Rounding Cape Horn, and Other Sea Stories

by Walter McRoberts

This etext was transcribed by Les Bowler

Rounding Cape Horn
. . . AND . . .
Other Sea Stories

By Walter McRoberts.

Illustrated by Grant Wright.

“Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean—roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin—his control
Stops with the shore.”

PEORIA, ILL.
H. S. Hill Printing Company.
1895

Entered according to Act of Congress,
in the year 1894,
BY WALTER MCROBERTS,
In the office of the Librarian, at Washington.

. . . To . . . J. MURPHY, M.D. These Stories are Affectionately Dedicated By his friend, THE AUTHOR.

INDEX.

	PAGE
The Life-Savers	[7]
Thanksgiving on the Dicky Bird	[27]
My Brazilian Adventure	[57]
Bringing in a Derelict	[85]
The Monomaniac	[113]
Crossing the Line	[161]
Missing	[193]
A Dangerous Cargo	[211]
The Parson’s Text	[233]
Rounding Cape Horn	[241]

THE LIFE-SAVERS.

Captain Litchfield, the keeper of the station, was in the observatory, whose windows commanded a view of the ocean and beach for a long distance in either direction. Occasionally he caught a glimpse of the lighthouse two miles to the north, but the cheerful beacon was rendered dim by the snow which filled the air, and was invisible much of the time. As a violent gust beat against the frosty panes and shook the stout building, the keeper thought of the Peruvian, and other good ships that had met their fate on the Massachusetts coast during just such nights as this. He had doubled the beach patrol and now strained his eyes in momentary expectation of seeing the signal to all that coast that a disaster had occurred. It is a thrilling time—waiting and watching to hear the news of a wreck that is certain to take place; striving to locate the doomed craft in the profound darkness out at sea; hoping against hope that some miracle may avert the impending catastrophe!

Just at dusk that evening, the men at Fourth Cliff Station (a few miles to the south) had sighted a large brig close-hauled and struggling northward under storm sails. The blinding storm had apparently prevented those on board from seeing how perilously near they were to land, but they soon after discovered their danger, for more sail was clapped on the vessel—much more than she could safely carry—and she tore through the water at a great rate, in a desperate endeavor to drive past the outlying rocks and shoals off Scituate and Cohasset. The attempt might have succeeded had it not been for the fearful leeway the craft was making, but it seemed as though every cable’s length she advanced brought her perceptibly nearer to the beach.

Night soon hid the brig from view, but the keeper’s experience told him that her fate was sealed, and he burned red rockets to warn the adjacent station to be on the lookout for the wreck which must soon take place. Thus it was that Captain Litchfield and his crew had been for several hours in momentary expectation of a summons to save human life. Half way between the two stations a rocky point jutted out into the water, and here it was that both keepers expected the brig to strike; but by an extraordinary exhibition of pluck and good seamanship, she cleared this danger.

As the minutes passed, the crowd of half-frozen villagers on the beach concluded that the vessel had managed to escape to the open sea, and began to realize that their limbs were cold and numb. The greater part betook themselves to their cottages; mayhap to listen to some harrowing tale of shipwreck and death from the lips of an octogenarian smoking his pipe in the chimney corner, while drift-wood snapped and blazed upon the fire, and the housewife heated over the remnants of a chowder with which to cheer the stomachs of the returned watchers, ere they sought the doubtful warmth of their bed rooms.

But the station crew redoubled their vigilance. They well knew the brig could not tack in that furious gale, and there was not room to wear, without taking ground;—

The signal!

A patrolman on the northern beat had suddenly ignited his Coston light—the red emblem which both tells the watchful keeper that a wreck has been sighted, and assures the crew of the unfortunate vessel that succor is at hand.

The surfmen and patrolmen passed the signal along the beats and hurried to the station, each to perform his allotted part in the work of rescue. The keeper burned a rocket to inform the Fourth Cliff crew. It was answered almost simultaneously by a distant patrolman with his handlight, and by a white rocket sent up from Fourth Cliff; the crew and apparatus from that point would soon be hurrying to the scene of the wreck.

The patrolman who gave the alarm had sighted the brig just before she went aground. She was then headed directly for the beach, bows on, her captain evidently realizing that escape was impossible, and that his only chance lay in getting the craft near the shore. The tide was high, and she had taken ground scarcely a quarter of a mile from the beach, and almost directly in front of the station. Immediately after striking, she had swung around broadside on, and now the dim outline of her canvas and rigging could be faintly distinguished through the storm.

In the station all was excitement and action, but there was no confusion. Within a few moments of the time the wreck had been sighted, the keeper issued the first order: “Open boat-room doors—man the beach-cart!”

Laden with the life-saving apparatus, and drawn by six surfmen, the cart was hauled out of the station and over the loose, yielding stones that lay between it and the ocean. The wide tires prevented the vehicle from sinking among the stones and rendered the task not difficult. The tremendous surf booming in made it impossible to launch the life-boat, and it was through the medium of the breeches buoy that the brig’s crew were to be rescued.

Bad news travels swiftly, and a rapidly increasing knot of men, boys, and even a few women was already assembled, many of whom offered assistance, while one or two did not hesitate to give advice. The keeper directed them to procure dry wood from the station and start a bonfire, which they did with alacrity, the flames soon crackling merrily.

The cart having been halted, the crew proceeded to unload it, and while Captain Litchfield placed the gun in position, the others buried the sand-anchor, prepared the shot-line box, set the crotch in the proper place, and performed other duties of importance. Everything about the stranded vessel was dark and silent. She displayed no mast-head lantern or any light whatever, her crew having probably taken to the rigging as soon as she struck to avoid being washed overboard. The fierce gale cut the faces and blinded the eyes of the life-savers when they attempted to look towards the wreck, but the keeper contrived to train the gun and raise it to the proper elevation for firing. All things being ready, he gave the lanyard a sharp pull. There was a report, a puff of smoke, and away sped the metal cylinder into the blackness, with the shot-line attached.

A few minutes passed, during which some of the crew had a chance to warm their numb fingers at the fire. The direction of the wind was favorable, and the keeper had strong hopes of getting that first line over the vessel. But there was no pull upon it—nothing to show that those on the wreck had seen it. And yet it had certainly fallen on the brig, for all attempts by those on shore to withdraw it were futile. Perhaps the unfortunate crew knew the line was on deck, but were unable to reach it without being washed away; perhaps they were too thoroughly chilled to make any exertion in their own behalf, although this seemed scarcely possible in view of the short time the vessel had been aground. But at any rate they failed to secure the line, and in trying to haul it back on shore it parted somewhere off in the darkness.

The operation had to be repeated, and a second shot was fired as quickly as the apparatus could be made ready. This was a complete failure, for it did not go over the brig at all. The third attempt promised to be crowned with success, for the line not only fell upon the vessel, but came within reach of the beleagured crew—a fact that was soon made apparent by a decided pull upon it. It was the first evidence of life upon the wreck, and sent a thrill through the breasts of the rescuers.

Number One had just bent the shot-line around the whip, and the keeper was about to signal the wreck to haul off, when the line again parted. This was a keen disappointment, for precious moments must be consumed in preparing the apparatus for another shot; and evidence was not lacking to show that the seas were making a clean breach over the wreck, sweeping her decks of everything movable. A small boat, one end in splinters, was flung upon the beach almost at the foot of the rescuers; in the edge of the surf was something that resembled a hen-coop; one of the villagers discovered a flight of steps and several planks a little to the right of the station; and other familiar objects were rapidly coming ashore.

The fourth shot proved successful, and after the brig’s crew secured the line, the whip was attached to it and those on the wreck hauled off until the whip was within their reach. The two surfmen tending the shore ends soon felt several pulls, which they interpreted as a signal that the tail-block had been made fast on the brig. Now the lee part of the whip was bent on to the hawser close to the tally-board, [17a] and while one man saw that it did not foul the hawser, others manned the weather whip and thus hauled the hawser off to the wreck. The breeches buoy block [17b] was next attached, after which operations were suspended until a signal should be received from the stranded vessel that the hawser had been made fast to one of the masts. The length of time that the brig’s crew required to perform this ordinarily simple act told the life-savers, as plainly as words could have done, how greatly they were exhausted by their two hours’ exposure to the bitter wind and icy spray. Their stiffened fingers at length gave the signal, and the station crew quickly hauled in the slack of the hawser. The crotch was now raised, which had the effect of elevating the hawser above the surface of the ocean sufficiently for the breeches buoy to travel upon it without touching the water. All was ready, and the keeper ordered: “Man lee whip—haul off!”

As the buoy slid easily along the hawser and vanished in the darkness towards the wreck, the pent-up feelings of the villagers burst forth. The boys yelled, shouted hurrahs, and danced like sprites about the fire, upon which they flung more drift-wood. Men and women pressed closer about the keeper and his assistants, shading their eyes with their hands, as they strove to follow the course of the buoy. Lips moved and limbs trembled, but as much from excitement as from cold.

At this juncture the Fourth Cliff crew arrived, having toiled for two hours through snow-drifts, and over loose stones, with their heavy apparatus. It had been found impossible to obtain horses in the neighborhood without great delay, and the men were thus compelled to set out without them. The major part of the work of rescue was already done, allowing the half-frozen crew time to warm themselves at the fire, where they held themselves in readiness to render instant service.

The signal from the brig having been given, Captain Litchfield commanded: “Man weather whip—haul ashore!” The men hauled in the whip with a will, while the villagers, eager to get a glimpse of the approaching buoy and its human freight, crowded about until the keeper was compelled to order them back.

Now the poor fellow was visible! Just as he neared the edge of the surf, a huge comber about to break reared its foaming crest and buried hawser, buoy and man in a cloud of spray, as though making a last attempt to seize its intended victim. When the buoy emerged and was drawn up to the crotch, the keeper and Number Seven stepped forward and helped the rescued seaman out. The buoy was then hurried back to the wreck, while its drenched occupant was turned over to the Fourth Cliff crew, who took him to the station.

He was a large man, and evidently a Scandinavian, but seemed exhausted or stunned to such an extent that little information could be obtained from him, except that there were seven men still on the wreck. His wet clothes were removed, and after a good rubbing, he was placed in one of the snowy beds in the upper story of the station. Here in a large, pleasant room, stood a number of single iron bedsteads with heads to the wall—one for each of the crew, besides a few extra in case of emergency. In this haven of rest the sailor fell into a deep sleep, heedless of the storm and cold without.

