CHAPTER III.—DOWN THE COAST—CAVARLY'S PLAN.
The Octarara might have ranked as a gunboat or a second-class cruiser, and it might be the Government did not rank her very high, for the only regular military aboard were three gunners and Simpson, chief gunner. Cavarly made Simpson master-at-arms, and set him drilling the crew, and left him mostly alone at it. Himself and Morgan, who ranked as mate, seemed to take no part in it, but to look on in a pleased kind of way, and find it quite amusing. They sailed the ship, with the other two Baltimore men, Gerry and Still, steersmen, and the engineers and stokers did nothing but oil cranks and polish brass. For Cavarly appeared to be in no hurry, nor anxious to use up coal, and nobody minded that, except Simpson. I did not like Simpson. Neither did Simpson like the Octarara, nor anything about her, and this with his falling foul of me immediately made me think him a person impossible to please.
“Cap'n Cavarly,” said Simpson, “beg-gin' your pardon, does that there boy belong fore or aft?”
“I reckon he belongs to you,” said Cavarly cheerfully. “Discipline. Tha's it. Discipline.”
“Git for'ard, you young pup!” cried Simpson, “ef you'll 'low me, cap'n. Pick up them lanyards. You hear me!”
“Haw, haw!” said Cavarly softly, and, looking back with furtive eyes from a safe distance, I saw Dan Morgan also and Calhoun by the taffrail laughing, and I thought it treacherous and unfriendly.
The next four days and nights I was hating Simpson busily, and wishing the deep sea between him and me. We were ever and again up to “repel boarders.” and nothing in sight but the blank sea, or maybe a glimpse of the low peaceful Jersey coast. Seeing me idle or in any way happy put Simpson in a mad rage; but I could wish that gruff warrant officer no worse ill luck than such a raw and mixed crew as ours to put in shape, with a captain and mate appearing to regard him as a joke and taking no responsibility themselves. What could be more distressful to such a man than to have for superior officers Dan Morgan, playing his banjo half the day; Cavarly, looking on with an everlasting cigar, and a mysterious gentleman supercargo like Calhoun?
The wind was clean and steady, and Cavarly kept the Octarara close reefed, at half her speed; she crept down the coast with little shift of sail day or night, and on the 20th passed some fifteen miles to seaward of Delaware Bay. Except for Simpson drilling and roughing, it was an idle enough crew.
I was not so ignorant of sailing—what with knocking about wharves and handling catboats on the river—as not to know that Cavarly was purposely taking his time; and if I had been, the talk in the forecastle would have set me thinking, though for that matter. I did not know that the forecastle always criticizes the cabin, as one of the rights of labour. I did not think much of Simpson's opinion, through simple dislike, beginning things with such general misjudgment of men as maybe is the case with most; but Simpson was not alone in thinking the conduct of the cabin peculiar.
After the morning drill exercise on the 20th there were more black-clay pipes going around the small safety stove in the forecastle than could be counted in the smoke. A dingy place, the forecastle, at best, but one that a man may grow to like well enough, if not over-squeamish. Simpson was there, and Gerry, and the bos'en, Hames, and an Irishman named Tobin, whose hair was red and thin.
“Will we get there, do ye think, Jimmie Hames?” said Tobin.
“Where?”
“Aw, beyant. Will it be while we're still young?”
“It ain't that we won't git there,” said Hames slowly. “It's why the ol' man don't want to git there soon as he kin. He don't, an' that's straight. Here's Gerry now, that comed with him from Baltimore. I asks him now, why don't he?”
Gerry puffed deliberately.
“Why,” he said at last, “I come f'om Baltimore. I don't deny it, do I? But if you asks, why don't he? I says, I reckon he has sec'et orders. But, I says, he never showed 'em to me. An',” he went on with ponderous scorn, “the Sec'etary o' the Navy come f'om Connecticut, same as you. Wha'd he tell you them see'et orders was, when you took dinner with him an' was int'oduced to three rear admirals?”
“Orders!” growled Simpson. “That's all right. He can hitch his hawser to a porpoise, if he's ordered. What's my business? That ain't. But what does the Government do next? Why they commissions the porpoise. Course, they do. It's politics. Makes volunteer naval officers as don't know a shell from a round shot till it busts in their ear. An' that ain't my business either. Oh, no!”
