I was interrupted by the sailmaker, who was sitting far enough forward to be able to see some distance past the luff of the sail. Seaman-like, he was instinctively keeping a lookout, and he now suddenly turned and yelled:

"Sail ho! close aboard on the lee bow. Hard up, Mr Temple; hard up, sir, and keep her broad away, or that chap'll run us down."

There was an urgency and imperativeness in the man's tones which made it clear enough that there was no time for investigation. I therefore did the only thing that remained to be done under the circumstances, namely, trusted to the correctness of Sails's judgment and implicitly followed his directions, dragging the tiller hard up, and at the same time calling upon the boatswain to ease off the sheet still further. Under the pressure of her weather helm the boat at once fell broad off; and as she did so I saw, through the rapidly deepening darkness, a great black blotch swing into view past the luff of our sail, which the next instant resolved itself into the shape of a big, hulking brigantine, wallowing along down toward us with her topsail-yard down on the cap, her reef tackles bowsed up, and eight men on her yard busily engaged in reefing her topsail. It was not yet so dark but that those men must have seen us distinctly—in fact one of them paused in his work to flourish his hand at us; yet, but for the sailmaker's watchfulness, the craft would have driven right over us! There could be no doubt of the fact that her crew had seen us, for, in addition to the man who waved to us from the yard, there were two men pacing her monkey poop aft who paused in their march to look at us as we drove past each other; yet, although we yelled to them frantically to heave-to and pick us up, they made no movement to do anything of the sort, and ten minutes later the craft vanished in the darkness. The light was too poor to enable us to read the name on her stern as she swept past us, but she had all the look of a Portuguese-built craft; and, justly or unjustly, the Portuguese have gained rather a sinister reputation for callousness and inhumanity in their behaviour toward people circumstanced as we were at that moment.

"I s'pose they thinks we're out here in a hopen boat for pleasure and the fun o' the thing," was the boatswain's sarcastic comment upon their behaviour, prefaced by a stream of profanity, as the vessel disappeared from our view.

As soon as we realised that the crew of the brigantine had no intention of heaving-to and picking us up we again brought the gig to the wind. But we soon found that this would not do: the wind and sea were both rapidly becoming too much for us, and to continue fighting against them meant the speedy swamping or capsizal of the boat. We therefore adopted the plan which I had been expounding to the boatswain when the brigantine hove into view, securely lashing the four oars of the boat together in a bundle, bending the extreme end of our painter to the middle of the bundle, and launching the whole overboard, at the same time lowering the sail and striking the mast, when the drag of the boat upon the oars brought her head to wind and sea, and enabled her to ride in comparative safety and comfort, although a breaking sea occasionally slopped in over her bows, necessitating the frequent employment of the bucket as a baler.

There was very little sleep for any of us that night, for within an hour it was blowing really hard, with a heavy, steep sea that frequently broke aboard us, causing us intense discomfort as the water rushed aft and surged about our feet and legs to the wild plunging of the boat, and keeping one or another of us constantly busy baling to prevent the boat from being swamped. We were thankful that we had not the added discomfort of cold to contend with, for, hard though it blew, the wind was quite warm; yet, even so, it was unpleasant enough, since we were in the greatest peril every moment of that long, weary night, our utmost efforts being continually required to keep the boat above water. But, notwithstanding everything, it was a fine, exhilarating experience; for, added to the joy of battle with the elements, there was the wild grandeur of the scene, the great masses of black cloud scurrying athwart the sky, with little patches of starlit blue winking in and out between, the roar and swoop of the wind, and the menacing hiss of the phosphorescent foam-caps as they came rushing down upon the boat in endless succession, all combining together to form a picture the like of which, as viewed from a wildly leaping, half-swamped, spray-smothered open boat, it is given to comparatively few men to look upon.

The gale lasted all through the night, breaking at sunrise; but although the sky cleared with the coming of the dawn, the wind continued to blow so strongly that it was not until the sun had crossed the meridian that it again became possible for us to make sail upon the boat: and meanwhile we found that during the night it had hauled round from the north-west, and was therefore still practically dead in our teeth. But the moment that the sea had gone down enough to render sailing once more possible, we got under way and headed westward close-hauled upon the starboard tack, under a double-reefed sail; and I took fresh heart when presently I saw that, even under the exceedingly unfavourable conditions then prevailing—and they were about as unfavourable as they could possibly be—the boat was keeping a good luff, hanging well to windward, thanks to an exceptionally deep keel, and making about four knots of headway every hour.

My hopes rose high that even yet, despite the delays which we had already experienced, we might be able to cover the distance to the coast before our provisions gave out; for if we were doing well under almost the worst conditions that could possibly befall us, what might we not do when those conditions improved? And they certainly did improve as the afternoon wore on, for the wind eventually dropped sufficiently to permit us to shake out our reefs and sail the boat under whole canvas, while with the moderating of the wind the sea also went down and ceased to break, although the swell still ran very high. But it was only the heavily breaking seas that were really dangerous to us; and now that we no longer had them to fear we drove the gig for all that she was worth, luffing her through the fresher puffs, hawsing her up to windward fathom by fathom, and generally handling her as though we were sailing her in a race, as indeed we were in a sense—a race against time.

We continued to do exceedingly well all through that afternoon, and indeed up to about midnight; but the wind was softening all the time, and shortly after midnight our speed began to slacken, until by daylight of the next morning it had once more fallen to less than three knots. Moreover, the weather was by no means satisfactory in appearance; there were no actual clouds to be seen in the sky, but instead of being a clear, deep, rich blue, as it ought to have been, and as it no doubt would have been had there been fine weather in prospect, the entire vault of heaven was veiled in a thick, steamy, colourless haze, through which the sun showed as a feeble, shapeless blotch of white. There was barely enough wind, still dead against us, to fan us along at a bare two knots; but I did not like the look of the sea, which, despite the almost total absence of wind, was in a strange state of unrest, the long heave of the swell being overrun by small, short, choppy miniature seas, which seemed to leap up at brief intervals without visible cause, and then curled over and fell in a casual, sloppy manner that suggested the idea that they would have liked to break but could not summon up the energy to do so.

But whatever else they may have failed to do, these sloppy seas managed to retard the way of the boat through the water very considerably, and to fill our souls with exasperation; for they were distinctly hindering our progress, while we could see no valid reason why they should exist at all. They had the appearance of having sprung up solely to delay us, and for no other purpose whatever. More than once, when I felt exceptionally impatient at our miserably slow rate of progress, I had it on the tip of my tongue to propose that we should again take to the oars; but I did not actually speak the words, for in the first place I doubted whether the gain in speed would be sufficient to justify the expenditure of strength, and in the next place our hands were by this time in such a frightful condition of rawness that the idea of proposing what would make them very much worse seemed to smack of downright cruelty, unless I could urge some more valid reason than the mere desire to get ahead a little faster. And our situation just then was scarcely desperate enough for that.

It was very shortly after midday, and we were all gathered aft partaking of the meal that we dignified with the name of dinner, when the boatswain, who was sitting on the after thwart, facing me, suddenly paused in the act of conveying a piece of biscuit to his mouth, stared intently over my shoulder for a moment, and then sprang to his feet, shading his eyes with his hand.

"What is it, Murdock?" I asked, turning as I spoke in the direction toward which he was gazing, "do you—?"

"Sail ho!" interrupted the boatswain, pointing eagerly with his hand. "Do ye see her, Mr Temple, sir?"

"Ay, I do," I answered, as I caught sight of a faint pearly gleam afar off on the north-eastern horizon. "Mr Cunningham, will you kindly lend me your telescope for a moment?"

"Certainly, with pleasure," answered Cunningham, producing the instrument from his pocket. It was not a very big affair, being only about six inches long by perhaps an inch and a half in diameter, but it was a three-draw tube, measuring about one foot nine inches long when fully extended, and, for its size, was the most splendid instrument I had ever used. I quickly brought it to bear upon the distant gleam, which the lenses instantly resolved into the heads of the fore and main royals of a craft—either a barque or a brig—standing to the southward. When I had finished with the instrument the boatswain took a squint through it, and after him the carpenter and the sailmaker; and when they had had their turn Cunningham applied it to his eye. As the boatswain passed the telescope over to Chips he turned to me eagerly and looked at me hard with so expressive an eye that I instantly read what was in his mind. I shook my head.

"We could never do it, Murdock," I said. "She's too far to the south'ard. Had she borne three, or even a couple of points farther to the nor'ard I might have felt inclined to risk it; but—"

"What are you talking about?" demanded Cunningham. "Is it a question of whether we can or cannot intercept that ship? Because if it is, I am most emphatically in favour of our making the attempt. Mind you, I do not say that we can actually intercept her; but I believe we might manage to get close enough to her to be seen, for she is almost certain to have a man or two aloft at work upon her rigging."

"Yes, ye're right, Mr Cunnin'ham; that's exactly my notion," eagerly agreed the boatswain. "I believe that by runnin' away off in about this here direction," pointing away toward the south—east, "we ought to lift her pretty nigh to her rail by the time that she draws up abreast of us; and if we can do that we stands a very good chance of bein' seen. I haven't no great faith in our prospec's of fetchin' Rio; and if we gets half a chance of bein' picked up by a ship, we ought to take it. Moreover than that, I don't like the look of the weather none too well; and I'd a deal rather spend the comin' night aboard that ship than in this here gig."

There was certainly good, sound reason and common sense in Murdock's words, and particularly in what he said about the weather; so I turned to the carpenter, to ascertain his view of the matter.

"What do you say, Chips?" I asked. "Are you of opinion that we shall be justified in losing ten or fifteen miles of ground upon the off-chance of being able to close with yonder craft near enough to be seen?"

