Chapter Four.

Chapter Four.The “Josephine.”“What!” I exclaimed joyfully; “Captain Miles! That jolly old fellow who came out to Mount Pleasant last year and showed me how to make a kite?”“The same,” replied dad. “But remember, Tom, he’s not much over my age; and I do not by any means call myself an old man yet! Besides, he and I are friends of long standing, and you should not speak of him so disrespectfully.”“Oh, dad, I didn’t mean that, and I beg his pardon, I’m sure,” I interposed hastily at this. “What I wished to express was, that I thought him so nice and pleasant, that I was very glad to have the chance of seeing him again!”“My dear boy, I know what you meant,” said dad kindly, with his usual bright smile, the sight of which eased my mind in a minute. “However, Tom,” he added quizzingly, “we must now see about getting out to the old fellow.”But this was sooner said than done.There was the ship, it was true, and there were we on the shore looking at her; but, there between us stretched an expanse of nearly two miles of blue water, which we certainly could not cross by swimming, although dad was a pretty good hand at that, and had made me, too, a fair adept in the art for my years.How to reach the vessel, therefore, was the question.Dad tried waving his handkerchief to attract the attention of those on board; but the crew of theJosephineappeared to be all asleep, for nobody took any notice of the signal. Foiled in this hope, dad turned round to me again with a puzzled expression on his face, as if wondering what he should do next, though of course I could not suggest anything.Just then Jake, who had been looking at my father very attentively all this while, as if “taking stock” of his movements, so to speak, suddenly burst into one of his huge guffaws.“Yah, yah, massa, golly you no see for suah!” he cried out in an ecstasy of enjoyment at what he considered a rare joke. “You am look de wrong way. Look dere, look dere!”“Look where?” asked dad, not quite making out what particular direction Jake especially wished to draw his attention to, for the darkey was whirling one of his arms round him like a windmill to each point of the compass in turn; and, but that he had the bridles of the horses slung over his other arm, he would probably have gesticulated as frantically also with that.“Dere, dere—t’oder way, massa,” repeated Jake, nodding his woolly head as he laughed and showed his teeth, this time indicating the extreme left of the bay, to which our backs had been turned; but where, on our now looking, we noticed a little jetty running out into the sea, with a boat putting off from it towards the ship.“Oh!” ejaculated dad; “what a stupid I am, to be sure!”Dad’s exclamation made Jake break out afresh into a loud cachinnation.“Golly, dis chile can’t ’tand dat,” he shouted. “Massa um ’tupid, massa um ’tupid, yah, yah!” and he almost doubled himself in two with merriment, his hearty laughter being so contagious that both dad and I could not help joining in. So there were we all chuckling away at a fine rate at the idea of our not noticing either the jetty or the boat before. We had been so blindly anxious to reach theJosephinethat we had looked in every direction but the right one for the means of getting on board her!After a bit, dad was the first to recover his composure.“Well, Tom,” said he, “the best thing we can do now will be to ride round the bay to the point where that boat has started out from. I think I can see another craft of some sort lying alongside the jetty; and, I daresay, we’ll be able to get out to the vessel if we go there.”As he spoke he mounted Dandy again, while I jumped up nimbly on Prince’s back; and, in another moment we were cantering along the sandy beach towards the point in question, with Jake running behind holding on to Dandy’s tail, and still laughing to himself in high glee.On approaching the jetty, it looked much bigger than it had appeared to be in the distance. It was a long wooden pier, indeed, that projected some hundred yards or so into the sea, and it had a crane at the end for hoisting and lowering the heavy hogs-heads of sugar. Dozens of these were ranged along its length awaiting shipment, and a gang of negroes were busily engaged under a white overseer in stowing some of them into the launch of theJosephine, which was moored right under the crane. The name of the vessel was painted in white letters on the stern of the boat, which was turned towards us as we rode up so that we could easily see it.On dad’s telling the overseer what he wanted, we learnt that Captain Miles was on board his vessel, and that the launch would be going out to her as soon as she was loaded; so we had nothing to do now but to wait until she had taken in as many casks of sugar as she could carry.To me, this delay was not very tedious; for, as the overseer made the negroes “hurry up” with their task, I was much amused with the brisk way in which they trundled the huge hogs-heads along, running them up to the pier-head, slinging them to the chains of the crane, and then lowering them down into the launch. There was much creaking of cog-wheels and cheerful, “Yo-heave-hoing!” from the men in the boat below, as they stowed them away in the bottom of the craft as easily as if they were only so many tiny little kegs, the darkeys joining in the sailors’ chorus with much good-humour.Bye and bye the job was finished, when, room having been reserved for dad and myself in the stern-sheets, the seaman in charge of the boat told us to jump in.Then, some of the negro gang coming on board also to help man the long oars, which, like sweeps, were ranged double-banked along the sides of the launch, she was pulled away slowly from the jetty out towards theJosephinein the offing, Jake, who had been left ashore to mind the horses, casting longing looks of regret after us. He, too, would have dearly liked to have gone off to the ship.It was heavy work, even with the aid of the sweeps, rowing such a distance under the broiling mid-day sun, for there was no breeze to aid the boat’s progress through the water, and the heavy ground-swell that was rolling in to the land of course greatly retarded the rowers. Every moment the launch plunged almost bows under into the hollow of the sea, then rising again suddenly as the waves passed under her keel, her stern sinking down level with the surface at the same time and her prow being high in the air. I thought it somewhat dangerous at first, but dad and the other men took it so coolly that I was soon reassured and quite enjoyed the motion.It seemed ever so much nicer than swinging to me; for the up and down movement was as regular as clockwork, in rhythmical harmony with the undulations of the unbroken billows that swept in, one after another, in measured succession from seaward—pursuing their onward course until they broke on the curving shore of the bay, inside of us, with a dull low roar, like that of some caged wild animal kept under restraint and unable to exert its full strength.After an hour’s hard pulling, the boat got alongside the ship at last, but the vessel floated so high out of the water that I could not help wondering how we should ever be able to climb on board; for the square portholes, which were the only openings in her massive wall-like sides that I could see, were far above the level of the launch, even when the swelling surge lifted us up every now and then on the top of a heaving roller.Dad, however, quickly solved the difficulty. At once catching hold of a couple of side lines which hung down from above, he swung himself dexterously on to a projecting piece of wood, like the bottom rung of a ladder, fixed to the hull of the vessel, and stepping from this to another cleat above he went up the side as easily as if he were ascending an ordinary staircase, soon gaining the deck overhead and disappearing from my view.“My eye!” ejaculated the sailor beside me in the boat, surprised at dad’s familiarity with such a nautical procedure. “I am blessed if that there gentleman ain’t an old hand at it.”“You’re right, my man,” said I proudly, “my father was an officer in the navy once.”“Guessed so,” replied the sailor laconically. “I’ve been an old man-o’-war’s man myself and thought I knew the cut of his jib!”I could not imitate dad’s example, though, for all that; so, they had to hoist me in like a cask of sugar, as I was not able to get up the side. I confess I was mightily pleased to find myself landed, presently, safe and sound on the poop of theJosephineby the side of dad and Captain Miles, both of whom seemed much amused at my rather ignominious entry on board the vessel. Really, I must have looked very funny with my legs dangling in the air when run up at the end of the derrick!“Well, youngster, how did you like being strung up at the yard-arm?” said Captain Miles, who had still a broad grin on his face. “Not many fellows have been bowsed up in that fashion and cut down so speedily!”“No,” observed dad. “I’m glad, though, that mode of execution to which you refer is now altogether abolished in the service; but I’m afraid, captain, Tom does not understand your allusion.”“Oh, yes, I do, dad,” said I, fresh from the pages of Mr Midshipman Easy, and knowing all about the summary system of punishment in vogue in the old days on board ship. “Captain Miles meant hanging.”“So I did, youngster,” replied that worthy cheerily; “but you seem none the worse for your experience of the operation.”“I didn’t like it, however, captain,” said I, a little bit put on my dignity by being laughed at. “The next time I come on board I intend to mount up the side-ladder the same as dad did.”“That’s right, my lad, so you shall,” rejoined the jolly old fellow. “But, come below now both of you and have some luncheon. It has gone eight bells, and as I feel a trifle peckish, I daresay you’re pretty much the same.”While saying this Captain Miles descended the poop-ladder, and, beckoning dad and I to follow him, ushered us into the cabin below, where we found a very appetising meal laid out. It seemed just as if we had been expected and that preparations had been made for our entertainment.Dad passed a remark about this, but the captain laughed it off.“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said. “Harry, my steward, thought he would make a spread, I suppose, because I told him I felt hungry just now. It is only our ordinary fare, though; for, when we’re in harbour like this now and have the chance of getting fresh grub, we always keep a good table. At sea, after a spell, we’ve got to rough it on salt junk frequently.”“Not like what we poor fellows had to put up with in the service,” observed dad, shrugging his shoulders with a grimace.“Ah, we in the mercantile marine know how to enjoy ourselves,” said Captain Miles with a satisfactory chuckle. “You naval chaps are something like what the niggers say of white folks that have come down in the world out here, and try to keep up appearances without means. You have ‘poor greatness, with dry rations,’ hey?”“That’s true enough,” replied dad; and then we all set to work with our knives and forks, demolishing, in less than no time, a grilled fowl and some delicious fried flying-fish, with the accompaniment of roast buttered yams and fresh plantains.I don’t know when I ever had such a jolly tuck out. The long ride after my forced quietness at home, and the sea air, combined with my novel surroundings—I was so overjoyed at being on board a ship, and having a meal in a real cabin, the very height of my ambition and what I had often longed for—gave me a tremendous appetite. It was the first really hearty meal I had eaten since my illness.“Well, Eastman,” said Captain Miles presently to dad, “I suppose you’ve come about the youngster. Do you want me to take him home with me this voyage, eh?”Of course I pricked up my ears on hearing this question; but dad did not satisfy my curiosity, although he noticed that I almost jumped up in my seat and was all attention.“No,” replied he, evading the subject, “I wanted to see you about shipping some cocoa. I’ve got a good lot ready, and you may as well take it as anybody else.”“Oh, I see,” rejoined the captain, winking in a confidential way at dad, as if they had some secret between them. “We can talk over the bills of lading and so on, while the youngster has a run round to see what a ship is like, eh?”“Yes,” said dad; and turning to me he added, “You would like to go over theJosephine, would you not, Tom, now you are on board her?”“Rather!” I replied, delighted at the idea, but still wondering what the captain had meant about “taking me home.”There was evidently something on the tapis.“All right, my hearty, so you shall,” said Captain Miles. “The boatswain will take you round and show you the ropes, while your father and I have a chat about business matters.”He then called Harry the steward, and directed him to give me in charge of Moggridge the boatswain, with instructions to show me everything that was to be seen alow and aloft in the vessel; whereupon the two of us went out of the cabin together, leaving the captain and dad to have an uninterrupted chat over their cigars.Moggridge turned out to be the very sailor who had been in charge of the launch which had brought us off to the ship; so, from the fact of his knowing that dad had formerly been in the navy, and that I wished to enter the same glorious service, we were soon on the most confidential terms, the good-natured fellow going out of his way to make me thoroughly acquainted with all the details of theJosephine. He first took me down to the hold, where I saw the hogs-heads of sugar being stowed, the casks being packed as tightly as sardines in a tin box. We then went through the ship fore and aft between the decks, from the forecastle to the steward’s pantry. After this the boatswain completed his tour of instruction by showing me how to climb the rigging into the main-top, telling me the names and uses of all the ropes and spars; so that, by the time he had ended, my head was in a state of bewildered confusion, with shrouds and sheets, halliards and stays, stun’-sail yards and cat-heads, bowsprits, and spanker booms, all so mixed up together that it would have puzzled me to discriminate between any of them and say off-hand which was which!However, the boatswain and I parted very good friends when he took me back to the cabin on the termination of our inspection of the ship—he promising to teach me how to make a reef-knot and a running-bowline the next time I came on board, and I shaking hands with him as a right good fellow whom I would only be too glad to meet again under any circumstances.Dad and I stopped with Captain Miles until late in the afternoon; when, the glare of the sun having gone off, we were rowed ashore in the captain’s gig. My friend Moggridge took charge of us, and a crew of hardy sailors made the boat spin ashore at a very different rate of speed to that which the heavy old launch displayed on our trip out to the vessel with the sugar hogs-heads.Jake met us at the jetty with the horses, which he had put up in the stables of the adjoining plantation during our absence; and as we rode along the shore of the bay homeward, the sun was just setting, while a nice cool wind came down from the mountains, making it much nicer than it had been in the earlier part of the day. Skirting the bay, we could see theJosephinein the distance gradually being shut in by a halo of haze, a thick mist generally rising up from the sea at nightfall in the tropics through the evaporation of the water or the difference of temperature between it and the atmospheric air.If our ride out to Grenville Bay had been jolly in the morning, our journey back was simply splendid.Almost as soon as the solar orb sank down below the horizon, which it did just before we turned away from the shore, the masts and spars of theJosephine, and each rope of her rigging, were all lit up by the sinking rays of light, their last despairing flash before their extinguishment in the ocean. At the same time, the hull of the vessel and every projecting point in the coast-line of the bay stood out in relief against the bright emerald-green tint of the sea. A moment afterwards, the darkness of night descended suddenly upon us like a vast curtain let down from heaven.But it was not dark long.As we passed our way up the climbing mountain path that led back to Mount Pleasant, our road—bordered on the one side by the dense vegetation of the forest, which seemed as black as ink now, and hedged in on the other by a precipice—was made clear by the light of the stars. These absolutely came outen massealmost as we looked upwards at them. I noticed, too, that the sky seemed to be of some gauzy transparent material like ethereal azure, and did not exhibit that solid appearance it has in England of a ceiling with gold nails stuck in it here and there at random; for, the “lesser orbs of night” in the tropics look as if they were floating in a sea of vapour. They appear a regular galaxy of beauty and splendour, and so many glorious evidences of the great Creator’s handiwork.Every now and then, also, the air around us was illuminated with sparks of green-coloured flame, while the woods seemed on fire from a thousand little jets that burst out every second from some new direction, lighting up the sombre gloom beneath the shade of the forest trees.One could almost imagine that there was a crowd of fairies going before us, each carrying a torch which he waved about, now above his head, and then around lower down, finally dashing it to the ground with those of his comrades, as is the custom at the torchlight processions of the students in Germany on some festal night. As dad and I trotted along towards home, the sparks of flame appeared now rising, now falling, vanishing here, reappearing there, finally converging into a globe, or “set piece,” as at a pyrotechnic display, and then dispersing in spangles of coruscation like a fizzed-out firework.This beautiful effect, one of the wonders of a night in the West Indies, was caused by the fireflies. Of these insects there are two distinct species, one really a small fly which seems to be perpetually on the wing, flitting in and out in the air always, and never at rest; while the other is a species of beetle that is only seen in woody regions, where it takes up a more stationary position, like the glowworm over here. This latter has two large eyes at the back of its head, instead of in front in their more natural place; and these eyes, when the insect is touched, shoot forth two strong streams of greenish light, something like that produced by an electric dynamo, while, at the same time, the entire body of the “firefly,” or beetle, becomes as incandescent as a live coal.The light which even one of these little creatures will give out is so great that I have often seen dad, just for the sake of the experiment, read a bit out of a newspaper on a dark evening with a firefly stuck in a wine-glass for a candle!For some time we jogged along silently; but just when we were nearing Mount Pleasant I could not help asking dad what Captain Miles had meant by that question he had asked him about taking me for a voyage.I had been dying to know what the remark referred to ever since I had overheard it, but waited, thinking that dad would tell me of his own accord; so now, as he didn’t speak, I had to brave the ordeal of the inquiry.“He wanted to take you home to England to school, Tom,” replied dad briefly in an absent sort of way, as if his thoughts were amongst the fireflies.“Really?” said I hesitatingly—“and—”“And, I have not quite made up my mind in the matter yet, Tom. Besides which, there’s your mother to be consulted,” interposed dad, answering my second question before I could put it.“And if mother does not mind, you will let me go, then, in theJosephinewith Captain Miles, eh, dad?” I asked anxiously.“I didn’t say so, did I?” said dad quizzingly.“But you meant it, dad, you meant it, I know,” cried I exultantly. “Hurrah, I am so glad! I am so glad!”

