been ahead of the ship was now
+necessarily astern from her reversing her position.
+
+In another minute, however, the look out in the foretop discerned
+Jackson, and he hailed the deck at once.
+
+"There he is! there he is!" he sang out.
+
+"Where?" cried Captain Miles impatiently.
+
+"About four cables' length off the weather bow.  I can see his head
+quite clear above the wash of the sea; and he seems swimming towards
+us."
+
+"All right then, keep your eye on him, so as to pilot us!  Mr Marline,"
+continued Captain Miles, "lower the boat at once with four hands; we
+can't go close enough without it to the poor fellow, for we are to
+leeward of him."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," replied the chief mate, who had gone aft and was seeing
+to the falls of the boat; which presently, with himself in the stern-
+sheets and four hands to pull the oars, was lowered down all standing,
+the helmsman "luffing up" at the proper moment, so that the way of the
+ship might be arrested to prevent the gig being upset before getting on
+an even keel in the sea, it being a rather ticklish thing to launch a
+boat from a vessel under sail.
+
+Luckily, however, the manoeuvre was safely accomplished without any
+mishap, the fall tackles being unhitched the instant the gig touched the
+water; and then, the boat's crew shipping their oars without delay, she
+was pulled off to windward of us in the direction indicated by the look
+out man in the foretop, who with his hand extended pointed the course to
+be steered.
+
+The _Josephine_ meanwhile gathered way again slowly and followed astern
+of the boat, although somewhat more to leeward, the wind being almost in
+her teeth and the ship having to sail close-hauled.
+
+After a little time--for we had run nearly half a mile before going
+about and some minutes were consumed in getting the ship round on the
+opposite tack--we approached the spot where the accident had occurred;
+then, all of us could see Jackson plainly from the deck.
+
+He was swimming grandly; now rising up on the top of a rolling wave, and
+then, as he surmounted this, sinking for a moment from sight in the
+hollow of the next, but making steady progress towards the ship all the
+while.  Every now and again, too, he lifted one of his hands out of the
+water on commencing his stroke, as if to tell us he was all right and in
+good heart, noticing that we were coming to his rescue.  The boat, the
+while rowed ahead of us as fast as the men in her could pull, putting
+their backs into the oars with all their strength, although making for
+the gallant swimmer in a slanting course to that of the _Josephine_.
+
+Nearer and nearer we sailed, but much more slowly than all hands on
+board could wish, for the breeze was very light; nearer and nearer the
+gig approached Jackson, until we could see the very expression of his
+face.
+
+He was actually grinning, and appeared from the movement of his mouth
+once when on top of a roller, to shout out some chaffing exclamation to
+us, seeming to regard the whole thing as a huge joke; and, Captain Miles
+was just about issuing some order about backing the main-topsail in
+order to heave the ship to, so as to get him and the boat aboard again,
+when, all at once, our anticipated joy at welcoming the poor fellow was
+turned into dismay by a startled cry from Jake, who was standing up in
+the weather rigging near me.
+
+"Golly, Mass' Tom!" he yelled out, loud enough for all to hear him, his
+black face changing nearly to a sickly sea-green colour with horror and
+consternation.  "Dere's one big shark swimmin' right ahind de poor
+buckra.  O Lor', O Lor', he jus' up to him now!"
+
+At this time the ship was not quite a cable's length from the
+unfortunate man, who was about a point off our port bow; while the gig
+couldn't have been half that distance away from him; and, no sooner had
+Jake's startling announcement of the shark's proximity alarmed us all at
+the new and terrible peril threatening the swimmer, than the crew, led
+by Captain Miles, shouted out a concentrated cry of warning.  "Ahoy!
+Look out!  Shark!"
+
+The words came out almost simultaneously, as it uttered by one voice,
+thrilling through the air with their fearful meaning, when, hardly had
+the sounds died away than we could see that Mr Marline and those in the
+gig with him heard us; for, recognising the urgency of the case, they
+redoubled their exertions to reach Jackson in time, so as to frustrate
+the intentions of his terrible antagonist.  They seemed to put fresh
+steam in their oars, pulling all they knew against the choppy sea and
+wind, both of which were against them, counteracting their efforts and
+pressing the boat back as they urged it forwards.
+
+From the fact, however, of our being to leeward of him and the wind
+bearing our shout away, Jackson unfortunately did not appear to hear us.
+At all events, he made no sign in response whatever, still swimming
+onwards in the direction of the ship, but leisurely, as if ignorant of
+any new source of danger.
+
+Captain Miles grew intensely excited, as, indeed, we all were by this
+time; so, jumping up on the poop bulwarks and holding on to the mizzen
+shrouds, he repeated the cry of warning, all hands taking it up as
+before in one hoarse shout.
+
+"Shark! shark!  Look out, man alive!  He's now close in upon you, and
+coming up fast astern!"
+
+This time Jackson caught our hail, but still, evidently mistook its
+import.  He thought we only called to him by way of encouraging him to
+strike out more vigourously for the ship, and he waved his hand in
+acknowledgment of the signal; then he breasted the waves anew in fine
+style, although taking it quite easy as if thoroughly confident in
+himself and not a bit alarmed.
+
+The reason he made for the _Josephine_ was that he did not perceive the
+boat, which he had not seen lowered; and, besides this, it was every now
+and then hidden from view as it sank down between the ridges of the
+rollers, while, in addition, his face was turned in the opposite
+direction to that in which the little craft was approaching him.
+
+The captain was in a perfect agony.
+
+"Shark! shark!" he again screamed, more than cried, out.  "For heaven's
+sake, strike out, man, or you're lost!"
+
+Then, all at once, Jackson appeared to grasp the meaning of the warning;
+and, looking behind him hurriedly, he caught sight of the cruel monster
+that was swimming after him, stroke by stroke and ready to sheer up
+alongside when it thought the proper opportunity had arrived for seizing
+its prey.
+
+It must have given the poor fellow an awful sensation!
+
+He could not but have realised the fearful doom that possibly awaited
+him; for we could, in a moment, even at that distance, notice his face
+change--a terror-stricken look coming over it in place of its previously
+buoyant expression.  The brave fellow, however, uttered never a word,
+but only continued swimming on towards us in grim desperation.
+
+"Pull, Marline, for God's sake, pull!" shouted out Captain Miles to the
+mate and those with him in the boat; but, although the men made the
+water churn up over the bows of the gig in their mad haste to urge it
+forwards, the relentless shark was quicker in its movements and crept up
+closer to poor Jackson.
+
+It was close in his rear, while the boat was yet thirty or forty yards
+away; and then, like a flash of lightning, we saw the monster's gleaming
+white stomach as it threw itself over on its back and opened its wide
+maw lined with rows of serrated teeth.
+
+"My God!" exclaimed Captain Miles, turning away his head, "they are too
+late!"
+
+A sympathetic groan of anguish ran through the ship, and I could not
+help bursting into tears as I jumped down from the gangway, not daring
+to watch the end of the tragedy; but I thought I heard one agonised
+scream from the poor fellow, which must have escaped his lips just as
+the cruel teeth of the shark gripped its unresisting victim, telling
+that all was over.
+
+After this, for one single moment, there was a still silence as of death
+around me, the men appearing to hold their very breaths in excess of
+emotion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+A WATER-SPOUT.
+
+Then, the next instant, a wild frenzied roar of joy echoed fore and aft
+the ship, making the _Josephine_ quiver almost down to her bottom
+timbers.
+
+"Hooray!"
+
+I could scarcely believe my ears; but, as I looked up in surprise and
+wonder I caught sight of Jake's ebony face all aglow with delight, his
+eyes rolling about like a vessel in a heavy seaway and his mouth
+expanded from ear to ear.  He was evidently about to indulge in one of
+his usual huge guffaws when especially highly pleased and unable to
+contain himself, as he evidently was now.
+
+"Golly, dat splendiferous!" he cried out in ecstasy.  "Um beat cock-
+fightin' nohow!"
+
+"Bravo, well done!"  I heard Captain Miles's voice exclaim also at the
+same time, with a joyous heartiness utterly indescribable.
+
+"Why, what has happened, Jake?"  I asked, quite puzzled.
+
+"Wat happen', eh, Mass' Tom?  I tell um sharp!  De sailor man lick de
+shark arter all!  Him dibe under de fis; as um go to grab him; an' den,
+dey catch de nasty debbil one big crack wid um boat-hook, an' pull Mass'
+Jackson into der boat.  Golly, I'se so berry glad, Mass' Tom!  I'se
+a'most cry wid joy, for true."
+
+And then, not content with this expression of his feelings, the
+sympathetic darkey, sliding down from the rigging where he had been
+perched, looking on at the terribly exciting scene taking place a moment
+before in the water, tumbled himself over on the deck in paroxysms of
+merriment, perfectly unable to restrain himself and keep still.
+
+When I now looked over the side of the ship, which by this time was
+hove-to, the gig, with Jackson seated in the stern-sheets by Mr
+Marline, was close under the port quarter, and the rescued swimmer with
+those who had saved him in the nick of time were just preparing to come
+on board.
+
+Presently, Jackson and the mate mounted the side-ladder amidst a perfect
+ovation from the crew, all hands cheering like mad and pressing forwards
+to shake the fist of him whom they had never expected to see again.
+After this the gig was veered astern and hoisted up once more to the
+davits, and the _Josephine_, bearing round and filling her sails, again
+resumed her north-east course on the starboard tack.  The job of making
+the port anchor snug inboard was completed later on, when the men had
+sobered down somewhat from the excitement which had reigned through the
+ship from the moment Jackson had first fallen overboard--it having been
+an awfully anxious time throughout his peril by drowning, his
+hairbreadth escape from the shark, and his ultimate rescue.
+
+Later on, Moggridge told me how the poor fellow escaped from the very
+jaws of death.
+
+Jackson, he said, when he became aware of being pursued by the
+bloodthirsty monster, instead of losing his presence of mind, as most
+men would have done under the circumstances, remained perfectly calm and
+collected, having once before had an encounter with a shark in his
+native element.
+
+He swam on steadily towards the ship, apparently unmindful of his enemy;
+but, he carefully kept his weather eye opened, and when he saw the brute
+going to turn on his back in order to make a snatch at him, he at once
+dived under the shark's body, thus circumventing his attack.  Before the
+monster could recover itself and make a fresh onslaught, Moggridge said,
+the chief mate caught it a pretty tidy whack over the head with a boat-
+hook, while Jackson was hauled into the gig at the same time by the
+other men.
+
+It was a wonderful escape, however, and nothing else was talked of on
+board for days after.
+
+Strange to say, too, the shark, as if determined not to be easily balked
+of its prey, followed the ship steadily; and this fact, of course, kept
+the incident fresh in our minds, even if we had been at all inclined to
+forget it, the hideous creature's bottle-like fin ever perceptible in
+our wake being a constant reminder!
+
+"He's bound to hab somebody for suah," said the captain's mulatto
+steward Harry, who by the way was the person who had given out that
+agonised shriek which I had fancied to be poor Jackson's death knell.
+"Shark nebber follow ship for nuffin'!"
+
+"No," observed Captain Miles grimly; "this beggar sha'n't at all events,
+if I know it!" and he paced up and down the poop, as if revolving the
+matter in his mind.
+
+This was the third day after the affair had happened, and the captain
+was quite incensed at the shark's pertinacity; for, morning, noon, and
+night, whenever we logged over the side, there could be seen the sea-
+pirate's long sinewy body, floating under our stern and always keeping
+pace with the ship whether she was going fast or slow--although, as we
+had little or no wind, the latter was generally the case.
+
+"I fancy, Mr Marline," said the captain, soon after replying to Harry's
+rather frightened observation, the mulatto being very timid and of a
+cowardly nature, as the fact of his fainting when the cow invaded the
+cabin would readily tell--"I say, Mr Marline, I think it's time for us
+to give that joker down there a lesson, eh?"
+
+"Perhaps you'll find him too artful to take a hook, cap'en," answered
+the mate.  "He seems to me an `old sojer,' from the look of him and the
+regularity of his movements.  Just see him now looking up, as if
+listening to what we were saying!"
+
+"Well, we'll try him anyway," said Captain Miles, telling Moggridge to
+bring the shark hook aft, as he wished to attempt the capture of our
+unwelcome attendant.
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," replied the boatswain, going forwards and presently
+returning with a large steel hook, much about the same size as those
+they use in butchers' shops for hanging meat on.  A piece of chain was
+attached to this by a swivel instead of rope or a line, which, although
+good enough for other fish, the saw-like teeth of the monster of the
+deep would quickly have bitten through.
+
+"Is the tackle all sound?" asked the captain.
+
+"Aye, aye, sir; sound enough to catch a whale," responded Moggridge,
+proceeding to bait the hook with a four-pound piece of salt pork which
+completely concealed the barbs; and then, a stout half-inch rope having
+been fastened on to the end of the chain, the whole apparatus was thrown
+overboard close to where the shark was patrolling the water under our
+stern.
+
+He sheered off a bit on hearing the splash; but afterwards soon swam up
+to where the baited hook was towing in our wake, smelling at it
+cautiously as if to see whether it was advisable for him to bolt the
+savoury morsel or not.  Then, with a disdainful swish of his screw-like
+tail, he turned round in the water and resumed his station further
+astern, as if he saw through our attempt to entrap him, and despised it.
+
+"I thought so," said Mr Marline.  "He's too old a bird to be caught by
+chaff.  You won't hook him in a blue moon!"
+
+"Don't you be too cocksure of that," retorted Captain Miles.  "Sharks, I
+have noticed, frequently resemble cats in the way they will nibble at a
+bait, and pretend they don't care about it, when all the while they are
+dying to gobble it down--just in the same manner as you'll observe
+pussy, if you offer her a nice bit of meat, will sniff and turn away her
+head as if rejecting the morsel with disdain, affecting to make you
+believe it beneath her notice, only the next moment to abstract it slily
+from your hand, glad enough to get it!  You'll see presently, Mr
+Marline, that our friend there will go at the pork again, I'll bet
+anything."
+
+"All right, cap'en," replied Mr Marline.  "I only hope, I'm sure, that
+your anticipation will prove correct;" but, from the sly quizzical smile
+on his face and the dry way in which he spoke, I don't think the mate
+believed in our hooking the ugly brute, all the same.
+
+After a little time, I noticed two small fishes coming up towards the
+bait and poking their pointed noses into it as if taking observations,
+and I called Captain Miles's attention to them.
+
+"Oh, that's a good sign," said he.  "Those are pilot-fish, which always
+accompany his majesty Mr Shark in the way of _aides-de-camp_, as you
+call those smart gentlemen in gay uniforms who are usually seen prancing
+about the general at a review of troops ashore.  Whenever you see the
+little chaps, the shark himself is never far off, for they precede him
+as his scouts to warn him of danger as well as tell him if there's
+anything worth grabbing in the offing.  If it wasn't for them I believe
+he'd fare rather badly, as his own sight is bad--fortunately for poor
+fellows that fall in the water in the way Jackson did t'other day!"
+
+"But, captain," I remarked, "they must be very bad guides if they do not
+tell the shark about the hook."
+
+"Aye," he replied; "something like `the blind leading the blind,' eh?
+Still, you know Moggridge has taken care that the bait carefully
+conceals the snare within, and the pilot-fish are none the wiser.  See
+them now!"
+
+As I watched, I noticed first one and then the other of the little fish
+smell at the piece of pork, making their observations apparently, after
+which they swam back to the side of the shark, where they remained for a
+moment on either side of his snout, as if they were making their report
+upon the tempting object and giving their master all particulars.
+
+Then the shark, with a fluke of his tail, also advanced closer to the
+bait, which just then, by a twist of the rope attached to it, the
+boatswain jerked away.
+
+This was enough for Master Shark, who, thinking he was going to lose the
+coveted morsel, at once sheered alongside of it, turning over on his
+back and opening his terrible-looking cavern of a mouth in the same way
+I had seen him do when he tried to catch poor Jackson.  The recollection
+of that made me shudder all over!
+
+The next moment the monster had bolted both bait and hook, as well as a
+couple of feet of the chain; but when he turned to sheer off again he
+was "brought up with a round turn," as sailors say, by the rope
+tightening suddenly, the jerk almost making him turn a somersault in the
+water.
+
+He was not altogether captured yet, however, and his struggles to get
+free were tremendous.  Really, his jaws must have been pretty tough to
+have not given way under the furious flings and writhings he made to
+release himself; for the strong half-inch manilla rope that held him
+tethered was stretched like a fiddle-string, its strands all quivering
+with the strain upon it.
+
+First to one side of the ship and then to the other the brute bounded in
+turns, making the sea boil around him like a whirlpool, until finally,
+after half an hour's fight of it, he gave in and lay quiet, although not
+dead yet by any means.
+
+As soon as the shark began to flounder about, I noticed that the pilot-
+fish went away, leaving him alone in his extremity; and on my mentioning
+this to Mr Marline he took the opportunity of pointing a moral for my
+especial benefit.
+
+"It's just the way in the world, Master Tom," said he.  "Foolish
+companions lead many a young fellow into a scrape; but as soon as they
+see him in the mess into which they were the means of inveigling him,
+they scuttle off, abandoning him to his fate and probably laughing at
+his troubles too."
+
+"Aye," put in Captain Miles, wishing also to improve the occasion; "and
+if that shark had not been so madly impetuous in rushing at the hook he
+would never have been caught; in the same way as somebody told me of a
+certain young gentleman, who, not looking before he leaped, as the
+proverb says, and only thinking of the end he had in view, galloped down
+a hill and came to grief--getting a tumble which laid him up for weeks!"
+
+"Oh, Captain Miles," said I, "you don't think I'm a shark, do you?"
+
+"Well, not quite so bad as that, youngster," he replied with one of his
+cheery laughs; "but, quite as impetuous sometimes, eh, Master Tom?"
+
+I made no answer to this thrust, knowing there was some truth in it, my
+mother having frequently to call me over the coals for doing things on
+the spur of the moment, which, as she was aware, I always regretted
+afterwards.
+
+This thoughtless impulse is a great fault, as I know to my cost; for, it
+has led me into many a scrape--sometimes to the danger of my life!
+
+While we were talking the shark was still struggling in the water; but
+when he grew tolerably composed, only an occasional splash of his tail
+showing that he yet lived, the men began to make preparations for
+hauling him on board.
+
+The bight of a rope was made into a running knot and hove round the body
+of the animal; when, the men hauling away with a will at the other end
+of the line, which was passed through a snatch-block hung in the
+rigging, the captive was soon bowsed up to the mizzen chains.
+
+No sooner, however, was he got out of the water than the hampered
+monster appeared to be imbued with fresh vitality, lashing his tail
+about and splintering the wood-work of the bulwarks as if it had been
+brown paper; but when the slip-knot was drawn tighter this controlled
+his frantic movements a bit, and Jackson, who was allowed precedence of
+the rest of the sailors from his previous acquaintance with the savage
+brute, then advanced with a sharp butcher's knife, which he had borrowed
+from the cook, in order to give his old enemy his quietus.
+
+Taking care not to get within reach of either the jaws or ponderous tail
+of the shark, he leaned over the side of the ship and stabbed it in the
+neck; after which, with two long slashing cuts he severed the head,
+which quickly splashed down into the sea under the counter, sinking to
+the bottom at once from the mere weight of the bone it contained.
+Jackson then proceeded, by the captain's orders, to rip open the
+animal's stomach; but it was found to contain nothing digestible but the
+piece of pork which had led to the brute's capture, the shark evidently
+having been lately on short allowance.
+
+When, however, Jackson extracted the hook from the bait, he started back
+suddenly as if he had received a blow, clutching hold of the shrouds to
+steady himself.
+
+I thought he was going to faint.
+
+"Hullo!" exclaimed Captain Miles; "what's the matter?"
+
+"See here!" replied the young sailor, holding up in his hand something
+dark and soft looking, with a bit of ribbon fluttering from one end.
+
+"Well, what is it?" repeated the captain.
+
+"My cap," said Jackson solemnly; "and, but for the mercy of God I also
+might have been in the same place!"
+
+It gave us all a thrill, I can tell you, the sight of this old cap,
+which must have floated off Jackson's head when he dived to escape the
+rush of the shark.  The brute had swallowed it, no doubt, greedily,
+thinking it had got the owner.
+
+As for Jackson himself, when he clambered up over the side again and
+came inboard, his face was as white as a table-cloth.  I did not hear
+him, either, joking about the deck all day afterwards in his usual way;
+although the young sailor, besides being the smartest of the hands at
+his work, had hitherto been the life of the crew, always laughing and
+chaffing the others, as well as being the first to lead a song on the
+fo'c's'le of an evening.  The startling discovery of his cap in the
+shark's stomach, coupled with the reflection that, had not Providence
+intervened in his behalf, he might have also been swallowed up, seemed
+to have completely sobered him for the time.
+
+The other hands, however, were not much affected by the incident; and,
+presently, when the bight of the rope round the shark was unloosed and
+the body allowed to drop overboard, Moggridge sang out in a triumphant
+voice: "Now we've got rid of Jonah, we'll have a shift of wind at last!"
+
+"Why does the boatswain say that?"  I asked Captain Miles.  "What had
+the shark to do with the weather?"
+
+"Well, you see, my boy," he answered, "sailors are generally
+superstitious, and they always think that killing a shark brings good
+luck of some sort.  Now, the best sort of luck we can have would be a
+good stiff south-wester, or something of that sort, to drive us on our
+way across the Atlantic, as we have experienced nothing but light
+breezes since we left the islands, barely making five hundred miles'
+distance from Sombrero.  We'll never get to England at this rate in a
+month of Sundays."
+
+Unlike most prophecies referring to the weather, which, as a rule, must
+generally be made after the event to be correct, that of the old
+boatswain, curiously enough, turned out a true one, for, although we had
+been only favoured with light winds from the time of Jackson's escape
+from the shark and all the while the ill-fated brute followed in our
+wake like a phantom of evil, not many hours elapsed after we had
+captured the animal before a strong southerly breeze sprang up.  This,
+shifting round later on more to the westwards, came right astern of the
+vessel--thus enabling her to spread studding-sails and sky-sails,
+exposing every rag of canvas she could carry from truck to deck.
+
+The wind, too, fortunately, was not a cat's-paw either, like the
+shifting airs we had previously had, for it lasted us ten days at one
+stretch, carrying us well to the south-east of Bermuda and almost more
+than half-way to the Azores.
+
+During all this time, no very remarkable incident occurred on board,
+save that, whether owing to change of air or through some deficiency of
+their native diet, three out of the half a dozen turtle, which Captain
+Miles was hoping to carry home for the lord mayor's banquet, died one by
+one.  They were hove over the side in the same fashion; and, as I
+watched their shelly backs floating astern, I could see flocks of sea-
+birds settle down on them, evidently rejoicing in having such an
+unexpected feast.  A pig, too, was killed one day, supplying us in the
+cabin with savoury roast pork, which was an agreeable change from the
+salt beef and boiled fowls that were our ordinary fare--although, as the
+hen-coops were becoming rapidly untenanted, I should not have much
+longer to complain of any monotony of the latter item of our diet, I
+thought.
+
+But, if there was nothing to chronicle of any stirring character I
+enjoyed the voyage immensely, being as happy as the day was long.
+
+It seemed like paradise to me, sailing on and on before the genial
+western wind over the wide blue sea, with an azure sky above unflecked
+by a cloud in the daytime and studded with a glorious galaxy of stars at
+night that made the heavens look like a casket of jewels.
+
+Before long, I became quite a sailor too, being able to make my way
+aloft to the cross-trees without help, and I was learning by familiarity
+every rope whose name Moggridge had before taught me; for, when the
+captain saw that I was careful through his repeated cautions, and also
+had Jackson to look after me, he withdrew the embargo he had placed on
+my mounting the rigging.  Indeed, he was kind enough to let me do duty
+as an "extra hand," as I loved to consider myself, in Mr Marline's
+watch, or when he himself was on deck.
+
+Another great delight I had consisted in going out on the bowsprit and
+fishing for bonitoes and dolphins with a bit of red or white cloth tied
+to a hook, in the same way as one goes "reeling" for mackerel in the
+Channel; and many a savoury supper, cooked surreptitiously by Jake in
+his friend the cook's caboose, had I on the sly at night in the
+fo'c's'le, when Captain Miles thought I had turned in and was snug
+asleep in my bunk!
+
+Day after day passed alike, with the exception, of course, of Sundays,
+when the captain read prayers on the poop to the hands clustered round,
+all dressed out in their best shore clothes, and with the decks
+especially holystoned in honour of the day--the ship the while making
+some couple of hundred miles every twenty-four hours on her onward way,
+while scarcely shifting a sail or altering a brace from week's end to
+week's end.
+
+It was getting on towards the end of August, the wind having continued
+fair from about the middle of the month and the weather being all that
+could be desired; when, one morning, that of our fifteenth day out from
+Grenada, I recollect, I noticed that Captain Miles looked rather anxious
+after coming on deck, shortly before our breakfast hour, "eight bells,"
+according to his usual custom when everything was going on all right.
+
+He first glanced aloft, sailor-like, to see that everything was correct
+with the rigging and the sails all drawing, and then he cast an eye
+forward, noting the orderly arrangements there; finally, walking across
+to the binnacle in order to observe what course the ship was steering,
+and asking Mr Marline, who had charge of the morning watch, how she was
+going.
+
+"Eight knots good, sir, last heave of the log," promptly said the mate.
+
+"That's all right," observed the captain; "but, I don't like the look
+ahead.  It seems to me as if there's going to be a change."
+
+"Indeed?" replied Mr Marline; "I haven't noticed anything at all
+unusual.  The wind has kept steady from the westwards ever since I came
+on the poop at four bells, the same as we left it overnight."
+
+"But, the glass is going down, Marline," rejoined Captain Miles; "and
+don't you notice the sea is getting a bit cross off our port bow?  It
+strikes me we'll have a shift of wind presently from the eastwards, if
+nothing more.  However, we oughtn't to grumble, for ten days of such
+fine weather is rather unusual in these latitudes, you know, at this
+time of year."
+
+"Yes, certainly," replied the mate; "we've made good use of the time,
+too."
+
+"Aye, that we have," replied the captain.  "I fixed our position last
+night by a couple of lunars."
+
+"And I suppose it corroborates your observation of yesterday, eh?"
+
+"Pretty nearly," said Captain Miles; "calculating for the distance we've
+run since, I should think we're somewhere about 30 degrees North and 52
+degrees West."
+
+"Well, that's strange!" exclaimed Mr Marline.  "We've got to the limit
+of the north-east trade without having once the benefit of it from the
+day we started, the winds having been south-east and southerly till they
+shifted round to the westwards!"
+
+"So they have," said the captain; "still, that has been all the more
+lively for us.  But I don't like this change brewing up.  Look at the
+clouds now!"
+
+"Ha, they're getting up at last!" replied the other.  "I see you were
+right, the change will come from the eastwards."
+
+Up to now it had been a beautifully bright morning, the sky without a
+scrap of vapour to obscure its lucent expanse, and the sea lit up with
+golden sunshine that made it appear bluer somehow or other; but, even
+while Captain Miles and Mr Marline were speaking, a low bank of cloud
+arose along the eastern horizon, and this, spreading gradually up
+towards the zenith, soon shut out the half-risen sun and his rays,
+casting a sombre tinge at the same time on the ocean below.
+
+"All hands shorten sail!" shouted the captain, and the studding-sail
+halliards being let go by the run, the _Josephine_, which a moment
+before had looked like a bird with outspread wings, had these latter
+clipped off in a jiffey, the light sails bagging with the wind like
+balloons as they were hauled down; and, soon afterwards, the booms
+projecting from the yard-arms on which they had been rigged out, were
+sent below and laid with the other spare spars along the bulwarks in the
+waist.
+
+While the crew were busy at this task, the strong breeze, which but a
+short time before had filled our canvas, gradually died away until there
+did not seem to be a puff of air stirring, the larger sails now hanging
+loose or else flapping idly against the masts.