“Easy, gunner, easy,” said Gerry, who was a slow, heavy man. “I don't know see'et orders natchully, but I hears talk. I hears like this. I hears this boat's offered the Gove'nment by parties for a birthday present, supposin' Cavarly's cap'n an' the Gove'nment fits her out. An' the Gove'nment says, 'Hum.' says he, 'is he competent?' 'None better,' says they, 'for coast sailin'. 'An' there's Dan Morgan,' says they, 'sailed the Delaware an' southe'n tidewater these twenty years.' 'But,' says the Gove'nment, 'there might be a disagreement with the enemy,' says he, speakin' sa'castic. 'There you have us,' says the parties. 'Give him a master-at-arms an' gunners.' 'Ah!' says the Gove'nment. 'Jus' so. Take Simpson,' says he, an' cuts a caper, bein' that pleased. Now I asks, what's t'oublin' you? Ain't you competent? Ain't the cap'n standin' off an' givin' you free board? Ain't you as good as a commissioned officer, barrin' fo'c'stle bunk? What's t'oublin' you? That's what I asks.”
Simpson grumbled, but in a mollified way.
“I ain't sayin' he can't handle the ship.”
“Cap'n Cavarly,” said Hames, “is a good man I make no doubts, an' comin' from Maryland his principles is a credit to him.”
“I come from Maryland.”
“Sartain, sartain,” said Hames, soothingly, “an' your principles is a credit to you.”
“Glad o' that,” said Gerry in his heavy manner.
“But,” Hames went on, “who's this here Calhoun? Tell me that.”
“I do' know.”
“That's the point. A chap in gen'le-man's shore clothes, occupies a cabin an' no words. Goes snoopin' round like he owned the airth. Looks like a summer boarder. That's what I don't like. The cap'n an' the mate, they's pleasant chaps. I ain't down on 'em. But they're keerless, ain't they? Playin' banjos an' smokin' seegars. They ain't suspicious. 'Taint their natur'. Fellow comes along, seegars in both pockets, playin' the banjo with his elbow. Maybe he says he wants to write a book for the glory of his ken-try. Maybe he lies. Acts friendly anyhow. Cap'n asks him to jine 'em, bein' keerless an' happy, thinkin' it might be a good thing for the glory of his kentry. How do we know, you an' me?”
“Don't know,” murmured Gerry. “Cap'n's business.
“Calhoun!” said Simpson angrily. He'd better not come Calhounin' round me.”
All that day I could think of nothing but Calhoun, and how he must be a slippery villain, such as novels and plays describe very plainly, and always destroy in the end to everyone's satisfaction. So I went on to imagining Ben Cree standing by to distinguish himself, as a fellow of his age should, according to the story books, where there is apt to be such a one, remarkably young, with his pockets full of virtue and talent, and missing his destiny unless he can find a rascal to surprise with his virtue and talent. The only trouble was that Ben Cree was a numskull. I had gotten so far in the plot as to see without doubt that Calhoun was a disguised Confederate.
The Octarara passed Cape Henlopen about noon, and drew in to the low, sandy shore. By and by Gerry showed me where the Maryland dividing line came down.
The great moon rose—out of the sea it seemed to rise—and it was as if a path of bright metals were laid for it, supposing it wished to step down to the Octarara with dignity.
The air on deck was cold, but not bitterly so, the wind lessening, and the topsails and jibs spread full. A man or two was on the fore-deck, looking landward. I heard Tobin saying, “What's he drawin' in for, Jimmie?”
“I do' know.”
And then Dan Morgan aft called for Simpson.
More men came on deck. Simpson went aft and returned.
“Goin' to come to,” he growled. “Says he's expectin' orders. Durn likely he'll get 'em next month. What's my business? That ain't.”
Simpson went below growling in his throat.
“Sec'et orders,” said Gerry soothingly, and followed him.
But it was not until late, and the moon high in the air, that the anchor was dropped, with great bustle, in the midst of that strange quiet and brilliance of the night. The shore could be made out now dimly under the moon, and the soft moan of beach waves be heard, so near it was. Looking aft as we went below I could see the cabin lights all lit and shining up the companionway. Gerry and Still stayed up on watch.
