The saloon of the Merle was a spacious cabin, paneled in Cuban cedar. Along both sides ran transoms cushioned in dark green corduroy, which contrasted pleasantly with the red of the woodwork. On either side of the companion-way were big closets, the doors of which, framing large mirrors, opened forward against the after ends of the transoms. Both to port and to starboard the cabin was lined with lockers for flags, charts, and bottles, except where the recessed bookcases came in the middle. Large nickeled Argand lamps to port and starboard on the for'ard bulkhead illuminated the interior. Sheathed in cedar, the butt of the schooner's mainmast stood in the fore part of the saloon; and aft from it ran a mahogany table around which were placed some comfortable-looking chairs. All in all, the impression of power and grace which one received from regarding the outside of the Merle was equaled by the feeling of comfort, and, indeed,almost of luxury, one had upon viewing her below decks.
It was in this pleasant retreat that Jack had settled himself in less than a minute after his arrival on the yacht. The good skipper, who had kept an almost fatherly eye on the youth ever since he was old enough to "fist a rope," sat uneasily on the edge of the divan on the port side. Jack, sprawled out on the opposite transom, lit a cigarette, and looked up at the skylight.
"My aunt! But I'm glad to be aboard again," he declared. "How is everything? What sort of a run down did you have?"
"Pretty fair, sir," returned the master. "We went to Marblehead, and then to Portsmouth. Mr. Drake, he spent the time in seeing his friends. Then we run to Portland, and then to Boothbay. We run in here yesterday. Nothin' much to tell of on the cruise."
"You've made schedule time," Jack commented. "You are here just when you were due."
"Yes, we got here," Camper assented, "though 't one time, when I see the stores that had to come aboard, I doubted if we should get started for a week."
"More stores than usual?" queried Jack, with a little spark of interest in his eye.
"Well, Mr. Drake, he 'lowed that last year when we got becalmed down the coast some of the provisions fell short, and he vowed he'd never get caught in that shape again; so this time he's stocked up fit to do the Nor'west Passage. He's got every kind of a thing to eat that man ever put into tins, you may bet your life."
"Trust him to have an eye to the galley," laughed Jack, reflecting how satisfactory a complement to the plain provisions waiting at the Island would be this extensive assortment of choice eatables. "Well, I'm for sleeping aboard. Can you give me a lift with my luggage?"
Everything he had said since he came on board had been preliminary to this. His one chance of getting the sailing-master to a safe distance lay in inducing Camper to go ashore on an errand. To this question the skipper replied, Yankee fashion, with another.
"Where is it, sir?"
"Go to Mullin's and tell 'em you're from me;—you'd better do it yourself, Camper;—and get them to give you a steamer-trunk and two bags. Do you know the place? It's the only boarding-house there is in the village. Anybody can tell you."
"I know it, sir. 'Bout a cable's length up the road."
"Yes; that's it. I don't think you'll find the trunk heavy," Jack went on, with a secret inclination to speak very fast and a consciousness that he must appear cool and deliberate. "Of course you'll take a couple of men to tote it, but I don't like to send an ordinary seaman up there."
He wondered what he should reply if asked why not; but Camper, who had long been trained under President Drake to habits of unquestioning obedience, replied with perfect simplicity:—
"All right, sir, I'll have it aboard in half an hour. Your old stateroom's all ready, I believe. You just ring for the steward if you want anything, sir."
"Thanks," responded Jack, taking a book from its place as he spoke, as if with the intention of settling himself to read.
Camper withdrew, and Jack listened eagerly till he heard footsteps on the deck, the rattle of the davit-tackle, the splash of the boat alongside, and then the rhythm of receding oars. The moment he was sure of not being seen by the skipper he closed his book with a bang, flung it on the table, looked at his watch, and went hurriedly on deck. In the lee of the mainmast he paused to light a fresh cigarette, and then began untying the cover of the mainsail, loosening the points and pulling themthrough the grommets. As he worked his way aft, he suddenly thought he heard the sound of oars. He stopped to make sure: there could be no doubt of it; some one was pulling toward the Merle. In a flash Jack saw his scheme ruined in any one of a thousand ways. He set his teeth and ran over rapidly in his head the possibilities, but without reaching any satisfactory conclusion. Then he walked aft, and putting his hands on the rail, bent over the yacht's port quarter and peered into the fog. With a feeling of relief he realized from the sound and time of the strokes that the approaching boat was a small one, and was pulled by one pair of oars only. He had hardly decided this when he discerned the cause of his alarm, and almost laughed to see nothing more formidable than a small pea-pod, pulled by a boy. The rower came alongside and rested on his oars, while Jack watched him curiously.
"Is that Mr. Drake's vessel?" inquired the boy.
"Yes," Jack returned. "What's wanted?"
"The postmaster said 'f I'd bring ye these letters ye'd give me a quarter," replied the youthful oarsman.
"Mr. Drake isn't aboard now," said Jack.
"Well, ye c'n give me my quarter jes' the same," the boy rejoined. "I'll let ye hev theletters, 'n' he'll make it right with ye later. He lef' word this evenin' for his mail to be brung him every time it come, an' 't was that foggy the Sylvy got in late from Rocklan', 'n' I couldn't get roun' to bring it out before. 'Twan't sorted till after Mr. Staples hed his supper."
"All right," Jack said hastily. "Come alongside."
