Part 1 (1/2)
In the Sarga.s.so Sea.
by Thomas A. Janvier.
I
I PAY FOR MY Pa.s.sAGE TO LOANGO
Captain Luke Chilton counted over the five-dollar notes with a greater care than I thought was necessary, considering that there were only ten of them; and cautiously examined each separate one, as though he feared that I might be trying to pay for my pa.s.sage in bad money. His show of distrust set my back up, and I came near to d.a.m.ning him right out for his impudence--until I reflected that a West Coast trader must pretty well divide his time between cheating people and seeing to it that he isn't cheated, and so held my tongue.
Having satisfied himself that the tale was correct and that the notes were genuine, he brought out from the inside pocket of his long-tailed sh.o.r.e-going coat a big canvas pocket-book, into which he stowed them lengthwise; and from the glimpse I had of it I fancied that until my money got there it was about bare. As he put away the pocket-book, he said, and pleasantly enough:
”You see, Mr. Stetworth, it's this way: fifty dollars is dirt cheap for a cast across from New York to the Coast, and that's a fact; but you say that it's an object with you to get your pa.s.sage low, and I say that even at that price I can make money out of you. The _Golden Hind_ has got to call at Loango, anyhow; there's a spare room in her cabin that'll be empty if you don't fill it; and while you're a big man and look to be rather extra hearty, I reckon you won't eat more'n about twenty dollars' worth of victuals--counting 'em at cost--on the whole run. But the main thing is that I want all the spot cash I can get a-holt of before I start. Fifty dollars' worth of trade laid in now means five hundred dollars for me when I get back here in New York with what I've turned it over for on the Coast. So, you see, if you're suited, I'm suited too. Shake! And now we'll have another drink. This time it's on me.”
We shook, and Captain Luke gave me an honest enough grip, just as he had spoken in an honest enough tone. I knew, of course, that in a general way he must be a good deal of a rascal--he couldn't well be a West Coast trader and be anything else; but then his rascality in general didn't matter much so long as his dealings with me were square. He called the waiter and ordered arrack again--it was the most wholesome drink in the world, he said--and we touched gla.s.ses, and so brought our deal to an end.
That a cheap pa.s.sage to Loango was an object to me, as Captain Luke had said, was quite true. It was a very important object. After I got across, of course, and my pay from the palm-oil people began, I would be all right; but until I could touch my salary I had to sail mighty close to the wind. For pretty much all of my capital consisted of my headful of knowledge of the theory and practice of mechanical engineering which had brought me out first of my cla.s.s at the Stevens Inst.i.tute--and in that way had got me the offer from the palm-oil people--and because of which I thought that there wasn't anybody quite my equal anywhere as a mechanical engineer. And that was only natural, I suppose, since my pa.s.sing first had swelled my head a bit, and I was only three-and-twenty, and more or less of a promiscuously green young fool.
As I looked over Captain Luke's shoulder, while we supped our arrack together--out through the window across the rush and bustle of South Street--and saw a trim steamer of the Maracaibo line lying at her dock, I could not but be sorry that my voyage to Africa would be made under sails. But, on the other hand, I comforted myself by thinking that if the _Golden Hind_ were half the clipper her captain made her out to be I should not lose much time--taking into account the roundabout way I should have to go if I went under steam. And I comforted myself still more by thinking what a lot of money I had saved by coming on this chance for a cheap cast across; and I blessed my lucky stars for putting into my head the notion of cruising along South Street that October morning and asking every sailor-like man I met if he knew of a craft bound for the West Coast--and especially for having run me up against Captain Luke Chilton before my cruise had lasted an hour.
The captain looked at his gla.s.s so sorrowfully when it was empty that I begged him to have it filled again, and he did. But he took down his arrack this time at a single gulp, and then got up briskly and said that he must be off.
”We don't sail till to-morrow afternoon, on the half flood, Mr.
Stetworth,” he said, ”so you'll have lots of time to get your traps aboard if you'll take a boat off from the Battery about noon. I wouldn't come earlier than that, if I were you. Things are bound to be in a mess aboard the brig to-morrow, and the less you have of it the better. We lie well down the anchorage, you know, only a little this side of Robbin's Reef. Your boatmen will know the place, and they'll find the brig for you if you'll tell 'em where to look for her and that she's painted green. Well, so long.” And then Captain Luke shook hands with me again, and so was off into the South Street crowd.
