Chapter Four.Frightened to Death!“That’s murder—murder in cold blood!”The voice uttering this exclamation, which I at once recognised as that of Tom Bullover, the carpenter, came from amidst a mass of the men, who, attracted by the noise of the row, had gathered from forward, and were clustered together—as I could see sideways from my position there, spread-eagled in the rigging. They were standing by the long-boat, just abaft of poor Sam Jedfoot’s now tenantless galley, and immediately under the bellying folds of the mainsail, that rustled and swelled out over their heads, tugging at the boltropes and rattling the clew-garnet blocks, as it was jerked by the wind, which ever and anon blew with eddying gusts as it veered and shifted.“Who’s the mutinous rascal thet spoke then?” cried Captain Snaggs, wheeling round on the instant, quick as lightning, and cocking his revolver with another ominous click, as he faced the group, aiming at the nearest man to him. “Jest ye give me another word of yer jaw, an’ I’ll sarve ye the same as I sarved thet durned nigger—I will so, by thunder!”A hoarse murmur, partly of rage and partly expressive of fear, arose from the crew as they shuffled uneasily about the deck, one trying to get behind another; but neither Tom Bullover nor anyone else stepped out to answer the captain, who, seeing that he had cowed them, lowered his awkward looking weapon.“Ye’re a pack of durned skallywags, with nary a one the pluck of a skunk in the lot!” he exclaimed contemptuously, in his snarling Yankee voice; but, just then, the head sails flapping, from the helmsman letting the ship nearly broach to, forgetting to attend to his duties in his eagerness to hear all that was going on, the captain’s wrath was directed towards those aft, and he wheeled round and swore at the second-mate, who was on the poop, leaning over the rail, bawling out louder than before:—“What the infernal dickens are ye about thaar, Mister Steenbock? Snakes an’ alligators! why, ye’ll have us all aback in another minute! Ease her off, ease her off gently; an’ hev thet lubber at the wheel relieved; d’ye haar? Ha ain’t worth a cuss! Get a man thet ken steer in his place. Jerusalem! Up with the helm at once!”Fortunately, the jib only gybed, while the fore-topsail slatted a bit against the mast; and all the other sails remaining full and drawing, a slight shift of the helm sufficed to put the ship on her proper course. Still, the captain, now his blood was up, could not afford to lose such a good opportunity both for rating the second-mate for his carelessness in conning the ship and not making the helmsman keep her steady on her course, and also in giving a little extra work to the hands who had dared to murmur at his fearful vengeance on the cook for drugging his food. So he made them bustle about the deck in style, slacking off the lee braces and hauling upon these on the weather side, until we had brought the wind almost over the stern, with the yards pretty nearly square. We were now running before it, rolling from port to starboard and back again from starboard to port, almost gunwales under, with the sail we had on us now, for it was blowing a good ten-knot breeze from the nor’-nor’-west, the breeze having shifted again since sunset, right astern, instead of being dead ahead, as previously, of our proper tract for the open sea.When Captain Snaggs had seen everything braced round, and the boom-sheet of the spanker likewise eased off, he turned to where I was still lashed up against the main shrouds, in dread expectancy every moment of his renewing the thrashing he had commenced, and which poor Sam’s plucky intervention on my behalf had for the time interrupted.“Well, ye young cuss!” said the skipper, who had been giving all his orders from the lower deck, which he had not left since he had rolled out from the cuddy under the poop in the paroxysm of passion and pain that led to such a dread catastrophe—all that had happened, although it takes a long time to describe, having occurred within a very brief interval of his first outburst on me. “What hev ye got to say for y’rself thet I shouldn’t give ye a thunderin’ hidin’, sich ez I hanker arter, hey? I’m jiggered, too, if I don’t, ye young whelp! Fur I guess ye wer kinder in truck with thet durned nigger when he tried to pizen me an’ Mister Flinders. I’ll skin ye alive, though ye aren’t bigger nor a spritsail sheet knot, my joker, fur ye hevn’t got half enuff yet, I reckon!”So saying, he picked up the rope’s-end that he had dropped when he took out his revolver, and was evidently about to lay it on my poor trembling back again, when another groan came from the men forward, who still hung about the windlass bitts, instead of going below after squaring the yards. Tom Bullover’s voice, I could hear, again taking the lead, as they advanced in a body aft, in a much more demonstrative manner than previously.“Stow that now, and leave the boy alone,” I heard him say. “You’ve wallopped him already; and there’s been enough murder done in the ship!”Captain Snaggs let fall the cat he had taken in his hand to thrash me with, and once more pulled out from his pocket the revolver; but, in the half-light that lingered now after the sunset glow had faded out of the sky, I noticed, as I screwed my neck round, looking to see what he was doing, that his hand trembled. The next moment he dropped the revolver on the deck as he had done the rope’s-end.“Who’s talkin’ of murder? Thet’s an ugly word,” he stammered out, evidently frightened at the result of his rage against poor Sam, and the way in which the crew regarded it. “I—I only shot thet nigger because he pizened me an’ the first-mate.”“You should have put hims in ze irons,” interposed the second-mate, Jan Steenbock, speaking in his deep, solemn tones from the poop above. “Ze mans vas murdert in ze cold blood!”I could see Captain Snaggs shiver—all his coarse, bullying manner and braggadocio deserting him, as Jan Steenbock’s accents rang through the ship, like those of an accusing judge; the index finger of the second-mate’s right hand pointing at him, as he leant over the poop rail, like the finger of Fate!“I did not mean to shoot the coon like to kill him, I only meant to kinder frighten the life out of him, thet’s all,” he began, in an exculpatory tone, regaining his usual confidence as he proceeded. “The durned cuss brought it on hisself, I reckon; fur, if he hedn’t climb’d into the riggin’ he wouldn’t hev dropped overboard!”“But, you vas shoot him ze first,” said Jan Steenbock, in reply to this, the men on the other side of the captain giving a murmuring assent to the accusation, “you vas shoot him ze first!”“Aye, thet’s so; but I didn’t mean fur to hit him, only to skear him. Guess I don’t think I did, fur the ship rolled as I fired, an’ the bullet must hev gone over his woolly head, an’ he let go from sheer frit!”“Dat might be,” answered the second-mate, whom the men left to do all the talking; “but ze—”“Besides,” continued the captain, interrupting him, and seeing he had gained a point, “the darkey pizened my grub. He sea he put jalap in it. Ye heerd him say so y’rselves, didn’t ye?”“Aye, aye,” chorussed the group of men in front of him, with true sailor’s justice, “we did. We heard him say so.”“Well, then,” argued Captain Snaggs, triumphantly, “ye knows what a delicate matter it is fur to meddle with a chap’s grub; ye wouldn’t like it y’rselves?”“No,” came from the men unanimously, “we wouldn’t.”“All right, then; I see ye’re with me,” said the skipper, wagging his beard about as he lay down the law. “I confess I didn’t like it. The nigger sed he hocussed our grub; but seeing ez how I an’ the first-mate wer took so bad, I believed he’d pizened us, an’ it rizzed my dander, an’ so I went fur him.”“Aye, aye,” sang out the men, as if endorsing this free and rather one-sided version of the affair, Hiram Bangs the captain’s countryman, chiming in with a “Right you air, boss!”“But you need not have shoot hims,” insisted Jan Steenbock, perceiving that the skipper was getting the men to take a more lenient view of the transaction than he did. “Ze mans not go avays. You could put hims in ze irons!”“So I could, me joker; though I can’t see ez how it’s yer place to top the officer over me, Mister Steenbock,” retorted the skipper, with some of his old heat. “Ye’ve hed yer say, an’ the men hev hed their’n; an’ now I’ll hev mine, I reckon! The nigger wer in fault in the fust place, an’ I’m sorry I wer tew hard on him; but, now he’s gone overboard, thaar’s nuthin’ more to be done, fur all the talkin’ in the world won’t bring him back agen! I’ll tell ye what I’ll do, though.”“What?” shouted out Tom Bullover. “What will you do?”Captain Snaggs recognised his voice now, in spite of its being nearly dark, and he uttered an expressive sort of snorting grunt.“Ha! ye’re the coon, are ye, thet cried murder, hey?” I heard him mutter under his breath menacingly; and then, speaking out louder he said, that all could hear, “I tell ye what I’ll do: I am willin’ to go ashore at the first available port we ken stop at an’ lay the whole of the circumstances before the British or American consul, an’ take the consequences—fur you all ken give evidence against me if ye like! I can’t say fairer nor thet men, can I?”“No, cap,” they chorussed, as if perfectly satisfied with this promise, “nothing can be fairer nor that!”“All right; thet ’ll do, the watch, then.”“But, thet b’y thaar?” called out Hiram Bangs, as they were all shuffling forward again, now that the palaver was over and the subject thoroughly discussed, as they thought, in all its bearings; “yer won’t leather him no more? The little cuss warn’t to blame; the nigger said so, hisself!”“No, I won’t thrash him agen, since he’s a friend o’ yer’s,” replied the skipper, jocularly, evidently glad that the affair was now hushed up. “Ye ken cut him down if ye like, an’ take him forrud with ye.”“Right ye air, cap, so we will,” said Hiram, producing his clasp knife in a jiffey and severing the lashings that bound me to the rigging, “Come along, Cholly; an’ we’ll warm ye up in the fo’c’s’le arter yer warmin’ up aft from the skipper!”The hands responded with a laugh to this witticism, apparently forgetting all about the terrible scene that had so lately taken place, as they escorted me in triumph towards the fore part of the ship; while the captain went up on the poop and relieved Jan Steenbock, speaking to him very surlily, and telling him to go down into the cabin and see what had become of the first-mate, Mr Flinders, and if he was any better, and fit to come on duty. As for himself, he had now quite recovered from the effects of whatever the unfortunate cook had put into the stew he had eaten, and which had alarmed him with the fear of being poisoned.I, however, could not so readily put the fearful scene I had been such an unwilling witness of so quickly out of my remembrance; and, as I went forward with the kind-hearted but thoughtless fellows who had saved me from a further thrashing, I felt quite sick with horror. A dread weight, as of something more horrible still, that was about to happen, filled my mind.Nor did the conversation I heard in the fo’c’s’le tend to soothe my startled nerves and make me feel more comfortable.The men’s tea was still in the coppers, poor Sam having made up a great fire in the galley before going off on his last journey, and this was now served out piping hot all round, the men helping themselves, for no one had yet been elected to fill the darkey’s vacant place. No one, indeed, seemed anxious to remain longer than could be helped within the precincts of the cook’s domain, each man hurrying out again from the old caboose as quickly as he filled his pannikin from the bubbling coppers with the decoction of sloe leaves, molasses and water, which, when duly boiled together does duty with sailor-folk for tea!Then—sitting round the fo’c’s’le, some on the edge of the hatch-coaming, some dangling their legs over the windlass bitts, and others bringing themselves to an anchor on a coil of the bower hawser, that had not been stowed away properly below, but remained lumbering the deck—all began to yarn about the events of the day. Their talk gradually veered round to a superstitious turn on the second dog-watch drawing to a close; and, as the shades of night deepened over our heads, so that I could hardly now distinguish a face in the gloom, the voices of the men sank down imperceptibly to a mere whisper, thus making what they said sound more weird and mysterious, all in keeping with the scene and its surroundings.Of course, Sam formed the principal subject of their theme; and, after speaking of what a capital cook and good chum he was, ‘fur a darkey,’ as Hiram Bangs put it, having some scruples on the subject of colour, from being an American, Tom Bullover alluded to the negro’s skill at the banjo.“Aye, bo, he could give us a toon when he liked, fur he wer mighty powerful a-fingerin’ them strings. He made the durned thing a’most speak, I reckon,” observed Hiram Bangs; adding reflectively,—“An’ the curiousest thing about him wer thet he wer the only nigger I ever come athwart of ez warn’t afeard of sperrits.”“Sperrits, Hiram?” interposed one of the other hands; “what does you mean?—ghostesses?”“Aye. Sam sed as how his father, a darkey too, in course, wer a fetish man; an’ I rec’l’ects when I wer to hum, down Chicopee way, ther’ wer an ole nigger thaar thet usest to say thet same, an’ the ole cuss wud go of a night into the graveyard, which wer more’n nary a white man would ha’ done, ye bet!”“You wouldn’t catch me at it,” agreed another sailor, giving himself a shake, that sent a cold shiver through me in sympathy. “I’d face any danger in daylight that a Christian ain’t afeard on; but, as for huntin’ for ghostesses in a churchyard of a dark night, not for me!”“Aye, nor me,” put in another. “I shouldn’t like old Sammy to come back and haunt the galley, as I’ve heard tell me. By jingo! I wouldn’t like to go into it now that it’s dark, arter the way the poor beggar got shot an’ drownded—leastways, not without a light, or a lantern, or somethin’ or t’other; for, they sez of folks that come by any onnateral sort o’ death, that their sperrits can’t rest quiet, and that then they goes back to where they was murdered, and you ken see ’em wanderin’ around twixt midnight an’ mornin’, though they wanishes agen at the first streak of daylight.”