He feared to create suspicion, and felt that the only thing to do at the moment was to get rid of the boy. He gave the youth a quarter, and took the letters in exchange, mentally saying to himself that he hoped they were not of importance. The boy went pulling away as if in most unusual elation, and Castleport, thrusting the letters into the breast pocket of his coat, returned to his work. He had not quite finished untying the points when he heard Jerry's hail from the mooring.
"Merle, ahoy! Ho-ro aboard the Merle!" came booming through the fog in Taberman's most stentorian tones.
Jack placed himself in the companion-way as if just emerging from the cabin, and waited for another hail.
"Merle ahoy! Aho-o-o-y aboard the Merle!" again rang through the thick night above the sound of the wind, the water, and the cordage.
"Hallo-o-o!" bawled back Castleport.
"Send ... boat ... ashore!" came the voice.
Jerry was apparently able to outroar all the bulls of Bashan, and was doing his worst.
"Aye—oh!" Jack yelled in reply, and walked quickly forward.
The steward had heard the rumpus, and was standing in the forecastle companion. Capless, and wearing his white jacket, he gaped about like a quizzical seal.
"Some one hailing from the shore," said Jack shortly; "want a boat. Don't know what you'll take unless you go in the longboat. Tell the men."
"Beg pardon, sir; there's only me and the cook and two hands aboard. It'll take us all to pull the longboat."
The steward had a slow, exasperating whine which always irritated Jack.
"Then you'll have to take an oar," Jack responded roughly. "There's some one ashore waiting, and I said I'd send a boat. Get a move on. I'll watch ship."
The steward went below grumbling, but soon reappeared with the cook and the two hands. With some delay they got off in the longboat, pulling wretchedly toward the shore and nagging at each other. As he stepped to the foot of themainmast to take the halyards off the pins, Jack fervently thanked his stars for the heaviness of the boat and the evident fact that both cook and steward were hopeless duffers with an oar. He cleared the halyards with nervous fingers, stripped off the cover of the mainsail, and undid the canvas stops with which it was furled. Then he turned to the headsails, and had all clear before his ear again caught the sound of oars. He ran aft, and called out guardedly. Dave's voice answered him, and then he heard Taberman urging his companion to quicken his stroke. In the mist Castleport could dimly distinguish the heavy boats slowly nearing the yacht. It was all the men could do to get them alongside and make them fast astern. Once this was accomplished, all hands turned eagerly to the still harder labor of getting the Merle under weigh.
"Jim," ordered Castleport, "skip along for'ard and take down that riding-light. Set it on deck so it won't show out-board. Dave, you get up the boat-boom. Haul it right up, 'thout minding the guys! Lively, now!"
As Dave and Jim hurried forward to execute these orders, Jack himself stepped aft, took off the binnacle-cover, and got the lamps lit and in their places.
"All hands for'ard on the anchor!" he sang out, rapping his shins on the cockpit combings as he scrambled out and ran along the deck. "We'll make sail when we get out the mudhook. 'F we try to get her mains'l up, they'll hear us all over the place. We'll drop down under heads'ls. Catch ahold there!"
The Merle was riding at her port bower in some six fathoms of water. She had out a good bit of scope, however, and between the eight hands which gripped the quarter-inch chain and the anchor to which it was bent were some ten fathoms to be "handed over." In the light of the big Fresnel anchor-lantern upon the deck, the men, silent, rigid, braced back, strained steadily. For a full half-minute there was no gain whatever, but then one link of the chain came to the brazen lip of the hawse-hole with a sharp rap. The men grunted and hissed, bringing every muscle into play. Taberman was foremost on the chain. He faced the hawse-hole squarely, his legs wide apart, and his head thrown back. His face, even as seen by the white light of the Fresnel, was a dark brick-red, and out of the left corner of his mouth his tongue protruded. Dave was behind him, his left knee bent, and his right leg straight from toe to hip. He hung on savagely, his face unnaturallyblank; his hair, damp with fog and sweat, clung to his brown forehead and temples. The third man was Jim, lying back in a strange posture, as though the small of his back were invisibly supported. His cheeks were white; his breathing was inaudible.
With a little salvo of metallic snaps a scant dozen links more came in. Jack was last on the chain, and was separated from the man next him by a space greater than that between any other pair, so that he could when necessary take a turn of the slack about one of the brass-capped bollards at his side. His body was tense and rigid, his face and forehead full of odd puckers and lines. He was white at the lips, and the corners of his mouth were drawn down. His nose moved nervously with almost the suggestion of a rabbit's. One more link came in.
"Better take it on the winch," gasped Jerry.
"Damn it,—pull!" cried Jack.
Jim grunted and Dave drew a breath through his closed teeth with a sharp whistling sound. Suddenly the chain rattled in so quickly that they could almost over-hand it. The Merle was moving at last.
"Smartly!" Jack cried. "Smartly, and we'll make her trip it out herself."
The four hauled lustily.
"Nigh up and down," called Jerry.
Jack threw a couple of bights of the chain over the bollard, and held it. The big yacht forged ahead slowly into the eye of the wind, carried along by the impetus given her by the handing of the chain. The bits creaked a little, the chain grew very taut and vibrant. The Merle checked up and began to drift back.
"Now then!" cried Jack. "Lay along!"
Each one of them grasped the chain with a fierce vigor, as a man might seize the throat of his enemy, while Jerry burst into an explosive whaling chantey, and the men fell into time with its rhythm.