The next man landed proved to be the mate—a small, wiry fellow, who bore his sufferings well. He thanked the keeper and surfman who helped him out of the buoy and stamped upon the wet sand as though enjoying the sensation of having something firm beneath his feet. His hands were stiff from clinging to the rigging, and were almost useless from the action of the bitter wind and freezing water. But he picked up fast, and after borrowing a dry suit of clothes and an overcoat, insisted on returning to the beach.

He reported the vessel to be the Huron, a 400-ton brig, bound from Porto Rico to Boston, with molasses. The weather had been thick, and though for two days they had had no observation, the captain believed himself a good distance from the coast. When land was sighted on the port bow, they shook out more sail and tried to drive past; but all efforts to keep the brig off shore were futile, and seeing that she must soon strike, the captain headed her for the beach at full speed. The mate reported the wreck to be breaking up rapidly, but thought she might hold together until all had been saved.

The cook and three more seamen had been landed meanwhile, leaving only the captain and a Spanish sailor on the stranded vessel. The buoy had just started on its seventh trip to the brig, when those tending the whip noticed something wrong. The hawser suddenly slackened to such an extent as to allow the buoy to touch the water. A second more, and the great rope which had bridged the chasm between the brig and the shore became perfectly limp, and fell into the ocean! A groan broke from the throng upon the beach as they realized the extent of this misfortune. The mast which upheld the two remaining castaways—the mast to which the hawser was secured, had fallen! All communication between the wreck and the shore was effectually cut off. Even at that moment the two unfortunates were being buffeted about in the freezing water, unless they had been killed or rendered unconscious by the falling spars.

Both men had on life-preservers, which gave them a slight chance for their lives. The chance was indeed a frail one, but it was all there was left—the poor fellows might possibly be thrown upon the beach before life was extinct.

Both station crews and dozens of volunteers were marshalled into line and stationed along the edge of the surf, ready to grasp the bodies should they come within reach. Wreckage was coming ashore rapidly; and alive or dead, the keeper felt certain that the brig’s captain and his companion would soon appear in the breakers.

Scarce fifteen minutes passed before two surfmen in close proximity flashed their lanterns, and all those near by hurried to the spot. One of the bodies was in sight close to the shore. As the rescuers prepared to wade in, a breaking wave took up the limp form and hurled it down with terrific force, at the same time carrying it towards shore. The receding water drew the body back a short distance, and then left it upon the sand. Willing hands took up the burden and hurried it to the station. A glance showed it to be the captain.

The other body was discovered by the Fourth Cliff keeper, a considerable distance down the beach to the right of the station. It, too, was floating near shore. Six men ranged themselves along a rope, the keeper being at the outer end with a grappling hook, Thus they waded into the surf and endeavored to catch the body. Four successive times were those furthest out carried off their feet and thrown down in the water before their object was accomplished, and the body drawn out of the breakers. Like that of the captain, it was seemingly lifeless.

The men’s clothing was ripped off, and for several hours the crews worked over them, skilfully practicing the most approved methods for restoring the apparently drowned,—methods by which scores of people seemingly dead have been resuscitated, and in which all persons connected with the United States Life-Saving Service are required to be proficient. Every means approved by science and the wide experience of the operators was tried, but all to no purpose. The vital spark was extinguished; the captain of the brig and the Spanish sailor had drawn their last breath.

Next morning the sky was clear, the snow had ceased, the wind shifted into the north-west, and it was stinging cold. The sea had been busy with its work of destruction during the hours of darkness, and the staunch brig of yesterday was strewn piece-meal along the beach. Stout oak beams and iron girders were splintered, twisted, or rent asunder, while the thick coat of ice with which they were covered, caused them to assume strangely fantastic shapes. The two masts had come ashore; mattresses, provisions of all sorts, boxes, rigging, the cabin floor, and countless casks of molasses, lay scattered upon the beach for leagues in both directions.

Many vessels ended their careers on that terrible night, and many lives were lost, from the Delaware Capes to the shores of Nova Scotia. But scores were saved and alive next morning, who, but for the heroic exertions of the government life-savers, would have perished miserably. These men did only their duty, but in many cases that duty compelled them to take their lives in their hands, and they did it without shrinking.

People all over the country read in the papers that morning of wrecks by the dozen; of deaths innumerable from freezing, drowning, and exposure; of terrible hardships endured for many hours by unfortunates whom human aid was powerless to save; and they said, “What an awful night it was!” Then they turned to their usual occupations, and the subject was forgotten. How should those who spent the night in a warm bed, far from the sound of the waves, have any real conception of the fearful struggles with death represented by those inanimate lines?

THANKSGIVING ON THE DICKY BIRD.

We were a queer company; three whites and eight blacks. Cap’n Thomas Pratt was a first rate seaman when he wasn’t in liquor, although too easy-going to suit some people. He didn’t believe in knocking the hands about, and always said that swearing at ’em did just as much good. I have met some people who didn’t think even that was right, but they were mostly preachers or lubbers who knew mighty little of merchant sailors. Let them try moral suasion on a mule for a while if they want to see how it works with a sailor. If you never swear at ’em, they get lazy and despise you, besides thinking you a milk-sop.

But as I said, Cap’n Pratt took a drop too much now and then; mostly after dinner, for he kept pretty straight until the sun was taken. I’m no teetotlar myself, though I was green enough to sign the pledge before I’d got to what they call “the age of reason.” Still, it goes against my idees for a skipper to drink much when on duty, and if Pratt hadn’t owned his schooner, I reckon he’d lost his berth long before I knew him. After working out his sights he used to take a drink by way of celebration in case the day’s run had been good, and if we’d made a poor record he just took something to drown his sorrows—and sometimes it needed a deal of liquor to drown ’em.

There was no second mate, so the Cap’n and me stood watch and watch. We had a negro bo’s’un called Prince Saunders—a strapping big fellow as black as the ace of spades—who was on duty all day from seven in the morning till six at night. Then he turned in till next day, unless all hands were called. Prince acted as general overseer, and the way he made those darkeys come to time wasn’t slow. In fact, I wouldn’t ask for a better bo’s’un or a better crew. All the Cap’n and me had to do was to lay out the day’s work and Prince saw that it was done.

The three fellows in my watch looked exactly alike—I never could tell one negro from another—so I called ’em Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. I forgot what Pratt named his.

Steamers were scarce in the Gulf those days, and people wanting to go any distance had to take passage on whatever craft they could find, which was how we came to have the Honorable Mr. Warriner for a passenger. I couldn’t see as he had any more honor than lots of other people, but all of his mail was addressed that way, and Pratt said it was a kind of title they have on shore. He was a red faced, pompous old duck, with too much corporation, and looked as much out of place on the deck of that little schooner as I would scraping before Queen Victoria. Every time we had a squall he got almighty sick, and when a good hot day came how he did sweat and mop his face! I really pitied him.

Once he said to me: “Mr. Hunt, I would give any reasonable amount to be as slender as you are.”

“We thin chaps certainly have the advantage in the tropics, Mr. Warriner; and ever since I was seventeen, and had the yellow fever at Rio, there ain’t been any more meat on me than there is on a starved horse,” I answered.

I had no call to feel flattered, but I was, just the same, for Pratt sometimes poked fun at me for being so d—d lean; and didn’t I find a picture drawn on the bulwarks forward of an oar with clothes on that looked kind of like me? If I could have found out which of those black sons of Belial did it, he would have caught a whaling, you bet!

We had a cook who also waited off at table,—a steward was too much luxury for the Dicky Bird, and of all the infernal liars that ever lived, I believe that Cornwallis Tecumseh Jones was the worst. He knew his business pretty well, and could turn a flap-jack by throwing it up in the air from one window of the galley, and catching it as it came down by the window on the opposite side. [31]

The passenger, Pratt and me were talking of various things one afternoon when Warriner said: “Captain, to-morrow will be Thanksgiving, and I propose that we observe the day by having some appropriate dish for dinner. Turkey and pumpkin pie are out of the question, so what do you say to an English plum-pudding?”

“Anything, sir; anything to keep the peace. Plum-pudding or pear-pudding, Thanksgiving or lobscouse.”

(Pratt was about half heeled over, as usual with him that time of day.)

“Lobscouse! Captain Pratt, I will thank you not to mention that abominable mixture in my presence. It passes my comprehension how you can eat such stuff. Neither do I like this flippant reference to so august a day as Thanksgiving.

“But a plum-pudding will be excellent—that is, if you think that darkey won’t ruin it in the making. I have a splendid recipe in my trunk, and although some of the necessary ingredients are probably lacking, it will be possible to produce a very fair pudding.”

“Let’s have it,” said I. “Anything for a change is my sentiments.”

“Darkeys usually have quite a knack for cooking, and I suppose if the recipe is placed before Cornwallis he will do the subject justice. I will get it at once.”

“The Lord only knows, Mr. Warriner. Did you ever hear a certain proverb that is common at sea: ‘God sends meat and the devil sends cooks?’ It’s astonishing how good provisions can be changed into all sorts of queer shapes. But get your directions and take them to the galley. The black imp may surprise us.”

Pratt went below, and soon after, Warriner and me went forward with the directions for the pudding. He told the cook what was wanted and then read off the recipe, so as to be sure and have no mistake. Never did I hear of such a lot of truck being put together, and I don’t believe the cook did either, for his eyes got bigger and bigger as Warriner read the list of what he called “ingredients.” My! that pudding took some of everything. There was raisins, currants, brown sugar, beef-suet, flour, bread-crumbs, citron, candied lemon-peel, eggs, nutmeg and salt! “Boil seven hours in a buttered mould. A sprig of holly should be stuck in the center. Pour brandy around the pudding when ready to serve, and set it on fire.” Holy Moses! Then there was a sauce with brandy and other things in it.

The cook sat down on a bench and looked at Warriner.

“Golly! you done took my bref away, boss. Bile seben hour! Whar we gwine to git dese yere tings? I ’low dere ain’t no brandy on dis craf’, an’ as fur ten eggs—waal, de hens is completely gi’n out, eben ef I does feed ’em on de Champyun Egg Food.”