+
+Captain Miles, however, did not stop merely at taking in the studding-
+sails, for the royals were next furled as well as the topgallant-sails;
+and then, under reefed topsails and courses, in addition to her jib and
+spanker which were still set, he awaited what the weather might have in
+store for his vessel.  An experienced seaman, such as he was, when
+forewarned, as in the present instance, by a falling barometer, always
+prepares for eventualities of the worst possible character, never
+leaving anything to chance or neglecting to take proper precautions.  By
+not doing so many a gallant ship with all hands on board is lost through
+the carelessness of bad navigators.
+
+The cloud in the east, meanwhile, rose higher in the heavens, showing a
+bit of clear sky for a moment at its base, when it began to travel
+towards the ship at great speed, but in a very eccentric fashion,
+whirling round and looking as if it were dancing on the surface of the
+water.
+
+"I can't make it out," said Mr Marline in a puzzled sort of way.
+"There must be a good deal of wind at the back of it; but, why doesn't
+it keep a straight course towards us, eh sir?"
+
+"It's a whirlwind, I fancy," replied Captain Miles; "I've seen a good
+many in the South Atlantic, near the African coast, although never one
+before in these latitudes so far from land."
+
+"Are they dangerous at all, captain?"  I asked, rather anxiously.
+
+"No, Tom, not unless you got in the vortex of one, when it might twist
+the spars out of a ship perhaps, though I never saw any mischief done by
+one myself.  Mind your helm," added Captain Miles to the man at the
+wheel, whose office at present was a sinecure, for the ship was almost
+becalmed and the rudder swaying to and fro from port to starboard as it
+listed.  "If the wind catches us suddenly we may be taken aback, and I
+want you to be ready when I give the word."
+
+This made the sailor who was "taking his trick" all alert, instead of
+lounging over the spokes as he had been doing previously, listening to
+our talk.
+
+Presently, a quick puff of air came from the west again, and the
+_Josephine_ began to gather way; but almost in an instant afterwards the
+wind shifted right ahead, coming down with the cloud, and the yards were
+at once braced round, the vessel being headed towards the north.
+
+The cloud approached rapidly now on our weather bow; and, as it got
+nearer, we could see that its bottom edge, which was attenuated to the
+proportions of a slender pillar of vapour, seemed to be united to the
+water, the sea, where it joined the surface, being greatly agitated,
+foaming up in columns of spray that were circled round and round and
+then drawn up in corkscrew fashion into the denser body above.
+
+"Why, it's a water-spout!" exclaimed Mr Marline in great surprise.
+
+"So it is," said the captain, a bit startled and perplexed too.  "Look
+sharp, Marline, and see to the hatches being battened down and the
+scuppers open; for, if the blessed thing bursts immediately overhead, it
+will flood our decks with a deluge of water worse than if we had shipped
+a heavy sea."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," answered the other, scuttling down the poop-ladder to
+attend to these orders; but he had hardly left the captain's side ere a
+terrific gust of wind struck us, coming from the same direction as the
+water-spout.
+
+The instant after, the wind shifted round to the opposite quarter, and
+then a series of squalls, hot and strong, seemed to assail us from
+almost every point of the compass at once.
+
+"Hands shorten sail!" roared out Captain Miles again, using the palms of
+his two hands before his mouth for a speaking trumpet.  "Be smart, men!
+Some of you brail up the spanker here and man the jib downhaul.  Right!
+Now, away aloft the rest of you; we must have those topsails close-
+reefed.  Cast-off the halliards--there--cheerily, men; that's the way to
+do it!"
+
+No sooner were the hands down from the topsail-yards, however, than he
+had them up again to take in the courses, which had already been clewed
+up and were now furled; the _Josephine_ lying-to under close-reefed
+topsails, with the fore-topmast staysail set to keep her in command of
+her helm.
+
+She did not look so gay as she had done earlier in the day, with all her
+snowy plumage spread before the favouring breeze; but, she was all the
+better prepared to battle with the elements, and now steadily and
+sturdily awaited their onset.
+
+The struggle was not long delayed.
+
+Closer and closer came the whirling water-spout, surrounded by columns
+of misty spray and accompanied by the fierce wind.  The sea was agitated
+with violent eddies that rocked the ship to her centre every moment;
+and, above the shriek of the constant squalls tearing through the
+rigging, and the splash of the boiling water at the foot of the terrible
+cloud column, we could distinguish a peculiar hoarse sucking noise, as
+if the whole herd of Neptune's horses were drinking their fill, and
+letting us know about it, too!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+DISRATED.
+
+I can't say what the rest felt; but I know that I, for one, was
+frightened when I heard that strange gurgling noise and saw the great
+black thing, spinning round like a teetotum and swirling up the water,
+coming down on our ship as if to overwhelm her!
+
+The squalls, which succeeded each other from different directions in
+rapid sequence, were even more dangerous than the water-spout; but
+Captain Miles was too good a seaman to be easily beaten, even by the
+most adverse circumstances.
+
+Telling off some of the best hands to the fore and main-braces on either
+side, so that these could be let go or hauled taut in an instant as the
+wind shifted, thus necessitating the vessel changing her tack with
+similar rapidity, he went to the helm himself; and from this point, with
+the assistance of Moggridge, he conned the ship as coolly as if he were
+in charge of a yacht trying to weather the mark-boat in a race so as to
+get to windward of her competitors!
+
+The captain was trying to make as much northing as he could, as well as
+endeavouring to run out of reach of the water-spout, which latter,
+although it gyrated about in the water so queerly and seemed moving
+every way at once, came up more from the eastwards, travelling to the
+south of west apparently; and, expert seaman that he was, in spite of
+the veering wind, which backed round every moment, he gallantly
+manoeuvred so as to gain his object--sailing ahead between the squalls,
+as it were.
+
+"Ready about!" he would call out one minute, when the main-topsail was
+backed and the fore-yard swung round; and, almost as soon as this was
+done and the weather braces handed, the cry "'bout ship!" was again
+repeated, when the _Josephine_ was brought once mere back to her
+previous bearings.
+
+Such tackings and beatings about, surely, no ship ever underwent before
+in so short a time!
+
+"By Jingo, he's a sailor every inch of him!"  I heard one of the old
+hands of the crew murmur in admiration as he pulled in with a will the
+weather braces for about the sixth time in as many minutes; and, truth
+to say, I could not help sharing the feeling of respect all the crew had
+for our captain, who, easy-going as he was generally in fine weather,
+letting the first mate then attend to the working of the ship, he was
+"all there," as they said, when the necessity for prompt action in any
+emergency called for exertion and made him show himself in his true
+colours.
+
+But, struggle to outstrip it as much as he might, the water-spout came
+nearer and nearer to us, bearing down still broadside-on upon the ship.
+As I stood close to the captain and Moggridge, who alone were on the
+poop besides myself, Mr Marline and Davis the second mate being in the
+waist, looking after the men at the braces amidships, I noticed that the
+pillar of cloud became more transparent in proportion as it decreased in
+size from the upper portion, until it seemed almost perfectly so at the
+lower extremity where it touched the sea.  I observed, too, that a small
+inner column of equal diameter, looking like a glass tube, went up the
+middle.  This, evidently, was the water which was being sucked up into
+the mass of vapour above as if by a syphon.
+
+Fortunately, just as it seemed almost touching the ship, when the
+whirling waves round its base made us oscillate from side to side, the
+_Josephine_, heeling over to her chain-plates from a sudden rush of wind
+that appeared to accompany it, the portentous column of vapour darted
+off almost at right angles to its former course; and then, the cloud,
+having taken up more of the sea-water than it could contain, burst with
+a loud hissing sort of report, the contents falling around us in the
+form of a heavy downpour of rain which sluiced our decks down, but
+happily did no further damage.
+
+"Thank God!" exclaimed Captain Miles reverently, taking off his cap and
+looking upwards in grateful recognition of the providential care that
+had watched over and protected us from the fearful peril which had
+threatened us; and his thanksgiving was participated in by more than one
+other, I knew, for I could see Moggridge's lips moving in silent prayer,
+while I felt inclined to fall on my knees, my heart was so full of joy
+and gladness at our narrow escape.
+
+I was overpowered with a feeling of wonder and awe.
+
+Strangely enough, there seemed some strong connection between the water-
+spout and the wind; for, no sooner had the column of vapour broken up,
+than the heavy clouds dispersed away to leeward.  The sun then came out
+again, and the squally weather calmed down to a gentle breeze from the
+south-east that enabled us to haul round again on our proper course, the
+ship presently being covered anew with canvas and the reefs in the
+topsails shaken out.
+
+When all danger was over, though, the whole thing puzzled me very much.
+
+"What is a water-spout?"  I asked Captain Miles later on in the evening
+after dinner, as he was having a quiet cigar on the poop before turning
+in.  I saw that he then looked inclined for a chat, and thought it a
+good opportunity to seek for information.
+
+He answered my question in the Irish way, by asking me another.
+
+"Did you ever see a whirlwind when you were at Grenada, Tom?" he
+inquired.
+
+"Yes," I replied, "I recollect a long time ago noticing one at Mount
+Pleasant once, and wondering at the way in which all the loose straw in
+the stable-yard was circled round and round, as if in a funnel, and then
+drawn up into the sky."
+
+"Well, then," said Captain Miles, "the celebrated Dr Franklin has
+demonstrated, if I recollect aright, that a whirlwind on land, and a
+water-spout at sea, arise from similar general causes, and may be
+considered one and the same thing."
+
+"But, what is the cause of them?"  I asked now.
+
+"The action of opposing atmospheric currents, Tom, if you can understand
+what I mean.  Two contrary winds meet: a vortex therefore ensues; and,
+any cloud that happens to be between these opposing currents of air at
+the time is condensed into a conical form and turned round with great
+celerity.  This whirling motion drives from the centre of the cloud all
+the particles of vapour contained in it; consequently, a vacuum is
+thereby produced in the body of it; and, as nature abhors a vacuum in
+every case, the water of the sea lying below the overhanging mass is
+carried up, in centrifugal fashion, and in a sort of way by capillary
+attraction, into the vacant centre of the cloud cylinder."
+
+"Why does it not stop there?" said I.  "That one just now burst."
+
+"Ah, that fellow was like a greedy boy who has eaten too much, and has
+to disgorge after he has filled his little stomach too full!  But, some
+water-spouts carry their contents on to the land, where, when the clouds
+have been attracted by mountains or some lofty object, they may do great
+damage by wrecking houses and inundating the country for miles round.
+At sea, they are not half so dangerous, having plenty of room there to
+expend themselves without effecting much injury, except a ship should be
+right beneath them when they fall to pieces."
+
+"Do you think, sir," I then inquired, "that one would have sunk us, if
+it had burst over the _Josephine_?"
+
+"Well, I hardly know, Tom," answered Captain Miles reflectively.
+"Although it looked terrific enough at one time, I am not inclined to
+believe now that it would have been attended with any very serious
+calamity to our ship, had even the whole quantity of water it contained
+fallen on our decks.  If you recollect, I ordered beforehand the hatches
+to be battened down and the scuppers in the waist cleared.  Besides, the
+cylinder or spiral column of vapour, you observed, was very like a glass
+tube in the centre of the water-spout, and this coming in contact with
+our masts and rigging it would have been at once broken, when the
+surrounding air rushing into the vacuum to restore the atmospheric
+equilibrium, the torrent of water would have been forced sideways
+instead of descending perpendicularly, coming down merely as a heavy
+tropical shower, similar to those you have been well acquainted with in
+Grenada.  I have heard of some vessels being damaged by water-spouts,
+but I have never come across anyone who happened to be on board one of
+them at the time, so I rather fancy the tale was one of those generally
+`told to the marines.'"
+
+So, laughing it off, the captain finished his little scientific lecture
+at this point, while I went below to my bunk, wishing to get undressed
+before Harry the steward came to douse the light in the cabin, which he
+always did sharp to time.
+
+If the water-spout did us no actual damage it certainly served as a very
+bad omen.  It took away the favourable breezes, which, before its advent
+on the scene, had sped the _Josephine_ so gaily on her way home to
+England; and the weather for some days afterwards was not nearly so
+pleasant, tedious calms and contrary winds preventing our making the
+rapid passage Captain Miles anticipated from our good running at the
+beginning of the voyage.
+
+We were now in the region between the regular trade-winds and what are
+termed "the anti-trades or passage winds," above the tropic of Cancer.
+This is a particular portion of the ocean between the parallels known to
+sailors as the "Horse Latitudes," where there is generally a lull met
+with in the currents of air that elsewhere reign rampant over the sea;
+and, once arrived within the precincts of this blissful zone, the ship
+tossed about there for a week at a stretch, hardly making a mile towards
+her wished-for goal--only rocking restlessly on the bosom of the deep.
+
+There is nothing so irksome as calm weather at sea, to those at all
+events whose duty lies upon the waters and who do not go on shipboard
+for mere pleasure.
+
+So long as the wind blows, whether favourably or not, there is something
+to do.  If it be fair, there is the cheering prospect of counting the
+number of knots run when the log is hove, and knowing that one is
+getting each hour so much nearer one's destination; while, if King
+Aeolus be unpropitious, there is all the excitement of fighting against
+his efforts to delay the vessel, and the proud satisfaction of making
+way in spite of adverse breezes.
+
+But, in a calm, nothing can be done excepting to wait patiently, or
+impatiently, for the wind to blow again; and, consequently, all is
+dreary stagnation and dead monotony--the captain ever pacing the poop in
+not the best of tempers, with the men idling about the decks, or else
+occupied in the unexciting task of unreeving rope yarn, to keep their
+hands from mischief, and, perhaps, polishing up the ring-bolts as a last
+resource!
+
+Under such circumstances, it is not at all to be wondered that the crew
+of a vessel usually get discontented; and, should her officers be in the
+least inclined to be tyrannical, an ill feeling is produced which
+sometimes leads to an outbreak.
+
+Hardly a single mutiny ever occurred on a ship at sea save in calm
+weather; at other times the hands have too much to do even to grumble,
+in the way that sailors love to do ashore, comparing their nautical
+experience to "a dog's life"--albeit they never give up the sea all the
+same!
+
+On board the _Josephine_, however, all went along pleasantly enough,
+although we were becalmed and the seamen, had plenty of leisure time for
+airing their grievances.
+
+Captain Miles, it is true, did not come on deck looking jolly and
+beaming with good-humour, as he used to do when we were bowling along
+before a stiff breeze; but he was not a bit cantankerous, and if there
+was no legitimate work to occupy the crew with, he did not go out of his
+way unnecessarily to "haze" them by inventing new sorts of tasks, as a
+good many other masters of vessels are in the habit of doing in similar
+cases.  As for Mr Marline, he was of a most even disposition, taking
+all things that came with his usual equanimity and never giving a rough
+word to anyone.
+
+Davis, the second mate, whom I have already mentioned as having been
+promoted from the fo'c's'le, was a very different sort of man; for,
+being without education and any good principle, he took advantage of his
+position, whenever the captain's eye was not upon him, to bully those
+with whom he had previously associated on an equality.  He was "very
+much above them now," he thought, and showed it as it was in the nature
+only of a low-minded fellow to do.
+
+Like most "Jacks in office," he was always trying to assert his
+position; and, as a natural result, he was not by any means in good
+favour with the men, who resented his overbearing way all the more from
+the fact of their having formerly been hail-fellow-well-met with him,
+which of course they could not readily forget, if he did.
+
+Still, things went on pretty smoothly on board while the calm lasted,
+despite the little roughnesses which the second mate's way of evincing
+his authority produced--and which I could not avoid noticing, for I'm
+sure he used to be "down" on me whenever he had a chance of calling me
+to account for going where I had no business to, as I confess I
+sometimes did, although I used to be encouraged by the men, and Mr
+Marline would wink at my escapades.  We all found it terribly dull,
+though; for, even the fish were too lazy to come to the surface to be
+caught, and so we were deprived therefore of our old pastime of angling
+for them from the bowsprit in the afternoons and evenings.
+
+Day after day, the _Josephine_ rolled her hull from port to starboard
+and then back again to port on the tumid sea, which, save throbbing with
+a dull heavy swell, had now lost all its life and action:--day after day
+we looked in vain for a breeze from sunrise to sunset; day after day our
+watchful longing was all in vain; there, day after day, for over a week,
+we rolled and lay!
+
+Captain Miles used to come up regularly on the poop at noon to take the
+sun, from a sense of duty; but it was almost a useless task, as we
+hardly varied a mile in our position from the commencement of the calm,
+the vessel remaining close in with the fiftieth parallel of longitude
+and in latitude thirty-two North.
+
+Mr Marline liked to chaff the captain about this, telling him that his
+sextant wanted polishing up a bit and that the glasses were wrong.
+However, that all went for nothing with his chief, who well knew where
+the fault lay, fully understanding that the instrument was not to blame;
+but, as regularly as he brought out the sextant he used to laugh at Mr
+Marline's stereotyped joke.
+
+As related in Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner":--
+
+  "Day after day, day after day
+  We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
+  As idle as a painted ship
+  Upon a painted ocean!"
+
+Had it not been for the two darkeys, Jake and Cuffee, I don't know what
+we should have done for fun.
+
+These comical fellows were a constant source of amusement to us; for,
+although they did not come to fisticuffs again, they were always
+quarrelling and making friends afterwards in the oddest way possible.
+Their disputes usually arose from some little trifle concerning their
+order of precedence, each being highly jealous of his dignity, and
+resenting in a moment any fancied slight or want of proper respect on
+the part of the other.
+
+When Jake came on board in the summary way in which he "took his
+passage" at the beginning of our voyage, of course he had no wardrobe,
+or anything to wear save what he stood up in when he emerged dripping
+from the sea after the capsize of the boat in which he had come off to
+the ship.  Captain Miles, however, had given him some cast-off slops,
+and the hands forward had also rigged him out from their chests, so that
+in a short time he made a very presentable appearance.  This was
+especially the case on Sunday's, when his dress was most conspicuous,
+Master Jake being something of a dandy like most negroes, and anxious to
+take the shine out of his fellows.
+
+Somehow or other Cuffee the cook got jealous of this feature in his
+brother darkey's character.
+
+On week-days he did not mind submitting to any slight superiority Jake
+might have over him in his sailor-like rig; but one Sunday the latter
+donned an old blue coat that had been presented to him by Mr Marline.
+It was ornamented with brilliant brass buttons, and the effect was
+completed by a bright bandana handkerchief which he had begged from me,
+and this, contrasting with a white shirt and duck trousers, made his
+toilet so thoroughly effective that Cuffee was greatly aggrieved.
+
+"You tink youself one fine gen'leman now, I s'pose?" he said, with a
+snort of indignation, when Jake went down into the waist in all this
+grand array after prayers on the poop.  "Fine fedders make fine birds,
+yah, yah!"
+
+"Me tinks what I like," replied Jake nonchalantly, proceeding forward to
+the topgallant forecastle, where he sat down in such a lordly manner
+that Cuffee, unable to stand it any longer, hurriedly went into his
+caboose and bringing out a bucket of dirty water pitched it over Jake
+with much heartiness, sousing him from head to foot.
+
+"Dere, you big fool of niggah, take dat!" he cried triumphantly.  "Guess
+dat'll take de shine out ob your ole coat, wid yer grandy airs an'
+bumptiousness!"
+
+The men on the fo'c's'le shouted with laughter, and Jake rushed to
+resent the affront; but they held him back until his temper evaporated,
+and then the two made it up somehow, for afterwards I saw that Jake was
+enjoying a savoury mess of lobscouse which Cuffee had cooked for him in
+amends for the bucket of greasy water.
+
+Jake, however, paid out the cook for the indignity a little later on;
+for, when Cuffee came up on the forecastle while the hands were there
+yarning in the evening, he gave him the cold shoulder.
+
+"Wat for you come hyar?" he asked the poor cook.  "Dis is de place for
+sailor man, not for de idlers aboard.  You go back inter yer ole
+caboose, cookee!"
+
+There was another laugh at this, and Captain Miles hearing what had been
+said, every word being distinctly audible on the poop, began speaking to
+Mr Marline about the imitative habits of negroes.
+
+"They are just like monkeys," he said; "and, in dress and in language
+will copy anyone they think superior to them, no matter how ridiculous
+their imitation may be--a sort of burlesque of the original."
+
+"Yes," replied Mr Marline.  "Jake, I have noticed, has taken Jackson
+for his model on week-days.  Have you observed how he copies him in
+every particular?"
+
+"Well, he couldn't have a better study for a thorough sailor," said the
+captain, adding, to my great delight, for I was very proud of poor Jake,
+who was faithful to me to the death; "and the darkey, mind you, Marline,
+has studied Jackson to good effect, for he's already a smart seaman.
+He's as quick aloft as anyone on board when any sudden call comes."
+
+"He's all that," answered Mr Marline heartily; "but I was going to
+observe, that, while Jake copies Jackson for his week-day model, he
+tries to imitate you on Sundays."
+
+"Me!" exclaimed Captain Miles bursting into a loud laugh.  "You, you
+mean, with that swell blue coat that you gave him, and which you used,
+no doubt, to win all the ladies' hearts with ashore, when it was in its
+prime!"
+
+"Oh, no," retorted the mate, smiling too.  "When Jake has got his Sunday
+rig on, he walks up the poop-ladder to prayers with all your dignity.
+Why, anyone would take him to be the skipper of the ship!"
+
+"Talking of prayers and niggers," said Captain Miles at this point,
+turning the conversation, as he thought the mate was having a sly poke
+at him, "I heard one day a little time back a rather good yarn about two
+darkeys, and, as it was told by a clergyman at a missionary meeting, I
+don't suppose there can be any great harm in the story."
+
+"Well, heave ahead with it," interposed Mr Marline.
+
+"You see," began the captain, "these two niggers--we'll call them Josh
+and Quashee for shortness--happened to be in a boat which got drifted
+out to sea accidentally, from the tow-rope slipping or something else;
+and, they didn't know their danger till suddenly they found themselves
+far from land, with no oars in the boat and no means of getting to shore
+again.  To make matters worse, too, the sea began to get up on account
+of the wind rising."
+
+"I wish it would do so now," said Mr Marline with much emphasis.
+
+"So do I," returned Captain Miles with equal heartiness; "but, as there
+isn't any chance of that as far as I can see, I may as well go on with
+my story."
+
+"Do, sir," said the other.
+
+"Well, then," continued the captain, "as soon as Josh and Quashee
+realised their peril, of course they got into a great funk; but, after
+puzzling their brains as to the best means of getting back, and shouting
+themselves hoarse in calling for help, they gave up the thing as a gone
+case, sitting down on the thwarts and bewailing their fate.  Josh, the
+younger negro, however, had the most go in him, and presently he roused
+up.
+
+"`Say, Quashee,' he asked of the other, `can you pray, sonny?'
+
+"`No, Josh,' replied Quashee gloomily.  `I nebber learnt, nohow.'
+
+"`Can you sing hymn, den?' questioned his brother in misfortune again.
+
+"`No, Josh,' answered the other still more gloomily.  `Um can't pray,
+can't sing hymn, can't do nuffin'!'
+
+"`Den,' said Josh as if a brilliant idea had suddenly struck him, `we
+must hab collection--must do sumfin' to git out ob dis hole, an' I know
+when dey don't pray or sing in de chapel dey always hab collection; so
+we'll hab one now!'"
+
+"I wouldn't mind betting," observed Mr Marline, when he had done
+laughing at this anecdote, "that the clergyman who related the story did
+it as a sort of introduction for `passing round the hat' at the very
+meeting where you heard it!"
+
+"That's just precisely what he did!" replied Captain Miles, joining in
+the other's laugh; "and, it was a very good introduction to a
+collection, too, I think!"
+
+It was on a Sunday evening that the little fracas between Jake and
+Cuffee occurred.  This squabble terminated amicably enough; but the next
+day, Monday, a bit of a real row happened on board, which did not end
+quite so agreeably to one of the persons concerned.
+
+It was a blazing hot day, with the sun like a ball of fire in the
+heavens above and the sea steaming below with the heat.  The atmosphere
+was close and hazy, making it so stifling that one could hardly breathe
+freely--just exactly the sort of weather, in fact, that is met with on
+the West Coast of Africa at the mouths of some of those pestilential and
+swampy rivers there that have been the death of so many gallant officers
+and seamen annually sent to the station for the purpose of putting down
+the slave-trade and protecting greedy traders in their pursuit of palm-
+oil and gold dust!
+
+During the afternoon of this day, when the sun was about its hottest,
+making the pitch melt and ooze out from the seams of the deck planking,
+Davis, who had charge of the starboard watch, came up from below to
+relieve Mr Marline.
+
+He was late in coming to his post, and I could see he had been drinking,
+a habit he had lately taken to indulging in, especially after the calm
+set in; and, as he mounted the poop-ladder, he certainly did not look
+particularly amiable, for his dark eyes were glaring and his tumbled
+hair gave him a most ferocious appearance.
+
+The men were mostly doing nothing, lying along the waist under what
+shelter they could find from the fiery rays of the scorching sun; for,
+although there was an awning over the poop, there was nothing forwards
+to shield them from the heat unless they crouched under the lee of the
+bulwarks and water-casks.
+
+Davis didn't like to see them taking it easy in this fashion, so,
+catching hold of a marlinespike which someone had left on top of the
+cabin skylight, he began rapping the rail at the break of the poop with
+it.
+
+"Come, rouse up there, you lubbers!" he cried.  "I'm not going to allow
+any caulking in my watch, no matter what the first mate chooses to let
+you do.  Tumble up!"
+
+The men stretched themselves and rose up grumbling, whereupon Davis
+pitched upon Jackson, who had been asleep under the long-boat and was
+the last to show a leg, not hearing the second mate's call until a
+messmate awoke him.
+
+"Hi, you, Jackson!" he roared out.  "I'll give you something to cure
+your laziness!  I'll haze you, I will, you hound!  Get a bucket of
+grease from the cook's caboose and slush the mainmast down."
+
+"I'm no hound, sir!" retorted Jackson angrily, drawing himself up to his
+full height and flaring up angrily at Davis' uncalled-for abuse.  "The
+mast doesn't need slushing; it was only done over the day before
+yesterday."
+
+"What, you dare to answer me, you mutinous dog!" roared out Davis,
+raised to a pitch of fury by the seaman not recognising, as he thought,
+his authority as second mate and officer of the watch.  "I tell you
+what, you shall slush that mast down from the main-truck to the bitts;
+and look sharp about it, too, or I'll make you!"
+
+"Make me!" repeated Jackson scornfully.  "I'd like to see you lay a
+finger on me!"
+
+Davis fairly foamed at the mouth with passion at this, the more
+particularly as the other men, grouped below in the waist, were
+sniggering and passing sly jokes from one to another about the affair.
+
+He started to go down the poop-ladder, brandishing the marlinespike
+savagely, with the evident intention of attacking Jackson and trying to
+compel him to obey his orders, utterly unnecessary and vindictive as
+they were; but, what from having been drinking heavily of late and the
+fresh air and exposure to the sun having increased the intoxicating
+effect of the rum which he doubtless had just swallowed before coming on
+deck to take charge of the watch, he reeled off the ladder as soon as he
+got to the bottom--falling down all of a heap right in front of the
+cabin door at the very moment that Captain Miles, who had been roused up
+by the altercation, was coming out to see what all the noise was about.
+
+"Mr Davis!" cried the captain sternly.  "What is the matter?"
+
+The second mate scrambled to his feet, but he could not hold himself
+steady and he only muttered some utterly incomprehensible words, his
+power of speech vanishing with his equilibrium.
+
+"I dunno, canshay," he murmured helplessly.
+
+"Faugh!" exclaimed Captain Miles in accents of the deepest disgust.
+"The man is dead drunk.  Take him away at once to the fo'c's'le some of
+you.  He doesn't come into my cabin again if I know it!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+BAD WEATHER.
+
+Later on in the afternoon, some couple of hours or so after he had been
+carried into the forecastle, Davis, sobered down by his rest, came aft
+again.  He did not, however, enter the cabin or go up on the poop, but
+remained hanging about the waist, as if uncertain what to do, evidently
+"smelling a rat," as the saying goes.