I lay long awake in my narrow bunk, not able to sleep for foolishness, and acting out the plots of three or four mixed stories. One snore was added to another till the whole was a rumble like the bass of an organ. The smoky lantern hanging near the scuttle hardly swayed, for the sea was very still.
After a long time, it might have been an hour, I sat up and wondered if I dared go on deck. It took me some time to decide, what with imagining Simpson waking up and coming at me roaring.
Even getting on a pea jacket seemed an adventure, but done at last. I crept to the hatchway, shoes in hand and dreading Simpson, and so up and lifted the hatch. I wanted to get across behind the ship's boat on the port side, and look my fill at the shining water and the low-lying mysterious shore; and this I succeeded in doing. I heard steps coming forward along the main deck, and, peering over the top of the boat, seemed to make out it was Gerry, a good-natured man, but certainly one who would send me below where I belonged. I lifted a loose edge of the canvas that covered the boat, and crawled in, half frightened and half pleased with the excitement and conceit of the stratagem; much as in earlier days I used to hide behind boxes on the wharf, when Mr. Hooley went by with his buttons and club, and suppose myself a criminal and Mr. Hooley looking for me, that large, friendly officer.
Raising the loose edge of canvas I could see the full sweep of the deck, and sideways over the rail the moonlit water and shore. I could not see Gerry, but heard him stop by the hatch. There he seemed to stand quietly. I rubbed my fingers to warm them. It was not uncomfortable under the thick canvas.
On the quarter deck in the bright light of the companion way was Still, as if on guard like Gerry by the fore hatch, and by the rail, looking shorewards, were Cavarly and Morgan. Calhoun was not to be seen. Cavarly held a red lantern, and moved it once up and down, once to and fro, and stopped. Again up and down, to and fro, and stopped. I rubbed my fingers, and my scalp prickled. I wondered what he would be doing with a red lantern, like a switch tender; then I thought of Gerry and the “sec'et orders.” Presently there would come out a boat to be sure. What could Ben Cree ask better? and Mr. Hooley right beyond question that water thieving was low.
I peered from under the edge of canvas shorewards. A red light was there but a moment, and disappeared, whether on shore or in a boat, I could not tell. And so peering and straining, my eyes became blurred with the darkness and the glitter together, so that red lights and cloudy shapes seemed to be everywhere, and I had to rub them to be sure it was no ghost of a three-master, instead of a heavily oared boat coming aboard us.
But it was coming, now plainly in sight, bringing the “sec'et orders.” Secret orders! Boat! Three boats there were, loaded to the water's edge with men.
They came one behind the other, noiselessly, without clatter or clang of oarlock, or drip of blade, low in the water, dim in the moonlight, three masses of black heads and shoulders.
The oarlocks and blades were wrapped in cloths for muffling, making the rowing stiff but without noise.
Ben Cree was a scared one in a moment, and resembled no hero of his recollection, crouching in the ship's boat, bewildered, and not in the least wishing to jump out and demand the surrender of anything in sight.
They were wonderfully quiet. I could not hear a whisper, only the tap-tap of feet, as they came forward one by one and took stations about the hatch. Then I heard Cavarly speaking, first softly, then sharp and loud:
“Everyone cover his man, and stand for orders. Down with you!”
They went down with a roar, and so much confused noise rose up immediately that I made out but one separate sound, the sharp crack of a single pistol. It was quiet a moment, and then only Cavarly's voice giving commands. I lifted the edge of the canvas once more. The main deck was empty, except for one man at the gangway. On the quarter deck Calhoun was standing in the light of the companion. He walked forward and spoke to the man at the gangway.
A stream of men were coming up the fore hatch now, marching aft, two by two, at intervals of twenty feet, and passing quite near me. Simpson went first, his mouth working terribly with shame and anger. The rear man of each couple held a level pistol, and the moonlight shone on the barrel. Calhoun came along by them, sat on the end of the ship's boat over me and fell to whistling softly. Jimmie Hames passed, limping and half carried. He swore at Calhoun, who stopped whistling a moment and took it up again. Each man sent his prisoner down the gangway, and fell into line with his pistol lifted and ready.
Cavarly came forward, when that was settled, and sat on the edge of the ship's boat.
“Mr. Calhoun,” he began, “this here's a Confede'ate privateer.”