“How should the poor things lay, shut up in a small coop? But as for the brandy, I will furnish that, and also some nice layer raisins. Currants, lemon-peel and citron we must do without, but ten eggs are a necessity, and the other things you have.”

“We has jes’ got ’leben eggs, an’ ef yo’ takes ten from ’leben, dar ain’t but bery few lef’. Where we gwine to get moah?”

“I neither know nor care,—we shall reach Vera Cruz sometime I devoutly hope,—but ten eggs go into this pudding. The question is, can you make it?”

“Can I make it?” repeated the cook, as if someone had asked him whether he could breathe. “Waal, sah, dere ain’t no dish knowed to man or debil dat dis chile can’t make, Mistah Warmer. Must I bile de sass seben hour too?”

“Certainly not. The sauce must not be made until to-morrow morning just before dinner, and is only to be boiled a few minutes. Can’t you read?”

“Me read? Well, I hope not, boss. I’s got all my receipts in my head. None o’ yo’ new-fangled notions fur dis niggah.”

I had to laugh, poor Warriner looked so disgusted. He just all gave up for a minute and thought the pudding was done for. Then he stamped his foot and said:

“I am not to be thwarted by trifles, and will weigh out everything myself. Then you can mix the articles together.”

Warriner fetched the raisins and brandy—if he’d been smart he wouldn’t have brought the brandy till the last minute—and between ’em they managed to mix up all the truck and get it in the mould. It was about the middle of the afternoon when they got it on to boil.

Next day was fine, and Warriner was up before we finished washing down the decks. Pratt and me were curious about the plum-pudding, for we’d never seen one, and wanted to know what sort of idees the passenger had about cookery. He kept telling all the morning what fine ones his wife used to make, and said he’d show us a thing or two. We sat down to dinner—our Thanksgiving dinner. The Honorable looked more self-satisfied and important than usual, I thought; Cap’n Pratt was real good-natured and told a lot of lies that Warriner swallowed like an albacore does a flying-fish; I had scraped my face with an old hoe of a razor and put on a necktie; and Cornwallis stood in the pantry door behind Pratt with a white cap over his wool, and looking as solemn as a judge. He did well that day, and we had a first rate dinner. There was vegetable soup; chicken, rice and curry with Ceylon chutney; potatoes; boiled onions; lime-juice; and each a cold whiskey punch. At last it was time for the dessert. Cornwallis took away the things, while Warriner told us how much we had to be thankful for, and how he and the cook had worked to make the pudding a success.

Well, the minute that pudding hove in sight Pratt and me laughed. The middle of it was stuck full of long feathers!

“Heavens and earth! What are those things for?” cried Warriner.

“Dem is fedders, sah. You tole me dat holly was to be stuck up in de middle, but dat bush ain’t to be foun’ in dese pahts. I done de best I could, Mass’.”

“Was ever such a thing heard of! And are those feathers from the chicken we have just eaten?”

“Laws, no. I done kotched de rooster—Golly! how dat ole bird did squawk—and I yanked de fedders out ob his tail. Dere dey is, a wavin’ like a flag.”

Warriner was about to pull the feathers out and throw them away, but the Cap’n and me rather liked the looks of ’em, so he stopped. Then the sauce appeared. White of egg beaten stiff was on top of it. Next Cornwallis brought a dish and turned the brandy around the pudding. How awful it smelled! Not a bit like any brandy that I ever saw. Warriner looked a bit puzzled, but before he had time to say a word the cook struck a match and touched it to the liquor.

The whole thing blazed right up to the skylight, and scared all hands nearly to death! You could have knocked me over with a fish-hook, and that darky rolled up the whites of his eyes and acted as if he was praying. Warriner’s face turned all colors, and Pratt was scared and mad both. He jerked the cloth and everything off the table, took off his coat and threw it on the blaze. Then he stamped on it.

None of us spoke a word for a minute; we were clean on our beam ends. Then Pratt looked at the passenger and roared out: “Well, sir, you’ve raised h— with your pudding, I must say! Like to have burned us all up into the bargain. That’s what comes of setting brandy on fire. I thought when you spoke of it, it was the d—dest nonsense to burn up a lot of good liquor that might better be drunk.”

Warriner had found his voice by this time.

“Captain Thomas Pratt, you forget yourself. I am not accustomed to being addressed in that fashion, and you will please remember that I am a passenger on this craft—this miserable apology for a schooner—and did not come here to be sworn at!”

The old boy was on his mettle, and Pratt saw it.

“No offense meant, Mr. Warriner, but I insist that your having that brandy set on fire was a rash proceeding.”

“Brandy! That was not brandy. Do you suppose I never saw a plum-pudding before? If that had been the brandy I gave that imp of Satan” (pointing to the cook) “it would never have blazed up like that. And what foul odor did we smell when he poured the stuff around the pudding? What odor do we smell now? Kerosene, or I’m no judge.”

“Kerosene!” echoed the Cap’n.

I began to think the passenger knew what he was talking about. All of us smelled oil, and we cast our eyes on Cornwallis. He looked as innocent as a lamb.

“Gents, dat ain’t possible,” said he, his black face shining like polished ebony.

“We will see about that,” answered Warriner. “Let’s taste the sauce—I’ll warrant it’s full of kerosene too.” He took some in a spoon and smelled of it before putting his tongue to it.

“Curious,” he muttered, “there is no odor of oil or brandy either.”

Then the old chap tasted it.

“This is extraordinary! There’s nothing to this sauce—it has no body. There is positively not a drop of brandy in it; nor of kerosene, for that matter.”

“Dat am bery strange, Mass’ Warmer. De brandy must ’a’ done ’vaporated.”

“Evaporated down your throat, you black villain! Captain Pratt, I consider this a flagrant outrage. I furnished a quantity of good brandy for this pudding, not a drop of which has been used. What has become of it?”

“Dat Monday or some ob de han’s might ’a’ stole it when I wahn’t lookin’,” suggested the cook.

Prince, the bo’s’un, was standing outside near the door, and had evidently heard part of the confab. He now called out:

“Ef you ’lows me, Cap’n, I reckons I kin find out de truf in dis argument.”

“Come in, Prince,” answered Pratt. “If you can get any truth out of Cornwallis you’re smarter than I think you are.”

The cook looked indignant—not so much at being called a liar as having the bo’s’un admitted,—for he and Prince were not on good terms, and he considered the bo’s’un’s interference a piece of pure impudence.

Prince entered, cap in hand. I’m tolerable tall myself, but he was a good four inches above me, and a right good looking darkey into the bargain. He walked right up to the cook.

“Walrus Jones, you stole dat gemmen’s brandy. You lies ef you says you didn’t.”

Cornwallis looked at his accuser defiantly.

“What yo’ want wid me, niggah? Is yo’ lookin’ fur trouble? Go ’long ’bout yo’ bizness now, an’ doan’ be comin’ in de cabin whar yo’ betters is. I’s willin’ to obey de Cap’n ob dis craf’, but I tells yo’ now dat I won’t take no sass from lowdown bo’s’uns. Go an’ scar’ de life out ob dose pore debils in de crew, fur all I keer, but doan’ git gay wid me. Huh! Yo’ mus’ tink I’s jes’ turned out!”

“You awoids de subjek’. Dat am a shuah sign ob guilt.”

“Lemme tell yo’ somfin’, yo’ onery niggah! I doan’ sociate wid sech trash as yo’ be, what can’t tell who his own fadder and mudder was. I come from a hono’ble fam’ly what was tole ob in hist’ry. Ef yo’ keeps on probokin’ me to wraf I’ll put pizen in yo’ wittals, dat’s what I’ll do, an yo’ now has fair wahnin’!”

Prince showed signs of wrath himself at this speech, but Pratt interfered before he could answer.

“No more talk about poisoning people, Cornwallis. Answer me this: Where did that brandy go to?”

“Ef it didn’t go in dat sass an’ aroun’ dat puddin’, Cap’n, den I ’lows some ob de crew done stole it. Dem critters ain’t to be trusted, no how. Cockroaches is bery bad in dat galley, too, an’ dey likes sech drinks, I hearn tell. Whose to know if dey wahn’t at de bottle?”

“Why, you black rascal, you said not ten minutes ago that the brandy was put in the sauce and around the pudding!”

“So I did, Cap’n. Ef dat ain’t de truf an’ nothin’ but de truf, I hopes de good Lawd will hab me pah’lized, an’ make me fall dead heah in my tracks.”

“Impious creature! Unworthy descendant of Ham!” cried Warriner.

“Me a ham? Me, a linear decen’ant ob de great Lawd Cornwahlis, what lan’ed at Yohktown an’ chased de Yanks all ober de plains ob Ole Virgintay? Dat’s de stock I come from, Mistah Warmer, an’ so I want yo’ to understan’.”

The cook’s reference to his ancestors astounded Warriner, though none of the rest of us saw anything queer about it.

“Good heavens! What curse is there like ignorance?” said he, looking up at the ceiling.

It was lucky for me that Warriner spoke up, for I was just going to show off about Lord Cornwallis, and would likely have made a fool of myself. My history is a bit uncertain; so I stood by and kept mum.

Prince had been considering while the rest of us talked, and now said: “Cap’n Pratt, I would ax you, sah, for de Bible, an’ I promises to bring dis sinful critter to time, eben of he does b’long to de quality ob Virginny, which he don’t, unless de debil hab turned saint.”

All of us were surprised at this, but Pratt went to fetch the book. Prince could read large print tolerably well, and write a little, which facts he was very proud of. His confident air, and the new tack he had taken, made the cook a bit uneasy for the first time. He had no idee what was coming next.

Pratt beckoned to me from the door of his room, and whispered in my ear: “The Bible’s mislaid. Hasn’t been used for so long it can’t be found. Here’s a book the same size, though.”

“Maybe that’ll do,” said I. “We’ll try, anyway.”

Prince took the volume of Lieut. Maury’s sailing directions and said impressively: “Now, Mistah Jones, appearances is agin you, but dey is bery deceptible, an’ not alwuz to be trusted. You may be innocenter den a kitten, which fur y’ur own sake, I hopes you is. I has here, gemmen, de Good Book, out ob which I will read what happens to cooks which steals.”