"Haul the bowline, the bowline, the bowline;Haul the bowline, the bowline,—Haul!"
"Haul the bowline, the bowline, the bowline;Haul the bowline, the bowline,—Haul!"
"Haul the bowline, the bowline, the bowline;Haul the bowline, the bowline,—Haul!"
"Haul the bowline, the bowline, the bowline;
Haul the bowline, the bowline,—Haul!"
"Here she comes!" he shouted in the midst of a stave, as, all at once, the anchor was broken out.
Jack dropped his end of the chain and ran aft to mind the wheel, leaving the men to take in the rest of the slack. The headsails were up in stops, but before breaking them out it was necessary to lay the yacht round on the port tack. As she was under sternway, Jack whirled the spokes over to port, and so—for her steering-gear was "balanced"—brought her head around to the southward.When he felt the wind on his left cheek, he put his hand to his mouth and shouted.
"Break out fore-staysail!" he bellowed. "Trim it a-weather!—Hang on to the weather-sheet till she falls well off!"
With a great slatting and booming of canvas the schooner payed off rapidly.
"Catch on to that port sheet there!" shouted Jack. "Port, I say, port! Make fast! Not too flat! Give her all she'll use!"
The Merle was now moving slowly before the wind.
"Break out the jibs," ordered Jack, "both jibs! That's good. Make fast!"
The wind had so freshened that the yacht began to move in earnest. At this juncture voices, faint but frantic, were heard hailing from astern.
"Merle ahoy! Ahoy-oy-oy! Show—light! A-hoy-oy-oy—'board the Merle!"
"Hear the steward?" called Jack to Jerry, who was at work with the head-sheet cleats.
"Hear him!" laughed Jerry. "His music's a merry send-off."
"Ahoy-oy-oy!" came the voice again, fainter and full of a dismayed distress that made them both break out afresh into derisive laughter. "Ahoy! Anchor! An-chor—Anch"—
The despairing wail died away on the freshening wind.
"Hope they won't poke round in the fog all night looking for the Merle," Jack said gayly. "I never did like that steward, though."
A moment or two later, as the yacht was nearing the entrance of the Thoroughfare, Jack called for Dave. The man came aft.
"See here, Dave," Castleport asked, suddenly grown grave; "we've got more weather than we counted on. Can you pilot this yacht round Vinal Haven in this fog?"
"Reck'n I kin, sir," Dave replied with pleasing assurance. "Man and boy I've worked round these shores twelve years."
"Very well, then,—come down here and take her. Her gear's balanced: put the wheel over same way you want to swing her head. She's quick as a flash. If you want the chart"—
But Dave shook his head with a grin.
"Well, anyhow," said Jack, turning to leave him, "there's your compass."
"That don't bother me none," replied the intrepid Dave, with a glance at once scornful and defiant at the smart binnacle. "I go mos' gin'rally by the smell," he added by way of explanation.
"All right," laughed Jack. "Handle her carefully."
"One thing, sir,—how much does she draw?"
"Twelve feet," returned Jack.
Then he stepped up on to the deck, and the Merle sped on into the black night.
With Dave as her Palinurus the Merle ran down the wind until she was well outside the western entrance to the Thoroughfare. The headsails were then dropped, the yacht was put into the wind, and the mainsail was hoisted. The foresail was left furled, as the wind had freshened considerably, and the schooner started on a southerly course on the port tack.
How Dave knew where he was or by what subtle instinct he was moved to give the Merle now a spoke or two to starboard or again to port, were mysteries as insoluble as complex. Taberman was lost in wonder at Dave's cool assurance; but to Jack, who knew of old the marvelous way in which the local fishermen handle their craft in the fog, the helmsman's skill, if wonderful, was yet no new thing.
The beat to the Island was not, however, without incident. Twice, as they were tacking aboutin the thick fog, they ran close to wicked ledges over which the slow seas just rolled without breaking. At another point they came about just in time to avoid going ashore against a precipitous cliff which loomed high in the mist. Near the end of the run they worked into some shoal water where the uneasy heave and thrust of the sea made the schooner reel and stagger madly, while all about them was the thunder of unseen breakers. But in each and every peril Dave kept his head completely and brought the Merle through in safety.
The passage was a busy one. Three times they luffed up in open water, and each time took a boat aboard. It was a difficult—almost a perilous—operation, but the night was flying and the boats dragged heavily. The foresail was made ready for hoisting, a reef being tucked into it without its being raised. The port bower was taken aboard; lanterns were got ready against the work which was to be done at the Island; a careful survey was made of the places available for stowage. Jack and Taberman made a list of the men, assigned watches and berths. They agreed that Gonzague, as cook, steward, and general major-domo, should have to himself the little cabin formerly occupied by the steward. To the men they gave the berths of the old crew; and in generalarranged everything for the ocean voyage which had been left for adjustment until they should be actually on board. The personal effects of the President, his guests, the officers and the crew, they made ready to leave at the Island.
"How about clothes for the men?" Taberman asked. "I never thought of that; and we should look like the deuce with a crew in fishermen's rigs. The police of any harbor in the world would be after us."
"The uniforms belong to the yacht," Jack answered. "They are cut for the crew, but the men never own them."
"Do you suppose those poor devils' traps will be safe at the Island?"
"Safe as in a church."
"But how'll they get 'em?"
"Oh, by nine o'clock to-morrow morning the President will be on his way to the Island if he has to buy the Sylvia to go on. Camper'll tell him I ran away with the Merle, and he'll start to the Island to find me or get track."