“What!” I exclaimed joyfully; “Captain Miles! That jolly old fellow who came out to Mount Pleasant last year and showed me how to make a kite?”

“The same,” replied dad. “But remember, Tom, he’s not much over my age; and I do not by any means call myself an old man yet! Besides, he and I are friends of long standing, and you should not speak of him so disrespectfully.”

“Oh, dad, I didn’t mean that, and I beg his pardon, I’m sure,” I interposed hastily at this. “What I wished to express was, that I thought him so nice and pleasant, that I was very glad to have the chance of seeing him again!”

“My dear boy, I know what you meant,” said dad kindly, with his usual bright smile, the sight of which eased my mind in a minute. “However, Tom,” he added quizzingly, “we must now see about getting out to the old fellow.”

But this was sooner said than done.

There was the ship, it was true, and there were we on the shore looking at her; but, there between us stretched an expanse of nearly two miles of blue water, which we certainly could not cross by swimming, although dad was a pretty good hand at that, and had made me, too, a fair adept in the art for my years.

How to reach the vessel, therefore, was the question.

Dad tried waving his handkerchief to attract the attention of those on board; but the crew of theJosephineappeared to be all asleep, for nobody took any notice of the signal. Foiled in this hope, dad turned round to me again with a puzzled expression on his face, as if wondering what he should do next, though of course I could not suggest anything.

Just then Jake, who had been looking at my father very attentively all this while, as if “taking stock” of his movements, so to speak, suddenly burst into one of his huge guffaws.

“Yah, yah, massa, golly you no see for suah!” he cried out in an ecstasy of enjoyment at what he considered a rare joke. “You am look de wrong way. Look dere, look dere!”

“Look where?” asked dad, not quite making out what particular direction Jake especially wished to draw his attention to, for the darkey was whirling one of his arms round him like a windmill to each point of the compass in turn; and, but that he had the bridles of the horses slung over his other arm, he would probably have gesticulated as frantically also with that.

“Dere, dere—t’oder way, massa,” repeated Jake, nodding his woolly head as he laughed and showed his teeth, this time indicating the extreme left of the bay, to which our backs had been turned; but where, on our now looking, we noticed a little jetty running out into the sea, with a boat putting off from it towards the ship.

“Oh!” ejaculated dad; “what a stupid I am, to be sure!”

Dad’s exclamation made Jake break out afresh into a loud cachinnation.

“Golly, dis chile can’t ’tand dat,” he shouted. “Massa um ’tupid, massa um ’tupid, yah, yah!” and he almost doubled himself in two with merriment, his hearty laughter being so contagious that both dad and I could not help joining in. So there were we all chuckling away at a fine rate at the idea of our not noticing either the jetty or the boat before. We had been so blindly anxious to reach theJosephinethat we had looked in every direction but the right one for the means of getting on board her!

After a bit, dad was the first to recover his composure.

“Well, Tom,” said he, “the best thing we can do now will be to ride round the bay to the point where that boat has started out from. I think I can see another craft of some sort lying alongside the jetty; and, I daresay, we’ll be able to get out to the vessel if we go there.”

As he spoke he mounted Dandy again, while I jumped up nimbly on Prince’s back; and, in another moment we were cantering along the sandy beach towards the point in question, with Jake running behind holding on to Dandy’s tail, and still laughing to himself in high glee.

On approaching the jetty, it looked much bigger than it had appeared to be in the distance. It was a long wooden pier, indeed, that projected some hundred yards or so into the sea, and it had a crane at the end for hoisting and lowering the heavy hogs-heads of sugar. Dozens of these were ranged along its length awaiting shipment, and a gang of negroes were busily engaged under a white overseer in stowing some of them into the launch of theJosephine, which was moored right under the crane. The name of the vessel was painted in white letters on the stern of the boat, which was turned towards us as we rode up so that we could easily see it.

On dad’s telling the overseer what he wanted, we learnt that Captain Miles was on board his vessel, and that the launch would be going out to her as soon as she was loaded; so we had nothing to do now but to wait until she had taken in as many casks of sugar as she could carry.

To me, this delay was not very tedious; for, as the overseer made the negroes “hurry up” with their task, I was much amused with the brisk way in which they trundled the huge hogs-heads along, running them up to the pier-head, slinging them to the chains of the crane, and then lowering them down into the launch. There was much creaking of cog-wheels and cheerful, “Yo-heave-hoing!” from the men in the boat below, as they stowed them away in the bottom of the craft as easily as if they were only so many tiny little kegs, the darkeys joining in the sailors’ chorus with much good-humour.

Bye and bye the job was finished, when, room having been reserved for dad and myself in the stern-sheets, the seaman in charge of the boat told us to jump in.

Then, some of the negro gang coming on board also to help man the long oars, which, like sweeps, were ranged double-banked along the sides of the launch, she was pulled away slowly from the jetty out towards theJosephinein the offing, Jake, who had been left ashore to mind the horses, casting longing looks of regret after us. He, too, would have dearly liked to have gone off to the ship.

It was heavy work, even with the aid of the sweeps, rowing such a distance under the broiling mid-day sun, for there was no breeze to aid the boat’s progress through the water, and the heavy ground-swell that was rolling in to the land of course greatly retarded the rowers. Every moment the launch plunged almost bows under into the hollow of the sea, then rising again suddenly as the waves passed under her keel, her stern sinking down level with the surface at the same time and her prow being high in the air. I thought it somewhat dangerous at first, but dad and the other men took it so coolly that I was soon reassured and quite enjoyed the motion.

It seemed ever so much nicer than swinging to me; for the up and down movement was as regular as clockwork, in rhythmical harmony with the undulations of the unbroken billows that swept in, one after another, in measured succession from seaward—pursuing their onward course until they broke on the curving shore of the bay, inside of us, with a dull low roar, like that of some caged wild animal kept under restraint and unable to exert its full strength.

After an hour’s hard pulling, the boat got alongside the ship at last, but the vessel floated so high out of the water that I could not help wondering how we should ever be able to climb on board; for the square portholes, which were the only openings in her massive wall-like sides that I could see, were far above the level of the launch, even when the swelling surge lifted us up every now and then on the top of a heaving roller.

Dad, however, quickly solved the difficulty. At once catching hold of a couple of side lines which hung down from above, he swung himself dexterously on to a projecting piece of wood, like the bottom rung of a ladder, fixed to the hull of the vessel, and stepping from this to another cleat above he went up the side as easily as if he were ascending an ordinary staircase, soon gaining the deck overhead and disappearing from my view.

“My eye!” ejaculated the sailor beside me in the boat, surprised at dad’s familiarity with such a nautical procedure. “I am blessed if that there gentleman ain’t an old hand at it.”

“You’re right, my man,” said I proudly, “my father was an officer in the navy once.”

“Guessed so,” replied the sailor laconically. “I’ve been an old man-o’-war’s man myself and thought I knew the cut of his jib!”

I could not imitate dad’s example, though, for all that; so, they had to hoist me in like a cask of sugar, as I was not able to get up the side. I confess I was mightily pleased to find myself landed, presently, safe and sound on the poop of theJosephineby the side of dad and Captain Miles, both of whom seemed much amused at my rather ignominious entry on board the vessel. Really, I must have looked very funny with my legs dangling in the air when run up at the end of the derrick!

“Well, youngster, how did you like being strung up at the yard-arm?” said Captain Miles, who had still a broad grin on his face. “Not many fellows have been bowsed up in that fashion and cut down so speedily!”

“No,” observed dad. “I’m glad, though, that mode of execution to which you refer is now altogether abolished in the service; but I’m afraid, captain, Tom does not understand your allusion.”

“Oh, yes, I do, dad,” said I, fresh from the pages of Mr Midshipman Easy, and knowing all about the summary system of punishment in vogue in the old days on board ship. “Captain Miles meant hanging.”

“So I did, youngster,” replied that worthy cheerily; “but you seem none the worse for your experience of the operation.”

“I didn’t like it, however, captain,” said I, a little bit put on my dignity by being laughed at. “The next time I come on board I intend to mount up the side-ladder the same as dad did.”

“That’s right, my lad, so you shall,” rejoined the jolly old fellow. “But, come below now both of you and have some luncheon. It has gone eight bells, and as I feel a trifle peckish, I daresay you’re pretty much the same.”

While saying this Captain Miles descended the poop-ladder, and, beckoning dad and I to follow him, ushered us into the cabin below, where we found a very appetising meal laid out. It seemed just as if we had been expected and that preparations had been made for our entertainment.

Dad passed a remark about this, but the captain laughed it off.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said. “Harry, my steward, thought he would make a spread, I suppose, because I told him I felt hungry just now. It is only our ordinary fare, though; for, when we’re in harbour like this now and have the chance of getting fresh grub, we always keep a good table. At sea, after a spell, we’ve got to rough it on salt junk frequently.”

“Not like what we poor fellows had to put up with in the service,” observed dad, shrugging his shoulders with a grimace.

“Ah, we in the mercantile marine know how to enjoy ourselves,” said Captain Miles with a satisfactory chuckle. “You naval chaps are something like what the niggers say of white folks that have come down in the world out here, and try to keep up appearances without means. You have ‘poor greatness, with dry rations,’ hey?”

“That’s true enough,” replied dad; and then we all set to work with our knives and forks, demolishing, in less than no time, a grilled fowl and some delicious fried flying-fish, with the accompaniment of roast buttered yams and fresh plantains.

I don’t know when I ever had such a jolly tuck out. The long ride after my forced quietness at home, and the sea air, combined with my novel surroundings—I was so overjoyed at being on board a ship, and having a meal in a real cabin, the very height of my ambition and what I had often longed for—gave me a tremendous appetite. It was the first really hearty meal I had eaten since my illness.

“Well, Eastman,” said Captain Miles presently to dad, “I suppose you’ve come about the youngster. Do you want me to take him home with me this voyage, eh?”

Of course I pricked up my ears on hearing this question; but dad did not satisfy my curiosity, although he noticed that I almost jumped up in my seat and was all attention.

“No,” replied he, evading the subject, “I wanted to see you about shipping some cocoa. I’ve got a good lot ready, and you may as well take it as anybody else.”

“Oh, I see,” rejoined the captain, winking in a confidential way at dad, as if they had some secret between them. “We can talk over the bills of lading and so on, while the youngster has a run round to see what a ship is like, eh?”

“Yes,” said dad; and turning to me he added, “You would like to go over theJosephine, would you not, Tom, now you are on board her?”

“Rather!” I replied, delighted at the idea, but still wondering what the captain had meant about “taking me home.”

There was evidently something on the tapis.

“All right, my hearty, so you shall,” said Captain Miles. “The boatswain will take you round and show you the ropes, while your father and I have a chat about business matters.”

He then called Harry the steward, and directed him to give me in charge of Moggridge the boatswain, with instructions to show me everything that was to be seen alow and aloft in the vessel; whereupon the two of us went out of the cabin together, leaving the captain and dad to have an uninterrupted chat over their cigars.