Cornwallis looked uneasily from one to the other, and at the sacred volume. He was ignorant and superstitious, and Prince as reader and oracle was much more to be feared than Prince the bo’s’un, with all his threats and accusations.

“Dis chile better be gittin’ back to de galley an’ washin’ dem dishes. Neber will git nothin’ done at dis rate, stan’in’ aroun’ an’ talkin’ like a lot o’ wenches at a pic-nic.”

“Hold on, Cornwallis,” said Pratt, taking hold of him as he neared the door. “You don’t need to be afraid as long as you didn’t get away with the liquor. Stay right here and let’s hear how well Prince can read.”

The bo’s’un had been turning over the leaves as if searching for something, and finally stopped at a page which told the route vessels should take when bound from New York to Hong Kong and the Far East. Clearing his throat and putting on a long face, he read: “Cooks an’ stoords what steals ’taters and won’t confess, is boun’ to be set on de capstan all night long till dey owns up. Nex’ day, dey is to be whitewashed, but ef it’s a white pusson, he mus’ be painted black.

“Dem dat takes sugah is to be made to drink bilge-water an’ nothin’ else, an’ is to larn to take de sun ebery mawnin’ an’ ebenin’.

“Ef you kotch one stealin’ gin, make a rope fas’ to him an’ t’ow him oberboard all day long. Ef he don’t die de fust day, try him ag’in de second.

“Gittin’ away wid w’isky is bery bad. Ef a cook or stoord is foun’ out, he mus’ be drove full o’ marling-spikes till he stops yellin’, eben ef it done kills him.

“But ef one steals brandy,—wahl, der ain’t nothin’ bad ’nough fur him. Brandy is awful hard to make, an’ costs a hun’red dollahs a poun’; so ’tain’t no sort o’ use foolin’ with one dat steals it. De craf’ will sink ef he ain’t took in hand.

“Gib de wicked sinnah time to say his prayers, an’ den h’ist him up an’ down de main stay fou’ times, so his blood circ’lates good. Tie a grin’stone roun’ his neck an’ heave him oberboard, while all han’s prays an’ sings like de bery debil. Ef he sinks he’s guilty shuah, an’ ef he floats, haul ’im aboard an’ tie more weights on top of ’im. Ef he keeps on a floatin’, he’s a innocent man, an’ his wages is to be made biggah. Heah de chaptah ends.”

Prince made this up as he went along, pronouncing his words with much gravity, and it had such an effect on Cornwallis that we had all we could do to keep from roaring right out. We had to look solemn, though, or he would have smelt a rat. He stood with his back against the wall, rolling up the whites of his eyes and looking around in a scared way as if he didn’t know whether the whole thing was a joke or not. Finally he said: “Cap’n Pratt, I axes you, sah, ef what dat niggah done read is wrote down in dat book, or is I bein’ made a wictim ob what dey calls de cu’cumstances?”

“It’s all down in cold type, Cornwallis, and now we must put you to the test, so as to know if you’re guilty.”

“What test am dat, sah?”

“Why, we must hang a grindstone round your neck and heave you overboard. If you didn’t steal the brandy, you’ll float. That’s what the book says.”

The cook’s jaw dropped, and he fell down in a heap. Throwing his arms around Pratt’s knees, he gasped: “Does yo’ mean dat, Cap’n?”

Pratt nodded.

“Oh, fur de good Lawd’s sake, what hab dis pore chile done dat he mus’ be kilt in cole blood! Ain’t I sarved you, sah, fur one, two, six,—wahl, seberal yeahs? An’ now is yo’ gwine to let dat blood-thu’sty niggah what’s been hankerin’ arter my life—is yo’ gwine to let him murdah me?”

“I feel sorry for you, Cornwallis,—d—n me if I don’t,—but there’s no help for it. The book says the craft will never reach port if the guilty person escapes, so it’s a case of your going overboard or all of us giving up the ghost.”

“Gents, is der no marcy in yo’ buzums?”

This piteous appeal was addressed to Warriner and me, and the cook looked so miserable that I could hardly play my part.

“No, you must prepare for the ordeal,” said Warriner, “and if you have told the truth you will surely float.”

“What, an’ a grin’stone made fas’ to me?”

“Certainly.”

“Oh, Mass’ Warmer, I’s not ready to die; ’deed I’s not. I’s been powe’ful wicked in my time, an’ dem kin’ o’ people has to jine de chu’ch an’ hab r’ligion ’fore deh heahs de trumpet blow.”

“No more fooling. Prince, you bring aft the grindstone that the crew sharpen their knives on. Hunt, you get the fog-horn and blow like h— when we heave him overboard. The d—d thing makes more noise than any trumpet I ever heard.”

“Yes,” added Warriner, “It may comfort the condemned.”

When we got back with the horn and grindstone, Cornwallis was jumping up and down and yelling like a maniac.

“I’s de culprit! I’s de culprit! I’s de culprit! An’ ef yo’ drap me overboard dat’s why I’s boun’ to sink! Only lemme lib till we reaches dry lan’ an’ I’ll go into one ob dem conbents whar dey is said to be dead to de worl’, an’ I won’t nebber see none ob yo’ no moah.”

“The sinner owns up,” cried Pratt, and Prince grinned till every one of his ivories showed. “Now, Cornwallis, your life will be spared on condition that you make a clean breast of this matter. No more lies; and you must pay for the brandy you drank at the rate of one hundred dollars a gallon—wasn’t that it, Prince?”

“A hun’red dollahs a poun’, sah,” corrected Prince.

“I doan know how many poun’ I drank,” sniffed the cook, “an’ ef I has to pay dat much fur each one ob ’em, I’s got to wo’k more’n a year fur nothin’.”

“That’s better than being drowned to-day,” said I, “and you’d better be thankful. Now tell us how you took the brandy.”

“I’s been close to de dahk riber, gents, an’ will perceed to tell de truf,” said Cornwallis, now much relieved after his narrow escape. He looked down at the floor and began in a low tone: “Yo’ see, it was jes’ dis way. Mass’ Warmer, he done brung de brandy an’ say, ‘Put some ob dat in de sass an’ some roun’ de puddin’.’ De las’ was to be sot on fire soon as ’twas on de table.

“Wahl, I was stan’in’ lookin’ at de bottle when I heerd a noise. I turn roun’, an’ as shuah as I lib, ef de debil wahn’t right ’side ob me! Oh, he looked orful, an’ I like to died from de shock ob seein’ him. Ef yo’ wants to know what he looks like, jes’ take a good look at dat Prince Sahnders, fur ef him an’ de debil ain’t brudders I’m a cod-fish!

“I says, ‘Debil, go ’way. I doan want no trouble wid you.’ But he gib me.a push towa’ds de bottle, and says, reel soft-like, ‘Yo’ pore, mis’able, skinny, oberwo’ked critter, you’s all fadin’ away.’ (Cornwallis weighed at least two hundred.) ’Dere ain’t nothin’ lef’ ob yo’ but skin an’ bone. Jes’ take a drap ob dat liquor, an’ it mought do lots ob good. You’s gittin’ ole, and needs some stimilant.’

“I knowed it was de gospel truf, yo’ understan’, but at de same time it wahn’t right, an’ I tried to put ole Nick out ob de galley. He wahr bigger den me, an’ jes’ made me drink dat brandy till de bottle looked a’most empty. ’Deed I tried to git him out, but ’twan’t no use, an’ ebery drap ob dat liquor done wanished ’fore he quit pesterin’ me. I’d had a misery in my head de hull mawnin’, but I felt right pert arter de brandy was gone. I sot down to reflec’ a spell.

“‘Now,’ I says, ‘ef de brandy was to be sot fire to an’ burned up, it am plain dat it can’t be drank.’ I ’lowed dat keerosene ansahs de pu’pose jes’ as well, so I puts it roun’ de puddin’. Golly! how dat ile did burn! I was real dis’pinted ’bout de sass, fur I reckoned dat ile mought pizen yo’. So I lef’ it out, an’ hoped dat fak’ would ’scape de company’s obserbation.

“I’s spoke de truf, yo’ understan’, an’ is resolbed to die ’fore I eber agin disto’ts de fak’s.”

We all laughed till we nearly parted our braces, especially Warriner. I wouldn’t have believed he had so much humor. The passenger pulled away the tablecloth and the smashed crockery till he sighted the pudding. What with the smell of oil and burned feathers, and being all scorched up and stepped on, it wasn’t a very fine sight by this time.

“Did any of you ever read ‘Great Expectations?’” he asked.

None of us had.

“It tells of a certain lady called Miss Havisham, who expected to be married one evening. The wedding supper was spread and everything ready, but the bridegroom never came. For years and years after did Miss Havisham keep that feast untouched in the deserted room—kept it until spiders spun webs over it, and mice and damp played havoc with the faded yellow cloth and the viands. Sometimes a boy named Pip would pay her a visit, and then the wax tapers would be lighted, while the strange pair walked round and round the decaying feast.

“Even so, my friends, should I preserve this pudding and enthrone it in my Brooklyn home to remind me of my lost brandy and of this most extraordinary Thanksgiving. But that is impossible, so follow me.”

He picked the pudding up from the floor and held it out at arm’s length, at the same time leading the way out on deck. Sunday and Tuesday, Flip and Jackson and all the crew forgot what they were about at sight of the queer procession, and Warriner holding out the pudding. He marched over to the lee bulwarks, got on top of an empty box, and began to look at the pudding with a very sorrowful expression, his eyes blinking and his head on one side.

“What the devil is he about?” thinks I.

He looked around at us and wiped his eyes with a silk handkerchief; then held out the blasted pudding in both hands so all of us could see it.

“Gentlemen, behold! This was a plum-pudding. Yea, thou dark and sodden mass, pierced with feathers and baptized in kerosene; thou culinary triumph, concocted by Samuel Warriner and the descendant of Lord Cornwallis;—thou fond inspiration of our brain, which, owing to the combined assaults of Satan and yon sable African, hast so abominably miscarried; we bid thee an eternal farewell!”

“Good G—, if he ain’t blubbering!” whispered Pratt, while Warriner looked so affected that Prince, Cornwallis and me nearly cried.

“Good-by, pudding. Go-od-b-bye,” (heaving it overboard) “and be thou food for worms—I should say, fishes!”