So they talked until, about two in the morning, the yacht ran past Hardwood Island, hauled her wind, and worked along to the southeast. Suddenly through the fog a dull red gleam showed on the weather bow.
"There's Gonzague's bonfire," Jack cried. "You've brought us through, Dave, about as slick as anything ever was done in this world. 'Twas a tough job, too."
The main-peak was dropped to lessen the yacht's way, and as the red flare became more distinct, the outer jibs were doused. Keeping the shore close aboard on the port side, the Merle ran along toward the ruddy blur of the fire, which was now seen to be burning at the end of a point. As the boat neared this point, Jack seized the megaphone, and putting the big cone to his lips, faced the fire, which was now abeam.
"Hallo!" he roared. "Hallo, there! Gonzague!"
A sudden and confused shouting out of the fog answered him. Then black figures, silhouetted against the red brightness of the fire and waving burning brands, ran to and fro with odd antics and caperings.
"'Bout ship!" cried Dave. "'Ware boom! Douse the heads'ls!"
The Merle came over on the other tack, and the staysail and jibs were run down. The main-sheet was then so started as to spill the wind out of the sail, and the yacht's way was quickly lessened. Having rounded the point, the schoonermoved ahead sluggishly, again passing the bonfire on the port hand.
"Stand by the anchor!" sang out Dave, as they ran by the end of the jetty.
"Hooray!" yelled a chorus of voices from the pier. "Hooray, Dave!"
Dave twirled the wheel to starboard, and the Merle came slowly into the eye of the wind, where he kept her until she seemed to be making sternway.
"Well enough!" he shouted. "Let her go!"
And the anchor-chain rattled down in three and a half fathoms.
It was after two o'clock, and still thick. The wind, however, was hauling around to the southward, and the fog was beginning to thin a little. The main-sheet had hardly been hauled aft when some of the men were alongside in a boat. Jack stood by the steps, which had not been taken aboard during the run, while Tab, standing by his side, held a lantern. The first man aboard was Gonzague. Agile as an ape, for all his years, the old Provençal ran up the steps and touched his cap smartly, man-o'-war fashion.
"I see you leaf in a great hoory, cap'n," he chuckled to Jack. "You 'av' loosed de matting of de step-grating, eh?"
"Yes, rather," laughed Jack. "Pile aboard there," he added, addressing the men in the two boats now alongside.
The new crew made their boats fast to the grating and came on board.
"Now, then, all hands aft here for a minute," Jack ordered, when every one was assembled on deck.
He knew that with such men as he had been able to collect for this expedition it was essential to bind them in some way. He had therefore prepared a paper in which were five articles for them to sign, and he was firmly resolved that unless they agreed to bind themselves, he would not trust the President's schooner to their care. The men were resolute in the face of danger, yet were unused to discipline; they were imbued with a crude sense of loyalty, but were unruly and quick to take offense; and unless they should consent at the outset to submit to his authority, Jack knew that little dependence could be put upon them.
He instinctively assumed an arbitrary air,—almost dropping half consciously into the latent bully which lies hid in all strong characters. Had he reasoned it out, he would have adopted much the same tone as that which he took by instinct.These men, wild followers of the sea, would scorn to be led, and were to be mastered only by one who could browbeat and domineer,—who could, in their own word, "man-handle" them. They responded to the primitive necessity of seeing force in the man who is to command; and in showing his determination at the outset Jack was displaying at least one characteristic of a proper leader of men.
He took from his pocket the list of names, and telling the men to answer to the roll he read it off by the light of Tab's lantern.
"Elihu Coombs?" he read.
"Here," answered a thickset lad with a rugged and weather-beaten face.
"Here,SIR!" said Jack sharply, as he check'd off the name.
"Edward Turner?"
"Here, sir," answered a quiet voice on the outer ring of the men.
"Haskell Dwight?"
"Here, sir."
They were all aboard: ten men, exclusive of Jack, Jerry, and Gonzague. When he had finished the list, Jack handed it to Jerry, and taking from his pocket a second paper,—the simple articles he had written,—he knocked the creases out ofit with a back-handed rap, and then made a short speech.
"My men," he began, "I don't want to haul you into any game with your eyes shut, so I've drafted articles for you to sign. Of course this whole business is only a joke, but it's got a serious side to it too. You can all see that plain enough; and it's my interest—and yours—to see to it that we don't have to laugh out of the wrong side of our mouths.
"If you come on this cruise you'll sweat for your wages, now let me tell you! I'm not for grinding any man,—most of you know what I am, for you've seen me growing up from a kid,—but the yacht's got to be kept up, and that means that every man-jack aboard has got to keep as neat as a pin and not slight his job.
"On the other hand, you men'll get a lot of experience in handling a larger vessel than you've been used to; you'll have good grub; and you'll see foreign ports. Top o' that, you draw good pay, and keep what clothes you can save.
"Now then, these are the articles that every man who sails with me has got to put his name to."
He read the whole paper, as distinctly and as impressively as he could.
"Now," he concluded, "if any man here lacksthe heart for this business, let him clear out. The rest of you, step up and sign."
Jack laid the paper on the companion-hatch, and produced a fountain-pen, which he put beside it. Jerry was the first, in virtue of his position as mate, to put down his name. He set down his lantern and scrawled his signature at the foot of the articles in a hand that would have dwarfed that of John Hancock. He passed the pen to Gonzague, who, laboriously fisting it, wrote his name in a small, cramped hand, absurdly unlike the characters above it.
