Part 7 (1/2)
About a week after this, little Edgar Desmond came up to me and, slipping his hand into mine, as was his wont when he desired to have a chat with me, began, in the straightforward way usual with children--
”Captain, where do you think will be a good place for me to sail my boat, when she is finished?”
”Your boat?” said I. ”I didn't know that you are making one.”
”Oh no,” said the child; ”I am not making one; it is that new man, Martin, who is making it for me. And he is making it _so_ nicely; just like a _real_ boat. Come and see it, will you?”
Willing to humour the child, I walked forward with him; and on reaching the forecastle found Martin busy about some ordinary job connected with the usual routine work of the s.h.i.+p. As we halted before him he touched his forehead with his forefinger, in the usual style of the forecastle hand, and paused in his work to hear what we had to say to him.
”Good morning, Martin,” began Master Edgar. ”I have brought the captain to see my boat. Will you show it him, please?”
”Well, you see, sir,” remonstrated Martin, obviously embarra.s.sed by my presence, ”'tain't hardly fair to ask me to hexhibit the boat until she's finished. There ain't much of her yet, and what there is, is all in the rough. It's a little job, sir,” he continued, turning in an explanatory way to me, ”as I've undertook to do for this young gentleman in my afternoon watch below; and, as I said, she's all in the rough at present--what there is of her.”
”Never mind that, Martin,” said I, seeing a shade of disappointment resting upon the child's features; ”bring her up, and let us have a look at her.”
Thereupon, the man dived below into the forecastle, and presently reappeared, bearing in his hand the skeleton of a miniature yacht, about two and a half feet long, half planked down. My first sensation, when I set eyes on the model, was surprise at the dainty, delicate character of the workmans.h.i.+p exhibited in it, which was greatly increased when, upon taking it into my hands and more closely inspecting it, I had an opportunity of examining its lines. They were as nearly perfect as anything I had ever seen; in short, it was evident that, when finished, the model would be a faithful miniature reproduction of a crack racing yacht of the most approved form.
”Why, Martin,” said I, greatly pleased at this example of his skill, ”this is excellent. Where in the world did you learn to model lines like these?”
”Well, sir,” explained Martin, ”you see, I was five years in the yard of the Fifes at Fairlie, yacht buildin', before I s.h.i.+pped in the _Northern Queen_; and before that again I was more than three years with Summers and Payne, of Southampton; so I ought to know a little about the shape of a yacht, didn't I, sir?”
”a.s.suredly you ought,” said I; ”and evidently you _do_, if one may judge by this.” And I replaced the model in his hand, fully determined to regularly s.h.i.+p him if I could, now that I had seen what a handy, clever fellow he promised to be. For I may here tell the reader, in strict confidence, that there is nothing I more thoroughly enjoy than boat-sailing, and very few things that I more highly appreciate than a good model of a s.h.i.+p or boat. A few days after this I made the proposition to Martin that he should s.h.i.+p for the remainder of the voyage, offering him the same pay that I was giving our own carpenter; and he at once gladly a.s.sented. This arrangement, as will be _seen_ later on, was destined to lead to more important results than either of us at the moment antic.i.p.ated.
At length, after a phenomenally good pa.s.sage as far south as the twenty-eighth parallel, we lost the trades, and immediately picked up a strong westerly wind, before which we bore away, under every rag we could spread, to round the Cape. When off Agulhas the wind southed upon us, and we fell in with the tremendous swell that is almost invariably met with about this spot. I had pa.s.sed over the same ground ten times already--five times outward-bound, and five times on the homeward pa.s.sage--and had _always_ found a heavy swell running, but on this last occasion it was far heavier than I had ever before beheld it. To convey some idea of the enormous bulk and height of these liquid hills I may mention that while off the Agulhas Bank--where the swell was by no means at its highest--we overhauled and pa.s.sed a barque of about our own size, at a distance of less than a cable's length, yet so high was the swell that, when we both settled into the trough, she was completely hidden from us, to her topmast-heads!
In longitude 26 degrees East, with a moderate breeze from south-east, we bore away for the Straits of Sunda; and a few days afterwards met with a piece of exceptional good fortune. It was during the forenoon watch, the weather being beautifully fine, and a very gentle breeze blowing, under the influence of which we were slipping through the water at a speed of about five knots. The watch were busy, in a deliberate fas.h.i.+on, about various odd jobs on deck and aloft; and the occupants of the p.o.o.p were lounging in their deck-chairs, amusing themselves according to their several fancies. As for me, I was engaged--as was indeed often the case--in a severe mental effort to find the key to d.i.c.k Saint Leger's cryptogram. The gentle motion, the warm, genial suns.h.i.+ne, and the soft splash of the water along the bends, with the absence of any hurried movement on board or sharply spoken orders, seemed to have wrought in the entire s.h.i.+p, fore and aft, a condition of half-dreamy, blissful listlessness, from which we were suddenly startled by a man crying out, from halfway up the lee fore-rigging--
”Luff! luff hard! down with your helm, or you'll be into it!”