Moggridge turned out to be the very sailor who had been in charge of the launch which had brought us off to the ship; so, from the fact of his knowing that dad had formerly been in the navy, and that I wished to enter the same glorious service, we were soon on the most confidential terms, the good-natured fellow going out of his way to make me thoroughly acquainted with all the details of theJosephine. He first took me down to the hold, where I saw the hogs-heads of sugar being stowed, the casks being packed as tightly as sardines in a tin box. We then went through the ship fore and aft between the decks, from the forecastle to the steward’s pantry. After this the boatswain completed his tour of instruction by showing me how to climb the rigging into the main-top, telling me the names and uses of all the ropes and spars; so that, by the time he had ended, my head was in a state of bewildered confusion, with shrouds and sheets, halliards and stays, stun’-sail yards and cat-heads, bowsprits, and spanker booms, all so mixed up together that it would have puzzled me to discriminate between any of them and say off-hand which was which!

However, the boatswain and I parted very good friends when he took me back to the cabin on the termination of our inspection of the ship—he promising to teach me how to make a reef-knot and a running-bowline the next time I came on board, and I shaking hands with him as a right good fellow whom I would only be too glad to meet again under any circumstances.

Dad and I stopped with Captain Miles until late in the afternoon; when, the glare of the sun having gone off, we were rowed ashore in the captain’s gig. My friend Moggridge took charge of us, and a crew of hardy sailors made the boat spin ashore at a very different rate of speed to that which the heavy old launch displayed on our trip out to the vessel with the sugar hogs-heads.

Jake met us at the jetty with the horses, which he had put up in the stables of the adjoining plantation during our absence; and as we rode along the shore of the bay homeward, the sun was just setting, while a nice cool wind came down from the mountains, making it much nicer than it had been in the earlier part of the day. Skirting the bay, we could see theJosephinein the distance gradually being shut in by a halo of haze, a thick mist generally rising up from the sea at nightfall in the tropics through the evaporation of the water or the difference of temperature between it and the atmospheric air.

If our ride out to Grenville Bay had been jolly in the morning, our journey back was simply splendid.

Almost as soon as the solar orb sank down below the horizon, which it did just before we turned away from the shore, the masts and spars of theJosephine, and each rope of her rigging, were all lit up by the sinking rays of light, their last despairing flash before their extinguishment in the ocean. At the same time, the hull of the vessel and every projecting point in the coast-line of the bay stood out in relief against the bright emerald-green tint of the sea. A moment afterwards, the darkness of night descended suddenly upon us like a vast curtain let down from heaven.

But it was not dark long.

As we passed our way up the climbing mountain path that led back to Mount Pleasant, our road—bordered on the one side by the dense vegetation of the forest, which seemed as black as ink now, and hedged in on the other by a precipice—was made clear by the light of the stars. These absolutely came outen massealmost as we looked upwards at them. I noticed, too, that the sky seemed to be of some gauzy transparent material like ethereal azure, and did not exhibit that solid appearance it has in England of a ceiling with gold nails stuck in it here and there at random; for, the “lesser orbs of night” in the tropics look as if they were floating in a sea of vapour. They appear a regular galaxy of beauty and splendour, and so many glorious evidences of the great Creator’s handiwork.

Every now and then, also, the air around us was illuminated with sparks of green-coloured flame, while the woods seemed on fire from a thousand little jets that burst out every second from some new direction, lighting up the sombre gloom beneath the shade of the forest trees.

One could almost imagine that there was a crowd of fairies going before us, each carrying a torch which he waved about, now above his head, and then around lower down, finally dashing it to the ground with those of his comrades, as is the custom at the torchlight processions of the students in Germany on some festal night. As dad and I trotted along towards home, the sparks of flame appeared now rising, now falling, vanishing here, reappearing there, finally converging into a globe, or “set piece,” as at a pyrotechnic display, and then dispersing in spangles of coruscation like a fizzed-out firework.

This beautiful effect, one of the wonders of a night in the West Indies, was caused by the fireflies. Of these insects there are two distinct species, one really a small fly which seems to be perpetually on the wing, flitting in and out in the air always, and never at rest; while the other is a species of beetle that is only seen in woody regions, where it takes up a more stationary position, like the glowworm over here. This latter has two large eyes at the back of its head, instead of in front in their more natural place; and these eyes, when the insect is touched, shoot forth two strong streams of greenish light, something like that produced by an electric dynamo, while, at the same time, the entire body of the “firefly,” or beetle, becomes as incandescent as a live coal.

The light which even one of these little creatures will give out is so great that I have often seen dad, just for the sake of the experiment, read a bit out of a newspaper on a dark evening with a firefly stuck in a wine-glass for a candle!

For some time we jogged along silently; but just when we were nearing Mount Pleasant I could not help asking dad what Captain Miles had meant by that question he had asked him about taking me for a voyage.

I had been dying to know what the remark referred to ever since I had overheard it, but waited, thinking that dad would tell me of his own accord; so now, as he didn’t speak, I had to brave the ordeal of the inquiry.

“He wanted to take you home to England to school, Tom,” replied dad briefly in an absent sort of way, as if his thoughts were amongst the fireflies.

“Really?” said I hesitatingly—“and—”

“And, I have not quite made up my mind in the matter yet, Tom. Besides which, there’s your mother to be consulted,” interposed dad, answering my second question before I could put it.

“And if mother does not mind, you will let me go, then, in theJosephinewith Captain Miles, eh, dad?” I asked anxiously.

“I didn’t say so, did I?” said dad quizzingly.

“But you meant it, dad, you meant it, I know,” cried I exultantly. “Hurrah, I am so glad! I am so glad!”