+
+Captain Miles was prepared for this, Moggridge, the boatswain, who had
+made many voyages with him, and in whom he placed implicit trust, having
+related all that had occurred; so, although he saw Davis approach, he
+waited a while till the watch was relieved, when, advancing to the break
+of the poop, he hailed the whilom second mate below.
+
+"Davis!" he cried, "I have got something to say to you."
+
+The other had lost all his defiant air now and looked very sheepish and
+crest-fallen--so much so, indeed, that he seemed unable at first to
+answer the captain.
+
+"Yes, sir," said he at last, looking up and then dropping his eyes again
+in an instant, unable to stand the captain's straightforward glance.
+
+"I'm sorry to have to say," continued Captain Miles, speaking slowly and
+distinctly, so that every word he uttered was heard fore and aft the
+ship, "that you, a responsible officer of this vessel, came on duty
+three hours ago in a state of intoxication.  The fault would have been
+bad enough in one of the ordinary hands, but is doubly so in a man
+having charge of the lives of those on board and the safety of the ship
+and cargo.  Besides, it is not merely on a single occasion that you have
+so grossly behaved, as I have noticed of late that you have been several
+times under the influence of liquor."
+
+"But, Captain Miles, sir," interrupted Davis at this point.  However,
+the captain soon silenced him.
+
+"Hear me out, sir," he cried, his voice getting sterner and more
+energetic.  "Not only have you given way to that cursed habit of drink,
+but you have also, I have perceived--for I've had my eye upon you when
+you have little known it--exercised your authority over the crew in a
+most unmanly and tyrannical fashion.  Now, I have always prided myself
+on the fact of my ship being a comfortable one, and I have never found a
+hand who has sailed with me once objecting to ship for a second voyage
+if I wanted him.  This I have achieved by treating the men as I would
+wish to be treated myself, and not by bullying and hazing them
+unnecessarily as you have done repeatedly, especially this afternoon
+when you relieved the port watch."
+
+The captain paused here a moment, and I declare I felt quite ashamed for
+Davis being thus spoken to before all the men; but he did not seem to
+mind it much, for he began to resume his old bumptious manner, shrugging
+his shoulders in a careless way and glaring round at the listeners as if
+he would have liked to eat them.
+
+"I was drunk then," was all he said, however, in extenuation of the last
+offence with which the captain had charged him.
+
+"That is no excuse for your conduct," replied Captain Miles; "in my
+opinion it rather puts it in a worse light.  I have nothing further to
+add, save that I deeply regret ever having promoted you from your
+station forwards.  You are a good sailor, I'll say that for you, but you
+haven't got the sort of stuff in you that officers are made of!  The
+only thing I can now do, to atone for my error of judgment in mistaking
+my man, is to send you back again to your old place in the fo'c's'le,
+where I think you'll find yourself far more at home than you were on the
+poop.  Davis, you are no longer second mate of the _Josephine_!  I
+disrate you on account of your unfitness for the post, and you will now
+return to your former rating, as I have restored your name to the list
+of the crew.  You will be in Mr Marline's watch, and I hope you'll do
+your duty as well as you used before I brought you aft."
+
+He did not say any more; and Davis, without answering a single word,
+slunk forwards towards the forecastle, anxious, apparently, to hide
+himself from observation.  Although he had tried to brave it out when
+the captain first began to speak to him, even his hardened nature had to
+succumb before the contemptuous looks of the men he had so long bullied,
+the more especially as they now openly displayed their joy at his
+abasement.
+
+Thus ended the first act of the little drama; and I then noticed that
+Captain Miles turned to Mr Marline, with whom he exchanged a short
+whispered conversation.  After this he advanced again to the break of
+the poop, and hailed for a second time the lower deck.
+
+"Jackson!" he called out.
+
+"Aye, aye, sir!" instantly responded the stalwart young Cornishman,
+coming out from amidst the others who had gathered in a cluster in the
+waist to watch the progress of the row between the captain and Davis.
+
+Jackson quite overtopped the rest of the crew by a foot; and, as he
+walked up to the foot of the poop-ladder, with his fine head thrown well
+back on his broad shoulders, he seemed afraid of looking no man in the
+face--presenting a marked contrast to his late antagonist, whom he
+passed on his way aft.
+
+"I have summoned you, Jackson," began Captain Miles--speaking out
+distinctly as before, so that all hands could hear--"to inform you that
+Mr Marline and myself think you are the best man on board to fill the
+vacant post of second mate just vacated by Davis.  I have been told of
+your recent altercation with that person when he was in authority over
+you; but, taking into consideration your previous good conduct and
+prompt obedience to the orders of myself and Mr Marline on all
+occasions, as well as your general proficiency as an able seaman, we
+have not allowed this little matter to affect our decision, and I have
+no doubt you will in future discharge your duty as ably as an officer of
+the ship as you have hitherto done as a foremast hand.  You had better,
+therefore, move your chest aft and take the second cabin next to the
+steward's pantry, hitherto occupied by Davis, whom I have just disrated
+and sent to fill your place in the fo'c's'le.  Men," added the captain,
+raising his voice a little higher, "you will please consider _Mister_
+Jackson to be the second mate of the _Josephine_, and treat him
+respectfully as such."
+
+No one seemed more surprised at the ending of the affair than the newly-
+promoted foremast hand.
+
+Twirling his cap in his two hands and fidgeting first on one leg and
+then on the other, he looked the very picture of confusion.
+
+When he was told to come forwards, he expected no doubt to have been
+called to account for his insubordination, whereas here he was actually
+selected to fill Davis's billet!
+
+He couldn't make it out at all, and stared open mouth upwards at the
+poop unable to utter a word of thanks or anything.
+
+"Come up here, Mr Jackson," said Captain Miles kindly, seeing how
+dumbfounded he looked; wherefore, the modest fellow, actually blushing
+at the unexpected honour bestowed on him, mounted the poop-ladder in a
+much more gingerly fashion than he would have done if he had been told
+to take his trick at the wheel or exercise some sailor's job aft.
+However, as soon as he got alongside the captain and Mr Marline, they
+both shook hands with him, in order to give him a proper welcome to his
+new station, and the steward singing out a few minutes afterwards that
+dinner was ready, he was invited down into the cabin to "christen" his
+promotion, as it were, by partaking of that meal, in token of his being
+admitted to a social equality with his superior officers.
+
+I may add, too, that if his sudden rise in rank was unexpected, Jackson
+did not take long to settle down to his new duties, proving himself ere
+long a much better officer in every way than his predecessor.  The men,
+too, were not in the least jealous of his being placed over them, but
+executed his orders with alacrity; for, he exercised his authority
+judiciously, remembering his former position--albeit he was ever a rigid
+and impartial disciplinarian.
+
+"After a storm comes a calm," says the old adage, but the reverse of
+this axiom holds equally good at sea.
+
+It was so, at all events, in our instance; for, after our ten days of
+stagnation on the rolling ocean, a change came almost as suddenly as the
+calm had set in, the weather breaking towards the close of the very day
+that had witnessed the downfall of Davis and Jackson's elevation to the
+dignity of the poop.
+
+Every evening during the continuance of the calm, as I think I have
+mentioned, the sun went down below the horizon like a ball of fire,
+while a thick misty fog afterwards enveloped the sea; but this day when
+we came on deck after dinner, about the middle of the second dog watch,
+the sky, for a wonder, was quite clear, and the glorious orb sank to
+rest with some of that old splendour of his which I had noticed when we
+were threading our way amongst the islands.  Long after he had
+disappeared, too, from view the heavens were lit up with a ruby radiance
+which was reflected below in the water, making it look like a crimson
+ocean.
+
+"We're going to have a change at last, Marline," said Captain Miles
+rubbing his hands together.  "It is better late than never!"
+
+"Aye," responded the first mate who stood by the binnacle; "the
+question, though, is, what change?"
+
+"Hang it, man," exclaimed the captain testily, "anything is preferable
+to this confounded calm."
+
+"Well, I don't quite agree with you there," said Mr Marline drily;
+"there is such a thing as changing for the worse.  Have you looked at
+the glass, eh?"
+
+"'Pon my word, I have not once glanced at it this evening!  Dear me,
+what on earth could I have been thinking of?" ejaculated the captain in
+a sort of apologetic way, darting down instantly below to consult his
+unfailing guide, the barometer, which I suppose he had looked at so
+vainly for many days past that he had given up the instrument as
+incorrigible.
+
+In another moment, however, he was on deck again, rubbing his hands as
+triumphantly together as before.
+
+"Pooh, nonsense, Marline!" he cried, "you're an old croaker, saying that
+the change would possibly be for the worse!  Why, the glass is rising,
+man, rising steadily; and, I've no doubt we'll have a splendid breeze
+ere nightfall, and glorious weather."
+
+"All right, sir, we'll see," was the mate's cautious answer.
+
+Meanwhile, the after-glow faded out of the sky and the stars began to
+come out in batches, especially to the north-west, where they shone as
+bright as diamonds, blinking and twinkling with various colours as one
+looked at them steadfastly, and seeming ever so much larger than usual.
+
+A faint stir in the air also became perceptible, and the idle sails,
+that had so long flapped against the yards lazily only with the roll of
+the ship as she lurched to port or starboard with the ocean swell, were
+crumpled out a bit, as if they half felt inclined to expand their folds;
+but there was not wind enough for this, so they presently flattened
+themselves again, determined, apparently, to take it easy.
+
+The time then came to set the first watch, from eight to midnight, of
+which Jackson, now, as second mate, took charge, when the captain went
+below, saying he was going to turn in early, so as to be ready when the
+breeze came, giving strict instructions to be called as soon as any
+change was apparent.  Mr Marline, however, did not go below; so I
+remained on the poop with him and Jackson, the two walking up and down
+the deck and talking together while I stood by.
+
+The sky was wonderfully clear now, the firmament being studded with the
+greater constellations, and myriads of the lesser lights of the night
+powdering the heavens with their golden dust everywhere.
+
+But this was not for long.
+
+Shortly before nine o'clock a peculiar moaning noise came over the sea.
+It was like a sort of hushed sob of pain, resembling somewhat the sound
+of a number of voices wailing in chorus in the far distance.
+
+"What is that?" asked I of Mr Marline in alarm.
+
+"I'm sure I can't tell you, my boy," he replied; "I don't think I ever
+heard such a queer noise before.  If we were off the banks of
+Newfoundland, I should think it a fog-horn blowing somewhere about.
+But, we're several hundred miles to the southward of Cape Race and the
+night is too clear for fogs.  It is one of those mysterious voices of
+the sea that are for ever reminding the sailor that, no matter how wise
+he may think himself, he does not know everything!"
+
+"I imagine it's the wind coming, sir," observed Jackson deferentially,
+after listening to what Mr Marline had said.  "When I was once on a
+voyage in the China Seas I noticed just such a sound before we had a
+thundering typhoon upon us, giving us hardly time to clew up."
+
+"Perhaps you're right," said the first mate; but after giving a glance
+up and around the sky, and noticing that the stars still shone out from
+the blue empyrean, he added, "there does not seem much chance of a gale
+now, though."
+
+"We'll see, sir," laughed Jackson, paraphrasing Mr Marline's
+observation to the captain.  "We'd just as clear a night off Hainan,
+when our blow came on there at a moment's notice!"
+
+"All right, we'll see," replied Mr Marline, using his stock phrase, and
+the two continued to walk up and down chatting about other matters,
+while I went and sat down close to the taffrail, looking out over the
+sea and wondering what the moaning sound of the ocean meant.  I let my
+imagination wander over the old stories I had heard of the mermaids
+below, and how they sang their weird songs of lament whenever a storm
+was coming, anticipating the shipwrecks that would follow and the
+invasion of their coral caves by the bodies of drowned mortals, over
+whom they are said to weep tears of pearl; and, in the flickering light
+of the stars, that seemed to come from underneath the purple deep and
+not be shining down from above, I almost fancied I could distinguish the
+sirens looking up at me from below the water with sad faces, as they
+combed their long weed-like tresses and raised their wailing croon.
+
+Presently, however, I observed the star reflections suddenly disappear
+from view; and then, the water grew greyer and greyer, until I was
+hardly able to see it at all under the stern of the vessel, a hazy
+obscurity enveloping all below and around.
+
+I roused myself with a start, thinking this effect was produced by the
+gloom of night, and that I had fallen asleep while weaving my quaint
+fancies anent the mermaidens; but a couple of sharp strokes of the
+ship's bell sounding through the still air at that moment told me it was
+only nine o'clock.  I then recognised the fact that I must seek some
+other reason for the sombre tone of the sea, as I knew well enough that
+the little beacons in the sky that had before lit it up, were not in the
+habit of drawing on their hatches until it was pretty nearly time for
+the sun to set about getting up for his day's work, unless something out
+of the common was going to happen.
+
+Looking up, therefore, I was surprised to see a dense black cloud now
+covering over the heavens like a pall.
+
+It must have crept up from somewhere almost instantaneously; for, twenty
+minutes before, the sky was clear and bright, while now it was totally
+obscured from the horizon to the zenith, the angel of darkness seeming
+to be treading over the face of the deep.
+
+Just then, away ahead on the starboard bow to the eastwards, a window
+appeared to be opened for an instant in the dense veil, from which a
+vivid flash of lightning came forth, making the darkness even more
+visible as the cloud closed up again.
+
+"Shall I go and hail Captain Miles now, sir?"  I heard Jackson ask Mr
+Marline near me, although I could not clearly make out either of them in
+the thick gloom--indeed, I could not see to the other side of the deck,
+or perceive the mizzen-mast even.
+
+"No, I hardly think there's any need yet," I distinguished Mr Marline's
+voice say in reply.  "It's only a flash of lightning--nothing to make a
+fuss about, for there isn't a breath of wind stirring yet."
+
+"It's coming though," the other rejoined.  "I can smell it."
+
+"You've a better nose than I have then," said Mr Marline with a laugh;
+but, he had hardly got out the words, when there came a terrific crash
+of thunder right overhead, sounding so fearfully near and grand and
+awful, that it seemed as if the roof of heaven had broken in!
+
+I jumped up at once from my seat and went towards the binnacle, where
+Jackson and Mr Marline were standing; for, although I wasn't actually
+afraid of the thunder, still one likes to be by the side of some one
+else when it peals out so dreadfully, the sense of companionship
+lessening the fear of danger, I suppose.
+
+"Hullo, Master Tom, not turned in yet?" cried Mr Marline, seeing me by
+the light from the compass and appearing to be very much surprised at my
+not having gone below to bed.
+
+"No, sir," I said.  "I stopped up to wait for the wind."
+
+"Ah, I'm afraid you'll have to wait longer," he replied.  "This'll be
+nothing but a tropical thunder-storm, and probably we won't have the
+ghost of a breeze after it has gone over."
+
+"I think differently, sir, begging your pardon," said Jackson,
+interposing at this point; "and, if you don't mind, Mr Marline, I'd
+like to have the lighter sails taken off her, in case it comes on to
+blow."
+
+"All right, please yourself, my dear sir; you're in charge of the deck,"
+answered the first mate drily.  "Though, mind you, I think you're giving
+yourself trouble for nothing.  I wouldn't, however, call the captain
+till we really know whether we're going to have a squall or not."
+
+"Very well, sir," said Jackson, "I won't call him; but I'll have the
+upper canvas in, for it's just as well to be on the safe side,
+especially as I do think we're in for something."
+
+"With all my heart," replied Mr Marline cheerfully, seeing that Jackson
+was timid about exercising his new authority against his opinion,
+although he appeared to feel strongly in the matter.  "Have in the rags
+by all means.  I daresay it will save some trouble bye-and-by."
+
+"Very well, I will," said the other; and, calling the starboard watch,
+who were idling about and having a quiet caulk in the waist, he soon
+made them set about reducing the _Josephine's_ canvas--there being no
+necessity yet for summoning "all hands," as there was not a breath of
+air stirring, while the sea had hushed its monotonous roll, calming down
+to the quiet of a mill-pond.
+
+Previously to this, the ship had been under all plain sail, so as to be
+ready for the wind when it chose to visit us again; but, in a very short
+time, under Jackson's supervision and sharp, rapid orders, the courses
+were clewed up, the flying-jib hauled down, the topgallant-sails furled,
+and the spanker brailed up.  In this half-dressed rig the vessel was now
+prepared to meet any sudden squall; while, should a favourable breeze
+come, sail could readily be added on--a much easier job to accomplish
+than that of taking in canvas in a gale!
+
+In the interim, although no further thunder was heard, and we only saw
+the one vivid flash of forked lightning that had accompanied the fearful
+peal which made me vacate my seat by the taffrail, the heavens grew
+blacker and blacker, the darkness settling down on the ship so that one
+could hardly see one's hand even if held close to the face; but, after a
+bit, a meteor-like globe of electric light danced about the spars and
+rigging, making the faces of all those aft look ghastly with its pale
+blue glare.  They seemed just as if they were dead.
+
+A second or two later, some heavy warning drops of rain, as big as
+saucers, fell on the deck, with a dull splashing noise; and while we
+were all waiting with some anxiety for what was to be the outcome of all
+this atmospheric disturbance, Captain Miles ascended the poop-ladder,
+his face being distinctly illumined by the meteor, which was apparently
+at that moment hovering about the slings of the main-yard.
+
+The captain had been roused out by the sound of the men's feet busily
+trampling about the decks and the hauling of the ropes, as the main
+topgallant halliards and sheets were cast-off and the clew-lines and
+bunt-lines manned during the operation of taking in sail, so he came up
+expecting to find that the long-wished-for breeze had overhauled us; but
+he only saw, instead, the vessel as motionless on the water as when he
+went below, albeit now almost denuded of her canvas.
+
+After glancing round the ship, whose every outline was brought out in
+relief by the meteoric light, he warmly praised Jackson for his
+precaution in reducing sail.
+
+"You've done quite right," he said, "only you haven't quite gone far
+enough, my boy.  I think we'd better have the courses furled and the
+topsails reefed.  We're in hurricane latitudes and this is the very
+month for them.  I don't like the sky at all."
+
+"Watch, ho!" thereupon shouted Jackson.  "Up you go and furl the
+mainsail."
+
+This was soon accomplished, after which there was a scurry up the
+ratlines forward and the foresail followed suit, and thus, the topsail
+halliards were let go and the yards dropped on the caps for the men to
+lay out and double reef the upper sails, when they were again hoisted up
+only about a third of their former size, and looking like slabs of board
+against the masts, everything being hauled taut.
+
+"We'll have it soon now," said Captain Miles--"hark!"
+
+As he spoke, there was a rumbling noise in the distance, approaching
+nearer and nearer every second, and then, there came another deafening
+roar of thunder right over our heads, followed by a deadly zigzag sheet
+of lightning, not a flash, that lit up the whole sky.
+
+"Look sharp and batten down the hatches, the rain is close on the heels
+of that, I know," cried the captain; but the men had hardly time to
+execute his order ere the heavens seemed to open and a deluge of water
+fell on to the ship, as if some reservoir above had suddenly burst.  It
+literally swept down like a cataract, and almost beat me down to the
+deck with its force.
+
+It hardly lasted a minute, but in that brief spell it filled the
+scuppers just as if we had shipped a heavy sea, of course wetting us all
+to the skin.
+
+Next there was heard the same moaning noise along the surface of the
+ocean that we had heard at first, and then, as the rain stopped, a
+terrific gust of wind from the south-east caught us just abaft the beam,
+the ship heeled over until her yard-arms dipped, and we thought she was
+going to "turn turtle," or capsize.
+
+"Hard up with the helm!" screamed out Captain Miles, Mr Marline jumping
+to the spokes of the wheel at the same time to help the man steering,
+when, fortunately, the _Josephine_ payed off handsomely, righting again
+at the same moment, to our great relief.
+
+"Brace up the yards!" then shouted the captain; and, in another instant,
+the vessel was dashing along madly towards the north-west, scudding
+before the rapidly risen gale, even with the little canvas she carried,
+at a greater rate of speed than she had ever attained with every sail
+set.  She was going twelve knots, good, and increasing her velocity
+apparently each moment, the sea not yet having had time to get up and
+nothing interfering with her progress through the water, although the
+wind shrieked and howled destruction after her as it urged her along.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+THE TAIL-END OF A HURRICANE.
+
+Immediately the sudden blast of wind struck the ship, the meteor-like
+ball of fire, which had previously hovered about our rigging lighting up
+the dense gloom of the atmosphere, suddenly disappeared, leaving us for
+a moment in darkness; but this was only for a brief spell, as the gale--
+at the same time that it forced us to cut and run before its tremendous
+impulse, scudding away to the north-west at right angles to what should
+have been our proper course, which was to the northwards and eastwards--
+dispelled in a very short time the overhanging mass of vapour that
+shrouded the sky.  The clouds cleared away, as if by magic, disclosing
+the blue vault of heaven open above us for the stars to shine down at
+their will; while the moon presently coming out, the ocean was displayed
+in all its vastness to the extreme limits of the horizon.
+
+But, what a different scene was now presented to our gaze to that which
+we had looked upon but an hour agone!
+
+Then, the sea, with the exception of a faint throbbing swell as if
+proceeding from the deep breathing of Neptune below the surface, seeming
+to rise and fall with rhythmical regularity, was calm and still,
+unbroken by even the tiniest ripple; now, as far as the eye could reach,
+it was all life and motion, the billows leaping up and tossing their
+heads, crowned with wreaths of curling spray and growing larger and
+larger each moment in volume as they dashed onward madly before the
+wind.
+
+The ocean coursers seemed, indeed, like a pack of hounds pursuing the
+ship, gnashing their teeth in surf as they missed their prey, and then
+gathering themselves up again together to renew the chase, rolling
+against each other, boiling in eddies, clashing, dashing, swelling,
+breaking in sheets of foam, and presenting one seething mass of moving
+waters.
+
+Nothing is so wonderful as this sudden getting up of the sea after a
+spell of calm weather.
+
+It is like the sudden uprising of a giant in his wrath--one moment it is
+sleeping quietly, the next far and wide it is in a state of mad
+commotion, threatening destruction to those who brave the perils of the
+deep.
+
+The _Josephine_ sped bravely before the gale, unmindful of the stormy
+billows blustering after her, her speed enabling her easily as yet to
+outstrip the rollers, although she was only scudding under close-reefed
+topsails.  She was not too heavily laden; and, being a good sea-boat,
+she rose easily on the lift of the waves, almost skimming the surface
+like one of Mother Carey's chickens, and jumping, as it were, from
+billow to billow as the wind urged her onward.
+
+"If we keep on long like this," observed Mr Marline grimly to the
+captain, "we'll soon lose all our easting, and have to begin our voyage
+over again!"
+
+"Never mind that," cheerfully answered Captain Miles.  "The gale will
+only drive us into the Gulf Stream at the worst; and then, we'll have
+the assistance of the easterly current there in making our way home,
+when we have the chance of bearing up on our course again.  We won't
+lose much in the end, you'll see."
+
+"All right, we'll see," said Mr Marline.  "But, don't you think, sir,
+we may be running into the worst part of the gale?"
+
+"No, Marline, no; I don't believe that," replied the other.  "You'll see
+that it will blow itself out presently and calm down to a steady breeze,
+when we'll be able to haul our wind, making that fair for us."
+
+"Don't you notice, though, captain," urged the mate, "that those clouds
+also sheer off in a contrary direction, showing that the upper currents
+of air are not affected by this wind at all--a proof that it is a sort
+of cyclone or hurricane?"
+
+"And if so," retorted Captain Miles, "it began in the south-east, where
+it is still blowing from; so, when it veers, it will be to the south and
+west, making a fair wind for us, as I said before."
+
+"Very good; you know best, sir," said Mr Marline in a way that showed
+he was still unconvinced.
+
+But the captain had not done with his reasons yet.
+
+"Just consider, Marline," he continued, "we couldn't very well wear the
+ship now with this thundering wind and following sea, or try and heave
+her to--the only thing left for us to do if we don't scud.  Indeed, I
+think we must get some more sail on her as it is; for those rollers are
+getting too heavy and gaining on us, and, if we don't keep ahead of
+them, why, they'll poop us, that's all!"
+
+"Do you think the masts will stand it, sir?" queried the first mate,
+glancing aloft, where the spars were bent like whips and the rigging as
+taut as fiddle-strings.
+
+"Stand it?  Of course they will," replied the captain.  "I'll back them
+to stand anything, if the stays only hold."
+
+"And I'll guarantee that they will not carry away," retorted Mr
+Marline, who had specially seen to the setting up of the rigging and was
+confident of the job being well done, being rather proud of his
+handiwork.
+
+"Well, then, we'll have the mainsail on her," said the captain, to put
+an end to the discussion.  "You'd better go and rouse up the other
+watch, Mr Jackson; it will be a rough bit of work, I fancy."
+
+The second mate then went forwards, shouting, "All hands, ahoy!" and,
+shortly afterwards, the men were clustering in the shrouds, making their
+way as well as they could against the force of the wind, up the ratlines
+to the main-yard, the whole watch being employed on the job so as to get
+it done quickly.
+
+As they lay out along the foot-rope they were almost blown away; but,
+holding on "by the skin of their teeth," they managed to cast-off the
+gaskets, when, the clew-lines and bunt-lines being let fly, the huge
+sail at once bellied out in puckered folds, banging about as if it would
+soon thump the mast out of the ship.
+
+"Now, tumble down smart, men!" cried the captain.  "Look alive and bring
+the sheets to the capstan."
+
+Then, in a few more minutes, foot by foot, the clew-garnet blocks
+rattling the while like a lot of tin kettles, the ends of the mainsail
+were hove in nearer the deck, when it became fairly distended before the
+powerful breeze, which, catching it now full, seemed to make the
+_Josephine_ leap out of the water as if she were going to fly--although,
+the next instant, she dived down with a heavy plunge forwards that sent
+a great green sea right over her bows on to the forecastle, whence it
+poured down like a cataract into the waist, flooding the main-deck and
+floating aft everything movable into the cabin.
+
+We had already two men at the wheel, a vessel running before the wind
+being always more unmanageable than when sailing close-hauled or on a
+bowline; but this additional sail-power made the ship yaw and break off
+so continuously that two more hands had to come and help the others in
+the steering.  It was ticklish work; for, if she were once allowed to
+broach to, one of the pursuing waves would soon leap over the taffrail,
+and then it would be a case for us!
+
+The rest of the crew, too, were set to work rigging up relieving tackle,
+in case the tiller ropes should part; for, one moment the stern would be
+lifted high out of the water and the next sunk in the trough of the sea,
+causing a great strain on the rudder, which banged from port to
+starboard every instant, causing constant work in putting the helm up
+and down so as to preserve a straight course.
+
+Preventer stays were also set up to take away some of the leverage from
+the masts, everything being made as snug as possible under the
+circumstances; and so, we drove on before the gale, going wheresoever it
+liked, until, as the captain said, it had time to blow itself out--
+although there did not seem any early prospect of this at present!
+
+During all the bustle that was going on, I had managed to remain on deck
+unperceived; but now that matters had calmed down and nothing more
+urgent called for attention, Captain Miles, looking round the poop,
+caught sight of me.
+
+"Hullo, Tom!" he cried, "what are you doing here?  You ought to have
+been in your bunk hours ago."
+
+"I only stopped up to see the storm," I said.  "Mr Marline saw me on
+deck some time since and said I might remain."
+
+"Did he?  Well, then, it's all over now, and there'll be nothing fresh
+till morning; so you can go below like a brace of shakes."
+
+With these words, he hustled me off the poop, good-naturedly, not losing
+sight of me until he had seen me go down the ladder and into the cabin--
+much against my inclination, I must confess, as I wanted to see all that
+was going on.
+
+Of course, as I had to go down, there was no use in my not turning in
+when I got there; but I stayed awake for a long time, listening to the
+thumping of the sea against the sides of the ship and the creaking of
+the timbers; while my cot swayed to and fro, hoisting me up to the deck
+planking one second, and then almost capsizing me on to the floor, until
+I at last sank to rest, wearied out with the motion and longing for the
+morning to come.