For an instant—an appreciable instant—the rest hung back. Jack's brown eyes challenged theirs, and every one was very silent. That Castleport was seconded by those who were obviously attached to him gave the men, rather than confidence, an uneasy feeling of being another party, and this prompted an instinctive caution almost like antagonism. Had things been allowed to rest for a moment, the day might easily have been lost. Discussion might have arisen to beget argument and discord, explanations have been demanded, and the men have asked to be satisfied as to the real grounds on which Castleport was to be justified in appropriating his uncle's yacht and making off with it, a question which could hardly have beenanswered so as to satisfy everybody. At this unrealized crisis, old Gonzague quietly stepped among the men, passed a jest with one of them in an undertone, and so equilibrium was restored. He at once became one of them, and the vague idea of parties and opposition vanished into thin air before the men had had time even to recognize it. Dave stepped forward and signed, Jim followed him, and the rest of the men came after. Jack had sounded all of them separately before unfolding his plans, and the result was that not one of them drew back now. As the last one laid down the pen, Castleport spoke.
"Before we fall to work I don't think anybody'd mind a good glass of grog; and while Gonzague's getting it, I just want to add one word to my say. I know this gentleman, Mr. Jerrold Taberman, to be a good navigator, and I've chosen him as my mate. Gonzague'll be cook and steward, and A1 you'll find him. I'm bound to make things go as easy as may be, and I will. I'm sure you'll do your duties, and you may bank on my doing mine."
The grog being brought, Tab proposed the captain's health, and the crew drank it with enthusiasm. Jack emptied his glass to the "crew and a good cruise;" and then the entire company went to work, loading and stowing.
Under Jerry's orders part of the crew began to carry provisions from the boathouse to the yacht, while under Jack's surveillance Gonzague and two of the crew stored what the others brought out. Gun-tackle purchases were rigged by the foremast to take the heavier cases aboard. The men worked feverishly, and almost without sound, as if subdued by the fear of being heard. At the end of a couple of hours the Merle had only to fill her water-tanks and she would be ready for sea. The fog was by this time so thin that in the dim light of the yet unrisen sun Jack, as he stood in the rigging, could discern vaguely the form of the house on the Island. As he was considering the weather, Gonzague, his face red with exertion and his usually immaculate clothes stained and torn, came up hastily.
"Mistair Castleport, sair," he said, "I don' fin' any beeg funnel for de watter-tank. Dey mus' always feel dem from de watter-boat 'ose,—stick de en' into de deck-plate, I t'ink."
"How's that?" exclaimed Jack. "No funnel?"
The tender containing the first installments of the water-supply had already left the jetty, and Jack fell hastily to considering how the water was to be got out of the big unheaded casks into thetanks without its being dribbled in by the dipperful.
"Did you look everywhere?" he demanded.
"I look in de peak and go all de way aft to de run," replied the steward, "and all I find was de funnel in de kerosene-barrel. It ees too small, and it do fair reek wid de pairfume of de oil, sair."
"Is there any piping aboard? any hose?" Jack asked. "We might siphon it."
Gonzague shook his head, and at that moment the boat laden with water came alongside. Jack leaned over the rail.
"I say, Jerry," he called out, "there's no funnel to fill the tanks with. How the deuce can we make water-stowage?"
"Search me," returned Jerry with cheerful inelegance. "How should I know? Might use the megaphone."
"You're a genius!" roared Jack. "It'll do to a T!"
The keys were found, the caps unscrewed from the deck-plates, and the large papier-maché cone of the megaphone was set big-end-up over the orifice. Two men held it by the rim, while others kept it brimming with buckets of water bailed out of the casks. At the end of another hour both tanks were filled and the caps screwed down.
The Merle was ready for her long cruise. Jack was well satisfied with the sufficiency of her stores, as in addition to the plain provisions which he and Taberman had provided, the yacht had been most abundantly victualed by the President for her summer's cruising.
"Think of anything we've left, Jerry?" Jack asked.
"The President?" Tab suggested.
Jack's official seriousness went entirely to pieces at this suggestion, but he turned to the steward with an air of business.
"Have you got everything, Gonzague?"
"Yes, sair. I t'ink de leest is feel," the old man responded, closely regarding the dirty paper on which he had made his inventory and checked off each article as it came on board. Each item in the list had a black scratch beside it.
"Well, then," the captain said, with a spark in his eye, "we're off!"
He gave the word to clear the decks and to get under weigh.
The wind had come around to the west, and was blowing fresh. They made all sail, however, chancing the gusty squalls which they were likely to meet off the high land of Isle au Haut, which they meant to leave on the starboard. The foghad gone entirely, except for long ghostly wreaths clinging to the dark green gullies of the Haut or encircling the distant mountain-tops of Mt. Desert; and when the sun rose clear and fair, all auspices seemed most cheeringly propitious.
Jack took his departure from the Eastern Ear of the Haut, when it bore west-northwest three miles. At four that afternoon, when he and Jerry came on deck for time-sights, no land was to be seen.
Some three weeks after the morning when the Merle left the Island, Jack and Tab were sitting in the saloon, working out the sights they had just taken for longitude. It was shortly after eight o'clock in the morning; the air was warm, and had in it a suggestion of the south. Through the open skylight came a shaft of light which cast a brilliant patch on the green cushions on the port side of the cabin. As the yacht rolled or pitched easily over the long seas, the patch of light moved about,—up, down, fore, aft; now it glanced on the rich red sheathing, now on the transom, and again on the big table.