Away it went, and struck the water with a splash. All hands stared until it sunk, and then we looked at Warriner. He had taken up the fog-horn, and just as the pudding went under, he blew a mournful blast.

“May the dear departed rest in peace,” he said, feelingly.

Then we all pulled ourselves together and went back to work.

MY BRAZILIAN ADVENTURE.

My sister laid aside her paper, both surprised and pleased.

“How glad I am, George, that you at last see the necessity of it. Where shall you go?”

“Well, according to my dream of the last two nights, my destination will be latitude 3° 50′ 30″ South, longitude 32° 24′ 30″ West.”

Alice stared at me as though she doubted my sanity, while I folded my arms, nodded my head, and tried not to look foolish.

I waited a moment, thinking she would speak, and then continued: “Yes, I know you will say that a man forty-three years old ought to know better, especially so prosaic a one as you often say I am. But let me tell you my vision, and then ridicule it if you can.

“Night before last I slept unusually well, and was conscious of nothing until I heard a clock somewhere strike four. I dozed off soon after, and had this dream:

“I was seated alone in the stern of a little boat, that floated on a calm and gently-heaving moonlit sea; while close on my right hand was a small, densely wooded island, with phosphorescent waves breaking upon its sandy beach. Behind it, and belonging seemingly to another body of land, a lofty peak towered into the air.

“The silvery white light fell upon a stately palm that grew near a large rock on the islet, and upon two figures, one of whom, in military uniform, leaned against the trunk, while the other carefully smoothed over the ground at the base of the tree. Then the former glided to the rock and wrote or scratched something upon it, but though I looked and looked, I saw no words, nor could I get even the smallest view of the faces of the two men, although their figures were perfectly plain.

“While striving to see their features, I became sensible of a veil of mist enveloping both land and sea, and when it passed, island and peak were gone. In their stead was a gigantic blackboard rising out of the ocean, with these characters upon it, in figures and letters so large that they terrified me:

3° 50′ 30″ S. 32° 24′ 30″ W.

“As I looked, the great object seemed to advance upon me—I should be annihilated! I tried to grasp an oar in the bottom of the boat, but could not move a muscle. On it came, rapidly, noiselessly. At the instant it was upon me, I made a frantic lunge and found myself sitting up in bed, drenched in perspiration, and my heart beating so I could hardly breathe.

“On realizing where I was, I got up, struck a match, and looked at my watch. A quarter past four! All that had happened since I heard the clock strike fifteen minutes before.

“I said nothing to you yesterday, Alice, but now you know why I have been so preoccupied. Again last night I had the same dream.”

My sister said little, except to advise me to dismiss the whole subject from my mind, but I could see that it had made more of an impression on her than she chose to admit.

I had already consulted the atlas in regard to the spot of which I had dreamed, and found it to be an island with an unpronouncable name, lying near the coast of Brazil.

That night I wrote to my nephew Ralph at New York, telling him that I had decided to take a sea voyage, and asking him what was the best way of getting to Fernando de Noronha, for that was the name of the island. He was master, and one-third owner of the brig Sea Witch, and I knew his advice was to be depended on.

I was very busy for several days following, arranging my business affairs and giving certain necessary directions to my partner, Simon LaForte. Each night I retired fully expecting a repetition of the dream, but my expectations were not realized.

Ralph’s answer came Saturday. Here it is:

“Dear Uncle George,—

“Yours of the 9th received. I am glad you’ve concluded to go to sea, but what possesses you to steer for Fernando de Noronha? It’s a Brazilian convict island one hundred miles from the coast, where all the life prisoners are confined, and except the government transports, not a vessel stops at the place for months together. There is absolutely nothing there but a fertile island of about twenty square miles, inhabited only by convicts, soldiers, and a governor.

“The Sea Witch has been chartered to load for Pernambuco, and from there will come back to New York. Now uncle, take my advice and go along. The only way to see the ocean as it really is, is on a sailing vessel, and we shall probably sight this island of yours either going or returning, which ought to satisfy you. You would have a good time as a passenger, but as you’ve always been such a worker, it might not suit you to loaf, and in that case you could ship before the mast. We’ll show you how to make sennit, mouse blocks, overhaul buntlines, tie a reef-point, and do other things you never heard of.

“The brig is repairing at Poillon’s yard. We had a rough passage from Tampico, and the little hooker had a couple of sticks jerked out in a blow off Hatteras.

“If you’re in New York in three weeks it will be time enough. I must run over to South Street now, so good-bye. Love to yourself and Aunt Alice.

“Ralph.”

This epistle I read aloud, and we both laughed over Ralph’s joke about my shipping before the mast, but that part of the letter referring to the sticks being jerked out of the brig made me feel rather dubious. I consoled myself, however, by reflecting that such things probably did not occur often, and after long deliberation decided to go, and wrote Ralph to that effect.

It was the afternoon of July 2 that the tug Charm pulled the brig out from Pier 1, East River, and took her in tow for Sandy Hook. It is a long tow, and the stars were shining when the pilot went over the side, the tug’s hawser was cast off, and we were left to shift for ourselves.

Everyone aboard was so busy that I did not get a chance to say half a dozen words to Ralph that night. He and the mate were roaring out orders; the yards were being hoisted to the accompaniment of the wild sailors’ chant, which begins “From South Street slip to ’Frisco Bay,” and I finally turned in and slept sounder than I had for months, in spite of the racket on deck. Next morning was beautiful, and we were spinning along at a great rate when I came on deck. I felt fine, but somehow couldn’t walk very well. Ralph told me the names of the sails and some of the ropes, and was surprised that I hadn’t been sick.

Before we sailed, I had told him my dream, which he ridiculed until I spoke of the lofty peak, when he became serious.

“There is just such a peak at one end of the island,” he had said. “It is eight hundred feet high, and the observatory at its summit overlooks the island, and the ocean for sixty miles in every direction.”

This was enough for me to know; I was now determined at any cost to get ashore on that island and try and find the scene pictured in my vision, for that such a scene existed I no longer doubted.

Three weeks passed, and we had made good progress since leaving port. I soon found my sea legs, as Ralph expressed it, and often climbed the rigging as far as the tops. I went out on the jibboom and caught bonitas—a deep-sea fish of a steely blue color which preys remorselessly upon the flying-fish; I read; I learned to make nautical knots of various kinds, and actually felt ten years younger than I had in New Orleans. There was nothing to bother or irritate me; no telephones, no whistles blowing, no mail to open, no newspapers to read; in a word, I was in a new world altogether, and began to get so fat that Seth Hawkins, the mate, one day told me that I should have to shake a reef or two out of my clothes by the time I got back to New York.

After a particularly fine day’s run, I said to Ralph, who had just marked it on the chart, “I had no idea that sailing vessels could go fast. As this rate we shall soon be across the Equator. You say we are only 8° North this noon.”

“Don’t crow, uncle, till we’re through the Doldrums,” he replied. I had heard a little about this bugbear, but had a rather vague idea as to what sort of a place it was. I was soon to know, for upon going on deck next morning, I found a dead calm. There was not even enough wind to steer by. The atmosphere was hot and muggy, while great masses of wet-looking clouds were piled up all along the horizon. The sails flapped against the masts and rigging with loud reports each time the brig rolled, and when I saluted Seth Hawkins, he said: “Well, Mr. Spencer, how do you like the Doldrums?”

During the forenoon a violent rain squall struck us from due South, and we tore along at a nine-knot rate, while such torrents of rain I never saw before. Barrels were put in position to catch the water, but before noon the rain ceased suddenly and the wind with it. Thus it was all that day, all the next day, and for a whole week,—nothing but calms, rain-squalls, and variable winds (usually from the wrong direction), until I was nearly beside myself. Some days we made less than thirty miles in the twenty-four hours, and it was no unusual occurrence to tack ship three, and even four times a day, which put Ralph and the mate in a horrible humor.

But there is an end to all things, and on the twenty-ninth day out we crossed the line with a fair wind, and when Ralph figured out our position the next noon, he announced that we should probably be in Pernambuco inside of three days.

After much persuasion, I induced him to promise to stop at Fernando de Noronha on the way back long enough for me to go ashore, for the wind we now had would carry us a long way inside the island, and we should not even sight it. Three days later the first half of our journey was completed, and we were safely in port after a good passage of thirty-four days.

I found much to interest me in Pernambuco. The harbor was crowded with shipping, amongst which the British and Norwegian flags predominated; but my eyes were gladdened quite frequently by the sight of the stars and stripes. The head stevedore, who had charge of loading the brig, was a half-breed named Pedro. He spoke very fair English, and during one of our frequent talks, I casually mentioned Fernando de Noronha.

“Ah, Diabalo!” he exclaimed, his black eyes glittering, “My brother—poor Manuel—he is there!”

“Why, is he a prisoner?” I asked in surprise.

“What for else should he be there?” he replied, shrugging his shoulders. “Santa Maria! he will never come back.”

Then he related the story of Manuel, after which, by a little questioning, I found that Pedro knew several things about the island of interest to me. He said that occasionally, when vessels were becalmed there, a boat was sent ashore for melons, which grew in great abundance on a very small island near the larger one. A suit of clothes or a sack of flour would buy more melons than would go in the boat.

We were thirty-one days in Pernambuco discharging and reloading, but at last the stores were on board and everything ready, and the day before sailing, I accompanied Ralph to the Custom House to “clear the brig.”

We put to sea on Monday afternoon, and at daybreak next morning the convict island should be in sight, if the wind held at northwest. I was much excited, now that my hopes were so near fruition, for that something of value was concealed at the foot of the palm tree I did not doubt; else why had I dreamed of this out-of-the-way spot, of which I had never even heard?

That night we consulted together, and carefully matured our plans, for Ralph had come to take nearly as much interest in the outcome of the affair as I. He refused to go ashore himself, saying that it was against all custom for a captain ever to leave his vessel while she was on a voyage, but that Seth Hawkins and two of the crew should go in the boat with us.

“And now, Uncle,” said Ralph, “please realize one thing. In putting off a boat, I shall be doing something I’d do for no one but you, as it is the duty of a captain to take his vessel from one port to another without any unnecessary delay. So don’t lose any time on the island, for I shall feel guilty as it is.”

I grasped his hand warmly, and whispered: “Ralph, if I am any richer to-morrow night than I am now, you shall profit by it.”