“I’ve heerd tell the same,” chimed in Hiram Bangs, in a sepulchral voice, that made my heart go down to my toes; “but Sam, he usest to say, sez he, ez how none o’ them sperrits could never touch he, cos he hed a charm agen ’em ’cause of his father bein’ jest in the ring, an’ one of the same sorter cusses—his ‘fadder’ he called him, poor old darkey! Sam told me now, only last night ez never was, how he’d of’en in Jamaiky talked with ghostesses, thet would come an’ tote round his plantation! He sed, sez he, ez how he’d got a spell to call ’em by whenever he liked; thet’s what he told me, by thunder!”“Aye, bo,” said Tom Bullover; “and, before poor Sam went aft this very evening, I heard him tell this younker, Charlie Hills, how thet he weren’t afraid of that brute of a bullying skipper, and if he came by any harm he’d haunt him—didn’t he, Charlie?”“Ye–es,” I replied, trembling, feeling horribly frightened now with all their queer talk, coming after what I had gone through before; “but, I didn’t hear him say anything of haunting the ship. I’m awfully sorry for him, Tom; but I hope he won’t come back again, as Hiram Bangs says.”“He will, ye bet yer bottom dollar on thet, Cholly, if he ain’t made comfable down below in Davy Jones’ locker, whar the poor old cuss air now,” said the American sailor in his deep voice, increasing my superstitious fears by the very way in which he spoke. “Guess I wouldn’t mind shakin’ fins with the nigger agen if he’d come aboard in daylight, but I’m durned if I’d like to see him hyar ’fore mornin’! I’d feel kinder skeart if I did, b’y, I reckon.”I had no time to reply; for, the captain’s voice hailing us from the poop at the moment made us all jump—I, for one, believing that it was Sam Jedfoot already come back to life, or his ghost!The next instant, however, I was reassured by a hoarse chuckle passing round amongst the men; while Hiram Bangs called out, “I’m jiggered, messmates, if it ain’t the old man up on deck agen!”Like him, I then caught the sound of Captain Snaggs’ nasal twang, although he spoke rather thickly, as if he had been drinking again.“Fo’c’s’le, ahoy!” he shouted; “wake up thaar an’ show a leg! Let one of the hands strike eight bells, an’ come aft, all ye starbow-lines, to take the first watch.”“Aye, aye, sir!” answered Tom Bullover, leading the way towards the skipper; while Hiram Bangs seized hold of the rope attached to the clapper of the bell, hanging under the break of the fo’c’s’le, and struck the hour, then following in Tom’s footsteps with a “Here I am, sonny, arter ye!”I did not remain behind, you may be sure, not caring to stop in the vicinity of Sam’s galley after all that talk about him. Besides this, I felt tired out, and my bunk being on a locker outside the steward’s pantry, and just within the door leading into the cuddy under the poop, I was anxious to sneak in there without being seen again by the captain, so as to have a lie down, or ‘turn in’—if it can be called turning in, with all my clothes on, ready to turn out at a minute’s notice!I managed to get inside, luckily unperceived by the skipper’s eagle eye and was furthermore assured of a quiet ‘caulk’ by hearing him sing out presently to the steward to bring him up some grog, as he was going to remain on deck till the middle watch. I knew from this that I would be undisturbed by his coming below for a good four hours’ spell at least; and I soon sank off to sleep, the last thing that I heard being the tramping about on deck of the men when Captain Snaggs roared out some order about making more sail, and the sluicing of the water washing from side to side, as theDenver Cityrolled and pitched, staggering along under a cloud of canvas, with everything set now, right before the wind.The next thing I heard was a heavy crash of glass, and I woke up just in time to catch the tail end of a combing wave, that dashed in through one of the stern ports, washing the cabin fore and aft. The ship had evidently been pooped by a heavy following sea, that travelled through the water faster than she did before the stiff northward breeze, although we were carrying on, too, at a good rate, as I’ve said.Aroused by this, I scrambled to my feet, and recognised Captain Snaggs’ voice coming down the companion way; but I did not fear his seeing me, as the swinging lamp over the cuddy table had been put out, and all was in darkness below, save when a sudden bright gleam from the moon, which had risen since I had sought my bunk, shot down through the skylight as the ship rolled over to port—making it all the darker again as she listed to starboard, for her next roll the reverse way necessarily shut out the moonlight again.Captain Snaggs, I could hear, was not only very drunk, but, as usual, in a very bad temper, as he stumbled about the foot of the companion way in the water that washed about the cabin door.“Durn thet fool of a Flinders—hic!” he exclaimed, steadying himself before making a plunge towards his berth, which was on the left, as I knew from the sound of his voice in the distance. “I t–t–t–old him them ports would git stove in, an’—an’—order’d him to fix the deadlights; but the durned fool ain’t done nary a thing, an’ there ye air, streenger, thaar ye air!”He then staggered a bit and flopped about the water; and then, all at once, as I listened, he gave vent to a queer gurgling cry of horror, that seemed to freeze my blood.“Jerusalem!” he exclaimed, gasping as if choking for breath. “Thaar! thaar!”A gleam shone down from the moon at the moment through the skylight; and, wonderful to relate, I saw the captain’s outstretched hand pointing to—Something!It was standing by the cabin door leading out on to the maindeck.The Something was the figure of poor Sam Jedfoot, apparently all dripping wet, as if he had just emerged from his grave in the sea.His face, turned towards me, looked quite white in the moonlight, as it became visible for a second and then instantaneously disappeared, melting back again, into darkness as the moon withdrew her light, obscured by the angle of the vessel’s side, as the ship made another roll in the contrary direction.I was almost paralysed with fear, being too much frightened to utter a sound; and there I remained spellbound, staring still towards the spot where I had seen the apparition—half-sitting, half-standing on the locker, having drawn up my feet, so as to be out of the rush of the water as it washed to and fro on the floor.As for Captain Snaggs, the sight of his victim seemed to affect him even more—at least, so I fancied, from his frenzied cry; for, of course, I could no longer see him.“Save me! save me!” he called out, in almost as despairing and terror-stricken a tone as that of poor Sam, when he was shot and fell into the sea; and then I heard a heavy splash, as if the captain had tumbled down on his face in the pool slushing about the deck. “Save me! Take him away! The darned nigger hez got me at last!”
“That’s murder—murder in cold blood!”
The voice uttering this exclamation, which I at once recognised as that of Tom Bullover, the carpenter, came from amidst a mass of the men, who, attracted by the noise of the row, had gathered from forward, and were clustered together—as I could see sideways from my position there, spread-eagled in the rigging. They were standing by the long-boat, just abaft of poor Sam Jedfoot’s now tenantless galley, and immediately under the bellying folds of the mainsail, that rustled and swelled out over their heads, tugging at the boltropes and rattling the clew-garnet blocks, as it was jerked by the wind, which ever and anon blew with eddying gusts as it veered and shifted.
“Who’s the mutinous rascal thet spoke then?” cried Captain Snaggs, wheeling round on the instant, quick as lightning, and cocking his revolver with another ominous click, as he faced the group, aiming at the nearest man to him. “Jest ye give me another word of yer jaw, an’ I’ll sarve ye the same as I sarved thet durned nigger—I will so, by thunder!”
A hoarse murmur, partly of rage and partly expressive of fear, arose from the crew as they shuffled uneasily about the deck, one trying to get behind another; but neither Tom Bullover nor anyone else stepped out to answer the captain, who, seeing that he had cowed them, lowered his awkward looking weapon.
“Ye’re a pack of durned skallywags, with nary a one the pluck of a skunk in the lot!” he exclaimed contemptuously, in his snarling Yankee voice; but, just then, the head sails flapping, from the helmsman letting the ship nearly broach to, forgetting to attend to his duties in his eagerness to hear all that was going on, the captain’s wrath was directed towards those aft, and he wheeled round and swore at the second-mate, who was on the poop, leaning over the rail, bawling out louder than before:—“What the infernal dickens are ye about thaar, Mister Steenbock? Snakes an’ alligators! why, ye’ll have us all aback in another minute! Ease her off, ease her off gently; an’ hev thet lubber at the wheel relieved; d’ye haar? Ha ain’t worth a cuss! Get a man thet ken steer in his place. Jerusalem! Up with the helm at once!”
Fortunately, the jib only gybed, while the fore-topsail slatted a bit against the mast; and all the other sails remaining full and drawing, a slight shift of the helm sufficed to put the ship on her proper course. Still, the captain, now his blood was up, could not afford to lose such a good opportunity both for rating the second-mate for his carelessness in conning the ship and not making the helmsman keep her steady on her course, and also in giving a little extra work to the hands who had dared to murmur at his fearful vengeance on the cook for drugging his food. So he made them bustle about the deck in style, slacking off the lee braces and hauling upon these on the weather side, until we had brought the wind almost over the stern, with the yards pretty nearly square. We were now running before it, rolling from port to starboard and back again from starboard to port, almost gunwales under, with the sail we had on us now, for it was blowing a good ten-knot breeze from the nor’-nor’-west, the breeze having shifted again since sunset, right astern, instead of being dead ahead, as previously, of our proper tract for the open sea.
When Captain Snaggs had seen everything braced round, and the boom-sheet of the spanker likewise eased off, he turned to where I was still lashed up against the main shrouds, in dread expectancy every moment of his renewing the thrashing he had commenced, and which poor Sam’s plucky intervention on my behalf had for the time interrupted.
“Well, ye young cuss!” said the skipper, who had been giving all his orders from the lower deck, which he had not left since he had rolled out from the cuddy under the poop in the paroxysm of passion and pain that led to such a dread catastrophe—all that had happened, although it takes a long time to describe, having occurred within a very brief interval of his first outburst on me. “What hev ye got to say for y’rself thet I shouldn’t give ye a thunderin’ hidin’, sich ez I hanker arter, hey? I’m jiggered, too, if I don’t, ye young whelp! Fur I guess ye wer kinder in truck with thet durned nigger when he tried to pizen me an’ Mister Flinders. I’ll skin ye alive, though ye aren’t bigger nor a spritsail sheet knot, my joker, fur ye hevn’t got half enuff yet, I reckon!”
So saying, he picked up the rope’s-end that he had dropped when he took out his revolver, and was evidently about to lay it on my poor trembling back again, when another groan came from the men forward, who still hung about the windlass bitts, instead of going below after squaring the yards. Tom Bullover’s voice, I could hear, again taking the lead, as they advanced in a body aft, in a much more demonstrative manner than previously.
“Stow that now, and leave the boy alone,” I heard him say. “You’ve wallopped him already; and there’s been enough murder done in the ship!”
Captain Snaggs let fall the cat he had taken in his hand to thrash me with, and once more pulled out from his pocket the revolver; but, in the half-light that lingered now after the sunset glow had faded out of the sky, I noticed, as I screwed my neck round, looking to see what he was doing, that his hand trembled. The next moment he dropped the revolver on the deck as he had done the rope’s-end.
“Who’s talkin’ of murder? Thet’s an ugly word,” he stammered out, evidently frightened at the result of his rage against poor Sam, and the way in which the crew regarded it. “I—I only shot thet nigger because he pizened me an’ the first-mate.”
“You should have put hims in ze irons,” interposed the second-mate, Jan Steenbock, speaking in his deep, solemn tones from the poop above. “Ze mans vas murdert in ze cold blood!”
I could see Captain Snaggs shiver—all his coarse, bullying manner and braggadocio deserting him, as Jan Steenbock’s accents rang through the ship, like those of an accusing judge; the index finger of the second-mate’s right hand pointing at him, as he leant over the poop rail, like the finger of Fate!
“I did not mean to shoot the coon like to kill him, I only meant to kinder frighten the life out of him, thet’s all,” he began, in an exculpatory tone, regaining his usual confidence as he proceeded. “The durned cuss brought it on hisself, I reckon; fur, if he hedn’t climb’d into the riggin’ he wouldn’t hev dropped overboard!”
“But, you vas shoot him ze first,” said Jan Steenbock, in reply to this, the men on the other side of the captain giving a murmuring assent to the accusation, “you vas shoot him ze first!”
“Aye, thet’s so; but I didn’t mean fur to hit him, only to skear him. Guess I don’t think I did, fur the ship rolled as I fired, an’ the bullet must hev gone over his woolly head, an’ he let go from sheer frit!”
“Dat might be,” answered the second-mate, whom the men left to do all the talking; “but ze—”
“Besides,” continued the captain, interrupting him, and seeing he had gained a point, “the darkey pizened my grub. He sea he put jalap in it. Ye heerd him say so y’rselves, didn’t ye?”