"Why, yes, Mr Temple, I certainly am," answered Chips. "I won't go so far as to say that we'll be actually able to manage it; but I think it's our dooty to have a good try for it. I'm like the bos'n, I've got a sort of feelin' that we ain't goin' to fetch Rio this trip—"

"All right, then," I said; "you three constitute the majority, even if Sails happens to think as I do—"

"Ah, but I don't, Mr Temple!" interrupted Simpson. "I agrees with the bos'n—"

"Then round we go," I interrupted in my turn; and, putting the helm hard up, I bore away, the sail jibed over, and off we went almost dead before the wind, heading about south-east, and bringing the stranger about a point and a half abaft our port beam.

Sailing before the wind was a very different matter from plugging to windward with the sheet flattened well in, and although our shift of helm had the effect of making it seem that the wind had suddenly died away almost to nothing, there was no longer that heart-breaking smack-smack of the small seas against our weather bow which had seemed to retard our way in such an exasperating fashion. On the contrary, with the sheet eased well off and the lug boomed out with the boathook so that the yard swung square across the length of the boat, we went sliding smoothly away to leeward with a long, easy, buoyant motion, a pleasant, musical gurgling of water along our bottom planking, and a swift gliding past us of tiny air bubbles and occasional morsels of weed that told us we were now travelling at the rate of quite four knots.

For the first half-hour the stranger did not appreciably alter her bearing relative to the boat, which seemed to indicate that we were practically holding our own with her, and our hopes soared high, especially as within that brief period we had raised her royals and the heads of her topgallantsails above the horizon. But when this latter circumstance enabled us to see that she had her starboard topgallant studdingsails set, my enthusiasm flagged again, for I argued that she must be a slow-coach indeed if, with the breeze then blowing and studdingsails set, she could not do any better than four knots. I held my peace, however, for there was no use in damping the hopes of the others, while there was always the possibility that if any of her hands happened to be employed aloft, the eye of one or another of them might chance upon our sail, which, small though it was, ought to be perfectly visible at a distance of five or six miles, even in that somewhat hazy atmosphere. But by the end of the first hour after we had begun our chase it became apparent that she had the heels of us, for although we were still steering exactly the same course as at first, she had drawn up square abeam of us. And there it was imperatively necessary that we should keep her if we did not wish her to slip past us, even although the keeping of her there should entail upon us the necessity to edge gradually away, thus bringing our own course ever more nearly parallel to hers, instead of causing the two steadily to converge. Then, about the end of the second hour of the chase, by which time we had lifted the stranger's main topsail-yard above the horizon, and had discovered that she was barque-rigged, the breeze suddenly freshened up sufficiently to add an extra knot and a half to our speed. But this was a misfortune rather than otherwise for us: for although it increased our speed, it also increased that of the stranger, when it reached her, which it did about ten minutes later; and whereas it added only about a knot and a half to our rate of travel, it probably quickened up her pace by more than double that amount, as was painfully apparent from the increased frequency with which we were obliged to edge away to keep her square abeam. And now the anxiety which I had all along felt began to be shared by the others, one or another of whom kept Cunningham's telescope continually bearing upon the barque. They began to fidget where they sat, to mutter and grumble under their breath, and to cast frequent looks at the sky astern, which had not materially altered its aspect since the morning, except that the haze had thickened somewhat. At last the boatswain could restrain himself no longer.

"If this here humbuggin' breeze'd only drop," he grumbled, "we'd out oars and pull to her. But it ain't goin' to drop, that's the worst of it, it's agoin' to freshen still furder; and that cussed old hooker's goin' to run away from us, that's what she's agoin' to do. Let's have a look at that there glass again, Mr Cunnin'ham," he continued. "I can't make out what they're a-thinkin' about aboard her. It's fine weather, and surely there ought to be some work to be done aloft." Here he got the telescope to bear upon her for at least the tenth time since the chase had begun, and relapsed into temporary silence, while he subjected every visible part of her to a most searching scrutiny. Presently he resumed, with animation: "Ah! I thought it'd be strange if her bos'n couldn't find somethin' that wanted doin' aloft in such fine weather as this. Just you take this here glass, Mr Temple—Chips'll catch hold of the tiller for a minute or two—and see if there ain't a man sittin' astride of her weather main tawps'l-yardarm doin' somethin' or other."

I handed over the tiller to Chips, took the telescope, and raised the eyepiece to my eye. Instantly I had a small but exquisitely clear picture of the three masts of the distant barque, from the level of the second reef-band of her main topsail upward, with every rope and piece of rigging and gear, even to the reef-points of the topsail, rising and falling upon the horizon line with the lift of the ship upon the swell. And there, sure enough, at the point named by the boatswain, but tucked away in the shadow of the weather clew of the topgallantsail, so that it was not very easy to make him out, I saw what I certainly took to be the figure of a man. And that the boatswain and I were not mistaken presently became apparent, for, while I still looked, the fellow leisurely swung himself on to the foot rope and began to lay in along the yard.

"Quick!" I exclaimed, "we must attract his attention somehow, for he has finished his job and is laying in off the yard. Off with your jacket, Sails, and jump up on the thwart and wave it for all you are worth!"

The sailmaker tore off his white canvas jacket, and, grasping it by one arm, sprang up on the mast thwart and waved it furiously, while I kept the telescope focused upon the slowly moving figure of the distant seaman. But the man worked his way steadily in, swung himself off the yard to the topmast rigging, and, with the merchant sailor's usual deliberation, descended until he vanished below the horizon line, seemingly without giving a single glance at the widespreading surface of sea that stretched away for miles on either side of him.

"That will do, Sails," I said; "you may belay your flourishing, and get down off the thwart. That shellback has gone down on deck without so much as a glance in our direction."

"Laid down, have he, without stoppin' so much as to take a look round?" snarled the boatswain savagely, dashing his clenched fist down on the gunwale. "I'll be jiggered if I can understan' what's comin' to the sailorman as sails these here seas. Fust there was that there Portugee, as went past without stoppin' to pick us up, although they see'd us, and must 'ave knowed that we was castaways; and now here's this here bloomin' barque, manned by chaps as don't seem to think it worth while to give a look round while they're aloft, to see whether there's any poor sailormen washin' about in distress. But she ain't British, I'll take my Bible oath o' that; the British shellback don't do that there sort o' thing. Why, when I first went to sea we was never ordered aloft but what the skipper used to say: 'Take a good look round, men, afore you comes down again. We never knows when we may be passin' within sight of some poor unfortunate, perishin' of hunger and thirst, and prayin' to be sighted and picked up!'"

"Well," said I, "I am afraid it is all up with us, so far as that barque is concerned. Nevertheless, we will stick to her as long as she remains in sight. Another hand may be sent aloft aboard her before she disappears; or the wind may drop—although I confess I see no sign of it at present. And in any case it is comforting, in a way, to know that we are in the track of the south-bound ships; we are certain to sight others within the next day or two, and it will be pretty poor luck if we cannot intercept one or another of them."

But although I spoke so confidently I am afraid that I was not very successful in cheering up my companions in misfortune. This second disappointment was producing its effect upon them; they were becoming depressed and pessimistic; and although they all agreed that the proper thing to do was to hang on to the distant barque, in the hope of eventually attracting the attention of somebody aboard her, I could see that we were all fully convinced that the attempt would result in failure.

And so it did. We chased that barque until the sun set and the shades of night hid her from our sight; and although about mid-afternoon we got so close to her that her lower yards showed above the horizon when she lifted on the swell, and kept the telescope bearing upon her all the time, no more hands were sent aloft, and as the afternoon progressed she steadily drew away from us again, until when at length we lost sight of her in the gathering darkness only her royals and the upper halves of her topgallantsails were showing above the horizon. And all this time so absorbed were we in the chase that we were scarcely conscious of the fact that the wind was steadily freshening every minute, the result being that, when at length we were compelled to abandon the hope of being seen and picked up, we suddenly awoke to the fact that it was blowing quite a strong breeze, and that it had kicked up such a high, steep sea that it was no longer possible for us to round-to and ride to a sea anchor as we had done on the night but one before. We were therefore obliged to scud before the wind all night under whole canvas, to avoid being pooped and swamped by the breaking seas that remorselessly chased us.

That was a harassing, anxious night for all hands of us, for by midnight it was blowing what is generally termed a fresh gale, that is, a breeze strong enough to compel a ship of, say, a thousand tons to reduce canvas to single-reefed topsails; and that, to us, in a small open boat, was about equivalent to what a hurricane would be to the bigger craft. There was no sleep for any of us, for we were in constant, imminent danger, and it taxed the resources of all hands to their utmost limit all through the night to keep the boat from being overwhelmed. The chief danger to an open boat under such circumstances arises from the fact that, lying so low in the water as she does, her sail becomes becalmed every time that she settles into the trough of a sea, and she gradually loses way. Then, as she is hove up on the breast of the next following sea, her sail suddenly fills again, and those in her have to be careful that, in filling, it does not jibe over, for if it did so it would certainly capsize the boat. But in guarding against that danger another of equal magnitude is incurred, for unless the boat is kept dead stern-on to the sea the chances are that she will broach-to and be filled by the breaking head of the sea when it overtakes her. When it comes to be remembered that this twofold peril threatens an open boat about twice a minute hour after hour, as long as the gale continues, some faint idea may be gained of the anxiety and discomfort we were called upon to endure on the occasion which I am now attempting to describe. And while the anxiety of all is sufficiently acute, the man who is most worried is the one who is at the helm, for the behaviour of a craft under such circumstances is in one respect distinctly and harassingly peculiar: at the most perilous moment of all, which is the moment before she is actually overtaken by the breaking crest of the wave, she is apt to refuse to answer her helm, and he who is steering her loses all control over her; she seems to be seized with a perverse determination to take a broad sheer one way or the other, with disastrous results, despite a hard-over helm, and then the only thing to be done to retrieve the situation is to effect a lightning shift of helm against all your past experience and your better judgment. But notwithstanding this, it generally has the desired effect, the reason commonly assigned being that, contrary to what is usually supposed, the body of water constituting the head of a sea actually has a quick forward motion, and when this overtakes a craft, large or small, which is only beginning to gather fresh headway, the result is practically the same as though she were going astern instead of ahead, and the helm must be manipulated accordingly. Whether this is really the true explanation of the curiously awkward phenomenon of which I have spoken I cannot say; but I know that the phenomenon occurs, and that it placed us in the direst peril at least half a hundred times during that never-to-be-forgotten night, a peril from which, it appeared to me, we each time escaped by the very skin of our teeth, and by what seemed to be nothing short of a series of miracles. True, we are told that the days of miracles are long past; but, after all, who knows?