He smiled, and said: “By the way, I shall have to let Hawkins into the affair to a limited extent, for he knows very well I’d not send ashore simply to get melons. He’s been with me two years, and can be trusted.”

Eight bells struck; the second dog-watch was over, and Ralph went below to turn in, while Seth Hawkins and I paced the deck together,—he telling me some interesting reminiscences of his life in Hong Kong, where he had once kept a sailors’ boarding house.

I rose very early next morning; in fact, it was but little past sunrise, and the crew had not finished “washing down.”

The mate was standing by the starboard taffrail, and after the usual “Good morning,” he was about to speak, when I exclaimed, pointing to the east, “Look! what great lighthouse is that?”

I had just seen it,—a distant outline clearly defined against the rosy eastern sky.

“That’s no lighthouse, though it does look like one. That’s the peak on your island.”

The last words were spoken with so peculiar an emphasis that I knew Ralph had told him our plans. He went forward, and I continued to devour that majestic peak, that gradually lost its shadowy appearance and assumed definite form.

The wind was light, and we raised it slowly. As I looked, a feeling of bewilderment stole over me. There was the peak of my dream to a certainty, and yet something was lacking. There should have been an island in front of it.

At two bells in the forenoon watch we could distinguish objects on shore. For some time past I had noticed a small islet near the main one, and as we continued to sail on, we gradually brought it between us and the peak on Fernando de Noronha. Then I recognized it all.

Ralph spoke to me, but I was speechless with emotion.

“Rouse yourself,” I at last heard him say; “In half an hour it will be time to launch the boat.”

Those words restored me, and I went below to make my preparations.

The boat was hoisted into the air by means of a bowline rigged over the fore yard-arm, and was then lowered over the side. Hawkins, a couple of hands, and myself entered it.

I noticed that instead of heading for Wood Island, as Ralph called it, we were making for Fernando de Noronha itself. “Where are we going, Mr. Hawkins?” I asked.

“We’ve got to get permission of the Governor, Mr. Spencer, before we can carry off any melons, or even land on that island,” he replied.

A number of soldiers were gathered about the rude quay, evidently much surprised to see a vessel stop at the island. When the mate and I stepped ashore, a distinguished looking man whom we had not seen before came forward and said something in Spanish, which I did not understand. Hawkins did, and bowed with a grace which I had never suspected him of possessing; and I knew that this was the Governor.

The mate possessed some knowledge of Spanish, and finally managed to make himself understood. The Governor evidently took him for the master of the brig, as the two addressed each other respectively as “Senor El Capitan” and “Excellenza,” which was all I could understand.

At a signal from the mate, one of our men brought a sack of flour from the boat, and we prepared to embark. Two of the soldiers advanced to the boat with us, and I saw them exchange glances of surprise. “They’ve seen that spade and pick-axe, the rascals!” said Seth, aside to me. “I’ve got leave to get all the melons we want,” he continued, as the men pulled away for the landing, “but that smirking Governor was a sight too polite and inquisitive to suit me.”

Wood Island is separated from Fernando de Noronha by a narrow channel, but Hawkins ordered his men to row around a point of land, to be out of sight from the quay, which was then something over a mile distant.

After grounding on the beach, a little wave carried us further up, and we all leaped out. Seth dispatched the two men towards the north end of the islet after melons, and as soon as they were out of the way, we grasped our tools and commenced the search for the rock, which ought to be near the shore.

We followed the beach all along that side of the islet, Seth eying me curiously, and occasionally admonishing me to “Look out for centipedes.”

Near the southern extremity, I came to a palm that seemed to me identical with the one of my dream, but not a solitary rock was there near it. After considerably more than an hour had elapsed, the mate ventured the remark that our prolonged stay on the island might arouse suspicion in the Governor’s mind, especially if the soldiers told him of the spade and pick-axe in the boat.

I had seated myself on the decaying trunk of a fallen tree to rest a moment, and wonder if my expedition was to result in failure, but at Hawkins’ words I started up.

I advanced towards a mango tree to refresh myself with some of the ripe fruit, when, through an opening in the underbrush, I saw it—the rock of my dream at last!

There could be no doubt of it. I breathlessly approached, and touched it with the spade.

This is what was scratched on the broad surface, in characters quite fresh and distinct: “Mas distante occidente.”

“Further west,” said Hawkins, behind me.

“Is that what it means in English?”

He nodded, and I turned to find the palm, which should be only a short way to the left.

Could this be it—this blasted trunk, looking as though lightning had struck it? Judging from its position it must be, and making a sign to Seth, we fell to with pick and spade.

We worked until I thought my back would break, and must have dug down more than three feet in the rich soil, when the spade struck an obstruction, and we heard the muffled grating of metal. Then the top of what seemed a small zinc box was uncovered.

Silently we toiled away, and within ten minutes more were able to drag forth the box from its resting place.

It was perhaps a foot square, and weighed so much that Seth and I took turns in lugging it along the beach towards the boat. Upon arriving there, I wrapped the box in a piece of tarpaulin, that the men might not see what it was, and placed it in the boat.

We saw nothing of our crew, but the sight of nearly a dozen immense water-melons laid on the beach proved that they had not been idle.

“Great Scott! I s’pose they’d bring melons for a week if I didn’t yell ‘Belay!’” ejaculated Seth; “how many do they think the boat can hold? I’ve got to hunt them up, for Captain Spencer wants no time wasted.”

He disappeared, and I occupied myself in devouring the box with my eyes, and speculating as to its contents. What fabulous wealth in gold and jewels was hidden away in that dull casket? Millions, possibly. In what century had it been buried? Through what scores and scores of years had this little islet been the hiding-place of the ancient box I now looked on? All other eyes that had beheld it must have long since mouldered into dust.

While absorbed in these reflections relating to the past, I was rudely recalled to the present by a crashing in the underbrush, and Seth Hawkins, with our men, appeared, running towards the boat.

“Lay aboard lively there, Mr. Spencer!” cried the mate.

Much alarmed, I tumbled in, and he followed a moment later. The men, a Scandinavian and a negro, were about to put some of the melons into the boat, when Seth cried, “Drop ’em, and pile in here, you sons of sea-cooks!”

They obeyed, and shoved off the boat, though greatly bewildered at leaving the island without the very fruit we had ostensibly come after. The oars were plied vigorously, and when about a ship’s length from the beach, I espied a catamaran [79] coming around the north end of the islet.

The truth burst upon us. “We are followed!” I exclaimed. Seth nodded.

“Why? Did the Governor not give us permission to land?”

“That’s true; but those dark-skinned devils that saw the spade and pick-axe like enough told him, and he’s bound to see what we’re up to. If they overhaul this boat, and see that box of yours, and find we’ve got no melons, there’ll be trouble. I’d have brought off a few, but they’d weigh the boat down too much. These Brazilians have no use for Americans, anyhow.”

Our situation was certainly unpleasant. We were nearly a mile from the brig, and the catamaran was not over half that distance astern of us, and running dead before the wind, which was freshening. I was beginning to wonder what Ralph could be doing, for he actually seemed to be going away from us, when the mate cried out: “Look! the brig’s in stays! the Captain’s putting her about, so as to fetch us on the starboard tack. Hurray!”

Five minutes later, the Sea Witch, with the wind abeam, was running down to us at nearly right angles, evidently aiming to go between us and our pursuers, who were now hardly a quarter of a mile astern. We easily made out five people on the catamaran, two of whom Seth thought were convicts, while one of the others he took for the Governor himself. The latter was waving something in a hostile manner, but as the brig was going six feet to the catamaran’s one, we no longer felt alarm unless our pursuers should use fire-arms.

The brig’s helm was now put down, and she shot up into the wind, thus checking her progress; when halyards were let go, and the light sails came fluttering in. We were only a couple of cable lengths away, and soon had the boat alongside, and my newly acquired property aboard.

The catamaran had given up the pursuit, and was on her way back to the island, those on board indulging in violent gesticulations as long as we could distinguish them.

Some time later, we were closeted in Ralph’s room (which was much larger than mine) with the box between us. It was necessary to bring tools from the carpenter shop to open it, and the first discovery we made was that the zinc was simply the covering for a wooden box, which my nephew said was made of teak, one of the rarest and most durable of woods. It was lined with sailcloth, and upon drawing this aside we saw a small crucifix. Beneath this was a folded paper, and then—a golden vision!

For one moment we stared at it in silence, when I stretched out my hand and took up a coin, half expecting to see it melt away. It bore the embossed head of Dom Pedro, and the date 1885, besides an inscription.

“Ha, this is modern!” I exclaimed, much surprised at the recent date.

“Wait,” said Ralph, as I prepared to turn out the contents of the box, “let me read this paper; it is in Spanish.

“This 34,000 M. is the property of Leon da Costa, Commander of His Imperial Majesty’s troops at Pernambuco, by whom it was here concealed September 16, 1889, pending the settlement of the dissentions which are now rending our unhappy country, and which make it unsafe for one enjoying the favor of the noble Dom Pedro to own property in Brazil.

“Invoking the blessing of the church, and the protection of Holy Mary, I here commit my all to Mother Earth.”

Neither of us spoke for a minute. I felt awed, as though a voice from another world had spoken.

“Ralph,” I said, slowly, “if I had known this treasure had been here but two years, and belonged to a man who is probably still living, I should never have taken it. As it is, I shall keep it until inquiries are made, but it shall not be used except in the event of this man’s death.”

Ralph bowed his head in acquiescence.

The milreis is the standard coin of Brazil, as I learned at Pernambuco, and is worth about fifty-five cents in our money, so that the box contained nearly $18,700, some of which was in currency.

“This Da Costa,” said Ralph, “evidently had the duty of conducting the convicts from Pernambuco to the island; and it was doubtless on one of these trips that he buried his money, though why he has let it remain so long puzzles me. And as for ‘Mas distante occidente,’ which you say was traced on the rock, the words were probably written as a guide to the location of the tree.”

The convict island faded away in the distance, the great peak being visible for several hours after all other parts had vanished; and that evening, long after the damp night-wind had stiffened the sails, and a drenching dew lay heavy on the bulwarks, I stood watching the glorious phosphorescent display in the brig’s wake, and marvelling over the strange fulfillment of my dream.

