Chapter Five.Luggage Aboard.Inquisitive ways indeed, for as the evening drew near there was the American still smoking as he sat in a deck chair watching the crew of the “Jason” busily getting the packages belonging to the brothers on board.Brace had made up his mind to see the luggage and stores placed on board the brig, which had now been warped alongside one of the wharves; but, on going out from the hotel and catching sight of the American, he went back and joined his brother, who was having a long final chat with Captain Banes.Consequently, so to speak, the American had a clear course, and he sat in the deck chair he had borrowed, smoking cigar after cigar, as if, like a steamer, he could not get on with the simplest thing without sending up vapour into the hot air.But he did not sit in silence, for his tongue ran on, and he found something to say to the second mate, who was superintending the getting on board of what he called the passengers’ “traps,” and something else to every man of the busy crew, who, in consequence of a hint given by Captain Banes to his first officer, carefully took everything on board themselves, without invoking any of the black or coolie labour to be obtained upon the wharf.“He’s a rum one, my lads,” said the second mate to the men. “Let him talk: it pleases him, and it don’t do you any harm.”“All right, sir,” said one of the sailors: “I don’t mind. He’s pretty free with the terbacker.”“What?” said the mate, putting his hand in his pocket and fingering one of half a dozen cigars lying loose therein: “has he given you some?”“Yes, sir, a lot: says it’s real Virginny.”“Humph!” ejaculated the mate. “Must be pretty well off.—Mind those chests, my lad. Those are ammunition.”The men went on unloading a rough truck piled up with chests, portmanteaux, and cases of various kinds, before attacking a second truck-load, while the American sat lolling back in his chair, smoking away, his eyes twinkling as he scanned each package in turn and watched for every opportunity to have a word with the busy mate, never letting a chance go by.“Why, lufftenant,” he said, “why don’t you smoke and make your miserable life happy?”“Because I’m at work,” said the mate bluffly.“My skipper don’t stand smoking when we’re busy.”“Don’t he now? Bit of a tyrant, I suppose,” said the American.“Humph!” ejaculated the mate gruffly.“I like him, though,” said the American: “seems to know the ropes.”“Oh, yes, he knows the ropes,” said the mate. “Easy there with that chest.”“Easy it is, sir.”“Now, I wonder what’s in that case,” said the American. “It’s marked with two X’s and a cross and SpG and OG. Now, what would that be, lufftenant?”“Dunno,” replied the mate. “Rareohs for meddlers, I should say, sir.”“Should you now?” said the American drily. “I shouldn’t. Yes, I like your skipper, and I should have liked to have a voyage with him.”“Pity you didn’t, sir,” said the mate.“Yes, that’s jest how I feel; but I was too late. They’re taking a deal of luggage with ’em, ain’t they?”“Yes,” said the mate, as the men had the empty truck wheeled out of the way and attacked the next. “A pretty tidy lot, and it’s heavy too.”“Seems to be,” said the American. “Fine lot o’ gun tackle, ammunition, and suchlike. Wish I’d been going too.”“Wish you had, sir,” said the mate, fingering the presentation cigars, and then to himself: “What a whopping fib! I wouldn’t sail in the same craft with such a nuisance.”“I’d tell my men not to let that case of cartridges down if I was you, lufftenant,” said the American, as the men raised a heavy chest.“What case of cartridges?” said the mate, turning sharply. “Humph I didn’t know that was ammunition.”“Looks like it,” said the would-be passenger drily.“’Tarn’t branded,” said the mate. “Oh, yes, it is. But what fool marked it there at the bottom instead of the top?”“I reckon that is the top,” said the American, taking his cigar from his lips to send forth a great puff of smoke.The loading and unloading went on, the heavy packages being swung on board by means of a crane, the lighter being carried over a gangway on the sailors’ backs; and as fast as they reached the brig’s decks they were lowered through an open hatch.As the packages were taken off the truck, the American’s eyes twinkled, and he had something to say about each.“Strange deal of baggage,” he said, when nearly all was on board. “Must say it’s a big lot for two passengers.”“More than you’ve got, sir?” said the mate.“Twice as much, lufftenant. But hullo, what have you got there—barrel o’ brandy?”“No,” said the mate roughly; “it isn’t juicy: it’s dry.”“That’s queer, lufftenant, but so it is: there’s holes in the top. What do they mean?”“I haven’t been inside, sir,” said the mate roughly.“Ain’t you though? Well, I s’pose not. Ain’t anything alive, though, is it?”“Alive? Pooh! Ventilation holes to keep the things from fermenting. I dessay it’s something in the eating line.”“Be nice too, I dessay,” said the American. “Wish I was going. I should like to have had some of that. Anyhow, mister, I think I’d be careful with that hogshead in case your men might let it go down. It’d be a pity to spoil it by letting it slip ’twixt the wharf and the ship.”“We’ll take care of that, sir,” said the mate, as the chains were hitched to the barrel and it rose slowly from the stones of the wharf, swinging slowly in a half-circle, and was lowered through the deck of the brig.“There we are,” said the mate, with a laugh, as he turned to the American.“Yes, there you are, lufftenant. Bit heavy, wasn’t it?”“Oh, no, nothing much.—Now, my lads, look alive!”There was a chorus of: “Ay, ay, sir!” and a few minutes later the contents of the last truck were reposing in the partitioned-off space in the brig’s hold.Then, and then only, the second mate turned to the American, and, taking out one of the cigars presented to him, bit off the end.“Now,” he said, “work done, play begins. I’ll trouble you for a light.”“A light? Oh, certainly, lufftenant,” replied the American, handing his match-box. “You’ll like those cigars. They’re good ones.”“I’m sure of that,” said the mate.“Stop ashore, and have a bit of dinner with me up at the hotel.”“You’re very good,” said the mate; “but I must get back on board. There’s a lot to do. I expect we shall drop down the river to-night.”“Eh? Soon as that?”“Yes. The skipper is off to sea.”“Oh, but you might find time for that. A man must eat. Ask the boss to give you leave.”“Humph! I hardly like to ask him, as the time for sailing is so near; but well, there, I will.”“That’s right. Come and dine at the hotel just for a pleasant chat. Wish I’d been coming with you on your voyage.”“I begin to wish you were,” said the mate, smiling. “You’d have found me handy when you wanted to ask questions.”The American looked at the speaker keenly, and then smiled.“I understand,” he said. “So you think I ask a lot?”“Well, yes,” said the mate, laughing. “You are pretty good at it.”“I suppose so. Way I’ve got. Pick up knowledge that how. Seems to me the way to learn. Hullo! What are they doing with your ship?”“Warping her out again so as to be ready for dropping down when we start.”“Is that better than going off from the wharf?”“Yes, a dear; but excuse me: there’s the skipper yonder. I’ll go and tell him I want to be off for a few hours.”“You do,” said the American, “and you’ll find me here when you come back.”“If the skipper knows where I want to go,” thought the mate, “he’ll say no directly, for he hates that Yankee, so I won’t say anything about him. Not a bad sort of fellow when you come to know him; but of all the inquisitive Paul Prys I ever met he’s about the worst. Never mind: he has asked me to dinner, and I’ll go.”The next minute the mate was face to face with Captain Banes.“Ah, Lynton,” cried the skipper, “there you are, then. Got the gentlemen’s tackle and things on board?”“Yes, sir, all on board.”“That’s right. We shall drop down the river about one; so see that all’s right.”“All is right, sir, and I want you to spare me for three or four hours.”“Spare you to-night?”“Yes. I want to dine with a friend.”The skipper raised his eyebrows and stared.“Want to dine with a friend? Why—oh, well, I’m not going to imitate that Yankee and ask questions about what doesn’t concern me. I was going to ask you to join us in the cabin, to meet the gentlemen; but that will do another time. Yes, of course, Lynton, and I wish you a pleasant evening; but no nonsense: I sail at the time I told you.”“And if I’m not back you’ll sail without me?”“That’s right.”“No fear, sir,” said the mate.“I know there isn’t, my lad, or I should have said no. I’ll tell Dellow to send a boat ashore for you at ten.”The skipper walked off leaving the mate looking after him and frowning.“He needn’t have been so nasty about it. But he wouldn’t sail without me if I were not back.”The mate did not stir till he had seen Captain Banes on board. Then and then only he went in search of the American, but did not find him, and after a certain amount of search and enquiry he was walking along with overcast brow, thinking that there was some cause for the skipper’s dislike to his host in prospective, and that the American was a bit of an impostor, when he came suddenly upon Sir Humphrey and his brother, followed by one of the men from the hotel carrying a portmanteau, and on their way to the brig.“Wonder whether they’ll know me again?” thought the mate; but the next moment he ceased to wonder, for he received a friendly nod from both as he passed them and went on to the hotel to enquire whether anything was known about the American gentleman there.“Mr Franklyn Briscoe?” was the answer. “Oh, yes, he’s coming in here to stay now those two gentlemen are gone. He has ordered a dinner for himself and a friend.”“Oh, here you are then,” came from behind him the next moment. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”“So have I for you,” said Lynton, rather surlily.“Oh, I see. I am sorry. You see, I had to find a place where they would give us some dinner. Here, come into my room. This is the place. It won’t be a New York nor a London dinner, but it’s the best I can do here, and it won’t spoil our chat.”“Of course not,” replied Lynton, “and I came for that more than for the eating and drinking.”“That’s right,” said the American bluffly. “There, come on: this is my room now those Englishmen are gone.”The mate followed his host, and after a certain amount of patient waiting the dinner was brought in, and he found the American friendly in the extreme, so that the time passed quickly, and the hour of departure was close at hand with the guest wishing that he had asked the captain to make the hour eleven instead of ten for the boat to be sent ashore from the brig, which was once more swinging from the buoy in mid-stream.
Inquisitive ways indeed, for as the evening drew near there was the American still smoking as he sat in a deck chair watching the crew of the “Jason” busily getting the packages belonging to the brothers on board.
Brace had made up his mind to see the luggage and stores placed on board the brig, which had now been warped alongside one of the wharves; but, on going out from the hotel and catching sight of the American, he went back and joined his brother, who was having a long final chat with Captain Banes.
Consequently, so to speak, the American had a clear course, and he sat in the deck chair he had borrowed, smoking cigar after cigar, as if, like a steamer, he could not get on with the simplest thing without sending up vapour into the hot air.
But he did not sit in silence, for his tongue ran on, and he found something to say to the second mate, who was superintending the getting on board of what he called the passengers’ “traps,” and something else to every man of the busy crew, who, in consequence of a hint given by Captain Banes to his first officer, carefully took everything on board themselves, without invoking any of the black or coolie labour to be obtained upon the wharf.
“He’s a rum one, my lads,” said the second mate to the men. “Let him talk: it pleases him, and it don’t do you any harm.”
“All right, sir,” said one of the sailors: “I don’t mind. He’s pretty free with the terbacker.”
“What?” said the mate, putting his hand in his pocket and fingering one of half a dozen cigars lying loose therein: “has he given you some?”
“Yes, sir, a lot: says it’s real Virginny.”
“Humph!” ejaculated the mate. “Must be pretty well off.—Mind those chests, my lad. Those are ammunition.”
The men went on unloading a rough truck piled up with chests, portmanteaux, and cases of various kinds, before attacking a second truck-load, while the American sat lolling back in his chair, smoking away, his eyes twinkling as he scanned each package in turn and watched for every opportunity to have a word with the busy mate, never letting a chance go by.
“Why, lufftenant,” he said, “why don’t you smoke and make your miserable life happy?”
“Because I’m at work,” said the mate bluffly.
“My skipper don’t stand smoking when we’re busy.”
“Don’t he now? Bit of a tyrant, I suppose,” said the American.
“Humph!” ejaculated the mate gruffly.
“I like him, though,” said the American: “seems to know the ropes.”
“Oh, yes, he knows the ropes,” said the mate. “Easy there with that chest.”
“Easy it is, sir.”
“Now, I wonder what’s in that case,” said the American. “It’s marked with two X’s and a cross and SpG and OG. Now, what would that be, lufftenant?”
“Dunno,” replied the mate. “Rareohs for meddlers, I should say, sir.”
“Should you now?” said the American drily. “I shouldn’t. Yes, I like your skipper, and I should have liked to have a voyage with him.”
“Pity you didn’t, sir,” said the mate.
“Yes, that’s jest how I feel; but I was too late. They’re taking a deal of luggage with ’em, ain’t they?”
“Yes,” said the mate, as the men had the empty truck wheeled out of the way and attacked the next. “A pretty tidy lot, and it’s heavy too.”
“Seems to be,” said the American. “Fine lot o’ gun tackle, ammunition, and suchlike. Wish I’d been going too.”
“Wish you had, sir,” said the mate, fingering the presentation cigars, and then to himself: “What a whopping fib! I wouldn’t sail in the same craft with such a nuisance.”
“I’d tell my men not to let that case of cartridges down if I was you, lufftenant,” said the American, as the men raised a heavy chest.
“What case of cartridges?” said the mate, turning sharply. “Humph I didn’t know that was ammunition.”
“Looks like it,” said the would-be passenger drily.
“’Tarn’t branded,” said the mate. “Oh, yes, it is. But what fool marked it there at the bottom instead of the top?”
“I reckon that is the top,” said the American, taking his cigar from his lips to send forth a great puff of smoke.
The loading and unloading went on, the heavy packages being swung on board by means of a crane, the lighter being carried over a gangway on the sailors’ backs; and as fast as they reached the brig’s decks they were lowered through an open hatch.
As the packages were taken off the truck, the American’s eyes twinkled, and he had something to say about each.
“Strange deal of baggage,” he said, when nearly all was on board. “Must say it’s a big lot for two passengers.”
“More than you’ve got, sir?” said the mate.
“Twice as much, lufftenant. But hullo, what have you got there—barrel o’ brandy?”