CHAPTER FIVE.

THE "MARTHA BROWN" OF BALTIMORE.

All through the night, and until nearly noon next day, were we compelled to continue scudding before the gale; and a pretty crew of scarecrows we looked when the morning at length dawned and disclosed us to each other's vision, drenched to the skin with flying spray, haggard and red-eyed with fatigue and the want of sleep, and each wearing that peculiar and indescribable expression of countenance that marks the man who has been face to face for hours with imminent death. But about four bells in the forenoon watch the gale suddenly broke, the sky cleared, and the wind moderated so rapidly that just before noon, by carefully watching our opportunity, we were at length able to round-to and once more ride to our makeshift sea anchor. Then, the boat riding dry—that is to say, shipping no water—we baled her out, and next proceeded to overhaul our stock of provisions, with the object of ascertaining what damage, if any, it had sustained through the constant drenching of the seas to which we had been exposed. Our bread—or biscuit—and water were all that we were really anxious about, the remainder being packed in tins, jars, or bottles, and it was a great relief to us to find that, thanks to the precautions which we had taken, nothing had suffered to any very serious extent.

Then I went to work to calculate our position as nearly as I could, although the roughness of my data rendered it exceedingly difficult to arrive anywhere near the mark; but at length, by patient and careful figuring, I reached the exceedingly unsatisfactory conclusion that not only had we lost all the ground previously gained, but we were somewhere about thirty miles south of the spot where Bainbridge had sent us adrift!

And then our thoughts turned to the longboat, and we began to ask ourselves and each other how she had fared. We were still afloat, it is true, but only because of our long-continued and almost superhuman exertions, while our boat was an exceptionally good one and by no means overloaded. How it would be with our consort, overcrowded with helpless, terror-stricken women and children, and perilously deep in the water, we scarcely dared to think; for, with the recollection of what we had recently passed through still vivid in our minds, we had little difficulty in conjuring up a very graphic picture of what would be the state of affairs aboard the longboat under the same circumstances. Of course there was the possibility that, more fortunate than ourselves, she had been seen and her party rescued by a passing ship; but, failing that, we felt that we dared not entertain the slightest hope that she still survived. No good end, however, was to be served by speculating upon the possibilities of disaster to our friends. We therefore proceeded to get a meal as soon as we had straightened up matters as far as was possible; and while we ate and drank we discussed the important question of what we should do next. Our recent experiences had been of such a character as to convince us that our prospects of reaching Rio before our stock of provisions should be consumed—if ever—were exceedingly slight. On the other hand, we had already had ocular demonstration of the fact that we were not far from the track of south-bound craft; we therefore eventually arrived unanimously at the conclusion that, taking all things into consideration, the best thing we could do was to cruise to the northward, in the hope that within the next few days we should be fortunate enough to fall in with some vessel the skipper of which would be humane enough to pick us up and perhaps land us at the nearest port.

It was so near sunset before the sea moderated sufficiently to enable us again to make sail that we ultimately determined to remain as we were, riding to our sea anchor all night, in order that all hands might have the opportunity to secure a good night's rest before resuming our battle with wind and sea. For after all, now that we had definitely abandoned the idea of attempting to make Rio, or indeed any part of the South American coast, it did not greatly matter whether we were under way or not; a ship was just as likely to come along and find us where we then were as anywhere else. And although we had resolved to take a night's rest before resuming our struggle, we of course intended to keep an anchor watch of one hand, who would look after the weather and the boat and also otherwise maintain a sharp lookout, so that, in the event of a sail heaving in sight, she should not be permitted to slip past us without an effort on our part to intercept her.

The night passed uneventfully, wind and sea gradually moderating all through the hours of darkness, until, by the dawn of the following day, both had so far gone down that we could once more make sail upon the gig with perfect safety. It is true that there was still a rather heavy swell running, but even that was fast diminishing, and there was no sea to speak of, the wind being of the strength known to sailors as a "royal" breeze, that is to say, a wind of so moderate a force that a ship of ordinary size could show her royals to it.

The sailmaker's watch ended a few minutes after sunrise, and when he called the rest of us our first business was to wash the sleep out of our eyes by dipping our heads into a bucket of clear, sparkling salt water, dipped up from over the side; after which we proceeded to perform our toilets as well as our very limited resources permitted, the next thing in order being breakfast. And while this was being prepared—the preparation consisting merely in the apportioning to each individual of his just and proper allowance of food—Simpson shinned up to the masthead to take a look round the horizon, and thus enable us to get the earliest possible intimation of the approach of a ship, should one chance to be in our neighbourhood.

The man had scarcely reached his perch—which, after all, was only about six feet above our heads when we stood up—when he emitted a joyous yell of:

"Sail ho! Hurrah, my bullies, here she comes, pretty nigh straight down for us, if these eyes of mine ain't deceivin' of me!"

"What do you make her out to be, Sails?" I demanded.

"Can't tell yet, sir," answered Simpson. "All as I can see just at present is the head of a—well, it may be a royal, or it may be the head of the to'garns'l of a schooner. And I'm inclined to think it's a schooner, because it looks sharp and clear like, as though it wasn't so very far off. Yes, I reckon that there blessed bit of white ain't much more'n ten mile away."

"And how does she bear?" I asked.

"Dead to wind'ard as ever she can be," was the cheering reply. "And headin' for us just as straight as she can come. Hurrah, my buckos! There's no mistake about it this time; she's boun' to pick us up, unless she happens to be another of them there puddin'-headed Portugees what don't seem to believe in pickin' up pore shipwrecked mariners," Sails ended, with a sudden note of disgust in his voice.

"Portugee or no Portugee, she will pick us up; I'll see to that," said I. "We'll not give her the chance to refuse; we'll just lie doggo where we are until she is within a mile or two of us, and then we'll up lug and run her aboard, whether her people like it or not."

"Ay, ay, that's your sort, Mr Temple," agreed the boatswain. "No more slippin' past and wavin' hands for me; if they don't want to pick us up, we'll just have to make 'em, that's all. I've had enough of boat sailin' to last me for the rest of me bloomin' life, and enough of sleepin' on thwarts, too. I means to sleep in a dry fo'c'sle to-night in spite of all the Portugee swines in creation."

"All right, Simpson," I hailed. "You had better come down now and get your breakfast. By the time that we have finished, yonder craft will be visible to all of us, and then we shall be able to judge what is best to be done."

We made a good hearty breakfast that morning, both eating and drinking a little more than our strict allowance, I am afraid, for we all seemed to be possessed of the same undoubted conviction that, with the appearance of the stranger to windward, our troubles were now all over, and that therefore the necessity to husband our limited resources carefully no longer existed.

The strange sail appeared to be a fairly fast craft, for before we had quite finished our breakfast the head of her canvas appeared above the horizon to us, even though we were still sitting upon the thwarts, and we immediately brought Cunningham's telescope to bear upon her. The first glimpse that I caught of her through the lenses satisfied me that she was a small vessel, the quickness and violence of her movements—for she was rolling heavily—bearing unmistakable evidence of that fact; and ten minutes later we discovered her to be topsail-schooner rigged. She was evidently making the utmost of the fair wind, for she had topmast and lower studdingsails set on both sides; and she was coming dead down the wind direct for us. We waited patiently where we were until she had risen hull-up, revealing herself through the telescope as a very handsome, smart-looking little schooner, with very white sails, which looked as though made of cotton canvas; and then we got our sea anchor inboard, cast the oars adrift in readiness for instant use should we need them, and got under way, working the boat to and fro in short tacks immediately athwart the schooner's hawse, while Simpson stood on a thwart to windward, waving a rag to attract attention, the boatswain meanwhile keeping the telescope steadfastly bearing upon the approaching craft.

We had just tacked for the second time when Murdock, with his eyes still glued to the telescope, shouted:

"They see us! they see us! There's a couple of chaps standin' by her starboard cathead lookin' at us under the sharp of their hands. And now one of 'em has turned round and is looking aft; he's reportin' of us to the hofficer of the watch, he is—I can see him hollerin' with one hand to the side of his mouth while he p'ints with the other. Yes; and now there's another chap runnin' for'ard to join the first two; he'll be the mate, I reckon—or p'rhaps the skipper. And now the third man's lookin' at us too. Keep on wavin', Sails; don't let there be no mistake about what we wants. The third man's runnin' aft again. He's goin' to call the Old Man, I reckon." A pause of about half a minute ensued, and then the boatswain resumed:

"No, he ain't; he's gone aft to get his glass. Yes, that's it; and now he's bringin' it to bear upon us. Wave, Sails, wave, you skowbank, for all you're worth. Yes; that's—Hurrah! it's all right, bullies, they're not agoin' to leave us behind; they're chaps of the right sort, they are! See that, Mr Temple? There's in stuns'ls; they're agoin' to shorten sail and round-to, to pick us up. But they seem to be thunderin' short-handed. They'll be past us and away to loo'ard long afore they can get them stuns'ls in. Better bear up and run down afore it, hadn't we, sir, so's not to keep 'em waitin'?"