On the leeward side of this table the two men, dressed in canvas trousers and blue flannel shirts, were seated with their work lying before them. Between them lay several sheets of paper, parallel-rulers, the log-book in its brown duck cover, a copy of Norie open at the tables, and theAmerican "Ephemeris." A large sheet-chart of the North Atlantic, weighted with a pair of binoculars, was spread in front of Jack. A heavy line, full of zigzags and acute angles, and running nearly across this chart, represented the Merle's track. Presently Jack laid down the pencil with which he had been figuring, and reaching out for the "Epitome," turned to the table of functions.
"Through?" asked Tab, without looking up.
"'Most," returned Jack, running one finger down a column of figures as he glanced first at his paper and then at the book. "I have it now," he added, and after jotting down a number he pushed the volume over to Tab, went to a cupboard on the port side, and brought back a case of instruments. He took out a pair of long-legged dividers, and with these and the parallel rulers he bent over the chart a minute or two, until the silence was again broken by Jerry.
"What d' you get?" he asked.
"Nine-eighteen-fifteen," replied Jack. "What's yours?"
"Nine-sixteen-nought," answered Tab. "Wait a shake, I'll average them;" and he fell to figuring rapidly. "Mean is nine-seventeen-seven plus. Prick it off, and let's see where we're at—the D. R. latitude's thirty-six forty-eight."
They bent together over the chart. Jack carefully manipulated rulers and dividers, found the point, and marked it in red ink.
"She's making just over six knots now," he said. "We ought to make old Cape St. Vincent shortly. Let's put up these traps and go on deck."
They stowed the things in their several lockers, and went out together. The Merle was running along with a quartering breeze, under all lower sails, sliding easily over the long swell on the port tack.
"How about putting a lookout up aloft, Jack?" asked Tab. "We'll be raising the land pretty soon—if we're anywhere right in our reckoning, that is."
"All right," agreed Jack. "Step down and get a pair of glasses; I fancy Hunter has the best eyes of any of the men. I'll get hold of him."
Jerry disappeared below, and Jack walked along the windward side. The sea, rolling eastward in long, measured swells, reflected the sun from a myriad of glancing ripples that gleamed and glittered in the morning light. The sky, light blue and cloudless, looked like pale fire. On board the schooner the brass-work, as she rose and dipped in the troughs of the long seas, flashed and shonelike burnished gold. The white canvas caught the sunshine, while on the decks, still undried from their recent scrubbing, the putty in the curving seams showed sharply white. The four boats were inboard, turned bottom up and cross-lashed to the rail.
Castleport found the four men of the watch gathered in the peak, looking over the bows. He came up and saw that they were watching a school of dolphins that were keeping ahead of the yacht. The big fish seemed to vibrate. They sounded and leaped clear of the water, flashing and dripping with sparkling drops. A thousand colors rippled along their backs, as they turned and swayed, and they swung ahead like the very incarnation of frolic.
The captain saw the man he wanted standing on the port side, and called him to him.
"Hunter," he said, "go aft to Mr. Taberman; he'll give you a pair of glasses. Go aloft and keep a sharp lookout for land. We ought to raise it on the port bow."
The effect produced by this order was electrical. The four men whipped around and stared at Jack and at each other.
"Land!" exclaimed one with a foolish grin. "Land!"
Hunter touched his duck hat and flew aft; Jack followed more leisurely. In a couple of minutes Hunter was ensconced in the foretop, eagerly scanning the eastern horizon. Castleport settled himself in the sun on the leeward side of the cockpit, and filled his pipe. He had hardly lighted it and taken half a dozen whiffs, when from aloft rang out the magical cry, "Land!"
"Where away?" shouted the captain, leaping to his feet just as Tab appeared in the companion-way.
"Have we raised it, Jack? Have we raised it?" Tab demanded excitedly.
"Not yet, Tab. Just been sighted," returned Jack, peering up at the fore-crosstrees, and awaiting the lookout's answer to his hail.
"'Bout two points off the weather-bow," sang out Hunter from aloft. "Just a low bank. Looks like cliffs through glasses!"
"Come along, Tab!" cried Jack. "Let's go aloft and have a look at it."
They made their way quickly along the deck, gained the weather-shrouds, and ran up. The watch below had turned out, just as they were, half-dressed and bareheaded. Two of the men had run out to the bowsprit's end, and holding on to the topmast stay were looking over the luffof the flying-jib. Old Gonzague, venerable as Vanderdecken, his white hair stirred by the wind,—for he was as usual without a cap,—had already gained the main-trees, where he stood shading his eyes with one hand while he gripped the shrouds with the other.
"Where is it?" demanded Jerry, when he and Jack had reached the trees.
"There away, sir," Hunter answered, pointing as he passed the glasses to the captain.
With the unaided eye Jack and Jerry could discern, lying low on the eastern rim of the horizon, a faint brownish streak. With one arm about the topmast for support, Jack looked at the land through the glasses. At first, owing to the oscillation of the mast, he could not keep the brown streak in the field of vision, but in a moment he overcame this difficulty, and was able to make out a length of cliff of nearly uniform height, although split by numerous fjord-like bays. By its varied color—for he could see that the ribbon of shore was splashed with reds and blues—he decided that the land-fall was in the neighborhood of Cape St. Vincent.