“So I suppose. Very clever, captain.”
“I hold letters of marque, quite regular, from Richmond.”
“So I suppose.”
“So you suppose. Jus' so. Will you have a cigar?”
Followed the sharp scratching of a match.
“You don't call yourself a citizen of anything in particular, hey? You've sailed the South Atlantic conside'able. I haven't myself. Tha's my point. But lookin' at it as a commercial speculation—tha's your point—why, I can offer you the regular qua'ter deck commissions, hey?”
“As a commercial speculation,” said Calhoun, “it's no good. You get prizes, but what then? You can't sell them. Your ports are blocked. That's neither your point nor mine, captain.”
“Well—then, wha's your point?”
“I take it you're out fighting according to your opinions. That's your point. As for me, I see two of my own. First, you've laid out a fair sized circus for this cruise. I like circuses. I'd rather do a tight rope than eat.”
“Jus' so,” said Cavarly doubtfully. “Tha's right.”
“Second point, this crew, that's leaving us unkindly, is ready to swear me up for treason to a man. They think I'm the snake in the grass. Gerry told you that.”
“So he did! He did that.”
“Well, now, if you ask me, do I swear everlasting something or other, I say, no. But if it comes to go or stay, I stay, supposing I have the choice. Those are my points.”
“You ain't ve'y cordial, tha's a fact.”
“Speaking of points, however, is it good enough?”
“Oh, yes! Good enough.”
And the two men rose and walked aft. The three boats got off quickly. Simpson, I think it was, stood up in the stem of the last, and yelled something hoarse and shrieking. They slid away in the moonlight, grew dim and dimmer. If anyone should ask why I did not show myself and go ashore where I belonged, there is no answer in me. It might have been the foolishness that came natural to me, or that, being too astonished to do anything, I did nothing.
The next thing I did was nearly as odd. The engines fell to groaning and pumping below monotonously, as their steam came to a head, and in time all bustle near me had ceased. And, being healthy and tired, lying not uncomfortably, I fell fast asleep under the close canvas of the ship's boat.
CHAPTER IV.—I TALK WITH CALHOUN AND THE “OCTARARA” GOES EAST AND WEST.
A ship's boat has a flat board running the lengthway and well enough to sleep on, but from beneath go out ribs which are prominent and sharp. I awoke with someone jerking and tipping, making my dreams uncomfortable; and before any waking thought had come he had banged my head on a rib of the boat, so that I yelled aloud, and thought presently I would get up, and there would be a fight. But there was none.
The dragging and tipping of the boat stopped, someone lifted the canvas and pulled me out by the collar. I stood on the fore deck, blinking in the broad sunlight foolishly, and around me were a group of strange faces.
“Hi!” said one. “What is it? Take it aft.”
Two men shoved me along before them, till we came down into the cabin, and there were Cavarly, Morgan, and Calhoun taking breakfast cheerfully. Surprised they were to see me, and Cavarly not pleased, but Morgan began to laugh wonderfully, and said I would be the death of him.
“Mark my words, you sinful young oyster. If you don't die first o' the liver complaint, you'll be the death o' me.”
Cavarly asked how I came to stay aboard.
“Aye,” he said, “you hadn't crossed my mind these twenty-four hours, tha's a fact.”
I did not like his pointing out that way how unimportant I was, and I asked boldly where we were going.
“Due east now,” said Cavarly gently. “Why, sonny, we're goin' to dest'oy commerce down the South Atlantic. You ain't any business here.”
“You're goin' to attack the flag o' your country,” said Morgan, leaning forward and wrinkling his mouth. I grew very hot in the face and shouted angrily, “I'm not, either!”
“Yep. You're goin' to perfo'm prodigies o' valour an' implant a tin sword in the chest o' your uncle.”
“I won't!”
“Yep. You'll come home cove'd with glory an' gore, an' a full-rigged ship in each pocket, an' be hung at the Fede'al Gove'nment's expense, the rest o' your relatives attendin' the ce'emony.”
The captain and Calhoun and the two men were laughing loudly, and, not being able to stay angry to any purpose, I said nothing, and presently felt more calm, but I thought I would not mind being the death of Dan Morgan. He drew more amusement from me, and my attacking the flag of the country, than seemed right.