Chapter Five.Good-bye to Grenada!“Are you really so glad to leave us all?” said dad somewhat reproachfully, as I could judge from his tone of voice; for, although the stars and fireflies illumined the landscape sufficiently for us to see our way, the light was too dim for me to observe the expression of his face.“Oh no, dad, not that,” I cried out almost with a sob at such an insinuation. “You know, you said I was to go to England this year to school; and, if I must, why I would rather sail in Captain Miles’ vessel than any other.”“All right, Tom, I did not think you quite so heartless as your exclamation implied,” replied dad, still speaking in a sad tone; “but it’s only the way of the world, my boy. Young birds are always anxious to leave the parent nest, and you are no exception, I suppose, to the rule.”I did not make any answer to this. I could not speak, for my heart was too full.Presently we arrived at the entrance to Mount Pleasant, when Jake rushed forward and opened the gate leading into the grounds, and we proceeded up the carriage drive towards the house in silence, the moon, which was just rising over the tops of the mountains beyond, lighting up the garden on the terrace in front and making it look like a dream of fairyland. The flowers and foliage shone out in relief as if tipped with silver against the dark background of the house; while the cool evening breeze was scented with the fragrance of the frangipanni and jessamine, now smelling more strongly than in the daytime, in addition to which I could distinguish the lusciously sweet perfume of the night-blooming cereus, a plant that only unfolds its luscious petals after sunset.The whole scene lives in my memory now!“Say, Mass’ Tom,” whispered Jake to me as he took hold of Prince’s bridle on my dismounting to lead him away to the stables along with Dandy. “I’se heard what you ’peak jus’ now to Mass’ Eastman. Um railly goin’ leabe de plantashun for true, hey?”“Yes,” said I. “I am to go to England in theJosephine, that big ship we saw to-day, if my mother consents.”“Den, I go too!” replied Jake impressively.“Nonsense!” cried I, laughing at this determination of his. “Captain Miles won’t take you.”“Won’t him, dough—me ’peak to him byme-by, an’ you see den!”“You can speak if you like,” I replied in an off-hand way as he went away with the horses; while I ascended the terrace steps and proceeded into the house to hear what mother had to say on the subject of my going away.I found, however, when I got in, that dad had already told the news; and it came out presently that the matter had really all been arranged beforehand.My father, I heard now, had received an offer to sell his plantation, as my mother told me, but my illness had prevented him from closing with it; and so the opportunity had slipped. Consequently, as he would still have to remain at Mount Pleasant for possibly an indefinite time, he had made up his mind to adhere to his original plan and send me home to school without further delay. He and my mother had settled to arrange a passage for me with their old friend Captain Miles even before we started on our ride to Grenville Bay, dad and the captain having seen each other in the town and spoken about the matter previously, fixing the very day of our visit, as the substantial luncheon we had on board showed.Now, therefore, that my inclinations chimed in with dad’s views and arrangements, the thing was finally settled; and it may be imagined what a state of mind my mother and sisters were in about my going. They hugged and kissed me as if I were going to start that very minute!Dad said that theJosephinewould complete loading her cargo at Grenville Bay in about a week or ten days. She would then call round at Saint George’s for orders, and I should have to go on board at a moment’s notice, as she might sail almost immediately.The next few days were all hurry and bustle, everybody being busy in preparing my traps—my mother and sisters seeing to my outfit, and the negro servants, with all of whom I was a great favourite, contributing all sorts of little presents, some of the most unwieldy and useless character, which they thought would either add to my comfort during the voyage or were absolutely necessary for “de young massa agwine to England!”But, at last, all my belongings, useful and useless alike, were packed up; and one fine morning in August—I remember well, it was the day after my birthday—a regular procession set out from Mount Pleasant, consisting of my mother and dad and my sisters, not omitting myself, the hero of the occasion.We were all mounted on horseback; for no wheeled vehicle could overcome the engineering difficulties of the mountain road, rugged as it was and intersected by wild gullies and little brawling streamlets at intervals, the latter sometimes only bridged by a narrow plank, as I have mentioned before.To a stranger, our cavalcade would have presented quite an imposing appearance, as behind the mounted portion of the procession came a string of negroes, headed by old Pompey, carrying the three large trunks and odd boxes containing my paraphernalia, those whose services were not absolutely required to carry anything volunteering to go with the rest in order to see me off.I had been so excited all along with the idea of going to school, which I was looking forward to as something awfully jolly from the description I had read about other boys’ doings in books—for I was utterly ignorant of what English life really was—that up to now I had scarcely given a thought to anything else, never realising the terrible severance of all the dear home ties which my departure would bring about.But, when I mounted Prince for the last time, as I suddenly recollected all at once, and gazed round at my old home, which I was probably about to bid good-bye to for ever, my feelings overcame me. At that moment I would gladly have stopped behind, sacrificing even the pleasure I anticipated from my voyage in theJosephine, and all that the future might have in store for me, rather than desert so summarily the scenes of my childhood and all the loved members of the home circle.Dad noticed my emotion and he recalled me to myself.“Come on, Tom,” he said kindly but firmly, “you must be a man now, my boy! Be brave; for if your poor mother sees you crying she will break down utterly, and I’m sure you would not like that.”This speech of his made me stifle my sobs; and, although I couldn’t get out any words to answer him, I swallowed something hard that was sticking in my throat. Then, putting Prince in a canter, I rode up to the side of my mother, who was in front with Baby Tot.By that time I had regained my composure and was able to talk and make fun with my little sister, who, not knowing, of course, the purport of our expedition, thought it was a party of pleasure got up especially for her gratification. She was in a state of supreme delight, crowing and chuckling away in the greatest possible glee, every now and then putting up her little rosebud of a mouth to be kissed by mother and me.Jake, I observed, looked very serious as he ran along by the side of Prince, resting one of his hands on my pony’s flanks, as was his habit when he accompanied me out riding. The other negroes, who were carrying my luggage down to town on their heads, in their customary fashion of bearing all burdens whether light or heavy, were laughing and jabbering together like a parcel of black crows; but he never spoke a word either to his dark-complexioned brethren or to me, exhibiting such a striking contrast to his ordinary demeanour that even dad noticed it and asked him the reason, wondering what was the matter with him.“Me not berry well, massa,” however, was all the answer he could get out of Jake; but the faithful fellow looked at me so wistfully whenever I caught his eye that I recalled what he had said about wishing to go in the ship with me, on the night when we returned from Grenville Bay.He had not alluded to the subject since, though, so I really thought he had forgotten it; and now, as he did not appear inclined to talk, I believed it best to let him alone, not wishing to hurt his feelings by dwelling on the impossible.I could see that he was much put out about something; so I came to the conclusion that his change of manner, so unlike his usual light-hearted merry self, was due to his grief at parting with me, he having been my constant companion ever since I had been able to toddle about, when my father first settled down on the plantation, at which time I was only a little five-year-old boy and he a darkey stripling.There was no racing down the road now at breakneck speed, like that time when in my hurry to meet dad I had come to grief some two months previously. Our cavalcade went on at a sober respectable pace, reaching the town in about an hour and a half from our start.As we were passing by the bend in the road, opposite Government House, whence there was such a good view of the harbour below, Jake spoke to me for the first time during the journey.“Dar am de ship, Mass’ Tom!” he said, pointing out theJosephinelying out in the anchorage under Fort Saint George.She was looking much smarter and trimmer, I thought, than when I had first cast eyes on her in Grenville Bay; for her sails were partly loosed, making her have the appearance of an ocean bird ready to be on the wing. I noticed, too, that she floated lower in the water, having evidently taken in a lot more cargo since I had been on board.When we reached the lower part of the town by the harbour side, after descending the perilously steep Constitution Hill, dad escorted us all to a famed establishment close by, known as “Jenny Gussett’s Hotel,” and kept by a gigantic coloured woman nearly seven feet high, where all the passengers by the mail steamers who had no friends in the island, used invariably to put up. Here, after ordering an early dinner, dad took me out with him to call on a shipping agent at whose place of business he had agreed to meet Captain Miles, leaving my mother and sisters with their crowd of darky attendants at the hotel until we should come back.The captain was punctual to his appointment like most sailors.“Ha, Eastman,” he said when dad and I entered the agent’s store, “you’re just in the nick of time. I was only speaking of you a minute ago to our friend here. Got the youngster I see.”“Yes, here he is,” replied dad.“That’s all right then,” said Captain Miles. “How are you, Master Tom—glad to go to sea, eh?”“Well—” I stammered hesitatingly, not liking to tell an untruth.“Oh, I know,” said he interrupting me. “Sorry to leave mother and the girls, I suppose? Never mind, my boy, these partings must come some time or other, and the sooner they are over the better. I shall start, Eastman,” he added, turning to dad, “late in the afternoon, as soon as the wind sets off the land; so, you’d better send the boy aboard when the sun begins to sink. My boat is now waiting at the end of the wharf to take his traps.”“Thanks, Miles,” replied my father; “but, won’t you come round with us to Jenny Gussett’s Hotel and have some lunch? My wife will be glad to see you.”“Oh, has she come in to town to see the youngster off?” asked the captain.“Yes, we all rode in,” answered dad. “The whole kit of us are here.”“All right; I’ll come then, as soon as I’ve finished arranging matters and signing bills of lading with my agent here,” said Captain Miles cordially, adding, with one of his knowing winks to dad, “I’ve no doubt your missis wants to give me all sorts of directions about young Master Hopeful, eh?”“You might be further out in your guess,” rejoined dad with a laugh; and presently the three of us went back to the hotel together, it being near the hour at which dad had ordered our early dinner, or luncheon, to be got ready.The time soon slipped by at our meal, which none of us seemed to enjoy very much save the captain, who, of course, was not affected by any sad thoughts of parting, the same as dad and mother and I and my sisters were—that is excepting Baby Tot, for she looked still upon the whole thing as a joke and continued in the best of spirits.When we rose from table, mother got hold of Captain Miles and began whispering earnestly to him, something about me, I was certain; so, in order not to overhear their conversation, I went towards the open door leading into a wide passage-way that terminated in the usual verandah common to all West Indian houses. The hotel, however, did not command such a pretty prospect as ours at Mount Pleasant, for it looked on to the street, which could be gained by descending a short flight of steps at the end of the alcove.But, would you believe it, hardly had I reached the verandah, when, there on the top step I saw old Pompey standing in an attitude of great expectancy, with his footless wine-glass in hand, the same as was his habit at home on the plantation, although it was more than two hours past his usual grog-time!No sooner had I appeared than out came his stereotyped formula:“Hi, Mass’ Tom! um come rum.”I felt sad enough at the moment, but the sight of Pompey with his wine-glass, and his quaint well-known way of expressing himself, made me burst into a fit of laughter which brought out dad from the dining-room.“Hullo, Tom, what’s the matter?” he cried. “Ah, I see! Why, Pompey, you old rascal, you’re past your time,” he added, catching sight of the old negro at the end of the verandah. “What do you mean by coming for your grog at four bells, eh? I suppose, though, as Master Tom’s going away we must let you have it.”So saying, dad went back into the dining-room, bringing out presently a tumbler filled with something which he handed to Pompey, the old darkey swallowing the contents with his usual gusto, and, needless to say, without any very great amount of exertion.“There,” said dad when Pompey returned the empty glass with a bow and scrape, “go and tell the others that Master Tom wants to say good-bye, as he will start in a minute or two, and that he wishes them to come round and drink his health too.”Pompey thereupon shuffled off awkwardly in his boots, returning soon with two of the other negroes who had come down with us from the plantation. These now had each a glass of wine in honour of my departure, Pompey managing to come in for an extra one on the sly by the artful way in which he looked at me and showed his footless measure.“But where is Jake?” asked dad suddenly, after the darkeys had emptied their glasses.“Me no see him,” replied Pompey, acting as spokesman for the rest. Indeed, on this occasion he seemed to abandon his customary taciturnity, for he wished me “um berry fine v’y’ge, Mass’ Tom,” when drinking my health.“Not seen him!” repeated dad, much surprised. “Where can he be?”“Dunno, massa. He put him Dandy an’ Prince in ’table an’ den him say um feel berry bad, an’ go way.”“Poor fellow, he may be really ill! I must look after him,” said my father putting on his hat and proceeding round to the stables; but as he could see nothing of Jake he soon returned, for the afternoon was getting on and it was time to have my luggage carried down to the boat of theJosephineas well as for me to see about going on board also.While my trunks were being taken to the wharf by Pompey and the other two darkeys, I had to pass through the painful ordeal of bidding farewell to my mother and sisters. The less I say about this the better!Baby Tot could not grasp the idea that I was really going away from her until the very last moment, when, seeing the others overcome with emotion, especially my mother, who was crying as if her heart would break, my little sister clung round my neck so tightly that dad had to unclasp her tiny fingers one by one before she would release her hold of me.As for my mother’s last kiss and her broken words, telling me always to fear God and be good, whatever might betide, I can never forget them.At length the parting was over, when dad calling me in a husky voice to come along, I proceeded with him down to the wharf, where theJosephine’sboat was lying alongside the steamboat landing-stage, waiting for me to start.Here another farewell had to be taken of old Pompey and the negro servants who had brought my traps from the hotel; but, strange to say, I could see nothing of Jake, so I had to commission one of the others to say good-bye to him for me.At the last moment, too, Doctor Martin came up and gave me one of his hearty hand-shakes, bidding me “always tell the truth and shame the devil,” pointing out at the same time that he had sent down a lot of fresh cocoa-nuts for me that had been stowed in the ship’s boat with my luggage. He thought they would “come in handy,” he said, for assuaging my thirst during the hot weather I might expect before getting out of the tropics. Then came the final wrench of dear old dad’s last embrace and sad God-speed, after which the boat shoved off from the shore, bearing me, almost heart-broken, with all my belongings out to theJosephine, which anchored at the mouth of the harbour with her blue peter flying, her sails loosed, and every sign of departure.“Cheer up, my sonny!” said Moggridge, my old friend the boatswain, as I sat in the stern of the boat with my face buried in my hands, for I had not the courage to look back at those I was leaving; “I thought you were a reg’lar chip of the old block, and your father told you mind, sir, to be a man.”These words put me on my mettle, so I picked up a bit and waved my handkerchief to dad, whom I could see standing still gazing after me; and, when the boat got alongside the vessel, I clambered up the side-ladder instead of allowing myself to be hoisted in as before.“That’s your sort,” said Moggridge, who followed me up closely, in order that he might catch me should I tumble back. He also helped me into the entry port and on to the deck of theJosephine, where I found Captain Miles waiting to receive me.“Ha, here you are at last, youngster!” he cried out in welcome. “I thought you were never coming out, and that we would have to start without you. Wind and tide, you know, wait for neither man or boy! Hoist in his traps, boatswain,” he added to Moggridge, “and be as sharp as you can about it too, for the breeze is just beginning to come off the land.”I may here mention a meteorological fact that Captain Miles subsequently explained to me. He said that this regular alternation of the sea and land breeze in warm latitudes, as in the tropics generally, when the wind blows for so many hours in the day on and off-shore, is owing to the different powers for the radiation and absorption of heat possessed by land and water, so that when the day temperature is highest on the land the alternating breezes will be stronger, andvice versa. During the day, to illustrate this fact, the radiation of the sun’s heat on the land causes the air to expand and so rise from the surface, which, creating a vacuum, the air from the sea rushes in to fill the void. At night this process is reversed, for, while the surface of the soil will frequently show in the West Indies during the daytime a temperature of a hundred and twenty degrees and more under the meridian sun, the thermometer will sink down in the evening to fifty or sixty degrees; whereas, the sea, being a bad radiator and its temperature rarely exceeding eighty degrees, even at the hottest period of the day, it is alternately colder and warmer than the land, and the direction of the wind accordingly oscillates between the two. The minimum temperature being at a little before sunrise in the early morning and the maximum somewhere about two o’clock in the afternoon, the change of these breezes usually occurs at some little time after these hours, the one lulling and the other setting in in due rotation—that is, of course, near the coast, for out in the open sea their effect is not so apparent.In August, which is one of the “hurricane months” of the tropics, when theJosephineleft Grenada on her voyage to England, the winds are more variable, blowing at odd and uncertain times; so, there was every reason for Captain Miles’ taking advantage of the first cat’s-paw of air off the land now, as otherwise, perhaps, he might not have been able to make an offing before morning, when he would lose the advantage of the current amongst the islands towards Saint Vincent, where he had to call in for some puncheons of rum and coffee to complete his cargo.Under the direction of Moggridge, the crew made short work of hoisting in my traps and innumerable boxes, including the cocoa-nuts Doctor Martin had sent down for me, all of which Captain Miles ordered to be taken into the cabin he allotted to me on the starboard side of the ship near his own; and then, the boat itself was hauled on board by the derrick amidships which had been used for getting in the cargo, there being no davits at the side as in a man-of-war.After seeing this operation satisfactorily accomplished, I went up the poop-ladder and walked aft to the side of Captain Miles, who was now busy about getting the vessel under weigh.“Hands up anchor!” he roared out with a stentorian shout, and immediately there was a bustle forward of the men with much thumping of their feet on the planks and a clanking of the chain as the windlass went round under their sturdy hands. Mr Marline, the first mate, I noticed, had charge of the crew engaged in heaving, while Moggridge went on the forecastle to see that everything was clear for catting and fishing the anchor as soon as it was run up out of the water and the stock showed itself above the bows.“Clink, clank! clink, clank!” came the measured rattle as the slack of the cable was wound round the windlass and carried along the deck to the chain locker; and then, after another spell of hard heaving, Moggridge sang out, “Swings clear, sir!”“All right,” responded Captain Miles, jumping up on a hen-coop by the taffrail so as to make his voice go further, as well as to command a clear view of all that was going on, “Hands, make sail!”On hearing this order those of the crew who were not engaged at the windlass swarmed up the rigging and threw off the gaskets of the foresail and mainsail, while a couple of hands ran out on the bowsprit and unloosed the lashings of the jib, the topsails having been dropped before I came on board.“Man the topsail halliards!” then sang out the captain, and with a cheery cry the yards were run up with a will and the halliards then belayed.“Sheet home!” was the next command, whereupon the sails were stretched out to their full extent, swelling out before the off-shore wind; and one of the men, by the captain’s orders, now going to the helm, a few turns of the spokes brought the vessel’s head round.“Now, look alive there forward and heave up the anchor!” shouted Captain Miles.In another minute the stock of the kedge showed above the bows, when the catfalls being stretched along the deck, and laid hold of by Moggridge, the rest of the crew tacking on after him, the flukes were run up to the cat-head to a rhythmical chorus in which all hands joined, the men pulling with a will as they yelled out the refrain—“Yankee John, storm along! Hooray, hooray, my hearties! Pull away, heave away, Hooray, hooray, my hearties! Going to leave Grenada!”The clew-garnet blocks now rattled as the main-sheet was hauled aft, when, the broad sail filling, theJosephinepaid off before the wind; and shortly afterwards she was making her way to leeward towards Saint Vincent, passing almost within a stone’s throw of Fort Saint George, as she cleared the northern point of the harbour and got out to sea.The jib and flying-jib were now hoisted as well as the topgallant-sails and spanker, to get as much of the breeze as we could while it lasted, so that the vessel began to make fair progress through the water; and the hands under the superintendence of the two mates were then set to work coiling down ropes and getting in the slack of the sheets as well as making things ship-shape amidships, where the deck was still littered with a good deal of cargo that had not yet been properly stowed.I was all this time standing by the side of Captain Miles on the poop, alternately looking at the men jumping about the rigging like monkeys and at the fast-receding shore, which, as soon as the sun set, became dimmer and dimmer in the distance, until it was at length finally shut out from my gaze by a wall of mist.“Fo’c’s’le ahoy, there!” sang out Captain Miles presently, when it began to grow dusk.“Aye, aye, sir!” responded the voice of Moggridge, the boatswain, from forward.“Keep a good look out, my man, ahead, or we may be running down some of those coasting craft inward bound.”“Aye, aye, sir, I’m on the watch myself,” sang out Moggridge; but hardly had he given this answer than, all at once, he cried out suddenly in a louder tone, “Hard a-port, hard a-port! There’s something standing across our bows.”The man at the wheel immediately put the helm up, letting the head of the vessel fall off from the wind; but, at the same instant, there came a sudden crash ahead, followed by a loud yell.“Gracious heavens!” cried out Captain Miles, rushing forwards to the forecastle, where several of the hands had also hurried on hearing the cry of the boatswain—I going after the captain in my turn to see what was the matter, dreading some fearful disaster.There were several short and quick exclamations, amidst which I saw, in the dim light, Moggridge in the act of heaving a rope overboard towards some dark object in the water.“Hooray, he’s got it and has clutched hold!” I then heard somebody say. “The line has fallen just over his shoulders, and he has got the bight of it.”“Haul him in gently!” cried the captain. “Pull easy—so!”Next I saw a couple of the seamen bending over the side, and in another moment they helped a dripping figure to scramble on to the deck; when, as I pressed nearer to see who the rescued person was, I heard a well-known voice exclaim, in tones of earnest thankfulness and joy:“Bress de Lor’, I’se safe!”It was Jake, the very last person in the world, most certainly, whom I could have expected to meet on board theJosephine, if I had guessed a hundred times!

“Are you really so glad to leave us all?” said dad somewhat reproachfully, as I could judge from his tone of voice; for, although the stars and fireflies illumined the landscape sufficiently for us to see our way, the light was too dim for me to observe the expression of his face.

“Oh no, dad, not that,” I cried out almost with a sob at such an insinuation. “You know, you said I was to go to England this year to school; and, if I must, why I would rather sail in Captain Miles’ vessel than any other.”

“All right, Tom, I did not think you quite so heartless as your exclamation implied,” replied dad, still speaking in a sad tone; “but it’s only the way of the world, my boy. Young birds are always anxious to leave the parent nest, and you are no exception, I suppose, to the rule.”

I did not make any answer to this. I could not speak, for my heart was too full.