“No,” said the mate roughly; “it isn’t juicy: it’s dry.”
“That’s queer, lufftenant, but so it is: there’s holes in the top. What do they mean?”
“I haven’t been inside, sir,” said the mate roughly.
“Ain’t you though? Well, I s’pose not. Ain’t anything alive, though, is it?”
“Alive? Pooh! Ventilation holes to keep the things from fermenting. I dessay it’s something in the eating line.”
“Be nice too, I dessay,” said the American. “Wish I was going. I should like to have had some of that. Anyhow, mister, I think I’d be careful with that hogshead in case your men might let it go down. It’d be a pity to spoil it by letting it slip ’twixt the wharf and the ship.”
“We’ll take care of that, sir,” said the mate, as the chains were hitched to the barrel and it rose slowly from the stones of the wharf, swinging slowly in a half-circle, and was lowered through the deck of the brig.
“There we are,” said the mate, with a laugh, as he turned to the American.
“Yes, there you are, lufftenant. Bit heavy, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, no, nothing much.—Now, my lads, look alive!”
There was a chorus of: “Ay, ay, sir!” and a few minutes later the contents of the last truck were reposing in the partitioned-off space in the brig’s hold.
Then, and then only, the second mate turned to the American, and, taking out one of the cigars presented to him, bit off the end.
“Now,” he said, “work done, play begins. I’ll trouble you for a light.”
“A light? Oh, certainly, lufftenant,” replied the American, handing his match-box. “You’ll like those cigars. They’re good ones.”
“I’m sure of that,” said the mate.
“Stop ashore, and have a bit of dinner with me up at the hotel.”
“You’re very good,” said the mate; “but I must get back on board. There’s a lot to do. I expect we shall drop down the river to-night.”
“Eh? Soon as that?”
“Yes. The skipper is off to sea.”
“Oh, but you might find time for that. A man must eat. Ask the boss to give you leave.”
“Humph! I hardly like to ask him, as the time for sailing is so near; but well, there, I will.”
“That’s right. Come and dine at the hotel just for a pleasant chat. Wish I’d been coming with you on your voyage.”
“I begin to wish you were,” said the mate, smiling. “You’d have found me handy when you wanted to ask questions.”
The American looked at the speaker keenly, and then smiled.
“I understand,” he said. “So you think I ask a lot?”
“Well, yes,” said the mate, laughing. “You are pretty good at it.”
“I suppose so. Way I’ve got. Pick up knowledge that how. Seems to me the way to learn. Hullo! What are they doing with your ship?”
“Warping her out again so as to be ready for dropping down when we start.”
“Is that better than going off from the wharf?”
“Yes, a dear; but excuse me: there’s the skipper yonder. I’ll go and tell him I want to be off for a few hours.”
“You do,” said the American, “and you’ll find me here when you come back.”
“If the skipper knows where I want to go,” thought the mate, “he’ll say no directly, for he hates that Yankee, so I won’t say anything about him. Not a bad sort of fellow when you come to know him; but of all the inquisitive Paul Prys I ever met he’s about the worst. Never mind: he has asked me to dinner, and I’ll go.”
The next minute the mate was face to face with Captain Banes.
“Ah, Lynton,” cried the skipper, “there you are, then. Got the gentlemen’s tackle and things on board?”
“Yes, sir, all on board.”
“That’s right. We shall drop down the river about one; so see that all’s right.”
“All is right, sir, and I want you to spare me for three or four hours.”
“Spare you to-night?”
“Yes. I want to dine with a friend.”
The skipper raised his eyebrows and stared.
“Want to dine with a friend? Why—oh, well, I’m not going to imitate that Yankee and ask questions about what doesn’t concern me. I was going to ask you to join us in the cabin, to meet the gentlemen; but that will do another time. Yes, of course, Lynton, and I wish you a pleasant evening; but no nonsense: I sail at the time I told you.”
“And if I’m not back you’ll sail without me?”
“That’s right.”
“No fear, sir,” said the mate.
“I know there isn’t, my lad, or I should have said no. I’ll tell Dellow to send a boat ashore for you at ten.”
The skipper walked off leaving the mate looking after him and frowning.
“He needn’t have been so nasty about it. But he wouldn’t sail without me if I were not back.”
The mate did not stir till he had seen Captain Banes on board. Then and then only he went in search of the American, but did not find him, and after a certain amount of search and enquiry he was walking along with overcast brow, thinking that there was some cause for the skipper’s dislike to his host in prospective, and that the American was a bit of an impostor, when he came suddenly upon Sir Humphrey and his brother, followed by one of the men from the hotel carrying a portmanteau, and on their way to the brig.
“Wonder whether they’ll know me again?” thought the mate; but the next moment he ceased to wonder, for he received a friendly nod from both as he passed them and went on to the hotel to enquire whether anything was known about the American gentleman there.
“Mr Franklyn Briscoe?” was the answer. “Oh, yes, he’s coming in here to stay now those two gentlemen are gone. He has ordered a dinner for himself and a friend.”
“Oh, here you are then,” came from behind him the next moment. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
“So have I for you,” said Lynton, rather surlily.
“Oh, I see. I am sorry. You see, I had to find a place where they would give us some dinner. Here, come into my room. This is the place. It won’t be a New York nor a London dinner, but it’s the best I can do here, and it won’t spoil our chat.”
“Of course not,” replied Lynton, “and I came for that more than for the eating and drinking.”
“That’s right,” said the American bluffly. “There, come on: this is my room now those Englishmen are gone.”
The mate followed his host, and after a certain amount of patient waiting the dinner was brought in, and he found the American friendly in the extreme, so that the time passed quickly, and the hour of departure was close at hand with the guest wishing that he had asked the captain to make the hour eleven instead of ten for the boat to be sent ashore from the brig, which was once more swinging from the buoy in mid-stream.
Chapter Six.The First Night on the Brig.“The night is pleasanter out here on the river, captain,” said Sir Humphrey, as he sat with his brother on the deck in company with the captain and the first mate.“Yes, sir, one can breathe,” said the gentleman addressed, “and I can always breathe better out at sea than I can in a river. Well, have you thought of anything else you want from the shore, for time’s getting on?”“No; I have been quite prepared for days,” replied Sir Humphrey. “What about you, Brace?”“Oh, I’m ready,” was the reply: “as ready as Captain Banes.”“But I’m not, my lad,” said the captain. “I can’t sail without my second officer. By the way, Dellow, did you give orders for the boat to go ashore for Lynton at ten o’clock town time?”“I?” said the first officer staring in the dim light cast by the swinging lanthorn under which they sat talking. “No. Do you want one sent?”“Of course,” said the captain tartly. “I told you to send one.”“I beg pardon, sir,” replied the first officer. “When?”“Tut, tut, tut!” cried the captain angrily, as he glanced at his watch. “When I came aboard: and it’s now half an hour later. How came you to forget?”“Well, really, sir—” began the first mate warmly. “Tut, tut, tut! bless my heart!” cried the captain. “Really, Dellow, I beg your pardon. It quite slipped my memory.”“Indeed, sir,” said the first officer stiffly. “It did not slip mine.”“No. How absurd. I forgot all about Lynton. Send a boat ashore at once to fetch him off to the brig. He must be waiting.”“No, sir, he’s not waiting, or he would have hailed,” said the first officer, as he strolled off to give the orders, while the two passengers, being tired after a very busy day, bade the captain “good night,” and went below.“You won’t sit up to see us start, then?” said the skipper.“No, for there will be nothing particular to see,” replied Sir Humphrey. “I’ll keep my admiration till we are well out at sea.”“And that will be at breakfast-time to-morrow morning, gentlemen. I should not mind turning in for good myself. As it is, I’m just going down to snatch a couple of hours before Dellow comes and rouses me up.”As Brace Leigh and his brother closed the door of their cabin the former saw the captain in the act of lying down upon one of the lockers, and as, about half an hour after, Brace lay awake listening to the strange sounds of the night which came through the open window, he distinctly heard the plash of oars, and soon afterwards the rubbing of a boat against the brig’s side, followed by sips on deck, then upon the stairs.After that there was a rustling sound as of someone passing into a cabin and closing the door, while after a little pacing about all was still on deck, and then a cloud of darkness seemed to come suddenly over the young man’s brain, one which did not pass away for many hours, and not even then till his brother took him by the shoulder and shook him.“Come, Brace, lad, wake up. Going to sleep all day?”“No, no,” cried the young man, springing out of his berth. “Why, the sun’s up!”“Yes, long enough ago. I’ve been sleeping as soundly as you, and the cook has been to say that breakfast will soon be ready.”“How stupid! I meant to have been on deck at daybreak. Where are we—out at sea?”“No; as far as I can make out we are not above a mile or two below the town, and at anchor.”“Why’s that?” said Brace, who was dressing hurriedly.“I don’t know, unless the skipper is repenting of his bargain. I was afraid he was too easy over everything.”“Oh, don’t say that,” cried Brace, in a disappointed tone.The brothers were not long before they stepped on deck, to find all hands looking anxious and strange of aspect, as they stood watching the captain and first officer.“Good morning, captain,” said Sir Humphrey warmly. “Why, I thought we were to be out at sea by now.”“It’s a bad morning, gentlemen,” said the captain, frowning, “and I don’t see how we are to start.”“What!” said Sir Humphrey, frowning and speaking angrily.“Ah, I thought you’d take it that way, sir,” said the skipper, scowling; “but you’re wrong. I’m not going back on what I said.”“Then what does this mean?”“It means, sir, that I’ve lost Jem Lynton, my second mate.”“Lost him?” said Brace quickly. “Why, he stopped ashore to spend the evening with somebody.”“That’s right, squire.”“You mean he hasn’t come back,” said Brace contemptuously.“No, I don’t, sir,” said the captain; “because he did come back.”“But you said you had lost him,” cried Brace.“That’s right, sir: so I have,” the captain answered. “He was to be fetched back from the shore, as you heard last night.”“Yes, I heard you tell Mr Dellow to send the boat for him,” said Brace. “Well?”“Boat was sent, sir, and the men say they brought him aboard. That’s right, isn’t it, Dellow?” and the captain turned round to his first officer.“Quite,” said the first mate, who looked very much disturbed, and kept on wiping his dewy forehead with the back of his hand.“Tell ’em,” said the captain. “Speak out.”“Tom Jinks was with the boat, gen’lemen,” said the first mate slowly; “and he says Mr Lynton come down a bit rolly, as if he’d had too much dinner. He’d got his collar turned up and his straw hat rammed down over his eyes. Never said a single word, on’y grunted as he got into the boat, and give another grunt as he got out and up the side. Then he went below directly, and they’ve seen no more of him!”“Tell ’em you didn’t either,” said the captain.“No, I didn’t neither,” said the mate.“To make it short, gentlemen,” said the captain, “Dick Dellow here went on deck about one to cast off and go downstream in the moonlight, and sent the boy to rouse me up; and when I come on deck Dick says: ‘Jem Lynton don’t show his nose yet.’ I didn’t say anything then, for I was too busy thinking, being a bit sour and gruff about Jem, and with having to get up in the middle of the night; and then I was too busy over getting off with a bit o’ sail on just for steering. Then I felt better and ready to excuse the poor chap, for I said, half-laughing like, to Dick Dellow here: ‘Jem aren’t used to going out to dinners. Let him sleep it off. He’ll have a bad headache in the morning, and then I’ll bully him. He won’t want to go to any more dinners just before leaving port, setting a bad example to the men.’”“Then, to make it shorter still,” said Brace, “the second mate did not come back?”“Didn’t I tell you he did come back, sir?” said the mate huskily.“Yes, but—” began Brace.“You don’t mean to say—” began Sir Humphrey.“Yes, gentlemen, that’s what I do mean to say,” growled the captain. “He came aboard right enough, and went below. Nobody saw him come up again, and there’s his bed all tumbled like. But he must have come up again and fallen overboard, for he isn’t here now; and as soon as we found it out I give the order to drop anchor, and here we are.”“But how did you happen to find it out?” said Sir Humphrey.“Tell him, Dick,” said the captain.The first mate shrugged his shoulders, and said gloomily:“It was like this, gen’lemen. The skipper said one thing, but I says to myself another. ‘Jem Lynton’s no business to go off ashore the night we’re going to sail,’ I says, ‘and I shan’t go on doing his work and leaving him sleeping below there like a pig.’ So I waited till the skipper was busy forward talking to the look-out, and then I slips down below to get hold of poor old Jem by the hind leg and drop him on the floor.”“Yes?” said Brace, for the mate stopped.“Well, sir, I goes to the side of his berth, holds out my right hand—nay, I won’t swear it was my right hand, because it might have been my left; but whichever it was, it stood out quite stiff, and me with it, for there was no Jem Lynton there: only the blanket pulled out like, and half of it on the floor.”“One moment,” said Sir Humphrey. “The second mate slept in your cabin?”“Yes, sir. I see what you mean. Did I see him? Yes, I did, fast asleep and snoring, with his back to me.”“And when you went down again he was not there?”“That’s it, gentlemen,” said the captain, breaking in; “and he’s not aboard now. There’s only one way o’ looking at it: the poor fellow must have been took bad in the night, got up and gone on deck, and fell overboard.”“Horrible!” exclaimed Brace.“That’s right, sir. Soon as Richard Dellow here found it out he come up to me on deck and give me a horrid turn. ‘Poor Jem’s drowned,’ he says, ‘for he aren’t down below.’”“But have you thoroughly searched the vessel?” cried Brace.“Searched, squire?” replied the captain. “Where is there to search? He wasn’t here, and as soon as I could think a bit I let go the anchor, for we must go back to Johnstown and give notice, so that an enquiry can be made. Not that there’s anything to enquire about, for it’s all as plain as a pikestaff. I don’t know what I could be thinking about to let him go, when he ought to have been aboard at his work; but I didn’t want to be hard. There, you know all we know, gen’lemen, and as soon as the tide begins to make we must run back to port, for we can’t do anything more till that bit o’ business is settled.”Sir Humphrey and his brother were silent, for there seemed to be nothing to say in face of such a terrible catastrophe; and, as if moved by a mutual desire to separate, while the brothers walked forward towards where the crew were gathered together watching them, the captain and mate went aft, the former shaking his head sadly, the latter looking terribly depressed and out of heart.
