Part 5 (2/2)
”'Brig ahoy!' shouted the captain.
”'Hallo!' answered the man.
”'What is wrong with you?'
”'We are short-handed, sir, and in great distress,' was the answer.
”'What is your s.h.i.+p, and where are you from, and where are you bound to?'
”When these questions were put the man looked round to the fellow who stood at the brig's little wheel. It was certain he was not a sailor, and it was possible he sought for counsel from the helmsman, who was probably a forecastle hand. He turned his face again our way in a minute, and shouted out in a powerful voice:
”'We are the brig _Cyprus_, of Sydney, New South Wales, bound to the Cape of Good Hope, and very much out of our reckoning, I dare say, through the distress we're in.'
”The captain and I exchanged looks.
”'Heading as you go,' the captain sang out, 'you're bound on a true course for the Antarctic Circle, and, anyway, it's a long stretch for Agulhas by way of Cape Horn out of these seas. How can we serve you?'”
'Will you send one of your officers in a boat?' came back the reply very promptly, 'that he may put us in the way of steering a course for the Cape of Good Hope? He'll then guess our plight, and if you'll lend us a hand or two we shall be greatly obliged. We can't send a boat ourselves--we're too few.'
”'He's no sailor-man, that fellow,' said the captain, 'and he ha'n't got the colonial brogue, either. I seem to smell Whitechapel in that chap's speech. Is he a pa.s.senger? Why don't he say so? Looks like a play-actor, or a priest. But take a boat, Grainger, and row over and see what you can make of the mess they're in. There's something rather more than out-of-the-way in that job, if I'm not mistaken.'
”A boat was lowered; I entered it, and was rowed across to the brig by three men. No attempt was made to throw us the end of a line, or in any way to help us. The bowman got hold of a chain plate, and I scrambled into the main-chains and so got over the rail, bidding the men shove off and lie clear of the brig, whose rolling was somewhat heavy, owing to her floating like an egg-sh.e.l.l upon the long Pacific heave.
”I glanced along the vessel's decks forward, and saw not a soul. I observed a little caboose, the chimney of which was smoking as though coal had within the past few minutes been thrown into the furnace. I saw but one boat; she stood chocked and lashed abaft the caboose--a clumsy, broad-beamed long-boat, capable of stowing perhaps fifteen or twenty men at a pinch. I also took notice of a pair of davits on the starboard side, past the main rigging; they were empty.
”I stepped up to the heavily-built man who had answered the captain's questions. He received me with a grotesque bow, pinching the brim of his wide straw hat as he bobbed his head. I did not like his looks. He had as hanging a face as ever a malefactor carried. His features were heavy and coa.r.s.e, his brow low and protruding, his eyes small, black, and restless, and his mouth of the bulldog cast.
”'We're much obliged to you for this visit,' he said. 'Might I ask your name, sir?'
”'My name is Grainger--Mr. James Grainger,' I answered, scarcely wondering at the irregularity of such a question on such an occasion, perceiving clearly now that the fellow was no sailor.
”'What might be your position in that s.h.i.+p, Mr. Grainger?' said the man.
”'I'm mate of her,' said I.
”'Then I suppose you're capable of carrying a s.h.i.+p from place to place by the art of navigation?' he exclaimed.
”'Why, I hope so!' cried I. 'But what is it you want?' and here I looked at the man who was standing at the helm, grasping the spokes in a manner that a.s.sured me he was not used to that sort of work; and I was somewhat struck to observe that in some respects he was not unlike the fellow who was addressing me--that is to say, he had quite as hanging a face as his companion, though he wanted the other's breadth and squareness, and ruffian-like set of figure; but his forehead was low, and his eyes black and restless, and he was close-cropped, with some days' growth of beard, as was the case with the other. He was dressed in a bottle-green spencer and trousers of a military cut, and wore one of those caps which in the days I am writing of were the fas.h.i.+on amongst masters and mates.
”'If you don't mind stepping into the cabin,' said the man with whom I was conversing, 'I'll show you a chart, and ask you to pencil out a course for us; and with your leave, sir, I'll tell you over a gla.s.s of wine exactly how it's come about that we're too few to carry the brig to her destination unless your captain will kindly help us.'
”'Are you two the only people aboard?' said I.
”'The only people,' he answered.
”Anywhere else, under any other conditions, I might have suspected a treacherous intention in two men with such hanging countenances as this lonely brace owned; but what could I imagine to be afraid of aboard a brig holding two persons only, with the whaler's boat and three men within a few strokes of the oar, and the old barque, _Swan_, full of livelies, many of them deadly in the art of casting the harpoon, within easy hail?
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