+
+Harry, the steward, awakened me quite late.
+
+"Here, you sah, Mass' Tom, rouse up!" he sang out close to my ears,
+making me jump out of my bunk in a brace of shakes.  "It am gone eight
+bells an' break-fuss ready long time."
+
+Captain Miles had already had his early meal, I found, when I had
+dressed and got out into the cabin saloon; so, after making a hurried
+repast, for I was anxious to see how the ship was getting on, I followed
+him on deck.
+
+The sea looked awful!
+
+Far and wide, it was covered with broken waves and sheets of foam, the
+huge billows fighting and struggling together in mad turmoil; while the
+wind shrieked as it tore through the vessel's cordage and almost blew me
+back as I essayed to mount up the poop-ladder.
+
+The _Josephine_ was still plunging on before the gale, as I had last
+seen her the night before, only that the mainsail had been torn away,
+although the tattered fragments were left clinging round the yard-arms,
+one or two longer pieces streaming out like pennants from the leech at
+each end of the spar, and some other strips had clung to the fore-
+rigging as they were blown away.
+
+The foretop-sail had been furled, and the ship was driving on with only
+her close-reefed main-topsail set; but preparations were being made as I
+got on deck for hoisting the mizzen staysail, so that we might more
+easily bring her head round to the wind in case of its showing any sign
+of shifting.
+
+This, however, was but a last resource, which could only be adopted in
+the extreme peril of being taken aback.  There is no more ticklish
+operation than that of wearing a ship in a heavy sea where there is a
+strong following wind; and Captain Miles, for one, I could see, intended
+to let the vessel drive on as long as the gale lasted, unless it should
+try to head us, when of course he would have no alternative left but
+that of laying-to.
+
+He did not seem a bit uneasy as yet, though; for he greeted me quite
+cheerily when I at last managed to clamber up on the poop and make my
+way aft to where he was standing, holding on to everything I could
+clutch to maintain my footing.  The ship was rolling from side to side
+like a porpoise, and the wind nearly blew the hair off my head, my cap
+having gone away to leeward the first step I took up the ladderway on
+emerging from the cabin after breakfast.
+
+"Well, Master Tom!" the captain shouted in my ear, the noise being so
+great that it almost required a speaking trumpet to make anyone hear at
+a great distance--"how do you like this weather, eh?"
+
+"A jolly sight better than the calm," I said joyously.  The wind seemed
+to get in my head and make me excited in a similar way as it is supposed
+to affect cats; for I felt inclined to sing with glee as I braced myself
+up against the blast and clung to the binnacle rail, surveying the wild
+scene around in a perfect frenzy of delight.  Sea and sky were mingled
+together; and the ship presented a grand spectacle as she nobly
+struggled against and overcame the combined strength of the elements
+trying to vanquish her efforts at escape!
+
+"A good breeze is certainly better than a calm, Tom," observed Mr
+Marline in response to my jubilant remark; "but, it all depends what
+sort of a wind it is, for, if it blows your vessel the wrong way, the
+question arises whether the former state of things be not preferable."
+
+"Belay that sea-lawyering, Marline," interposed Captain Miles.  "I never
+saw such a fellow for taking a gloomy view of everything!  Here we were
+rolling about in a calm for days upon days as if they would never end,
+while now we are bowling away before a brisk south-easter; and yet you
+are not happy!"
+
+"But in what direction are we going, eh, captain?" slyly inquired Mr
+Marline.
+
+"A point or two off our course, I admit," replied the other; "but still
+we are going, and that is the great thing.  We are not lying still like
+a log on the ocean."
+
+"How far have we run, sir, do you think, since last night?"  I asked
+Captain Miles when Mr Marline made no further attempt at conversation.
+
+"I shall take a sight of the sun presently, my boy," he answered, with
+one of his odd winks, giving a quizzical glance at Mr Marline, as if
+telling me he thought he had shut him up for the time; "then I shall be
+better able to tell you.  However, as we've been running twelve knots an
+hour good since four bells in the first watch, we ought to have made
+over a hundred miles or so from our last stopping place."
+
+"And where shall we get to if we continue running on the same as now?"
+I next inquired, thinking of what Mr Marline had said.
+
+"To the Banks of Newfoundland, I suppose, if the same wind holds; but,
+I'm of opinion that we'll have a change as soon as we fetch the Gulf
+Stream, when we shall be able to shape a straight course for the
+Channel."
+
+"And what is the Gulf Stream, captain?"  I then asked.
+
+"Bless the boy!" he exclaimed, "I never saw such a chap for questions;
+why, you're almost as bad as Mr Marline!  Well, if you must know, the
+Gulf Stream, or `Florida Current' as it is frequently called, is
+something very like a river of warm water, some eighty to three hundred
+miles wide, flowing through the surrounding ocean from the Gulf of
+Mexico to Europe in a circular nor'-east by east direction.  Starting
+from between the Dry Tortugas and Cuba, it skirts the eastern shores of
+the United States, then passing across the Atlantic to the south of the
+Banks of Newfoundland, where it branches off into two currents in mid
+ocean, near the Azores.  One of these streams steers north, along the
+shores of Norway, while the other leg sweeps onward to the English
+Channel, circling round the Bay of Biscay and then pursuing a southerly
+course along the Spanish coast until it meets the great equatorial
+current coming up from the south Atlantic.  Uniting now with this, the
+double current flows back westwards to the place of its birth, only to
+renew its onward course again from the Caribbean Sea."
+
+"But what causes it?"  I said.
+
+"Well, that is a disputed point," replied the captain.  "One authority
+says that the Gulf Stream `is caused by the motion of the sun in the
+ecliptic,' and I think there is a good deal of reason in this.  Another
+philosopher puts it down to the influence of the anti-trade and passage
+winds blowing from the west to the east along the zone in which the
+stream travels; and I think much might be said about that argument,
+especially as the westerly current south of the tropic of Cancer is
+undoubtedly caused by the trade-wind.  A third scientific gentleman
+ascribes the stream to the fact, that the earth being a globe, the water
+on the equator is higher than that of the tropics, and the lower stratum
+of fluid circles round constantly in its endeavour to reach into the
+bigger volume beyond its reach; but I can't say much for this theory
+myself, Tom."
+
+"But how do you know the Gulf Stream from the rest of the ocean?"  I
+here asked.
+
+"As easily as you can distinguish a marlinespike from a capstan-bar,"
+answered Captain Miles.  "It is not only bluer than the surrounding
+water, through which it flows, as I've told you, like a river, but it is
+also several degrees warmer; for, when a ship is close to the stream and
+sailing in the same direction in which it is running, a bucket of water
+dipped from the sea on one side of the vessel will show an appreciable
+difference of temperature to that procured from the other.  Besides, my
+boy, there's the Gulf-weed to tell you when you are within the limits of
+the current; however, you'll see lots of the weed by and by, no doubt,
+before we finish our voyage."
+
+"You said, captain," I observed, "that the great currents of the ocean
+are produced by the trade-winds?"
+
+"Undoubtedly," he replied.  "Blowing with regular force on the surface
+of the sea, they cause it to move in the same direction in which they
+are travelling; and, this motion once acquired, the ocean stream keeps
+up its course far beyond where its original propelling power directly
+acted upon it.  The `Great Equatorial Current' is produced by the south-
+east trade, the Gulf Stream, as I've just explained to you, by the
+western or passage winds; and the branch of the latter current that
+skirts the British Isles and Southern Europe, until it falls in again
+with the northern portion of the Equatorial Current, by the north-east
+trade-winds.  Thus, the circle is completed, the water being ever in
+motion round the centre of the tropic of Cancer, just in the same way as
+the winds of this region are."
+
+"But what causes the trade-winds?"  I next asked.
+
+"You young rascal!" said Captain Miles, shaking his fist at me in a
+jocular manner, "I'll have you keel-hauled if you utter another
+question!  I will answer you this one, however--but it is the last time,
+though, mind that!  The sun, my lad, is the source of the winds of the
+globe, as it is the prime agent of heat and life.  The atmospheric air
+being heated by the solar orb at the equator, where its force is
+necessarily the greatest, ascends.  This creates a vacuum, which the
+surrounding air hastens to fill, causing thus a constant indraught from
+both the north and south towards the equator; and the fact of the
+opposing winds meeting at this point produces those very calms which vex
+us poor mariners.  There, Master Tom, that's all I can tell you; for, I
+must see about my sextant now to consult the great luminary we have been
+talking of, so as to see where our scudding has taken us to."
+
+Captain Miles's mission after his sextant, however, was a vain quest to-
+day, for a mass of fleeting clouds were continually passing to and fro
+across the zenith, obscuring the heavens so much that not a single peep
+of the sun could be had either at noon or later on.
+
+The wind now, too, began to come in violent gusts, striking the ship
+every now and then with a force that seemed to bury her in the water;
+while the sea got rougher and rougher, looking as angry as it was
+possible to conceive.
+
+Presently, with a loud report, the main-topsail split in half, and then
+the pieces blew away bit by bit ahead of the ship like paper kites, the
+useful foretop-sail which had been again set in the afternoon being now
+the only sail left on her; but, still, on she plunged through the waste
+of waters as madly as ever, the sky getting more and more overcast as
+the day wore on, and a heavy bank of blue-black clouds gathered together
+right in front, to the north-west, whither we were trending.
+
+"Don't you think, captain," said Mr Marline, who had returned to the
+poop after having a short rest below--he having remained on deck while
+the captain had turned in during the early part of the morning watch--"I
+say, don't you think we're running into the very jaws of the gale
+again?"
+
+"It certainly looks like it," replied Captain Miles shaking his head.
+"We must try and lay her to, if we can, though I dread the job!  See to
+the hands being ready to set that mizzen staysail; it will help her head
+round when we ease off the yards."
+
+This sail had been bent all ready the night before, and now with great
+difficulty was hoisted; but then came a greater difficulty, that of
+getting the ship about--for, what with the gusty wind and the heavy sea
+it was a very perilous proceeding, the vessel running the risk of being
+pooped as well as broaching-to.
+
+"We'll have to wear her!" said the captain, after thinking over the
+matter a bit.  "Send a hand or two forwards to see to the fore-staysail,
+so as to be ready for hoisting it when I give the word!"
+
+Jackson, to whom this latter order was addressed, immediately went
+forwards on the forecastle, accompanied by a couple of other men;
+although the three found it a serious matter to escape the thick green
+seas the vessel took in over her bows as she dived into the trough of
+the waves, washing the decks fore and aft.  After a struggle, however,
+they managed to climb out to their station, getting the fore-staysail
+ready to haul up as the captain had commanded, although he only meant to
+use it in case the topsail carried away as we wore ship, which was very
+possible.
+
+Then, watching our opportunity when the _Josephine_ was rising on the
+crest of a gigantic wave that had rolled up astern to poop her, but had
+fortunately instead passed underneath her keel, the helm was put up and
+the fore-yards easied round.
+
+She answered the rudder; but one sea came in over her quarter just when
+she was fully exposed to the side force of the wind.  Luckily, however,
+everything held; and, as the foretop-sail got gradually taken aback the
+mizzen staysail drew, casting her stern round, so that her head at last
+faced the wind and sea.  The vessel plunged fearfully, but held her own
+grandly, not falling off again as we all expected.
+
+"By Jingo, she's a beauty!" exclaimed the captain in high delight at the
+success of the manoeuvre.  "I never saw a ship behave better in my life!
+I was frightened of her at one time, I confess."
+
+"So was I," said Mr Marline, much relieved by our now being hove-to and
+better prepared to meet any change of wind.  "She's all right now,
+though!"
+
+He had spoken too quickly, however, "counting his chickens before they
+were hatched," according to the old proverb; for, no sooner had he got
+out the words than for one single instant the gale lulled, coming to a
+dead stand-still, and the very next moment it began to blow from the
+exactly opposite direction--the storm proceeding now from the north-west
+quadrant instead of the south-east, and the headquarters of our fresh
+assailant being the thick bank of black clouds we had noticed in front
+of our previous position before wearing ship low down on the horizon.
+
+We had evidently only got round in the very nick of time.
+
+Otherwise, there is little doubt that the _Josephine_, meeting the wind
+from this new quarter full butt, would have been taken aback.  Now, from
+her change of position it struck her aft, making her scud again before
+it as she had previously done--strangely enough causing her to retrace
+the very same course she had just passed over, in almost a straight
+line!
+
+"Square away the yards!" shouted out Captain Miles, while the men at the
+wheel shifted the helm to prevent the vessel from broaching-to; and, in
+another moment we were pitching and tossing through the choppy head-sea
+which we had now to meet, the ship rolling from side to side, and
+tumbling about like a whale in its death flurry, as she raced on ahead
+again before the stiff north-western blast.
+
+"Well!" exclaimed Captain Miles presently, "of all the sudden changes of
+wind I ever encountered on the ocean, this beats everything!  It has
+literally jumped round the compass."
+
+"I fancy it is the tail-end of the hurricane," said Mr Marline.  "It is
+a very lucky thing we wore ship in time."
+
+"Lucky, you call it?" rejoined Captain Miles gravely, eyeing the
+foremast anxiously the while, fearful of anything being carried away,
+when we would be left to the mercy of the cruel waves.  "Man alive, it
+is only through the mercy of Providence that we are not now sunk fathoms
+deep below the sea!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+ON OUR BEAM-ENDS.
+
+Up to now, although we had experienced bad weather for two days and the
+special gale before which we were driving had lasted some eighteen hours
+at a stretch, no serious accident had happened on board, the _Josephine_
+being as sound and staunch in every way as when she left port, with the
+exception of losing her mainsail and having her rigging, perhaps, rather
+tautly stretched.
+
+The galley fire had been put out once or twice by the heavy seas which
+we took in over the bows, but Cuffee, with the cordial co-operation of
+his brother darkey, Jake, was easily able to light this again; and the
+men, having their rations regularly and little or no work to do--save
+taking their trick at the wheel, when four would have to go on duty
+together at once--had nothing to grumble at.  Everything, indeed,
+proceeded comfortably enough while the ship was scudding first one way
+and then the other--"doing diagonals," as it were, across her latitudes!
+
+Down below in the cabin all had been what sailor's term "a hurrah's
+nest" ever since the gale began, the loose water knocking about the
+decks having washed all sorts of odds and ends together and kept us
+always wet; while the rolling of the vessel from side to side, like a
+pendulum, as she ran before the wind had smashed most of the crockery-
+ware and glasses in the steward's pantry, besides causing the benches
+round the saloon table and the chairs to fetch away from their lashings.
+
+For days past, our meals had resembled amateur picnics more than
+anything else--whenever we were able to get them, that is, the old
+regularity of breakfast and lunch and dinner being completely abolished;
+for the captain and Mr Marline and myself had to take odd snacks and
+stray bites at various hours whenever opportunity and appetite allowed
+their indulgence.
+
+Harry, the steward, was at his wit's end to get things in proper
+keeping.
+
+No sooner had he cleared up one batch of breakages and made matters
+ship-shape than over would sway the _Josephine_ hard to port; when, bang
+would go something else, undoing in one instant the work of hours of
+labour in putting the place below in order.
+
+"Lor' a mussy, me nebber get tings right nohow!" he would exclaim,
+setting to work again; and then, a sea would come floating in over the
+combings of the cabin bulkhead, tumbling him over and washing him aft
+amidst the debris, almost drowning the man before he could fish himself
+up again and set to his task anew.  His toil, like that of Sisyphus, was
+ever being renewed when on the verge of completion.
+
+To me, however, all these little disagreeables seemed immensely jolly;
+so, whenever the captain or Mr Marline or Harry happened to get
+capsized in this way down in the cabin during the day, it sent me at
+once into fits of merriment, the fact of my being washed off my feet as
+well only adding to the enjoyment of the joke, for I could grin quite as
+much with my own head in the scuppers and my mouth full of water as I
+would when the others were similarly situated.
+
+"Bless the boy!"  Captain Miles said.  "He's a regular sailor.  He
+laughs at everything."
+
+And so I did; especially one afternoon, when a sea coming in suddenly so
+jammed Mr Marline inside an arm-chair, whose seat had given way, that
+the watch had to be called below to extricate him.  The mate took the
+matter with great good-humour, I may add, only saying to me, "Ah, never
+mind, Master Tom, we'll see who'll laugh best bye and bye."
+
+Jake used to sneak down on the sly to put my bunk in order so that I
+might be more comfortable, having, like most pure negroes, a thorough
+contempt for the mulatto steward.  He believed him quite incapable of
+looking after me properly.
+
+"Him only poor trash, Mass' Tom," he would say to me; "he can't do
+nuffin', I'se like to come an' look after um cabin for young massa, when
+I'se in watch below."
+
+Then, the good-natured fellow would scrub away energetically at the
+floor, deluged with water, and fix up things straight for me; making the
+place far more neat and tidy in five minutes than Harry the mulatto
+could have done if he had been all day over the job.  He eclipsed the
+steward in his own line, while proving himself as good as any seaman in
+the ship.
+
+Jake was a handy chap, indeed, all round, for he was of very
+considerable assistance to Cuffee in the galley when the stormy weather
+interfered with the cooking; so, Captain Miles did not object to his
+coming to look after me in this way.  He "winked at it," as he said.
+
+During the evening of the day on which the wind shifted round to the
+north-west, the sky somewhat cleared and the night was fine and
+starlight; but the gale seemed to blow with all the greater vehemence as
+the clouds dispersed.  It increased to the strength of a hurricane
+towards one o'clock in the morning, when, the fore-topsail and mizzen
+staysail blowing away, the ship had to content herself with running
+under bare poles, careering through the water faster than ever.  She had
+certainly never realised such speed since she had been launched.
+
+I was awake when Captain Miles came down at this time to consult the
+barometer, and I could hear what he said to Jackson, who had accompanied
+him below for something or other, the two talking together just outside
+my bunk.
+
+"I'm sure I can't make it out at all," the captain said in rather a
+hopeless way.  "Here's the glass keeping as high as possible, and yet
+the gale shows no token of lessening.  What can it mean?"
+
+"These cyclones are queer things, sir," responded Jackson.  "I was in
+two while in a China trader, and sha'n't forget them in a hurry."
+
+"I could understand it," continued Captain Miles as if reasoning with
+himself, "keeping on like this if we were in the Gulf of Mexico now, for
+it looks like what they call a norther there; but I've never heard of
+one of those winds being met in the Atlantic."
+
+"It's something out of the common, sir," observed Jackson.  "It's a
+cyclone, or hurricane, if I ever was in one, and I don't see as how we
+can do better than we are doing, sir."
+
+"Well, we simply can't," said the captain.  "We are running before it as
+hard as we can with only our bare sticks showing, for the vessel won't
+stand a rag of sail; so, it is utterly impossible to lay to and brave it
+out."
+
+"Quite so, sir," responded the other.  "All we can do is to carry on and
+trust to running out of it into calm weather.  We ought to have made a
+long stretch to the southwards by now."
+
+"So we have, Jackson," said Captain Miles.  "We're now, I fancy, pretty
+well back where we lay so long in the calm, although perhaps a trifle
+more to the eastwards; but, if we run on much further, I'm sure I don't
+know where we'll bring up!"
+
+There the conversation ended and I went off to sleep soon afterwards,
+although the creaking of the timbers and roar of the sea sounded
+terrific, making noise enough to drown the sound of everything else.  I
+couldn't hear a footstep on the deck above me--all was hushed but the
+terrible turmoil of the elements.
+
+I got up about six o'clock.  I knew the hour by striking a match and
+looking at a little watch my father had given me just before I left
+home; for, it was all dark in the cabin, the ports and scuttles being
+closed and the dead-lights in the stern being up, while the doors in the
+bulkheads were drawn to, so as to keep out the sea from rushing in when
+a wave came over the forecastle.
+
+Opening one of the sliding panels with some difficulty and pushing it
+back far enough for my body to get through, I emerged on the main-deck,
+thence managed to scramble on the poop, where the captain and Mr
+Marline were standing as well as Jackson, all holding on to the rigging.
+None of the officers had turned in all night, but I noticed that none
+of the hands were visible except the men at the helm, the captain
+allowing the rest to keep snug in the forecastle until they were wanted,
+for heavy seas were washing over the rails every now and then or coming
+in from the bows and sweeping the ship fore and aft, so there was no use
+in exposing the men unnecessarily when there was nothing really for them
+to do, as was the case now--no sail being set and only the wheel having
+to be attended to.
+
+Ahead, astern, to the right hand and to the left, the sea was nothing
+but a mass of foam, while the air was thick with flying scud that was
+chopped off the heads of the great rolling waves every instant and
+whirled to leeward by the wind.  This seemed sometimes actually to beat
+down the water and make it level with its tremendous strength, the
+billows springing up, after each gust, like india-rubber balls that had
+been pressed flat and then suddenly released, for they spirted up into
+the air, flinging their crests aloft one brief moment only to be
+decapitated the next by the sweeping scythe-like blast.
+
+Far and wide, the ocean presented a magnificent picture of awful
+grandeur and howling desolation.
+
+Above, the sky was of a dull leadenish hue, and there was nothing
+anywhere to be seen beyond sky and water save the poor _Josephine_
+tearing along through the chaotic maelstrom, labouring and groaning
+heavily as she rolled from side to side, dipping her yard-arms from time
+to time with each lurch, with the wind shrieking and whistling the most
+wonderful harp music through the rigging--nothing to be seen but the
+restless, roaring, heaving sea stretching away, like a boiling cauldron
+of soap-suds, to where the gloomy heavens met the angry horizon.
+
+At mid-day, more from curiosity than anything else, as we had lost all
+track of our dead reckoning, Captain Miles had the log hove, when it was
+found that the vessel under her bare poles was going close on fourteen
+knots an hour.  The force of the wind on her hull and spars was quite
+sufficient alone to achieve this speed, for the yards were braced square
+and the helm kept as steady amidships as the send of the waves would
+allow and the four men in charge of the spokes could manage.
+
+And so, we continued all that day and night, the gale still keeping up
+to the same pitch when the fourth morning broke, with never a sign of
+cessation, while the sea was, if possible, rougher than before, causing
+us to ship the water over our bows continually.
+
+Captain Miles was fairly cornered.
+
+"I tell you what, Marline," he said towards the afternoon, "I don't
+think there is now any possible chance of the wind backing again; so, as
+she's taking in such a lot over the bows, we must try and get some sail
+on her, to rise out of the trough of the sea."
+
+"I don't believe the mast will stand a rag, should we be able to hoist
+without its being blown to pieces," replied the first mate despondingly.
+
+He seemed to have lost all heart, unlike the captain and Jackson, who
+were both still brave and cheerful, keeping up the spirits of the men.
+These latter, I could see, were beginning to lose their courage too,
+going about their duties with a sort of dogged stubbornness unlike their
+old ready way.
+
+"Well, we'll try it at any rate.  But, first, we must see to securing
+the masts.  Get up a spare hawser and we'll rig a fresh stay round the
+head of the foremast, and then we'll set the foresail.  That will lift
+her bows out of the water, if it only holds."
+
+So saying, Captain Miles yelled out for the watch below, and the men
+presently came out from the forecastle, Davis, the whilom second mate,
+along with them, the lot shambling unwillingly along the deck to the
+galley, where they clustered in a body.
+
+"Now, men," said the captain, "we must try and get some sail on the
+ship, or else we'll have all our timbers crushed in forwards by these
+seas; who'll volunteer to go aloft and help stay the foremast?  It's
+risky work, and I don't like to order anyone to go."
+
+Not a soul spoke in answer for a minute or so, and then Davis stepped
+out a pace in front of the others.
+
+For a moment I was lost in admiration of what I conceived to be his
+pluck; but, the next instant, I perceived I had been too hasty in
+jumping at this conclusion.
+
+"What do you take us for, Cap'en Miles?"  Davis sang out sullenly.  "Do
+you think that men are dogs to waste their lives for nothing?  Why don't
+you go aloft yourself, if you are so anxious about the job?"
+
+Captain Miles turned quite white, as he always did when his temper was
+up.  He was then ready to dare anything, like most men of a deep nature.
+
+"So I will, you mutinous scoundrel!" he cried; and he was just making
+his way down the poop-ladder to go forwards, when Jackson, almost
+jumping over his head, outstripped him, being down in the waist and up
+to the loiterers in a jiffey.
+
+"Come on, you cowards!" the brave fellow exclaimed, clambering up into
+the fore-rigging and making for the top.  "Who's man enough to follow
+me?"
+
+There was no lack of volunteers now.
+
+First one, and then another, scrambled likewise into the shrouds and
+climbed up after Jackson, only Davis being left below in his glory out
+of the whole watch.
+
+Even he too was following; but, on Jackson shouting out something about
+his "not wanting any lubbers to help him," Davis sneaked back into the
+forecastle.
+
+The others then set to work vigorously, rousing up the end of a spare
+hawser, which had been coiled round the mainmast bitts, and securing it
+round the foremast head.  The ends of this stout rope were then hauled
+aft and made fast to the main-chains on either side, when, a purchase
+being rigged up and brought to the capstan, the hawser was hove taut--
+thus serving as a double preventer stay, to support the great strain
+there would be on the foremast when the fore course should be set, the
+mast even now bending before the gale although no sail was as yet on it.
+
+"Now, men, loose the foresail!" shouted Captain Miles, much pleased with
+the sharp way in which the task had been accomplished through the men's
+promptitude.  "Mind, though, and come down as soon as you've done it,
+for one doesn't know what may happen!"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir, all right," sang out Jackson in reply; and under his
+orders the gaskets were quickly cast-off and the bunt dropped, when the
+men shinned down the rigging and ran the sheet aft, the sail blowing out
+like a big white cloud over the forecastle before the tacks could be
+belayed.
+
+Fortunately, while taking in sail on the night of the thunder-storm,
+Jackson had caused the foresail to be reefed before being clewed up, and
+this precaution now stood us in good stead, as, instead of its being
+spread to its full extent, only a portion of the sail was exposed to the
+wind.  This, however, was quite sufficient; for, small as it was, it
+tugged at the restraining ropes like a giant endeavouring to free
+himself from his bonds, flying out from the yards with spasmodic jerks
+and pulling at the mast in a way that showed that, if the spar had not
+had additional support, it would probably have been torn bodily away out
+of the ship.
+
+The _Josephine_, though, soon felt the difference of having the sail on
+her; for, instead of now bowing to the seas and taking them in over her
+head, she rose buoyantly, dashing along, of course, with greater speed
+than before.
+
+Captain Miles was quite triumphant over it.
+
+"There, Marline, what do you think of that?" he said, rubbing his hands
+with much gusto.  "Didn't I tell you so?"
+
+"Yes, sir, so you did," answered the other; "but we'll wait and see how
+long it lasts."
+
+"Bah! it will last our turn," said the captain, with a laugh at Mr
+Marline's obstinate retention of his own opinion.  "Anyhow, it has eased
+the ship already."
+
+"It hasn't eased the steering, though," retorted the mate.  "We'll want
+six men at the helm if she goes on jumping like this.  She's worse than
+a kangaroo now."
+
+"Better leap over the waves than under them, having a ton of green water
+come over our bows every minute.  Steady, there!"
+
+"Steady it is, sir," replied Moggridge, who was acting as quartermaster.
+
+"Keep her so, and mind to let her off when she seems inclined to broach
+to.  I think we've seen the worst of it now, and can pipe down to
+dinner."
+
+"I'm sure I sha'n't be sorry to have a fair mouthful to-day," said Mr
+Marline with a melancholy smile.  "I haven't known what a good square
+meal was since the gale began, and think I could do justice to one now."
+
+"So could I," replied the captain; and he went below to give Harry the
+steward some especial orders on the subject, the result being that the
+last pair of fowls occupying the nearly tenantless hen-coops were
+removed screaming to the cook's galley, to reappear an hour afterwards
+on the cabin table at the first regular dinner we were able to sit down
+to together for four days.  The ship, although racing on still before
+the gale, was now riding more easily and rolling less, while no heavy
+seas came dashing aft from the forecastle to wash us all up in a heap
+pell-mell into the stern-sheets, as had hitherto been the case at meal-
+times--a moving mass of legs and arms, crockery-ware, savoury dishes,
+and table furniture in general!