There was a boy with a green jacket in the school on Willet Street once who made it plain that he was for States' Rights. I think he did not know what they were. And we tied a rope around him and his green jacket, and took off the well-top in the yard, and let him down, so that he came up very wet, we were that interested in the subject, and most of us Whigs or Free Soilers, without knowing what these meant either. You do not have to know what politics mean, or patriotism, or any brave words, in order to feel strongly about them. But if anyone in Willet Street had hinted himself able to attack the flag of his country, it would have been bad for him.
Cavarly looked troubled, and rubbed his forehead with his hand.
“Look here, Ben. I don' like this business.”
“Make him cabin boy,” said Calhoun. “Land him with the first crew we capture.”
“That's so. I wouldn't like to play it low on the landlord. He's a white man, your father, Ben, hey? He ain't ve'y penet'ative, sort o' simple. But he's hones'. My! he's hones'.”
So I became cabin boy on the Nameless, as they called the Octarara now, having smeared out the beautifully painted name over the anchor holes; and I was set to very common jobs, to sweep, to clean, and fetch and carry gentlemen's meals, quite melancholy at first and disgusted with my luck. I was possessed of a sense of being loose and anchorless in the world. I could not feel my bearings after so great a revolution. As if the sky and the sea were to change places, it might be questionable in a man's mind whether it were proper to walk on his hands or his feet. Or, if he enters a strange city with his north and south wrong, he will not easily make friends with the compass in that place.
Yet they all seemed inclined to make it up to me with good-nature. Gerry and Still would teach me steering, how to hold the wheel so that the needle did not waver; to feel the good ship answer the shove of my hand made me feel as important as the north wind. Calhoun would call me to come where he sat in the lee of the cabin and talk with him, and while we talked he would watch me narrowly. Cavarly seemed to have me on his mind to trouble him, for he had taken a liking to my father—“Not pene-t'ative, he ain't, Ben, but he's hones'.” And Dan Morgan would bring his banjo evenings by the cabin windows, and there bellow at the moon like a sick calf:
“This world is full o' trouble an' sin,
Don' keep me mournin' long!”
But I did not see why a fellow with red cheeks like mine should move him so to speak of the liver complaint.
Cavarly was sparing coal no longer. The Nameless cut her way eastward, her black snake of smoke streaming off behind. And, though the wind was cold and bit the skin of one's face till it felt like sharp medicine in the mouth, yet the sky continued clear. I liked to watch the foam of the wake, its infinite bubbling, and the swarthy, rumpled sea, stretching away all about till the sky came down to it gracefully and both were clamped together on the horizon. So that during those days, 22d, 23d, and 24th, if I have counted right, I cannot say that I was in great despair, though plainly making a false start and not in any way to fame and fortune.
Cavarly's idea was to go east a bit, and then turn sharply south, to fall in the track of commerce between the Northern cities and South America, Cape Horn, and the Indian Ocean, in this manner to escape the pursuit he expected would follow him, and pick up prizes in seas where there was little likelihood of interference.
The 25th of February broke with a great white mist everywhere, clinging to the sea in a feathery, sticky way. The ship had turned, and was going due south, not at full speed any longer, but quite leisurely.
Calhoun called me where he sat against the rail that morning, tipping his chair and smoking, and then fell to asking how I liked things, and how I would get home from foreign parts. He said:
“It seems to me, if I were you, I shouldn't care for South America. Seems to me I'd prefer the United States most anywhere. But you haven't the choice, have you? That's a pity.”
“No, I haven't,” I said gloomily, and did not thank him for putting in me troubles and wishes that were of no use.
The deck now was empty, except for Still at the wheel some distance away. Cavarly was forward, and Morgan somewhere below. Calhoun went on in a quiet, even tone:
“That's a pity. But a man can't tell, you know, till he's thought it over, can he? Why, I heard once of a fellow that wanted to go to San Francisco in a ship that was bound from Honolulu round the Horn. That didn't seem good judgment. And yet he went to 'Frisco all right. How? Well, it was this way. He sort of thought it over.”
He smoked thoughtfully a moment, then put his hand in his pocket, took out a piece of iron three inches long, and looked at it as if it had been his watch, lying in the palm of his hand.