“Aye, aye,” chorussed the group of men in front of him, with true sailor’s justice, “we did. We heard him say so.”
“Well, then,” argued Captain Snaggs, triumphantly, “ye knows what a delicate matter it is fur to meddle with a chap’s grub; ye wouldn’t like it y’rselves?”
“No,” came from the men unanimously, “we wouldn’t.”
“All right, then; I see ye’re with me,” said the skipper, wagging his beard about as he lay down the law. “I confess I didn’t like it. The nigger sed he hocussed our grub; but seeing ez how I an’ the first-mate wer took so bad, I believed he’d pizened us, an’ it rizzed my dander, an’ so I went fur him.”
“Aye, aye,” sang out the men, as if endorsing this free and rather one-sided version of the affair, Hiram Bangs the captain’s countryman, chiming in with a “Right you air, boss!”
“But you need not have shoot hims,” insisted Jan Steenbock, perceiving that the skipper was getting the men to take a more lenient view of the transaction than he did. “Ze mans not go avays. You could put hims in ze irons!”
“So I could, me joker; though I can’t see ez how it’s yer place to top the officer over me, Mister Steenbock,” retorted the skipper, with some of his old heat. “Ye’ve hed yer say, an’ the men hev hed their’n; an’ now I’ll hev mine, I reckon! The nigger wer in fault in the fust place, an’ I’m sorry I wer tew hard on him; but, now he’s gone overboard, thaar’s nuthin’ more to be done, fur all the talkin’ in the world won’t bring him back agen! I’ll tell ye what I’ll do, though.”
“What?” shouted out Tom Bullover. “What will you do?”
Captain Snaggs recognised his voice now, in spite of its being nearly dark, and he uttered an expressive sort of snorting grunt.
“Ha! ye’re the coon, are ye, thet cried murder, hey?” I heard him mutter under his breath menacingly; and then, speaking out louder he said, that all could hear, “I tell ye what I’ll do: I am willin’ to go ashore at the first available port we ken stop at an’ lay the whole of the circumstances before the British or American consul, an’ take the consequences—fur you all ken give evidence against me if ye like! I can’t say fairer nor thet men, can I?”
“No, cap,” they chorussed, as if perfectly satisfied with this promise, “nothing can be fairer nor that!”
“All right; thet ’ll do, the watch, then.”
“But, thet b’y thaar?” called out Hiram Bangs, as they were all shuffling forward again, now that the palaver was over and the subject thoroughly discussed, as they thought, in all its bearings; “yer won’t leather him no more? The little cuss warn’t to blame; the nigger said so, hisself!”
“No, I won’t thrash him agen, since he’s a friend o’ yer’s,” replied the skipper, jocularly, evidently glad that the affair was now hushed up. “Ye ken cut him down if ye like, an’ take him forrud with ye.”
“Right ye air, cap, so we will,” said Hiram, producing his clasp knife in a jiffey and severing the lashings that bound me to the rigging, “Come along, Cholly; an’ we’ll warm ye up in the fo’c’s’le arter yer warmin’ up aft from the skipper!”
The hands responded with a laugh to this witticism, apparently forgetting all about the terrible scene that had so lately taken place, as they escorted me in triumph towards the fore part of the ship; while the captain went up on the poop and relieved Jan Steenbock, speaking to him very surlily, and telling him to go down into the cabin and see what had become of the first-mate, Mr Flinders, and if he was any better, and fit to come on duty. As for himself, he had now quite recovered from the effects of whatever the unfortunate cook had put into the stew he had eaten, and which had alarmed him with the fear of being poisoned.
I, however, could not so readily put the fearful scene I had been such an unwilling witness of so quickly out of my remembrance; and, as I went forward with the kind-hearted but thoughtless fellows who had saved me from a further thrashing, I felt quite sick with horror. A dread weight, as of something more horrible still, that was about to happen, filled my mind.
Nor did the conversation I heard in the fo’c’s’le tend to soothe my startled nerves and make me feel more comfortable.
The men’s tea was still in the coppers, poor Sam having made up a great fire in the galley before going off on his last journey, and this was now served out piping hot all round, the men helping themselves, for no one had yet been elected to fill the darkey’s vacant place. No one, indeed, seemed anxious to remain longer than could be helped within the precincts of the cook’s domain, each man hurrying out again from the old caboose as quickly as he filled his pannikin from the bubbling coppers with the decoction of sloe leaves, molasses and water, which, when duly boiled together does duty with sailor-folk for tea!
Then—sitting round the fo’c’s’le, some on the edge of the hatch-coaming, some dangling their legs over the windlass bitts, and others bringing themselves to an anchor on a coil of the bower hawser, that had not been stowed away properly below, but remained lumbering the deck—all began to yarn about the events of the day. Their talk gradually veered round to a superstitious turn on the second dog-watch drawing to a close; and, as the shades of night deepened over our heads, so that I could hardly now distinguish a face in the gloom, the voices of the men sank down imperceptibly to a mere whisper, thus making what they said sound more weird and mysterious, all in keeping with the scene and its surroundings.
Of course, Sam formed the principal subject of their theme; and, after speaking of what a capital cook and good chum he was, ‘fur a darkey,’ as Hiram Bangs put it, having some scruples on the subject of colour, from being an American, Tom Bullover alluded to the negro’s skill at the banjo.
“Aye, bo, he could give us a toon when he liked, fur he wer mighty powerful a-fingerin’ them strings. He made the durned thing a’most speak, I reckon,” observed Hiram Bangs; adding reflectively,—“An’ the curiousest thing about him wer thet he wer the only nigger I ever come athwart of ez warn’t afeard of sperrits.”
“Sperrits, Hiram?” interposed one of the other hands; “what does you mean?—ghostesses?”
“Aye. Sam sed as how his father, a darkey too, in course, wer a fetish man; an’ I rec’l’ects when I wer to hum, down Chicopee way, ther’ wer an ole nigger thaar thet usest to say thet same, an’ the ole cuss wud go of a night into the graveyard, which wer more’n nary a white man would ha’ done, ye bet!”
“You wouldn’t catch me at it,” agreed another sailor, giving himself a shake, that sent a cold shiver through me in sympathy. “I’d face any danger in daylight that a Christian ain’t afeard on; but, as for huntin’ for ghostesses in a churchyard of a dark night, not for me!”
“Aye, nor me,” put in another. “I shouldn’t like old Sammy to come back and haunt the galley, as I’ve heard tell me. By jingo! I wouldn’t like to go into it now that it’s dark, arter the way the poor beggar got shot an’ drownded—leastways, not without a light, or a lantern, or somethin’ or t’other; for, they sez of folks that come by any onnateral sort o’ death, that their sperrits can’t rest quiet, and that then they goes back to where they was murdered, and you ken see ’em wanderin’ around twixt midnight an’ mornin’, though they wanishes agen at the first streak of daylight.”
“I’ve heerd tell the same,” chimed in Hiram Bangs, in a sepulchral voice, that made my heart go down to my toes; “but Sam, he usest to say, sez he, ez how none o’ them sperrits could never touch he, cos he hed a charm agen ’em ’cause of his father bein’ jest in the ring, an’ one of the same sorter cusses—his ‘fadder’ he called him, poor old darkey! Sam told me now, only last night ez never was, how he’d of’en in Jamaiky talked with ghostesses, thet would come an’ tote round his plantation! He sed, sez he, ez how he’d got a spell to call ’em by whenever he liked; thet’s what he told me, by thunder!”
“Aye, bo,” said Tom Bullover; “and, before poor Sam went aft this very evening, I heard him tell this younker, Charlie Hills, how thet he weren’t afraid of that brute of a bullying skipper, and if he came by any harm he’d haunt him—didn’t he, Charlie?”
“Ye–es,” I replied, trembling, feeling horribly frightened now with all their queer talk, coming after what I had gone through before; “but, I didn’t hear him say anything of haunting the ship. I’m awfully sorry for him, Tom; but I hope he won’t come back again, as Hiram Bangs says.”
“He will, ye bet yer bottom dollar on thet, Cholly, if he ain’t made comfable down below in Davy Jones’ locker, whar the poor old cuss air now,” said the American sailor in his deep voice, increasing my superstitious fears by the very way in which he spoke. “Guess I wouldn’t mind shakin’ fins with the nigger agen if he’d come aboard in daylight, but I’m durned if I’d like to see him hyar ’fore mornin’! I’d feel kinder skeart if I did, b’y, I reckon.”
I had no time to reply; for, the captain’s voice hailing us from the poop at the moment made us all jump—I, for one, believing that it was Sam Jedfoot already come back to life, or his ghost!
The next instant, however, I was reassured by a hoarse chuckle passing round amongst the men; while Hiram Bangs called out, “I’m jiggered, messmates, if it ain’t the old man up on deck agen!”
Like him, I then caught the sound of Captain Snaggs’ nasal twang, although he spoke rather thickly, as if he had been drinking again.
“Fo’c’s’le, ahoy!” he shouted; “wake up thaar an’ show a leg! Let one of the hands strike eight bells, an’ come aft, all ye starbow-lines, to take the first watch.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” answered Tom Bullover, leading the way towards the skipper; while Hiram Bangs seized hold of the rope attached to the clapper of the bell, hanging under the break of the fo’c’s’le, and struck the hour, then following in Tom’s footsteps with a “Here I am, sonny, arter ye!”
I did not remain behind, you may be sure, not caring to stop in the vicinity of Sam’s galley after all that talk about him. Besides this, I felt tired out, and my bunk being on a locker outside the steward’s pantry, and just within the door leading into the cuddy under the poop, I was anxious to sneak in there without being seen again by the captain, so as to have a lie down, or ‘turn in’—if it can be called turning in, with all my clothes on, ready to turn out at a minute’s notice!
I managed to get inside, luckily unperceived by the skipper’s eagle eye and was furthermore assured of a quiet ‘caulk’ by hearing him sing out presently to the steward to bring him up some grog, as he was going to remain on deck till the middle watch. I knew from this that I would be undisturbed by his coming below for a good four hours’ spell at least; and I soon sank off to sleep, the last thing that I heard being the tramping about on deck of the men when Captain Snaggs roared out some order about making more sail, and the sluicing of the water washing from side to side, as theDenver Cityrolled and pitched, staggering along under a cloud of canvas, with everything set now, right before the wind.
The next thing I heard was a heavy crash of glass, and I woke up just in time to catch the tail end of a combing wave, that dashed in through one of the stern ports, washing the cabin fore and aft. The ship had evidently been pooped by a heavy following sea, that travelled through the water faster than she did before the stiff northward breeze, although we were carrying on, too, at a good rate, as I’ve said.
Aroused by this, I scrambled to my feet, and recognised Captain Snaggs’ voice coming down the companion way; but I did not fear his seeing me, as the swinging lamp over the cuddy table had been put out, and all was in darkness below, save when a sudden bright gleam from the moon, which had risen since I had sought my bunk, shot down through the skylight as the ship rolled over to port—making it all the darker again as she listed to starboard, for her next roll the reverse way necessarily shut out the moonlight again.
Captain Snaggs, I could hear, was not only very drunk, but, as usual, in a very bad temper, as he stumbled about the foot of the companion way in the water that washed about the cabin door.
“Durn thet fool of a Flinders—hic!” he exclaimed, steadying himself before making a plunge towards his berth, which was on the left, as I knew from the sound of his voice in the distance. “I t–t–t–old him them ports would git stove in, an’—an’—order’d him to fix the deadlights; but the durned fool ain’t done nary a thing, an’ there ye air, streenger, thaar ye air!”
He then staggered a bit and flopped about the water; and then, all at once, as I listened, he gave vent to a queer gurgling cry of horror, that seemed to freeze my blood.
“Jerusalem!” he exclaimed, gasping as if choking for breath. “Thaar! thaar!”
A gleam shone down from the moon at the moment through the skylight; and, wonderful to relate, I saw the captain’s outstretched hand pointing to—
Something!
It was standing by the cabin door leading out on to the maindeck.
The Something was the figure of poor Sam Jedfoot, apparently all dripping wet, as if he had just emerged from his grave in the sea.
His face, turned towards me, looked quite white in the moonlight, as it became visible for a second and then instantaneously disappeared, melting back again, into darkness as the moon withdrew her light, obscured by the angle of the vessel’s side, as the ship made another roll in the contrary direction.
I was almost paralysed with fear, being too much frightened to utter a sound; and there I remained spellbound, staring still towards the spot where I had seen the apparition—half-sitting, half-standing on the locker, having drawn up my feet, so as to be out of the rush of the water as it washed to and fro on the floor.
As for Captain Snaggs, the sight of his victim seemed to affect him even more—at least, so I fancied, from his frenzied cry; for, of course, I could no longer see him.