+
+When I again went on deck, the ship was going beautifully, tearing
+through the water like a racehorse and parting the waves on either side
+of her bows as if she were veritably ploughing the deep, the crests of
+the sea rising in foam over the fore-yard and floating in the air in the
+shape of spindrift and spray far astern.
+
+The sky, too, had somewhat lost its leaden hue, clearing towards the
+zenith, where one or two odd stars could be seen occasionally peeping
+down at us through the storm rack that flew overhead like scraps of
+fleecy wool.  This cheery prospect told us to be of good courage,
+leading us to hope that if we only waited patiently we might expect fine
+weather bye and bye.
+
+At nine o'clock, the greater portion of the heavens was quite
+unobscured, the moon shining out, although looking pale and watery and
+with a big burr round her that showed the still unsettled condition of
+the atmosphere; the wind, strange to say, continuing to blow with almost
+as great force from the north-west as when it began, nearly forty-eight
+hours before.
+
+"I'm afraid we're going to have a nasty night of it," said Captain
+Miles, who had just then come up from below with his sextant.  "Still,
+I'm glad to see our old friend the moon again, however greasy she may
+look.  I haven't been able to take an observation since Monday; so we'll
+see what a lunar may do in the way of fixing our position."
+
+Just then, there was a break in the haze that had caused the watery
+appearance of the fair orb of night; and Captain Miles, taking advantage
+of the opportunity, took his angles, a sight of two of the
+constellations also helping his calculations, and giving him data to
+work upon.  He then went down to his cabin again to work out the
+reckoning.
+
+"Guess where we are, Marline?" he said when he came up for the second
+time.  "I don't think you'll be able to tell within a degree!"
+
+"Somewhere between the forties, I should think, with all this scudding
+about north and south," replied the other.
+
+"Well, I make it that we're just about 33 degrees 10 minutes North, and
+41 degrees West longitude.  What do you think of that, eh?"
+
+"Never!" exclaimed the first mate.
+
+"But, it's true enough," returned Captain Miles.  "I assure you I've
+tested my reckoning in every way, those star altitudes enabling me to
+correct my lunars.  Yes, Marline, you see we did not lose so much by
+carrying on to the north as you fancied we would; and this blustering
+north-wester has now taken us almost eight hundred miles in the very
+direction we wanted to go.  If we had lain to, as you wanted at first,
+we should now have been considerably to the southward of our position,
+and would probably have had to beat up northwards again; whereas now, as
+soon as the gale is blown out, we'll be right in the trades for home."
+
+"And won't we touch the Gulf Stream, then?"  I asked.
+
+"No, my boy, thank goodness, we're a long way from that; but if you're
+anxious to see the Gulf-weed I told you about, we're now in its native
+home, a region called the Sargasso Sea."
+
+"The Sargasso Sea!"  I repeated.  "I never heard of that before."
+
+"No, I don't suppose you have," replied Captain Miles in answer to my
+implied question.  "It is a name applied to a calm expanse of the ocean
+between the Gulf Stream and the Equatorial Current, and is called so
+from the _Sargassum_, or Gulf-weed, which is continually found floating
+there--that is, when the wind is not too strong, as now, to blow it
+elsewhere.  You'll see plenty of the stuff as soon as the gale lulls,
+which it must do now, I think, in a very few hours."
+
+"Are you going to carry on still before it, sir?" asked Mr Marline.
+
+"Of course," answered the captain.  "The ship is sailing easily and not
+straining herself, as she would do if lying-to; and we can't run into
+any harm following the same course till morning.  I intend to work the
+gale in the same way as a friend of mine once treated a runaway horse.
+It first started off to please itself, and then he made it keep up its
+pace to please him; so, as the wind has chosen to blow us along at its
+own sweet will all this time, it shall now drive the ship at my
+pleasure.  What do you say, Master Tom, eh?"
+
+"I say it's a very good plan, captain," I replied laughing.
+
+"Well, my boy, I'll tell you of another good plan, and that is to go
+below and turn in, as I purpose doing.  Mr Marline," added the captain
+to the first mate, "please take the first watch.  I'll relieve you at
+midnight; I don't think there'll be any change before then."
+
+With these words, Captain Miles, who had been on deck almost
+continuously now for two days and nights, went down to the cabin to have
+a couple of hours of much-needed repose; and taking his hint as an
+order, good-humouredly as it was spoken, I followed him at once.
+
+Nor was I anything loth either to go to my bunk; for I had eaten a
+hearty dinner which made me feel drowsy.  After I had turned in, too,
+there being no excitement to keep me awake, and the ship being quite
+safe, there being now every prospect of the gale coming soon to an end,
+I slept like a top--Harry the steward having to wake me again next
+morning to tell me that breakfast was ready, and coming twice to shake
+my bunk before I would turn out.
+
+When I subsequently went on deck, I could soon see that the weather had
+altered for the better.
+
+Although the sea was still rough, the clouds had cleared away from the
+sky entirely, not a speck of hazy vapour being discernible anywhere,
+while the sun was shining down brightly and warmly, enlivening the whole
+scene around and making the ocean, in spite of its still rough
+condition, almost look pleasant; the white wreaths of spray, broken-off
+by the wind from the tops of the waves, glistening with the prismatic
+hues of the rainbow as they were tossed up in the air on clashing billow
+meeting billow.
+
+On board the ship, also, matters had considerably improved, only two men
+being required at the helm in place of four, for the vessel was ever so
+much more easy to steer; and, I could see preparations being made in the
+waist for bending a new main-topsail and mizzen staysail in place of
+those that had been blown away when we were in the vortex of the
+hurricane.
+
+It was a difficult job getting the remains of the old main-topsail off
+the yard, the wind blowing still with great force and the men having to
+hold on with all their might.  But, after an hour's labour, the task was
+accomplished, and then the new piece of canvas was sent up into the top
+by the halliards, where, after being bent and close-reefed, it was
+sheeted home and the yard hoisted up again, spreading the sail.
+
+The mizzen staysail followed suit; and then, seeing that the ship bore
+the pressure pretty well, Captain Miles ordered the fore-topmast
+staysail to be hoisted.  This brought the _Josephine_ more up to the
+wind, the vessel now sailing with it about a couple of points abaft the
+beam.
+
+She heeled over tremendously, burying all the lee bulwarks under water,
+with the sea rushing along her channels like a mill-race; but, she held
+to it bravely, and we all congratulated ourselves on having weathered
+the storm and carried out Captain Miles's boast of making the gale serve
+his purpose, thus turning a foul wind into a fair one.
+
+Towards mid-day, the captain took an observation, which amply
+corroborated his lunars of the previous evening, we being found to be in
+32 degrees North latitude and 40 degrees West longitude, the slight
+difference between this and his former reckoning being due to the
+distance we had run during the night.
+
+The wind still held up, however, and although we were carrying more
+canvas than we really ought to have had on the ship in such a gale,
+Captain Miles was just thinking of setting the spanker and bending a new
+fore-topsail, when, as if it had been all at once shut off from its
+source, the strong north-western wind in a moment ceased to blow.
+
+At this time there was not a single cloud on the horizon anywhere, the
+sky being absolutely clear and beautifully blue; but I noticed something
+like a white wall of water on our port bow advancing towards the
+_Josephine_.
+
+The sight resembled an enormous wave raised up to twenty times the
+height of those in our more immediate vicinity.
+
+"Look, Mr Marline!"  I cried.  "What is that there to the left?"
+
+He glanced where I pointed, and so did Jackson, the latter singing out
+the moment he caught sight of the wave to the two men at the wheel, who
+were Davis and a German sailor, "Down with the helm--sharp!"
+
+"Hullo! what's the matter?" exclaimed Captain Miles, hearing the order
+and raising himself up from the cabin skylight where he had been bending
+over his log-book, in which he had been jotting down an entry.  "What's
+up now?"
+
+"Something uncommonly like a white squall, sir," hurriedly explained
+Jackson.  "It's coming down fast on us from windward, and will be on us
+in a jiffey.  Down with the helm sharp, don't you hear?" he called out a
+second time to the helmsmen.
+
+Captain Miles, quite startled now, looked round, and seeing the great
+wave of water, now quite close, borne before the coming wind, repeated
+the order to put down the helm more sharply still, adding also to the
+watch on duty:
+
+"Cast-off the topsail sheets and let everything go by the run!"
+
+Whether Davis heard the order to let the ship's head fall off and
+wilfully disobeyed it, on account of its coming from Jackson, whom he
+hated, or whether he was paralysed with terror at the approach of this
+new danger, after our having passed through all the perils of the
+cyclone, no one could say; but he not only did not turn the spokes of
+the wheel himself, but he absolutely prevented the other man from doing
+so.
+
+Seeing the vessel did not answer the helm, the captain and Jackson
+together darted aft, dragging away Davis and fiercely jamming the wheel
+down as hard as they could.
+
+The movement, however, came too late.
+
+Before the _Josephine's_ bows could pay off, a terrific blast of wind,
+worse than anything that had yet assailed her, struck her sideways.
+Over she was borne to leeward, dipping and dipping until her yard-arms;
+and then, the tops of her masts, touching the water, becoming gradually
+immersed as the ship canted.
+
+At the same moment, too, with a loud double report, the foresail and
+main-topsail blew out of the bolt-ropes, floating away in the distance.
+But this relief, great as it was, did not right the ship, for the huge
+white wave, following the gust, forced her over still more on her side;
+and, in less time than I have taken to tell of the occurrence, the
+_Josephine_ was on her beam-ends and every soul on board struggling in
+the water for dear life.
+
+"Hole on, Mass' Tom, hole on!"  I heard Jake's voice cry somewhere, as I
+sank beneath the rocking surges that were in an instant cresting over
+the poop.  "Hole on, Mass' Tom, hole on!"
+
+I tried to battle with the sea, but it bore me down, and down, and down.
+
+And then--I felt I was drowning!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+IN DIRE PERIL.
+
+Jake's voice seemed ever so far away in the distance, and there was a
+confused sort of humming, buzzing noise in my ears; while some heavy
+weight on the top of my head appeared to be pressing me down, although I
+struggled frantically to free myself.
+
+It was all in vain, though.
+
+I was whirled round and round in an eddy of the sea; and soon my efforts
+ceased.
+
+Then, all at once, when almost the sense of suffocation had passed, I
+felt a hand grasp my collar at the back of my neck; and, oh, gracious
+heaven!  I was dragged above the surface and drew once more a breath of
+air.  I took in a gulp of water with this; but, in spite of the water,
+the air was the sweet essence of life and I breathed again!
+
+I had been in a dream before--a terrible dream; now I came to myself,
+and my recollection returned.
+
+The buzzing sounds that had previously echoed through my brain resolved
+themselves into the hoarse shouts of the crew of the _Josephine_; the
+exclamations of the sailors being mingled with the roaring, crashing
+break of the waves as they washed over the wreck, and the creaking and
+rending of the timbers of the poor ship, while, nearer yet to me, I
+could distinguish the cheering cry of faithful Jake:
+
+"Hole up, Mass' Tom, um got um safe now.  Hole up an' take good breff;
+we'se all right, an' ebberybody safe!"
+
+At the same moment that he spoke Jake lifted me up on something which I
+could feel with my feet, and I opened my eyes.
+
+At first, I was almost blinded by the sea-water which had got into them,
+and the salt spray which continually dashed over my head; but, in a
+minute or two, I was able to see where I was and grasp the situation.
+
+The ship was lying over on her starboard side, with her decks submerged
+up to the hatches, and her masts horizontal on the surface of the sea;
+but, the whole of her port side was clear out of the water, and,
+although the waves were breaking over this, still the major part of the
+quarter and a portion of the poop were almost high and dry in the
+intervals between the following rollers that ever and anon swept up to
+their level.
+
+On this after part of the ship, Jake had managed to clamber up, lugging
+me along with him; and, as I looked round, I could recognise Captain
+Miles and Mr Marline, as well as several others of the hands, who had
+sought such a vantage-ground of safety.
+
+Away forwards, the _Josephine_ was completely buried in the huge billows
+that were constantly surging over her; but here, too, clinging on to the
+main-chains was another group of sailors, amongst whom I could make out
+the tall figure of Jackson, with Cuffee and Davis close beside him.
+
+Captain Miles perceived me almost as soon as I saw him.
+
+"Ah, there you are, Tom!" he cried.  "Thank God you are not lost!  I
+made a hard grab at you when the ship heeled over, but missed you; and
+thought that the skylight hatch carried you away overboard when it
+lifted."
+
+"Me watchee him sharp, sah," explained Jake.  "I'se see de squall comin'
+an' run aft for tell, an' den I clutch hole Mass' Tom, an' here we is!"
+
+"You've saved your young master then," exclaimed the captain; "so, Tom,
+you've got to thank the darkey instead of me!  But, how many of us have
+escaped?"
+
+As he said this, Captain Miles glanced about and appeared to be
+reckoning up the list of the crew on his fingers, for I could see his
+lips move.
+
+"Marline, you're all right, eh?" he went on presently, speaking out
+aloud.
+
+"Oh, yes, I'm here, thanks to Providence," said the first mate with
+almost a sob in his voice.  It told better than words his gratitude to
+the power on high that had preserved him.
+
+"And Jackson, I see, with Davis and Cuffee," continued the captain,
+running through the names of the survivors as far as he could make them
+out.
+
+"There's Adze, the carpenter, too, in the main-chains, with those two
+German sailors, Hermann and Gottlieb; while there are five more of the
+hands alongside me," said Mr Marline looking round, too, and taking
+stock.
+
+"But, where's Moggridge?" asked Captain Miles, missing the boatswain at
+that moment and not seeing him anywhere.  I felt my heart sink at the
+thought that he was gone.
+
+"Here I am, your honour," however, sang out the old fellow, climbing up
+over the stern gallery.  "I almost lost the number of my mess; but I've
+managed to cheat Davy Jones this time."
+
+"That makes, with Master Tom here, just sixteen souls, out of eighteen
+we had on board, all told," said the captain.  "Anybody seen the
+steward?"
+
+"No, he isn't here, poor fellow," replied Mr Marline.  "He was below in
+his pantry at the time the squall struck us, and must have been drowned
+before he could scramble out."
+
+"There's only one other, then, missing," said the captain.  "Count the
+hands again, Marline."
+
+The first mate did this; and, then, it was found, on hailing Jackson in
+the main-chains--the sea at present making a breach between us and
+dividing our forces--that the other sailor was a man named Briggs, who
+had been ailing for some days past.  He had been in his bunk in the
+forecastle when the ship capsized, so his fate was almost as certain as
+that of Harry, the mulatto steward.
+
+All things considered, though, it was a great mercy, from the sudden
+nature of the calamity, that so many of us should have been saved.  But
+for the fact of the accident having occurred in the afternoon, when the
+majority of the hands were fortunately on deck aft, many more lives
+would undoubtedly have been lost.
+
+However, albeit temporarily preserved from the peril of a watery grave,
+our outlook, clustered there together on the outside of the partly-
+submerged vessel, was a very sorry one; for, the sea was still running
+high, and the waves were breaking over us in sheets of foam, and,
+although the sun was shining down and the air was comparatively warm,
+this made us feel most uncomfortable.  Besides, the continual onslaught
+of the rolling billows necessitated our holding on to everything we
+could get a grip of, to prevent ourselves from being washed away.
+
+We had to lie along the side of the ship, grasping the mizzen rigging,
+which attitude was a very wearying one; for, the sea would lift us up as
+the swell surged by, and then, we had to take a fresh grip, our feet
+sliding down the hull as the billow retired and the vessel sunk down in
+the hollow.
+
+"I say, Marline," called out the captain presently, "as you are nearest
+the signal halliards, do you think you can manage to run them clear?"
+
+"I'll try, sir," answered the other; and Moggridge, who had now crept
+alongside the mate, helping him, the two contrived to haul out the rope
+in question.
+
+"Now, who's got a knife handy?" next inquired Captain Miles.
+
+There was half a dozen replies to this question; but, ere the article
+wanted could be passed along, the old boatswain had drawn out his from
+his waistband by means of the lanyard slung round his neck, and was
+busily employed in cutting up the signal halliards into short lengths of
+about a fathom each.
+
+"Ah, I see you guessed what I was after," said the captain noticing
+this.  "If we lash ourselves to the rigging here, it will save us a
+world of exertion and trouble, besides leaving our hands free for other
+purposes."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir, I know'd what you want," responded Moggridge, and
+passing down the pieces of rope as he cut them off, all of us were
+pretty soon well secured from being washed away, each man helping to tie
+up his neighbour in turn.
+
+"Golly, massa, dis am a purdicafirment!" ejaculated Jake, grinning as
+usual, and with his ebony face shining with the spray; "I'se 'gin feel
+want grub--um precious hungry."
+
+"I am afraid that'll not be our only want, my poor fellow," said Captain
+Miles in a melancholy voice; but rousing himself a minute afterwards he
+added more cheerfully, "Wait till the sea gets down, and then we'll try
+to improve our condition.  I wonder, though, how these other fellows are
+getting on in the chains amidships?  Jackson, ahoy!"
+
+"Hullo, sir," came a faint hail in answer, from amid the breaking seas
+further on ahead of us, where only a black spot of a head could be seen
+occasionally emerging from the mass of encircling foam.
+
+"Are you all right there?" sang out the captain.
+
+"We're alive, sir; but nearly tired out," replied Jackson in a low weak
+tone.
+
+"Can't you try, man, to work your way aft and join us," urged Captain
+Miles, comprehending how exhausted the young seaman and his companions
+there must be.  "There's plenty of room here for all of us, and you'll
+not be so much worked about by the sea."
+
+"The waves are too strong for us, sir," cried out the other, but his
+voice now seeming to have a little more courage in it, for he added
+after a bit, "I think we can manage it, though, if you will make fast
+the bight of the topsail sheet and heave the end to us.  It will serve
+us to hold on by as we pass along the bulwarks."
+
+"All right, my hearty," answered Captain Miles, he and a couple of the
+sailors beside him doing as Jackson had suggested.
+
+Then, the captain himself, undoing his lashings, seized one of the brief
+intervals in which the after part of the hull rose above the sea; when,
+standing on his feet, while his legs were held by the two sailors, he
+hove the end of the rope towards Jackson, who, clutching hold of it,
+secured it to the main-shrouds, whence it was stretched taut to the
+mizzen rigging, thus serving as a sort of life-line by which the men
+could pass aft.
+
+When this was done, the men with Jackson in the main-chains crept
+cautiously along the bulwarks, half in and half out of the water,
+clutching on to the topsail sheet hand over hand, soon joined us on the
+quarter galley--the young second mate being the last to leave, waiting
+until his comrades were in safety.
+
+The passage from the one place to the other was perilous in the extreme;
+for, the waves surged up sometimes completely over the poor fellows'
+heads, when they had once abandoned their footing and had only the frail
+swaying rope to support them against the wash of the water.  They were
+roughly oscillated to and fro, hove up out of the sea one minute and
+lowered down again into it the next.
+
+It was a wonder some of them did not fall off, getting sucked under the
+keel of the ship; but, gripping the life-line with a clutch of
+desperation, their passage across the perilous bridge was at last safely
+accomplished, when the entire sixteen of us, including my own humble
+self, were at length gathered together in one group on the counter-rail
+below the bend of the poop.  The new-comers were then lashed to the
+mizzen rigging like the rest of us, and we all waited with what hope and
+patience we could for the sea to calm down.
+
+By this time, it was late in the afternoon; and, presently, the sun sank
+down away to the west in his ocean bed, surrounded by a radiant glow of
+crimson and gold that flashed upward from the horizon to the zenith.
+
+The wind had died away too, the last violent squall which had been so
+disastrous to the _Josephine_, having been the expiring blast of the
+hurricane; so, although, as I've said, the sea still continued to run
+high, the waves rolled by more regularly and with an equal pulsation, as
+if Father Neptune was rocking himself gradually to sleep.  The old
+tyrant was evidently; exhausted with the mad rioting in which he had
+recently been indulging, and the thrashing which the gale had given him!
+
+There was no sleep for us, however, excepting such hasty little
+droppings off into brief forgetfulness that our worn-out bodies gave way
+to for an instant; for we were constantly being roused up, almost as
+soon as our wearied eyelids had closed, by the sudden rush of the spent
+wash of some broken wave wetting our already wet garments.  This
+banished all thoughts of repose; and, when the darkness of night came
+on, it was cold and dreary in the extreme, the hours seeming to drag out
+to the length of a lifetime.
+
+Poor faithful Jake lay close to me so as to protect me as much as
+possible from the wash of the sea; and I found out, when morning light
+came once more to cheer us, that he had actually stripped off a guernsey
+vest, which Captain Miles had given him to save him from exposure on the
+night of the thunder-storm, and had fastened this round my shoulders in
+order to keep me warm!
+
+I shall never forget Jake's thoughtful action, I believe, as long as I
+live, for it made a great impression on me when I discovered such a
+striking proof of his devotion; and, as I now retrace the incidents of
+the past, the incident stands out prominently in evidence of a negro's
+brotherly love.
+
+Why, his black skin always seemed white to me ever after.  Aye, although
+born an African, his heart was truer than that of many a European, whose
+complexion is only a trick of colour!
+
+During the night we were all silent; but, when the sun rose in the east,
+flooding the sea with the rosy tint of dawn, hope came back to us and
+our tongues were unloosed--the more especially as the force of the waves
+had considerably lessened, hardly a scrap of spray being now washed over
+us, while the blows of the billows against the side of the ship were no
+longer heard.
+
+The sea really was calming down at last.
+
+God was watching over us!
+
+"Say, captain," said Mr Marline, who was the first to bestir himself,
+"do you think there's any prospect of our righting the ship?"
+
+The captain was asleep, I believe, for the first mate had to repeat his
+question twice before he could get an answer.
+
+"I'm sure I hope so," at last sleepily muttered Captain Miles, with a
+portentous yawn--"only wait till the swell calms down and we'll see
+about it."
+
+"But it is calm now," rejoined the other.
+
+"Then wake me again when it is calmer," replied Captain Miles; and then,
+he turned on his side and proceeded with his nap as coolly as if he were
+comfortably tucked up in his nice swinging cot in the cabin.
+
+"Well!" exclaimed Mr Marline, "of all the cool, self-possessed men I
+ever met in my life, you beat the lot!"
+
+He was talking to himself, but the hands heard him, and there was a
+general snigger all round, the captain's very composure having given
+confidence to all.  The men believed that he would not have taken things
+so quietly unless he had some sure hope of our speedy release from such
+a precarious position.
+
+"He is a rare brave un," put in Moggridge.  "I've sailed with him man
+and boy for many a v'y'ge afore this, and I allers found him the same,
+calm and plucky in danger, and keeping a stiff upper lip when in perils
+that frighten other folk.  Captain Miles, sir, is a man as a sailor
+should be proud to sail under--that's what I says!"
+
+"Eh, what, what?" murmured the captain, half waking up on hearing his
+name spoken, and lifting his head from between his clasped hands.
+
+"I was a-saying, sir, as how you knew what's what," replied the
+boatswain, "and I don't know of any other man I'd say sich of."
+
+"Belay that," said Captain Miles, rousing up now and rubbing his eyes.
+"Ah, it's morning, I see!  Well, Mr Marline, and how goes it?"
+
+"As well as can be expected under the circumstances," answered the
+other.
+
+"Bother circumstances," rejoined the captain; "we must make the best of
+them we can.  Now, let us see what's to be done."
+
+"Do you think we can right her, sir?" asked the mate repeating his old
+query.
+
+"Right her? yes, certainly, if we can cut away the masts.  She's not
+water-logged, and all sound below, I fancy, as far as I can see; for the
+hatches have been battened down since Monday."
+
+"But she's rather down by the head, sir," said Mr Marline, as the two
+rose on their feet and proceeded to look round the vessel as well as
+they could from the top of the poop bulwarks, whence they surveyed her
+position and surroundings.
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Captain Miles, "the fore-peak must have been left open
+when those spare sails were got out, so that she has taken in some water
+there.  Never mind, though, there's a stout bulkhead separating the
+compartment from the main hold, and, if there's no leak below, we'll be
+all right."
+
+"But, the masts have been working the decks all this time," suggested
+the mate, "and if the sea has got in through the straining of the
+timbers we must sink in time."
+
+"Sink your grandmother, Marline!" retorted the captain, "you forget that
+our main cargo is rum, which is ever so much lighter than water, and
+more buoyant.  As long as we have that below we'll float, never you
+fear!  But, the job is to cut away the masts if we can; she'll never
+right, of course, till that is done.  A pity your rigging was so well
+set up, Marline!  If the sticks had only gone by the board when the
+squall struck us we'd be all right now."
+
+"I don't know that, captain," replied the other.  "If the masts had been
+badly stayed they would have gone in the height of the hurricane; and
+then, where would we be now?"
+
+"Not in the Sargasso Sea, I fancy," said Captain Miles with a hearty
+laugh.  "But we can't do anything yet, though, till the sea has gone
+down more.  Men," he added, "keep your pecker up!  Providence having
+watched over us thus far will now not desert us, I am confident, and
+we'll yet weather on Mr Marline's circumstances!"
+
+All hands gave a cheer at this hopeful speech, and the sun having by
+this time dried our soddened clothes besides warming us, we began to
+feel more comfortable and easy, the captain's words giving us fresh
+courage.
+
+Towards noon, however, the heat brought on a most terrific thirst, which
+was all the more painful from our not seeing any chance of relieving it;
+for, although, like the "ancient mariner," we saw "water, water
+everywhere," there was not a drop of the wholesome fluid, as far as we
+knew, that we could drink.
+
+In this dire calamity, Jackson proved our guardian angel.
+
+"I say, captain," he called out, after climbing along the bulwarks down
+into that part of the waist of the ship which was clear of the sea,
+letting himself swing down by the end of the topsail halliards which
+were belayed to the side, "there's one of the water-casks lashed here
+that did not fetch away to leeward with the rest when she canted over;
+and it's full too.  If anyone has got a hat, or anything that I can draw
+off the water in, I will start the bung and we can all splice the main-
+brace."
+
+"Hurrah!" shouted Captain Miles.  "That's the best news I have heard for
+many a day.  Here, Marline, pass him down my wide-awake.  Mind how you
+drive out the bung, Jackson, and have something ready to close up the
+hole again; or else, all the contents of the cask will be wasted 'fore
+the hands are served round."
+
+"I'll take care, sir," replied the young seaman, who had now turned the
+end of the topsail halliards into a bight round his body, so that he
+could swing down in front of the water-cask and yet have his hands free.
+
+Then, taking out a marlinespike, which had caught in the rigging somehow
+or other, he managed, after several blows on either side of the cask, to
+start the bung.  This, from the position in which the ship was lying,
+was now horizontal instead of perpendicular; so, as soon as it came out,
+the water flowed at once into the captain's wide-awake hat, which
+Jackson had under the bung-hole, stopping up this again with the cork as
+soon as the hat was full.
+
+Mr Marline was bending down from the bulwarks above him to receive the
+strange jug when the other handed it up to him, and he passed it on to
+Captain Miles, who allowed me to have the first drink.
+
+It tasted like nectar--better than any draught I had ever had before or
+since!
+
+Captain Miles himself then took a gulp of the grateful contents of his
+old hat, passing it on to Moggridge; and, when emptied, as it very soon
+was, the wide-awake was filled and refilled by Jackson until every man
+had satisfied his thirst--the last to enjoy the water which he had been
+the means of procuring being the brave young seaman himself, just in the
+same way as he had been the last to quit the post of danger when helping
+his shipmates out of the main-chains.
+
+Quenching our thirst gave us all new life; so, later on in the
+afternoon, Captain Miles set the men to work casting off the ropes as
+best they could with the idea of freeing the masts.  However, we could
+do nothing without an axe, for no man had anything handier than his
+clasp-knife, which naturally was of no use in helping to cut away the
+cordage and heavy spars that kept the ship down on her beam-ends.