Presently we arrived at the entrance to Mount Pleasant, when Jake rushed forward and opened the gate leading into the grounds, and we proceeded up the carriage drive towards the house in silence, the moon, which was just rising over the tops of the mountains beyond, lighting up the garden on the terrace in front and making it look like a dream of fairyland. The flowers and foliage shone out in relief as if tipped with silver against the dark background of the house; while the cool evening breeze was scented with the fragrance of the frangipanni and jessamine, now smelling more strongly than in the daytime, in addition to which I could distinguish the lusciously sweet perfume of the night-blooming cereus, a plant that only unfolds its luscious petals after sunset.

The whole scene lives in my memory now!

“Say, Mass’ Tom,” whispered Jake to me as he took hold of Prince’s bridle on my dismounting to lead him away to the stables along with Dandy. “I’se heard what you ’peak jus’ now to Mass’ Eastman. Um railly goin’ leabe de plantashun for true, hey?”

“Yes,” said I. “I am to go to England in theJosephine, that big ship we saw to-day, if my mother consents.”

“Den, I go too!” replied Jake impressively.

“Nonsense!” cried I, laughing at this determination of his. “Captain Miles won’t take you.”

“Won’t him, dough—me ’peak to him byme-by, an’ you see den!”

“You can speak if you like,” I replied in an off-hand way as he went away with the horses; while I ascended the terrace steps and proceeded into the house to hear what mother had to say on the subject of my going away.

I found, however, when I got in, that dad had already told the news; and it came out presently that the matter had really all been arranged beforehand.

My father, I heard now, had received an offer to sell his plantation, as my mother told me, but my illness had prevented him from closing with it; and so the opportunity had slipped. Consequently, as he would still have to remain at Mount Pleasant for possibly an indefinite time, he had made up his mind to adhere to his original plan and send me home to school without further delay. He and my mother had settled to arrange a passage for me with their old friend Captain Miles even before we started on our ride to Grenville Bay, dad and the captain having seen each other in the town and spoken about the matter previously, fixing the very day of our visit, as the substantial luncheon we had on board showed.

Now, therefore, that my inclinations chimed in with dad’s views and arrangements, the thing was finally settled; and it may be imagined what a state of mind my mother and sisters were in about my going. They hugged and kissed me as if I were going to start that very minute!

Dad said that theJosephinewould complete loading her cargo at Grenville Bay in about a week or ten days. She would then call round at Saint George’s for orders, and I should have to go on board at a moment’s notice, as she might sail almost immediately.

The next few days were all hurry and bustle, everybody being busy in preparing my traps—my mother and sisters seeing to my outfit, and the negro servants, with all of whom I was a great favourite, contributing all sorts of little presents, some of the most unwieldy and useless character, which they thought would either add to my comfort during the voyage or were absolutely necessary for “de young massa agwine to England!”

But, at last, all my belongings, useful and useless alike, were packed up; and one fine morning in August—I remember well, it was the day after my birthday—a regular procession set out from Mount Pleasant, consisting of my mother and dad and my sisters, not omitting myself, the hero of the occasion.

We were all mounted on horseback; for no wheeled vehicle could overcome the engineering difficulties of the mountain road, rugged as it was and intersected by wild gullies and little brawling streamlets at intervals, the latter sometimes only bridged by a narrow plank, as I have mentioned before.

To a stranger, our cavalcade would have presented quite an imposing appearance, as behind the mounted portion of the procession came a string of negroes, headed by old Pompey, carrying the three large trunks and odd boxes containing my paraphernalia, those whose services were not absolutely required to carry anything volunteering to go with the rest in order to see me off.

I had been so excited all along with the idea of going to school, which I was looking forward to as something awfully jolly from the description I had read about other boys’ doings in books—for I was utterly ignorant of what English life really was—that up to now I had scarcely given a thought to anything else, never realising the terrible severance of all the dear home ties which my departure would bring about.

But, when I mounted Prince for the last time, as I suddenly recollected all at once, and gazed round at my old home, which I was probably about to bid good-bye to for ever, my feelings overcame me. At that moment I would gladly have stopped behind, sacrificing even the pleasure I anticipated from my voyage in theJosephine, and all that the future might have in store for me, rather than desert so summarily the scenes of my childhood and all the loved members of the home circle.

Dad noticed my emotion and he recalled me to myself.

“Come on, Tom,” he said kindly but firmly, “you must be a man now, my boy! Be brave; for if your poor mother sees you crying she will break down utterly, and I’m sure you would not like that.”

This speech of his made me stifle my sobs; and, although I couldn’t get out any words to answer him, I swallowed something hard that was sticking in my throat. Then, putting Prince in a canter, I rode up to the side of my mother, who was in front with Baby Tot.

By that time I had regained my composure and was able to talk and make fun with my little sister, who, not knowing, of course, the purport of our expedition, thought it was a party of pleasure got up especially for her gratification. She was in a state of supreme delight, crowing and chuckling away in the greatest possible glee, every now and then putting up her little rosebud of a mouth to be kissed by mother and me.

Jake, I observed, looked very serious as he ran along by the side of Prince, resting one of his hands on my pony’s flanks, as was his habit when he accompanied me out riding. The other negroes, who were carrying my luggage down to town on their heads, in their customary fashion of bearing all burdens whether light or heavy, were laughing and jabbering together like a parcel of black crows; but he never spoke a word either to his dark-complexioned brethren or to me, exhibiting such a striking contrast to his ordinary demeanour that even dad noticed it and asked him the reason, wondering what was the matter with him.

“Me not berry well, massa,” however, was all the answer he could get out of Jake; but the faithful fellow looked at me so wistfully whenever I caught his eye that I recalled what he had said about wishing to go in the ship with me, on the night when we returned from Grenville Bay.

He had not alluded to the subject since, though, so I really thought he had forgotten it; and now, as he did not appear inclined to talk, I believed it best to let him alone, not wishing to hurt his feelings by dwelling on the impossible.

I could see that he was much put out about something; so I came to the conclusion that his change of manner, so unlike his usual light-hearted merry self, was due to his grief at parting with me, he having been my constant companion ever since I had been able to toddle about, when my father first settled down on the plantation, at which time I was only a little five-year-old boy and he a darkey stripling.

There was no racing down the road now at breakneck speed, like that time when in my hurry to meet dad I had come to grief some two months previously. Our cavalcade went on at a sober respectable pace, reaching the town in about an hour and a half from our start.

As we were passing by the bend in the road, opposite Government House, whence there was such a good view of the harbour below, Jake spoke to me for the first time during the journey.

“Dar am de ship, Mass’ Tom!” he said, pointing out theJosephinelying out in the anchorage under Fort Saint George.

She was looking much smarter and trimmer, I thought, than when I had first cast eyes on her in Grenville Bay; for her sails were partly loosed, making her have the appearance of an ocean bird ready to be on the wing. I noticed, too, that she floated lower in the water, having evidently taken in a lot more cargo since I had been on board.

When we reached the lower part of the town by the harbour side, after descending the perilously steep Constitution Hill, dad escorted us all to a famed establishment close by, known as “Jenny Gussett’s Hotel,” and kept by a gigantic coloured woman nearly seven feet high, where all the passengers by the mail steamers who had no friends in the island, used invariably to put up. Here, after ordering an early dinner, dad took me out with him to call on a shipping agent at whose place of business he had agreed to meet Captain Miles, leaving my mother and sisters with their crowd of darky attendants at the hotel until we should come back.

The captain was punctual to his appointment like most sailors.

“Ha, Eastman,” he said when dad and I entered the agent’s store, “you’re just in the nick of time. I was only speaking of you a minute ago to our friend here. Got the youngster I see.”

“Yes, here he is,” replied dad.

“That’s all right then,” said Captain Miles. “How are you, Master Tom—glad to go to sea, eh?”

“Well—” I stammered hesitatingly, not liking to tell an untruth.

“Oh, I know,” said he interrupting me. “Sorry to leave mother and the girls, I suppose? Never mind, my boy, these partings must come some time or other, and the sooner they are over the better. I shall start, Eastman,” he added, turning to dad, “late in the afternoon, as soon as the wind sets off the land; so, you’d better send the boy aboard when the sun begins to sink. My boat is now waiting at the end of the wharf to take his traps.”

“Thanks, Miles,” replied my father; “but, won’t you come round with us to Jenny Gussett’s Hotel and have some lunch? My wife will be glad to see you.”

“Oh, has she come in to town to see the youngster off?” asked the captain.

“Yes, we all rode in,” answered dad. “The whole kit of us are here.”

“All right; I’ll come then, as soon as I’ve finished arranging matters and signing bills of lading with my agent here,” said Captain Miles cordially, adding, with one of his knowing winks to dad, “I’ve no doubt your missis wants to give me all sorts of directions about young Master Hopeful, eh?”

“You might be further out in your guess,” rejoined dad with a laugh; and presently the three of us went back to the hotel together, it being near the hour at which dad had ordered our early dinner, or luncheon, to be got ready.

The time soon slipped by at our meal, which none of us seemed to enjoy very much save the captain, who, of course, was not affected by any sad thoughts of parting, the same as dad and mother and I and my sisters were—that is excepting Baby Tot, for she looked still upon the whole thing as a joke and continued in the best of spirits.

When we rose from table, mother got hold of Captain Miles and began whispering earnestly to him, something about me, I was certain; so, in order not to overhear their conversation, I went towards the open door leading into a wide passage-way that terminated in the usual verandah common to all West Indian houses. The hotel, however, did not command such a pretty prospect as ours at Mount Pleasant, for it looked on to the street, which could be gained by descending a short flight of steps at the end of the alcove.

But, would you believe it, hardly had I reached the verandah, when, there on the top step I saw old Pompey standing in an attitude of great expectancy, with his footless wine-glass in hand, the same as was his habit at home on the plantation, although it was more than two hours past his usual grog-time!

No sooner had I appeared than out came his stereotyped formula:

“Hi, Mass’ Tom! um come rum.”

I felt sad enough at the moment, but the sight of Pompey with his wine-glass, and his quaint well-known way of expressing himself, made me burst into a fit of laughter which brought out dad from the dining-room.

“Hullo, Tom, what’s the matter?” he cried. “Ah, I see! Why, Pompey, you old rascal, you’re past your time,” he added, catching sight of the old negro at the end of the verandah. “What do you mean by coming for your grog at four bells, eh? I suppose, though, as Master Tom’s going away we must let you have it.”

So saying, dad went back into the dining-room, bringing out presently a tumbler filled with something which he handed to Pompey, the old darkey swallowing the contents with his usual gusto, and, needless to say, without any very great amount of exertion.

“There,” said dad when Pompey returned the empty glass with a bow and scrape, “go and tell the others that Master Tom wants to say good-bye, as he will start in a minute or two, and that he wishes them to come round and drink his health too.”

Pompey thereupon shuffled off awkwardly in his boots, returning soon with two of the other negroes who had come down with us from the plantation. These now had each a glass of wine in honour of my departure, Pompey managing to come in for an extra one on the sly by the artful way in which he looked at me and showed his footless measure.

“But where is Jake?” asked dad suddenly, after the darkeys had emptied their glasses.

“Me no see him,” replied Pompey, acting as spokesman for the rest. Indeed, on this occasion he seemed to abandon his customary taciturnity, for he wished me “um berry fine v’y’ge, Mass’ Tom,” when drinking my health.

“Not seen him!” repeated dad, much surprised. “Where can he be?”

“Dunno, massa. He put him Dandy an’ Prince in ’table an’ den him say um feel berry bad, an’ go way.”

“Poor fellow, he may be really ill! I must look after him,” said my father putting on his hat and proceeding round to the stables; but as he could see nothing of Jake he soon returned, for the afternoon was getting on and it was time to have my luggage carried down to the boat of theJosephineas well as for me to see about going on board also.

While my trunks were being taken to the wharf by Pompey and the other two darkeys, I had to pass through the painful ordeal of bidding farewell to my mother and sisters. The less I say about this the better!

Baby Tot could not grasp the idea that I was really going away from her until the very last moment, when, seeing the others overcome with emotion, especially my mother, who was crying as if her heart would break, my little sister clung round my neck so tightly that dad had to unclasp her tiny fingers one by one before she would release her hold of me.

As for my mother’s last kiss and her broken words, telling me always to fear God and be good, whatever might betide, I can never forget them.

At length the parting was over, when dad calling me in a husky voice to come along, I proceeded with him down to the wharf, where theJosephine’sboat was lying alongside the steamboat landing-stage, waiting for me to start.

Here another farewell had to be taken of old Pompey and the negro servants who had brought my traps from the hotel; but, strange to say, I could see nothing of Jake, so I had to commission one of the others to say good-bye to him for me.

At the last moment, too, Doctor Martin came up and gave me one of his hearty hand-shakes, bidding me “always tell the truth and shame the devil,” pointing out at the same time that he had sent down a lot of fresh cocoa-nuts for me that had been stowed in the ship’s boat with my luggage. He thought they would “come in handy,” he said, for assuaging my thirst during the hot weather I might expect before getting out of the tropics. Then came the final wrench of dear old dad’s last embrace and sad God-speed, after which the boat shoved off from the shore, bearing me, almost heart-broken, with all my belongings out to theJosephine, which anchored at the mouth of the harbour with her blue peter flying, her sails loosed, and every sign of departure.

“Cheer up, my sonny!” said Moggridge, my old friend the boatswain, as I sat in the stern of the boat with my face buried in my hands, for I had not the courage to look back at those I was leaving; “I thought you were a reg’lar chip of the old block, and your father told you mind, sir, to be a man.”

These words put me on my mettle, so I picked up a bit and waved my handkerchief to dad, whom I could see standing still gazing after me; and, when the boat got alongside the vessel, I clambered up the side-ladder instead of allowing myself to be hoisted in as before.

