CHAPTER XI
ABOARD THE "ARROW"
It was not until the second day of the voyage back toward Santario that Hugh felt quite himself again. The nervous strain of his experiences as a captive would have been enough to exhaust him, and in addition he had suffered real buffeting and hardship at the hands of his captors.
Dave stretched a hammock for him on deck at the captain's orders, and there Hugh spent nearly the entire first day of the homeward trip.
The other boys and Norton diverted his few waking hours with stories and riddles and simple games, and Captain Vinton, himself, contributed more than one tale from his store of recollections.
"Tell you what, boys," the old captain said as he concluded one of his yarns, "we fellers these days meet with a few excitin' experiences now and then, but to get some idea of what lively times on the water may be, go back to John Paul Jones and his day, or even to the sea fights of '62."
"Have you read much of the history of those days, captain?" inquired Roy Norton interestedly, while the boys leaned forward to hear the reply.
"Son," said Captain Vinton in answer, turning to Alec Sands, his blue eyes alight with a keen expression, "Son, go to my cabin and bring me an old, worn book from the shelf there: 'Famous American Naval Commanders,' it is called."
Until Alec's return, the captain looked out over the water with far-seeing eyes, and the others, watching him, wondered what stirring scenes his imagination was picturing to him just then.
He glanced up as Alec handed him the volume of naval history and grasped it with the firm gentleness of a true book lover. He turned it over thoughtfully, straightened its sagging covers, opened and closed it several times, and finally spoke:
"Thar's the answer to yer question, Norton," he said. "And that's only one of about a dozen hist'ries I've got on my old shelf. When times is dull or I'm waitin' fer a party who've gone into the Everglades, or when the Arrow is lyin' off shore in a dead calm, then I start in at the first page of the book that happens ter be on the end of the shelf, and I live over the old days of the privateers, when it meant somethin' to sail the seas."
"Who is your biggest hero?" asked Mark as the captain paused.
The old man smiled humorously before he answered.
"Wal', my biggest hero," he said, "is the littlest hero on record as a sea-fighter, I guess. Like Napoleon Bonaparte, his bigness was not in his body but in his mind. And that's Paul Jones of the Bonhomme Richard."
As the captain pronounced the name of his hero, he struck his worn book a resounding slap, and his jaws clicked in emphasis of his statement.
"Can't you tell us something about him?" asked Chester, fascinated by the old captain's earnestness.
"That's the ticket—-I mean, please do," endorsed Billy heartily.
"No, I can't do that," was the deliberate reply, as the captain rose to relieve Dave at the tiller, "but you can all borry the book and read the historian's account of the battle between the Serapis and the Bonhomme Richard. I git so excited when I read that, I hey ter go put my head in a pail o' water to cool it off! Fact! You know that's whar the cap'n of the Serapis calls out: 'Hev ye struck?' And John Paul Jones shouts back: 'Struck! I am just beginnin' ter fight!'"
As Captain Vinton straightened his rounded shoulders and delivered this emphatic quotation, he shook his fist at an imaginary enemy and then brought it down hard on the railing. Then he grinned sheepishly.
"You see how 'tis," he said, laughing at himself as he moved away.
"Guess I'll hev ter stop talkin' or go fer that pail o' water!"
The boys, left to themselves, discussed the theme that the captain's words had suggested, and were rather ashamed to see how vague their knowledge of the famous battle was. So, at Alec's suggestion, Norton agreed to read the account of the fight as given in the captain's book; and grouped about Hugh's hammock, the boys listened eagerly.
"That makes our experiences on picket duty seem tame in comparison," said Alec, commenting on the story when Norton had closed the book.
"We were not all on the firing line," replied the young man, smiling.
"I'll venture to say that Hugh did not find his share at all tame."
Hugh smiled and nodded ruefully as his mind flew back to his dangerous situation as a captive of the desperate filibusters, and he felt that he could understand a little of what it meant to be in the thick of the fight.
"Me, too," exclaimed Billy, shuddering at a sudden recollection. "I haven't told you fellows that I came near having my ear shot off, that time the other night when I was separated from the rest of you for a while. Excuse me from anything nearer real battle fire than that!"
Just at that moment, a soft, regular thump-thump-thump from the deck behind Hugh's hammock made all the boys turn quickly.
There stood Dave, skillfully flinging gayly colored hoops over a post at some distance from him.
"Oh, ho! A game of ring-toss, is it?" cried Chester, rising eagerly.
"Say, boys, let's form rival teams and have a tournament."
"Good!" echoed Billy. "The Pickets versus the Pirates!"
"That sounds exciting!" called Hugh, sitting up in the hammock. "Count me in on that, boys. Guess I can get up long enough to take my turn now and then."
"Let Dave and Mr. Norton choose sides," suggested Alec, "Dave for the Pirates and Mr. Norton for the Pickets."
"Hurrah!" cried Mark. "On with the game!"
In less time than it takes to tell it, Dave, grinning broadly at his prominence, and Norton, entering into the contest with his usual spirit of enthusiasm, had chosen sides and a list was hastily written and posted on the cabin wall as follows:
Pirates vs Pickets
Dave Norton
Hugh Billy
Chester Alec
Mark Captain Vinton
"Oh, but I can't play!" protested the captain. "I've got my hands full with the Arrow!"
"We'll take turns and spell you at the helm," returned Norton.