“The night is pleasanter out here on the river, captain,” said Sir Humphrey, as he sat with his brother on the deck in company with the captain and the first mate.
“Yes, sir, one can breathe,” said the gentleman addressed, “and I can always breathe better out at sea than I can in a river. Well, have you thought of anything else you want from the shore, for time’s getting on?”
“No; I have been quite prepared for days,” replied Sir Humphrey. “What about you, Brace?”
“Oh, I’m ready,” was the reply: “as ready as Captain Banes.”
“But I’m not, my lad,” said the captain. “I can’t sail without my second officer. By the way, Dellow, did you give orders for the boat to go ashore for Lynton at ten o’clock town time?”
“I?” said the first officer staring in the dim light cast by the swinging lanthorn under which they sat talking. “No. Do you want one sent?”
“Of course,” said the captain tartly. “I told you to send one.”
“I beg pardon, sir,” replied the first officer. “When?”
“Tut, tut, tut!” cried the captain angrily, as he glanced at his watch. “When I came aboard: and it’s now half an hour later. How came you to forget?”
“Well, really, sir—” began the first mate warmly. “Tut, tut, tut! bless my heart!” cried the captain. “Really, Dellow, I beg your pardon. It quite slipped my memory.”
“Indeed, sir,” said the first officer stiffly. “It did not slip mine.”
“No. How absurd. I forgot all about Lynton. Send a boat ashore at once to fetch him off to the brig. He must be waiting.”
“No, sir, he’s not waiting, or he would have hailed,” said the first officer, as he strolled off to give the orders, while the two passengers, being tired after a very busy day, bade the captain “good night,” and went below.
“You won’t sit up to see us start, then?” said the skipper.
“No, for there will be nothing particular to see,” replied Sir Humphrey. “I’ll keep my admiration till we are well out at sea.”
“And that will be at breakfast-time to-morrow morning, gentlemen. I should not mind turning in for good myself. As it is, I’m just going down to snatch a couple of hours before Dellow comes and rouses me up.”
As Brace Leigh and his brother closed the door of their cabin the former saw the captain in the act of lying down upon one of the lockers, and as, about half an hour after, Brace lay awake listening to the strange sounds of the night which came through the open window, he distinctly heard the plash of oars, and soon afterwards the rubbing of a boat against the brig’s side, followed by sips on deck, then upon the stairs.
After that there was a rustling sound as of someone passing into a cabin and closing the door, while after a little pacing about all was still on deck, and then a cloud of darkness seemed to come suddenly over the young man’s brain, one which did not pass away for many hours, and not even then till his brother took him by the shoulder and shook him.
“Come, Brace, lad, wake up. Going to sleep all day?”
“No, no,” cried the young man, springing out of his berth. “Why, the sun’s up!”
“Yes, long enough ago. I’ve been sleeping as soundly as you, and the cook has been to say that breakfast will soon be ready.”
“How stupid! I meant to have been on deck at daybreak. Where are we—out at sea?”
“No; as far as I can make out we are not above a mile or two below the town, and at anchor.”
“Why’s that?” said Brace, who was dressing hurriedly.
“I don’t know, unless the skipper is repenting of his bargain. I was afraid he was too easy over everything.”
“Oh, don’t say that,” cried Brace, in a disappointed tone.
The brothers were not long before they stepped on deck, to find all hands looking anxious and strange of aspect, as they stood watching the captain and first officer.
“Good morning, captain,” said Sir Humphrey warmly. “Why, I thought we were to be out at sea by now.”
“It’s a bad morning, gentlemen,” said the captain, frowning, “and I don’t see how we are to start.”
“What!” said Sir Humphrey, frowning and speaking angrily.
“Ah, I thought you’d take it that way, sir,” said the skipper, scowling; “but you’re wrong. I’m not going back on what I said.”
“Then what does this mean?”
“It means, sir, that I’ve lost Jem Lynton, my second mate.”
“Lost him?” said Brace quickly. “Why, he stopped ashore to spend the evening with somebody.”
“That’s right, squire.”
“You mean he hasn’t come back,” said Brace contemptuously.
“No, I don’t, sir,” said the captain; “because he did come back.”
“But you said you had lost him,” cried Brace.
“That’s right, sir: so I have,” the captain answered. “He was to be fetched back from the shore, as you heard last night.”
“Yes, I heard you tell Mr Dellow to send the boat for him,” said Brace. “Well?”
“Boat was sent, sir, and the men say they brought him aboard. That’s right, isn’t it, Dellow?” and the captain turned round to his first officer.
“Quite,” said the first mate, who looked very much disturbed, and kept on wiping his dewy forehead with the back of his hand.
“Tell ’em,” said the captain. “Speak out.”
“Tom Jinks was with the boat, gen’lemen,” said the first mate slowly; “and he says Mr Lynton come down a bit rolly, as if he’d had too much dinner. He’d got his collar turned up and his straw hat rammed down over his eyes. Never said a single word, on’y grunted as he got into the boat, and give another grunt as he got out and up the side. Then he went below directly, and they’ve seen no more of him!”
“Tell ’em you didn’t either,” said the captain.
“No, I didn’t neither,” said the mate.
“To make it short, gentlemen,” said the captain, “Dick Dellow here went on deck about one to cast off and go downstream in the moonlight, and sent the boy to rouse me up; and when I come on deck Dick says: ‘Jem Lynton don’t show his nose yet.’ I didn’t say anything then, for I was too busy thinking, being a bit sour and gruff about Jem, and with having to get up in the middle of the night; and then I was too busy over getting off with a bit o’ sail on just for steering. Then I felt better and ready to excuse the poor chap, for I said, half-laughing like, to Dick Dellow here: ‘Jem aren’t used to going out to dinners. Let him sleep it off. He’ll have a bad headache in the morning, and then I’ll bully him. He won’t want to go to any more dinners just before leaving port, setting a bad example to the men.’”
“Then, to make it shorter still,” said Brace, “the second mate did not come back?”
“Didn’t I tell you he did come back, sir?” said the mate huskily.
“Yes, but—” began Brace.
“You don’t mean to say—” began Sir Humphrey.
“Yes, gentlemen, that’s what I do mean to say,” growled the captain. “He came aboard right enough, and went below. Nobody saw him come up again, and there’s his bed all tumbled like. But he must have come up again and fallen overboard, for he isn’t here now; and as soon as we found it out I give the order to drop anchor, and here we are.”
“But how did you happen to find it out?” said Sir Humphrey.
“Tell him, Dick,” said the captain.
The first mate shrugged his shoulders, and said gloomily:
“It was like this, gen’lemen. The skipper said one thing, but I says to myself another. ‘Jem Lynton’s no business to go off ashore the night we’re going to sail,’ I says, ‘and I shan’t go on doing his work and leaving him sleeping below there like a pig.’ So I waited till the skipper was busy forward talking to the look-out, and then I slips down below to get hold of poor old Jem by the hind leg and drop him on the floor.”
“Yes?” said Brace, for the mate stopped.
“Well, sir, I goes to the side of his berth, holds out my right hand—nay, I won’t swear it was my right hand, because it might have been my left; but whichever it was, it stood out quite stiff, and me with it, for there was no Jem Lynton there: only the blanket pulled out like, and half of it on the floor.”
“One moment,” said Sir Humphrey. “The second mate slept in your cabin?”
“Yes, sir. I see what you mean. Did I see him? Yes, I did, fast asleep and snoring, with his back to me.”
“And when you went down again he was not there?”
“That’s it, gentlemen,” said the captain, breaking in; “and he’s not aboard now. There’s only one way o’ looking at it: the poor fellow must have been took bad in the night, got up and gone on deck, and fell overboard.”
“Horrible!” exclaimed Brace.
“That’s right, sir. Soon as Richard Dellow here found it out he come up to me on deck and give me a horrid turn. ‘Poor Jem’s drowned,’ he says, ‘for he aren’t down below.’”
“But have you thoroughly searched the vessel?” cried Brace.
“Searched, squire?” replied the captain. “Where is there to search? He wasn’t here, and as soon as I could think a bit I let go the anchor, for we must go back to Johnstown and give notice, so that an enquiry can be made. Not that there’s anything to enquire about, for it’s all as plain as a pikestaff. I don’t know what I could be thinking about to let him go, when he ought to have been aboard at his work; but I didn’t want to be hard. There, you know all we know, gen’lemen, and as soon as the tide begins to make we must run back to port, for we can’t do anything more till that bit o’ business is settled.”
Sir Humphrey and his brother were silent, for there seemed to be nothing to say in face of such a terrible catastrophe; and, as if moved by a mutual desire to separate, while the brothers walked forward towards where the crew were gathered together watching them, the captain and mate went aft, the former shaking his head sadly, the latter looking terribly depressed and out of heart.
Chapter Seven.The Missing Man.“This is a terrible business, Brace,” said Sir Humphrey.“Yes; it quite puts a damper upon our plans.”“Seems like a suggestion of unknown horrors of a similar kind which will dog our footsteps all through.”“Don’t say that, Free,” said Brace earnestly. “I know it is terrible; but it might have happened under any circumstances. You talk as if it was to do away with our expedition.”“I’m afraid it will as far as Captain Banes is concerned, my lad. He is sure to back out of it now.”“I’m afraid so too,” said Brace sadly; “but only for a few days.”“I don’t know, my boy: sailors are very superstitious and fond of looking upon things as omens. It is very sad, for that second mate was a smart, intelligent fellow, and I looked forward to his taking an interest in our work and being our companion in many a pleasant trip.”“Oh, it’s horrible,” said Brace bitterly. “So well and strong only yesterday when seeing to our cases and luggage, and now—”“Dead,” said Sir Humphrey sadly, “and—”“Boat ahoy!” shouted one of the men, drawing attention to a canoe paddled by a black, coming down with the tide in mid-stream, and only a few hundred yards above where the brig swung from her chain cable, which dipped down from her bows into the muddy water.At the hail a second man; a white, with a coloured handkerchief tied about his head, rose up in the stern of the fragile vessel, snatched off the handkerchief to wave it above his head, and nearly capsized the canoe, only saving it by dropping down at once.“Ugh!” yelled one of the crew, a big bronzed fellow of six- or seven-and-twenty, and, turning sharply round, he upset one of his mates as he made for the forecastle hatch, but was hindered from going below by the brothers, who were standing between him and the opening.“What is it, Tommy, mate?” shouted one of the men.“Look, look!” groaned the scared sailor. “His ghost—his ghost!”In an instant the rest of the men took fright and shrank away from the bows, to hang together in a scared-looking group, the first man, addressed as Tommy, holding one hand to his mouth as if to check his chattering teeth.“Stand by there with a rope,” came from the boat; but not a man stirred, and just then the captain and mate came trotting up from aft.“Here, what’s the matter, my lads?” cried the former.“Master Lynton’s ghost, sir,” stammered the trembling sailors.“Mr Lynton’s grandmother!” roared the captain, snatching up a coil of rope and flinging it to the bareheaded man in the boat, who caught it deftly as it opened out in rings. “Here, what do you mean by that cock-and-bull story, Dick Dellow?”“Cock-and-bull?” stuttered the mate, scratching his head.“Yes, cock-and-bull,” roared the captain. “Can’t you see he’s there, all alive, oh! in that canoe? Here, you, Tom Jinks, lay hold of this rope, and don’t stand making faces there like a jibbering idiot. Catch hold.”“No, no,” faltered the great sailor; “it’s his—”“Catch hold!” roared the captain; “if any man here says ghost to me, law or no law, I’ll rope’s-end him.”The big sailor’s hands trembled as he took the rope, but before he had given it a pull one occupant of the canoe came scrambling on board with the other end of the rope in his hand, while the canoe, now lightened of half its load, glided astern, with the black paddling hard.“There’s going to be a row,” whispered Brace merrily to his brother, as they stood there, feeling as though a great weight had been removed from their breasts. He was quite right, for before the supposed drowned man had taken a couple of steps the captain was at him.“Here, you, sir,” he roared, “do you want to have sunstroke? Where’s your hat?”“I dunno,” was the reply.“Here,” shouted the captain, who was in a towering passion, “where’s that Tom Jinks?”“Here he is, sir; here he is, sir,” cried half a dozen voices, and the men opened out to give him a full view of the trembling sailor.“Now, sir, what call had you to tell us that you had brought Mr Lynton aboard last night?”“So we did—didn’t we, mate?”This to another of the sailors, who was staring hard at the new-comer.“Oh, yes, we fetched him off in the little boat,” said the man addressed.“No, you didn’t,” said the second mate sourly.“Well!” exclaimed Tom Jinks, who began to see now that it was real flesh and blood before him. “Why, we did, and you was—well, I ain’t going to say what. Wasn’t he, mate?”“Oh, yes, that’s a true word,” said the other man.“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the second mate indignantly; “and if either of you says that I was on I’ll knock you down.”“No, you won’t, James Lynton,” said the captain warmly. “You don’t handle either of my men. Look here, did you come aboard last night in the boat?”“No, of course not.”“Then who did?” cried the captain. “The men must have brought somebody.”“Oh, yes,” said Tom Jinks, “we brought him aboard.”“I say you didn’t,” cried Lynton. “I went to sleep, I s’pose, after dinner, and I didn’t wake up again till this morning.”“Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself, James Lynton,” said the captain indignantly.“Iham,” cried the second mate boldly: “right down, and no mistake.”“A warning to you not to go out eating and drinking more than is good for you,” said the captain.“I didn’t,” replied the mate. “I took just what was good for me, and no more.”