The suggestion was a good one, for they had at least two studdingsails— those set on the starboard side—to take in before they could round-to, and from the rate at which they were getting the first in I could see that, as Murdock had said, the little vessel would run past us before they could get in the other. So I put up the helm and bore away, easing off the sheet, and when we were running off square before the wind I began to edge the boat gradually in toward the line of the schooner's course. By this manoeuvre we gave them a little more time to shorten sail, since we were still about a mile ahead of them and were now travelling in the same direction as themselves, although the schooner was fast overhauling us. But by the time that she was abreast of us, and only about a hundred feet distant, both her starboard studdingsails were in, and she was ready to round-to. Then a man came to the rail and hailed us.

"Boat ahoy!" he shouted. "I guess you're shipwrecked, ain't you, and want to be picked up."

"Ay, ay, sir," I answered; "that is so. May we run alongside?"

"Sure!" he replied heartily. "I'll come to the wind on the starboard tack, when you can pass under my starn and come alongside at the lee gangway."

I waved my hand by way of thanks and to show that I understood, and let run the sheet of the lug to allow him to draw ahead and take room to round-to; and presently he eased down his helm and brought the schooner to the wind, keeping his yards square and hauling his jib sheets over to windward to check the little vessel's way. We were thus afforded an excellent view of the craft, and a little beauty she was, as clean built and finely modelled as a yacht—for which, indeed, she might easily have been mistaken, except for the fact that her sails were not big enough. She was painted all black from her rail to her copper, with the bust of a woman, painted white, for a figurehead, and the name Martha Brown, with the word Baltimore—her port of registry—painted in white letters on her stern. She appeared to be in little more than deep-ballast trim, and I began to wonder whither she was bound even before we got alongside her.

The getting alongside required a little management, for there was a fair amount of swell running, and the schooner was rolling heavily; but we managed it all right, and were met at the gangway, upon boarding the little vessel, by the individual who had hailed us. He was a typical Yankee, tall, thin, and somewhat cadaverous-looking as to features, with a clean-shaven upper lip, a short goatee beard, and light hair, slightly touched with grey, worn so long that it came down over the collar of his coat, which was of faded blue cloth, adorned with brass buttons. His trousers were braced up high enough to reveal his ankles, and he wore a pair of ancient red morocco slippers upon his otherwise naked feet. His head was adorned with a peakless cap of what looked like wolfskin, fitted with a pair of flaps to tie down over the ears, but now fastened together at the crown.

Although the man presented a distinctly quaint ensemble, there was a genial, kindly twinkle in his eyes that caused me to take to him on the spot as he extended his hand and said, with a slight drawl and a strong Yankee accent:

"Walcome, strangers, to the Marthy Brown. I guess you've been havin' a rough time by the looks of you. How long, now, have ye been knockin' about in that boat?"

"This is our fifth day in her, Mr—er—er—" I answered.

"I reckon you're gropin' around after my name, Mister," he interrupted. "It's Ephraim Brown—very ginerally razeed down to Eph by my friends— and I'm master and owner of this here schooner, named a'ter my old woman away back to Baltimore. I guess your name is—"

"Mark Temple," I hastened to reply. "My companions are respectively Mr Edward Cunningham, late a cuddy passenger aboard the British barque Zenobia—of which vessel I was one of the apprentices; William Murdock, boatswain; Joseph Parsons, carpenter; and James Simpson, sailmaker, all of the same ship."

"I'm downright glad to meet you all," replied Mr Ephraim Brown, shaking hands all round again with much cordiality. Then he stepped to the taffrail and looked down at the gig, which had been passed astern.

"I guess that's a very tidy-lookin' boat of yourn, and there don't seem to be nothin' partic'lar the matter with her. I reckon she's quite worth hoistin' in, ain't she, Mister?" he remarked.

"Yes, indeed she is," I replied. "She has brought us safely through some pretty heavy weather, and I should be very sorry to see her cast adrift."

"Cast adrift nothin'! That ain't old Eph Brown's way," retorted the skipper briskly. "Is she very heavy?"

"On the contrary, she is an exceedingly light boat when empty," I replied.

"Ah!" remarked my interlocutor. "Then I guess we'll have all that stuff—your stock of provisions, I reckon—out of her, and then we'll unship the lee gangway and run her inboard fisherman fashion. It'll be quicker than riggin' tackles; and I'm in an almighty big hurry." He faced forward and hailed a couple of his men. "You, Sam and Pete, lay aft here and lend a hand to get the stuff out of this boat."

"But there is no need to trouble your people, Captain," I interrupted. "We will empty her ourselves in a brace of shakes. Murdock and Chips, just jump down into the gig and pass those things out of her. Haul her close up under the counter, and we will pass you down a rope's end over the taffrail to sling them to."

"Yes, I guess that'll do the trick," agreed the skipper. "And you, Sam and Pete," he continued, turning to the two men who still lingered, "turn-to and unship the lee gangway, ready to run the boat inboard when she's cleared. We'll stow her, right side up, alongside of the longboat."

A quarter of an hour later saw the gig hauled inboard and snugly stowed, after which the Martha Brown was kept away upon her course and the studdingsails were rehoisted, our boatswain, carpenter, and sailmaker lending a hand, while Cunningham and I remained aft, chatting with our new friend. As the last rope was belayed the skipper stepped to the skylight, peered down through it, and then turned and struck eight bells. Almost immediately afterward a lad emerged from the cabin companion, went forward to the little galley, and presently reappeared bearing a large covered dish in one hand and a capacious coffee-pot in the other.

"Aha!" exclaimed Brown, smacking his lips in anticipation, "breakfast; and I guess it smells good. Now I reckon that you 'uns have been upon pretty short commons this last few days, and'll be in good shape to enj'y a square meal. I guess you two'll have to mess in the cabin along o' me; the hands for'ard'll look a'ter the rest of your crowd."

At the skipper's invitation Cunningham and I forthwith followed him below to an exceeding small but very comfortable cabin, upon the tiny table of which was set out a quite unexpectedly enticing meal, to which Brown helped us both with most hospitable liberality. For a little while we ate and drank in silence; but presently, when we had taken the keen edge off our appetites, our kindly host asked for details of the circumstances under which we had come to be knocking about in mid-ocean in an open boat.

"Waal, I'll be sugared!" he ejaculated, after I had related to him in detail the incidents connected with the seizure of the Zenobia by her crew, under the leadership of Bainbridge; "if that don't beat everything! And you say that the skunk means to set up in business as a pirate? But is this here barque of yourn armed? Do she mount any guns? Because, if she don't, how do that crowd of toughs reckon they're goin' to hold up and rob a ship?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I haven't the slightest notion," I replied; "but, knowing Bainbridge so well as I do, I have no doubt that he has a scheme of some sort in his head."

"Waal," agreed the skipper, "if he's pretty cute he may p'rhaps bluff a skipper or two; but I guess he'll very soon be euchred—a man-o'-war'll nab him afore he can say 'Jack Robinson'. And now," he continued, "about you 'uns. From things said while you was spinnin' that yarn of the mutiny I seemed to get a sort of notion that you'd like me to put ye ashore as soon as possible. Is that the idee?"

"Precisely," I said. "Mr Cunningham, here, naturally wishes to return to England with as little delay as may be; and as for myself, I am equally anxious, because, until I can get into touch with the owners of the Zenobia, and be placed by them in another ship, I am losing time."

"I see," commented the skipper meditatively; "yes, I reckon I kinder understand the situation. By the by, did you say, just now, that you was a purty good navigator, or did I only fancy it?"

"I don't remember having exactly said such a thing," I replied; "but possibly I may have implied as much. Anyhow, I think I am justified in saying that I am navigator enough to take a ship from any one part of the world to any other."

"Ah!" returned the skipper; "I had an idee that I'd understood as much. Now, then, just listen to me. I guess I can't put ye ashore until we arrives at Punta Arenas, away down there in the Magellan Straits, because the solid fact is that I'm in a most tarnation, all-fired hurry to get into the Pacific. Of course I'll be very willin' to tranship ye into a homeward-bounder, if we happens to fall in with one—and you really wants to go. But I've been thinkin' matters over a bit while we've been talkin', and I've a proposition to make that maybe'll suit ye just as well as goin' back to the old country. I s'pose you've noticed that I haven't got nary a mate with me?"

"Well," I confessed, "to tell you the truth, I've been wondering how it is that I have not yet seen him."

"You ha'n't seen him because I guess he ain't here to see," remarked the skipper. "I been unfort'nit in the matter o' mates this trip," he continued. "My reg'lar mate what always sails with me is my nevvy, Abr'am Brown, as slick a youngster as ever I wish to see. But he met with an accident the day before we sailed; trod on a banana peel, fell awk'ardly, broke his right leg, had to go to the hospital, and I had to look round in a hurry for somebody to take his place. Got a chap that looked all right; but we hadn't been to sea above forty-eight hours when he made a bad break—got so tarnation drunk that I couldn't get him out of his bunk for a night and a day. And a'ter that he kept on soakin' on the sly—though where he got the liquor from I couldn't find out to save my life—until things come to such a pass that if it hadn't been that I was in such a tarnation hurry I'd have put in somewhere and fired him. Wisht I had, now. But I didn't; and the end of it was that he went crazy, jumped overboard, and was drowned, one dark night when we'd been out just three weeks.

"Now, my proposition is this. You look real smart, and are a good navigator, while I'm short of a mate. If you care to accept the position I'll sign ye on at the same rate of pay—namely, thirty dollars a month—that the other chap was gettin'. Now, what d'ye say?"

"But I don't even know yet where you are bound for, or what is the probable duration of the voyage," I objected. "Naturally I should like to know these particulars before binding myself."