I hurried away too. My general outfit was bought and packed; but the things lying around my lodgings had to be got together, and I had to buy a few articles in the way of sea-stock for my voyage in a sailing vessel that I should not have needed had I gone by the regular steam lines. So I got some lunch inside of me, and after that I took a cab--a bit of extravagance that my hurry justified--and bustled about from shop to shop and got what I needed inside of an hour; and then I told the man to drive me to my lodgings up-town.
It was while I was driving up Broadway--the first quiet moment for thinking that had come to me since I had met Captain Luke on South Street, and we had gone into the saloon together to settle about the pa.s.sage he had offered me--that all of a sudden the thought struck me that perhaps I had made the biggest kind of a fool of myself; and it struck so hard that for a minute or two I fairly was dizzy and faint.
What earthly proof had I, beyond Captain Luke's bare word for it, that there was such a brig as the _Golden Hind_? What proof had I even--beyond the general look of him and his canvas pocket-book--that Captain Luke was a sailor? And what proof had I, supposing that there was such a brig and that he was a sailor, that the two had anything to do with each other? I simply had accepted for truth all that he told me, and on the strength of his mere a.s.sertion that he was a s.h.i.+p-master and was about to sail for the West African coast I had paid him my fifty dollars--and had taken by way of receipt for it no more than a clinking of our gla.s.ses and a shake of his hand. I said just now that I was only twenty-three years old, and more or less of a promiscuously green young fool. I suppose that I might as well have left that out. There are some things that tell themselves.
For three or four blocks, as I drove along, I was in such a rage with myself that I could not think clearly. Then I began to cool a little, and to hope that I had gone off the handle too suddenly and too far.
After all, there were some chances in my favor the other way. Captain Chilton, I remembered, had told me that he was about to sail for West Coast ports before I asked him for a pa.s.sage; and had mentioned, also, whereabouts on the anchorage the _Golden Hind_ was lying. Had he made these statements after he knew what I wanted there would have been some reason for doubting them; but being made on general principles, without knowledge of what I was after, it seemed to me that they very well might be true. And if they were true, why then there was no great cause for my sudden fit of alarm. However, I was so rattled by my fright, and still so uncertain as to how things were coming out for me, that the thought of waiting until the next afternoon to know certainly whether I had or had not been cheated was more than I could bear. The only way that I could see to settle the matter was to go right away down to the anchorage, and so satisfy myself that the _Golden Hind_ was a real brig and really was lying there; and it occurred to me that I might kill two birds with one stone, and also have a reason to give for a visit which otherwise might seem unreasonable, if I were to take down my luggage and put it aboard that very afternoon.
II
HOW I BOARDED THE BRIG _GOLDEN HIND_
Having come to this conclusion, I acted on it. I kept the cab at the door while I finished my packing with a rush, and then piled my luggage on it and in it--and what with my two trunks, and my kit of fine tools, and all my bundles, this made tight stowing--and then away I went down-town again as fast as the man could drive with such a load.
We got to the Battery in a little more than an hour, and there I transs.h.i.+pped my cargo to a pair-oared boat and started away for the anchorage. The boatmen comforted me a good deal at the outset by saying that they thought they knew just where the _Golden Hind_ was lying, as they were pretty sure they had seen her only that morning while going down the harbor with another fare; and before we were much more than past Bedloe's Island--having pulled well over to get out of the channel and the danger of being run down by one of the swarm of pa.s.sing craft--they made my mind quite easy by actually pointing her out to me. But almost in the same moment I was startled again by one of them saying to me: ”I don't believe you've much time to spare, captain. There's a lighter just shoved off from her, and she's gettin'
her tops'ls loose. I guess she means to slide out on this tide. That tug seems to be headin' for her now.”
The men laid to their oars at this, and it was a good thing--or a bad thing, some people might think--that they did; for had we lost five minutes on our pull down from the Battery I never should have got aboard of the _Golden Hind_ at all. As it was, the anchor was a-peak, and the lines of the tug made fast, by the time that we rounded under her counter; and the decks were so full of the bustle of starting that it was only a chance that anybody heard our hail. But somebody did hear it, and a man--it was the mate, as I found out afterwards--came to the side.