“It seems like it,” said the captain sarcastically. “Instead of coming aboard in your own ship’s boat according to the terms of your leave, you come back in a dug-out after your vessel’s sailed, and without a hat.”“Yes, I know,” said the mate testily; “but didn’t I tell you I felt ashamed of myself? Eh? what say?”“Is this here yours?” said the first mate, who had suddenly gone below to the cabin, and returned with a straw hat in his hand.“Yes, that’s mine. How did you get it?”“You came aboard in it last night.”“I didn’t,” cried the second mate, who looked staggered.“Oh, yes, you did, sir,” cried Tom Jinks. “Didn’t he, mate?”“That’s so,” said the man addressed.“But I tell you I didn’t. I went to sleep after dinner, and didn’t wake till this morning, and found the brig had sailed.”“Of course she had—to her time,” said the captain angrily. “He don’t know what he’s talking about, gentlemen,” he continued, turning to the brothers. “I’m very sorry, but I’m not going to have any more time wasted. Now then, my lads, capstan bars, and bring that anchor up with a run. You, James Lynton,” he went on, as the men ran to obey their orders, “I’m ashamed of your goings-on. What have you been about? Walking in your sleep, I suppose.”“I dunno,” said the second mate, scratching one ear. “I can only recollect Mr Franklyn Briscoe saying—”“Mr Who?” roared the captain.“That American gentleman who wanted to come with us.”“You don’t mean to say you’ve been with that inquisitive chap, do you, sir?”“Yes. What harm was there in that?”“What harm? Look at you this morning.”“Oh, well, I don’t know how it was,” said the mate.“Then I’ll tell you how it was, sir. It was my second officer making an excuse to go ashore, and getting into bad company. But never no more, James Lynton: never no more. You don’t deceive me twice like this.”“It was all an accident,” grumbled the delinquent.“Yes, of course, and a nice state we were in, believing that after you came aboard you fell over the side and were drowned.”“You didn’t think that, did you?” cried Lynton.“Didn’t think it? Why, of course we did, sir. Didn’t I come to an anchor as soon as I found you were not aboard?”“I don’t know,” said Lynton, looking from one to the other.“Then you know now, sir. Pretending to me that you were going to a dinner—eating.”“So I was,” cried the mate.“Not you, sir. Going somewhere drinking.”“That I wasn’t. Mr Franklyn Briscoe came and asked me to go and have a bit of dinner with him.”“What! that American?” cried the captain.“Yes.”“Then that makes worse of it.”“There, I don’t know: bad or worse,” said the mate. “All I know is that I went to sleep after dinner, and when I woke up he was gone and I couldn’t find my hat.”The first mate exchanged glances with the captain, who spoke out at once.“Then how did your hat come on board, sir?”“I don’t know, I tell you, captain,” cried Lynton. “All I know is that as soon as I woke up I went half-mad, and ran down to the river, to find you’d sailed without me; and then I got that black fellow to paddle me down after you in his canoe.”“And a deal of good that would have been if I hadn’t anchored,” growled the captain. “There, sir, get to your duties, and let’s have no more of it.”“But I want to clear my character, captain, before the crew and these two gentlemen.”“You hold your tongue, my lad, or you’ll be making worse of it.”“But there’s some mystery about it,” said the mate warmly. “Yes, I can see you nodding and winking, Dellow, and making signs to the men. Here you, Tom Jinks, you said I came on board last night?”“Yes, me and my mate here rowed you aboard; didn’t we, mate?”“Ay, ay, lad,” was the reply, and their questioner banged his right fist down into his left palm as if to get rid of some of his rage.“There,” he cried, “have it your own way, all of you; but you don’t catch me going ashore to dine with a gentleman again.”“No,” said the captain sharply, “I shan’t. Now then, look alive there.”The anchor was soon after swinging from the bows, the sails filled, and the brig began to glide down with the stream, and by the time the cabin breakfast was at an end the banks of the muddy river were growing distant, and various signs pointed to the fact that they were approaching the open sea. That evening, with a gentle breeze from the north sending them swiftly along, the low coast-line looked dim and distant across the muddy waters, the mighty rivers discolouring the sea far away from land, and, glass in hand, Brace was seated in a deck chair trying to make out some salient point of the South American coast.Then all at once something dark eclipsed the picture formed by the glass, and Brace Leigh lowered it suddenly from his eye to try and make out what it was. He found that it was the second mate’s head.
“This is a terrible business, Brace,” said Sir Humphrey.
“Yes; it quite puts a damper upon our plans.”
“Seems like a suggestion of unknown horrors of a similar kind which will dog our footsteps all through.”
“Don’t say that, Free,” said Brace earnestly. “I know it is terrible; but it might have happened under any circumstances. You talk as if it was to do away with our expedition.”
“I’m afraid it will as far as Captain Banes is concerned, my lad. He is sure to back out of it now.”
“I’m afraid so too,” said Brace sadly; “but only for a few days.”
“I don’t know, my boy: sailors are very superstitious and fond of looking upon things as omens. It is very sad, for that second mate was a smart, intelligent fellow, and I looked forward to his taking an interest in our work and being our companion in many a pleasant trip.”
“Oh, it’s horrible,” said Brace bitterly. “So well and strong only yesterday when seeing to our cases and luggage, and now—”
“Dead,” said Sir Humphrey sadly, “and—”
“Boat ahoy!” shouted one of the men, drawing attention to a canoe paddled by a black, coming down with the tide in mid-stream, and only a few hundred yards above where the brig swung from her chain cable, which dipped down from her bows into the muddy water.
At the hail a second man; a white, with a coloured handkerchief tied about his head, rose up in the stern of the fragile vessel, snatched off the handkerchief to wave it above his head, and nearly capsized the canoe, only saving it by dropping down at once.
“Ugh!” yelled one of the crew, a big bronzed fellow of six- or seven-and-twenty, and, turning sharply round, he upset one of his mates as he made for the forecastle hatch, but was hindered from going below by the brothers, who were standing between him and the opening.
“What is it, Tommy, mate?” shouted one of the men.
“Look, look!” groaned the scared sailor. “His ghost—his ghost!”
In an instant the rest of the men took fright and shrank away from the bows, to hang together in a scared-looking group, the first man, addressed as Tommy, holding one hand to his mouth as if to check his chattering teeth.
“Stand by there with a rope,” came from the boat; but not a man stirred, and just then the captain and mate came trotting up from aft.
“Here, what’s the matter, my lads?” cried the former.
“Master Lynton’s ghost, sir,” stammered the trembling sailors.
“Mr Lynton’s grandmother!” roared the captain, snatching up a coil of rope and flinging it to the bareheaded man in the boat, who caught it deftly as it opened out in rings. “Here, what do you mean by that cock-and-bull story, Dick Dellow?”
“Cock-and-bull?” stuttered the mate, scratching his head.
“Yes, cock-and-bull,” roared the captain. “Can’t you see he’s there, all alive, oh! in that canoe? Here, you, Tom Jinks, lay hold of this rope, and don’t stand making faces there like a jibbering idiot. Catch hold.”
“No, no,” faltered the great sailor; “it’s his—”
“Catch hold!” roared the captain; “if any man here says ghost to me, law or no law, I’ll rope’s-end him.”
The big sailor’s hands trembled as he took the rope, but before he had given it a pull one occupant of the canoe came scrambling on board with the other end of the rope in his hand, while the canoe, now lightened of half its load, glided astern, with the black paddling hard.
“There’s going to be a row,” whispered Brace merrily to his brother, as they stood there, feeling as though a great weight had been removed from their breasts. He was quite right, for before the supposed drowned man had taken a couple of steps the captain was at him.
“Here, you, sir,” he roared, “do you want to have sunstroke? Where’s your hat?”
“I dunno,” was the reply.
“Here,” shouted the captain, who was in a towering passion, “where’s that Tom Jinks?”
“Here he is, sir; here he is, sir,” cried half a dozen voices, and the men opened out to give him a full view of the trembling sailor.
“Now, sir, what call had you to tell us that you had brought Mr Lynton aboard last night?”
“So we did—didn’t we, mate?”
This to another of the sailors, who was staring hard at the new-comer.
“Oh, yes, we fetched him off in the little boat,” said the man addressed.
“No, you didn’t,” said the second mate sourly.
“Well!” exclaimed Tom Jinks, who began to see now that it was real flesh and blood before him. “Why, we did, and you was—well, I ain’t going to say what. Wasn’t he, mate?”
“Oh, yes, that’s a true word,” said the other man.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the second mate indignantly; “and if either of you says that I was on I’ll knock you down.”
“No, you won’t, James Lynton,” said the captain warmly. “You don’t handle either of my men. Look here, did you come aboard last night in the boat?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then who did?” cried the captain. “The men must have brought somebody.”
“Oh, yes,” said Tom Jinks, “we brought him aboard.”
“I say you didn’t,” cried Lynton. “I went to sleep, I s’pose, after dinner, and I didn’t wake up again till this morning.”
“Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself, James Lynton,” said the captain indignantly.
“Iham,” cried the second mate boldly: “right down, and no mistake.”
“A warning to you not to go out eating and drinking more than is good for you,” said the captain.
“I didn’t,” replied the mate. “I took just what was good for me, and no more.”
“It seems like it,” said the captain sarcastically. “Instead of coming aboard in your own ship’s boat according to the terms of your leave, you come back in a dug-out after your vessel’s sailed, and without a hat.”
“Yes, I know,” said the mate testily; “but didn’t I tell you I felt ashamed of myself? Eh? what say?”
“Is this here yours?” said the first mate, who had suddenly gone below to the cabin, and returned with a straw hat in his hand.
“Yes, that’s mine. How did you get it?”
“You came aboard in it last night.”
“I didn’t,” cried the second mate, who looked staggered.
“Oh, yes, you did, sir,” cried Tom Jinks. “Didn’t he, mate?”
“That’s so,” said the man addressed.
“But I tell you I didn’t. I went to sleep after dinner, and didn’t wake till this morning, and found the brig had sailed.”
“Of course she had—to her time,” said the captain angrily. “He don’t know what he’s talking about, gentlemen,” he continued, turning to the brothers. “I’m very sorry, but I’m not going to have any more time wasted. Now then, my lads, capstan bars, and bring that anchor up with a run. You, James Lynton,” he went on, as the men ran to obey their orders, “I’m ashamed of your goings-on. What have you been about? Walking in your sleep, I suppose.”
“I dunno,” said the second mate, scratching one ear. “I can only recollect Mr Franklyn Briscoe saying—”
“Mr Who?” roared the captain.
“That American gentleman who wanted to come with us.”
“You don’t mean to say you’ve been with that inquisitive chap, do you, sir?”
“Yes. What harm was there in that?”
“What harm? Look at you this morning.”
“Oh, well, I don’t know how it was,” said the mate.
“Then I’ll tell you how it was, sir. It was my second officer making an excuse to go ashore, and getting into bad company. But never no more, James Lynton: never no more. You don’t deceive me twice like this.”
“It was all an accident,” grumbled the delinquent.
“Yes, of course, and a nice state we were in, believing that after you came aboard you fell over the side and were drowned.”
“You didn’t think that, did you?” cried Lynton.
“Didn’t think it? Why, of course we did, sir. Didn’t I come to an anchor as soon as I found you were not aboard?”
“I don’t know,” said Lynton, looking from one to the other.
“Then you know now, sir. Pretending to me that you were going to a dinner—eating.”
“So I was,” cried the mate.
“Not you, sir. Going somewhere drinking.”
“That I wasn’t. Mr Franklyn Briscoe came and asked me to go and have a bit of dinner with him.”
“What! that American?” cried the captain.
“Yes.”
“Then that makes worse of it.”
“There, I don’t know: bad or worse,” said the mate. “All I know is that I went to sleep after dinner, and when I woke up he was gone and I couldn’t find my hat.”
The first mate exchanged glances with the captain, who spoke out at once.
“Then how did your hat come on board, sir?”
“I don’t know, I tell you, captain,” cried Lynton. “All I know is that as soon as I woke up I went half-mad, and ran down to the river, to find you’d sailed without me; and then I got that black fellow to paddle me down after you in his canoe.”
“And a deal of good that would have been if I hadn’t anchored,” growled the captain. “There, sir, get to your duties, and let’s have no more of it.”
“But I want to clear my character, captain, before the crew and these two gentlemen.”
“You hold your tongue, my lad, or you’ll be making worse of it.”
“But there’s some mystery about it,” said the mate warmly. “Yes, I can see you nodding and winking, Dellow, and making signs to the men. Here you, Tom Jinks, you said I came on board last night?”
“Yes, me and my mate here rowed you aboard; didn’t we, mate?”
“Ay, ay, lad,” was the reply, and their questioner banged his right fist down into his left palm as if to get rid of some of his rage.
“There,” he cried, “have it your own way, all of you; but you don’t catch me going ashore to dine with a gentleman again.”
“No,” said the captain sharply, “I shan’t. Now then, look alive there.”
The anchor was soon after swinging from the bows, the sails filled, and the brig began to glide down with the stream, and by the time the cabin breakfast was at an end the banks of the muddy river were growing distant, and various signs pointed to the fact that they were approaching the open sea. That evening, with a gentle breeze from the north sending them swiftly along, the low coast-line looked dim and distant across the muddy waters, the mighty rivers discolouring the sea far away from land, and, glass in hand, Brace was seated in a deck chair trying to make out some salient point of the South American coast.
Then all at once something dark eclipsed the picture formed by the glass, and Brace Leigh lowered it suddenly from his eye to try and make out what it was. He found that it was the second mate’s head.