“He sort of thought it over. 'Now,' he says, 'here's the fact: a ship always sails by the needle in the compass. The way she depends on that measly little thing is pathetic. If she wants to go south, she goes opposite the needle. If she wants to go east or west or anyhow, she goes at proper angles with that needle. It's singular, it's pathetic, but it's true,' says the fellow I'm telling you of. 'Now,' he says, 'this ship wants to go south, and she sails against the needle. Now, it stands to reason, if I point that piece of ironmongery west, this ship'll sail east, and that's 'Frisco. Don't it?' he says. 'Why not?' Well, sir, he went over that again, and maybe three or four times, and the more he thought it over the more it appeared to be correct. And what did he do? Did he stick a pin into the little thing? Not he. He persuaded it. He argued with it according to its nature. He thought the best way to treat things was according to their nature. He took a magnet, which is a piece of iron—um—something like this one—it happened to look like this one. A magnet is a piece of iron, as you might say, with a ghost in it, something sticky in its vitals. He got a chance to hold the wheel by himself. He put that magnet into the binnacle on the little shelf under the compass, on the right side of the needle, just half-way round the circle. Course, if he'd wanted to go west instead of east, say, such a direction as from here to the United States, he'd have put it on the left side corresponding. Well, sir, that magnet, such was the stickiness of its vitals, it pulled the business end of the needle around plumb over it, and there it stayed. Then this fellow I'm telling you of, he put the ship about, taking caution not to disturb anyone, taking great caution, because he thought it wouldn't be right to disturb anyone, and pointed her for 'Frisco. And that needle kept on telling a yarn that would have made a keg of nails blush. Yes, sir, it lied steady for twenty-four days without turning a hair—wet weather it was, or misty, like this—till they brought up on the coast of California, and the fellow I'm telling you of, well, he sloped. Course, if a ship's going south, and a man can't help himself, he can't. But this fellow sort of thought it over, and it seemed to him, the needle being a good liar and the sun not coming out to mess things, that there wasn't any real need of his going to the Horn. That was his opinion.”
A moment later I was standing alone by the rail and staring blankly after Calhoun, where he strolled slowly forward and grew dim in the mist. The little piece of black iron had got into my hand. It was no more than three inches long and sharp at the corners. The only sounds about the misty ship were the slow shoving of the engines below, and Still at the wheel whistling.
I wondered at Calhoun, that singular man, and wondered at this business altogether which I was in. For Cavarly and Morgan had played their great trick, and here was Calhoun tricking them, and how should I know what he might be doing with me, he a man so full of stratagem. I thought there would be no way of telling that, and I had better play the part that seemed to be laid out for me; but I felt very lonely and troubled, and not cheerful, not as I used to in setting off fire crackers behind Mr. Hooley, though that was considered perilous enough.
I went up to Still, thinking to fall into talk with him indifferently, but my throat was gaspy and choked in an odd way. Still's pipe was out, and he wanted me to go forward and fetch him his plug.
“Oh!” I said, with my knees shaking disgracefully, “you go, and let me hold the wheel.”
“Hardly, Bennie, hardly. An' you learnin' seaman's duty o' me that way!”
Some footsteps were coming along the deck, and I thought the chance was gone; but it was Calhoun.
“I can steer good. Honest, Still. You see.”
“Don't mind that,” said Still apologetically to Calhoun, “but 'twouldn't be right to leave him alone, sir.”
“I'll stay here,” said Calhoun.
“Ve'y good, sir.”
He hurried away. Calhoun sat down, with his back to me and his feet braced on the rail.
After all there was nothing difficult about it. I slipped the little black iron to its place, in the binnacle, to the left of the compass. It went in too far, so that the needle swung to east by south, and I had to pull the iron back. The needle lay trembling at right angles with the ship, and I began to turn the wheel nervously.
“The fellow I was telling you of,” remarked Calhoun without looking around, “he took his time, so as not to disturb anyone. He didn't fidget. He kept his eye on the compass, counted eight points, and turned the wheel back.”
The ship swung softly and steadily; the needle crept from point to point, till the quarter was covered. Still came along the deck, looming in the mist and puffing his pipe.
“Hold her steady, Bennie,” he said. “Seaman's duty.”
