The listeners are shown the dead bodies of Europeans and Asiatics, lying about the blood-stained deck under the fierce rays of the southern sun, and we breathe the tainted air, while chattering cormorants and screeching fishhawks tear the thin clothing of the corpses into shreds and fight with claw and beak over the decaying flesh. Johnson and the serang, so widely separated by blood, language, and religion, now united by a bond of common suffering, help each other to crawl into the caboose for shelter from the heat and from the birds of prey. Now we hear the gentle chafing of the gear aloft, and the lazy slatting of the sails, as the brig rolls upon the long, glassy swell; we see the sun sink beyond the ocean’s rim in a glory of gold and purple that illumines the zenith and turns the sea into a lake of fire; and we feel the benediction of the cool twilight and whispering breeze.
In the silence of the night, the two men, weak from loss of blood, drag themselves aft to the deserted cabin; Johnson lowers himself down the companion and gropes his way to the pantry, where he finds food to share with his companion. In the captain’s cabin he finds a decanter of brandy and a tumbler in the rack at the foot of the berth; he fills the glass and pours the spirit down his parched throat to brace his shattered nerves, then fills the glass again and takes it to the serang, but the faithful follower of Mahomet refuses to lift it to his burning lips. We live with them as they work their little vessel back to the muddy waters of the Hooghly and sight a pilot brig lying at anchor on her station, and their joy is ours when the pilot, with his leadsman, servant, and boat’s crew, comes on board. Again these unfortunate men, haggard and still suffering from their wounds, are being tried in an Anglo-Indian Court of Justice under a charge of murder on the high seas, and we hear the judge pronounce their solemn sentence of death.
The scenes to which I have referred were so real that it seemed as if Johnson, while describing them, must have believed this story himself, and it was interesting to note the effect upon those who heard it for the first time, when, after giving a circumstantial account of the miraculous escape of the serang and himself from the Calcutta prison during the night before they were to be hanged, he would cheerfully remark, “Well, now, I call that a pretty good yarn to spin out of nothing.� Then some one, perhaps a lady, might say, “Why, Captain Johnson, is it not true?� and he would smile pleasantly and reply, “True? Why bless your soul, I never heard of a brig called the Diadem, and never was in Calcutta in my life.� He had a number of these stories, and in China we never tired of listening to them.
Captain Johnson was an uncommonly able man and a most agreeable companion. He remained in command of the Invincible for several years, and in the early sixties he took in succession three frail wooden side-wheel river steamboats, the Fire Dart, Fire Cracker, and Fire Queen, from New York round the Cape of Good Hope to China, with no accident or mishap—a remarkable achievement. In 1866, Captain Johnson was the navigator, but not in command, of the yacht Vesta in her race with the Henrietta and Fleetwing across the Atlantic.
The Comet was 1836 tons register, and measured: length 229 feet, breadth 42 feet, depth 22 feet 8 inches. She was owned by Bucklin & Crane, of New York, and was commanded by Captain E. C. Gardner, late of the Celestial, in whose hands she gained a high reputation for speed.
The Sword-Fish was owned by Barclay & Livingston, of New York, and was 1036 tons register; length 169 feet 6 inches, breadth 36 feet 6 inches, depth 20 feet. Although not so extremely sharp as the larger ships built by Mr. Webb during that year, she was quite as handsome, and while commanded by Captain Babcock she eclipsed them all in speed.
Captain David Sherman Babcock, brother-in-law of Captain N. B. Palmer, was born at Stonington in 1822, and came of a distinguished family, his father being Major Paul Babcock and his grandfather Colonel Harry Babcock of Revolutionary fame. He received the usual New England school education of those days, which appears to have been a sufficient equipment for some of the most useful men that the United States has yet produced.
As a boy David developed a strong desire for a seafaring life, which cannot be wondered at, as at that period Stonington and the neighboring town of Mystic were flourishing seaports, whose ships sailed to every quarter of the globe, and whose jovial mariners kept the social atmosphere well charged with shadowy visions of strange lands, ancient temples, pagodas, palms, and coral isles lying in distant tropical seas. The departure of a ship with colors flying, the crisp, incisive orders of her captain and mates, and the clomp, clomp, clomp, of the windlass pawl, the songs of the sailors heaving up anchor, the hum of the running gear as it rendered through the blocks, and the music of their straining sheaves to the last long pulls on sheets and halliards, were a more potent means of recruiting bright, young boys, soon to become mates and captains of American ships, than all the press-gangs that were ever heard of.
So it came about that young Babcock, at the age of sixteen, was allowed to ship as boy before the mast with Captain Nat Palmer on board the Hibernia, and later he sailed again with Captain Palmer as an officer on board the Garrick. After making voyages to India and China on board of various ships, he was appointed at the age of twenty-five to command the ship Charlestown on a voyage to Callao and Lima. In 1850, Captain Babcock married Charlotte, the youngest daughter of Joseph Noyes, of Stonington, and W. I. Babcock, the well-known naval architect and engineer, who first introduced the scientific construction of steel vessels on the Great Lakes, is their son.
The Typhoon was owned by D. & A. Kingsland, of New York, and was commanded by Captain Charles H. Salter, who was born at Portsmouth in 1824, and an ancestor of his, Captain John Salter, commanded a vessel in the European trade during Colonial times, and for generations the Salters had sailed out of Portsmouth in command of ships. Captain Charles Salter went to sea at an early age, and at twenty-two commanded the ship Venice and later the Samuel Badger.