“Save me! save me!” he called out, in almost as despairing and terror-stricken a tone as that of poor Sam, when he was shot and fell into the sea; and then I heard a heavy splash, as if the captain had tumbled down on his face in the pool slushing about the deck. “Save me! Take him away! The darned nigger hez got me at last!”
Chapter Five.On Fire in the Hold.I think I must have swooned away with fright, for the next thing I recollect on coming to myself was the steward, Morris Jones, shaking me.“Rouse up, you lazy lubber!” he roared in my ears. “Rouse up and help me with the cap’en; he’s fell down in a fit, or something!”Then, I noticed that Jones had a ship’s lantern in his hand, by the dim light of which the cabin was only faintly illuminated; but I could see the water washing about the floor, with a lot of things floating about that had been carried away by the big wave coming in through the broken port in the stern sheets, that was also plainly discernible from the phosphorescent glow of the sea without, which every moment welled up almost on a level with the deck above, as if it were going to fetch inboard again and vamp us altogether.“Wha—what’s the matter?” I stammered out, half confused at the way in which the steward shook me; and then, recollecting all that had happened, as the fearful sight both the captain and I had seen flashed all at once on my mind, I put my hands before my face shudderingly, exclaiming, “Oh, the ghost! the ghost!”“The ghost your grandmother!” ejaculated Jones, giving me another rough hustle. “Why, boy, you ain’t awake yet. I’ll douse you in the water, and give you a taste of ‘cold pig,’ if you don’t get up and help me in a minute!”“But I saw it,” I cried, starting to my feet and looking wildly around to see if the apparition were still there. “I saw it with my own eyes; and so did Captain Snaggs, too!”“Saw what?”“The ghost of poor Sam Jedfoot.”Morris Jones laughed scornfully.“You confounded fool, you’re dreaming still!” he said, shaking me again, to give emphasis to his words. “I should like to know what the nigger cook’s ghost were doin’ in here. Where did you see his ugly phiz agen, do you say?”“There!” I answered boldly, pointing to the corner by the cabin door, where, as the steward flashed his lantern in the direction, I could still see something black and hazy waving to and fro. “Why, there it is still, if you don’t believe me!”“Well, I’m blowed!” he exclaimed, going over to the place and catching hold of the object that had again alarmed me. “You are a frightened feller to be skeared by an old coat! Why, it’s that Dutch second-mate of ourn’s oilskin a-hangin’ up outside his bunk that you thought were Sam’s sperrit when the light shone on it, I s’pose. You ain’t got the pluck of a flea, Cholly Hills, to lose your head over sich a trifle. There’s no ghostesses now-a-days; and if there was, I don’t think as how the cook’s sperrit would come in here, specially arter the way the skipper settled him. Man or ghost, he’d be too much afeard to come nigh the ‘old man’ agen, with him carryin’ on like that, and in sich a tantrum. I wonder Sam hadn’t more sense than to cross his hawse as he did. I were too wary, and kep’ close in my pantry all the time the row were on, I did. I wern’t born yesterday!”“But the cap’en saw it, too, I tell you,” I persisted. “He yelled out that Sam was there before he tumbled down; and that was how I came to look and notice the awful thing. You can believe it or not, but I tell you I saw Sam Jedfoot there as plain as life—either him or his ghost!”“Rubbish!” cried Jones, who meanwhile had put the lantern he carried on the cabin table, and was proceeding to lift up the captain’s head and drag him into a sitting posture against the side of one of the settles that ran down the cuddy fore and aft. “Just you light up one of them swinging lamps, and then come and help me carry the skipper to his bunk. He’s dead drunk, that’s what he is; and I wonder he ain’t drownded, too, lying with his nose in all thafe water sluicing round. As for the ghost he saw, that were rum, his favour-rite sperrit. He ought to ’ave seed two Sams from the lot he’s drunk to-night—two bottles as I’m a living sinner, barrin’ a glass or two the first-mate had, and a drop I squeezed out for myself, when I took him up some grog on deck at the end of the second dog-watch!”“Two bottles of rum!” I exclaimed in astonishment. “Really?”“Aye; do you think me lying?” snapped out Jones in answer; “that is, pretty nigh on, nearly. I wonder he ain’t dead with it all. I ’ave knowed him manage a bottle afore of a night all to hisself, but never two, lor the matter o’ that. It ought to kill him. Guess he’s got a lit of ’plexy now, an’ will wake up with the jim-jams!”“What’s that?” I asked, as the two of us lifted the captain, who was breathing stertorously, as if snoring; “anything more serious?”“Only a fit of the horrors,” said Jones nonchalantly, as if the matter were an every-day circumstance, and nothing out of the common; “but if he does get ’em, we must hide his blessed revolver, or else he’ll be goin’ round the ship lettin’ fly at every man Jack of us in turn! I’ll tell Mr Flinders to be on his guard when he comes-to, so that some one ’ll look arter him.”As he spoke, the steward slung the body of the unconscious man into his cot, I staggering as I lifted the captain’s legs, which, although they were very thin and spindleshanky, wore bony and heavy, while I was slim and weak for my age. Besides which, the thrashing I had received the evening previously had pretty well taken all the strength out of me, combined with my subsequent fright from the ghost, which I could not help believing in, despite all Jones’s sneers and assertions to the contrary. Of course, though, there was no use arguing the point with him; he was so obstinate—like all Welshmen!However, between the two of us, we got Captain Snaggs laid in his bed, where he certainly would be more comfortable than wallowing about in the water on the cabin floor. Then, Jones and I left him, just propping up his head with the pillows, so that he should not suffocate himself. He could not well tumble out, the cot having high sides, and swinging besides with the motion of the ship, being hung from the deck above on a sort of gimbal joint, that worked in a ball and socket and gave all ways.The steward then went back again into his bunk adjoining the pantry to have his sleep out; but I felt too excited to lie down again.I did not like to remain there alone in the cabin after what had passed, listening to the thuds of the waves against the sides of the ship, and the weird creaking of the timbers, as if the vessel were groaning with pain, and the heavy breathing of the captain in his cot, that rose above all these sounds, for he was snoring and snorting away at a fine rate; so, I proceeded out on to the lower deck, experiencing a chill shudder as I made my exit by the door where I had seen Sam Jedfoot’s spectre in the moonlight.I almost fancied it was still there!When I got out under the break of the poop, I found all quiet, with the port watch on duty, for Mr Flinders, the first-mate, was in charge, he having relieved the second-mate, with whom the captain had remained until he left the deck at midnight; and, an Tom Bullover and Hiram Bangs, my only friends amongst the crew, had gone below with Mr Steenbock and the rest of the starboard hands, there was nobody whom I could speak to and tell all that I had seen.I felt very lonesome in consequence; and, although I was not a bit sleepy, having managed to get a good four hours’ rest before I was awakened by Captain Snaggs coming stumbling down the companion way, as well as by the noise made by the sea smashing into the cabin at the same time, yet I was tired enough still not to be averse to stowing myself away under the lee of the long-boat. I took the precaution, however, to cuddle up in a piece of old tarpaulin that was lying about, so that the first-mate should not see me from the poop, and set me on at once to some task or other below, in his usual malicious way—Mr Flinders, like Captain Snaggs, never seeming to be happy unless he was tormenting somebody, and setting them on some work for which there wasn’t the least necessity!The moon was now shining brightly and lots of stars twinkling in the heaven, which was clear of clouds, the bracing nor’-westerly wind having blown them all away; and theDenver Citywas bounding along with all plain sail set before the breeze, that was right astern, rolling now and again with a stiff lurch to port and then to starboard, and diving her nose down one moment with her stern lifting, only to rise again buoyantly the next instant and shake the spray off her jib-boom as she pointed it upwards, trying to poke a hole in the sky!What with the whistling of the wind through the cordage, and the wash of the waves as they raced over each other and broke with a seething ‘whish’ into masses of foam, and the motion of the ship gently rocking to and fro like a pendulum as she lurched this way and that with rhythmical regularity, my eyes presently began to close. So, cuddling myself up in the tarpaulin, for the air fresh from the north felt rather chilly, I dropped off into a sound nap, not waking again until one of the men forward struck ‘six bells,’ just when the day was beginning to dawn. This was in spite of my being ‘not a bit sleepy,’ as I said.I roused up with a start, not; knowing where I was at first; but it was not long before the fact was made patent to me that I was aboard ship, and a cabin boy as well to boot—a sort of ‘Handy Billy,’ for every one to send on errands and odd jobs—the slave of the cuddy and fo’c’s’le alike!Before he had imbibed so much rum, and just prior to his going on the poop that time when he startled us all so much in the fo’c’s’le by his hail for Tom Bullover and the rest of the starboard hands to come aft and relieve the port watch, Captain Snaggs, as I afterwards learnt, had spoken to the steward, telling him that he was to take over poor Sam Jedfoot’s duties for awhile, until the men selected a new cook from amongst themselves. Jones was told to commence work in the galley the next evening, with especial injunctions to be up early enough to light the fire under the coppers, so that the crew could have their hot coffee at ‘eight bells,’ when the watches were changed—this indulgence being always allowed now in all decent merchant vessels; for Captain Snaggs, if he did haze and bully the hands under him, took care to get on their weather side by looking after their grub, a point they recollected, it may be remembered, when he appealed to them in reference to his treatment of poor Sam.Now, Morris Jones did not relish the job; but, as the first-mate had been present when the captain gave his orders, albeit Mr Flinders was rather limp at the time, from the physicking he, like the skipper, had had from the jalap in the stew, the steward knew that he would recollect all about it, even if the rum should have made the captain forget. So, much against his inclination, he turned out of his bunk at daybreak to see to lighting the galley fire; when, whom should he chance to come right up against on his way forward but me, just as I had wriggled myself out of the tarpaulin and sat up on the deck, rubbing my half-opened eyes.Jones was delighted at the opportunity for ‘passing on’ the obnoxious duty.“Here, you young swab!” he cried, giving me a kick to waken me up more thoroughly, and then catching hold of me by the scruff of the neck and pulling me up on my feet, “stir your stumps a bit and just you come forrud along o’ me. I’m blessed if I’m going to do cook an’ stooard’s work single-handed, an’ you lazy rascallion a caulkin’ all over the ship! First I finds yer snug down snoozin’ in the cabin, an’ now here, with the sun ready to scorch yer eyes out. Why, yer ought ter be right down ’shamed o’ yerself. I’m blessed if I ever see sich a b’y for coilin’ hisself away an’ caulkin’ all hours of the day and night!”Jones was fond of hearing himself talk, as well as pleased to have some one he was able to bully in turn as the skipper bullied him; and so, he kept jawing and grumbling away all the while we were getting up to the galley, although that did not take very long—not by any means so long as his tongue was and the stream of words that flowed from it when he had once begun, as if he would really never end!“Now, you young beggar,” said he, opening the half-door of the cook’s caboose and shoving me inside, “let us see how soon you can light a fire an’ make the water in the coppers boil. I’ll fill ’em for you while you’re putting the sticks in; so heave ahead, an’ I’ll fetch a bucket or two from the scuttle butt!”He spoke of this as if he were conferring a favour on me, instead of only doing his own work; but I didn’t answer him, going on to make a good fire with some wood and shavings, which Sam used to get from the carpenter and kept handy in the corner of the galley, ready to hand when wanted. I knew by this time, from practical experience, that words on board ship, where cabin boys are concerned at all events, generally lead to ‘more kicks than ha’pence,’ as the saying goes!Soon, I had a good blaze up, and the steward on his part filling the coppers, they were both shortly at boiling-point; when, going aft to his pantry, Jones fetched out a pound of coffee, which he chucked into the starboard copper, which held about four gallons, and was not quite filled to the brim. He evidently had determined to propitiate the crew at the start by giving them good coffee for once and plenty of it; as there were only eighteen hands in the fo’c’s’le, now that Sam had gone, besides himself and me—leaving out the captain and mates, who belonged to the cabin, and of course did not count in, but who made our total complement in the ship twenty-three souls all told.Jones, too, dowsed into the copper a tidy lot of molasses, to sweeten the coffee; and so, when it was presently served out promptly at ‘eight bells,’ he won golden opinions in this his first essay at cooking, the men all declaring it prime stuff. I think, though, I ought to have had some of the credit of it, having lighted the fire and seen to everything save chucking in the coffee and molasses, which anybody else could have done quite so well as the steward!Jones kept me too busy in the galley to allow me time to speak to Tom Bullover and Hiram Bangs, when they turned out to relieve the port watch; but, later on, when the decks had been washed down, and the sun was getting well up in the eastern horizon, flooding the ocean with the rosy light of morning, I had an opportunity of telling my friend the carpenter of what I had seen in the cabin.Much to my disgust, however, he laughed at my account of Sam Jedfoot’s ghost having appeared, declaring that I had been dreaming and imagined it all.