“That’s your sort,” said Moggridge, who followed me up closely, in order that he might catch me should I tumble back. He also helped me into the entry port and on to the deck of theJosephine, where I found Captain Miles waiting to receive me.

“Ha, here you are at last, youngster!” he cried out in welcome. “I thought you were never coming out, and that we would have to start without you. Wind and tide, you know, wait for neither man or boy! Hoist in his traps, boatswain,” he added to Moggridge, “and be as sharp as you can about it too, for the breeze is just beginning to come off the land.”

I may here mention a meteorological fact that Captain Miles subsequently explained to me. He said that this regular alternation of the sea and land breeze in warm latitudes, as in the tropics generally, when the wind blows for so many hours in the day on and off-shore, is owing to the different powers for the radiation and absorption of heat possessed by land and water, so that when the day temperature is highest on the land the alternating breezes will be stronger, andvice versa. During the day, to illustrate this fact, the radiation of the sun’s heat on the land causes the air to expand and so rise from the surface, which, creating a vacuum, the air from the sea rushes in to fill the void. At night this process is reversed, for, while the surface of the soil will frequently show in the West Indies during the daytime a temperature of a hundred and twenty degrees and more under the meridian sun, the thermometer will sink down in the evening to fifty or sixty degrees; whereas, the sea, being a bad radiator and its temperature rarely exceeding eighty degrees, even at the hottest period of the day, it is alternately colder and warmer than the land, and the direction of the wind accordingly oscillates between the two. The minimum temperature being at a little before sunrise in the early morning and the maximum somewhere about two o’clock in the afternoon, the change of these breezes usually occurs at some little time after these hours, the one lulling and the other setting in in due rotation—that is, of course, near the coast, for out in the open sea their effect is not so apparent.

In August, which is one of the “hurricane months” of the tropics, when theJosephineleft Grenada on her voyage to England, the winds are more variable, blowing at odd and uncertain times; so, there was every reason for Captain Miles’ taking advantage of the first cat’s-paw of air off the land now, as otherwise, perhaps, he might not have been able to make an offing before morning, when he would lose the advantage of the current amongst the islands towards Saint Vincent, where he had to call in for some puncheons of rum and coffee to complete his cargo.

Under the direction of Moggridge, the crew made short work of hoisting in my traps and innumerable boxes, including the cocoa-nuts Doctor Martin had sent down for me, all of which Captain Miles ordered to be taken into the cabin he allotted to me on the starboard side of the ship near his own; and then, the boat itself was hauled on board by the derrick amidships which had been used for getting in the cargo, there being no davits at the side as in a man-of-war.

After seeing this operation satisfactorily accomplished, I went up the poop-ladder and walked aft to the side of Captain Miles, who was now busy about getting the vessel under weigh.

“Hands up anchor!” he roared out with a stentorian shout, and immediately there was a bustle forward of the men with much thumping of their feet on the planks and a clanking of the chain as the windlass went round under their sturdy hands. Mr Marline, the first mate, I noticed, had charge of the crew engaged in heaving, while Moggridge went on the forecastle to see that everything was clear for catting and fishing the anchor as soon as it was run up out of the water and the stock showed itself above the bows.

“Clink, clank! clink, clank!” came the measured rattle as the slack of the cable was wound round the windlass and carried along the deck to the chain locker; and then, after another spell of hard heaving, Moggridge sang out, “Swings clear, sir!”

“All right,” responded Captain Miles, jumping up on a hen-coop by the taffrail so as to make his voice go further, as well as to command a clear view of all that was going on, “Hands, make sail!”

On hearing this order those of the crew who were not engaged at the windlass swarmed up the rigging and threw off the gaskets of the foresail and mainsail, while a couple of hands ran out on the bowsprit and unloosed the lashings of the jib, the topsails having been dropped before I came on board.

“Man the topsail halliards!” then sang out the captain, and with a cheery cry the yards were run up with a will and the halliards then belayed.

“Sheet home!” was the next command, whereupon the sails were stretched out to their full extent, swelling out before the off-shore wind; and one of the men, by the captain’s orders, now going to the helm, a few turns of the spokes brought the vessel’s head round.

“Now, look alive there forward and heave up the anchor!” shouted Captain Miles.

In another minute the stock of the kedge showed above the bows, when the catfalls being stretched along the deck, and laid hold of by Moggridge, the rest of the crew tacking on after him, the flukes were run up to the cat-head to a rhythmical chorus in which all hands joined, the men pulling with a will as they yelled out the refrain—

“Yankee John, storm along! Hooray, hooray, my hearties! Pull away, heave away, Hooray, hooray, my hearties! Going to leave Grenada!”

The clew-garnet blocks now rattled as the main-sheet was hauled aft, when, the broad sail filling, theJosephinepaid off before the wind; and shortly afterwards she was making her way to leeward towards Saint Vincent, passing almost within a stone’s throw of Fort Saint George, as she cleared the northern point of the harbour and got out to sea.

The jib and flying-jib were now hoisted as well as the topgallant-sails and spanker, to get as much of the breeze as we could while it lasted, so that the vessel began to make fair progress through the water; and the hands under the superintendence of the two mates were then set to work coiling down ropes and getting in the slack of the sheets as well as making things ship-shape amidships, where the deck was still littered with a good deal of cargo that had not yet been properly stowed.

I was all this time standing by the side of Captain Miles on the poop, alternately looking at the men jumping about the rigging like monkeys and at the fast-receding shore, which, as soon as the sun set, became dimmer and dimmer in the distance, until it was at length finally shut out from my gaze by a wall of mist.

“Fo’c’s’le ahoy, there!” sang out Captain Miles presently, when it began to grow dusk.

“Aye, aye, sir!” responded the voice of Moggridge, the boatswain, from forward.

“Keep a good look out, my man, ahead, or we may be running down some of those coasting craft inward bound.”

“Aye, aye, sir, I’m on the watch myself,” sang out Moggridge; but hardly had he given this answer than, all at once, he cried out suddenly in a louder tone, “Hard a-port, hard a-port! There’s something standing across our bows.”

The man at the wheel immediately put the helm up, letting the head of the vessel fall off from the wind; but, at the same instant, there came a sudden crash ahead, followed by a loud yell.

“Gracious heavens!” cried out Captain Miles, rushing forwards to the forecastle, where several of the hands had also hurried on hearing the cry of the boatswain—I going after the captain in my turn to see what was the matter, dreading some fearful disaster.

There were several short and quick exclamations, amidst which I saw, in the dim light, Moggridge in the act of heaving a rope overboard towards some dark object in the water.

“Hooray, he’s got it and has clutched hold!” I then heard somebody say. “The line has fallen just over his shoulders, and he has got the bight of it.”

“Haul him in gently!” cried the captain. “Pull easy—so!”

Next I saw a couple of the seamen bending over the side, and in another moment they helped a dripping figure to scramble on to the deck; when, as I pressed nearer to see who the rescued person was, I heard a well-known voice exclaim, in tones of earnest thankfulness and joy:

“Bress de Lor’, I’se safe!”

It was Jake, the very last person in the world, most certainly, whom I could have expected to meet on board theJosephine, if I had guessed a hundred times!