"Sure," agreed the skipper, in nowise offended at my apparent hesitation. "Well then," he continued, "I'm boun' for a certain spot in the Pacific, for a certain very partic'lar reason: and if you agree to sign on I'll tell ye the reason, and just exactly where the spot is; but if you don't sign on it won't matter to you where I'm goin', or what I'm out after. That's one of the reasons for this here v'yage. T'other is to trade off a lot of truck what I've got down below, for sandalwood. And when I've got a full cargo of the wood I propose to go on to Canton, sell it, and buy tea with the proceeds; said tea to be sold in due course at New York, where the v'yage will end. And I reckon that the trip'll run into all of eight or nine months."

"And a jolly fine trip it will be," remarked Cunningham. "I wish I had your chance, Temple; I would take it like a shot."

"You don't say?" remarked the skipper, eyeing Cunningham earnestly. "But then, you see, you ain't a sailor," he observed.

"No, that is very true," returned Cunningham. "By profession I am a civil engineer. But I am also a keen yachtsman; and I know something more than the rudiments of navigation. But of course," he added hastily, "I have not the qualifications which would fit me for the berth that you are offering to Temple."

"N-o; I reckon not," agreed the skipper meditatively. "Still—p'rhaps I might be able to find a use for ye—if ye cared to come along—upon such terms as I could see my way to offer ye."

"Well," remarked Cunningham, with a laugh, "we can discuss that later on—if Temple accepts your offer."

Meanwhile I had been thinking rapidly. There was no very especial reason why I should return to England at once, for I had no relatives to be anxious over my disappearance, the only individuals who were in the least interested in me being my late father's trustees, to whom I could write from Punta Arenas. Then the voyage of the Martha Brown, as sketched by her skipper, rather appealed to me; sandalwood collecting meant a call at several of the South Sea Islands, and the South Sea Islands and romance were synonymous terms with me at that time. Also, the pay was good, exceptionally good for such a berth as that of mate of a ninety-ton schooner; and although I should probably sacrifice my indentures, that was a matter that gave me very little concern. Altogether I felt very strongly disposed to close with Brown's offer, the only really serious obstacle in the way being the fact that I felt I had a duty to perform to the three seamen who had formed part of our little company in the gig. First-rate fellows they were, all three of them, knowing their vocation to its smallest detail, and thoroughly at home aboard a ship in blue water, though ashore they were as guileless and helpless as babes, ready to fall an easy prey to the first land shark that got scent of them. If I could be sure of arranging at Punta Arenas for their conveyance to England, either as shipwrecked seamen or otherwise, and thus discharging my responsibility so far as they were concerned, I would not hesitate for a moment. I decided to put the matter to the skipper, and did so, there and then.

"Ah!" he said, "I was goin' to speak to you about them there men of yourn. D'ye think they'd be inclined to sign on with me for this here v'yage?"

"Really, I do not know in the least," I replied, regarding him with astonishment. "If you like I will—"

"It's like this, you see," he interrupted me, no doubt observing my look of surprise. "There's six hands in this here schooner's fo'c'sle—three to each watch; and when I shipped 'em I reckoned that with me, the mate, the cook, and the cabin boy there'd be plenty of us for all the work we'd have to do. But just when we was startin'—we was actually castin' off the warps at the time—a letter was handed to me that, bein' busy just then, I put into my pocket and forgot all about until a couple of days a'terwards, when we'd cleared Cape Henry and was fairly out to sea. Then, while I was goin' through my pockets, huntin' for something else, I comes across this here letter, and opened it. And I tell you, Mister, that there was news in it that made me sit up and feel mighty anxious all of a sudden to get away round to the Pacific as quick as possible. And it made me feel, too, that I wisht I had three or four more men along. So if your chaps are willin' to sign on with me I'll be glad to have 'em. Pay—well, they're good men, you tell me—say, twenty a month."

I glanced forward and saw that all three of the men were on deck, smoking, and chatting with the two hands who, with the man at the wheel, constituted the watch.

"They are on deck, I see," said I. "If you like I will mention your proposal to them, and see how they take it."

"I'll take it very kindly if you will, Mister," answered the skipper; and without more ado I beckoned them to join me in the waist, where I laid the skipper's offer before them, while the Old Man himself and Cunningham remained chatting animatedly together close by the companion, where much of the foregoing conversation had taken place upon our adjournment from the breakfast table.

I soon found that, with the careless, happy-go-lucky temperament of the British merchant sailor, all three men were perfectly willing to ship for the voyage—about which they had already heard something from the forecastle hands with whom they had been fraternising—especially when I told them that I had been offered the position of mate and felt strongly disposed to accept it; and accordingly I led them aft there and then, and informed the skipper that we all accepted his offer, and without further ado we went below and signed articles.

When, after signing, we all returned to the deck, and the three English seamen had gone forward, Cunningham came up to me and said, laughingly:

"You will be interested to learn, Temple, that our worthy friend here, Captain Brown, has also offered me a post, which I have accepted. As nearly as I can define it, the position is that of honorary second mate; it carries with it no pay, but in lieu of that I am to be perfectly free to leave the schooner whenever I please, and am to live in the cabin, receive cabin rations, and obtain, free of cost, an entirely new outfit of clothes from the slop chest. What do you think of my bargain?"

"I consider it a very fair one," said I, "with perhaps a slight advantage in favour of the skipper. For although of course he could doubtless do perfectly well without you, your grub and a new rig-out will not cost him very much; and in return for that he will get—as long as you choose to remain with us—the ability to sleep in all night with a perfectly easy mind: for I can assure the captain," and I here turned to that individual, who was standing by, intently listening to all that was said, "that although you are not a professional seaman you are quite sailor enough to take care of this schooner during your watch. Also you are a man of intellect and education, well-read, musical, and with an inexhaustible fund of intensely interesting conversation, so that I think Captain Brown will find in you a very agreeable companion."

"Ay, ay, you've just hit it, Temple," cut in the skipper. "That's just what I thought when I was listenin' to you two fellers talkin' at breakfast-time. Says I to myself: 'Now, here's two chaps with the speech and manners of gentlefolks, chaps as can hold their own with anybody when it comes to talkin', and yet they're sailors too—at least one of 'em is; and if you, Eph Brown, what have never had no more eddication than what you could pick up, could only persuade them two to jine yer in this here v'yage, you'd have such a chance as you've never had before to learn gentlefolks' manners, to talk proper, and ginerally to comport yourself in such a fashion as'd make your dear old Marthy fit to bust herself with pride to see and hear ye when ye get back home again, 'specially as you hopes to strike it rich this trip.' So there you are, gents: you can call me Cap'n as often as you likes—it sounds good, and makes me feel as though I was some punkins—but otherwise I'd like you to talk to me and behave to me just as if we was all eq'als; and whenever you hear me makin' a bad slip up in the matter of language, I'll take it very kindly of ye if you'll just pull me up with a round turn and p'int out where I've gone wrong."

It was rather an amusing proposal, certainly, for a shipmaster to make to his officers, but the old fellow was so transparently frank in recognising his shortcomings, and so earnestly anxious to have them remedied, that both Cunningham and I entered quite heartily into the spirit of the thing, and readily undertook to do everything that lay in our power to polish up his manners and speech in readiness for the surprise which he proposed to spring upon his "dear old Marthy" upon his return to Baltimore.



CHAPTER SIX.

SKIPPER BROWN RELATES A REMARKABLE STORY.

"And now, gents," said the skipper, when we had satisfactorily arranged the important and rather delicate matter referring to the improvement of his speech and deportment, "I'm sorter hankerin' to have a talk with you both about that there letter I was tellin' you of a while ago—the letter that was handed to me just as we was makin' a start from Baltimore, and that I forgot all about until we was fairly out to sea.

"This here letter told me—But stop a bit; if I want you to understand the thing properly, and I surely do, I guess I'll have to give you the whole history of it from the very beginnin'. Along about three months ago, just after I'd got home from my last v'yage, I happened to have a bit of business to attend to that called for a trip over to New York; and when I'd got through with what I had to do, the fancy took me to stay over for a day or two and have a look round, me not havin' been in New York for quite a number of years before, you'll understand. And while I was doin' my lookin' around I must needs go nosin', like a fool, down into the Bowery. And down there I runs up agin a ragged skeleton that looks me hard in the face and hails me with: 'Hello, Eph Brown, what cheer? Blamed if you ain't the very chap that I've been most wantin' to see.'

"I guess I was pretty well struck of a heap, for I didn't reckernise the chap from Adam; all I noticed was that he didn't seem to ha' had a bath since his mother give him one as a baby, that he was dressed in clo'es that ought by rights to have belonged to a scarecrow, that he was that thin and cadaverous he might have just escaped from the Morgue, and that his breath was reekin' of cheap whisky.

"'Now, who in Tom Hawkins may you be?' says I; for, you see, the feller knowed my name all right, yet, seein' where we was, and what the man looked like, I sorter suspicioned that he wasn't exactly square, and was tryin' to get at me.

"'What!' he says; 'd'ye mean to say as ye don't remember me—Abe Johnson—what used to play with yer in the old days when we was boys together away in dear old Nantucket?'—Nantucket, you'll understand, gents, bein' the place where I was born.

"'No,' says I, 'I don't, and that's the cold, solid truth. But if you're really Abe Johnson you'll remember the names of a few people in Nantucket, and a few of the things that we done together. Where, f'r instance, did I live when you knew me?'

"Well, he told me where I lived, give me the names of a lot of people that we both used to know, and reminded me of a good many things that we done together that I'd clean forgot all about until he mentioned 'em. Oh yes, he was Abe, sure; and when he see that he'd satisfied me upon that p'int, he told me a real downright pitiful tale, and struck me for ten dollars. He was right away down on his luck, he said; and I guess he was speakin' the truth, if looks went for anything.