“No, Charley, I wouldn’t believe it if you went down on your bended knees an’ swore it, not save I seed Sam with my own eyes, an’ even then I’d have a doubt,” said Tom, grinning in the most exasperating way. “Why, look there, now, at the skipper on the poop, as right as ninepence! If he’d been in the state you say, an’ were so orfully frightened, an’ had seed Sam’s sperrit, as you wants to make me swallow, do you think he’d look so perky this mornin’?”I could hardly believe my eyes.Yes, there was Captain Snaggs, braced up against the poop rail in his usual place, with one eye scanning the horizon to windward and the other inspecting the sails aloft, and his billy-goat beard sticking out as it always did. He looked as hearty as if nothing had happened, the only sign that I could see of his drunken fit of the night before being a cut across the bridge of his long hooked nose, and a slight discolouration of his eye on the port side, the result, no doubt, of his fall on the cabin floor.Tom Bullover could read my doubts in my face.“You must have dreamed it, Charley, I s’pose, on account of all that talkin’ we had in the fo’c’s’le about ghostesses afore you went aft an’ turned in, an’ that’s what’s the matter,” he repeated, giving me a nudge in the ribs, while he added more earnestly: “And, if I was you, my boy, I wouldn’t mention a word of it to another soul, or the hands ’ll chaff the life out of you, an’ you’ll wish you were a ghost yerself!”Tom moved off as he uttered these last words with a chuckle, and accompanied by an expressive wink, that spoke volumes; so, seeing his advice was sound, I determined to act upon it, although the fear struck me that Jones, the steward, would mention it even if I didn’t, just to make me the laughing-stock of the crew.However, I had no time then for reflection; Captain Snaggs, as if to show that he had all his wits about him still, calling out for the hands forward to overhaul the studding-sail gear and rig out the booms; and, by breakfast time, when the steward and I had to busy ourselves again in the galley, theDenver Citywas covered with, a regular pyramid of canvas, that seemed to extend from the truck to the deck, while she was racing through the water at a rate of ten knots or more, with a clear sky above and a moderate sea below, and a steady nor’-nor’-west wind after us.At noon, when the captain took the sun and told us forward to “make it eight bells,” we learnt that we were in longitude 8 degrees 15 minutes West, and latitude 49 degrees 20 minutes North, or well to the westward of the Scilly Islands, and so really out at sea and entered on our long voyage to California.This fact appeared to give no little satisfaction to the crew, who raised a chorus whenever a rope had to be pulled or a brace taughtened, the fine weather and brighter surroundings making the sailors apparently forget, with that sort of happy knack for which seafaring folk are generally distinguished, all the rough time we had coming down Saint George’s Channel, when off the Tuskar, and the terrible events of the preceding day.That very afternoon, indeed, the last act that was to blot out poor Sam Jedfoot’s memory from the minds of all the hands took place, the skipper ordering the usual auction of the dead man’s effects to be held on the fo’c’s’le; when, such is the comedy of life, the very men who were so indignant about the captain shooting him a few hours before now cut jokes about the poverty of the darkey’s kit, when his sea-chest was opened and its contents put up for sale to the highest bidder!Sam’s banjo led to a spirited competition, Hiram Bangs finally succeeding in becoming its purchaser for five dollars, which Captain Snaggs was authorised to deduct from the American sailor’s wages—crediting it to the cook’s account, should the dead man’s heirs or assigns apply for any balance due to the poor darkey when the ship arrived in port.The rest of the things only fetched a trifle; and, with the disposal of his goods and chattels, all recollection of the light-hearted Sam, who was once the life of the fo’c’s’le, passed out of everyone’s mind. Hiram stowed the banjo away in his box, for he could not play it, and had only bought it from its association with its late owner, who used to make him, he said, merry and sad, ‘jest as the durned nigger liked,’ with the melody he drew from the now silent strings.And yet, somehow or other, it seemed destined that Sam should not be so soon forgotten, at least by me; for, in the evening, when I took in the cabin dinner and remained to wait at table, in lieu of the steward, who was too much occupied in cooking to come aft, Captain Snaggs brought up the subject again.He was in high spirits at the manner in which the ship was travelling along, appearing to have quite recovered from his drinking bout; and when I uncovered the dish that I placed before him, he made a joke about it to the first-mate, who, according to custom, shared meals with the skipper in the cuddy and always sat down the same time that he did, the second-mate having to shift by himself, and eat when he had the chance between watches.“Guess thaar ain’t no jalap in this lot, Flinders, hey?” said the captain, with a snigger; “thet thaar cuss of a stooard would be too skeart of my fixin’ him same ez I done thet durned nigger to try on any games, ye bet!”“I reckon so, boss,” replied the other, with his mouth full, stuffing away in his usual fashion. “Ye potted the coon nicely, ye did; an’ sarved him right, too, fur meddlin’ with the grub. I thought I wer pizened sure!”“An’ so did I, by thunder!” echoed Captain Snaggs, bringing his fist down with a bang on the table, that almost made Mr Flinders’ plate leap out of the ‘fiddle’ in which it was placed, to prevent it from spilling its contents as the ship rolled. “I did so, by thunder! I sw’ar, or else I wouldn’t a’ shot the cuss. Them hands furrud thinks I’m going to be sich a durned fool ez to call in at Bahia or Rio, an’ make a statement of the case, telling how the nigger got overboard; but ye catch me stoppin’ at any a port ’fore I drops anchor in ’Frisco. Ye knows better ner thet, Flinders, hey?”The first-mate sniggered sympathetically at this, expressing by a wink his confidence in the skipper’s promise to the men; and the two laughed with much heartiness and fellow feeling over the credulity of those who had been so easily satisfied, and gone back to their work, confidently trusting in Captain Snaggs’ word and honour.A little later on, when the rum bottle was produced, the captain alluded to his excess of the night before in the same jocular vein:—“Must keep a kinder stiffer helm this evenin’, Flinders,” he observed, helping himself to a tumblerful, and then passing on the bottle to the mate; “guess I wer a bit sprung yesterday?”“Aye, cap, ye hed y’r load,” replied Mr Flinders, with a grin; adding, however, in fear of the skipper taking offence: “Not mor’n ye could carry, though. Ye scooted down the companion all right at eight bells.”“Thet’s so,” said the other; “but, d’ye know, Flinders, I wer flummuxed up inter a heap when I got below, an’ saw snakes terrible. I guess I seed, too, thet air durned nigger, an’ hed a notion he wer come back agen to haunt me—I did so, Flinders, by thunder!”“Ye must take keer, cap,” responded the first-mate to this confession. “If ye don’t draw in a bit ye’ll be hevin’ the shakes, an’ thet ’d never do, I reckon.”“I guess not; but last night I wer kinder overcome with all the muss, an’ might jist hev swallerd a drop or so too much, I reckon. Good rum can’t hurt nary a one—thet is, in moderation, Flinders, strictly in moderation.”So saying, Captain Snaggs helped himself to another stiff tumblerful; and how many more glasses he had afterwards I could not say, as he dismissed me just then, telling me I could go forwards when I had cleared away the things—which I did in a jiffy, glad to quit the cabin and its occupants.On reaching the fo’c’s’le, I found that the steward had, as I perceived, told the men of my fright, and so I got finely chaffed about ‘Sam’s ghost.’ The next day I was revenged, though; for, Jones spoiled the crew’s dinner, and got so mauled by the indignant sailors that he had to beat a retreat back to the cabin, giving up thus ingloriously his brief tenancy of the galley.Hiram Bangs was then elected cook in his place by the hands, with whom the captain left the matter, to settle it as they pleased; and, as the good-natured Yankee selected me to be his ‘mate’ or assistant, by this means I was relieved of any further association with the Welshman, and released from his tyranny, taking up my quarters thenceforth with the crew forward.The nor’-westerly wind lasted us right across the Bay of Biscay and down to the Western Islands; and, we were only becalmed for a day or so, with light, variable breezes between the Azores and Madeira, when we picked up the nor’-east trades, which rattled us onward past the Canaries and Cape Verde.From thence, all went well on board, nothing eventful happening until we were close up with the Equator, in latitude 7 degrees North, and longitude about 28 degrees West, when, late in the evening of our thirtieth day out, just as the man at the wheel had been relieved, and the port watch, under charge of the first-mate, come on duty at ‘eight bells,’ I smelt something burning in the forepeak.Looking to see what was the matter, I noticed a thin column of smoke coming up from the small hatch under the fo’c’s’le.Of course, I went aft at once and told Mr Flinders, who would not believe me at first; but, as one of the other hands followed me up, bringing the same report, he was at length induced to descend the poop ladder and go forward to judge for himself whether we had told the truth or not, muttering the while, though, that it was “all a pack o’ durned nonsense!”He did not think this long, however, for hardly had he got beyond the long-boat, when the smoke, which had got much denser while he had been wasting time palavering without taking action, blowing into his face convinced him that the matter was really serious.All his nonchalance was gone in a moment, as well as his discretion; for, without pausing to consider the effect that any sudden disclosure of the danger might have on the crew by destroying their coolness and pluck, he roared out at the pitch of his voice, as he banged away with the heel of his boot on the deck:“All hands ahoy! Tumble up thaar! Tumble up! The shep’s on fire in the hold!”
I think I must have swooned away with fright, for the next thing I recollect on coming to myself was the steward, Morris Jones, shaking me.
“Rouse up, you lazy lubber!” he roared in my ears. “Rouse up and help me with the cap’en; he’s fell down in a fit, or something!”
Then, I noticed that Jones had a ship’s lantern in his hand, by the dim light of which the cabin was only faintly illuminated; but I could see the water washing about the floor, with a lot of things floating about that had been carried away by the big wave coming in through the broken port in the stern sheets, that was also plainly discernible from the phosphorescent glow of the sea without, which every moment welled up almost on a level with the deck above, as if it were going to fetch inboard again and vamp us altogether.
“Wha—what’s the matter?” I stammered out, half confused at the way in which the steward shook me; and then, recollecting all that had happened, as the fearful sight both the captain and I had seen flashed all at once on my mind, I put my hands before my face shudderingly, exclaiming, “Oh, the ghost! the ghost!”
“The ghost your grandmother!” ejaculated Jones, giving me another rough hustle. “Why, boy, you ain’t awake yet. I’ll douse you in the water, and give you a taste of ‘cold pig,’ if you don’t get up and help me in a minute!”
“But I saw it,” I cried, starting to my feet and looking wildly around to see if the apparition were still there. “I saw it with my own eyes; and so did Captain Snaggs, too!”
“Saw what?”
“The ghost of poor Sam Jedfoot.”
Morris Jones laughed scornfully.
“You confounded fool, you’re dreaming still!” he said, shaking me again, to give emphasis to his words. “I should like to know what the nigger cook’s ghost were doin’ in here. Where did you see his ugly phiz agen, do you say?”
“There!” I answered boldly, pointing to the corner by the cabin door, where, as the steward flashed his lantern in the direction, I could still see something black and hazy waving to and fro. “Why, there it is still, if you don’t believe me!”
“Well, I’m blowed!” he exclaimed, going over to the place and catching hold of the object that had again alarmed me. “You are a frightened feller to be skeared by an old coat! Why, it’s that Dutch second-mate of ourn’s oilskin a-hangin’ up outside his bunk that you thought were Sam’s sperrit when the light shone on it, I s’pose. You ain’t got the pluck of a flea, Cholly Hills, to lose your head over sich a trifle. There’s no ghostesses now-a-days; and if there was, I don’t think as how the cook’s sperrit would come in here, specially arter the way the skipper settled him. Man or ghost, he’d be too much afeard to come nigh the ‘old man’ agen, with him carryin’ on like that, and in sich a tantrum. I wonder Sam hadn’t more sense than to cross his hawse as he did. I were too wary, and kep’ close in my pantry all the time the row were on, I did. I wern’t born yesterday!”
“But the cap’en saw it, too, I tell you,” I persisted. “He yelled out that Sam was there before he tumbled down; and that was how I came to look and notice the awful thing. You can believe it or not, but I tell you I saw Sam Jedfoot there as plain as life—either him or his ghost!”
“Rubbish!” cried Jones, who meanwhile had put the lantern he carried on the cabin table, and was proceeding to lift up the captain’s head and drag him into a sitting posture against the side of one of the settles that ran down the cuddy fore and aft. “Just you light up one of them swinging lamps, and then come and help me carry the skipper to his bunk. He’s dead drunk, that’s what he is; and I wonder he ain’t drownded, too, lying with his nose in all thafe water sluicing round. As for the ghost he saw, that were rum, his favour-rite sperrit. He ought to ’ave seed two Sams from the lot he’s drunk to-night—two bottles as I’m a living sinner, barrin’ a glass or two the first-mate had, and a drop I squeezed out for myself, when I took him up some grog on deck at the end of the second dog-watch!”