Chapter Eight.Something Startling.“Evening, sir,” said Lynton. “Growing too dark to see much with a glass, isn’t it?”“Yes; I was just going to shut it up and put it in the case,” replied Brace. “I say, don’t you go and sham dead to upset us all again.”“There you go!” cried the mate angrily. “I did think it was going to drop now. Nobody seems to believe my word.”“Don’t say nobody, for I will,” said Brace quietly. “I was only joking you a bit. But tell me: that coast-line I could see before it grew so dark was all forest, I suppose?”“A lot of it,” replied the mate, with a sigh or relief; “great thick dense forest with dwarfish trees growing out of the mud, and if you could see now, you’d find all the leaves sparkling with fireflies up the creeks and streams.”“Then the sooner we reach our river and begin to sail up, the better I shall like it. How soon it grows dark out here!”“It does in these latitudes,” replied the mate.“But I say, Mr Leigh, don’t you go thinking that I went ashore carrying on and drinking, because I didn’t.”“I promise you I will not.”“Thankye,” said the mate, as he stood looking along the darkened deck, with the lanthorns now swinging aloft. Beneath a rough awning the captain had made the men rig up over the cabin, that gentleman was seated chatting with Sir Humphrey, while the first mate stood by them, listening to their conversation, and occasionally putting in a word.Three or four folding-chairs had been placed aft for the benefit of the passengers, one of which Brace had marked down for his own use, and he was thinking of fetching it along to where they stood, as he talked to the second and fastened the strap of his binocular case.“Ah,” said the mate, “you’ll find that little glass handy when you begin shooting for picking out the birds and serpents and things, and—”He took off his straw hat to wipe his forehead, for the air was hot, moist, and sultry. He did not, however, apply his handkerchief, but stood with it in his right hand, his straw hat in his left, gazing down at it.“Puzzles me,” he said, changing the subject suddenly.“What: how to find the birds and reptiles among the leaves of the great trees?”“No, no,” said the mate impatiently. “I mean, how it was this straw hat of mine came on board.”Then, in a hoarse whisper: “Mr Leigh, sir: look—look there!”He stretched out his hand with the hat in it, using it to point towards the spot where one folding-chair stood, dimly seen, close up to the starboard bulwark.“Well, I see it,” said Brace. “It does not seem any the worse for coming on board without you.”“But I can’t make it out,” whispered the man, in a strange way. “I hung it up in the American gent’s room—the one you had, sir—and the last I remember is seeing him sitting opposite to me across the table; and now look there. See him?”“No,” said Brace; “I can see no him. What do you mean?”“The American,” whispered Lynton, catching the young man by the arm. “There, can’t you see him sitting in the dark yonder?”“No,” said Brace quietly. “I say, Mr Lynton, you’ll be better when you’ve had a good night’s rest. You talk as if you could see a ghost.”“That’s it, sir; that’s it,” whispered the man wildly. “Come away—come away.”“Nonsense, man. There’s nothing over yonder, only—”Brace stopped short in blank astonishment, for the nearest lanthorn turned round a little as the brig heeled over, and there, faintly seen, and looking strangely transparent, the seated figure of the inquisitive American seemed to loom out of the shadow.But the startled fancy that it might be anything supernatural passed away in an instant, and he felt ready to laugh at the superstitious sailor, as he saw a glowing spot of light about on a level with the figure’s lips, and directly after smelt the peculiar odour of tobacco as it was wafted to him by the warm night air.“Come away,” whispered the mate, gripping Brace’s arm with painful force.“Nonsense,” said Brace firmly. “That’s how your hat came on board.”“Ugh!” ejaculated the mate, and he sent the straw hat he held whirring away from him with all his might.He meant to have sent it overboard, but straw hats have boomerang-like ways of behaving peculiar to themselves, as most wearers know to their cost; and the one in question, instead of rising and skimming like a swallow over the bulwark and dropping into the sea, performed a peculiar evolution, turned in the direction of the group under the awning, dived down, rose again, just touching Sir Humphrey’s ear, missing the first mate, and striking the captain with its saw-like revolving edge just below the chin.“Here, hullo!” roared the latter gentleman; “what are you about?”“Guess it warn’t a bad throw, though, in the dark,” said a familiar voice, which made the captain spring to his feet with a cry of astonishment; and the next moment the group from beneath the awning were gathered about the imperturbable smoker seated in the folding-chair.“That you?” shouted the captain, and the personage addressed took his cigar slowly from his lips and emitted a great puff of vapour.“Yes, skipper,” he said coolly; “it’s me,” and he replaced his cigar.“What in the name of all that’s wonderful are you doing here?”“Doing, skipper?” said the American quietly. “Smoking. Precious hot, ain’t it?”“Hot, sir?” roared the captain; “it’s nothing to what it’s going to be. How dare you? Why, you’re a stowaway!”“Am I, skipper? Well, do you know,” said the American, in the most imperturbable way, “I thought I was a lump of human fat melting slowly away and running out on to your deck.”“How did you get here?”“How did I get here? Why, two of your men brought me aboard last night in your boat.”“Well, of all the impudence!”“Now, now, now, skipper, don’t get in a wax. Just act like a man, and order me a drink, half water, half lime-juice, for my throat feels as if it had been sanded with hot sand.”“I’ll order you over the side, and set you ashore at the nearest point of land.”“Not you, skipper. It would be like committing murder, and raise up international difficulties.”“I don’t care, sir; I’ll do it. You’ve got the wrong man to deal with if you think you’re going to play any of your Yankee tricks with David Banes. Here, Dellow, heave-to and man the big boat.”“Good ten miles to the shore,” said the first mate in a low remonstrant tone of voice.“I don’t care if it’s twenty. I said I wouldn’t take him as a passenger, and I won’t.”“Ten miles for your chaps to pull in the dark, and ten miles back,” said the American coolly: “that’s twenty, and say another ten miles as allowance for currents, which run strong, I’ve heard say. That’s thirty miles. Say, skipper, hadn’t you better take it coolly and make the best of it?”“No, sir, I had not.”“But I have made up my mind to sail with you, skipper, for I reckon I shall like this trip.”“And I reckon you will not,” said the captain grimly. “You’re very sharp, sir, but you’ve cut yourself this time, and you’re going to be rowed ashore as soon as it’s light.”“Hah, that’s better, skipper. Your lads couldn’t do it in the dark, and they’d never find the brig again.”“That’s right,” said the captain. “I’m not going to run any risks, for the sake of my men; but ashore you go as soon as it’s light.”“And what about for the sake of me? I have heard that some of the natives about here are the old Caribs.”“Yes, sir, regular old-fashioned savages; and you won’t find any hotels, nor captains to worry with questions.”“I’ve heard too that they’re cannibals, skipper. S’pose they eat me?”“So much the better for them and the worse for you. But that’s your look-out, not mine.”“Well, you are a hard nut, skipper,” said the American, leaning back and smoking away.“I am, sir: too hard for you to crack. You’re not the first loafing, cheating stowaway I’ve had to deal with.”“Cheating, eh?” said the American, turning his face to Sir Humphrey and Brace in turn. “Hark at him! I don’t want to cheat. I’ll pay my share of all expenses.”“No, you won’t, sir, for I won’t have your money. This brig’s let to these two gentlemen for as long as they like. You’ve played me a dirty trick after being told that I was engaged, and you’ve got to go ashore. I see through your tricks now. You inveigled my second mate ashore to dinner with you.”“Asked him, and treated him like a gentleman,” said the American.“You stole his straw hat.”“Nay, nay, only borrowed it, skipper.”“Stole his hat, sir.”“Say took, and I won’t argue, skipper: I was obliged to.”“Left him asleep, and stole aboard in the ship’s boat.”“Yes, that’s right,” said the American. “I thought you were going to say I stole the boat. That’s right. The men wouldn’t have rowed me aboard if it hadn’t been for the mate’s hat.”“And for aught you cared I might have sailed and left that poor fellow behind—eh, Lynton?”“That seems about the size of it,” said the second mate.“Gammon!” cried the American good-humouredly. “You’re too good a seaman, Captain Banes, to go off and leave one of your officers ashore.”“That’s oil,” said the captain sharply; “but I’m not going to be greased, sir. You’re going ashore: if only for playing me and my second officer such a dirty trick.”“Say smart, not dirty, skipper.”“Dirty, sir, dirty.”“Only business, skipper. I’d made up my mind to come, and it seemed to me the only way.”“Ah, you were very clever; but it won’t do sir. You’re going ashore.”“But what about that cool drink, skipper?”“And as soon as it’s light,” said the captain, ignoring the request. “Mr Dellow.”“Ay, ay, sir.”“Set the course a few miles nearer shore. No fear of a squall off here.”“Well, I dunno, sir,” said the mate. “I don’t think I’d run in too close. The water’s shallow, and there’s often very heavy seas closer in.”“Be bad for an open boat, skipper,” said the American.“Very, sir,” said Captain Banes. “I daresay you’ll get pretty wet before you’re set ashore.”“That’s bad, skipper; but I wasn’t thinking of myself, but about my traps.”“Your traps?”“Yes, I’ve got a lot of tackle that won’t bear wetting. Dessay there’s a ton altogether aboard.”“What!” roared the captain. “You’ve no goods aboard?”“Oh, haven’t I? Guns, ammunition, provisions, and stores of all sorts.”“How did they get here? Bring ’em in your pocket?”“Nonsense. Your second mate brought ’em aboard.”“What? Here, Lynton, speak out. Have you been in collusion with this fellow, and brought his baggage aboard?”“Not a bag, sir,” cried the mate indignantly.“Oh, come, I like that!” said the American, laughing. “Didn’t I come and sit by you and smoke and see it all done?”“No!” cried the second mate angrily.“Well, you Englishmen can tell crackers when you like. What about that big cask with the holes in?”“That cask? Was that yours?”“Of course it was, and all the rest of the things on that truck,” said the American coolly. “You don’t suppose I should have come and sat there to see anybody else’s tackle taken on board, do you?”“Well,” broke in Brace, laughing, “judging by what I’ve seen of you, sir, I should say you would.”The American turned upon him in the midst of the laugh which arose, and said smilingly:“All right, sir, have your joke; but when I ask questions or hang around to see what’s going on I do it for a reason. I wanted to go on this voyage in this ship, sir: that’s why I was so inquisitive; and here I am.”“Yes,” said the captain hotly, “for the present. And so you tricked my second officer and men into bringing your baggage on board, did you?”“Schemed it, skipper, schemed it,” said the American coolly.“Exactly. Very clever of you, my fine fellow; but look here: suppose I make you forfeit your baggage when I set you ashore?”“Law won’t let you, skipper.”“I’m the law on board my ship,” cried the captain angrily. “Suppose I refuse to stop my vessel to get your baggage out of the hold, and that precious cask?”“Good, that’s right, skipper—precious cask,” said the American coolly.“Precious or not precious, I shall set you ashore, and continue my voyage, and whether it lasts one month or twelve, you may wait for your baggage till I come back, and you may look for me wherever I am.”“You can’t do it, skipper,” said the American smoking away quietly.“Oh, can’t I, sir?” cried the captain. “You’ll see.”“No, I shan’t, skipper. It would be murder, I tell you, to set me ashore, and double murder to sail away with my luggage.”“Bah!” cried the captain.“You see, there’s that cask. What about it?”“Hang your cask! I’ll have it thrown overboard.”“Oh, I say, you mustn’t do that,” cried the American, with some slight display of energy; “the water would get in through those holes bored in the top, and spoil the contents.”“What’s that to me, sir?” cried the captain.“Murder number three, because I have warned you not to do it in the presence of witnesses.”“Murder!” cried the captain, looking startled. “Why, what’s in it?”“Only my servant.”“What!” came in a chorus.“My boy—my servant,” said the American coolly; “and he ought to be let out now, or he’ll be smothered. I found it very hot down there, sitting among the boxes and chests. I dunno how he finds it, shut up in a cask.”“Isay, gentlemen,” said the captain, with a gasp; “is this fellow an escaped lunatic—is he mad?”“Not I,” said the American, answering for himself; “I was, though, down there when I got in.”“Hah! broke in,” cried the captain sharply.“That I didn’t. I found the door open when I left the berth where I lay down when I first came aboard. Pretty sort of a thick-headed chap it was who stowed that cask. Made me mad as a bull in fly-time. There were the holes to guide him to keep this side upwards, but he put the poor fellow upside down. Nice job I had to turn him right in the dark, and all wedged in among casks. I hope he ain’t dead, because it would be awkward for you, skipper.”“Look here, sir,” cried Sir Humphrey angrily, while Brace stood fuming; “do you mean to tell me in plain English that you did such a barbarous, criminal act as to shut up a man or boy in a cask to bring him aboard this brig?”“Barbarous! criminal! Nonsense, sir. He liked the fun of it, and I made him as comfortable as I could. Plenty of air-holes, cushion and a pillow to sit on and rest his head. Plenty to eat too, and a bottle of water to drink. I told him he’d better go to sleep as much as he could, and he said he would. He must have been asleep when I came up a bit ago, for I couldn’t make him hear.”“Captain Banes,” cried Brace excitedly, “give orders for the hatches to be taken off at once.”“Just what I’m going to do, squire,” said the captain. “Here, Dellow, see to it. But I call you all to witness that I wash my hands of this business. If the man’s dead I’m going to sail back to port and hand this man over to the authorities.”“We’ll settle that afterwards, Captain Banes,” said Sir Humphrey stiffly.“Right, sir; I’ll lose no time,” said the captain, and all present stood looking on while, under the first mate’s orders, the hatches were opened, more lanthorns lit, and a couple of men sent below with a rope running through a block.“Make it fast, my lads, and be sharp,” cried the mate, as he leaned over the opening in the deck, swinging a lanthorn so that the sailors could see to hitch the rope about the cask. “Ready?”