+
+What was to be done?
+
+We were all in a dilemma, one man suggesting one thing, and another
+proposing a fresh plan for getting rid of the masts; when, Adze, the
+carpenter, who had said nothing as yet, spoke for the first time.
+
+"I left a large axe o' mine," he said quietly, as if saying nothing
+particularly worthy of notice--"I left a large axe o' mine in my bunk in
+the fo'c's'le; and if ary a one can git down theer, he'll find it on the
+top side to his starboard hand as he goes in."
+
+"But, the fo'c's'le's full of water," said Mr Marline, "and a man must
+be a good diver to creep in there and get the axe under eight or twelve
+foot of sea!  Besides, I daresay it will have been washed away from
+where Adze put it in his bunk, the lurch of the ship having shifted
+everything to leeward."
+
+"It war to leeward already in the top bunk, I tell 'ee," rejoined the
+carpenter; "an', bein' that heavy, I spec's it's theer right enough.
+Only I can't dive, nor swim above water for that matter, so it's no use
+my going after it."
+
+"I'll go, massa captain," shouted out Jake, who had been listening
+eagerly to this conversation.  "I'se dibe like porpuss an' swim like
+fiss."
+
+"I know that," said Captain Miles laughing.  "I recollect the way you
+came aboard my ship.  But you can try if you like, darkey.  If you find
+that axe, you'll be the saving of all of us, and give a fair return for
+your passage, my hearty!"
+
+Jake did not need any further persuasion.
+
+Making his way along the bulwarks, he clambered on to the main rigging,
+now lying flat across the capsized vessel, until he came to a clear
+space between the mainmast and the forecastle, from whence the boats and
+cook's galley had been washed away.  Jumping into the water at this
+point, he swam towards the spot where he thought the entrance to the
+forecastle should lie, for the sea was washing about forward, and
+nothing to be seen above the surface but a small portion of the port
+bulwarks near the dead-eyes of the fore-shrouds and a bit of the port
+cat-head.
+
+Jake then dived below the water, disappearing from our view for a few
+seconds that seemed interminable as we waited.
+
+"I hope he hasn't come to grief," said Captain Miles anxiously.  "So
+many things have been carried away and jumbled up in a mass there
+forwards, that the poor fellow might get fixed in and be drowned,
+without the chance of saving himself."
+
+But his alarm was quite unnecessary, Jake rising above the water in
+another moment and scrambling up into the main rigging, in a very
+hurried manner, as if something was pursuing him.
+
+His face as he turned it towards us was almost green | with fright, and
+we could hear his teeth chattering | with fear and cold combined.
+
+"Well," sang out Captain Miles, "I'm glad to see you out of that hole
+alive.  But, what's the matter, my man? have you got the axe?"
+
+"N-n-n-no, Mass' Cap'en," stuttered Jake, making his way aft again along
+the bulwarks, "got no axe nor nuffin'.  Dere am duppy or de debbil in de
+fo'c's'le.  Bress de Lor', dis pore niggah only sabe him life an'--dat
+all!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+A GLEAM OF HOPE.
+
+"You one big fool!"  Cuffee, the cook, screamed out at hearing Jake's
+startling announcement, which made us all laugh in spite of our anxiety.
+"How can duppy come in de daylight, hey?  You only see yer own black
+face in water, an' tink um debbil."
+
+"Duppy," I may explain, is the negro's common name for what they call a
+ghost, or anything uncanny.
+
+However, paying no attention to his brother darkey's reasoning as to the
+impossibility of such a nocturnal visitor appearing under the searching
+rays of the sun, Jake stoutly maintained his own opinion.
+
+"Dere was sumfin' white dere, I swar," he said, as soon as he had
+secured his footing on the bulwarks again, well out of the water.  "I
+see sumfin' white an' cold, an' he grab me by um leg."
+
+"That must have been poor Briggs's body floating about in the
+fo'c's'le," observed Captain Miles.  "I forgot to tell him of it before
+he dived down.  Hi, Jake," he added speaking out louder, "you needn't be
+afraid.  I know what it was you saw."
+
+"D'ye, massa?" said Jake somewhat distrustfully, as if only half
+believing this.  "Golly, it um berry mysteferious.  I'se tink--; but,
+Jerrybosalum, look dar, Mass' Cap'en, look dar!" he suddenly exclaimed,
+his voice again changing to a tone of intense horror, while he looked
+the picture of abject terror, his eyeballs rolling and his teeth
+chattering as before.  "Duppy come catchee me, for suah!  Dere he am
+comin' up wid him long claw--dere he am--dere he am!"
+
+We all rose up on the side of the bulwarks, as if with one accord,
+looking in the direction to which Jake's trembling hand pointed, where,
+between the meshes of the rigging away forward in front of the mainmast
+we could dimly discern a long sinuous greenish-white body gradually
+rising to the surface of the water that covered the lower part of the
+deck.
+
+The mysterious thing seemed to make after the negro, although no
+apparent movement was perceptible, while its colour became more luminous
+as it got nearer.
+
+Jackson was closer than any of us to Jake; and, as he stood up in the
+main-chains to help the negro up, he perceived what the object was that
+had frightened him, for he could see down into the water clear of the
+rigging, which somewhat hampered our view.
+
+"Why, it's a shark!" he called out.  "It is a big fellow too--larger
+than the brute that nearly tackled me the other day."
+
+"A shark, Massa Jackson, for true, hey?" said Jake, turning round to
+assure himself of the fact; and, then, seeing his pursuer to be of no
+supernatural origin, as he had supposed, but only one of the ordinary,
+if ugly, denizens of the deep, his alarm disappeared instanter and he
+burst into a fit of laughing--his African nature being as susceptible as
+that of a child, his moods varying in a moment.
+
+"Yah, yah," he roared, "me no 'fraid ob shark; I'se tink him ider one
+duppy or de debbil, for suah, when um touch me on de shin-bone!"
+
+"I'se tole you so, Jake," said Cuffee with great contempt.  "You'se
+nebber see duppy in de daylight.  You'se only big fool to tink so."
+
+"Berry well," rejoined the other, "you hab your 'pinion an' I hab mine!
+If you was down dar in water jus' now, an' see dat long ting snouzle by
+um leg, lookin' so white an' drefful, I guess you'se frit too!"
+
+If Jake, however, was now pleased at seeing his fancied ghost turn out
+to be a shark, this was more than we were.  Captain Miles could hardly
+conceal his chagrin.
+
+"Confound the hideous brute!" he exclaimed.  "He's the very last visitor
+I cared to see.  He will prevent any further attempt being made to get
+that axe out of the fo'c's'le--if it is there, as Adze says."
+
+"It's theer sure enough, cap'en," put in the carpenter hearing this
+remark.  "I wish I could only swim and I'd precious soon fetch it
+myself!"
+
+"All right, Adze, I don't doubt your word," said the captain
+apologetically; "but the shark has put an embargo on it now at any
+rate."
+
+"I'm afraid it just has," observed Mr Marline, to whom Captain Miles
+had really been speaking when the old carpenter overheard him.  "You
+can't expect any sensible man to dive into the water when such a nasty
+sort of neighbour is close at hand.  I wouldn't like to venture, for
+one, I confess; and I don't think I'm a very great coward."
+
+"No, Marline, no; I'll answer for that," replied the captain warmly.
+"Your worst enemy wouldn't accuse you of any want of pluck, and really I
+should not' care about undertaking the job either, for that matter."
+
+Jake, though, wanted to make another effort to recover the axe, his
+courage rising with the emergency, especially as he could notice how
+disappointed we all were.
+
+"Me nebber mind shark," he cried, drawing out a long clasp-knife which
+he carried in his belt, and opening the blade, which he now brandished
+about in a most ferocious way, showing how he would make mincemeat of
+the sea-pirate if it attacked him.  "I'se not 'fraid ob him one lilly
+bit.  I tell you wat, I'se gib him goss if um kick up any bobbery wid
+me!"
+
+So saying, he was preparing to plunge again into the water, when Captain
+Miles ordered him to refrain, having to repeat his command twice before
+the brave fellow would stop from making the venture.
+
+"No, Jake," said the captain, "I can't allow you to risk your life in
+such a foolhardy way for what may be only a wild-goose chase.  Wait
+awhile and see if the brute is going to remain here.  Perhaps, too,
+there may be some more of his comrades about; they generally hunt in
+couples in stormy weather."
+
+"All right, massa, me wait an' see," responded Jake submissively,
+sitting down on the bulwarks again; and then, we all watched the shark
+to see what he would do, and whether, as the captain had suggested,
+there were any more of his species about, coming up to help him in
+keeping us prisoners.
+
+Unfortunately, Captain Miles's fears proved but too well founded.  Very
+shortly afterwards, no less than three other sharks appeared, hovering
+about the stern of the ship and swimming immediately under the counter,
+where we were clustered together, as if keeping guard over us.  The one
+that had pursued Jake took up his station within the interior part of
+the submerged vessel, patrolling backwards and forwards in the water
+that covered the deck of the poop up to the mizzen-mast.  This fellow,
+the first in the field, seemed to say to us grimly, "You sha'n't escape
+me here, at all events!"
+
+"Oh, Captain Miles!"  I cried.  "The sharks are going to wait until we
+drop off into the sea one by one, and then they will eat us all!"
+
+"Not a bit of it, my boy," said he hopefully, to cheer me up.  "They'll
+soon be tired out and will then swim away and leave us to see about
+righting the ship.  Don't think of them, Tom; they can't touch any of us
+where we are."
+
+"But how long can we stop like this?"  I asked despairingly.
+
+"Long enough to bother the sharks," he replied.  "They haven't pluck
+enough to wait when they see they've got no chance; for, they're born
+cowards at heart, as all sneaking things are!"
+
+Jake also sidled up to me at the same time and somewhat restored my
+equanimity, saying in his light-hearted way, "Golly, Mass' Tom, we kill
+um all first wid um knife 'fore dey touch you!"
+
+The afternoon waned on; so, as the sharks exhibited no signs of yet
+leaving us, and the evening was closing in, Captain Miles ordered the
+men to lash themselves again to the rigging for fear of their tumbling
+off in the night and so falling a prey to the brutes--otherwise, there
+was no great need of the precaution, for the sea was almost now calm,
+the waves having quite ceased to break.  Only a heavy swell lifted the
+ship up at intervals, letting her roll down again, and swaying gently to
+and fro with a gentle rocking motion which would have sent us all to
+sleep but for the hunger which now kept us awake with a nasty, gnawing
+pain at the pit of our stomachs.
+
+Our thirst was appeased, Jackson having swung himself down to the water-
+cask and served out another drink all round shortly after the sharks had
+made their appearance, as they could not approach near enough to the
+waist of the ship to interfere with his movements, the deck there being
+clear of water.  But, oh, we did feel hungry!
+
+"I believe I could a'most eat anything now," said Moggridge plaintively,
+chewing away at a piece of leather which he had torn off one of his
+boots.
+
+"Only hold out and we'll get something soon," replied the captain, who
+tried nobly to keep up the spirits of the men.  "We've got water, and
+that is more than many a poor fellow has had when in as bad a plight as
+ours.  Let us be thankful for what we have got and for having our lives
+spared so far!  To-morrow, if the sea be calm, as there is every reason
+to hope it will be, we'll probably be able to fetch something out of the
+cabin; while, if the worst comes to the worst, I've no doubt we'll be
+able to pick up some crabs and shell-fish from the Gulf-weed floating
+around."
+
+"Right you are, sir," said Moggridge, ashamed of having spoken.  "I see
+lots of the stuff about us now."
+
+"Is that the Gulf-weed you told me about, captain?"  I asked, pointing
+to some long strings of what looked like the broken-off branches of
+trees, with berries on them, that were washing past the hull of the
+_Josephine_ on the top of the rolling swell.
+
+"Yes, Tom, we're now in the Sargasso Sea, its own especial home.
+Indeed, this region is especially so called on account of the
+`Sargassum,' or weed, in the Portuguese tongue.  You ask Mr Marline and
+he'll tell you all about it, being learned in such matters."
+
+The first mate, however, did not wait for me to question him.
+
+Taking the captain's observation as a hint to say something to occupy
+the attention of the men and myself, and so keep us from thinking of the
+sharks and our painful position, he proceeded to narrate all he knew
+about this curious marine fungus.  He had a good deal to say, too, for
+Mr Marline was a well-read man and took a great interest in all matters
+of science.
+
+It was certainly a very novel situation in which to give a lecture, but
+the sailors were glad enough to listen to anything to make the time
+pass.  They were very attentive auditors, even Jake appearing
+interested, although he could not have understood much of what he heard.
+
+"The Sargasso, or weedy, Sea," said Mr Marline, "so called from the
+berries, like grapes, `sarga' in Portuguese, extends from about the
+eleventh parallel of latitude to 45 degrees north, and from 30 degrees
+west longitude to the Bermudas, and even further west, so that we are
+about in the middle of it now.  Almost the entire portion of this space
+of the ocean is covered by a peculiar species of sea-weed, termed by
+botanists the `fucus natans,' which is found nowhere else in any great
+abundance except in the Gulf Stream, which, skirting along the edge of
+the Sargasso Sea, bears away portions of the floating substance in its
+progress from the Gulf of Florida eastwards.  The western current to the
+south of this region also sometimes detaches masses of the weed; but its
+main habitat is the Sargasso Sea, where, there being no eddies or
+streams either way and little or no wind generally, the sargassum
+accumulates in great masses, presenting frequently the aspect of an
+immense marine meadow."
+
+"I think, sir," I interposed at this point, "I read once in the Life of
+Columbus, that, when on his first voyage beyond seas from Spain, his
+sailors almost mutinied and wanted him to put back on account of their
+fancying they could never pass through the weed?"
+
+"They did," replied Mr Marline.  "The men thought Columbus had sold his
+soul to the spirits of evil, and that they were in an enchanted sea, but
+the brave old Genoese navigator surmounted their fears in the end!  I
+can better, perhaps, explain, Tom, the reason for the weed accumulating
+so hereabouts, by likening, as Maury did, the Atlantic Ocean to a basin.
+Now, if you put a few small pieces of cork or any other light substance
+into a basin, and move your hand round it so as to give the water it
+contains a circular motion, the bits of cork will be found to float to
+the centre and remain there.  Well, here, the Gulf Stream is the
+circular motion of our great basin, while the Sargasso Sea is the
+centre, and it is in consequence of the continual current circling round
+it that the weed stops there in such quantities--as you will see most
+likely in a day or two, when the ocean gets rested after the great storm
+we have had, which has somewhat put things out of their proper trim."
+
+"And does the weed grow to the bottom?"  I asked.
+
+"Bottom?  Why, there are no soundings here under four miles, and it
+would take a pretty long root to stretch to such a depth!  No, the
+sargasso weed floats and lives on the surface.  When examined closely,
+it is found to have an oblong narrow serrated leaf of a pale yellow
+colour, resembling somewhat in form a cauliflower stripped of its
+leaves, the nodules being composed of a vast number of small branches,
+about half an inch long, which shoot out from each other at a sharp
+angle, and hence multiply continually towards the outer circumference of
+the plant, each extreme point producing a round seed-vessel like a
+berry.  A great number of little crabs, barnacles, and small shell-fish
+are generally found attached to the weed, as Captain Miles mentioned
+just now when he said we might find something to eat amidst the branches
+of it in an emergency.  It is wonderful sometimes to see with what
+regularity the weed is arranged across the ocean when the wind blows.
+It looks then exactly like a meadow does after it has been fresh mown
+and the grass is left upon it in long swathes by the scythe at equal
+distances apart."
+
+"There, Master Tom," put in Captain Miles here, "I think you know now
+all that Mr Marline can tell you about the Sargasso Sea and the weed to
+be found there.  It's about time we all turned in now for the night, for
+the sun has set and it will soon be dark.  Have all you men," he called
+out aloud, "lashed yourselves securely?"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," they answered one by one, Moggridge coming last.
+
+"Then good night, and good cheer, my lads!" he cried.  "Keep your
+peckers up, and to-morrow morning.  I daresay, we'll see our way out of
+this predicament.  I don't think it is going to blow any more, so you
+may compose yourselves to rest as cosily, my lads, as if you were in
+your bunks here, without fear of anything much troubling you, for the
+sharks can't harm you!"
+
+The sun had set by this time and the evening grew gradually dark, for
+there was no moon, as the heavens were overcast; but still, the wind did
+not get up again, and the motion of the ship being easy enough we lay
+along the side of the ship very comfortably, most of the men soon
+falling asleep, and I soon following their example.
+
+It must have been towards morning, for a dim sort of light was beginning
+to be perceptible in the east, we were wakened up by a terrible yell.
+
+A moment afterwards a heavy splash sounded in the water alongside.
+
+"Good heavens! what is that?" cried Captain Miles, starting up and
+trying to peer through the darkness, so as to see who was missing.
+"Anyone gone overboard?"
+
+"Yes, sir," answered Jackson's voice presently, as if he had waited to
+reconnoitre, "it is one of the German sailors, poor Hermann.  He has
+probably slipped his lashings and slid down the side.  I'm afraid the
+sharks have taken him, for he has never called out once!"
+
+"Poor fellow!" exclaimed the captain, raising a hail.
+
+"Hi, hullo!"
+
+But, there came no response; and so, Jackson's surmise must have been
+correct.  The man had evidently fallen in his sleep, through the
+slipping of the rope which had secured him to the rigging; and he must
+either have been drowned at once or fallen a victim to the maw of one of
+the sharks, whose movements we could hear in the water still below us.
+
+The accident, however, wakened us all up thoroughly, and we waited
+anxiously for daylight.
+
+When this came, however, a terrible scene was enacted before our eyes.
+
+No sooner had the rising sun lit up the ocean and enabled us all to see
+each other distinctly, than I noticed Davis, who was close to Jackson,
+staring at him in a most peculiar manner.
+
+I never saw in anyone before such a fixed steady glare!
+
+The man seemed out of his senses or bewildered by something, for his
+eyes moved about strangely, although with a savage gleam in them, while
+his hair appeared to bristle up.
+
+"Well, what is the matter?" said Jackson at length, after enduring his
+gaze for a moment or two, waiting for the other to speak.  "Do you want
+water?  Shall I get you some?"
+
+This apparently broke the spell which was upon the wretched man, whose
+constitution had been much enfeebled by his drinking habits--making him
+thus less able to contend against the exposure and privations | we had
+been subjected to than the rest of us.
+
+The minute Jackson spoke, he uttered a queer sort of half-groan, half-
+shriek; and having previously, I suppose, untied the rope with which he
+had been lashed to the rigging, he made a dash at the second mate with
+both his hands, trying to grip his throat and strangle him.
+
+"You devil!" he cried, foaming at the mouth with passion, "you've taken
+my place and brought me to this."
+
+Jackson easily repulsed his struggles to do him any injury; but, before
+he and the other sailors could secure the madman, he sprang to his feet
+and, shouting out something which we could not distinguish, jumped right
+down among the group of sharks that were still swimming about under the
+stern.
+
+There was a heavy plunge, followed by a wild scurrying to and fro in the
+water of the moving fins; and, a moment after, when the sea had got
+still again, a circle of blood on the surface alone told of the unhappy
+man's fate.
+
+The incident saddened us all very much, taking away our hopeful thoughts
+and courage alike; so we waited on listlessly for what we now believed
+must shortly be our own doom, not a soul speaking a word or even looking
+at his neighbour for some time afterwards.
+
+Jackson was the first to recover himself.
+
+The sight of the cruel sharks under the ship's counter and the memory of
+our two shipmates, whom they had already devoured, appeared to prey on
+his mind and make him furious.
+
+"I can't stand this any longer," he cried.  "I must try and kill one of
+these brutes, captain, or die in the attempt!"
+
+Captain Miles thought he had gone out of his senses too and spoke
+soothingly to him; but Jackson soon showed that if he had become insane
+there was a method in his madness.
+
+Rising on his feet, he walked on the top of the bulwarks to the main-
+shrouds, and clambering out on his hands and knees along these, made his
+way to where a long wooden handspike, that had been used for heaving
+round the windlass, was floating under the rigging.
+
+Picking up this and cutting off a good length of the topsail halliards,
+he came back to where we all were, and proceeded to make a running noose
+at the end of the rope.
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Captain Miles, not quite certain yet
+of Jackson's sanity.
+
+"I'm going to try to get one of the sharks to come close enough to give
+him a taste of this handspike," said the stalwart young fellow, drawing
+himself up to his full height, and looking round with a determined
+expression on his face that I had never seen there before.  "If I can
+only get them all to come to the inside of the ship, I shall do for one
+or two, I know."
+
+"Golly, Massa Jackson, me help you wid um knife," exclaimed Jake,
+entering with much animation in the other's project.  "S'pose we fiss
+for um wid sumfin', so as make um swim roun' t'oder side ob ship, hey?"
+
+"That's a good idea," said Captain Miles, and he offered Jake his hat to
+use as a bait, but the darkey shook his head at this.
+
+"No, tankee, Mass' Cap'en, I'se got sumfin' better nor dat," he
+exclaimed, pulling off the guernsey with which he had sheltered me the
+first night we were exposed on the wreck.  "Dis do ebber so much
+betterer.  Shark smell um, an' tink he hab dis niggah, yah, yah!"
+
+As he laughed, he tied one end of a bit of the signal halliards, which
+he had used to lash himself to the rigging, to the guernsey, lowering it
+down to a short distance above the surface of the water, where he kept
+it dangling.
+
+One of the sharks rose towards it, another coming up soon after in its
+train; and then Jake kept continually shifting the rope round that
+portion of the taffrail of the poop which was above the sea, the sharks
+following in chase of the deceptive bait until he had lured them round
+to the inside part of the ship to join the one who was still on sentry
+there.
+
+This was just what Jackson wanted; so he now proceeded to climb out
+along the mizzen rigging until he reached the point where the sea lapped
+it, when he arranged his running noose underneath, tying the loose end
+of the rope to the shrouds in a double hitch.
+
+Jake then manoeuvred the baited line nearer to where the second mate had
+stationed himself, climbing out into the mizzen rigging too; when, as
+the leading shark turned over on its back and bit at the guernsey,
+Jackson slipped the running knot over its tail, pulling the noose in so
+that it held tightly.  Then, seizing the handspike, he began belabouring
+the monster in a way that must pretty well have astonished its weak
+nerves, Jake the while stabbing it in the tail-end of the body with his
+long-bladed knife.
+
+There was a terrific scuffle in which the water was tossed high in the
+air; but, after a minute or two, the shark broke the rope and managed to
+get away, although it was so seriously injured that it still remained on
+its back, and a quantity of blood poured out from the wounds it had
+received.
+
+This made the crippled animal's comrades set upon it, tearing it to
+pieces between them; and, while they were gorging themselves with the
+dissevered carcass, Jake dived into the sea under the fierce creatures,
+stabbing them wherever he could with such effect that his onslaught
+frightened the whole lot away--not a shark being visible in the vicinity
+within a few minutes after the commencement of the fray!
+
+"Jerryboosalum!" exclaimed Jake, when, presently, he emerged all
+dripping and triumphant from the blood-stained waters.  "We pay out dem
+debbels for ebberybody now.  You nebber see dem come back hyar agin,
+I'se bet."
+
+Nor did we.
+
+There was no doubt of the rapacious brutes having been finally scared
+away.
+
+"You're a couple of brave fellows," cried Captain Miles when the two
+avengers climbed back in again on to the poop bulwarks, after thus
+carrying the war into Egypt, routing the foes that had kept us so long
+prisoners, and prevented us from doing anything towards righting the
+ship.  "Now, I think, we can make another attempt to find that axe of
+the carpenter's in the fo'c's'le, if you are not too tired, Jake, to go
+in after it again?"
+
+"Bress you, no, Mass' Captain, me no tire' at all!  Me get axe in brace
+ob shakes, if um dar," answered the willing fellow, laughing and showing
+his shining ivory teeth as he opened his mouth from ear to ear; and,
+almost as soon as he had uttered the words, he ran along the bulwarks
+towards the fore part of the ship, scrambled out into the main rigging,
+and dived into the sea immediately over the opening into the forecastle,
+at the same spot where he had previously gone down.
+
+Once, twice, he came up to the surface again to take breath after a
+lengthened stay under the water; but, each time he rose with empty
+hands.
+
+A third time he reappeared, still unsuccessful; and then we began to
+give up hope, although watching him all the while with the most intense
+anxiety.
+
+None spoke a word, hardly daring to move.
+
+Our interest in his actions was keen to intensity!
+
+Our fate seemed trembling in the balance.
+
+Once more he dived.
+
+This was the fourth time he had ventured beneath the sea in his search
+for the coveted weapon, which was to free the ship from the cumbersome
+masts and top-hamper that kept her down on her beam-ends.
+
+Unless we got the axe we would never be able to right her again; and we
+all regarded this dive of Jake's as the last chance, although we did not
+exchange a syllable--our looks expressed our thoughts.
+
+Jake now remained longer below than he had yet done, so we feared some
+mishap had befallen him; but, just as Jackson was preparing to dive down
+into the water that covered the forecastle, to see what had become of
+him, the plucky darkey popped up above the surface, holding something in
+one hand as he swam with the other towards the main rigging.
+
+Our hearts beat high with expectation.
+
+In another minute, Jake had mounted into the shrouds, when our suspense
+was quickly relieved; for, no sooner had he clambered near enough to the
+ship's side to get a support for his feet, than he raised himself erect.
+
+"Golly, Mass' Cap'en," he sang out in feeble accents, being now pretty
+well exhausted with his repeated efforts, "I'se got him at last!  I'se
+got him at last!"
+
+At the same time, he lifted up whatever it was he held in his hand, and
+tried to wave it round his head in token of his victory.
+
+It was Adze's axe.
+
+"Hooray!" shouted Captain Miles at the extreme pitch of his voice, and
+the responsive cheer we raised in chorus might have been heard more than
+a mile away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+RIGHTING THE SHIP.
+
+"Now, men!" cried out Captain Miles, when our excitement had calmed down
+a little, "we've got the axe; but, the next thing we have to do is to
+use it, so as to release the ship as soon as we can.  I think, my lads,
+I ought to have the first turn."
+
+So saying, taking the axe from Jake, he made a slash at the end of the
+hawser which had been rigged up over the head of the foremast, when, the
+strands being cut through after a couple of heavy strokes, the rope
+parted, curling up like a whip and flying up in the air with a pretty
+sharp report.
+
+"Now, Mr Marline, it's your turn," said the captain, having thus set an
+example in commencing the work; and then, the first mate, nothing loth,
+attacked the main-shrouds, severing them clear to the chain-plates, when
+he handed over the axe to Jackson, who also did wonders with the weapon
+towards clearing away the heavy rigging that had so long resisted the
+efforts of the men with their clasp-knives.
+
+The sea by this time was quite calm, thus greatly facilitating our
+labour; but, from our not having had any food for two days, all hands
+were very weak, and it took them a much longer time to free the ship of
+all her rope hamper and cordage than they would have achieved the task
+in if they had possessed their proper strength.  It was, therefore,
+quite late on in the afternoon when the rigging on the port side was all
+detached, although Jake had recovered the axe at noon, and we had set to
+work immediately afterwards.
+
+This, however, was only a preliminary to the real labour that lay before
+us--that of cutting away the masts, a much more serious matter.
+
+The ship, it must be recollected, was lying completely over on her
+starboard side, with all her spars extended horizontally flat along the
+surface of the sea, which washed up to the hatches; so that, even
+amidships, the water was too deep for the men to have stood on the deck,
+even if they could have found foothold; there.  Away ahead, the bows
+were completely submerged right up to the fore-chains, the ocean swell
+washing right through the _Josephine_ fore and aft, right up to the
+poop.