“Two bottles of rum!” I exclaimed in astonishment. “Really?”
“Aye; do you think me lying?” snapped out Jones in answer; “that is, pretty nigh on, nearly. I wonder he ain’t dead with it all. I ’ave knowed him manage a bottle afore of a night all to hisself, but never two, lor the matter o’ that. It ought to kill him. Guess he’s got a lit of ’plexy now, an’ will wake up with the jim-jams!”
“What’s that?” I asked, as the two of us lifted the captain, who was breathing stertorously, as if snoring; “anything more serious?”
“Only a fit of the horrors,” said Jones nonchalantly, as if the matter were an every-day circumstance, and nothing out of the common; “but if he does get ’em, we must hide his blessed revolver, or else he’ll be goin’ round the ship lettin’ fly at every man Jack of us in turn! I’ll tell Mr Flinders to be on his guard when he comes-to, so that some one ’ll look arter him.”
As he spoke, the steward slung the body of the unconscious man into his cot, I staggering as I lifted the captain’s legs, which, although they were very thin and spindleshanky, wore bony and heavy, while I was slim and weak for my age. Besides which, the thrashing I had received the evening previously had pretty well taken all the strength out of me, combined with my subsequent fright from the ghost, which I could not help believing in, despite all Jones’s sneers and assertions to the contrary. Of course, though, there was no use arguing the point with him; he was so obstinate—like all Welshmen!
However, between the two of us, we got Captain Snaggs laid in his bed, where he certainly would be more comfortable than wallowing about in the water on the cabin floor. Then, Jones and I left him, just propping up his head with the pillows, so that he should not suffocate himself. He could not well tumble out, the cot having high sides, and swinging besides with the motion of the ship, being hung from the deck above on a sort of gimbal joint, that worked in a ball and socket and gave all ways.
The steward then went back again into his bunk adjoining the pantry to have his sleep out; but I felt too excited to lie down again.
I did not like to remain there alone in the cabin after what had passed, listening to the thuds of the waves against the sides of the ship, and the weird creaking of the timbers, as if the vessel were groaning with pain, and the heavy breathing of the captain in his cot, that rose above all these sounds, for he was snoring and snorting away at a fine rate; so, I proceeded out on to the lower deck, experiencing a chill shudder as I made my exit by the door where I had seen Sam Jedfoot’s spectre in the moonlight.
I almost fancied it was still there!
When I got out under the break of the poop, I found all quiet, with the port watch on duty, for Mr Flinders, the first-mate, was in charge, he having relieved the second-mate, with whom the captain had remained until he left the deck at midnight; and, an Tom Bullover and Hiram Bangs, my only friends amongst the crew, had gone below with Mr Steenbock and the rest of the starboard hands, there was nobody whom I could speak to and tell all that I had seen.
I felt very lonesome in consequence; and, although I was not a bit sleepy, having managed to get a good four hours’ rest before I was awakened by Captain Snaggs coming stumbling down the companion way, as well as by the noise made by the sea smashing into the cabin at the same time, yet I was tired enough still not to be averse to stowing myself away under the lee of the long-boat. I took the precaution, however, to cuddle up in a piece of old tarpaulin that was lying about, so that the first-mate should not see me from the poop, and set me on at once to some task or other below, in his usual malicious way—Mr Flinders, like Captain Snaggs, never seeming to be happy unless he was tormenting somebody, and setting them on some work for which there wasn’t the least necessity!
The moon was now shining brightly and lots of stars twinkling in the heaven, which was clear of clouds, the bracing nor’-westerly wind having blown them all away; and theDenver Citywas bounding along with all plain sail set before the breeze, that was right astern, rolling now and again with a stiff lurch to port and then to starboard, and diving her nose down one moment with her stern lifting, only to rise again buoyantly the next instant and shake the spray off her jib-boom as she pointed it upwards, trying to poke a hole in the sky!
What with the whistling of the wind through the cordage, and the wash of the waves as they raced over each other and broke with a seething ‘whish’ into masses of foam, and the motion of the ship gently rocking to and fro like a pendulum as she lurched this way and that with rhythmical regularity, my eyes presently began to close. So, cuddling myself up in the tarpaulin, for the air fresh from the north felt rather chilly, I dropped off into a sound nap, not waking again until one of the men forward struck ‘six bells,’ just when the day was beginning to dawn. This was in spite of my being ‘not a bit sleepy,’ as I said.
I roused up with a start, not; knowing where I was at first; but it was not long before the fact was made patent to me that I was aboard ship, and a cabin boy as well to boot—a sort of ‘Handy Billy,’ for every one to send on errands and odd jobs—the slave of the cuddy and fo’c’s’le alike!
Before he had imbibed so much rum, and just prior to his going on the poop that time when he startled us all so much in the fo’c’s’le by his hail for Tom Bullover and the rest of the starboard hands to come aft and relieve the port watch, Captain Snaggs, as I afterwards learnt, had spoken to the steward, telling him that he was to take over poor Sam Jedfoot’s duties for awhile, until the men selected a new cook from amongst themselves. Jones was told to commence work in the galley the next evening, with especial injunctions to be up early enough to light the fire under the coppers, so that the crew could have their hot coffee at ‘eight bells,’ when the watches were changed—this indulgence being always allowed now in all decent merchant vessels; for Captain Snaggs, if he did haze and bully the hands under him, took care to get on their weather side by looking after their grub, a point they recollected, it may be remembered, when he appealed to them in reference to his treatment of poor Sam.
Now, Morris Jones did not relish the job; but, as the first-mate had been present when the captain gave his orders, albeit Mr Flinders was rather limp at the time, from the physicking he, like the skipper, had had from the jalap in the stew, the steward knew that he would recollect all about it, even if the rum should have made the captain forget. So, much against his inclination, he turned out of his bunk at daybreak to see to lighting the galley fire; when, whom should he chance to come right up against on his way forward but me, just as I had wriggled myself out of the tarpaulin and sat up on the deck, rubbing my half-opened eyes.
Jones was delighted at the opportunity for ‘passing on’ the obnoxious duty.
“Here, you young swab!” he cried, giving me a kick to waken me up more thoroughly, and then catching hold of me by the scruff of the neck and pulling me up on my feet, “stir your stumps a bit and just you come forrud along o’ me. I’m blessed if I’m going to do cook an’ stooard’s work single-handed, an’ you lazy rascallion a caulkin’ all over the ship! First I finds yer snug down snoozin’ in the cabin, an’ now here, with the sun ready to scorch yer eyes out. Why, yer ought ter be right down ’shamed o’ yerself. I’m blessed if I ever see sich a b’y for coilin’ hisself away an’ caulkin’ all hours of the day and night!”
Jones was fond of hearing himself talk, as well as pleased to have some one he was able to bully in turn as the skipper bullied him; and so, he kept jawing and grumbling away all the while we were getting up to the galley, although that did not take very long—not by any means so long as his tongue was and the stream of words that flowed from it when he had once begun, as if he would really never end!
“Now, you young beggar,” said he, opening the half-door of the cook’s caboose and shoving me inside, “let us see how soon you can light a fire an’ make the water in the coppers boil. I’ll fill ’em for you while you’re putting the sticks in; so heave ahead, an’ I’ll fetch a bucket or two from the scuttle butt!”
He spoke of this as if he were conferring a favour on me, instead of only doing his own work; but I didn’t answer him, going on to make a good fire with some wood and shavings, which Sam used to get from the carpenter and kept handy in the corner of the galley, ready to hand when wanted. I knew by this time, from practical experience, that words on board ship, where cabin boys are concerned at all events, generally lead to ‘more kicks than ha’pence,’ as the saying goes!
Soon, I had a good blaze up, and the steward on his part filling the coppers, they were both shortly at boiling-point; when, going aft to his pantry, Jones fetched out a pound of coffee, which he chucked into the starboard copper, which held about four gallons, and was not quite filled to the brim. He evidently had determined to propitiate the crew at the start by giving them good coffee for once and plenty of it; as there were only eighteen hands in the fo’c’s’le, now that Sam had gone, besides himself and me—leaving out the captain and mates, who belonged to the cabin, and of course did not count in, but who made our total complement in the ship twenty-three souls all told.
Jones, too, dowsed into the copper a tidy lot of molasses, to sweeten the coffee; and so, when it was presently served out promptly at ‘eight bells,’ he won golden opinions in this his first essay at cooking, the men all declaring it prime stuff. I think, though, I ought to have had some of the credit of it, having lighted the fire and seen to everything save chucking in the coffee and molasses, which anybody else could have done quite so well as the steward!
Jones kept me too busy in the galley to allow me time to speak to Tom Bullover and Hiram Bangs, when they turned out to relieve the port watch; but, later on, when the decks had been washed down, and the sun was getting well up in the eastern horizon, flooding the ocean with the rosy light of morning, I had an opportunity of telling my friend the carpenter of what I had seen in the cabin.
Much to my disgust, however, he laughed at my account of Sam Jedfoot’s ghost having appeared, declaring that I had been dreaming and imagined it all.
“No, Charley, I wouldn’t believe it if you went down on your bended knees an’ swore it, not save I seed Sam with my own eyes, an’ even then I’d have a doubt,” said Tom, grinning in the most exasperating way. “Why, look there, now, at the skipper on the poop, as right as ninepence! If he’d been in the state you say, an’ were so orfully frightened, an’ had seed Sam’s sperrit, as you wants to make me swallow, do you think he’d look so perky this mornin’?”
I could hardly believe my eyes.
Yes, there was Captain Snaggs, braced up against the poop rail in his usual place, with one eye scanning the horizon to windward and the other inspecting the sails aloft, and his billy-goat beard sticking out as it always did. He looked as hearty as if nothing had happened, the only sign that I could see of his drunken fit of the night before being a cut across the bridge of his long hooked nose, and a slight discolouration of his eye on the port side, the result, no doubt, of his fall on the cabin floor.
Tom Bullover could read my doubts in my face.
“You must have dreamed it, Charley, I s’pose, on account of all that talkin’ we had in the fo’c’s’le about ghostesses afore you went aft an’ turned in, an’ that’s what’s the matter,” he repeated, giving me a nudge in the ribs, while he added more earnestly: “And, if I was you, my boy, I wouldn’t mention a word of it to another soul, or the hands ’ll chaff the life out of you, an’ you’ll wish you were a ghost yerself!”
Tom moved off as he uttered these last words with a chuckle, and accompanied by an expressive wink, that spoke volumes; so, seeing his advice was sound, I determined to act upon it, although the fear struck me that Jones, the steward, would mention it even if I didn’t, just to make me the laughing-stock of the crew.
However, I had no time then for reflection; Captain Snaggs, as if to show that he had all his wits about him still, calling out for the hands forward to overhaul the studding-sail gear and rig out the booms; and, by breakfast time, when the steward and I had to busy ourselves again in the galley, theDenver Citywas covered with, a regular pyramid of canvas, that seemed to extend from the truck to the deck, while she was racing through the water at a rate of ten knots or more, with a clear sky above and a moderate sea below, and a steady nor’-nor’-west wind after us.
At noon, when the captain took the sun and told us forward to “make it eight bells,” we learnt that we were in longitude 8 degrees 15 minutes West, and latitude 49 degrees 20 minutes North, or well to the westward of the Scilly Islands, and so really out at sea and entered on our long voyage to California.
This fact appeared to give no little satisfaction to the crew, who raised a chorus whenever a rope had to be pulled or a brace taughtened, the fine weather and brighter surroundings making the sailors apparently forget, with that sort of happy knack for which seafaring folk are generally distinguished, all the rough time we had coming down Saint George’s Channel, when off the Tuskar, and the terrible events of the preceding day.
That very afternoon, indeed, the last act that was to blot out poor Sam Jedfoot’s memory from the minds of all the hands took place, the skipper ordering the usual auction of the dead man’s effects to be held on the fo’c’s’le; when, such is the comedy of life, the very men who were so indignant about the captain shooting him a few hours before now cut jokes about the poverty of the darkey’s kit, when his sea-chest was opened and its contents put up for sale to the highest bidder!
Sam’s banjo led to a spirited competition, Hiram Bangs finally succeeding in becoming its purchaser for five dollars, which Captain Snaggs was authorised to deduct from the American sailor’s wages—crediting it to the cook’s account, should the dead man’s heirs or assigns apply for any balance due to the poor darkey when the ship arrived in port.
The rest of the things only fetched a trifle; and, with the disposal of his goods and chattels, all recollection of the light-hearted Sam, who was once the life of the fo’c’s’le, passed out of everyone’s mind. Hiram stowed the banjo away in his box, for he could not play it, and had only bought it from its association with its late owner, who used to make him, he said, merry and sad, ‘jest as the durned nigger liked,’ with the melody he drew from the now silent strings.