"Now, Abe never had amounted to much when I knew him; he was just a low-down, ornery cuss every way that you looked at him. But I was al'ays a bit tender-hearted, and I sorter pitied the feller; so a'ter I passed over the ten-spot to him I took him into a restyrong and filled him up with a good square meal. And while we was eatin' he told me a long yarn about what he'd been doin'; how he'd tried fust one thing and then another, and had finally took to the sea. And it seemed that his bad luck had follered him there, for he'd ended up by bein' shipwrecked upon one of them uncharted reefs that you runs up agin sometimes in the Pacific, he bein' the only survivor out of the whole crowd. If he was tellin' me the truth he must ha' had a pretty rough time on that reef, for he described it as bein' as bare as the back of your hand, with nothin' to eat but birds' eggs and clams, and only a small, tricklin' stream of brackish, scarcely drinkable water to quench his thirst with. And he was on that there reef five solid months afore a whaler comed along and, seein' his signals, took him off, and later transferred him to another ship that brought him home.

"Now when Abe had got this far with his yarn he begun to get mysterious, sunk his voice to a whisper, and asked if he could trust me. I told him that he best knew whether he could or not, and that anyway, if the thing was a secret, I didn't want to hear anything about it.

"'Ah, but,' says he, 'there's a fortune in it—a fortune for both of us, Eph, if I can only trust you.'

"'Well,' I says, 'as I told ye before, that's for you to decide. But if you're agoin' to trust me, get along with your trustin', for I reckon I've had about enough of this 'ere place; I don't like the looks of the folks I sees around me, not a little bit, and I'm growin' sorter keen to get out of it.'

"'All right,' he says, 'let's git.' So we got, and made our way to Central Park, where we found a seat in a quiet, secluded spot, and sat ourselves down. And there, a'ter sayin' as he'd got a secret that he must share with somebody if he was to get any good out of it, and that I was the only reely honest feller he knowed, Abe up and told me how, a'ter he'd built a bit of a raft out of some of the wreckage of the ship, so's he could go off fishin' in her, he one day happened to hit upon a big bed of pearl-oysters, thousan's—millions of 'em! He sorter guessed what they was when he first set eyes on 'em, as he looked down through the clear green water, and tried to get down to 'em by divin'. But that wa'n't no good; the water was too deep—a good five fathom he said there was over 'em—and then there was sharks about too. So he unlaid a bit o' rope from the wreckage, knocked some nails out o' some o' the timber that had druv ashore, and fixed up a sorter small grapple, with which he went gropin' out on this here oyster bed. But the thing wasn't of much account, accordin' to what Abe himself said. First he'd got to git it just so over a oyster afore it'd take holt; and then, when he'd hooked one, as often as not the blamed thing'd let go agin afore he got the oyster up out o' water: consequently it come to this, that with all his gropin' he only managed to land four oysters altogether. But out of them four two had pearls in 'em, one bein' as big as a small marble, while the others was little 'uns—three of 'em—'bout the size of cherry stones.

"Well, he took care of them there pearls, and managed to bring 'em home with him. And then, 'stead of takin' of 'em to a respectable jeweller, he must needs try to trade 'em off to a Chinaman! Of course you can guess what happened. The Chink purtended that he was game to buy, took Abe to his house—leastways the Chink said it was his—doped Abe, stole the pearls, and vamoosed!

"Then, a few days a'terwards, along comes I; and when Abe reckernised me he made up his mind in a minute what he'd do. First of all he offered to sell me the secret of the whereabouts of the oyster bed for fifty thousand dollars! Only fifty thousand, mind yer, and nothin' but his bare word for it that there was so much as a single oyster in the place! I got up to go away and leave him; and then he asked me if I was game to go shares with him—he to give me the secret, I to go out to the Pacific and fish up the pearls, and the two of us to divide equally when I got back home again. Well, that was somethin' more like a business proposition, and after a lot o' talk I agreed; and he give me the latitood and longitood of the place right there, afore I left him, I givin' him a hundred dollars on account, to carry him along a bit until he could get a job. Then I went back home to Baltimore and began to figure upon the best way to work the scheme. I wa'n't rich enough to make the trip purely as a speculation, so at last I hit upon the sandalwood idea, which I reckon'll pay the expenses of the v'yage and return me a profit, even if I don't find nary a pearl, although I've a very good notion that they're where Abe said they was. The next thing I did was to get a few p'ints upon the ins-and-outs of sandalwood tradin'; and when I'd done that I started out to get my stock of notions, overhaul the schooner and make her ready for the v'yage, and look about for a crew of men that I could be sure wouldn't play no tricks after we'd got hold of the pearls.

"We sailed from Baltimore the day a'ter Christmas, and, as we was castin' off, this here letter that I told ye about was handed aboard. And when I come to open it, what d'ye think was the news in it? Reckon you'll never guess. I've got a cousin 'way over in Nantucket—he's pretty well-to-do—and findin' myself runnin' a bit short o' money when it come to fittin' out the schooner, I went over to him, told him all about Abe and the pearls, and asked him to lend me a thousand dollars to leave with my old Marthy, to keep her goin' while I was away. He knows me, and let me have the dollars straight away. Well, this here letter was from him; and what it said was that he was writin' in a hurry to tell me that he'd just heard, quite by accident, that Abe was dead—died in hospital in New York, havin' been run over and fatally injured by an express wagon two days a'ter I'd left him. And—this is where the trouble comes in—afore he died he sent post-haste for his brother-in-law, Abner Slocum, to go to him to oncet, as he had somethin' most terrible partic'lar to tell him. Abner went; and although my cousin don't know what Abe told him, he guesses it had somethin' to do with the pearls, because when Abner got back after buryin' Abe he went to work in a most tremenjous hurry to get his schooner, the Kingfisher, ready for sea, observin' the greatest secrecy about it, and refusin' to say what the hurry was, or where he was boun' to. But he was layin' in such a big stock of provisions and water that people got talkin' about it; and that was how my cousin got to hear what was goin' on. But he didn't get to hear of it until just at the very last, which was on the day that the Kingfisher went to sea, which was two days before Christmas! So, you see, this Abner Slocum was in such a tarnation hurry to git away that he wouldn't even wait to spend Christmas with his wife and kiddies. Now, what d'ye make of that yarn?"

"Well," said Cunningham, "I am bound to admit, Captain, that it looks very much as though your friend Abe, finding himself upon his deathbed, had sent for his brother-in-law and divulged to him the secret of the oyster bed. Probably when he found himself dying, and realised that he could derive no personal benefit from his discovery, he wished that the wealth should go to his own family."

"That's how I figure it out," agreed the skipper. "But I reckon that my claim's just as good as Abner's, Abe havin' entered into a business agreement with me. Besides, it isn't as though Abner'd make good use of the money when he'd got it. I know Abner Slocum through and through, and I tell you, gents, that he's out-and-out the very worst character in all Nantucket—a real, downright hard case, and—well, everything that's bad; and if he happens to get any o' them pearls he'll just drink hisself to death in three months, and most likely kill his wife into the bargain."

"Then in that case," said I, "it seems to me that it will be a great deal better that he should not have any of them."

"Well, that's just my view of it too," agreed the skipper. "But I guess he's goin' to do his level best to get hold of 'em," he continued. "I reckon that Abe must ha' told him that he'd parted with his secret to me, and that I was fittin' out to go in search of them there oysters, and that's the reason why he was so all-fired anxious to get to sea before me. And as a matter o' fact he did it; he sailed three clear days ahead of me, and must ha' been just about off Cape Henry when we cleared it. So it's a race between the two schooners which'll get there fust, and, barrin' accidents, I reckon it's goin' to be a neck-and-neck one, for the Kingfisher's the smartest schooner sailin' out o' Nantucket; and although Abner Slocum's such a downright 'bad man' I'll say this for him—there ain't a better seaman sailin' under 'Old Glory' than what he is.

"Now, gents, this here is my idee. I'm agoin' to carry on, night and day, to get to that there spot in the Pacific where them pearls be; and when I gets there I'm goin' to scrape up as many oysters as ever I can lay hands on. And when I've got 'em, and have realised upon 'em, I shall look upon half of the proceeds as belongin' to Abe, or—he bein' dead—his heirs. But I mean to take partic'ler care that, let the heirs be who they may, that skunk Abner don't touch a penny of the money. If it turns out that Abner's children is the heirs, then I'm goin' to app'int trustees to look a'ter the money for 'em until a'ter Abner's dead, and then they can have it."

"Bravo, Captain!" exclaimed Cunningham, patting the skipper approvingly on the back. "A most wise and honourable decision to have arrived at, I call it; and, so far as I am concerned, I'll do all I can to help you to carry it out. By the way, how do you propose to obtain the oysters when you arrive at the spot where, according to your friend Abe, they are to be found?"

"How do I intend to get 'em?" repeated the skipper. "Why, with a trawl, of course. I've got some specially strong trawlin' gear aboard, made o' purpose for the job."

"I see," commented Cunningham. "It did not occur to you to get any diving gear, I suppose?"

"Well—no, it didn't, and that's a fact," answered the skipper. "But I guess we'll find that the trawl'll work all right," he added cheerfully.

"Yes, no doubt," agreed Cunningham. "But of course," he added, "the diving system would have worked very much more rapidly, because, you see, if you had happened to possess a set of diving gear you could have anchored the schooner right over the bed, sent your diver down with two large sacks, or nets, and while he filled one you could have hauled up the other and emptied it into the bins or barrels ranged round the decks in readiness to be conveyed ashore and emptied after the day's work on the bed was over. In that manner you could have secured several thousands of oysters daily."

"Ay, I reckon we could. But I guess we'll have to be content to work with the trawl, seein' that we've neither divin' gear nor diver aboard," replied the skipper, rather regretfully.