+
+Luckily, however, the upper portion of the mainmast bitts projected out
+of the water, so, Jackson, climbing down on to these and supporting
+himself as well as he could by balancing his body with his feet |
+extended outwards straddle-ways, commenced to slash away at the mast
+here; while the rest of the men, under Mr Marline's directions,
+proceeded to clear away the rigging and unreeve those ropes which they
+were able to reach, in order to leave the spar clear for Jackson to work
+upon it freely.
+
+It was a terribly tough job, though, the young seaman having to waste a
+part of each blow in the water that covered the foot of the mast.  This
+neutralised his efforts, but he could not help it, for the axe splashed
+in the sea before touching the wood.
+
+After a short spell, Jackson, quite feeble from hunger and exhaustion,
+had to give in, when Moggridge took his place, chopping vigorously at
+the mast as long as he was able.  Then, another sailor took a turn at
+it, and so on, until each had had his go; when Jackson, rested a bit and
+refreshed by a long drink of water, began anew, making the chips of the
+hard wood fly as well as the sea, which he splashed up at every stroke
+the spray going into his eyes and almost blinding him.
+
+All the men worked with the greatest perseverance in spite of their weak
+state; and, just before sunset, when the mast was about half cut
+through, it gave signs of at length yielding, sundry sharp cracks being
+heard as its natural buoyancy forced it to rise, the different purchases
+that previously held it to the deck being also now severed.
+
+"Bravo, men, one spell more all round, and we'll have the spar loose!"
+cried Captain Miles, going down into the waist himself to head this last
+attack, and taking a longer turn with the axe than anyone.
+
+Blow after blow was then rained upon the heel of the mast, all working
+with fresh courage and determination as the ponderous piece of timber
+gave way before their efforts, a wide gaping hole having been now made
+in it by the axe.
+
+"Look out and stand clear!" shouted Jackson, catching on to the same old
+sling he had rove out of the topsail halliards by which he had lowered
+himself from the bulwarks, and swinging himself out of danger.  "It's
+coming at last!"
+
+At the same moment, a scrunching, wrenching sound was heard, followed by
+a long, loud crack; and then, up floated the mainmast cut off close to
+the deck, although still attached to the ship by the rigging on the
+starboard side--which could not be reached, of course, at present, being
+under water, and the sea covering it to the depth of ten or twelve feet.
+
+The effect of this relief to the ship was at once apparent, the forward
+portion of the wreck sensibly rising out of the sea, and the top of the
+forecastle being now visible, as well as the whole of the port bulwarks
+up to the cat-head on that side; while the main-deck below us, and the
+upper portion of the poop, became slanting at an angle towards the water
+on the starboard, instead of being almost perpendicular to it as before,
+thus showing that the centre of gravity was changed and the vessel
+recovering her stability.
+
+"Bravo, men!" exclaimed Captain Miles joyously, delighted at such
+confirmatory proofs that his hopes of righting the _Josephine_ were not
+unduly sanguine.  "As soon as we get the foremast clear she'll come up
+all standing, never fear!  Can't you see how the poor thing is trying
+hard to free herself now?"
+
+As the portion of the floating mast that was inboard now rose out of the
+water as far as the main-top, a party of the men with Moggridge
+scrambled on to it and began cutting away the various cross ropes,
+halliards, clew-lines, and so on, that held it to the fore and mizzen
+spars.  The yards had now floated too, although the upper portion of the
+mainmast bearing their weight, as it slewed over, pressed on the
+starboard bulwarks, remaining in that position from the calmness of the
+sea, which had not motion enough to drift it away.
+
+"If only a slight breeze would spring up now, so as to rouse a little
+more swell, we'd float clear of this wreck," observed Mr Marline.
+"Half the weight of the mast still tends to keep the ship down to
+leeward."
+
+"Ah, we don't want it rough yet," said the captain.  "The foremast is
+the main thing to get rid of now; and, unless the sea keeps still, we'll
+never manage to cut that away, for it is still more under water than the
+mainmast was."
+
+"I forgot that," replied the mate; and then, both went along the
+bulwarks forwards to where Jackson was beginning operations at the other
+spar.
+
+If the mainmast had proved stubborn and unyielding, this was twenty
+times more so, the great difficulty being that there was no vantage-
+ground to be had, in the shape of a firm footing, from whence to ply the
+axe.
+
+"It's no use, sir," said Jackson, when the captain had come abreast of
+the spot where he was standing, in the fore-rigging, trying vainly to
+reach the mast below.  "I can't even touch the timber, much less make a
+blow at it!"
+
+"Well, all that can be done," replied Captain Miles, "is to lighten it
+as much as possible.  Cut away what rigging you are able to lay hands
+on, and if the sea gets up in the night it may work free."
+
+"All right, sir," said Jackson; so, he and the gang with him went to
+work with a will, slashing here and there at the cordage connecting the
+mast with the port side of the ship.
+
+Meanwhile, Jake had been very busy, proving himself quite as useful as
+the rest.
+
+Swimming like a fish he had gone into the sea near the wreck of the
+mainmast; and, with that long knife of his, which had done so much
+damage to the sharks, he began cutting away the fastenings of the
+topgallant-yard, although leaving the lee-braces intact, so that the
+spar could be hauled in by and by.
+
+Moggridge was on the mast, too, and, with his gang of men, was operating
+on the tressel-trees to free the lower yard; so that, before it was
+dark, the whole stick of the mainmast was nearly clear.  Only the
+shrouds and stays on the starboard side now held it to the hull; and,
+consequently, when it felt inclined to shift its position athwart ship
+it could easily do so.
+
+Jackson, and those with him forward, having now done as much as they
+could to cast-off the foremast gear, Captain Miles hailed them to come
+aft.
+
+"I think," said he, "if we can only contrive to cut away the mizzen, and
+a breeze springs up, as there seems every prospect of from these clouds
+to windward, then, through the greater buoyancy now possessed by the
+ship amidships and astern, the foremast will go of its own accord.  At
+all events, we can try it; for, as you say, there isn't any chance of
+our getting rid of it by any unaided efforts of our own."
+
+The lighter spars that Jake and Moggridge had detached were now hauled
+in and made into a sort of raft, upon which Jackson and the whole lot of
+the crew clambered, proceeding to attack the mizzen-mast, the lower part
+of which spar was just out of the water.
+
+Slash, bang went the axe with a will, wielded by hands nerved with all
+the strength of desperation, each man cutting away as long as he could,
+and then another hand taking his turn.  Even I was busy with a knife,
+sawing away at the thick ropes, and doing what I could to help the
+others.
+
+The mizzen, being of considerably less diameter than the mainmast, took
+a much less time to conquer; so, soon it gave way with a splintering
+crash, the jagged heel floating up in the same way as the other, and
+working about freely as the rigging was severed so that it could easily
+pass overboard.
+
+"Now, men, we may cry a spell," said Captain Miles when the task was
+accomplished.  "Nothing more can be done now.  We must wait for a breeze
+to clear away the wreck, when, I've no doubt, the ship will right
+again."
+
+"I'm sure I hope so, dear captain!" said I fervently.  "Do you think she
+really will?"
+
+"Not a doubt of it, my boy," he answered.  "She would have never come up
+so far if she had meant to stop on her beam-ends.  See, now!  Why, I can
+almost stand up here on the poop, the deck has risen so much already.
+By the morning, I hope she'll be right end uppermost again."
+
+"But, how about our lodging for the night?" suggested Mr Marline.  "If
+we lie along the bulwarks, in the same way as before, and the ship
+rights suddenly in the night, we'll be all thrown in the water."
+
+"I have thought of that," said Captain Miles.  "We'll brace up this raft
+of spars here close in under the bulwarks inboard, and then we'll be on
+the safe side of the hedge if she comes up while we're napping!  Let us
+have another drink of water now, Jackson, my lad, and turn in for the
+night, for I've no doubt you're all pretty tired.  I'm sorry I can't
+pipe down to supper."
+
+"You are not more sorry than I am," put in Mr Marline drily.  "I could
+eat with the greatest gusto the skeleton of my grandmother's cat now!"
+
+This speech of his had the very effect he wished of making the men laugh
+at their privation.  Judging by my own feelings, they must have felt
+terribly hungry and empty; for, instead of two days, it seemed two years
+since I had tasted food.
+
+I was fairly famishing!
+
+There was no chance yet, however, of our getting anything to eat; so, in
+accordance with Captain Miles's directions, preparations were now made
+for our accommodation during the night, as the evening was beginning to
+close in and darkness to settle down on the face of the deep, veiling
+the waste of waters from the gaze of us poor shipwrecked fellows.
+
+The loose spars detached from the masts were hauled up lengthwise along
+the bulwarks on the inner side of the poop, where they were lashed
+securely so as to form a sort of shelf; and, on this, all hands now
+settled themselves as comfortably as they could--Captain Miles with Mr
+Marline and myself being on the after part of the structure, while
+Jackson with the others bunked down nearer the break of the poop; but,
+each man was separately tied, for greater precaution, in case of the sea
+getting up again and the waves breaking over the vessel.
+
+While we had been moving about exerting ourselves, the sense of hunger
+had not been so apparent, although all experienced its gnawing pain in a
+greater or less degree; but now, resting quietly, doing nothing and
+having to bear all the suspense of waiting for what might turn out
+possibly to be only an uncertainty on the morrow, the ravenous feeling
+that assailed us became almost unbearable, several of the men moaning
+and groaning in their sleep.
+
+As for myself, I know that when I dozed off in fragmentary snatches of
+sleep I dreamed of all sorts of splendid banquets, with nice dishes such
+as I had often tasted in the West Indies when dad gave a dinner-party;
+only to waken up in the still darkness and hear the melancholy wash of
+the sea surging up against the ship's hull, with the creaking noise the
+masts made as they surged to and fro on the swell.
+
+Up to midnight, as far as we could tell the time, no breeze came; but,
+towards morning, a slight wind arose, when the sea became agitated, as
+we could hear from the sound of it breaking over the hull forwards, the
+ends of the masts worked to and fro more boisterously, grinding against
+the starboard bulwarks and tearing the timbers away bit by bit.
+
+"Ah!"  I heard Captain Miles say, as if talking to himself, "this is our
+chance if it only does not get too rough."
+
+The sound of his voice woke up Gottlieb, the remaining German sailor,
+who was lying near Jake, the latter being next me as usual.
+
+This man had taken the loss of his countryman a good deal to heart.  Our
+hardships, besides, had affected his health; for, all of us noticed how
+ill he looked during the day when working at clearing away the masts.
+
+"I vas die!" he now exclaimed.
+
+"Dying?  Nonsense, my man, not a bit of it," cried Captain Miles.  "Keep
+up your courage, and you'll be worth a hundred dead men yet."
+
+"Ach nein, I vas die, I knows," replied the other, speaking solemnly in
+deep low tones.
+
+His German accent and mode of speech seemed to come out more strongly
+now than I had noticed before; and it flashed across my mind how I had
+once read somewhere that, when a man is at his last, though he may have
+lived amongst strangers for years and spoken a foreign tongue, he will
+then naturally go back to the language and thoughts of his own country.
+
+"Shall I get you some water?" asked Jackson, who was also awake and
+heard what Gottlieb had said.
+
+"Nein--no.  I want not water, not nothing," returned the other.
+"Listen, I've got to tell you sometings before I vas die.  I did not
+speak before for fear to make mischief.  You remember my poor frients
+Hermann?"
+
+"Aye," said Captain Miles, now keenly attentive.  "Poor fellow, he fell
+overboard and got caught by the sharks."
+
+"Dat is what I vant explain," painfully whispered the German, his voice
+failing him.  "Hermann vas not fall overboard.  He vas throwed over."
+
+"Thrown over!  How--by whom?" exclaimed the captain quite startled.
+
+"He vas throw over by Davis--he one bad man."
+
+"Davis?" cried Captain Miles, all of us eagerly listening.
+
+"Ye-es.  Davis, he grab holt of poor Hermann and say, `ah, you rascal,
+Jackson, I have you now,' and den he pitch him over the side.  Poor
+Hermann, he give one yell, for he vas sleep and not awaken yet, and den
+dere vas a splash and de sharks swallow him up!"
+
+"Good heavens, man!" cried Captain Miles, "why did you not tell us of
+this before?"
+
+"I vas afraid, and de man is now dead too; so I did not speak," answered
+the other slowly.
+
+"Yes, he's dead and gone to his account!  I suppose we need not talk
+about him any more," said the captain, deeply moved, adding a minute
+after, as if unable to keep his emotion to himself, "But, he was a
+scoundrel!  I say, Jackson, you had a lucky escape from him last night!"
+
+"Thank God, sir, yes," replied the young seaman.  "He took a grudge to
+me from the first, before ever you promoted me, and that, of course,
+made him hate me afterwards more than ever.  I did not think, though, he
+would have tried to take my life.  I suppose that was the reason he
+looked so very strangely when he tried to clutch me before he jumped
+into the sea?"
+
+"Not a doubt of it," said Mr Marline.  "He seemed thunderstruck, I
+know, for I particularly noticed his look.  He must have been surprised
+at seeing you there alive, when he thought he had already settled you
+for good and all!"
+
+"Well, he has met his own punishment," answered Jackson; "and I do not
+bear him any ill-will now--or ever did for that matter.  Let him rest."
+
+"Aye," said Captain Miles; "but, how's Gottlieb going on--are you
+better, my man?"
+
+But, there was no answer to the captain's question; and Jackson, bending
+over the German sailor, found his heart had ceased to beat, his body
+already becoming cold.
+
+"Golly, Mass' Cap'en," called out Jake, "him 'peak de trute dat time,
+suah, him dead as door-nail!"
+
+This news made everyone silent, each man thinking how soon his own time
+might come; and we anxiously awaited the morning.
+
+During the sad episode that had occurred the wind had risen, beginning
+to blow pretty strongly from the westwards.  The sea, too, had got up,
+for short choppy waves were dashing against the stern of the ship and
+throwing their broken wash over us.  This made our situation less
+comfortable than it had been previously, our worn-out bodies and hunger-
+stricken frames not being able to stand the exposure so well now as at
+first.
+
+The masts, also, were grinding against the bulwarks and making a
+horrible din, the crunching of the timber work and splintering noise of
+the planks almost deadening the noise of the sea and preventing us from
+hearing each other speak.  Not that we felt much inclined for
+conversation, answering for myself; for, I was chilled to the bone from
+the cool evening air penetrating my wet clothes, which got more and more
+saturated as the waves came over the poop, while I was faint with hunger
+and exhausted from want of sleep.
+
+Thus the weary night passed, the sky being clouded over so that even the
+lights of heaven could not shine down to cheer us up; and, to add to the
+bitterness of our unhappy plight, our hearts were full of the untimely
+end of poor Gottlieb, the German sailor who had passed away so suddenly
+from amongst us, and the shocking disclosure he had made just before his
+tired spirit sought eternal rest, of the treachery of Davis--whose
+terrible fate, in front of our very eyes, seemed a just judgment for his
+murder of Hermann and foiled vengeance on Jackson, the latter of whom
+had evidently only escaped with his life through the wretched man's
+mistake.
+
+At last, when it seemed as if we could hold out no longer, a faint gleam
+appeared in the east lighting up the horizon, and morning dawned
+gloomily upon us; but, a heavy mist hung over the sea and it took the
+rays of the rising sun a long time to pierce through this, albeit there
+was light enough for us to survey the scene around.
+
+The ocean now, instead of rising and falling with the sullen swell that
+had given motion to it the day before, was covered with short broken
+waves that rolled up from the westwards with the wind, dashing against
+the partly-submerged vessel and throwing clouds of spray over those
+portions of the hull above the surface of the water, a large share of
+which we also came in for.
+
+This motion of the sea, we could perceive, had considerably altered the
+position of the masts that had been cut away, for they were rolling over
+and grinding down the starboard bulwarks, the inboard ends working
+themselves gradually fore and aft the ship, the lee side of which had
+risen quite a couple of feet higher out of the water during the night.
+
+"Another good wave or two will send all that hamper adrift," said
+Captain Miles, looking round and calculating our chances.
+
+"Yes," replied Mr Marline, "they are coming from the right direction
+too, for if they broke over us abeam, then the foremast could not free
+itself.  Now it possibly may, from the leverage it has against the
+fo'c's'le."
+
+"You're right," said the captain; "and here comes a good-sized roller
+that may finish the job.  Look out, lads, and hold on!"
+
+Onward, as we gazed astern, came a large green sea, with a white angry
+crest, swelling larger and larger as it got nearer, until it almost hung
+above the poop before breaking.
+
+"Hold on, lads, hold on!" cried the captain, repeating his previous
+warning, when, with a dull thud the mass of water broke, covering us all
+with a sheet of foam that drenched us through and through, almost swept
+us away from our lashings--the spars that supported us being lifted up
+from the deck and then dropped again as suddenly.
+
+At the same time, there was a heavy crash heard forward, and the ship
+lurched as if she were going to founder.  She quivered all over, and her
+timbers creaked and groaned.
+
+Next, she rolled heavily more over to starboard, as the wave which had
+broken over us sped onwards, washing the waist and forecastle; and then,
+with another great crash the mizzen and mainmasts rolled into the sea,
+and the port side of the ship that was under water rose up clear.
+
+The foremast, which had broken away when we heard that great crash
+forwards had been snapped off just below the slings of the fore-yard,
+and had followed its companions overboard, although still towed
+alongside by the stays and starboard rigging that also held the other
+spars; and, the next instant, with an upward bound the _Josephine_
+righted.  At the same moment, the water that had filled the cabin and
+waist and forecastle poured out on either side through the scuppers and
+broken bulwarks; while the sunken part of the poop and lower deck rose
+high and dry again as we looked on, hardly believing that what we had so
+anxiously awaited and striven for had come to pass at last.
+
+"Thank God!" exclaimed Captain Miles in a voice faltering with emotion;
+while several of the men, quite unnerved, burst into tears.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
+
+"A BAKER'S DOZEN."
+
+"Do you know what day it is?" observed Captain Miles presently, as we
+were all busily engaged freeing ourselves from the lashings that held us
+to the spars, preparing to stand on the deck once more in an upright
+position and stretch our sadly cramped legs, our movements for so many
+hours having been much restricted.
+
+"No," replied Mr Marline, taking the question to himself as he stamped
+his feet vigorously to restore the circulation of the stagnant blood.
+"I have lost all count nearly of time during this awful week!--Saturday,
+is it not--or Monday?"
+
+"You are a little behind in one guess and too far ahead in the other!"
+said the captain quietly.  "It is Sunday, the seventh day since our
+trials began."
+
+"Well," responded the other; "it is a lucky day for us, whatever it may
+be, sir.  I confess I never expected such a fortunate ending as this to
+our sad misfortunes.  I had made up my mind that we must go to the
+bottom; and pretty soon too, after the wind rose again!"
+
+"I hoped for the best," answered Captain Miles, shaking himself like a
+big Newfoundland dog, and stepping gingerly along the poop as if half
+afraid to walk.  "I never despaired even in our darkest hour; and I'm
+glad to say I didn't, for I trusted in Providence!  But come," he added,
+with all his old brisk manner restored in a moment, smiling cheerfully,
+"we must see about getting things ship-shape around us; for it would be
+a poor return for the mercy we have received to sit down idly now and do
+nothing to help ourselves.  Look alive, men, there's plenty to see to!"
+
+There was; so much, indeed, that it almost seemed a puzzle where to
+begin.
+
+Our first consideration was the masts, which were still attached to the
+hull by all the starboard rigging, and were banging against that side of
+the vessel with each send of the sea, threatening to knock the lower
+timbers in; so, a working party being quickly organised under the
+indefatigable Jackson, the axe was called into use again and the
+remaining shrouds cut away, the fore and main-braces being passed round
+the stump of the foremast, which stood some twenty feet or so from the
+deck, in order to prevent the span from going adrift when the shrouds
+parted.
+
+The lee rigging, tautened by the strain of the masts dependent from it,
+was soon severed; and then, the ship being more buoyant, floated away
+some yards leeward--the spars veered out to the length of the braces,
+serving as a sort of breakwater and keeping the waves from coming in
+over the bows as she tended, for her stern at once coming round caused
+her to ride easily, head to wind, just as if she were anchored.
+
+"Now, men," cried Captain Miles when this was managed, and no pressing
+danger stared us in the face, "we must now see whether we can't get up
+anything to eat from the after-hold.  I daresay you fellows feel a bit
+hungry, eh?"
+
+You should have only seen the look on every face when he said this!
+
+The very idea of food made all ravenous; and it was as much as Captain
+Miles could do to prevent the hands from rushing in a body into the
+cabin.
+
+The men seemed inclined to eat him when he put out his hand to stop
+them.
+
+"Take it coolly!" he sang out, pushing one or two back that had pressed
+forwards.  "I will see that you've not long to wait.  Jake, you know
+your way below, I believe?"
+
+"Iss, massa," replied the darkey with a broad grin.  "Harry bery often
+sen' me down to get stores when um busy."
+
+"Ah, the poor fellow, I had forgotten him," ejaculated the captain,
+entering the cabin at once and going towards the steward's pantry; but
+he had to pick his steps carefully, the place being heaped up with a
+variety of things that had been swept out of the different berths by the
+sea, and were washing up and down for more than two days.
+
+As Captain Miles had surmised, the mulatto had been drowned inside the
+little apartment devoted to his use; for there his body was now found,
+the colour of the skin nearly white through the action of the water.
+The corpse was brought out and laid reverently under the break of the
+poop by a couple of sailors whom the captain called into the cabin for
+the purpose; after which he and Jake then proceeded to unfasten the
+hatches leading down into the after-hold in search of provisions for the
+living, there being plenty of time to attend to the obsequies of the
+dead later on when our more urgent needs were supplied.
+
+Cuffee the cook during this interval had gone forward to look after his
+old galley; and loud was his lament to find it washed away, its weight
+having parted the strong lashings that secured it to the ring-bolts in
+the deck when the ship capsized.
+
+"Boderation!" he exclaimed.  "How can um cook w'en dere's nuffin' to
+cook, an' no place to cook in?"
+
+"Belay that grumblin' o' yourn, darkey," cried old Moggridge, who had
+been poking about amongst a heap of the debris of ropes and broken spars
+and gear that were piled in a heap between the windlass bitts and the
+top of the topgallant forecastle.  "I do believe your blessed old
+caboose hasn't been washed overboard arter all!  Here it is, only on its
+beam-ends like the ship was an hour ago; but I daresay all your pots and
+pans are all right inside."
+
+"Golly, bosun, does you mean dat?" exclaimed Cuffee, going up quickly to
+where Moggridge was standing, inspecting the mass of heterogeneous
+things that had fetched up in the corner, consisting of a portion of one
+of the anchor-stocks, the men's clothes and traps washed out from their
+bunks, mess-tins, and all sorts of stray dunnage.  "You tell me de
+galley am right an' safe, for true, hey?"
+
+"Why, there it is, you ugly varmint!  Can't you see it for yourself?"
+retorted the old seaman, rather nettled at having his word doubted.
+
+"Lor' a mussy, dere it am!" ejaculated Cuffee, highly delighted when his
+own eyes confirmed the fact.  "Golly, Bosun, we can cook sumfin' now!"
+
+"I don't know how you're going to manage that as it stands," said
+Moggridge sarcastically.  "Strikes me you'd better see about rigging it
+up properly first!"
+
+"I'se spec' you'll help, Massa Bosun," hinted the darky cook in an
+obsequious way; "you clebber man, Massa Moggridge, an' knows how to
+bowse tings up."
+
+"Oh, yes; I don't want any of your blarney now, Cuffee.  I fancy we're
+all hungry enough to eat anything raw when we gets it, without botherin'
+about cooking to-day at any rate!"
+
+A grunt of assent came from all the hands standing by at this remark;
+and I then turned round to see what Captain Miles and Jake were about in
+the cabin.  I had not yet entered that apartment, the finding of the
+steward's dead body having scared me away.  The pallid corpse looked so
+ghastly and terrible!
+
+As I turned to go to the after portion of the vessel I was almost afraid
+that I should see the dead body of the steward again; but on reaching
+the entrance to the cabin I noticed a tarpaulin covering it in the
+corner, and I went hastily by, turning my face away, and bolting within
+the swing doors.
+
+Here, if the jumble of miscellaneous odds and ends under the break of
+the forecastle had struck me as strange, the confusion was ever so much
+worse; for, nothing having been washed out, the entire furniture of
+every separate berth, as well as of the main saloon, were mixed together
+in one indistinguishable mass--clothes, books, food and crockery-ware,
+perishable and imperishable goods alike, all mingled in one inharmonious
+whole.
+
+Blankets, bedding, and pillows were piled on the chairs and benches that
+had surrounded the centre table, which article, with its legs
+upstanding, was jammed into the captain's own sanctum, half in and half
+out, like the cow had been; while the fragments of plates and dishes,
+coffee-pots and glass-ware of all description, were scattered on the
+floor in every direction.  Captain Miles's sextant and the tell-tale
+compass, that used to hang from the middle of the ceiling of the deck
+above, reposed peaceably together on the top of a double Gloucester
+cheese.  Every variety of eatable was mixed up higgledy piggledy with
+articles for table use, and all sorts of known and unknown garments.
+
+My trunk had not escaped the general destruction, the new outfit with
+which I had been provided being all spoilt; while some pictures and
+various cherished mementoes of my old West Indian home shared the fate
+of Mr Marline's wardrobe and the captain's kit.
+
+Indeed, the sea had performed its scouring work so well, that it would
+have puzzled a wiser man than Solomon to have decided what was each
+individual's personal property, the whole having been thrown together
+like one of the odd lots at an auction sale.
+
+After surveying the medley for a few moments, my attention was attracted
+to Captain Miles and Jake, the latter of whom was down within the store-
+room under the hatch in the stern-sheets, only his woolly head
+projecting, handing up several tins of potted meats and bags of biscuit
+to the captain; while the latter was placing these as he received them
+on a clear space of the deck from which he had swept the broken refuse
+away, checking off the things as Jake ferreted them out from below, his
+head bobbing down and up again each moment.
+
+"There," said Captain Miles, as I came up to the two; "three bags of
+biscuit, four seven-pound tins of boiled mutton, two tins of preserved
+vegetables, one ham, one cheese, six pounds of coffee, and one firkin of
+butter.  I think that will do.  But, where is the sugar I told you to
+get out, Jake?"
+
+"Here he am," replied the darkey, handing another bag up.  "Dat's fine
+sugar, sah, for de cabin table."
+
+"And where is the other sort?" asked the captain.
+
+"Um here too; but cask too big for dis chile to lift."
+
+"Then you must get out more in something smaller, for the men's coffee
+in the morning," said Captain Miles.  "I don't want them to be treated
+differently to myself, and I know I like sugar in mine."
+
+"Yah, yah, massa too good," laughed Jake; but he proceeded to obey the
+captain's orders, and another bag was soon added to the pile on the
+floor of the cabin awaiting distribution.
+
+"Now, Tom," said Captain Miles to me, "run and call in a couple of the
+hands to take out their rations.  I'm going to serve out the grub at
+once, and we may as well all eat together."
+
+It should be mentioned that all these preparations, although I have
+taken so long to describe them, did not take up much time, the captain
+knowing from his own feeling that the men were all starving, and not
+keeping them an instant longer without food than he could help.
+
+On receipt of his order, therefore, I hastened away, returning almost
+immediately with one of the sailors and Cuffee, who asserted his right
+of coming for the food; but, while I was absent Jake had procured a
+knife that was used for opening the tins of preserved meat out of the
+steward's pantry, where, from its being hung on a hook, it had escaped
+being lost among the other debris.  With this useful little article he
+now proceeded to take off the tops of the cases containing the boiled
+mutton, Cuffee and his assistant parcelling the same out under the
+captain's eye.
+
+The cabin table had been set upon its legs again and the provisions
+placed upon it, when the men being ordered to file in, Captain Miles
+distributed a small portion of the meat with a couple of biscuits to
+each.  He advised them to eat slowly and moderately, saying that if they
+did otherwise they would feel very badly afterwards, on account of
+having gone so long without food.