”Into what?” shouted I, springing to my feet and running forward.
”I don't know, sir, what it is, but it is something floating. Here you are, sir; it is just coming abreast of us now.”
As the s.h.i.+p shot up into the wind, with all her canvas flapping and rustling, I sprang upon the lee rail, and saw a ma.s.s of dirty greyish-white substance, mottled and streaked like marble, floating slowly past at a distance of some half a dozen yards from the s.h.i.+p's side. Of course everybody else on deck must needs, in the excitement of the moment, rush to the lee rail, to gaze upon the cause of the sudden alarm; and, among them, the boatswain, an old whaler, who no sooner set eyes on the object than he exclaimed--
”Why, sir, that's a lump of ambergrease, worth more'n a hundred pound, I'll be bound. That's worth pickin' up, that is!”
I had never before seen a piece of ambergris, but had, of course, often heard of it, and knew it to be valuable; I accordingly ordered the mainyard to be laid aback, and sent the boatswain away with a crew in the gig to pick up the piece of ”flotsam.” In about a quarter of an hour they returned to the s.h.i.+p with their prize, which proved to be a large lump--much larger than it had appeared to be when floating past-- of hard, fatty matter, of a light, dirty grey colour, veined and mottled somewhat like marble, and giving off a peculiar sweet, earthy odour.
Its weight seemed to be, as nearly as we could estimate it, about one hundred and fifty pounds; and the boatswain--who claimed to be an authority--confidently a.s.serted that I should have no difficulty in getting a sovereign per pound for it at Hong Kong. Ambergris--I may as well mention, for the information of those who do not know--is said to be a secretion formed in the intestines of the sperm whale, as a result of disease. It is greatly in demand in the East generally, for a variety of purposes--medicinal, among others--but its chief use seems to be in the manufacture of perfumes. It is not often found, and, the supply being very limited, it commands a high price in the market.
Strangely enough, we fell in with and secured a second and still larger piece a few days later; the total quant.i.ty amounting to no less than three hundred and twenty-seven pounds, which I afterwards disposed of without difficulty at twenty-five s.h.i.+llings per pound, remitting the proceeds home to my old friend, Mr Richards, in part liquidation of my debt to him.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
THE CHIEF MATE HAS A PRESENTIMENT.
Nothing further of importance occurred during our pa.s.sage across the Indian Ocean, which was accomplished under exceptionally pleasant circ.u.mstances; the weather being gloriously fine, and the wind, if not absolutely fair, always favourable enough to permit of our laying our course.
Java Head was made just before sunset, under a clear sky, with a light air breathing out from the north-west--so light an air, indeed, that when the sun rose next morning the headland was still on our starboard bow. Some two hours later, however, we got a strong breeze out from the north-east, under the influence of which we worked up toward the mouth of the straits in fine style, until noon--by which time we were fairly within the straits--when the wind softened down, finally dwindling away to nothing about an hour before sunset.
We had sighted several sail during the day, three of them being European, bound to the westward, while the rest were country craft-- small coasters and fis.h.i.+ng vessels for the most part. The Malays have probably, next to the Chinese, the worst reputation in the world for honesty; but it is only just to say that, with one solitary exception, all the native craft we had that day fallen in with had behaved in a manner that left no room whatever for suspicion. The exception was in the case of a large proa that had pa.s.sed us closely, running out before the wind toward the mouth of the straits during the forenoon, but which, having run to leeward of us for a distance of some six miles, had then hauled her wind and stretched in toward the southern sh.o.r.e, on reaching which she had lowered her canvas, thrown out her sweeps, and made her way to windward with the aid of the latter alone. It was not so much this circ.u.mstance, however, though it had a somewhat incomprehensible look about it, as the fact that she pulled twelve sweeps of a side-- proving her to be heavily manned--that caused us to regard her and her movements with a certain amount of doubt and suspicion. We were now in waters that, from the numerous acts of piracy that have been committed within them, have acquired a more sinister reputation than is borne by any other spot of ocean of similar area in the whole world; and it was therefore only natural that the fact of our being becalmed in such a spot should have been productive of a certain uneasiness and disquiet of mind throughout the s.h.i.+p.