“One moment, sir,” came from below. Then:“Haul away.”“Keep him right side upwards, you sir,” said the American coolly.“Right side upwards, sir!” growled the captain fiercely. “You deserve to be headed up in the cask yourself and thrown overboard.”As he spoke, the big cask appeared above the combings of the hatchway, was swung clear of the opening, and lowered again, to come down with a bump upon the deck.“Here, quick,” cried the captain. “Bring an axe and knock off those top hoops.”“Nay, nay!” cried the American coolly.“Don’t interfere, sir,” said Sir Humphrey; “it is to get the head out.”“I know,” said the American; “but one of those borings is a round keyhole. He’ll open the head from inside if he’s awake: and if he don’t I can.”“If he’s awake!” said Brace bitterly.“P’raps he isn’t, for he’s a oner to sleep. Stand aside, skipper.”The captain turned upon the man fiercely, but it had not the slightest effect upon him, for he kept his cigar in his mouth and smoked away, as he drew out a key like that used for the boot of a coach, thrust it into one of the holes in the head, gave it a turn, and the head of the cask opened outward in two pieces which turned upon hinges; while as the first mate thrust forward the lanthorn he held, it was nearly knocked out of his hand by the skull-cap-covered head which shot up, sending a thrill of relief through the circle of lookers-on.“Well, Dan, how goes it?” said the American.The fresh arrival, who seemed to be a thin diminutive-looking fellow of any age, whose perfectly smooth face looked peculiarly yellow, planted his hands one on either side of the cask, sank down, and then sprang up again, cleverly passed his legs over the side and landed himself—as if shot out by a spring—upon the deck, where he stood shrinking from the light, yawned long and widely, and then said slowly:“Oh, all right, boss. Bit hot and sleepy. What’s o’clock?”“Time you and your precious master were over the side,” cried the captain angrily.The man or boy, whichever he was, turned in the direction of the voice, blinking quickly in the faint rays of the lanthorn light as if even they dazzled him, and went on:“Who’s him, boss?”“That, Dan? That’s the captain.”Brace burst into a hearty fit of laughter, in which his brother joined, and after a brief pause this was taken up by the two mates and followed by the men who were looking on.“Ho!” cried the captain angrily: “it’s a capital joke. Very funny, no doubt; but it strikes me somebody’s going to laugh on the wrong side of his mouth. Just wait till it’s daylight.”“Oh, it’s all right, skipper. You can’t set us ashore now,” said the American, laughing.“Can’t I? Oh! we shall see about that, my fine fellow. If you think I’m going on this voyage with a couple of lunatics on board you’re preciously mistaken. I’d sooner sail to Egypt with a cargo of black cats.”“Hark at him,” said the American merrily to Sir Humphrey and his brother. “He likes his joke.”“Joke, sir?” cried the captain. “You’ll find this no joke, Mr Yankee Doodle.”“Go along with you, captain. Yankee Doodle knows John Bull better than he knows himself. You’re not going to make me believe you’ll set me and my man ashore and leave us in a savage place to die of starvation and ague.”“You soon will believe it, though, sir,” said the captain; but in spite of his annoyance he could not thoroughly infuse his tones with sincerity.“You’re only blowing, skipper, when you might be taking pity on that poor chap of mine who’s been shut up in the barrel all these hours without giving a single squeak; and all because he’d risk anything so as to go with his master. That’s true, isn’t it, Dan?”“Yes, that’s right, boss,” replied the little fellow, who kept passing his tongue over his lips.“Hungry, Dan?”“No, boss. Thirsty. Horrid.”“Did you finish your bottle of water?”“No, boss; I couldn’t get the cork in proper, and when I knocked it over while I was asleep the cork came out and all the water ran away.”“Not amongst my cartridges, I hope, Dan?”“I dunno, boss. I never see where it run to in the dark. Only know it didn’t run where I wanted it to go. Iamthirsty.”The second mate handed him a pannikin which he had fetched from the cask lashed amidships, and the American’s servant took it and began to drink with avidity.“Here, you, Lynton,” cried the captain: “who ordered you to do that?”“Common humanity, sir,” said Brace quickly.“Then it was like his uncommon impudence to order my officers about, squire,” said the captain gruffly, but without so much of his former fierceness.“Hah!” ejaculated the drinker, as he drained the tin; “never knowed water was so good before. Thank-ye, mister. Ketch hold.”The second mate took the tin, and to the astonishment of all, the uncasked servant threw himself flat upon his chest and stretched himself out as much as he could, took a few strokes as if swimming, and then turned quickly over upon his back, went through similar evolutions, grunted, and stretched again.“What’s the matter, Dan?” said his master quietly.“Taking some of the creases out, boss. That barrel warn’t big enough for a chap my size, and I feel quite curly. There’s a crick in my neck, one of my legs is bent and t’other’s quite screwed.”“Oh, you’ll be better soon,” said the first mate.“Yes, I’m coming right again,” replied the man.“Wait till you’ve had a trot or two up and down Captain Banes’s deck. You’ll let him, won’t you, skipper?”“Urrrr!” growled the captain.“Oh, come, skipper, ain’t it time you left off being so waxy? You can’t set me ashore, you know; so say no more about it. I’ll pay handsomely for the trip.”“Don’t talk to me,” growled the captain. “That gentleman has chartered the brig, and it’s his for as long as he likes. I can’t make any bargains with you or anyone else.”“Ah, now you’re talking sense, skipper. That’s speaking like a man. Well, Sir Humphrey Leigh, let’s hear what you’ve got to say to me.”“I say that you have taken an unwarrantable liberty, and—”“Hold hard, sir, hold hard. Let’s settle that one thing first. Well, yes, I suppose it was; but here was I with all my plans made: arms, ammunition, stores, everything, man included—he is a man, you know, though he’s such a dried-up little chap. How old are you, Dan?”“Thirty last birthday, boss,” said the little fellow promptly.“There, sir. Well, that’s how I was. Red-hot too to get up one of these big rivers to explore and collect everything that came in my way, but no vessel to be had. Felt as if I must get back home when I heard about you and the skipper here; and then I tried my best to get you to let me go shares in the expedition, and you wouldn’t. You know you wouldn’t.”“Naturally,” said Sir Humphrey.“We won’t argue about that, sir. That’s how I was. Amurricans when they’ve got a thing to do don’t turn back. It goes against their grain. Go ahead’s our motto. I started to do an expedition up a South American river, and I’d got to do it—somehow: straightforward if I could; if I couldn’t—back way. That’s how it was with me, and here I am. It was artful, dodgy, and not square; but I couldn’t help it. There, I speak plain, and I want you now as an English gentleman to help me with the skipper here. You see, I’m a naturalist, ready for any amount of hard work, a reg’lar enthoosiast of travelling and collecting, and I’ll pay my share of all expenses. That’s fair, isn’t it?”“Oh, yes, that’s fair,” said Sir Humphrey; “but we don’t want you.”“Not just now, sir; but you may. You don’t know what holes you may get into up the river. Come, sir, I throw myself on your mercy. You’re captain of the expedition, and I’ll serve under you. Don’t send me adrift now.”“Well, of all the enterprising, pushing men I ever encountered—” began Sir Humphrey.“Yes, that’s it: enterprising. I am enterprising, ready to do anything to carry out the objects I have in view. Come, sir, I promise you that you shan’t regret it.”Sir Humphrey frowned as he looked the American and his man over, and then turned to his brother, who shrugged his shoulders and smiled.“What do you think about this?” said Sir Humphrey.“Don’t ask me, Free,” replied the young man. “I have a strong leaning towards mercy.”“But we don’t like this man well enough to make him our companion.”“No, but he may improve,” said Brace.“He may get worse,” said Sir Humphrey shortly.“I hope not,” said Brace. “You see, we’re started, and it would be horrible to go back. We can’t set him ashore.”“Impossible!” said Sir Humphrey decisively.“Very well then, we must take him.”“It seems as if there is no alternative,” said Sir Humphrey, frowning. “We cannot allow the captain to set him ashore.”“He wouldn’t want stopping,” said Brace, laughing gently.“You think he would not do it, Brace?”“I’m sure he wouldn’t,” replied the young man. “He barks and makes a noise, but he wouldn’t bite like that.”“Well, then, we must make the best of it, Brace, for I certainly will not turn back.”“Then you’ll take him?”“I shall give way to the extent of asking Captain Banes to let him go with us.”“Don’t,” said Brace, in a low voice, as he glanced at the American and saw that he was watching him closely.“What! not ask him?” said Sir Humphrey. “Why, just now you were in favour of doing so.”“So I am now, Free,” said Brace, drawing his brother to the side, so that they could be alone; “but I want you to take it entirely upon yourself. You’ve chartered the brig; and it is yours. Captain Banes is, so to speak, under your orders, you being head of this expedition.”“Quite right, Brace,” replied Sir Humphrey, nodding his head, and looking satisfied with his brother’s decision.“I should act at once as if I were fully in command, and make a stern bargain with this American naturalist that if he comes with us it is, as he proposed, completely under your orders.”“Exactly,” said Sir Humphrey, and the brothers walked back to where their would-be ally stood waiting patiently, and Captain Banes was giving vent to his annoyance by growling at both mates in turn, and then at the men for not being smarter over getting up the cask.“Captain Banes,” said Sir Humphrey.“Sir to you,” growled the captain.“My brother and I have been discussing this business, and we come to the conclusion that we cannot under any circumstances return to port.”“O’ course not,” said the captain, nodding approval.“But on the other hand we cannot be guilty of so inhuman an act as to set this gentleman and his servant ashore upon a wild coast, at the risk of his life.”“Hear, hear!” cried the American, and the captain grunted.“But, as he has chosen to take the risk and is prepared for an inland expedition, we decide that he is quite at liberty to join ours and go with us, on the condition that he follows out my orders as to what is done.”“Of course—of course,” cried the American. “Hear, Mr Skipper?”“Oh, yes, I hear,” said the captain.“Then that is settled,” said Sir Humphrey. “Mr Briscoe, I trust that in the future we shall be better friends.”“No fear of that, sir,” said the American quietly. “Sir Humphrey, you’re a gentleman. Mr Brace, you’re another. It’s going to be acts now, not words. I only say thankye, and I want you and your plucky young brother to believe me when I say you shan’t repent your bargain a bit.”“I believe I shall not, sir,” said Sir Humphrey gravely.“As for you, Captain Banes,” continued the new member of the expedition, “I’m going to show you that I’m not such a ruffian as you think. And now, gentlemen, as I haven’t had a wink of sleep for two nights, I’m going to ask the skipper to let me have a berth and to give orders for my man here to be furnished with a bunk. I’ve kept it up, gentlemen, as long as I could, but now I’m dead-beat. I’ve been asleep in my legs for long enough. Now it has crept up from my waist to my chest, and it’s attacking my head. In another ten minutes I shall be insensible, and when I shall wake again is more than I know, so I’ll say at once: Thank you all—all round, and good night.”A little difficulty arose as to a berth; but this was soon solved by the second mate giving up his in favour of a mattress upon the cabin floor, and the brothers were left alone with the captain, who preserved an ominous silence, till Brace spoke half-laughingly:“You don’t like the new arrangement, captain?”There was a grunt. Then:“Put that and that together, squire, would you if you were in command of this brig?”“Certainly not,” said Brace quickly; “but I shouldn’t have put the poor fellows ashore.”The captain mumbled a little, and by the light of the swinging lanthorn Brace caught a gleam of white teeth, and knew that he was laughing.“That was what he’d call bunkum, and we call bounce, squire. Of course I shouldn’t have put him ashore. But I felt as if I meant to when I said it.”“Then you are not so very much dissatisfied, captain?” said Sir Humphrey.“Yes, I am, sir, for I don’t like to be bested. No man does, especially by one of these clever ’Merican chaps. For they are clever, there’s no getting over that.”“I don’t like that either,” said Sir Humphrey; “but it’s evident that this man is an enthusiast in travel and natural history.”“Oh, yes, sir; but why don’t he go and enthoose in somebody else’s vessel? I’m afraid you’ve been cutting us out an awkward job to get on with that customer.”“I hope not,” said Sir Humphrey. “He promises very fairly.”“Yes, sir, but will he perform? You see, if he was an Englishman he might, but I never knew an American yet who liked to play second fiddle in anything. But there, sir, you’re chief, and I don’t see how, short of going back again to set him ashore, you could have done anything else.”“Thank you, captain,” said Sir Humphrey. “I did what I thought was best under the circumstances.”“You did, sir. Squire here—Mr Brace—thought I was going to turn rusty, I suppose.”“I did,” said Brace.“Yes, but I wasn’t. I blaze up a bit when I’m put out, gentlemen, but I soon settle down into a steady warm glow, and keep within the bars.”“Then there’s an end of an awkward episode, captain,” said Sir Humphrey. “I was afraid at one time that we were going to have a tragedy.”“So was I, sir,” said the captain sharply. “It’s a mercy that ugly-looking yellow monkey of a chap was not smothered in that cask. My word! he must be a plucky fellow!”“Or too stupid to have grasped the danger,” said Brace.The captain nodded.“Well, you gentlemen,” he said, “I’m going to stop on deck till we’re a few miles farther off the shore; so I shall keep Mr Dellow company till it’s Lynton’s watch, and then I shall turn in. Good night, gentlemen, good night.”“Good night,” said the brothers in a breath.“If you hear it come on to blow before morning, you needn’t be surprised, for I think we’re going to have a bit of wind. Young Uncle Sam was right about sending a boat ashore with him. She’d never have made the shore, nor the brig again.”Brace looked sharply round, trying to pierce the darkness, but in vain.
“Evening, sir,” said Lynton. “Growing too dark to see much with a glass, isn’t it?”
“Yes; I was just going to shut it up and put it in the case,” replied Brace. “I say, don’t you go and sham dead to upset us all again.”