The inquiries which we instituted upon my return home resulted in the discovery that Leon Da Costa had died of yellow fever in 1890 at Santos, one of the chief ports of Brazil, and at the same time about the most pestilential and unsanitary place on the face of the earth. I had no further scruples about using the money, $5,000 of which I sent to Ralph, without whose assistance I should have accomplished nothing. He now owns two-thirds of the brig Sea Witch, of which vessel Seth Hawkins is still mate.

Occupying a prominent place in our parlor is a peculiar motto—the work of Alice. The figures are white, on a background of black, like this:

3° 50′ 30″ S. 32° 24′ 30″ W.

It never fails to attract the attention of visitors, many of whom inquire what it signifies. We tell them it is a marine puzzle.

BRINGING IN A DERELICT.

The most remarkable case of this character is that of the American schooner Fannie E. Wolston, which was abandoned at sea in October, 1891, and was still afloat three years afterward. She was sighted scores of times during this long interval, and was more than once set on fire by passing vessels. Her travels brought her from Cape Hatteras to mid-ocean; from the tropical Bahamas nearly to the shores of Europe; and in almost every part of the North Atlantic she was frequently seen. Covered with barnacles and sea-weed, reduced to a mere skeleton, and with one rusty anchor still hanging from her bow, this celebrated derelict continued for thirty-six months her long pilgrimage without captain or crew. The bitter gales of three Atlantic winters, that disposed of the ill-fated Naronic and a hundred other staunch vessels were unable to sink the Fannie E. Wolston. When last seen in September, 1894, she had nearly completed the third year of her phenomenal career as an abandoned wreck, during which long period it is computed that her drift was more than eight thousand miles. She was the record-breaker of derelicts.

A sailing ship arrived at Philadelphia early in September, having on board the captain and crew of the brig Neptune, which had been abandoned four days previously, two hundred miles east of Cape Hatteras, while on a voyage from Savannah to Boston with a cargo of Georgia pine. Within a month the brig was sighted no less than five times by steamers arriving at New York—the last time being in Lat. 42° N., Long. 65° W., a point several hundred miles directly east from Boston. Thus in four weeks this derelict had drifted nearly six hundred miles to the northeast of the spot where she was abandoned.

Nothing having been done towards recovering her, at the expiration of a month the owners of the powerful ocean tug Atlas, of Philadelphia, determined to despatch that vessel in search of the Neptune; for, could the latter be brought into port, the owners of the tug would reap a profitable harvest in the way of salvage.

Accordingly, one fine autumn morning, the Atlas steamed out from the Point Breeze Oil Wharves on the Schuylkill River, with a three weeks’ supply of coal and all the most efficient apparatus for wrecking and sea-towing. She was a staunch tug of 800 horse power, and was equipped with a powerful electric search light. There were on board Captain James and ten men, besides Albert Shaw, the captain’s cousin, who had no connection with the tug, but had obtained permission to make one of the party more through a love of adventure than anything else.

After rounding the Delaware Capes and entering the open ocean, the course was laid N.E. by N., and Captain James remarked to his cousin as he finished examining the chart, “Yes, Al, if all goes well we ought to overhaul that brig within five days, somewhere about 44 and 62.”

“You appear to regard falling in with her as a foregone conclusion,” replied Mr. Shaw, somewhat surprised. He was a pale, slender young fellow of twenty-two, and was much more expert at entering up cash and taking off trial balances than at figuring latitude and longitude.

“Why,” answered the captain, “I’ve marked on this chart the date and the place where she was abandoned; then I’ve put down a cross and the date at the exact spot she’s been sighted five different times since, and by connecting all my crosses with a pencil mark and figuring the distance between each one, I can tell about how much and in what direction that wreck is drifting each day. She’s in the Gulf Stream, which she won’t get out of till I tow her out. There’s the dinner bell.”

The captain’s explanation had enlightened Albert as to the method to be pursued in locating the wreck; though, to tell the truth, he was a little skeptical in regard to the final outcome of the matter. There was a brisk sea running, and in spite of the table-rack, it required no little dexterity to prevent beef, vegetables and condensed milk from mingling in one confused jumble; but every one was in good humor, and the fresh, salt air had sharpened the appetites of those who gathered about the little table, and especially that of the captain’s cousin, who averred that he had not been so hungry in six months. Dinner over, Albert busied himself in exploring every part of the tug and investigating the night signals, when suddenly Captain James called to him from the upper deck. Upon ascending thither, he was informed that the Atlas was bearing down on a floating lumber yard. Looking ahead he saw, still some distance away, great quantities of planks floating about; in fact the ocean seemed literally covered with them, forming a curious sight.

The tug soon reached the outer edge of the moving mass, and Jim Speers, the mate, remarked as he surveyed the white clean planks with a critic’s eye, “Fine lumber, that. Some good-sized vessel’s lost her deck-load, I reckon.”

The planks rose and fell on the long regular swell, and as some of them were occasionally lifted partly out of water by a sea, their shining wet surfaces reflected the sun’s rays with dazzling brilliancy. In some places they were massed together so closely that it was difficult to find a passage through them, and though the greater portion of this valuable lot of timber was soon left behind, masses of planks were met continually for a distance of nearly twenty miles. Captain James took the bearings of the main body so as to report the matter upon reaching port.

A six-knot breeze was blowing next morning but the sun did not show himself, and noon having come with the sky still cloudy, the Captain was compelled to figure out his position by dead reckoning, which is not so accurate as a solar observation. He calculated that if everything went well, the tug should not be far from the Neptune at the end of twenty-four hours, providing his estimates of the brig’s drift were correct.

The afternoon wore on, and the skipper and his cousin had paced the narrow deck for some moments in silence, when the former remarked meditatively, “I had a queer experience with a derelict once,—just after I took this tug.”

“How was that?” asked Albert.

The captain finished filling his pipe with fragments of tobacco which he cut from a plug, and continued:

“It was about two years ago that I received orders to go after the derelict bark Pegasus. She had sailed from a Nova Scotia port for the West coast of Ireland with one million feet of deals aboard, and after being abandoned in a big blow was sighted several times. I’m a sinner if we didn’t cruise twenty-five hundred miles and use up half our coal when, on the twelfth day out as I came on deck, my mate said to me, “Captain, there’s a lame duck two points on the port bow.” (We seamen often speak of a crippled vessel as a lame duck.) Well, we’d run that bark down at last, and we lost no time in getting her in tow. After towing her two days, what do you think happened?”

“The hawser parted?”

“She sank—went right down—and I went back to port the most disgusted man in Philadelphia. We found, after we got in, that a steamer passing the wreck and considering her dangerous to navigation had set fire to her; but after burning the main deck nearly through, and a hole in the stern, the fire had been put out, probably by the seas which the bark shipped. This was only a couple of days before we sighted her. While we had her in tow I noticed that a good deal of lumber washed out every time a big sea struck her, and I didn’t like it much either, though I made no doubt she’d float till we reached port. But, as I said, she played me a mean trick and foundered about four hundred miles off the Delaware Capes.”

“That was tough luck,” commented Albert, as he glanced at the dial of the taffrail log which trailed astern—its brass rotator revolving rapidly just beneath the surface of the dark blue water.

Next day was bright and sunny, and an extra sharp lookout was kept, for it was hoped to sight the derelict within the next twelve hours. After ascertaining the tug’s position at noon, the course was changed to N.N.E., and things went on as before. Mr. Shaw pored over the chart of the North Atlantic, and was in a state of impatient expectancy all day, although the mate kindly informed him that they might not sight the brig for a week yet, if indeed they ever did.

It lacked but a few minutes of sunset, when the captain, who for some time had been standing near the pilot-house sweeping the horizon with his glass, cried sharply, “Starboard your helm, there!”

“What’s up now?” asked Albert, ascending the ladder to the upper deck.

“A wreck of some kind, dead ahead.”

Taking the glass, he saw nothing at first, but finally made out an object that looked like a pole sticking out of the water.

“That stick is the mast of a vessel,” replied the captain, in answer to Shaw’s inquiry, “and at least half of it is carried away. The hull must be awash too, or we could see it plainly now, for she can’t be over six miles off. If the craft was in her natural condition, I’d have sighted her long ago—at twelve miles certainly. A little more and we’d have run right away from her.”

“Does she look like a brig, sir?” asked Speers.

“Can’t make out her rig yet. The chap we’re after is hereabouts somewhere if I’ve calculated right,” said the captain, taking another survey of the object ahead.

The tug was rapidly closing up the gap between herself and the wreck, and the faces of those on board presented an interesting study. Captain James was anxious to know whether the wreck they were approaching was the brig he was in search of. The usual excitement caused by the sight of an abandoned vessel did not affect him; it was simply a matter of business. So also with Speers, though perhaps to a less extent. The majority of the crew contemplated the stranger with feelings akin to indifference. Many of them did not know the name of the vessel they were in search of,—neither did they care. But Albert was looking at a genuine wreck for the first time, and his heart beat faster as the ocean waif grew more and more distinct, with her shattered masts, disordered rigging and general appearance of desolation.

“Neptune!” cried Captain James, as he made out the gilded letters on the port bow. He had already formed the opinion that she was the craft of which he was in search, as enough of her spars were left to show that she had been square-rigged on her foremast, and brigs are now comparatively scarce.

When the tug was within a few rods of the Neptune, her boat was launched, and the mate, Albert, and two of the crew entered, when it was rowed around to the brig’s bows in search of a favorable place for boarding. A large rope, probably the starboard fore-brace, was entangled in the standing rigging in such a manner that fifteen or twenty feet of it trailed in the water alongside the wreck. The mate picked up the rope’s end, and drew the boat so close to the brig that, taking advantage of the next roll she gave towards him, he seized a lanyard and was soon on board. Albert and Joe Miller followed. The other man, known as “Sharkey,” remained in the boat to see that she did not get stove against the side of the wreck.

Speers took a cursory glance around, and then hailed the tug. “All ready, sir,” he cried. A rope had been fastened to one end of the tug’s big hawser, and the other end of this rope Captain James now hove, so that it landed on the brig’s forecastle deck. The mate and Joe Miller hauled it in, and secured the hawser to the brig’s bows. This important task having been accomplished, the boarding party proceeded to take a thorough survey of the wreck.