And there was nothing in the white sea-fog to betray; Calhoun's back was as non-committal as the fog; the little black iron with its ghost inside it lay on the shelf in the binnacle silently too.
But the ship, slipping along through the fog so quietly, with so much misunderstanding aboard her, seemed to me something uncanny. I felt as if we were under a spell, and afterwards as if all the seamen looked at me oddly, wondering that so chubby-cheeked a boy should dare interfere with a ship's compass; and, when Morgan would call me “a sinful oyster who would be the death of him,” I longed to tell him what a mixed man he was, with no cause to joke at all. Sometimes Cavarly's remorse at having to drop me at some distant port would give me a twist of conscience in return.
On the third day—that would be the 28th—the fog turned to a soaking rain, and after that the wind rose in the northwest, which Cavarly took for southwest. On the 1st of March we crossed a steamer going east—or north, as Cavarly thought. It looked like a passenger steamer. He thought it could not be American in the waters where he supposed himself, and going in that direction, and so let it pass.
The morning of the 2d broke with the gale still blowing but the rain had ceased. A large, double-funnelled something was coming down our wake, a dusky spot in the gray half-daylight far away, with two towers of black smoke over her.
There was trouble on the Nameless when the stranger was made out by the growing light to be a cruiser, nearly large enough to carry the Nameless for a long boat, and with the starred and striped flag floating overhead.
There is an odd thing about that flag, when you meet it on the high seas and the wind is blowing hard—namely, that of all flags I know it is the most alive, when the wind blows, the most eager and keen, with the stripes flowing and darting like snakes, and the stars seeming to dance with the joy of excitement. So that there is none better to go into battle, or come down the street when the fifes are piping ahead; but if you want something to signify peace and quiet, you would be as well off with not such bristling stars and fewer stripes, for the stars will leap and the stripes show their energy wherever the wind blows.
The Nameless did not alter her course, but got up steam and plunged on with great thumping and thunder of engines. The cruiser seemed hardly to be gaining. I noticed Calhoun on the roof of the cabin looking forward, and wondered if we were near land. I think Calhoun must have somehow kept the bearings and known where we were, for the lookout cried “Land!” at near eleven o'clock. Cavarly took it for the Bermudas at first, but probably knowing the Bermudas to have a high, rocky coast, he came forward and scanned the shore a long time through his glass silently. It seemed to be a low-lying, sandy shore, with little growth, if any. Through a glass you could make out the great surf piling upon it, white and dangerous. I went on the roof of the cabin, and Calhoun told me softly those were the banks of the Carolinas, meaning that low belt, outlying along the coast, a breakwater of sand pressed up by the sea, with quiet waters commonly within.
The ship turned to the quarter and headed south.
By twelve another spot of black smoke rose on the edge of the sea, and this was from the south. In half an hour it was made out to be another cruiser, smaller, and floating the striped flag.
Cavarly walked the deck, gripping his hands, and his face seemed to grow gray and lined with the pain of his thoughts.
He ordered the men to be called aft, and spoke, standing by the cabin door.
“I'm not sayin' what that shore is. I don' know, not me. We lost our bearings. It looks to me mighty cur'ous. But I'm sayin' there's no Yankee's goin' to capture my ship. Nameless she is, an' Nameless she goes. I'm goin' to beach her.”
Someone cried, “Beach her, cap'n. We're in it.”
After that, as it seemed to me, there was nothing but roar and tumult, with moments passing like seconds, till the cruise of the Nameless ended. I remember a shell from one of the cruisers that skipped along the water beside us—like those flat stones we used to throw slanting into the East River—and burst with a crack and spatter of spray just ahead. I remember how the surf towered and bubbled and roared at the ship's bows, and how I was cast headlong on the deck when she grounded.
They fired her too near the powder, and she blew up before the last had left, and one of the boats foundered in the surf.
I remember how bitterly the men worked, drawing the other boats over the sand hills, a quarter of a mile it might be, to the water within. The cruisers lay off shore, not daring to lower boats for the high seas and surf. But the strangest sight to me was the six drowned men, lying in the wash, and among them with his lips pursed out, as if amused and smiling up into the wild sky, that singular man, Dan Morgan. For he looked as if he liked it well enough, lying dead in the wash of the sea, and thought it odd at any rate that Bennie Cree should have been the death of him.