“There you go!” cried the mate angrily. “I did think it was going to drop now. Nobody seems to believe my word.”
“Don’t say nobody, for I will,” said Brace quietly. “I was only joking you a bit. But tell me: that coast-line I could see before it grew so dark was all forest, I suppose?”
“A lot of it,” replied the mate, with a sigh or relief; “great thick dense forest with dwarfish trees growing out of the mud, and if you could see now, you’d find all the leaves sparkling with fireflies up the creeks and streams.”
“Then the sooner we reach our river and begin to sail up, the better I shall like it. How soon it grows dark out here!”
“It does in these latitudes,” replied the mate.
“But I say, Mr Leigh, don’t you go thinking that I went ashore carrying on and drinking, because I didn’t.”
“I promise you I will not.”
“Thankye,” said the mate, as he stood looking along the darkened deck, with the lanthorns now swinging aloft. Beneath a rough awning the captain had made the men rig up over the cabin, that gentleman was seated chatting with Sir Humphrey, while the first mate stood by them, listening to their conversation, and occasionally putting in a word.
Three or four folding-chairs had been placed aft for the benefit of the passengers, one of which Brace had marked down for his own use, and he was thinking of fetching it along to where they stood, as he talked to the second and fastened the strap of his binocular case.
“Ah,” said the mate, “you’ll find that little glass handy when you begin shooting for picking out the birds and serpents and things, and—”
He took off his straw hat to wipe his forehead, for the air was hot, moist, and sultry. He did not, however, apply his handkerchief, but stood with it in his right hand, his straw hat in his left, gazing down at it.
“Puzzles me,” he said, changing the subject suddenly.
“What: how to find the birds and reptiles among the leaves of the great trees?”
“No, no,” said the mate impatiently. “I mean, how it was this straw hat of mine came on board.”
Then, in a hoarse whisper: “Mr Leigh, sir: look—look there!”
He stretched out his hand with the hat in it, using it to point towards the spot where one folding-chair stood, dimly seen, close up to the starboard bulwark.
“Well, I see it,” said Brace. “It does not seem any the worse for coming on board without you.”
“But I can’t make it out,” whispered the man, in a strange way. “I hung it up in the American gent’s room—the one you had, sir—and the last I remember is seeing him sitting opposite to me across the table; and now look there. See him?”
“No,” said Brace; “I can see no him. What do you mean?”
“The American,” whispered Lynton, catching the young man by the arm. “There, can’t you see him sitting in the dark yonder?”
“No,” said Brace quietly. “I say, Mr Lynton, you’ll be better when you’ve had a good night’s rest. You talk as if you could see a ghost.”
“That’s it, sir; that’s it,” whispered the man wildly. “Come away—come away.”
“Nonsense, man. There’s nothing over yonder, only—”
Brace stopped short in blank astonishment, for the nearest lanthorn turned round a little as the brig heeled over, and there, faintly seen, and looking strangely transparent, the seated figure of the inquisitive American seemed to loom out of the shadow.
But the startled fancy that it might be anything supernatural passed away in an instant, and he felt ready to laugh at the superstitious sailor, as he saw a glowing spot of light about on a level with the figure’s lips, and directly after smelt the peculiar odour of tobacco as it was wafted to him by the warm night air.
“Come away,” whispered the mate, gripping Brace’s arm with painful force.
“Nonsense,” said Brace firmly. “That’s how your hat came on board.”
“Ugh!” ejaculated the mate, and he sent the straw hat he held whirring away from him with all his might.
He meant to have sent it overboard, but straw hats have boomerang-like ways of behaving peculiar to themselves, as most wearers know to their cost; and the one in question, instead of rising and skimming like a swallow over the bulwark and dropping into the sea, performed a peculiar evolution, turned in the direction of the group under the awning, dived down, rose again, just touching Sir Humphrey’s ear, missing the first mate, and striking the captain with its saw-like revolving edge just below the chin.
“Here, hullo!” roared the latter gentleman; “what are you about?”
“Guess it warn’t a bad throw, though, in the dark,” said a familiar voice, which made the captain spring to his feet with a cry of astonishment; and the next moment the group from beneath the awning were gathered about the imperturbable smoker seated in the folding-chair.
“That you?” shouted the captain, and the personage addressed took his cigar slowly from his lips and emitted a great puff of vapour.
“Yes, skipper,” he said coolly; “it’s me,” and he replaced his cigar.
“What in the name of all that’s wonderful are you doing here?”
“Doing, skipper?” said the American quietly. “Smoking. Precious hot, ain’t it?”
“Hot, sir?” roared the captain; “it’s nothing to what it’s going to be. How dare you? Why, you’re a stowaway!”
“Am I, skipper? Well, do you know,” said the American, in the most imperturbable way, “I thought I was a lump of human fat melting slowly away and running out on to your deck.”
“How did you get here?”
“How did I get here? Why, two of your men brought me aboard last night in your boat.”
“Well, of all the impudence!”
“Now, now, now, skipper, don’t get in a wax. Just act like a man, and order me a drink, half water, half lime-juice, for my throat feels as if it had been sanded with hot sand.”
“I’ll order you over the side, and set you ashore at the nearest point of land.”
“Not you, skipper. It would be like committing murder, and raise up international difficulties.”
“I don’t care, sir; I’ll do it. You’ve got the wrong man to deal with if you think you’re going to play any of your Yankee tricks with David Banes. Here, Dellow, heave-to and man the big boat.”
“Good ten miles to the shore,” said the first mate in a low remonstrant tone of voice.
“I don’t care if it’s twenty. I said I wouldn’t take him as a passenger, and I won’t.”
“Ten miles for your chaps to pull in the dark, and ten miles back,” said the American coolly: “that’s twenty, and say another ten miles as allowance for currents, which run strong, I’ve heard say. That’s thirty miles. Say, skipper, hadn’t you better take it coolly and make the best of it?”
“No, sir, I had not.”
“But I have made up my mind to sail with you, skipper, for I reckon I shall like this trip.”
“And I reckon you will not,” said the captain grimly. “You’re very sharp, sir, but you’ve cut yourself this time, and you’re going to be rowed ashore as soon as it’s light.”
“Hah, that’s better, skipper. Your lads couldn’t do it in the dark, and they’d never find the brig again.”
“That’s right,” said the captain. “I’m not going to run any risks, for the sake of my men; but ashore you go as soon as it’s light.”
“And what about for the sake of me? I have heard that some of the natives about here are the old Caribs.”
“Yes, sir, regular old-fashioned savages; and you won’t find any hotels, nor captains to worry with questions.”
“I’ve heard too that they’re cannibals, skipper. S’pose they eat me?”
“So much the better for them and the worse for you. But that’s your look-out, not mine.”
“Well, you are a hard nut, skipper,” said the American, leaning back and smoking away.
“I am, sir: too hard for you to crack. You’re not the first loafing, cheating stowaway I’ve had to deal with.”
“Cheating, eh?” said the American, turning his face to Sir Humphrey and Brace in turn. “Hark at him! I don’t want to cheat. I’ll pay my share of all expenses.”
“No, you won’t, sir, for I won’t have your money. This brig’s let to these two gentlemen for as long as they like. You’ve played me a dirty trick after being told that I was engaged, and you’ve got to go ashore. I see through your tricks now. You inveigled my second mate ashore to dinner with you.”
“Asked him, and treated him like a gentleman,” said the American.
“You stole his straw hat.”
“Nay, nay, only borrowed it, skipper.”
“Stole his hat, sir.”
“Say took, and I won’t argue, skipper: I was obliged to.”
“Left him asleep, and stole aboard in the ship’s boat.”
“Yes, that’s right,” said the American. “I thought you were going to say I stole the boat. That’s right. The men wouldn’t have rowed me aboard if it hadn’t been for the mate’s hat.”
“And for aught you cared I might have sailed and left that poor fellow behind—eh, Lynton?”
“That seems about the size of it,” said the second mate.
“Gammon!” cried the American good-humouredly. “You’re too good a seaman, Captain Banes, to go off and leave one of your officers ashore.”
“That’s oil,” said the captain sharply; “but I’m not going to be greased, sir. You’re going ashore: if only for playing me and my second officer such a dirty trick.”
“Say smart, not dirty, skipper.”
“Dirty, sir, dirty.”
“Only business, skipper. I’d made up my mind to come, and it seemed to me the only way.”
“Ah, you were very clever; but it won’t do sir. You’re going ashore.”
“But what about that cool drink, skipper?”
“And as soon as it’s light,” said the captain, ignoring the request. “Mr Dellow.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“Set the course a few miles nearer shore. No fear of a squall off here.”
“Well, I dunno, sir,” said the mate. “I don’t think I’d run in too close. The water’s shallow, and there’s often very heavy seas closer in.”
“Be bad for an open boat, skipper,” said the American.
“Very, sir,” said Captain Banes. “I daresay you’ll get pretty wet before you’re set ashore.”
“That’s bad, skipper; but I wasn’t thinking of myself, but about my traps.”
“Your traps?”
“Yes, I’ve got a lot of tackle that won’t bear wetting. Dessay there’s a ton altogether aboard.”
“What!” roared the captain. “You’ve no goods aboard?”
“Oh, haven’t I? Guns, ammunition, provisions, and stores of all sorts.”
“How did they get here? Bring ’em in your pocket?”
“Nonsense. Your second mate brought ’em aboard.”
“What? Here, Lynton, speak out. Have you been in collusion with this fellow, and brought his baggage aboard?”
“Not a bag, sir,” cried the mate indignantly.
“Oh, come, I like that!” said the American, laughing. “Didn’t I come and sit by you and smoke and see it all done?”
“No!” cried the second mate angrily.
“Well, you Englishmen can tell crackers when you like. What about that big cask with the holes in?”
“That cask? Was that yours?”
“Of course it was, and all the rest of the things on that truck,” said the American coolly. “You don’t suppose I should have come and sat there to see anybody else’s tackle taken on board, do you?”
“Well,” broke in Brace, laughing, “judging by what I’ve seen of you, sir, I should say you would.”
The American turned upon him in the midst of the laugh which arose, and said smilingly:
“All right, sir, have your joke; but when I ask questions or hang around to see what’s going on I do it for a reason. I wanted to go on this voyage in this ship, sir: that’s why I was so inquisitive; and here I am.”
“Yes,” said the captain hotly, “for the present. And so you tricked my second officer and men into bringing your baggage on board, did you?”
“Schemed it, skipper, schemed it,” said the American coolly.
“Exactly. Very clever of you, my fine fellow; but look here: suppose I make you forfeit your baggage when I set you ashore?”
“Law won’t let you, skipper.”
“I’m the law on board my ship,” cried the captain angrily. “Suppose I refuse to stop my vessel to get your baggage out of the hold, and that precious cask?”
“Good, that’s right, skipper—precious cask,” said the American coolly.
“Precious or not precious, I shall set you ashore, and continue my voyage, and whether it lasts one month or twelve, you may wait for your baggage till I come back, and you may look for me wherever I am.”
“You can’t do it, skipper,” said the American smoking away quietly.
“Oh, can’t I, sir?” cried the captain. “You’ll see.”
“No, I shan’t, skipper. It would be murder, I tell you, to set me ashore, and double murder to sail away with my luggage.”
“Bah!” cried the captain.
“You see, there’s that cask. What about it?”
“Hang your cask! I’ll have it thrown overboard.”
“Oh, I say, you mustn’t do that,” cried the American, with some slight display of energy; “the water would get in through those holes bored in the top, and spoil the contents.”
“What’s that to me, sir?” cried the captain.
“Murder number three, because I have warned you not to do it in the presence of witnesses.”
“Murder!” cried the captain, looking startled. “Why, what’s in it?”
“Only my servant.”
“What!” came in a chorus.
“My boy—my servant,” said the American coolly; “and he ought to be let out now, or he’ll be smothered. I found it very hot down there, sitting among the boxes and chests. I dunno how he finds it, shut up in a cask.”
“Isay, gentlemen,” said the captain, with a gasp; “is this fellow an escaped lunatic—is he mad?”
“Not I,” said the American, answering for himself; “I was, though, down there when I got in.”
“Hah! broke in,” cried the captain sharply.
“That I didn’t. I found the door open when I left the berth where I lay down when I first came aboard. Pretty sort of a thick-headed chap it was who stowed that cask. Made me mad as a bull in fly-time. There were the holes to guide him to keep this side upwards, but he put the poor fellow upside down. Nice job I had to turn him right in the dark, and all wedged in among casks. I hope he ain’t dead, because it would be awkward for you, skipper.”
“Look here, sir,” cried Sir Humphrey angrily, while Brace stood fuming; “do you mean to tell me in plain English that you did such a barbarous, criminal act as to shut up a man or boy in a cask to bring him aboard this brig?”
“Barbarous! criminal! Nonsense, sir. He liked the fun of it, and I made him as comfortable as I could. Plenty of air-holes, cushion and a pillow to sit on and rest his head. Plenty to eat too, and a bottle of water to drink. I told him he’d better go to sleep as much as he could, and he said he would. He must have been asleep when I came up a bit ago, for I couldn’t make him hear.”
“Captain Banes,” cried Brace excitedly, “give orders for the hatches to be taken off at once.”
“Just what I’m going to do, squire,” said the captain. “Here, Dellow, see to it. But I call you all to witness that I wash my hands of this business. If the man’s dead I’m going to sail back to port and hand this man over to the authorities.”
“We’ll settle that afterwards, Captain Banes,” said Sir Humphrey stiffly.
“Right, sir; I’ll lose no time,” said the captain, and all present stood looking on while, under the first mate’s orders, the hatches were opened, more lanthorns lit, and a couple of men sent below with a rope running through a block.
“Make it fast, my lads, and be sharp,” cried the mate, as he leaned over the opening in the deck, swinging a lanthorn so that the sailors could see to hitch the rope about the cask. “Ready?”