"Have a look?" he asked, passing the glasses to Tab. "It's the Painted Cape, fast enough,—or close to it."
"What country is that, please, sir?" asked Hunter, in a tone almost of awe.
"Portugal," the captain answered. "Sou'-western point of the land. We'll have Spain aboard before eight bells this afternoon."
"By Grab, sir! Beg pardon, sir, but do them Portigee fishermen ye see to Boothbay an' Boston, do they come from hereaway?"
"Here or from the islands,—Cape Verde, the Canaries, or the Azores; here for the most part. You may go below, if you want, Hunter."
The man went, frequently pausing to look over his shoulder at the coast, glimpses of which could now be caught from the deck between the rolls.
After a brief consultation, the captain and the mate followed Hunter, and went aft to consult the chart. As they passed along the deck, they noted that all hands were much excited. These men, used as they were to the sea, had been fishermen of the purely local sort, and it was doubtful if any one of them save Gonzague had ever before been out of sight of the high land of his native place; and here they were, in view of a strange country where the people spoke outlandish jabber, and, for all they knew to the contrary, went about in toggery as ridiculous as that of the Chinese laundrymen at Green's Landing. Discussionbecame all the more heated when Hunter came down and told them that the land was one of the countless possessions belonging to the "Portigee king." Frequent appeals were made to Gonzague, who had descended, and was the centre of an excited group. As Tab remarked, it was a sight worth remembering to see these self-contained New Englanders in such a state.
Down below, Jack and Tab held a brief colloquy over the chart. They calculated, if the wind held, to make the Straits at nightfall, and run through by the aid of the lights on Cape Spartel and Tariffa. Having settled this point, they went on deck and had the course changed slightly.
"By Jumbo!" cried Jerry, banging his fist on the deck as he stood in the cockpit, "by Jumbo, I can't sleep a wink with this land in sight. Portugal, too! By Jove, it's all very fine," he ran on, "for ablaséold globe-trotter like you to keep cool, but I'm fair dry with it all."
Jack laughed, and reminded his friend of having lived in England and France, and of having traveled not a little in northern Europe.
"Pooh!" sniffed Tab. "That's not really doing anything; everybody does that. And to think," he burst out, "that we brought ourselves! God bless me, Jacko, I little thought when youcrammed me with navigation in vacation days aboard the old Luna that I'd ever use it all; really, that is, as we have used it these three weeks past."
"Well, I hope you're duly grateful," laughed Jack. "It may prove a source of bread and butter if you're ever stranded."
All that day the Merle ran along gallantly over the bright seas, occasionally passing ships of different nationalities bound in or out of the Straits. At sundown, although the bold coast of Morocco was not yet in sight, a lookout was sent aloft to watch for the light on Cape Spartel.
At a little before nine o'clock in the evening, the breeze had so died down that the yacht hardly had steerage-way. Jack was asleep below; Tab had charge of the deck. What air there was was soft and warm. It had hauled around a couple of points against the sun, and was now fragrant with a faint tellurian odor, which would have been imperceptible to a landsman, but which was full of meaning to those who follow the sea. Overhead the great stars blazed in lustrous serenity. Their images kept appearing and vanishing on the now smooth and oily surface of the restless sea. The only sounds were those of the water and thecordage,—the sudden spanking of a big wave under the counter as the yacht flung her nose starward; the occasional crashing of the great booms and traveler-blocks as she righted suddenly after a heavy roll to port or a lurch to starboard; the pattering of the reef-points against the canvas; and the sharp reports made by the slatting of the lazy-jacks against the sails.
In the west, growing smaller and smaller in the distance, the receding stern-light of an Italian steamship glimmered faintly. Taberman watched it long after it kept sinking out of sight and again rising in the weltering seas, and until it at last vanished as if quenched. He was following out certain grim speculations as to the feelings of a forsaken swimmer who should watch this star of his hope moving relentlessly away into the west, grower fainter each time it emerged from the waves, when—
"Light ho!" shouted the lookout from the darkness aloft. "There's—light; 'bout—point—off—starb'd—bow!"
"What kind?" hailed Jerry from the deck, straining his eyes to where, a dim blot against the stars, the figure of the lookout could be discerned standing by the rigging on the cross-trees.
"Fixed white, red flash," called the man.
"All right," shouted Jerry; and added in his ordinary tone of command to the hands on deck: "Lay along, now! Trim in main-sheet a bit—well enough. Now then, fore and head sheets. Good. That'll do.—We want to get what air there is," he added to himself.
Although the wind was slight, yet about the Straits is always a strongish set of current. The surface current flows into the Mediterranean continuously, and it kept setting the Merle steadily ahead. When Taberman judged the light to be no more than five or six knots away, he sent below to rouse the captain, who was asleep. When Castleport came on deck, the bearing of the light was taken, the chart consulted, and a slight change made in the course. It was now calm, and the yacht, no longer steadied by the wind, rolled heavily.
"We ought to see it air up before long," remarked Jack, after a short silence. "It's so beastly calm now. When it's calm on one side of the Straits, it's always blowing on the other. An Italian sea captain told me there is always just so much air about here, and however much or little is on one side, the balance is always kicking about on the other."
"Then we'll take the sticks out of her, oncewe're through the Straits," Jerry responded with conviction.