"All hands on board are enlisted in this fight."
Pleased at his insistence, the old captain yielded the wheel whenever it came his turn to toss, and he proved to be an adept at the game, to everybody's delight.
Norton and Dave had agreed that the contest should consist of five complete rounds, giving just twenty opportunities to each side. Only the total successful tosses would determine the winning score, but the best individual records would decide who should be the team captains in subsequent games.
The fun of the thing entered into every one of the contestants, yet not one of them failed to put his best efforts into the game.
"Now we'll see some accurate shooting," called Billy as Hugh took the rings for his fourth turn.
"No fair trying to rattle me," returned Hugh, laughing good-naturedly.
"I'm still the interesting invalid."
"Hush!" whispered the irrepressible Billy quite audibly. "Don't say a word, boys! It might shake his nerve, you know, and he might suffer a relapse!"
"You teaser!" commented Hugh, beginning his play.
One after another, Hugh steadily tossed the rings over the post.
"Pshaw! You can't disturb him," ejaculated Alec. "He is as calm as the sea is just now."
"Five!" counted Chester softly. "Six! You put every one over this time, Hugh. Billy's jollying just inspired you!"
"And now it is his turn," said Hugh, returning to his hammock. "Now we shall see something!"
Billy flushed a little, grinned, set his teeth, poised his body firmly, and then swung into the position of the famous "disk thrower."
Thump! The first ring struck the deck a good foot beyond the post, rebounded, and rolled rapidly toward the railing.
Roy Norton stopped it with his foot and called, "Steady, Billy!
Take your time."
Thump! The second ring, tossed more cautiously, dropped at least six inches in front of the goal.
Thump! Thump! Thump! Three more landed in quick succession, draping themselves gracefully against the standard that upheld the post.
"One more, Billy. Make this one count," coached his captain urgently.
By this time, Billy's face was scarlet and his hand shaking. He took a long breath, fixed his eye on the top of the slender post, and tossed the ring desperately. It fell well to the right of the goal and rolled up against Dave's feet.
Dave quickly stooped to pick it up, trying to hide the wide smile that parted his lips.
Billy's scout friends made no attempt to be so polite. Pickets and
Pirates alike, they burst into a roar of laughter.
Captain Vinton, his weather-beaten face wrinkled into a dozen humorous lines, called out:
"Billy, words is sometimes like a boomerang—-they fly back and ketch ye, ef ye don't watch out!"
And so the contest progressed; now luck favored the Pirates, and again
Captain Vinton's skill brought up the uncertain score of the Pickets.
At the end of the final round, however, Dave's team had a clean balance of ten counts over the combined records of the Pickets, the winners showing a total of ninety-five successful throws out of a possible one hundred and twenty.
Captain Vinton had the best individual score, securing twenty-six out of a possible thirty points, while Hugh, thanks perhaps to Billy's inspiring comments, stood next with a record of twenty-four.
The sun was setting redly over an almost calm sea as the games were finished. Dave, beaming at the success of his team, vanished without urging and soon the welcome odors of supper cooking were wafted to the eager nostrils of the hungry boys.
That evening they all gathered around the old captain as he sat at the helm and guided the lazily-moving craft, begging him for another tale from his own reminiscences or from his favorite history.
"Wal', boys," agreed the captain at length, "I'll tell you about one sea fight that I almost witnessed myself. Fact is, I was a little too young to be thar, but my father was mighty nigh bein' in the thick of it, and I've heard him tell the tale a hundred times ef I hev once.
"It was in March, '62," the captain resumed after a little pause. "The North was consid'rably stirred up over rumors of how the Confederates hed raised the Merrimac and made out of her a terrible ironclad vessel, warranted to resist all ord'nary attacks. Then these rumors were followed by news of the destruction of two sailin' frigates, the Cumberland and the Congress.
"The Union forces were pretty uneasy when they heard what hed happened off Hampton Roads, but they were all pinnin' their faith to a little new ironclad just built on Long Island and already speedin' south ter meet the Merrimac. My old dad, servin' on the Roanoke, was lucky enough to see both them craft:—-the big, clumsy Merrimac, all covered with railroad iron and smeared with grease, and the nifty little Monitor, that they said looked like 'a cheese box on a raft'!
"Wal', 'course you boys hev all read about what happened when the little fellow steamed out ter meet the big fellow, the day after the frigates were destroyed.
"Fer four hours, Dad said, the two ironclads jest pestered each other with hot fire, but the shot and shell slid off them like water from a duck's back. The little Monitor darted around the big Merrimac like a bee buzzin' round a boy that had plagued it.
"Thar wa'n't no great harm done—-except that Lieutenant Worden, who was in command of the Monitor, got hurt by the bits of a shell that drove into his face—-but the little ironclad hed proved two things. Fust, that she could hold her own; and next that the day of wooden vessels in naval warfare was over.
"As you boys know, warships now-a-days are all ironclad. Folks hey called 'em 'indestructible,' but I guess thar ain't no sech word allowable any more. Between the new explosives and the airships—-wal', they say we ain't heard the last word yet, by a long shot!"
The old captain rose as he spoke, shaking his head thoughtfully and gazing out over the sea and into the sky.
"Wal', boys, off to yer bunks now! We'll hev a fairly calm night, but thar'll be wet decks to-morrow!"