Chapter Six.The Captain’s Cow.“Why, Jake!” I cried out. “How have you contrived to come here?”“Am dat you, Mass’ Tom?” he answered catching sight of me behind the captain. “Golly, I tole you so; I’se tole you I come ’board ship wid you somehow or nudder. Who ’peak de trute now, hey? golly, yah, yah, I’se so berry glad!” and the poor faithful fellow commencing with one of his hearty African laughs ended in his voice breaking into a sob of joy that evidently came from the bottom of his heart.From hearing his words Captain Miles immediately began to “smell a rat,” as the saying goes.“You impudent black rascal!” he said, half in joke, pretending to be angry, and yet partly in earnest. “What the dickens do you mean by shipping yourself aboard my vessel in this fashion without leave or license?”“I’se come for to go wid Mass’ Tom,” answered Jake meekly.“But how did you get off from the shore and overhaul the ship?” continued Captain Miles, pursuing his inquiries, the hands around meanwhile commencing to nudge one another and exchange grins as the colloquy waxed warm between the two principal performers.“I tell you for true, massa, beliebe me,” said Jake earnestly. “Dis forenoon wen I see Mass’ Tom agwine I’se go down to de warf an’ dere I see um lilly boat lyin’ widout nobody a-mindin’ it; so I’se jump in and row out ob de harbor an’ git roun’ by de ole fort till I see de ship make sail. Den I’se pull, an’ pull, an’ pull, like de debbel, to come up wid you, an’ I tinks I nebber reach de bessel, wen, jus’ as I’se git ’longside an’ cotch you up, de ship gib one big lurch an’ squash in de boat, wen I’se trown in water an’ you fish um out; dere, massa, dat’s de trute, s’help me!”“Lucky for you you didn’t go squash, too,” observed the captain grimly. “But, was there no one else with you?”“No, massa, only me,” replied Jake.“Thank God for that!” said Captain Miles fervently. “I was afraid I had run down one of those fishing sloops from Cariacou, and that all hands were drowned but you. Whose boat was it?”“Dunno, massa, I’se tell you,” answered Jake with great nonchalance, apparently giving but little thought to the little craft whose broken timbers were now floating away, far astern of us.“Well, you’re a cool hand anyway!” exclaimed Mr Marline the first mate drily, whereat Moggridge and the rest of the crew burst into a general shout of merriment. In this even the captain himself could not help joining, although he still tried to preserve a grave demeanour before Jake, as if annoyed at his coming on board.Jake, however, was much hurt at being laughed at; and he went on now to justify his conduct with such native dignity that those who had been making fun of him before seemed almost ashamed of their ill-judged ridicule.“I’se know Mass’ Tom ebber since he was lilly pickaninny, an’ I lub him,” he said, speaking with a feeling and earnestness which no one would have thought of his possessing, and uttering the words in a thick choked voice. “I took de boat ’cause de boat was dere; but if dere was no boat, I’d hab swam off to de ship, for I’se boun’ to go were Mass’ Tom go, an’ if he go in ship I’se go too!”“But, my poor fellow,” put in Captain Miles kindly to him, “your young master does not want a servant to wait on him on board theJosephine, and we haven’t room for any idlers. I shall have to put you ashore at Saint Vincent, from whence you’ll be easily able to get a passage back home again.”“For de Lor’ sake don’t do dat, Massa Cap’en!” implored Jake, utterly overwhelmed at such an unexpected downfall of his hopes, falling on his knees on the deck and holding up his hands in the most supplicating manner. “Only let dis poah nigger go wid you an’ Mass’ Tom an’ he do any ting you want.”“But, what can you do?” said Captain Miles, who, I could see, was relenting. He really had no idea of carrying out the stern intention which his words implied. “We’ve got no horses to groom here.”“Ah, you dunno all I can do, Massa Cap’en,” replied the darkey eagerly, rising again to his feet now, all animation. “’Fore I go wid Mass’ Eastman, I’se help my fadder in fishin’-boat, an’ know how to make sail an’ reef an’ steer. You jus’ try dis chile an’ see!”“Very good, we will try you,” said Captain Miles good-humouredly. “But, mind, my darkey friend, you’ll have to work for your passage!”“All right, Massa Cap’en, me work safe ’nuff. See now, I’se handy boy aboard ship!” So saying, Jake at once scrambled up the rigging and in a minute or two was away up in the foretop, waving his arms about and shouting with laughter in great glee.“Yah, yah!” he cried. “I’se go higher, if um like.”“No, that will do now,” sang out Captain Miles, “you can come down and go and warm yourself, after your wetting, by the galley fire, where you’ll find another darkey to keep you company. You must enter his name in the list of the crew, Mr Marline,” added the captain, turning to the first mate; “and see, too, about messing him in the fo’c’s’le. I daresay we’ll make something out of him during the voyage.”During this little interlude, theJosephinehad been making away from Grenada with the land breeze, aided by a current setting to the westward at the rate of a couple of knots an hour; so that, by the time it got dark, we had sunk the island to windward, Captain Miles having caused the royals to be hoisted, in order to take every advantage of the light air, for we had to make the best of a north-east course on the starboard tack.Towards nine o’clock, however, the wind freshened, and as the navigation was rather ticklish, we being not yet in the open sea, the lighter canvas had to be taken in, the vessel proceeding during the remainder of the night under double-reefed topsails, courses, topgallant-sails, and her jib and spanker—for, these could be easily handed in case of any sudden shift of wind, which frequently veers round without warning under the lee of the land.I, of course, only learnt all this afterwards, picking up my nautical knowledge by degrees from my old friend Moggridge, who took me under his tuition, promising to make a sailor of me ere the voyage was over, for I was told to turn in by Captain Miles at nine o’clock, when the lights were put out in the cabin.In the morning, when I came on deck again, we were off Saint Vincent; but, as the current and wind were both against us, although our port was well in sight we had to beat up to make the harbour, not dropping our anchor until late in the afternoon.It was a beautiful spot, for we lay as it were in a circle of mountains, the tall Souffrière with its volcano peak overtopping them all.Although we arrived late, Captain Miles did not lose any time in shipping his cargo of rum, going on shore immediately in his gig, which was still hanging to the davits astern, not having been taken on board with the other boats before leaving “my island,” as I always call Grenada. Soon afterwards, a couple of heavy launches manned by negroes and each stored with several big puncheons came off to us, the rum being at once hoisted in and lowered away into the hold—the operation being achieved in less time nearly than I can describe it, for it was necessary for us to be off again by nightfall to take advantage of the land breeze; or else we might be detained at Saint Vincent another day.Besides the puncheons of rum another piece of cargo was brought on board. This subsequently caused quite a little commotion as well as giving us all a good deal of entertainment.Our new freight was a cow.Captain Miles, you must know, was a bit of a gourmand, liking to have good eating and drinking when he could get them; and, as he was particularly fond of coffee with plenty of milk in it, he always carried a cow with him in his different voyages.During his last trip from home, however, his old milk purveyor had died; and, as such animals are rather scarce in the West Indies, he was not able to procure one either for love or money at Grenada, and was at a complete nonplus till we got to Saint Vincent.Here, fortunately, or unfortunately as it happened eventually for the poor cow, the captain heard at the last moment of a fine Alderney which a planter was anxious to dispose of, and had brought down to the town to send off to Barbadoes, hoping to find a market there for her. Captain Miles, therefore, at once closed with the planter, and the last of the launches conveying the rum puncheons to theJosephinebrought off in addition this cow.But, taking an animal of this sort away from the shore, and out to a ship lying some distance from the land is one thing, and getting it on board is another! This the captain found presently, when, having completed all his business ashore and cleared the last of his cargo, he was rowed out in his gig to regain the vessel. He had intended making sail the moment he stepped on the deck again; but, instead of finding everything stowed and the anchor tripped ready for theJosephineto start on his arrival, he saw that her cable was still out, while the barge containing the cow was yet alongside.Captain Miles was awfully angry. Everybody could see this; as he ordered the men in the gig to row her astern, and in a very harsh tone of voice, as he scuttled up the side-ladder and turned into the main-deck port; hook on the falls ready for hoisting her up again to the davits.“Mr Marline!” he cried out to the first mate when he reached the deck, “what is the meaning of this? I expected you’d have been all ready to sail, and here is that launch alongside yet and the cargo not aboard!”“All the rum’s in, sir,” replied Mr Marline quietly, for he was a dry old stick and seldom said a word more than necessary.“But the cow, man, the cow!” retorted the captain. “Why is she not hoisted inboard as well?”“We couldn’t manage her, sir,” replied Mr Marline with a sly grin. “The brute butts everybody that comes near her.”“Why didn’t you sling her?” inquired Captain Miles.“We tried to, but couldn’t,” said the mate. “She kicks so that she tumbled back twice and nearly went into the sea.”“Oh, you’re all a parcel of nincompoops!” exclaimed the captain quite roused at this. “I’ll show you how a seaman can manage it!” With that, catching hold of the side lines, he went down the ladder again like winking and into the launch alongside.Here, the cow, which looked even more enraged than Captain Miles, stood in the centre of the boat, with the negroes who had pulled out the live load from shore, standing up in the bows and on the gunwales, so as to be out of the reach of the infuriated animal, which every now and then made a rush at some black leg or other, making the owner yell out and try to avoid the butt.“Pass down a whip with a spare bit of canvas,” sang out the captain, sitting down in the stern-sheets; and on receiving these articles he set to work to make a sort of broad belt to pass under the cow’s stomach, in the same way as is done with horses about to be shipped on board transports when cavalry regiments are embarking.When he had made the sling to his satisfaction, satisfying himself that it was strong enough by attaching it to his own person and then making the crew haul him up, his sixteen stone weight being some criterion to go by, he ordered those at the derrick to lower him down again; and then, with a halter all ready, which he threw over the animal’s head, he advanced bravely towards the cow to arrange the belt under her body, thinking he could do it easily enough.Mrs Brindle, however, was too quick for him.Tossing off the rope bridle like a piece of straw, she lowered her head, and catching the captain in the stomach sent him head over heels backwards into the bottom of the boat, where one of the thwarts only prevented her from pursuing him further, which she would most undoubtedly have done judging by her vicious look.At that moment, Jake, who had been looking over the side of the ship, seeing what had happened and anxious to be of service, slid down the whip-tackle into the boat. Arrived here his first task was to pick up Captain Miles, after doing which he took hold of the canvas belt the captain had prepared and dropped in his confusion at the unexpected assault.“You let dis niggah try, Massa Cap’en,” he said. “I’se able to ride any wild hoss, and tinks I can settle de rampagious animile.”“All right, fire away,” replied Captain Miles, rather out of breath from his tumble as well as from the punch the cow had given him “right in the wind.”Jake thereupon, shoving the other darkeys away, climbed on to the gunwale of the launch. Then, advancing gingerly until he was right opposite the cow, and seizing a good opportunity, he jumped suddenly on her back. In a moment or so, he cleverly fixed the slings round her; while one of the other negroes, emboldened by his success, threw a noose over her head, which kept her from plunging about any longer, or at all events, from butting at everybody as she had done previously.“By Jingo, you’re a smart fellow!” exclaimed Captain Miles with much gusto. “You’re worth all the rest of those stupid lubbers of mine boiled down together! Haul away now, Mr Marline,” he added, looking up; “I think we’ve fixed the cow this time.”He was right; for, as soon as the hands on board manned the derrick and turned the winch handle the poor animal was raised in the air, kicking out spasmodically all the while, and wondering, no doubt, how she lost hold of her footing. When she had been hoisted high enough to clear the bulwarks, the derrick was then swung inboard and the cow lowered safely on the deck.The empty launch with the negroes was now cast-off, and preparations made for raising the anchor again and making sail.However, this was not the end of the cow episode by any means; for, as luck would have it, all Captain Miles’ hopes of milk with his coffee during the voyage home to England were soon summarily dispelled, the career of the animal which was to have supplied the lacteal fluid having terminated most unexpectedly.All hands being busy getting the ship under weigh, the animal had been left standing for the time where she had been set down in the waist, the sling being unloosed from her and the end of the halter, which Jake had put over her head when she had been secured, tied to the mainmast bitts—so as to prevent her moving until the long-boat amidships, which was to form her quarters, should be made ready for her reception.Then, when the canvas of theJosephinewas once more spread to the breeze and the vessel was working out from Saint Vincent, Captain Miles told the steward to serve dinner in the cabin, it being now near sunset and long past the usual hour for that meal, which was generally on the table at “eight bells,” or four o’clock in the afternoon.I went into the cabin with the captain and second mate, Mr Marline being left in charge of the poop; and, presently, I could see through the sliding-doors leading from the main-deck into the cuddy, which were of course left wide open, as we were still in the tropics, the steward Harry, a freckle-faced mulatto of the colour of pale ginger, bringing in a tureen of soup from the cook’s galley forward.As he passed by close to where the cow was tethered, whether the smell of the savoury compound aroused the animal’s hunger, or because Harry, coming too near, reminded her of the recent indignities to which she had been subjected, the cow all at once made a plunge at him with her head.Harry sheered off, spilling a portion of the soup; and he was so frightened that he ran full speed with the remainder into the cabin.He was not, however, quick enough for Mrs Brindle; for the sudden dive she made, throwing her whole might on the halter, caused the rope to snap like a piece of pack-thread. The next instant, the cow made a plunge after the mulatto steward, giving him a lift by the stern-post as he was entering the cuddy door which pitched him right on to the cabin table, where he fell amidst all the plates and dishes. There was a terrible smash, all the dinner things coming to grief, as well as the soup tureen, which he still held in his hands, the boiling contents passing over the second mate’s head, and scalding his face, besides making him in a pretty pickle.“Oh Lord, oh Lord, I’m blinded!” screamed Davis, the thick pea-soup having gone into his eyes; while the captain had scarcely time to use his favourite ejaculation, “By Jingo!” before the cow, which had followed up her successful attack on the steward by galloping after him into the cabin, catching the arm-chair that Captain Miles was ensconced in sideways, started the lashings that held it to the deck, hurling the terrified occupant in a heap in the corner—the captain being utterly ignorant of the cause of the whole catastrophe, for he was sitting with his back to the door and so had not seen the steward’s somersault nor the approach of the animal like I did from the beginning of the affair.As for me, being on the other side of the table, I escaped any harm, although I immediately bolted into the steward’s pantry near me, where, shutting the half-door, I looked out from this coign of vantage surveying the scene of havoc which the cabin presently presented, for the cow tossed about everything she could reach bellowing like one of the wild bulls of Bashan all the while.The steward had fainted away, from fright I believe; and he lay stretched on the table as if he were practising swimming in Doctor Johnson’s fashion. As for Davis, the second mate, he had his face bent down in his hands, apparently unmindful of everything but his own pain, but Captain Miles speedily sprang to his feet and was starting to attack the cause of the uproar with one of the broken legs of his chair when just at that moment Mr Marline poked his nose down the open skylight from the poop above.“What’s the matter?” he asked suavely. “What is all the row about?”“Come down and see,” said Captain Miles savagely. “Talk of a bull in a china-shop; why, that would be child’s play to a cow in a cabin!”Mr Marline burst out laughing at this, and so too did Captain Miles himself as soon as he had spoken the words, while I couldn’t help joining in, it was all so funny. Then the first mate came down with two or three of the hands to remove the violent animal, which had now jammed itself under Captain Miles’ own cot in his private sanctum beyond the cuddy.But, Mrs Brindle was not so easily dislodged, one of the sailors having to get through the stern port in order to raise the cot while the other men pulled at her legs.She was evidently determined not to be moved against her will; for, on being lugged out again into the main cabin, she quickly shook off the grasp of her captors, cantering out of the sliding-doors, with her tail in the air, bellowing still furiously and butting at those in her way.Her course was soon arrested, however. As she bounded forwards along the deck she came to the open hatchway leading to the hold, where tumbling down on top of the rum puncheons, before anyone could interpose, she broke her neck instanter.“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good,” says the old proverb, the truth of which was exemplified in this instance. If the captain lost his milk, the crew gained a plentiful supply of fresh meat by the accident, faring sumptuously for many days afterwards on roast beef and all sorts of delicate dishes which Cuffee concocted out of the carcass of the unfortunate animal.“I wouldn’t have lost her for twenty pounds!” said Captain Miles on the poop later on, when he and the first mate were talking over the strange way in which the thing all happened.“Humph!” observed Mr Marline slyly in his dry way; “I think she gave you one or two on account before she performed the happy despatch, eh?”“Funny dog!” exclaimed Captain Miles, giving him a dig in the ribs by way of acknowledging the allusion to the thumps poor Brindle had treated him to, before she came on board and after; and, there, the matter ended, as far as everybody was concerned, the steward recovering from his fainting fit, and the eyes of Davis the second mate being none the worse as it turned out for their deluge of hot pea-soup, while the damages in the cabin were soon repaired. Only the poor cow came to grief!

“Why, Jake!” I cried out. “How have you contrived to come here?”

“Am dat you, Mass’ Tom?” he answered catching sight of me behind the captain. “Golly, I tole you so; I’se tole you I come ’board ship wid you somehow or nudder. Who ’peak de trute now, hey? golly, yah, yah, I’se so berry glad!” and the poor faithful fellow commencing with one of his hearty African laughs ended in his voice breaking into a sob of joy that evidently came from the bottom of his heart.

From hearing his words Captain Miles immediately began to “smell a rat,” as the saying goes.

“You impudent black rascal!” he said, half in joke, pretending to be angry, and yet partly in earnest. “What the dickens do you mean by shipping yourself aboard my vessel in this fashion without leave or license?”

“I’se come for to go wid Mass’ Tom,” answered Jake meekly.

“But how did you get off from the shore and overhaul the ship?” continued Captain Miles, pursuing his inquiries, the hands around meanwhile commencing to nudge one another and exchange grins as the colloquy waxed warm between the two principal performers.

“I tell you for true, massa, beliebe me,” said Jake earnestly. “Dis forenoon wen I see Mass’ Tom agwine I’se go down to de warf an’ dere I see um lilly boat lyin’ widout nobody a-mindin’ it; so I’se jump in and row out ob de harbor an’ git roun’ by de ole fort till I see de ship make sail. Den I’se pull, an’ pull, an’ pull, like de debbel, to come up wid you, an’ I tinks I nebber reach de bessel, wen, jus’ as I’se git ’longside an’ cotch you up, de ship gib one big lurch an’ squash in de boat, wen I’se trown in water an’ you fish um out; dere, massa, dat’s de trute, s’help me!”

“Lucky for you you didn’t go squash, too,” observed the captain grimly. “But, was there no one else with you?”

“No, massa, only me,” replied Jake.

“Thank God for that!” said Captain Miles fervently. “I was afraid I had run down one of those fishing sloops from Cariacou, and that all hands were drowned but you. Whose boat was it?”

“Dunno, massa, I’se tell you,” answered Jake with great nonchalance, apparently giving but little thought to the little craft whose broken timbers were now floating away, far astern of us.

“Well, you’re a cool hand anyway!” exclaimed Mr Marline the first mate drily, whereat Moggridge and the rest of the crew burst into a general shout of merriment. In this even the captain himself could not help joining, although he still tried to preserve a grave demeanour before Jake, as if annoyed at his coming on board.

Jake, however, was much hurt at being laughed at; and he went on now to justify his conduct with such native dignity that those who had been making fun of him before seemed almost ashamed of their ill-judged ridicule.

“I’se know Mass’ Tom ebber since he was lilly pickaninny, an’ I lub him,” he said, speaking with a feeling and earnestness which no one would have thought of his possessing, and uttering the words in a thick choked voice. “I took de boat ’cause de boat was dere; but if dere was no boat, I’d hab swam off to de ship, for I’se boun’ to go were Mass’ Tom go, an’ if he go in ship I’se go too!”

“But, my poor fellow,” put in Captain Miles kindly to him, “your young master does not want a servant to wait on him on board theJosephine, and we haven’t room for any idlers. I shall have to put you ashore at Saint Vincent, from whence you’ll be easily able to get a passage back home again.”