And yet, somehow or other, it seemed destined that Sam should not be so soon forgotten, at least by me; for, in the evening, when I took in the cabin dinner and remained to wait at table, in lieu of the steward, who was too much occupied in cooking to come aft, Captain Snaggs brought up the subject again.
He was in high spirits at the manner in which the ship was travelling along, appearing to have quite recovered from his drinking bout; and when I uncovered the dish that I placed before him, he made a joke about it to the first-mate, who, according to custom, shared meals with the skipper in the cuddy and always sat down the same time that he did, the second-mate having to shift by himself, and eat when he had the chance between watches.
“Guess thaar ain’t no jalap in this lot, Flinders, hey?” said the captain, with a snigger; “thet thaar cuss of a stooard would be too skeart of my fixin’ him same ez I done thet durned nigger to try on any games, ye bet!”
“I reckon so, boss,” replied the other, with his mouth full, stuffing away in his usual fashion. “Ye potted the coon nicely, ye did; an’ sarved him right, too, fur meddlin’ with the grub. I thought I wer pizened sure!”
“An’ so did I, by thunder!” echoed Captain Snaggs, bringing his fist down with a bang on the table, that almost made Mr Flinders’ plate leap out of the ‘fiddle’ in which it was placed, to prevent it from spilling its contents as the ship rolled. “I did so, by thunder! I sw’ar, or else I wouldn’t a’ shot the cuss. Them hands furrud thinks I’m going to be sich a durned fool ez to call in at Bahia or Rio, an’ make a statement of the case, telling how the nigger got overboard; but ye catch me stoppin’ at any a port ’fore I drops anchor in ’Frisco. Ye knows better ner thet, Flinders, hey?”
The first-mate sniggered sympathetically at this, expressing by a wink his confidence in the skipper’s promise to the men; and the two laughed with much heartiness and fellow feeling over the credulity of those who had been so easily satisfied, and gone back to their work, confidently trusting in Captain Snaggs’ word and honour.
A little later on, when the rum bottle was produced, the captain alluded to his excess of the night before in the same jocular vein:—
“Must keep a kinder stiffer helm this evenin’, Flinders,” he observed, helping himself to a tumblerful, and then passing on the bottle to the mate; “guess I wer a bit sprung yesterday?”
“Aye, cap, ye hed y’r load,” replied Mr Flinders, with a grin; adding, however, in fear of the skipper taking offence: “Not mor’n ye could carry, though. Ye scooted down the companion all right at eight bells.”
“Thet’s so,” said the other; “but, d’ye know, Flinders, I wer flummuxed up inter a heap when I got below, an’ saw snakes terrible. I guess I seed, too, thet air durned nigger, an’ hed a notion he wer come back agen to haunt me—I did so, Flinders, by thunder!”
“Ye must take keer, cap,” responded the first-mate to this confession. “If ye don’t draw in a bit ye’ll be hevin’ the shakes, an’ thet ’d never do, I reckon.”
“I guess not; but last night I wer kinder overcome with all the muss, an’ might jist hev swallerd a drop or so too much, I reckon. Good rum can’t hurt nary a one—thet is, in moderation, Flinders, strictly in moderation.”
So saying, Captain Snaggs helped himself to another stiff tumblerful; and how many more glasses he had afterwards I could not say, as he dismissed me just then, telling me I could go forwards when I had cleared away the things—which I did in a jiffy, glad to quit the cabin and its occupants.
On reaching the fo’c’s’le, I found that the steward had, as I perceived, told the men of my fright, and so I got finely chaffed about ‘Sam’s ghost.’ The next day I was revenged, though; for, Jones spoiled the crew’s dinner, and got so mauled by the indignant sailors that he had to beat a retreat back to the cabin, giving up thus ingloriously his brief tenancy of the galley.
Hiram Bangs was then elected cook in his place by the hands, with whom the captain left the matter, to settle it as they pleased; and, as the good-natured Yankee selected me to be his ‘mate’ or assistant, by this means I was relieved of any further association with the Welshman, and released from his tyranny, taking up my quarters thenceforth with the crew forward.
The nor’-westerly wind lasted us right across the Bay of Biscay and down to the Western Islands; and, we were only becalmed for a day or so, with light, variable breezes between the Azores and Madeira, when we picked up the nor’-east trades, which rattled us onward past the Canaries and Cape Verde.
From thence, all went well on board, nothing eventful happening until we were close up with the Equator, in latitude 7 degrees North, and longitude about 28 degrees West, when, late in the evening of our thirtieth day out, just as the man at the wheel had been relieved, and the port watch, under charge of the first-mate, come on duty at ‘eight bells,’ I smelt something burning in the forepeak.
Looking to see what was the matter, I noticed a thin column of smoke coming up from the small hatch under the fo’c’s’le.
Of course, I went aft at once and told Mr Flinders, who would not believe me at first; but, as one of the other hands followed me up, bringing the same report, he was at length induced to descend the poop ladder and go forward to judge for himself whether we had told the truth or not, muttering the while, though, that it was “all a pack o’ durned nonsense!”
He did not think this long, however, for hardly had he got beyond the long-boat, when the smoke, which had got much denser while he had been wasting time palavering without taking action, blowing into his face convinced him that the matter was really serious.
All his nonchalance was gone in a moment, as well as his discretion; for, without pausing to consider the effect that any sudden disclosure of the danger might have on the crew by destroying their coolness and pluck, he roared out at the pitch of his voice, as he banged away with the heel of his boot on the deck:
“All hands ahoy! Tumble up thaar! Tumble up! The shep’s on fire in the hold!”
Chapter Six.Cape Horn Weather.“Je-rusalem!” exclaimed Captain Snaggs, rushing out from the cabin in his night-shirt, having just turned in, and not stopping to dress—as the fluttering white garment and his thin legs showing beneath plainly demonstrated. This I noticed when the mass of heavy clouds with which the sky was covered overhead shifted for a moment, allowing a stray gleam from the watery moon to light up the deck, and saw the skipper hurrying up to the scene of action, where he was the first to arrive. “What’s all this durned muss about?”Jan Steenbock answered him. He had not gone below when his watch was relieved, and being attracted by the row, was now preparing for emergencies by rigging a hose on to the head-pump, so that this could be at once passed down into the hold if necessary—the first-mate being too frightened to do anything, even to reply to the captain when he spoke. Indeed, he seemed perfectly paralysed with fear.“Dere vas shmoke come out vrom ze forepeak,” said the second-mate, in his deep guttural tones; “and I zinks dere vas one fire in ze holt. Mishter Vlinders vas give ze alarm and cal’t all hands.”“Guess I heerd thet; an’, I reckon, Mr Flinders hed better hev comed an’ told me quietly, instead of skearin’ everybody into a blue funk!” snapped out Captain Snaggs, dancing about on his spindleshank legs like a pea on a hot griddle, and dodging the smoke as it puffed in his face, while peering forward to see whence it came. “Hev any of yer chaps ben down below to prospect whaar the durned thing is?”“It vas in ze forepeak, cap’n,” said Jan Steenbock, in response to this question. “I vas zee it meinselfs.”“Is the hose ready?”“Aye, aye, sir!” shouted back a score of voices, all hands being now on deck and every one forward, save the helmsman and steward—the latter, no doubt, snoozing away comfortably in his bunk, and not troubling himself about the disturbance, thinking, if he thought at all, that the call of the first-mate was only probably to shorten sail, in which case he might just as well remain where he was. “The hose is rigged and the head-pump manned, sir.”“Then let her rip!” shouted the skipper. “Go it, my hearties, an’ flood it out. I’ve hed nary a fire aboard my ship afore; an’ I don’t want to be burnt out now, I reckon, with all them dry goods an’ notions below, by thunder! Put your back into it, ye lubbers, an’ let her rip, I tell ye; she’s all oak!”One party of men attended to the pump, Jan Steenbock directing the end of the hose down the half-opened hatch, the lid having been partly slipped off by some one. The captain ranged the rest along the gangway, passing the buckets; and these a couple of others standing in the forechains dipped in the sea, hauling them up when full and handing them to those nearest, the skipper clutching hold when they reached him and chucking their contents down below.The smoke in a minute or two perceptibly diminished in volume; and, presently, only a thin spiral wreath faintly stole up, in lieu of the thick clouds that had previously almost stifled us.A wild hurrah of triumph burst from the crew; and the second-mate was just about descending into the forepeak, to get nearer the fire and see whether it had been thoroughly put out, when the entire cover of the hatchway was suddenly thrown violently off, and the dripping head and shoulders of a man appearing right under his very nose startled Jan Steenbock so much that he tumbled backward on the deck, although, impassive as usual, he did not utter a cry.The captain did though.“By the jumping Jehosophat!” he yelled out, also hopping back precipitately, with his night-shirt streaming out in the wind, which must have made his legs feel rather chilly, I thought, “who in thunder’s thaar?”“Me,” replied a husky voice, the owner whereof coughed, as if he were pretty well suffocated with the smoke and water. “It’s all right; it’s only me.”“Jee-rusalem!” ejaculated Captain Snaggs, rather puzzled. “Who’s ‘me’ I’d like ter know, I guess?”“Tom Bullover,” answered my friend the carpenter, now lifting himself out of the forepeak, when shaking himself like a big Newfoundland dog, he scattered a regular shower bath around. “It’s all right below, and there’s no fire there no longer.”“An’ what in the name of thunder wer ye a-doin’ on down thaar, hey?” asked the skipper, quite flabbergasted at his unexpected appearance, Tom looking like a veritable imp from the lower regions, all blackened and begrimed, for the moon escaping from the veil of vapour that now nearly concealed the entire vault of the heavens just then shone down on us again, throwing a sickly light on the scene. “How kern ye to be down in the forepeak at all, my joker?”“I went down just afore my watch was up to look up a spare old tops’l we stowed away there, me and Hiram, the week afore last, to see whether it wouldn’t do in place o’ that main to’gallant we carried away yesterday,” replied Tom, rather sheepishly; “an’ I s’pose I fell asleep, for it was only the water you kept a-pouring down as woke me up, an’ I was most drownded afore I could reach the ladder an’ catch hold of the coamin’ of the hatch to climb up.”“An’ sarve ye right, too, if we hed drownded ye, by thunder!” roared Captain Snaggs, thoroughly incensed, “ye durned addle-headed lubber! I guess ye hed a lantern with ye, hey?”“Yes,” confessed the delinquent; “in course I took a light down to see what I was a-doin’ of.”“‘In course’!” repeated the captain, in savage mimicry of Tom’s way of speaking; “an’ yer durned lantern got upsot, or kicked over, or sunthin’, an’ so, I guess ye sot fire to the sails, hey?”“No, sir, there’s nothing hurt to mention,” replied Tom, more coolly; “it was only some old rags and greasy waste that the cook shoved down there that caught, which were the reason it made such a big smoke.”The skipper snorted indignantly at this explanation; and then, craning his long neck over the hatchway, he sniffed about, as if trying to detect some special smell.“‘Big smoke,’ hey!” he cried, as he stood upright again, and shook his fist in Tom’s face. “I guess theft’s jest the ticket, ye thunderin’ liar! Ye’ve been shamming Abraham in yer watch, an’ sneaked down thaar to hev a pipe on the sly, when ye should hev bin mindin’ yer dooty, thet’s what’s the matter, sirree; but, I’ll make ye pay for it, ye skulkin’ rascallion. I’ll stop ye a month’s wages fur the damage done to the ship—if not by the fire, by the water we’ve hove in to put it out, an’ ye ken tote it up, if ye like, yerself!”Captain Snaggs then ordered the second-mate to go down and see if all danger were really over, and nothing left smouldering, not trusting to Tom’s assurance to that effect; and, presently, when Jan Steenbock came up again with a satisfactory report, the skipper, who was now shivering with the wet and exposure in such a light and airy costume, returned back to his cabin to finish his sleep in peace—not, however, without giving a rating to Mr Flinders, for his behaviour, which he said was as bad as that of the carpenter.The starboard watch were then told that they might go below, though it was getting on for midnight, when they would have to turn out again, and keep the deck till the morning.I don’t know how it was, but, from that night, everything went wrong with the ship.The very next afternoon, a tremendous thunderstorm broke over us, and a nasty blue, zigzagging streak of lightning struck our mizzen-royal mast, splintering the spar and sending the tye-block down on the poop, nearly killing the second-mate.If it had been Mr Flinders it wouldn’t have mattered so much, but Jan Steenbock was a decent fellow and a good seaman, being much liked by all hands, barring the skipper, who, of course, disliked him because he took the men’s part and let them have easy times of it in his watch.This was the beginning of a fourteen days’ spell we had of rolling about in the sweltering calms of the Doldrums; and then, when we at last managed to drift cross the Line, we had another fortnight’s stagnation before we met the south-east trades, only a couple of degrees or so below the Equator.By this time, every man on board was heartily sick of the ship and tired of his company, for the captain was continually grumbling with the mates and hazing the crew, and the hands as constantly falling out among themselves. Only my two friends, Tom Bullover and Hiram, the Yankee sailor, really remained chummy or contented out of the whole lot. The rest seemed thoroughly dissatisfied, complaining of their grub and everything.Some of them declared, too, that the vessel was unlucky and under a curse, saying that they heard strange noises at night in the hold, though I did not think much of this, Tom and Hiram between them having nearly succeeded in chaffing me out of my belief in having seen Sam Jedfoot’s ghost.On getting a fair wind again, the ship, which had lost almost a lunar month through bad weather and calms and no weather at all, began to travel once more southward, steering almost west-sou’-west on the port tack; but as we reached down the South American coast-line towards Cape Horn, we nearly came to grief on the Abralhos, theDenver Cityjust escaping laying her bones there by the ‘skin of her teeth,’ to use Tom Bullover’s expression to me next morning, as I was serving out the coffee—the peril having been met in the middle watch, when I was asleep, and knew nothing about it until it was over and we were sailing on serenely once more.Then, again, off the mouth of the La Plata, when nearly opposite Buenos Ayres, although, of course, some five hundred miles or more from the land, we suddenly encountered a terrific ‘pampero,’ as the storms of that region are styled; and, if Captain Snaggs hadn’t smelt this coming in time, we should have been dismasted and probably gone to the bottom with all hands.As it was, we only managed to furl the upper sails and clew up the courses before the wind caught us, heeling the vessel over almost broadside on to the sea; and then everything had to be let go by the run, the ship scudding away right before the gale, as if towed by wild horses, with the sheets and halliards and everything flying—for, at first, the hail that accompanied the wind beat down on us so fearfully that no one was able to face it and go aloft.That night, one of the hands who came up to the galley to light his pipe, and who had previously spoken of the noises he had noticed, as he said, about the deck during the still hours of the early morning, when all sounds seem so much louder than in the daytime, both aboard ship and ashore, declared that during the height of the pampero he had heard Sam Jedfoot’s voice distinctly singing that old negro ballad of which he used to be so fond when in life, chaunting it almost regularly every evening on the fo’c’s’le to the accompaniment of his banjo:—“Oh, down in Alabama, ’fore I wer sot free,I lubbed a p’ooty yaller gal, an’ fought dat she lubbed me!”Of course, Hiram Bangs and Tom Bullover, who were smoking inside the galley at the time, laughed at the man for his folly; but he persisted in his statement, and went away at last quite huffed because they would not believe him.This was not the end of it all, however, as events will show.