"Well, I am not quite so sure about that," observed Cunningham thoughtfully. "I have the germ of an idea in my head, and will see if I cannot develop it. Do you happen to have any rubber hose on board?"

"Sure!" replied the skipper. "Got a hundred feet of brand new hose for washin' decks with. It's a bit extravagant, I know, but I 'low it'll pay in the long run."

"It most certainly will, and very handsomely too, if I can put my idea into shape. Have you used the hose at all yet?" asked Cunningham.

"Used it every mornin' since we left Baltimore," replied the skipper.

"Then let me earnestly beg you not to use it any more, just for the present at least," entreated the engineer.

"Just as you say," answered the skipper cheerfully. "We've got our old canvas hose stowed away somewhere. I'll have it routed out."

"Right," agreed Cunningham. "And while I'm keeping my watch on deck I'll think over this scheme of mine. I should rather like you to get the better of that man—what is his name?—oh yes, Slocum!"

"Yes, that's all right," assented the skipper. "But—look here, if that there scheme of yourn has to do with divin', Mister, who's goin' to do the divin'? I don't know nothin' about it."

"But I do," remarked Cunningham cheerfully. "I'll do the diving if I can only work out this idea that has come to me. And I believe I can."

From this point the conversation drifted away into generalities, and finally the skipper went below, leaving me in charge of the deck and of the forenoon watch. Later on Brown informed me that the late mate's cabin was entirely at my service, while Cunningham was inducted into a small spare stateroom which was in use as a sort of extra sail-room, but which the skipper ordered to be cleared out for the engineer's accommodation. Also, it appeared that when the late mate went overboard he left behind him a very fine sextant, which the skipper had purchased at the auction of the effects of the deceased, and this instrument he allowed me to use.

We, the new arrivals aboard the Martha Brown, shook down into our positions with a degree of promptitude that excited the liveliest admiration of the skipper. He was a shrewd old fellow, however, and for the first two days after our arrival he remained on deck all day, and was frequently up and down during the night, frankly confessing that he was anxious to observe the manner in which his new officers performed their duties; but after that he announced his intention to sleep in all night, laughingly declaring that as he was now employing two mates he saw no reason why he should not leave them to do the work and take his ease like a gentleman. He was good enough to express his complete satisfaction with my abilities as a navigator, and opened his eyes in astonishment when he saw that I was not content with a mere daily observation of the meridian altitude of the sun, but used as well such comparatively intricate problems as those of the double altitudes, lunars, altitudes of the stars, and Great Circle sailing. But what gratified him most of all, I think, was the fact that before we had been aboard two days I had got Simpson, the sailmaker, at work upon an enormous jack-yard gaff-topsail for use in light winds, the only gaff-topsail that the schooner had hitherto possessed being a trumpery little jib-headed affair which she could carry in quite a strong breeze. I also caused a set of preventer backstays to be fitted, which enabled us to carry an amount of canvas in a breeze that would otherwise have been impossible.

We certainly did carry on in a manner that sometimes made the old man gasp with astonishment, for hitherto he had been in the habit of sailing his schooner in a very jog-trot fashion; but now we handled her as we would have done a racer, and it was surprising to see how, day after day, her mileage increased, and how rapidly her track on the chart stretched southward. The skipper, in his groping, cautious way, had fully intended to make sure of his position by heading for and sighting the Falklands before attempting to make the Straits, but I told him I regarded that as an utterly useless waste of time, and worked out a Great Circle track direct for Cape Virgins, at the entrance to the Straits, to his mingled consternation and delight. "If you don't cast the schooner away between you," he said, "I guess we'll get to that there oyster bank early enough to clean it out before the Kingfisher arrives; for, smart seaman as Slocum thinks hisself, I reckon he ain't a patch on you for carryin' on."

For the first three or four days after our arrival on board the Martha Brown, Cunningham devoted his energies entirely to the task of qualifying himself to take charge of a watch, looking after the ship, and generally polishing up his somewhat rusty seamanship; but he very quickly settled into his place, and then, whenever he had a spare moment, he got to work with a pencil and paper, making sketches and calculations. Then, one evening in the second dog-watch, he brought to me a sheet of paper on which he had sketched the outline of a human figure; he first showed me this, and then, producing a tape measure, he desired me to measure him very accurately, jotting down upon the diagram the several measurements as I called them out.

Then, a day or two afterwards, I found him busily at work with a quantity of light, thin, iron rod, which he had routed out from among the ship's stores. This rod he cut up into carefully measured lengths, and he welded and riveted these together, with the aid of a portable forge which he had rigged up on the lee side of the fore deck, until, in the course of a week, he had constructed some half a dozen light but strong skeleton frames. Having tried and proved these to his satisfaction, he procured an empty oak barrel, and, taking it carefully to pieces, set the carpenter to work to saw, cut out, and carefully plane up a number of thin strips from the staves. Then, when he had got as many of these strips as he required, he had small holes bored in them in certain positions, and, by means of a quantity of fine wire, proceeded to bind them carefully and strongly to the skeleton frames which he had previously made. And when he had done that, to my amazement he calmly proceeded to induct himself into them, with my assistance, and I then saw that the whole affair constituted a complete body armour of a kind, helmet and all. But, even then, I had no idea of what he was driving at until he condescended to explain.

"This," he said, "is the foundation of my diving suit, which will be complete when I have covered it with a double thickness of well-oiled canvas. The framework of thin rod will keep the water pressure off my body; the battens will support the outer covering of canvas and prevent it from bursting; and you will see that by the arrangement which I have adopted I secure ample flexibility for my purpose. Then, as soon as we arrive at our destination, I intend to have one of the screw deck-lights bodily removed and temporarily fixed in my helmet, which will enable me to see what I am doing when under water. Of course I shall need weights to hold me down; and my air will come down to me through the rubber deck hose, one end of which will be let into the back of my helmet, while the other will be firmly secured to some portion of the schooner where it will be out of the way. Of course it will be a very rough-and-ready, makeshift affair, but I believe it will prove fairly efficient for the purpose."

Cunningham's next business was to cut out and have sewn together for himself a single garment which combined the functions of stockings, trousers, and shirt. This was made of a double thickness of stout canvas, each thickness being well coated on both sides with two coats of boiled oil. It was a weird-looking garment, as it was intended to fit on outside the armour arrangement which he called his diving suit; but it was merely intended to exclude the water, and when it was finished and fitted I saw that it would serve its purpose perfectly well, and there seemed to be no reason why he should not be able to work in it at the bottom of the sea perfectly well. And he completed the whole affair by firmly attaching one end of the rubber hose pipe to the back of his helmet.

We made Cape Virgins on the day and at the hour, and almost the minute, which I had predicted, to the intense admiration and delight of the skipper; and reached Punta Arenas, in the Strait of Magellan, on the afternoon of the same day. Here we came to an anchor, and Brown, Cunningham, and I went ashore, the skipper's business being to arrange for the refilling of our water tanks and the supply of a quantity of fresh meat, Cunningham's just to take a look round and stretch his long legs a bit, and mine to report the seizure of the Zenobia by Bainbridge and the crew, and to post to the owners a letter upon the same subject which I had prepared at my leisure. Our first enquiry was as to whether the Kingfisher had passed, and Brown's delight was great when he learned that thus far nothing had been seen of her.

We left Punta Arenas shortly after noon on the day following that of our arrival, still with no sign of the Kingfisher, and, being lucky enough to get a fine little slant of wind, safely accomplished the dangerous passage and entered the Pacific on the evening of the succeeding day. The slant of wind held long enough to enable us to gain an offing of a trifle over a hundred miles, and then it died away and left us becalmed and rolling gunwale under on the long Pacific swell.

Yes, there could be no doubt that the Martha Brown knew how to roll; it was my first experience of her in a flat calm and a heavy swell, and had we not hastily rigged rolling tackles I verily believe that she would have rolled the masts out of her. Even the skipper, proud as he was of her, felt obliged to make some sort of apology for her, which he wound up by saying: "But some day a smarty'll come along and invent some way of turnin' this here rollin' to account as a means of propulsion, and then you'll see that builders'll fashion all ships upon the model of the Marthy."

"Eh? What's that? Just say that again, Captain," remarked Cunningham, who, it being the second dog-watch, happened to be on deck.

The skipper said it again.

"Y-e-es," agreed Cunningham, thoughtfully, "y-e-es, I shouldn't wonder;" and he walked away contemplatively.

"Now I wouldn't be so very powerful surprised if he was to turn out to be the smarty that I just mentioned," observed the skipper, jerking his thumb toward where Cunningham stood gazing abstractedly over the taffrail, with his feet wide apart and his hands locked behind him, balancing himself to the violent movements of the little vessel.

"Possibly," I agreed. "Cunningham is of a very inventive turn of mind. But to convert the rolling motion of a ship into a forward movement is a pretty tall order, and would probably require exceedingly complicated machinery. The idea is by no means new, and I believe several inventors have had a turn at it; but nothing practical seems to have come of it as yet."

Nothing further was said upon the subject just then; but, the calm continuing all night and all the next day, I several times caught Cunningham with paper before him and a pencil in his hand, sketching and calculating. And when the next day also proved calm, and our observations showed that we had not progressed a couple of miles upon our journey, the skipper again addressed Cunningham upon the subject, asking him half-jestingly if he had not yet been able to devise some scheme to turn the eternal rolling to account.

"Oh yes!" answered Cunningham; "I dare say I could rig up some sort of an arrangement, if it were worth while. But it would be rather a cumbersome contrivance to ship and unship, and I would not recommend it unless there is likely to be much of this sort of thing between here and our destination."