+
+Mr Marline and Jackson and myself were also rationed out in similar
+fashion, each and all of us, irrespective of position, being treated on
+an equality and Captain Miles himself only taking the same quantity that
+he gave us; then, when all had thus broken their fast, the men were
+dismissed and allowed to carry off away forward the greater portion of
+the provisions that had been got out for them, although with strict
+injunctions still to eat sparingly, at all events on this first day of
+their tasting any nourishment.  They were likewise told to be careful
+not to drink too much water, Jackson, who had charge of the cask, being
+ordered to use discretion.
+
+"We are only thirteen all told now aft--a baker's dozen, men," said the
+captain, "and I wish to carry you home in good health with me to
+England; so, mind what you are after, for my sake if not for your own!
+We have weathered the gale, and stuck to the ship though bottom upwards,
+for nigh on three days, braving the perils of the deep in the way of
+sharks and such like; consequently I think it would be hard lines on me
+if I couldn't fetch you safe into port in the end."
+
+"You're a real good sort, Cap'en Miles, that's what you are!" cried
+Moggridge--acting as spokesman for the rest by general consent
+apparently, for the others gave a subdued sort of cheer that seemed to
+intimate their acquiescence in his remarks--"and I thinks as how we'd be
+no better nor brute beasts if we weren't to act as how you advises, eh,
+lads?"
+
+"Aye, aye," chorused the rest affirmatively.
+
+"That's all right then," said Captain Miles.  "You can see I don't want
+to stint you, for I've only given you these few supplies to carry you on
+until we can get to the ship's stores in the main hold.  You may go
+forward now, and I'd recommend you to get out all your duds and hang 'em
+out to dry as soon as you can, so as to have a shift bye and bye, and
+that'll do you as much good as the grub."
+
+The hands then retired from the cabin, leaving only the captain and Mr
+Marline and I there, Jackson going out into the waist too, in order to
+draw some water and serve it out by the captain's directions.
+
+"Oh, Captain Miles!"  I exclaimed when we were thus left together, "all
+my clothes are spoilt."
+
+"And oh, Master Tom!" he retorted, "how about my poor chronometers?
+They've stopped and will never go again, I suppose, till they've been
+put in dry dock in London and had a thorough overhaul, salt water not
+agreeing with their constitutions as it does with some folk.  By Jove,
+though, Marline, I never thought of that before.  I shall be puzzled how
+to get my longitude bye and bye, I fancy."
+
+"My old watch is going, sir," said the mate.  "I set it by the ship's
+time before our capsize, and it goes pretty correctly, for I didn't
+forget to wind it up all the time we were spread-eagling on the
+bulwarks."
+
+"You didn't?" cried the captain.  "You're a wonderful fellow, Marline,
+and you ought to be Archbishop of Canterbury or something!  You say you
+set it by the ship's time on Thursday?"
+
+"I don't know what day it was, sir, but it was the last time you took
+the sun," replied the other.
+
+"Then, at that time, I recollect, we were in 32 degrees north latitude
+and 40 degrees west longitude.  Ha, humph, I see!  That will give us
+pretty well the time at Greenwich, with a little deduction.  It's all
+right, Marline, I have it.  Mind, though, you don't let the old turnip
+run down."
+
+"Turnip, indeed!" exclaimed Mr Marline in pretended indignation,
+winking at me.  "Just you hear him, Master Tom!"
+
+"Well, well, I beg its pardon and yours," said the captain laughing;
+"but, let us get out of this disgraceful hole and go out on deck to see
+what the weather is like.  Jake!"
+
+"Iss, massa," replied the darkey, who, I forgot to mention, remained
+behind when the rest of the crew went forwards.
+
+"I'm going to make you steward in poor Harry's place," said Captain
+Miles.
+
+"Iss, massa," responded Jake, greatly pleased at the honour thus
+bestowed on him, and making a low how with a scrape back of his left
+foot, according to negro etiquette, in acknowledgment of the favour.
+
+"Look out, my lad, and make matters snug here as well as you can.  You
+may call in your brother darkey the cook to help you, if you like."
+
+"Golly, massa, me do him much betterer own self," replied Jake grinning
+hugely.  "Dat Cuffee bery lazy sometimes."
+
+"Well, well, that's like the pot calling the kettle black, I fancy,"
+said Captain Miles smiling.  "However, you can please yourself, and get
+any of the hands you may want to assist in lifting back the bunks and so
+on in their proper places--some of the things may be too heavy for you.
+At all events, make the saloon presentable before we come down again,
+and swab up the deck."
+
+"That's a willing fellow," he added to Mr Marline, as we went out and
+mounted the poop-ladder.  "I never saw a negro so handy, so plucky, and
+so willing."
+
+"Thank you, Captain Miles," I said, taking the compliment to myself, as
+having a sort of family ownership in Jake.
+
+"Why, what have you got to do with it, Tom Eastman?" he asked in his
+humorous way, poking fun at me.
+
+"Well, captain, I don't think you'd ever have seen him on board if it
+hadn't been for me," I retorted.
+
+"You're right there, but I'll thank you for his passage-money, then,
+Master Tom," said he, laughing at his joke and I too joining in, our
+wonderful good fortune having restored all our spirits amazingly.
+
+The sun now came out and the day became bright and cheerful, with a
+gentle soft breeze blowing from the south-west which was just sufficient
+to curl the crests of the waves and make the sea sparkling, the heavy
+waves of the morning having lessened considerably and the whole expanse
+of the ocean dancing before our eyes in the warm light of the noontide.
+
+"I see," observed Mr Marline, "the hands have quickly acted on your
+advice about drying their clothes."
+
+"Aye, poor fellows; and time enough, too, for they haven't had a dry rag
+on them, I believe, since last Monday."
+
+"You forget you have been in the same plight," replied the other, as we
+looked at the long strings of shirts and trousers and guernsey frocks
+hanging from ropes that were stretched from the stump of the foremast
+across the deck forwards, all fluttering in the wind and making the ship
+look as if she were dressed with bunting in honour of some royal
+birthday.
+
+"And so have you too, Marline, as well as this young shaver," returned
+the captain good-humouredly; "but I was not thinking of ourselves; for,
+we're both young fellows, like Master Tom here, and able to brave
+anything.  Hasn't the ship suffered, though, poor old thing!" he added
+as he glanced sympathetically over her and saw all the damage, which,
+first the gale, and then our subsequent cutting away of the masts, had
+effected.
+
+"Aye, she doesn't look as trim as when she left port," said Mr Marline.
+
+Nor did she by a long way!
+
+The mizzen and mainmasts had been cut down close to the deck, while the
+butt-end of the foremast stood up only some twenty feet or so above the
+forecastle--a jagged broken piece of timber, with the stays and other
+ropes stretching away from its head to the wreck of the spars tumbling
+about in the sea in front of us.  The bowsprit alone remained intact of
+all our sticks, the gale having even spared the jib-boom; while the
+martingale and dolphin striker, with the shrouds on either side of the
+projecting spar were still all standing.
+
+Looking inboards, the helm and steering apparatus were undamaged, as was
+also the binnacle, although this had a severe list to starboard; but,
+the skylight in the centre of the poop had been swept away, as well as a
+portion of the bulwarks on the side that had been under water, the
+rasping of the mizzen-mast having sawn them off flush with the deck.
+
+This was the case, too, below in the waist, where the starboard timbers
+had been carried away nearly to the fore-chains, which probably had
+acted as a buffer and stayed further destruction in that direction; and
+it was only owing to this that the galley and pump-box had been saved,
+as otherwise both would have been swept overboard along with the dunnage
+I had noticed collected under the lee of the forecastle.
+
+"Well, we mustn't grumble," said Captain Miles after meditating a bit
+over the damage with a serious face.  "Our lives have been spared and
+the ship floats; so, there you have two things to the good, to balance
+our account on the other side of the ledger!"
+
+"You're right, sir," replied Mr Marline; "but have you sounded her yet
+to see if we have shipped much water?"
+
+"Aye, I did that a long time ago, while you were dreaming," said the
+captain with a chuckle.  "Old Adze the carpenter saw to the matter as
+soon as we righted.  She has taken in very little in the main hold; but
+the fore-peak is full, as I thought, through some careless fellow not
+putting on the hatch and battening it down again after we got up these
+new sails.  However, we can't see about clearing it out yet, for the
+pumps are smashed and it will take Adze all day to-morrow to get them in
+working order again.  Besides, I don't want the men to do more than is
+absolutely necessary to-day, for it is Sunday, as I told you before; and
+we ought, in more ways than one, considering all we have gone through,
+to observe it as a day of rest."
+
+"I quite agree with you, sir," replied Mr Marline; "and if I had not
+thought so, you would have seen me long ere this on the fo'c's'le,
+getting up a jury-mast or something."
+
+"Let you alone for that," said Captain Miles.  "But, Marline," he added
+the next moment, "there is one thing we must do presently.  I thought it
+best to leave it until sunset, before letting all hands turn in and have
+a good night's rest; and that is--"
+
+"To bury the steward," suggested the other.
+
+"You've guessed rightly," said he; "so now, as I see the men taking in
+their clothes, which are by this time dry enough, I should fancy, from
+their exposure to the sun and wind, I think I'll give them a hail."
+
+This he did; and bye and bye, as the orb of day sank below the sea, the
+body of Harry, tied up in a piece of tarpaulin and with a heavy piece of
+chain-cable attached to the feet to make it sink, was committed to the
+deep, Captain Miles reading the impressive burial service, for those
+lost at sea, out of a prayer-book which he had recovered from the debris
+of the cabin and put in his pocket for the purpose.
+
+This was our religious observance of the day.  It was a great contrast
+to the prayers on the poop which we had on the previous Sunday, when the
+ship, in all the glory of her fine proportions, with her lofty masts
+towering into the skies, was rolling on the calm bosom of the ocean,
+with her idle sails spread vainly to the breeze that would not come;
+now, she was but a battered and dismantled hulk.  The breeze we had
+wished for had come at last and waxed into a strong wind, which had
+ultimately developed into the hurricane that had done all the mischief--
+the final result of which was the present burial of our drowned comrade!
+
+"Lads," cried Captain Miles when he had finished reading the service and
+the body had disappeared below the surface of the restless sea, "you can
+go and turn in now, all that like.  Mind, you have a good caulk until
+early to-morrow morning, when you'll have to rouse out sharp, all hands,
+for there be lots to be done!"
+
+We who were on the poop also went below soon afterwards to the cabin,
+where we found that Jake had cleared out all the debris and arranged the
+place so neatly that one would scarcely have imagined it had ever been
+in the state of confusion we noticed when first entering it.
+
+Our bunks, too, were all arranged comfortably, with dry blankets spread
+in each; and I know that I, for one, was so glad to lie down on anything
+like a bed again after the two nights' exposure outside the ship, that I
+dropped off to sleep the moment I turned into my cot--the remark the
+captain had made about our being now thirteen in number, or a "baker's
+dozen," running in my head as a refrain to my dreams, although my rest
+was not in any way disturbed.  The baker's dozen, however, made me think
+of bread on my waking up in the morning; for, I felt more hungry then
+than on the previous day, when the first morsel of food I tasted almost
+choked me.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
+
+WE BEAT UP FOR THE AZORES.
+
+It was early dawn when the unwonted sound of feet bustling about over my
+head on the deck, which I had not heard now it seemed for an
+unconscionable length of time, roused me up to the realisation of our
+having at last been relieved from our terrible peril and the privations
+we had suffered whilst the ship was on her beam-ends.
+
+Oh, what joy it was to think we were all safe on board the _Josephine_
+again!
+
+Hunger, one of the most painful of the sufferings we had experienced,
+and indeed the one which I felt the most of any, was now banished
+completely to the realms of the past; and I had presently trustworthy
+evidence of this, Jake appearing at the door of my cabin and bringing in
+a steaming bowl of coffee and some biscuits, as a sort of "little
+breakfast" before the larger and more substantial meal was ready--the
+galley being already fixed up properly and Cuffee having resumed his
+culinary duties with all his paraphernalia in train.
+
+When I got out on the poop, I noticed that the hands had not been idle
+while I was sleeping, so much already having been accomplished in the
+way of restoring the ship to an effective condition that the men must
+have set to work long before daylight, I was certain.
+
+Moggridge was just going down the poop-ladder as I mounted it, on his
+way forward to execute some order Captain Miles had given him.
+
+"Fine morning, Master Tom," he said.
+
+"It is," I responded, "a regular jolly one; but, how busy you all are!"
+
+"Aye, aye, young master, we can't afford to wait when there's so much to
+be done and so precious little time to do it in."
+
+And then he was off in a jiffey.
+
+Captain Miles was sitting on the port bulwarks, which were intact,
+polishing up his sextant.
+
+"Good morning, captain," I said.
+
+"Morning," he answered absently, so much engrossed with one of the eye-
+pieces of the instrument that he couldn't even look up.
+
+I felt like the idle little boy in the story-book, who went and asked,
+first, the horse to play with him, and then, when that sagacious animal
+refused to accede to his request, on the plea of having his master's
+business to attend to, he tried to induce various other quadrupeds to
+come and amuse him, only to meet with a constant refusal--the idle boy
+having in the end to go to work himself, finding idleness, without
+companions to share it, the reverse of pleasure.
+
+Everybody on board seemed too much engrossed with some task in hand to
+attend to me; even Jake, when I went below again, could hardly spare me
+a word, for he was intent on polishing up the saloon table again, trying
+to efface the effects of its long immersion in the water from the
+surface of the mahogany--a somewhat vain task, I may add, as the wood
+never recovered its original tone.
+
+I then went forwards, only to see the men there working like bees.  Not
+a soul even raised his head to glance at me as I passed by.
+
+Adze, the carpenter, was up to his ears in the pump casing, which he had
+fixed again over the well amidships, after first taking out the valves
+and fitting new suckers to them.  Cuffee, too, was blowing away at the
+galley fire till his black face looked like that of a red Indian; and,
+as for Mr Marline, he was in his element, as he always was when
+overseeing anything connected with the rigging of the ship, enjoying
+himself to his heart's content in setting up a jury-mast to take the
+place of our broken foremast.  He had made the men lash the topmast and
+topgallant-mast to the fragment left of the original spar, securing it
+with back-stays and preventers on the port and starboard sides before
+getting up the shrouds.  These latter, of course, would have now to be
+reduced, in order to suit the diminished height of the new mast, whereon
+the topsail-yard would have to do duty for the old fore-yard, and the
+topgallant one be transferred into a topsail-yard.
+
+Mr Marline seemed rather proud of his handiwork; so, this made him more
+conversational than anyone I had yet tried to talk to.
+
+"Ha, Tom," he said, "you're just in time to see us cross our yards
+again--not a bad job, eh?"
+
+"No, sir," I replied; "have you been long over it?"
+
+"Ever since daylight."
+
+"And have all of you been equally busy?"  I asked.
+
+"Bless you, yes!  As for Cuffee, he roused out poor Moggridge early in
+the middle watch, to help him to fix the galley, bribing him with the
+promise of some hot coffee.  That started the hands; for, the boatswain
+must needs hail Adze to see after the pumps, and hearing them stirring
+about, I came on deck and employed the idlers in getting the spars
+alongside, as the sea was as calm as a pond.  Then, I set them to work
+unreeving the gear and making things snug for setting up our jury-masts,
+of which this is the first--a downright seamanlike piece of work I call
+it."
+
+"So it is, sir," said I to please him, seeing him looking up at the new
+foremast admiringly; "and, I suppose, Mr Marline, when you've finished
+rigging this, you'll begin setting up a new mainmast."
+
+"Aye, my boy, and a mizzen too after that!  You shall see the old
+barquey spreading her canvas bravely again before I have done with her."
+
+Presently, Adze called out that he had made the pumps act at last.
+
+This brought down Captain Miles from the poop; when, a party of the
+sailors at once setting to work, the bilge-water soon rose from below
+and flowed in a stream in the scuppers.
+
+Half an hour's spell served to make the pumps suck dry, showing that the
+main hold of the ship was clear; and, seeing this, the captain turned
+round and hailed Mr Marline with a triumphant shout.
+
+"There, Marline," he cried, "what do you think of that, eh?  Who was
+right and who was wrong?"
+
+"Well, sir, you were a true prophet this time," replied the first mate
+equally well pleased at the result, although it went against his own
+prognostication; "I only hope you'll get the fore-peak free as easily;
+for, then, we'll float on an even keel."
+
+"All right, my boy, so we will," said Captain Miles; and he then ordered
+the hands to bend the end of the hose down into the forepart of the ship
+below that part of the forecastle where the men bunked, the other end of
+the hose being attached to the pump cylinder.
+
+This job was a heavier one than that of clearing the main hold, the men
+having to be relieved in spells; but, after several hours' hard work,
+the bows of the ship were sensibly lightened of the extra water ballast
+we had carried here, and by the afternoon this part of the vessel was
+also clear.
+
+Meanwhile, however, Jake had announced that breakfast was ready and on
+the cabin table.  This was the first hot meal we had had the chance of
+partaking of now for four days, and it may be imagined with what gusto
+we all enjoyed it I should add that, Captain Miles, liking good living
+himself, took care that the men all round had an equally good spread,
+sharing his own private stores liberally, so that those in the
+forecastle fared as sumptuously as we did.
+
+The captain did this out of his own innate good nature; but, had he been
+generous merely as an act of policy, it could not have served him in
+better stead, the sailors working all the afternoon and far into the
+night with all the greater willingness in setting the ship to rights as
+a return for the kindness he had displayed.  None wanted driving to make
+them stick to their several tasks.
+
+Mr Marline had believed that when the fore-peak was clear of water the
+_Josephine_, which until then had her bows almost level with the sea,
+would have recovered her proper floatation; but, although her head now
+rose, she displayed a decided list to starboard that became the more
+apparent as her head became elevated more and more.
+
+"Some of the cargo must have shifted," said Captain Miles; and with him,
+true sailor as he was, to discover a fault was to suggest a remedy.
+
+"We must take off the battens of the main hatch," he cried.  "Mr
+Marline, stop rigging those sticks for a bit.  It is far more important
+for our stowage to be true before we take any more of the heavy spars on
+board; for, if we meet with any bad weather, we may turn the turtle
+again and not come out of it so cleverly as we managed on the first
+occasion!"
+
+"All right, sir," replied the mate, ordering the hands under his orders
+on the forecastle to move aft, where, under the captain's directions,
+the hatches were taken off and the cargo exposed to view.
+
+A pair of shears were then rigged up over the hold, on which a running
+tackle with blocks and falls was rigged; when, after several puncheons
+of rum had been hoisted out, it was found that the lover tier of the
+cargo had lurched over at the time the ship careened.
+
+It took many hours to alter the arrangement of the sugar casks below,
+the rum having to be all hoisted on deck first; but, the hands working
+zealously, the job was at last accomplished, the ship soon afterwards
+righting properly, with her deck now horizontal to the plane of the
+water instead of being at an angle with it as before.
+
+The puncheons of rum were then again lowered down and stowed securely
+and the hatches put on again.  The men after this ceased their toils for
+the day, it being close on to sunset.
+
+On the third day, the rigging of the jury foremast was completed and the
+head-gear all attached to it, new sails being bent to the yards in the
+place of those that had been blown away.  Fresh halliards and running
+ropes were also rove, so that on an emergency, if the wind arose
+suddenly, we could have made sail on the one mast, and thus made a shift
+of battling with the elements.
+
+Fortunately, however, the weather remained beautifully calm, only a
+slight breeze springing up for a short time during the first hours of
+the morning watch.  The light wind had hardly sufficient power to give
+motion to the bull of the vessel, and so the task of setting up the
+other masts and rigging was satisfactorily proceeded with.
+
+The mainmast caused the greatest trouble, the remains of the heel having
+first to be taken out; although Mr Marline luckily thought of this when
+we were re-stowing the cargo on the previous day.  Otherwise, we would
+have had a second sorting out of the contents of the hold.
+
+The shears used for raising the rum puncheons not being strong enough to
+lift the mainmast, which was a very heavy piece of timber weighing
+several hundredweights, the main and fore-yards, with the mizzen
+topmast, were set up as a triangle over the place where the spar had to
+be stepped--the ends of the yards being fixed firmly against the
+bulwarks on either side and lashed together at the top.  This "crab" was
+then raised in the air by a tackle and purchase, the falls of which were
+brought to the capstan and run up by the crew as if they were weighing
+anchor.
+
+Then, the mainmast was slung just about its balancing centre and hauled
+inboard through the broken bulwarks--which had not yet been restored on
+purpose until all the spars were hoisted in.
+
+The falls were now again manned; and, the sailors heaving away with one
+of their animating choruses, up went the spar in the air above the
+vacant hole in the deck from where the old part of the heel had been
+removed--guys being belayed on either side to make it drop in true when
+it was right over the place for its reception.
+
+It did not take long to fix it now perpendicularly; although, as the
+spar had been severed some feet from the deck, the new end of it was
+more slender than the old, and so required packing round with pieces of
+wood driven in by mallets to make it secure.
+
+Next, the standing rigging was set up after being first shortened; and
+Adze had a good deal of blacksmith's work to do in making fresh bolts
+and eyes, converting Cuffee's galley into a temporary forge for this
+purpose.  All the ropes and blocks having been carefully collected
+beforehand and sorted, this labour did not consume half the time that
+one would have thought.
+
+On the fifth day, the mizzen-mast was also got back into its place.
+
+Then the yards were crossed and sails bent on the mainmast; and the
+_Josephine_ appeared to show nearly as much top-hamper as she did before
+the gale, only that all the masts were much shorter than before, the
+foremast especially being only an apology for the former spar.
+
+However, the change made a wonderful improvement in the appearance of
+the ship; and when the broken bulwarks were patched up, which was done
+on the last day of the week, she was herself again.
+
+On the Sunday that followed the righting of the ship we had our prayers
+on the poop as usual, Captain Miles returning especial thanks to the
+great Ruler of the deep for all the mercies we had received; and, as a
+fair wind sprung up in the evening of the same day from the south, we
+set sail once more, moving away from the spot where we had been
+refitting.
+
+"I don't think," said Captain Miles, "that we've drifted twenty miles
+either way since this day week; for there's no current hereabout, and
+we've had little or no wind."
+
+"We're then still about the centre of the Sargasso Sea," observed Mr
+Marline.
+
+"Aye," responded the other; "so Master Tom will have ample opportunities
+within the next fortnight or so for studying all you told him about the
+Gulf-weed, for I've no doubt we'll presently pass through lots of it."
+
+"Shall you shape a straight course for the Channel, sir?" asked the
+first mate, looking at his watch as he did so in a very self-satisfied
+sort of way, it seemed.
+
+"You may well observe that time-piece of yours carefully," said the
+captain with a sigh, although he smiled as he spoke.  "On that little
+article depends all our navigation--that is, until we meet with some
+passing vessel to correct our reckoning, and I don't suppose we shall
+come across many of these, for we're out of the track of all voyaging
+over this part of the Atlantic save those homeward-bound from the Cape.
+I intend to make for Flores, the westernmost island of the Azores, as
+we're short of water; besides, by my pursuing that course we shall get
+up into the trades, and bye and bye fetch the Gulf Stream, which will
+render our passage shorter to the Channel."
+
+"Very well, we'll see," said Mr Marline, unconsciously using his old
+stereotyped form of answer to almost everything.
+
+"I believe," cried Captain Miles laughing, "that if anybody asked you to
+accept a thousand pounds you'd reply, `I'll see about it!'"
+
+"You just try me and see," replied the first mate drily to this remark,
+joining in the captain's laugh; but I noticed that the other did not
+take up the offer.
+
+Through our detention by the calm, in addition to the scurrying to and
+fro we had during the hurricane and the long time we remained a helpless
+log on the waters, it was now considerably more than two months since we
+had left the West Indies; and, as the _Josephine_ did not sail so well
+now, besides having light and variable winds, it took us more than
+another fortnight to reach Flores and sight the Morro Grande--a mountain
+some three thousand feet in height, rising high in the clouds above
+Santa Cruz, the capital of the island.
+
+But, for days before this, we sailed through that wonderful Sargasso
+Sea, the circumstances of whose being Mr Marline had explained to me
+during the fearful night we passed clinging to the capsized hull of the
+ship, exposed to the cruel wash of the pitiless waves; and, as we
+ploughed over this submerged meadow of sea-weed in the centre of the
+Atlantic, I could not help recalling the mangrove swamps and lagoons of
+the tropic island in which my childhood had been passed, wondering the
+while, too, whether the _Josephine_ would not be reported as lost
+through the protraction of her voyage--for she was expected to reach
+England by the middle of September at the latest, and it was now
+October.
+
+Why, if news came to Grenada that we were given up at Lloyd's, poor dad
+and mother would be in a terrible way about me, I knew!
+
+The day of the receipt of such intelligence would be a sad one at Mount
+Pleasant, where all had loved me and would miss me now more than ever.
+
+These thoughts, however, were but idle fancies, I reflected when we
+sighted Flores; for, even if we had been given up, the news would now
+soon be sent on that the old ship was still to the fore.  So, when
+Captain Miles had taken in fresh water and provisions, besides buying a
+new chronometer, and then shaped a course direct for the English
+Channel, I looked forward anxiously to relieving my parent's anxiety as
+much as I did at the realisation of my boyhood's dream of seeing London
+and going to school.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN.
+
+DAD.
+
+My tale will soon come to an end.
+
+After leaving Santa Cruz, we had a fine steady wind from the north-west,
+right on our quarter, all the way to the chops of the Channel; and this
+enabled us to accomplish the intervening twelve hundred miles of
+distance in ten days' time.
+
+We were equally lucky in getting up to the river, although it was well
+on in the month of October, when easterly winds generally prevail; for,
+without requiring the assistance of a tug, after making the Lizard, we
+passed up towards London in fine style, walking at a great rate by
+Dunnose, Beachy Head, Dungeness, and all those other landmarks that
+mariners know so well.
+
+When we got to Gravesend, I had a great surprise; for, who on earth do
+you think should come off to the ship as we anchored in the stream,
+waiting for a pilot to take us up the river to the Saint Katherine's
+Docks, where we were bound?  The very last person in the world whom you
+or I could possibly have expected to meet me there!
+
+Who do you think?
+
+Why, dad!
+
+Yes--he; and none other.
+
+It seems that shortly after I sailed in the _Josephine_, the gentleman
+who had made him an offer to purchase Mount Pleasant when I was ill--and
+then backed out of the bargain because dad would not immediately come to
+terms--renewed the proposal, and dad accepted at once.
+
+Then, as he had nothing remaining to keep him out in the West Indies, he
+took passages in the next mail steamer home for my mother and my sisters
+and himself, arriving over here even before I could have expected to
+reach England had all gone well with our ship.
+
+When they got to London, however, news came from Lloyd's that the
+_Josephine_ was lost, as our boats, which had been swept away in the
+hurricane, had been picked up by a homeward-bound ship.
+
+Needless to say, dad and all my folk were heart-broken at hearing this.
+
+Hardly, however, had they become reconciled to my death, as they
+thought, than a fresh piece of intelligence was passed on from Flores,
+narrating how we had touched there, all well on board; so, as soon as we
+were reported as being sighted in the Channel, dad was on the watch to
+be the first to greet me, coming down specially to Gravesend to board
+the ship as soon as she entered the river.
+
+I need not describe the meeting with dad in the first place, nor the way
+in which my mother and sisters, dear little Tot included, welcomed me?
+
+Hardly!
+
+Jake must have the last word, though; for, it was only through his
+faithfulness that I had been preserved during all our perils on the sea.
+
+You must remember that, not only did he save me from drowning in the
+first instance, when the vessel capsized; but, it was mainly through his
+watchful attentions that my life was saved during the time that I was
+exposed on the hull of the ship while she was on her beam-ends.
+
+"Golly, Massa Eastman," he cried out to dad the moment he put foot on
+board the _Josephine_, "I'se look arter Mass' Tom, as I promiss, suah,
+and here he am, sah, safe an' sound!"
+
+So I was; but, in spite of that, I have never forgotten my experiences
+of the Sargasso Sea, nor The White Squall.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The White Squall, by John Conroy Hutcheson
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