“For de Lor’ sake don’t do dat, Massa Cap’en!” implored Jake, utterly overwhelmed at such an unexpected downfall of his hopes, falling on his knees on the deck and holding up his hands in the most supplicating manner. “Only let dis poah nigger go wid you an’ Mass’ Tom an’ he do any ting you want.”

“But, what can you do?” said Captain Miles, who, I could see, was relenting. He really had no idea of carrying out the stern intention which his words implied. “We’ve got no horses to groom here.”

“Ah, you dunno all I can do, Massa Cap’en,” replied the darkey eagerly, rising again to his feet now, all animation. “’Fore I go wid Mass’ Eastman, I’se help my fadder in fishin’-boat, an’ know how to make sail an’ reef an’ steer. You jus’ try dis chile an’ see!”

“Very good, we will try you,” said Captain Miles good-humouredly. “But, mind, my darkey friend, you’ll have to work for your passage!”

“All right, Massa Cap’en, me work safe ’nuff. See now, I’se handy boy aboard ship!” So saying, Jake at once scrambled up the rigging and in a minute or two was away up in the foretop, waving his arms about and shouting with laughter in great glee.

“Yah, yah!” he cried. “I’se go higher, if um like.”

“No, that will do now,” sang out Captain Miles, “you can come down and go and warm yourself, after your wetting, by the galley fire, where you’ll find another darkey to keep you company. You must enter his name in the list of the crew, Mr Marline,” added the captain, turning to the first mate; “and see, too, about messing him in the fo’c’s’le. I daresay we’ll make something out of him during the voyage.”

During this little interlude, theJosephinehad been making away from Grenada with the land breeze, aided by a current setting to the westward at the rate of a couple of knots an hour; so that, by the time it got dark, we had sunk the island to windward, Captain Miles having caused the royals to be hoisted, in order to take every advantage of the light air, for we had to make the best of a north-east course on the starboard tack.

Towards nine o’clock, however, the wind freshened, and as the navigation was rather ticklish, we being not yet in the open sea, the lighter canvas had to be taken in, the vessel proceeding during the remainder of the night under double-reefed topsails, courses, topgallant-sails, and her jib and spanker—for, these could be easily handed in case of any sudden shift of wind, which frequently veers round without warning under the lee of the land.

I, of course, only learnt all this afterwards, picking up my nautical knowledge by degrees from my old friend Moggridge, who took me under his tuition, promising to make a sailor of me ere the voyage was over, for I was told to turn in by Captain Miles at nine o’clock, when the lights were put out in the cabin.

In the morning, when I came on deck again, we were off Saint Vincent; but, as the current and wind were both against us, although our port was well in sight we had to beat up to make the harbour, not dropping our anchor until late in the afternoon.

It was a beautiful spot, for we lay as it were in a circle of mountains, the tall Souffrière with its volcano peak overtopping them all.

Although we arrived late, Captain Miles did not lose any time in shipping his cargo of rum, going on shore immediately in his gig, which was still hanging to the davits astern, not having been taken on board with the other boats before leaving “my island,” as I always call Grenada. Soon afterwards, a couple of heavy launches manned by negroes and each stored with several big puncheons came off to us, the rum being at once hoisted in and lowered away into the hold—the operation being achieved in less time nearly than I can describe it, for it was necessary for us to be off again by nightfall to take advantage of the land breeze; or else we might be detained at Saint Vincent another day.

Besides the puncheons of rum another piece of cargo was brought on board. This subsequently caused quite a little commotion as well as giving us all a good deal of entertainment.

Our new freight was a cow.

Captain Miles, you must know, was a bit of a gourmand, liking to have good eating and drinking when he could get them; and, as he was particularly fond of coffee with plenty of milk in it, he always carried a cow with him in his different voyages.

During his last trip from home, however, his old milk purveyor had died; and, as such animals are rather scarce in the West Indies, he was not able to procure one either for love or money at Grenada, and was at a complete nonplus till we got to Saint Vincent.

Here, fortunately, or unfortunately as it happened eventually for the poor cow, the captain heard at the last moment of a fine Alderney which a planter was anxious to dispose of, and had brought down to the town to send off to Barbadoes, hoping to find a market there for her. Captain Miles, therefore, at once closed with the planter, and the last of the launches conveying the rum puncheons to theJosephinebrought off in addition this cow.

But, taking an animal of this sort away from the shore, and out to a ship lying some distance from the land is one thing, and getting it on board is another! This the captain found presently, when, having completed all his business ashore and cleared the last of his cargo, he was rowed out in his gig to regain the vessel. He had intended making sail the moment he stepped on the deck again; but, instead of finding everything stowed and the anchor tripped ready for theJosephineto start on his arrival, he saw that her cable was still out, while the barge containing the cow was yet alongside.

Captain Miles was awfully angry. Everybody could see this; as he ordered the men in the gig to row her astern, and in a very harsh tone of voice, as he scuttled up the side-ladder and turned into the main-deck port; hook on the falls ready for hoisting her up again to the davits.

“Mr Marline!” he cried out to the first mate when he reached the deck, “what is the meaning of this? I expected you’d have been all ready to sail, and here is that launch alongside yet and the cargo not aboard!”

“All the rum’s in, sir,” replied Mr Marline quietly, for he was a dry old stick and seldom said a word more than necessary.

“But the cow, man, the cow!” retorted the captain. “Why is she not hoisted inboard as well?”

“We couldn’t manage her, sir,” replied Mr Marline with a sly grin. “The brute butts everybody that comes near her.”

“Why didn’t you sling her?” inquired Captain Miles.

“We tried to, but couldn’t,” said the mate. “She kicks so that she tumbled back twice and nearly went into the sea.”

“Oh, you’re all a parcel of nincompoops!” exclaimed the captain quite roused at this. “I’ll show you how a seaman can manage it!” With that, catching hold of the side lines, he went down the ladder again like winking and into the launch alongside.

Here, the cow, which looked even more enraged than Captain Miles, stood in the centre of the boat, with the negroes who had pulled out the live load from shore, standing up in the bows and on the gunwales, so as to be out of the reach of the infuriated animal, which every now and then made a rush at some black leg or other, making the owner yell out and try to avoid the butt.

“Pass down a whip with a spare bit of canvas,” sang out the captain, sitting down in the stern-sheets; and on receiving these articles he set to work to make a sort of broad belt to pass under the cow’s stomach, in the same way as is done with horses about to be shipped on board transports when cavalry regiments are embarking.

When he had made the sling to his satisfaction, satisfying himself that it was strong enough by attaching it to his own person and then making the crew haul him up, his sixteen stone weight being some criterion to go by, he ordered those at the derrick to lower him down again; and then, with a halter all ready, which he threw over the animal’s head, he advanced bravely towards the cow to arrange the belt under her body, thinking he could do it easily enough.

Mrs Brindle, however, was too quick for him.

Tossing off the rope bridle like a piece of straw, she lowered her head, and catching the captain in the stomach sent him head over heels backwards into the bottom of the boat, where one of the thwarts only prevented her from pursuing him further, which she would most undoubtedly have done judging by her vicious look.

At that moment, Jake, who had been looking over the side of the ship, seeing what had happened and anxious to be of service, slid down the whip-tackle into the boat. Arrived here his first task was to pick up Captain Miles, after doing which he took hold of the canvas belt the captain had prepared and dropped in his confusion at the unexpected assault.

“You let dis niggah try, Massa Cap’en,” he said. “I’se able to ride any wild hoss, and tinks I can settle de rampagious animile.”

“All right, fire away,” replied Captain Miles, rather out of breath from his tumble as well as from the punch the cow had given him “right in the wind.”

Jake thereupon, shoving the other darkeys away, climbed on to the gunwale of the launch. Then, advancing gingerly until he was right opposite the cow, and seizing a good opportunity, he jumped suddenly on her back. In a moment or so, he cleverly fixed the slings round her; while one of the other negroes, emboldened by his success, threw a noose over her head, which kept her from plunging about any longer, or at all events, from butting at everybody as she had done previously.

“By Jingo, you’re a smart fellow!” exclaimed Captain Miles with much gusto. “You’re worth all the rest of those stupid lubbers of mine boiled down together! Haul away now, Mr Marline,” he added, looking up; “I think we’ve fixed the cow this time.”

He was right; for, as soon as the hands on board manned the derrick and turned the winch handle the poor animal was raised in the air, kicking out spasmodically all the while, and wondering, no doubt, how she lost hold of her footing. When she had been hoisted high enough to clear the bulwarks, the derrick was then swung inboard and the cow lowered safely on the deck.

The empty launch with the negroes was now cast-off, and preparations made for raising the anchor again and making sail.

However, this was not the end of the cow episode by any means; for, as luck would have it, all Captain Miles’ hopes of milk with his coffee during the voyage home to England were soon summarily dispelled, the career of the animal which was to have supplied the lacteal fluid having terminated most unexpectedly.

All hands being busy getting the ship under weigh, the animal had been left standing for the time where she had been set down in the waist, the sling being unloosed from her and the end of the halter, which Jake had put over her head when she had been secured, tied to the mainmast bitts—so as to prevent her moving until the long-boat amidships, which was to form her quarters, should be made ready for her reception.

Then, when the canvas of theJosephinewas once more spread to the breeze and the vessel was working out from Saint Vincent, Captain Miles told the steward to serve dinner in the cabin, it being now near sunset and long past the usual hour for that meal, which was generally on the table at “eight bells,” or four o’clock in the afternoon.

I went into the cabin with the captain and second mate, Mr Marline being left in charge of the poop; and, presently, I could see through the sliding-doors leading from the main-deck into the cuddy, which were of course left wide open, as we were still in the tropics, the steward Harry, a freckle-faced mulatto of the colour of pale ginger, bringing in a tureen of soup from the cook’s galley forward.

As he passed by close to where the cow was tethered, whether the smell of the savoury compound aroused the animal’s hunger, or because Harry, coming too near, reminded her of the recent indignities to which she had been subjected, the cow all at once made a plunge at him with her head.

Harry sheered off, spilling a portion of the soup; and he was so frightened that he ran full speed with the remainder into the cabin.

He was not, however, quick enough for Mrs Brindle; for the sudden dive she made, throwing her whole might on the halter, caused the rope to snap like a piece of pack-thread. The next instant, the cow made a plunge after the mulatto steward, giving him a lift by the stern-post as he was entering the cuddy door which pitched him right on to the cabin table, where he fell amidst all the plates and dishes. There was a terrible smash, all the dinner things coming to grief, as well as the soup tureen, which he still held in his hands, the boiling contents passing over the second mate’s head, and scalding his face, besides making him in a pretty pickle.

“Oh Lord, oh Lord, I’m blinded!” screamed Davis, the thick pea-soup having gone into his eyes; while the captain had scarcely time to use his favourite ejaculation, “By Jingo!” before the cow, which had followed up her successful attack on the steward by galloping after him into the cabin, catching the arm-chair that Captain Miles was ensconced in sideways, started the lashings that held it to the deck, hurling the terrified occupant in a heap in the corner—the captain being utterly ignorant of the cause of the whole catastrophe, for he was sitting with his back to the door and so had not seen the steward’s somersault nor the approach of the animal like I did from the beginning of the affair.

As for me, being on the other side of the table, I escaped any harm, although I immediately bolted into the steward’s pantry near me, where, shutting the half-door, I looked out from this coign of vantage surveying the scene of havoc which the cabin presently presented, for the cow tossed about everything she could reach bellowing like one of the wild bulls of Bashan all the while.

The steward had fainted away, from fright I believe; and he lay stretched on the table as if he were practising swimming in Doctor Johnson’s fashion. As for Davis, the second mate, he had his face bent down in his hands, apparently unmindful of everything but his own pain, but Captain Miles speedily sprang to his feet and was starting to attack the cause of the uproar with one of the broken legs of his chair when just at that moment Mr Marline poked his nose down the open skylight from the poop above.

“What’s the matter?” he asked suavely. “What is all the row about?”

“Come down and see,” said Captain Miles savagely. “Talk of a bull in a china-shop; why, that would be child’s play to a cow in a cabin!”

Mr Marline burst out laughing at this, and so too did Captain Miles himself as soon as he had spoken the words, while I couldn’t help joining in, it was all so funny. Then the first mate came down with two or three of the hands to remove the violent animal, which had now jammed itself under Captain Miles’ own cot in his private sanctum beyond the cuddy.

But, Mrs Brindle was not so easily dislodged, one of the sailors having to get through the stern port in order to raise the cot while the other men pulled at her legs.

She was evidently determined not to be moved against her will; for, on being lugged out again into the main cabin, she quickly shook off the grasp of her captors, cantering out of the sliding-doors, with her tail in the air, bellowing still furiously and butting at those in her way.

Her course was soon arrested, however. As she bounded forwards along the deck she came to the open hatchway leading to the hold, where tumbling down on top of the rum puncheons, before anyone could interpose, she broke her neck instanter.

“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good,” says the old proverb, the truth of which was exemplified in this instance. If the captain lost his milk, the crew gained a plentiful supply of fresh meat by the accident, faring sumptuously for many days afterwards on roast beef and all sorts of delicate dishes which Cuffee concocted out of the carcass of the unfortunate animal.

“I wouldn’t have lost her for twenty pounds!” said Captain Miles on the poop later on, when he and the first mate were talking over the strange way in which the thing all happened.

“Humph!” observed Mr Marline slyly in his dry way; “I think she gave you one or two on account before she performed the happy despatch, eh?”

“Funny dog!” exclaimed Captain Miles, giving him a dig in the ribs by way of acknowledging the allusion to the thumps poor Brindle had treated him to, before she came on board and after; and, there, the matter ended, as far as everybody was concerned, the steward recovering from his fainting fit, and the eyes of Davis the second mate being none the worse as it turned out for their deluge of hot pea-soup, while the damages in the cabin were soon repaired. Only the poor cow came to grief!

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