As the schooner entered the Straits, the blue-black sky to the eastward became dimly albescent, and shortly a blood-red moon rose slowly behind the inky mass of Monkey Mountain. The huge pile of rock, the more impressive though the less famous of the Pillars of Hercules, loomed vast, mysterious, and perdurable in the soft darkness. The waves, as the face of the moon cleared, were lit with a gray light.
Suddenly, as a long, smooth swell shouldered the yacht past the edge of a small promontory, they opened out the lights of Tangiers on the starboard beam. The moon as yet illuminated only the western half of the scarped bowl in which lie the little villas which surround the town. The scattered lights on the east side of the valley were accentuated by the surrounding gloom.
"There's Tangiers," cried Jack. "There's old Tangiers."
"Those lights?" asked Jerry. "What sort of a place is it?"
"Jolly little hole. All white and pink in the daytime, with red tile roofs. Hot as Tophet, though. There's Tariffa, boy! That's Tariffa over there."
They excitedly discussed the points along theirway. To Jerry it was all new, but Jack had traveled a good deal about the Mediterranean, and was well able to play the mentor. For an hour they talked, and the Merle drifted with the current; but they had not passed out of the shadow of Monkey Mountain before a faint breath of air stirred the headsails. It came stealing down out of the upper canvas, hot and dry.
"By Jove!" cried Jack, "we'll have all the wind we want in a bit. You can tell how hard it is blowing outside the Straits by the distances it reaches in."
Then he raised his voice, and called to the watch,—
"Hello there! Clew up the topsails! Pass gaskets on them!"
The men, who had a dog-like trust in the captain, obeyed quickly, though from the remarks they interchangedsotto voceit was easy to see that the order puzzled them. When everything was made snug aloft, Jack had a reef tucked in the main and foresails, and the outer headsails stowed.
Still no wind. The schooner slowly moved along the edge of the great shadow of the mountain, only her topmast trucks and the peak of her mainsail silvered by the moonlight.
A dull, hoarse whisper, faint and continuous,was now audible ahead. It grew louder by very slow degrees, and Jerry, unused as he was to Mediterranean weather, knew it for the roar of a mighty wind. In the moonlight ahead the waters appeared troubled, the hard-heaving seas being strangely and almost weirdly demarked from the calm in which the Merle rolled forward languidly. All at once, as the yacht emerged from the obscurity of the mountain's shadow, a sudden gust of warm air struck her without warning, and heeled her lee-rail under.
"Hard down!" roared Jack.
Jerry leaped to the wheel, and it took all the force of himself and the helmsman to put the helm hard-a-lee. The Merle righted, and being unusually quick, flew into the eye of the wind. From the threshing sails came a thunderous volley of heavy boomings. The sheet-blocks were whipped to and fro with such violence that twice Jack saw red sparks struck from the fore-traveler guard. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the wind left, and it was only by the way she had gathered that the helmsman could pay the yacht off.
"We are going to catch it for fair," Jack said. "Best dowse the foresail entirely, I fancy. Pass the word along to Gonzague to make all snugbelow. Jerry, step into the cabin and make sure of the course from off Ceuta to Port Mahon."
"Right-o," answered Jerry briskly, diving down.
"Get down the fores'l!" shouted the captain to the men.
"Helm up a bit there—steady! That's the talk! Get all the stops on.—Now then—make fast that sheet there."
The Merle was hardly on her course again when a second squall struck her. Her canvas having been reduced, however, the helmsman kept her broadside to it. The yacht's strongest point was the quickness with which she gathered way, and on this occasion, when nine tenths of her class would simply have lain over and quivered, she rushed ahead with the fury of an avenging goddess. When the hot flaw left her, she was at the very last verge of the calm water.
"Stand by the main-sheet to square off when she meets it!" shouted Jack.
The men had hardly time to get to their stations before a third squall caught the Merle and sent her tearing over the line into the full strength of the wind. The air, hot from the desert, and laden with fine, parching dust, sang in the shrouds and the running-rigging. It slashed the salt spindriftin the smarting faces of the men. The seas grew suddenly confounding in size; huge weltering masses—tons—of greenly black water wallowed without rhythm all about the yacht, up as high as the light-boards. To a landsman it would have seemed impossible that thus scourged by the sirocco across these maddened seas the schooner should escape destruction.
The sheets were started, the yacht was paid off before the wind, and began the last stretch of her run. Tab came on deck with the course, staggering and holding on, and shouted it into Jack's ear. Jack nodded, and gave orders for setting it, a fresh departure being taken from the light on the mole at Ceuta.
The Merle ran close in on the eastern side of Gibraltar. The great rock, sheer and silver-gray in the moonlight, rose out of the raging seas which ringed it about with a zone of roaring breakers. Grimly self-reliant, it stood grand, silent, stupendous, unassailable in the midst of the turmoil and uproar. As the yacht raced by, staggering under her reefed canvas, Taberman regarded the rock, in face of which their craft seemed a mere mote on the blast, with a feeling as near awe as it is possible for buoyant youth to feel. He did not speak until the Merle had swept past therock-hewn fortress. Then he drew a deep breath and bent over so that Jack could hear him amid the hissing of the sirocco.
"That's immense, Jack, isn't it?" he said.
Without taking his eyes from the throat of the mainsail he was watching as a physician at a crisis watches the pulse of a patient, Jack nodded a deep assent.
At times the Merle seemed fairly to leap like a flying fish from one wave-crest to the next in her northeasterly flight.