“Je-rusalem!” exclaimed Captain Snaggs, rushing out from the cabin in his night-shirt, having just turned in, and not stopping to dress—as the fluttering white garment and his thin legs showing beneath plainly demonstrated. This I noticed when the mass of heavy clouds with which the sky was covered overhead shifted for a moment, allowing a stray gleam from the watery moon to light up the deck, and saw the skipper hurrying up to the scene of action, where he was the first to arrive. “What’s all this durned muss about?”
Jan Steenbock answered him. He had not gone below when his watch was relieved, and being attracted by the row, was now preparing for emergencies by rigging a hose on to the head-pump, so that this could be at once passed down into the hold if necessary—the first-mate being too frightened to do anything, even to reply to the captain when he spoke. Indeed, he seemed perfectly paralysed with fear.
“Dere vas shmoke come out vrom ze forepeak,” said the second-mate, in his deep guttural tones; “and I zinks dere vas one fire in ze holt. Mishter Vlinders vas give ze alarm and cal’t all hands.”
“Guess I heerd thet; an’, I reckon, Mr Flinders hed better hev comed an’ told me quietly, instead of skearin’ everybody into a blue funk!” snapped out Captain Snaggs, dancing about on his spindleshank legs like a pea on a hot griddle, and dodging the smoke as it puffed in his face, while peering forward to see whence it came. “Hev any of yer chaps ben down below to prospect whaar the durned thing is?”
“It vas in ze forepeak, cap’n,” said Jan Steenbock, in response to this question. “I vas zee it meinselfs.”
“Is the hose ready?”
“Aye, aye, sir!” shouted back a score of voices, all hands being now on deck and every one forward, save the helmsman and steward—the latter, no doubt, snoozing away comfortably in his bunk, and not troubling himself about the disturbance, thinking, if he thought at all, that the call of the first-mate was only probably to shorten sail, in which case he might just as well remain where he was. “The hose is rigged and the head-pump manned, sir.”
“Then let her rip!” shouted the skipper. “Go it, my hearties, an’ flood it out. I’ve hed nary a fire aboard my ship afore; an’ I don’t want to be burnt out now, I reckon, with all them dry goods an’ notions below, by thunder! Put your back into it, ye lubbers, an’ let her rip, I tell ye; she’s all oak!”
One party of men attended to the pump, Jan Steenbock directing the end of the hose down the half-opened hatch, the lid having been partly slipped off by some one. The captain ranged the rest along the gangway, passing the buckets; and these a couple of others standing in the forechains dipped in the sea, hauling them up when full and handing them to those nearest, the skipper clutching hold when they reached him and chucking their contents down below.
The smoke in a minute or two perceptibly diminished in volume; and, presently, only a thin spiral wreath faintly stole up, in lieu of the thick clouds that had previously almost stifled us.
A wild hurrah of triumph burst from the crew; and the second-mate was just about descending into the forepeak, to get nearer the fire and see whether it had been thoroughly put out, when the entire cover of the hatchway was suddenly thrown violently off, and the dripping head and shoulders of a man appearing right under his very nose startled Jan Steenbock so much that he tumbled backward on the deck, although, impassive as usual, he did not utter a cry.
The captain did though.
“By the jumping Jehosophat!” he yelled out, also hopping back precipitately, with his night-shirt streaming out in the wind, which must have made his legs feel rather chilly, I thought, “who in thunder’s thaar?”
“Me,” replied a husky voice, the owner whereof coughed, as if he were pretty well suffocated with the smoke and water. “It’s all right; it’s only me.”
“Jee-rusalem!” ejaculated Captain Snaggs, rather puzzled. “Who’s ‘me’ I’d like ter know, I guess?”
“Tom Bullover,” answered my friend the carpenter, now lifting himself out of the forepeak, when shaking himself like a big Newfoundland dog, he scattered a regular shower bath around. “It’s all right below, and there’s no fire there no longer.”
“An’ what in the name of thunder wer ye a-doin’ on down thaar, hey?” asked the skipper, quite flabbergasted at his unexpected appearance, Tom looking like a veritable imp from the lower regions, all blackened and begrimed, for the moon escaping from the veil of vapour that now nearly concealed the entire vault of the heavens just then shone down on us again, throwing a sickly light on the scene. “How kern ye to be down in the forepeak at all, my joker?”
“I went down just afore my watch was up to look up a spare old tops’l we stowed away there, me and Hiram, the week afore last, to see whether it wouldn’t do in place o’ that main to’gallant we carried away yesterday,” replied Tom, rather sheepishly; “an’ I s’pose I fell asleep, for it was only the water you kept a-pouring down as woke me up, an’ I was most drownded afore I could reach the ladder an’ catch hold of the coamin’ of the hatch to climb up.”
“An’ sarve ye right, too, if we hed drownded ye, by thunder!” roared Captain Snaggs, thoroughly incensed, “ye durned addle-headed lubber! I guess ye hed a lantern with ye, hey?”
“Yes,” confessed the delinquent; “in course I took a light down to see what I was a-doin’ of.”
“‘In course’!” repeated the captain, in savage mimicry of Tom’s way of speaking; “an’ yer durned lantern got upsot, or kicked over, or sunthin’, an’ so, I guess ye sot fire to the sails, hey?”
“No, sir, there’s nothing hurt to mention,” replied Tom, more coolly; “it was only some old rags and greasy waste that the cook shoved down there that caught, which were the reason it made such a big smoke.”
The skipper snorted indignantly at this explanation; and then, craning his long neck over the hatchway, he sniffed about, as if trying to detect some special smell.
“‘Big smoke,’ hey!” he cried, as he stood upright again, and shook his fist in Tom’s face. “I guess theft’s jest the ticket, ye thunderin’ liar! Ye’ve been shamming Abraham in yer watch, an’ sneaked down thaar to hev a pipe on the sly, when ye should hev bin mindin’ yer dooty, thet’s what’s the matter, sirree; but, I’ll make ye pay for it, ye skulkin’ rascallion. I’ll stop ye a month’s wages fur the damage done to the ship—if not by the fire, by the water we’ve hove in to put it out, an’ ye ken tote it up, if ye like, yerself!”
Captain Snaggs then ordered the second-mate to go down and see if all danger were really over, and nothing left smouldering, not trusting to Tom’s assurance to that effect; and, presently, when Jan Steenbock came up again with a satisfactory report, the skipper, who was now shivering with the wet and exposure in such a light and airy costume, returned back to his cabin to finish his sleep in peace—not, however, without giving a rating to Mr Flinders, for his behaviour, which he said was as bad as that of the carpenter.
The starboard watch were then told that they might go below, though it was getting on for midnight, when they would have to turn out again, and keep the deck till the morning.
I don’t know how it was, but, from that night, everything went wrong with the ship.
The very next afternoon, a tremendous thunderstorm broke over us, and a nasty blue, zigzagging streak of lightning struck our mizzen-royal mast, splintering the spar and sending the tye-block down on the poop, nearly killing the second-mate.
If it had been Mr Flinders it wouldn’t have mattered so much, but Jan Steenbock was a decent fellow and a good seaman, being much liked by all hands, barring the skipper, who, of course, disliked him because he took the men’s part and let them have easy times of it in his watch.
This was the beginning of a fourteen days’ spell we had of rolling about in the sweltering calms of the Doldrums; and then, when we at last managed to drift cross the Line, we had another fortnight’s stagnation before we met the south-east trades, only a couple of degrees or so below the Equator.
By this time, every man on board was heartily sick of the ship and tired of his company, for the captain was continually grumbling with the mates and hazing the crew, and the hands as constantly falling out among themselves. Only my two friends, Tom Bullover and Hiram, the Yankee sailor, really remained chummy or contented out of the whole lot. The rest seemed thoroughly dissatisfied, complaining of their grub and everything.
Some of them declared, too, that the vessel was unlucky and under a curse, saying that they heard strange noises at night in the hold, though I did not think much of this, Tom and Hiram between them having nearly succeeded in chaffing me out of my belief in having seen Sam Jedfoot’s ghost.
On getting a fair wind again, the ship, which had lost almost a lunar month through bad weather and calms and no weather at all, began to travel once more southward, steering almost west-sou’-west on the port tack; but as we reached down the South American coast-line towards Cape Horn, we nearly came to grief on the Abralhos, theDenver Cityjust escaping laying her bones there by the ‘skin of her teeth,’ to use Tom Bullover’s expression to me next morning, as I was serving out the coffee—the peril having been met in the middle watch, when I was asleep, and knew nothing about it until it was over and we were sailing on serenely once more.
Then, again, off the mouth of the La Plata, when nearly opposite Buenos Ayres, although, of course, some five hundred miles or more from the land, we suddenly encountered a terrific ‘pampero,’ as the storms of that region are styled; and, if Captain Snaggs hadn’t smelt this coming in time, we should have been dismasted and probably gone to the bottom with all hands.
As it was, we only managed to furl the upper sails and clew up the courses before the wind caught us, heeling the vessel over almost broadside on to the sea; and then everything had to be let go by the run, the ship scudding away right before the gale, as if towed by wild horses, with the sheets and halliards and everything flying—for, at first, the hail that accompanied the wind beat down on us so fearfully that no one was able to face it and go aloft.
That night, one of the hands who came up to the galley to light his pipe, and who had previously spoken of the noises he had noticed, as he said, about the deck during the still hours of the early morning, when all sounds seem so much louder than in the daytime, both aboard ship and ashore, declared that during the height of the pampero he had heard Sam Jedfoot’s voice distinctly singing that old negro ballad of which he used to be so fond when in life, chaunting it almost regularly every evening on the fo’c’s’le to the accompaniment of his banjo:—
“Oh, down in Alabama, ’fore I wer sot free,I lubbed a p’ooty yaller gal, an’ fought dat she lubbed me!”
“Oh, down in Alabama, ’fore I wer sot free,I lubbed a p’ooty yaller gal, an’ fought dat she lubbed me!”
Of course, Hiram Bangs and Tom Bullover, who were smoking inside the galley at the time, laughed at the man for his folly; but he persisted in his statement, and went away at last quite huffed because they would not believe him.
This was not the end of it all, however, as events will show.