"Well," said the skipper, "I reckon we may depend pretty certainly upon at least a fortnight of ca'ms afore we arrive at that there oyster bed; and it'd be worth a whole lot to me to get there a fortnight ahead of the Kingfisher. What's the thing like that you've invented, Mister, and could we knock it up out o' the stuff as we've got aboard?"

"Oh yes!" answered Cunningham, "I have kept strictly in mind our capabilities in the preparation of my sketch. I could easily devise a much better and more efficient concern, I am sure; but that would be quite useless to you, because we have neither the materials nor the skilled labour aboard to produce it. But," he continued, producing a pencil and paper and beginning to sketch rapidly, "I think we might manage to knock together a contrivance of this sort. There would be two of them, you understand, one on each side of the ship. This represents a stout timber frame, which would be secured in place by short lengths of chain bowsed taut by tackles, so that it would remain rigidly in position. It would reach from the rail down to about three feet below the surface of the water. This outrigger arrangement, which should be about nine feet long, will serve as the attachment for what we may call a fin, made of flexible planking securely fixed at its fore end to the outrigger, but quite free to move at the other end. Now this fin, being submerged when the frame is fixed in place, will be acted upon by the pressure of the water as the ship rolls, and will bend alternately upward and downward at an angle, the effect being that every time the ship rolls the bent fin will force backward a considerable quantity of water, or, what is the same thing, will have a tendency to thrust the ship forward at a rate which I estimate at—well, say about three knots per hour."

"Three knots an hour," repeated the skipper. "'Tain't very much, is it? I thought, maybe, that you'd be able to fix up somethin' that 'd shove her along at about ten or twelve knots."

Cunningham laughed as he shook his head. "Come, come, Captain!" he protested, "be reasonable. To get ten or twelve knots out of this schooner you would require a steam engine of some eighty to a hundred horse power."

"Ay," admitted the skipper, rather unwillingly, "I s'pose I should. Three knots an hour. That's, in round figures, seventy miles from noon to noon. And that, for, say, fourteen days, is—how much?"

"Nine hundred and eighty miles; call it a thousand," answered Cunningham.

"A thousand miles. Jings! It mounts up when you come to look at it that way," averred the skipper. "Look here, Mister," he continued, after thinking for a minute, "how long do you reckon it would take you to fix up that concarn of yours?"

"Oh, not very long," answered Cunningham. "The very roughest of workmanship would do, so long as it was strong. I dare say Chips and I could put it together in—well—say four days."

"Four days," repeated the skipper; "four days. Then I reckon you better go ahead straight away; and turn it out as quick as ever you can, for this here ca'm looks as though it meant to last a goodish while yet. The glass is high an' steady, with an upward tendency, if anything, and I don't see no sign of wind anywheres about."

Within an hour Cunningham and Chips were hard at work upon the contrivance for circumventing the "ca'ms", and before knocking-off time they had got on deck all the timber they required, and some of it sawn to its proper length. The next day saw the completion of the cutting, sawing, and planing; and then came a fresh westerly breeze which enabled us to lay up within about two points of our course for the next five days, during which Cunningham completed his work, all but the bolting on of the fins, which could be done in about ten minutes. Then the wind gradually veered until we were not only enabled to lay our course, but had it a couple of points free, when, the wind being light, our big jack-yard gaff-topsail came into play with magnificent effect, pushing the little hooker along at about six knots, when but for it she would scarcely have done four. And finally it fell calm again, and the schooner lost steerage way altogether. There was again every sign that the calm was likely to be prolonged—in fact, we were in the latitudes of the "Doldrums", or calms that occur just to the north and south of the Trade winds, where, as on the Line, the calms sometimes last for weeks at a stretch. It was therefore an excellent opportunity to test Cunningham's contrivance, and we accordingly proceeded to bolt it up and fix it in position. It was rather an awkward and cumbersome arrangement, demanding the united strength of all hands to get it over the side, and it took us a full hour to get both parts fixed firmly and to Cunningham's satisfaction. But it had not been in position five minutes before we saw that it was going to prove a success; for not only did it serve to steady the little vessel, and ease her rolling to a considerable extent, but she immediately began to gather way, and within half an hour was slipping along through the water at the rate of a shade over four knots by the log. The skipper was enchanted. "Furl everything, Mr Temple," he said, "and head her due no'th. We'll just meander along now under bare poles until we runs into the south-east Trades; and when once we hits them we'll be all right, and needn't start tack nor sheet again until we reaches our oyster bed."



CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE PEARL-OYSTER BED.

We caught the south-east Trade winds the next day, very light at first, but gradually freshening as we ran farther into them; and then, as soon as we found ourselves fairly in the grip of the true breeze, with the water rippling blue and crisply all about us, we got the schooner under canvas once more, hoisted our "fins" inboard, and bore away upon a nor'-west course, with starboard studdingsails and big gaff-topsail set and dragging like a team of cart horses. A week of this sort of thing carried us to the calm belt under the Line; and here we once more brought our "fins" into action, using them for three whole days and a trifle over before we touched the southernmost fringe of the north-east Trades, when we again went bowling along under all plain sail, that being as much as we could conveniently show to a beam wind. Finally, on a certain morning immediately after breakfast, I climbed to the topgallant yard, armed with Cunningham's telescope, which I had borrowed for the occasion, and, looking straight ahead, saw—just where I had expected to see it, namely, some fifteen miles beyond our jibboom end—a patch of white water, some three miles in length, stretching north and south right athwart the schooner's hawse. It was the coral reef upon which, if the skipper's friend Abe Johnson had spoken truth, that worthy had suffered shipwreck, followed by all the horrors of complete solitude for five solid months; and some two miles beyond which lay—according to Abe—the rich pearl-oyster bed that was the real object of the Martha Brown's visit to this lonesome spot in the heart of the Pacific.

"See anything, Mr Temple?" hailed the skipper from the quarterdeck, in a voice tense with excitement.

"Ay, ay, sir," I replied. "It is there, right enough, as plain as mud in a wine-glass, about fifteen miles off, and stretching right athwart our hawse. You had better luff a point, sir, and go round its northern extremity."

"Luff a p'int it is," answered the skipper, directing the helmsman. Then, as the schooner came to her new course, "How's that, Mr Temple?"

"Excellent, sir," I replied; "we shall just nicely clear the northern end of the reef if she is kept at that."

"D'ye see anything else besides the reef, Mr Temple?" asked the skipper,—"anything, I mean, in the shape of another schooner, for instance?"

"Nothing at all, sir," I answered.

"That's all right, then," answered the skipper in a tone of exuberant satisfaction. "I guess you don't need to stay up there no longer, do ye?"

I slung the telescope round my neck by its strap, and then, swinging off the yard, slid down to the deck hand over hand by way of the topgallant backstay, walking aft and joining the skipper and Cunningham as soon as my feet touched the planks.

"So the reefs there, all right, is it?" remarked Brown, as I joined the pair and returned the telescope with thanks to its lawful owner. "There ain't no chance of a mistake, I s'pose?"

"No chance at all," I replied confidently. "It is there as plain as the nose on one's face. If you remember, I told you yesterday that, provided the breeze held, we should be at anchor in the lagoon by noon to-day; and so we shall."

"Ay, ay," answered Brown. "I remember your sayin' so. And I didn't doubt your word, not for a second, for you're an A1 navigator, and no mistake. Never knowed a better. But I was just a little bit afeard that Abe might ha' been playin' it on me, or else that his riggers might ha' got a bit mixed. But I reckon it's a square deal, since you say that the reefs there. What do it look like?"

"From aloft it presents the precise appearance that you described to me," I said. "A bare reef, almost awash, with not a thing upon it, except a few birds which I could just make out circling in the air above it."

"Ay, that'll be it, sure enough," agreed Brown. "I remember Abe speakin' about them birds. Their eggs, some clams that he knocked off the rocks, and a fish or two that he managed to catch later on was all that the pore feller had to eat for five everlastin' months—and raw at that."

It was just five bells when we weathered the northern extremity of the reef and bore away to look for the entrance to the lagoon. I was then aloft again, for the sake of the more extended view obtainable from the height of the topgallant yard; and as we swept past the reef, and I looked down upon it, I thought I had never seen a more ghastly place for a solitary human being to be cast away upon. It was composed, apparently, of nothing but coral, upon which the everlasting surf was gradually casting up a deposit of sand, which, when dry, the wind was as gradually distributing over its surface. Here and there I observed dark patches which I took to be seaweed, partly buried in the sand; and there was a tolerably well defined tide-mark, consisting apparently of more seaweed, and flotsam of various kinds cast up by the surf.

But the most remarkable thing about the island was the multitude of birds, gulls principally. There were thousands of them in the air about the reef, and many more thousands of them sitting on the reef itself. The time was no doubt coming when the guano of these birds, their dead bodies, and the refuse of their food, mingling and agglomerating with the sand and rotting seaweed, would form an extraordinarily rich soil, upon which a few coconuts, drifting across the illimitable ocean, would be cast up by the surf, and, becoming buried, would sprout, throw out roots and shoots, and become trees, as has happened in the case of so many others of the Pacific islands. But at that moment there was not a green thing upon it.

The atoll, as a whole, was almost perfectly circular in shape, having a diameter of about four miles; and for purposes of description it may be spoken of as consisting of three parts, namely, the island, the lagoon, and the encircling reef. The island, which, being dry, was of course the highest part of the atoll, measured about three and a quarter miles long, and was crescent-shaped, being about three-eighths of a mile wide in the middle, tapering off north and south in the form of the cusps of the crescent moon; and from the extremities of the two cusps there swept away the encircling reef which enclosed the lagoon in a very perfect natural breakwater, having the inevitable opening as nearly as might be in its middle, just opposite the widest part of the island. But although I have spoken of the island as being the highest part, it must not be supposed that even this rose any considerable height above the level of the ocean, its highest point, as we subsequently ascertained, being only a bare six feet above the water's surface.