The foremast was gone at the lower mast-head, leaving the fore yard still in its place, upon which the tattered remnants of the foresail were still visible. It had apparently been clewed up without having been furled, and the winds of five weeks had whipped it into ribbons. The entire mainmast was gone about ten feet above the deck, and in falling had smashed the bulwarks on the port beam and quarter so that the water flowed all over the deck, where it was several inches deep. She was so low that her main deck was level with the ocean, and small seas were constantly toppling over her bows and low bulwarks, where they broke in showers of spray. The main boom was hanging over the side, while the bowsprit and all the jibs were entirely gone. The main hatch was battened down, but the fore was off, and upon looking below the cargo of lumber was seen pressed up close under the hatch, where it occasionally surged slowly from side to side in obedience to the sluggish motions of the brig. On top of the after house a small boat painted white was lashed, having in some way escaped the general destruction. The wheel and rudder appeared uninjured. There was a perfect litter of ropes, blocks, standing rigging, etc., floating about the deck, all tangled in a confused mass.

The party now entered the cabin. Everything here was drenched; the skylights were gone; fragments of glass encumbered all that portion of the floor not under water; and there was a damp, musty smell such as one encounters on entering a cellar not often opened. The captain’s compass was still in its place under the centre skylight, but its brass work was badly stained with salt water. The state rooms were in much the same condition as the cabin, and the whole port side of the after house seemed to be slightly stove. The companion-way door was ripped off, and nowhere to be seen.

On emerging from this dismal place the mate took a peep into the crew’s quarters. The rows of bunks in which the men had slept still contained a mouldy mattress or two, while a large cask that had doubtless been used as a table was rolling about the floor. A couple of rusty pannikins floated about in the shallow water. It was of course impossible to enter the lazarette or the fore peak, for they were submerged. All the provisions were ruined, but the scuttle butts contained plenty of fresh water.

Having finished his examination, Speers sent the boat back to the tug for a supply of provisions for Miller and Sharkey, who were to remain on the wreck to steer her. As soon as the stores were placed aboard, and a few directions given, Albert and the mate pulled away from the derelict, for a squall was making up in the north-west and it was high time to get under way. Mast-head lanterns were run up, and the two vessels started for Boston.

There was plenty to talk about that night, and Albert staid up long past the usual time conversing with the master of the tug, who was in a jubilant mood, and who more than once invited his cousin to “splice the main brace.” [101]

“The owners will have to give me credit for quick work this time,” the captain said. “Monday we left Philadelphia; Wednesday we picked up the derelict; and on Friday—or Saturday at furthest—we ought to steam up Boston Harbor. Speers says the brig’s cargo seems in good shape, and if so it should easily bring $7,000 at auction. The hull may fetch a thousand more. Not a bad haul, Mr. Shaw for five days’ work.”

“This derelict business seems profitable.”

“It is—if you can find the derelict. For instance, the schooner Sargent has been floating about the North Atlantic ever since last spring, with twenty thousand dollars’ worth of mahogany in her hold. There is a prize worth trying for, but although a score of vessels have sighted her, several of which attempted to tow her in, she is still drifting about with a small fortune on board. Last month some Baltimore parties organized an expedition and chartered a steamer to find the Sargent and bring her in. They searched for several weeks, and then returned to port considerably out of pocket, to find that a Cunarder had just seen the schooner not forty miles off the course they had taken.

“But I must go on deck; the night looks squally.”

Albert turned in, and dreamed of drifting about the ocean for many weeks on a water-logged wreck, which foundered the instant assistance was at hand and he escaped only by leaping out of his berth against the wall.

The heavily laden brig, submerged to her decks, offered a great resistence to the water, and when a brisk head wind sprang up, the powerful tug was scarcely able to make headway. Several rain-squalls were encountered during the night, and by sunrise there was every indication of a gale.

A heavy swell was running, the wind increased, and Captain James felt some concern for the safety of his tow. By noon a hard northwester had set in, accompanied by an ugly head sea. Both vessels were under water most of the time, nothing of the derelict being visible but her masts and deck-houses, while the tug struggled through the heavy rollers and blinding spray with only her smoke-stack and pilot house above water.

It was a day of anxiety. The wreck was simply a sodden mass of timber, without buoyancy, and dragged and pulled on the huge hawser in a manner that caused continual apprehension. Instead of rising to meet the big rollers, she went lurching and floundering through them; burying herself in the brine, and then coming up with a backward jerk that made the captain catch his breath. Even a steel hawser has its limits of endurance.

Night closed in chill and comfortless, with no sign of immediate improvement. Albert put on a life-preserver, braced himself in his bunk without undressing, and wondered if he should ever see terra firma again, while the cook shook his head and confided to a deck-hand that “this was what come of having landsmen aboard.”

The wind blew harder, and even a full steam pressure hardly sufficed to drive the Atlas along. The middle watch was half over when the straining tug plunged suddenly forward, rolling and pitching violently, as though freed from a cumbersome weight. At the same instant a muffled cry was heard by those on the upper deck. All knew its meaning—the derelict was adrift!

The night was black as pitch; mist and spray obscured everything; and almost before the order to reverse the engines could be given, the wreck was vanishing in the gloom. The tug’s head swung round and she started in pursuit.

Fifteen minutes sufficed to show Captain James the utter futility and peril of attempting to recover the brig until the gale moderated. The Atlas was being literally overwhelmed and forced under water by the furious seas which overtook her. She could not steam fast enough to escape them. One great comber bent the smoke-stack, smashed the pilot-house windows, tore away the life-boat, and bore the tug down until it seemed as though she would never come to the surface. It was madness to continue, and the Atlas was put about and hove to.

Never in his life had her captain suffered such keen exasperation as now. With water streaming from his oilers, he stood grasping the pilot-house rail, and watched the derelict’s mast head light glimmering astern like a will-o’-the-wisp; now hidden by a great wave,—now reappearing fitfully,—now swallowed up in the black night. He strained his eyes through the salt mist till they ached, but the dismantled wreck and her imperilled crew were seen no more.

The captain went below, and calculated as accurately as possible the tug’s position when the derelict broke adrift, the direction and velocity of the wind, and force of the current. Nothing could be done until the gale moderated. There was ample time for everyone to discuss the misfortune, and speculation was rife as to the fate of Joe Miller and Sharkey, who had last been seen at dusk, lashing themselves to the shrouds. This would save them from going overboard while the rigging held, but their slender stock of provisions must have been swept away or ruined by water, which would render their position desperate unless quickly rescued.

The gray dawn came, by which time the worst was over, and eager eyes scanned the sea for some trace of the brig. But the wreck, sitting very low in the water and with only a few feet of her masts left, had drifted out of the line of vision, though she was probably not fifteen miles away. Wind and sea were still boisterous, but the search began immediately.

The conditions in general seemed to favor a speedy recovery of the Neptune, for the wind was still in the same quarter, the day was clearing rapidly, and the wreck having no sails and being practically under water, could drift but slowly. But the brig’s condition, coupled with the fact that the tug herself sat very low, formed no slight obstacle to early success. Had the Atlas possessed a tall mast, the derelict might have been visible from it, but nothing could be seen from the roof of the pilot-house save the smoke of a steamer on the northern horizon. As time passed, bringing no tidings of the missing vessel, the excitement increased, and a handsome reward was promised any man who should first sight the wreck. Twice a false alarm was given, but the day waned until the shadows stole over the deep. Still there were no tidings.

Through the starlit night Captain James thought of his absent men and of the sufferings they must be enduring. He sent up rockets at intervals, though with little hope of an answer; for the Neptune’s signalling apparatus was doubtless ruined by water, and his men would be powerless to make their presence known.

The sea was calm at daybreak, the sun shone brightly as the hours flew by, and the tug covered many leagues, while the promised reward kept all hands on the alert. The Atlas overhauled a large bark, and spoke her, but she had seen nothing of the Neptune; and another day drew to a close.

One of three things had happened: the derelict had foundered, had been taken in tow by a passing steamer, or was still drifting helplessly about. The first supposition was improbable, if not impossible. Experience has shown that a vessel in the Neptune’s condition can survive tempests that send stout ships to the bottom. As to the second, the number of steamers having facilities for towing wrecks is small, and the castaway’s value must be great to induce one to attempt salving her. The last supposition was probably the true one. A vessel may float about the steam-traversed North Atlantic for weeks without being seen, and not five derelicts in a hundred are ever brought into port. After weighing the chances carefully, the captain came to the conclusion that the brig was still an aimless wanderer, though it was incomprehensible how she could have eluded so thorough a search.

The next day was but a repetition of the one preceding, and this continued until the days became a week. Hope was almost gone, the coal was two-thirds consumed, and still Captain James would not give up.

Finally, ten days after the loss of the Neptune, the Atlas abandoned the search and returned to Philadelphia.

As soon as she was sighted by the operator in the marine signal station, the fact was telephoned to the city; and when she reached the dock, one of the owners was on hand to meet her. Joe Miller and Sharkey were there also, sitting on a box of merchandise, and exhibiting no traces of suffering or emaciation.

The surprise of the tug’s people was great, but the captain was soon enlightened as to the derelict’s fate. That troublesome craft had been picked up the morning after she broke adrift, by a West India fruit steamer bound to Boston. Three-fourths of the steel hawser was still attached to the Neptune, so the steamer had only to fish up the broken end, secure it to her stern bits, and continue on her way. The weather remained fine and she reached her destination the second day afterward.

The division of the salvage money was a delicate matter. An abandoned vessel becomes the property of whoever brings her into port, but in the present instance the derelict was held to be the tug’s property even after she broke adrift, because she continued in possession of two of the tug’s crew, who remained on her from the time the hawser parted until she was safely beached on the mud-flats in Boston harbor. Consequently, she was not legally “an abandoned vessel” when the fruiter picked her up; nor could the latter have handled her at all except for the tug’s hawser. But the steamer had rendered an unquestioned service by towing the wreck into port, and was therefore entitled to a portion of the money. She was finally awarded 25%, while the remainder went to the Atlas.

The lumber cargo realized a trifle over $6,000 at auction, but the brig’s hull had been badly strained and battered in the last gale, and brought only $500. Her age, combined with her severe injuries, made it unprofitable to put her in sea-going condition, and she was converted into a lighter for transferring merchandise about Boston harbor, in which humble capacity she will probably end her days.

THE MONOMANIAC.