“One moment, sir,” came from below. Then:
“Haul away.”
“Keep him right side upwards, you sir,” said the American coolly.
“Right side upwards, sir!” growled the captain fiercely. “You deserve to be headed up in the cask yourself and thrown overboard.”
As he spoke, the big cask appeared above the combings of the hatchway, was swung clear of the opening, and lowered again, to come down with a bump upon the deck.
“Here, quick,” cried the captain. “Bring an axe and knock off those top hoops.”
“Nay, nay!” cried the American coolly.
“Don’t interfere, sir,” said Sir Humphrey; “it is to get the head out.”
“I know,” said the American; “but one of those borings is a round keyhole. He’ll open the head from inside if he’s awake: and if he don’t I can.”
“If he’s awake!” said Brace bitterly.
“P’raps he isn’t, for he’s a oner to sleep. Stand aside, skipper.”
The captain turned upon the man fiercely, but it had not the slightest effect upon him, for he kept his cigar in his mouth and smoked away, as he drew out a key like that used for the boot of a coach, thrust it into one of the holes in the head, gave it a turn, and the head of the cask opened outward in two pieces which turned upon hinges; while as the first mate thrust forward the lanthorn he held, it was nearly knocked out of his hand by the skull-cap-covered head which shot up, sending a thrill of relief through the circle of lookers-on.
“Well, Dan, how goes it?” said the American.
The fresh arrival, who seemed to be a thin diminutive-looking fellow of any age, whose perfectly smooth face looked peculiarly yellow, planted his hands one on either side of the cask, sank down, and then sprang up again, cleverly passed his legs over the side and landed himself—as if shot out by a spring—upon the deck, where he stood shrinking from the light, yawned long and widely, and then said slowly:
“Oh, all right, boss. Bit hot and sleepy. What’s o’clock?”
“Time you and your precious master were over the side,” cried the captain angrily.
The man or boy, whichever he was, turned in the direction of the voice, blinking quickly in the faint rays of the lanthorn light as if even they dazzled him, and went on:
“Who’s him, boss?”
“That, Dan? That’s the captain.”
Brace burst into a hearty fit of laughter, in which his brother joined, and after a brief pause this was taken up by the two mates and followed by the men who were looking on.
“Ho!” cried the captain angrily: “it’s a capital joke. Very funny, no doubt; but it strikes me somebody’s going to laugh on the wrong side of his mouth. Just wait till it’s daylight.”
“Oh, it’s all right, skipper. You can’t set us ashore now,” said the American, laughing.
“Can’t I? Oh! we shall see about that, my fine fellow. If you think I’m going on this voyage with a couple of lunatics on board you’re preciously mistaken. I’d sooner sail to Egypt with a cargo of black cats.”
“Hark at him,” said the American merrily to Sir Humphrey and his brother. “He likes his joke.”
“Joke, sir?” cried the captain. “You’ll find this no joke, Mr Yankee Doodle.”
“Go along with you, captain. Yankee Doodle knows John Bull better than he knows himself. You’re not going to make me believe you’ll set me and my man ashore and leave us in a savage place to die of starvation and ague.”
“You soon will believe it, though, sir,” said the captain; but in spite of his annoyance he could not thoroughly infuse his tones with sincerity.
“You’re only blowing, skipper, when you might be taking pity on that poor chap of mine who’s been shut up in the barrel all these hours without giving a single squeak; and all because he’d risk anything so as to go with his master. That’s true, isn’t it, Dan?”
“Yes, that’s right, boss,” replied the little fellow, who kept passing his tongue over his lips.
“Hungry, Dan?”
“No, boss. Thirsty. Horrid.”
“Did you finish your bottle of water?”
“No, boss; I couldn’t get the cork in proper, and when I knocked it over while I was asleep the cork came out and all the water ran away.”
“Not amongst my cartridges, I hope, Dan?”
“I dunno, boss. I never see where it run to in the dark. Only know it didn’t run where I wanted it to go. Iamthirsty.”
The second mate handed him a pannikin which he had fetched from the cask lashed amidships, and the American’s servant took it and began to drink with avidity.
“Here, you, Lynton,” cried the captain: “who ordered you to do that?”
“Common humanity, sir,” said Brace quickly.
“Then it was like his uncommon impudence to order my officers about, squire,” said the captain gruffly, but without so much of his former fierceness.
“Hah!” ejaculated the drinker, as he drained the tin; “never knowed water was so good before. Thank-ye, mister. Ketch hold.”
The second mate took the tin, and to the astonishment of all, the uncasked servant threw himself flat upon his chest and stretched himself out as much as he could, took a few strokes as if swimming, and then turned quickly over upon his back, went through similar evolutions, grunted, and stretched again.
“What’s the matter, Dan?” said his master quietly.
“Taking some of the creases out, boss. That barrel warn’t big enough for a chap my size, and I feel quite curly. There’s a crick in my neck, one of my legs is bent and t’other’s quite screwed.”
“Oh, you’ll be better soon,” said the first mate.
“Yes, I’m coming right again,” replied the man.
“Wait till you’ve had a trot or two up and down Captain Banes’s deck. You’ll let him, won’t you, skipper?”
“Urrrr!” growled the captain.
“Oh, come, skipper, ain’t it time you left off being so waxy? You can’t set me ashore, you know; so say no more about it. I’ll pay handsomely for the trip.”
“Don’t talk to me,” growled the captain. “That gentleman has chartered the brig, and it’s his for as long as he likes. I can’t make any bargains with you or anyone else.”
“Ah, now you’re talking sense, skipper. That’s speaking like a man. Well, Sir Humphrey Leigh, let’s hear what you’ve got to say to me.”
“I say that you have taken an unwarrantable liberty, and—”
“Hold hard, sir, hold hard. Let’s settle that one thing first. Well, yes, I suppose it was; but here was I with all my plans made: arms, ammunition, stores, everything, man included—he is a man, you know, though he’s such a dried-up little chap. How old are you, Dan?”
“Thirty last birthday, boss,” said the little fellow promptly.
“There, sir. Well, that’s how I was. Red-hot too to get up one of these big rivers to explore and collect everything that came in my way, but no vessel to be had. Felt as if I must get back home when I heard about you and the skipper here; and then I tried my best to get you to let me go shares in the expedition, and you wouldn’t. You know you wouldn’t.”
“Naturally,” said Sir Humphrey.
“We won’t argue about that, sir. That’s how I was. Amurricans when they’ve got a thing to do don’t turn back. It goes against their grain. Go ahead’s our motto. I started to do an expedition up a South American river, and I’d got to do it—somehow: straightforward if I could; if I couldn’t—back way. That’s how it was with me, and here I am. It was artful, dodgy, and not square; but I couldn’t help it. There, I speak plain, and I want you now as an English gentleman to help me with the skipper here. You see, I’m a naturalist, ready for any amount of hard work, a reg’lar enthoosiast of travelling and collecting, and I’ll pay my share of all expenses. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, that’s fair,” said Sir Humphrey; “but we don’t want you.”
“Not just now, sir; but you may. You don’t know what holes you may get into up the river. Come, sir, I throw myself on your mercy. You’re captain of the expedition, and I’ll serve under you. Don’t send me adrift now.”
“Well, of all the enterprising, pushing men I ever encountered—” began Sir Humphrey.
“Yes, that’s it: enterprising. I am enterprising, ready to do anything to carry out the objects I have in view. Come, sir, I promise you that you shan’t regret it.”
Sir Humphrey frowned as he looked the American and his man over, and then turned to his brother, who shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
“What do you think about this?” said Sir Humphrey.
“Don’t ask me, Free,” replied the young man. “I have a strong leaning towards mercy.”
“But we don’t like this man well enough to make him our companion.”
“No, but he may improve,” said Brace.
“He may get worse,” said Sir Humphrey shortly.
“I hope not,” said Brace. “You see, we’re started, and it would be horrible to go back. We can’t set him ashore.”
“Impossible!” said Sir Humphrey decisively.
“Very well then, we must take him.”
“It seems as if there is no alternative,” said Sir Humphrey, frowning. “We cannot allow the captain to set him ashore.”
“He wouldn’t want stopping,” said Brace, laughing gently.
“You think he would not do it, Brace?”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t,” replied the young man. “He barks and makes a noise, but he wouldn’t bite like that.”
“Well, then, we must make the best of it, Brace, for I certainly will not turn back.”
“Then you’ll take him?”
“I shall give way to the extent of asking Captain Banes to let him go with us.”
“Don’t,” said Brace, in a low voice, as he glanced at the American and saw that he was watching him closely.
“What! not ask him?” said Sir Humphrey. “Why, just now you were in favour of doing so.”
“So I am now, Free,” said Brace, drawing his brother to the side, so that they could be alone; “but I want you to take it entirely upon yourself. You’ve chartered the brig; and it is yours. Captain Banes is, so to speak, under your orders, you being head of this expedition.”
“Quite right, Brace,” replied Sir Humphrey, nodding his head, and looking satisfied with his brother’s decision.
“I should act at once as if I were fully in command, and make a stern bargain with this American naturalist that if he comes with us it is, as he proposed, completely under your orders.”
“Exactly,” said Sir Humphrey, and the brothers walked back to where their would-be ally stood waiting patiently, and Captain Banes was giving vent to his annoyance by growling at both mates in turn, and then at the men for not being smarter over getting up the cask.
“Captain Banes,” said Sir Humphrey.
“Sir to you,” growled the captain.
“My brother and I have been discussing this business, and we come to the conclusion that we cannot under any circumstances return to port.”
“O’ course not,” said the captain, nodding approval.
“But on the other hand we cannot be guilty of so inhuman an act as to set this gentleman and his servant ashore upon a wild coast, at the risk of his life.”
“Hear, hear!” cried the American, and the captain grunted.
“But, as he has chosen to take the risk and is prepared for an inland expedition, we decide that he is quite at liberty to join ours and go with us, on the condition that he follows out my orders as to what is done.”
“Of course—of course,” cried the American. “Hear, Mr Skipper?”
“Oh, yes, I hear,” said the captain.
“Then that is settled,” said Sir Humphrey. “Mr Briscoe, I trust that in the future we shall be better friends.”
“No fear of that, sir,” said the American quietly. “Sir Humphrey, you’re a gentleman. Mr Brace, you’re another. It’s going to be acts now, not words. I only say thankye, and I want you and your plucky young brother to believe me when I say you shan’t repent your bargain a bit.”
“I believe I shall not, sir,” said Sir Humphrey gravely.
“As for you, Captain Banes,” continued the new member of the expedition, “I’m going to show you that I’m not such a ruffian as you think. And now, gentlemen, as I haven’t had a wink of sleep for two nights, I’m going to ask the skipper to let me have a berth and to give orders for my man here to be furnished with a bunk. I’ve kept it up, gentlemen, as long as I could, but now I’m dead-beat. I’ve been asleep in my legs for long enough. Now it has crept up from my waist to my chest, and it’s attacking my head. In another ten minutes I shall be insensible, and when I shall wake again is more than I know, so I’ll say at once: Thank you all—all round, and good night.”
A little difficulty arose as to a berth; but this was soon solved by the second mate giving up his in favour of a mattress upon the cabin floor, and the brothers were left alone with the captain, who preserved an ominous silence, till Brace spoke half-laughingly:
“You don’t like the new arrangement, captain?”
There was a grunt. Then:
“Put that and that together, squire, would you if you were in command of this brig?”
“Certainly not,” said Brace quickly; “but I shouldn’t have put the poor fellows ashore.”
The captain mumbled a little, and by the light of the swinging lanthorn Brace caught a gleam of white teeth, and knew that he was laughing.
“That was what he’d call bunkum, and we call bounce, squire. Of course I shouldn’t have put him ashore. But I felt as if I meant to when I said it.”
“Then you are not so very much dissatisfied, captain?” said Sir Humphrey.
“Yes, I am, sir, for I don’t like to be bested. No man does, especially by one of these clever ’Merican chaps. For they are clever, there’s no getting over that.”
“I don’t like that either,” said Sir Humphrey; “but it’s evident that this man is an enthusiast in travel and natural history.”
“Oh, yes, sir; but why don’t he go and enthoose in somebody else’s vessel? I’m afraid you’ve been cutting us out an awkward job to get on with that customer.”
“I hope not,” said Sir Humphrey. “He promises very fairly.”
“Yes, sir, but will he perform? You see, if he was an Englishman he might, but I never knew an American yet who liked to play second fiddle in anything. But there, sir, you’re chief, and I don’t see how, short of going back again to set him ashore, you could have done anything else.”
“Thank you, captain,” said Sir Humphrey. “I did what I thought was best under the circumstances.”
“You did, sir. Squire here—Mr Brace—thought I was going to turn rusty, I suppose.”
“I did,” said Brace.
“Yes, but I wasn’t. I blaze up a bit when I’m put out, gentlemen, but I soon settle down into a steady warm glow, and keep within the bars.”
“Then there’s an end of an awkward episode, captain,” said Sir Humphrey. “I was afraid at one time that we were going to have a tragedy.”
“So was I, sir,” said the captain sharply. “It’s a mercy that ugly-looking yellow monkey of a chap was not smothered in that cask. My word! he must be a plucky fellow!”
“Or too stupid to have grasped the danger,” said Brace.
The captain nodded.
“Well, you gentlemen,” he said, “I’m going to stop on deck till we’re a few miles farther off the shore; so I shall keep Mr Dellow company till it’s Lynton’s watch, and then I shall turn in. Good night, gentlemen, good night.”
“Good night,” said the brothers in a breath.
“If you hear it come on to blow before morning, you needn’t be surprised, for I think we’re going to have a bit of wind. Young Uncle Sam was right about sending a boat ashore with him. She’d never have made the shore, nor the brig again.”
Brace looked sharply round, trying to pierce the darkness, but in vain.