A Sea Queen's Sailing

by Charles W. Whistler

"We can take no chances," he said. "Yet it is likely that we shall have a ship or two in chase of us shortly. It is a wonder to me that we have seen none yet. But word will go along the coast of what has happened. It is not the first time that a carelessly-moored vessel has got adrift in a calm, and found a breeze for herself, while her sail was hoisted to dry in the sun."

Now, all we had to do was to carry forward the tack and set it up for reaching, and to do that we had to climb over the fagots at the foot of the penthouse, and the gunwale end of the timbers they rested on, the run of the deck being blocked altogether by the pile. Seeing that when the ship was to be put about the square sail had to be lowered, brought aft round the mast and rehoisted on the other board, the unhandiness of the thing was terribly unseamanlike. Bertric and I grumbled and wondered at it the while we worked, only hoping that by some stroke of luck we might be able to reach a haven without having to shift the sail. It was to the starboard of the mast now, which would serve us well if the wind came from east or north, as was most likely.

Maybe that was an hour's work, and we had done all we might. By that time the breeze had altogether gone, and the ship floated idly on still, bright water, with the hush of the night round us. There was time to tow her head round when we knew whence the morning wind would blow.

Bertric coiled down the fall of the tack purchase, and nodded to Dalfin. "Food now, if there is to be any," he said. "What is in yon kettle?"

Now that we were forward we had seen that against this end of the penthouse no fagots had been piled. The red and white striped awnings of the decks were set there, carefully rolled up round their carved supports, and they rested on a stout sea bedstead, such as might be carried on board for the chief to whom the ship belonged. Two more chests stood at the head and foot of this bedstead, and they were carved, as indeed was the bed. It was plain that all the gear on board belonged to some great house.

But six or eight feet forward of these things, and in the midst of a clear space of deck, was a shallow square box full of sand, and on that was set the covered kettle of which our comrade spoke. The sandbox was that on which a fire might be lighted at sea if need were, but none had been used on it as yet. Hard by were two casks lashed to ringbolts on deck, one of which was covered, and the other had a spigot in it. They held oatcake in one, and water in the other, as perhaps one might have expected, here where the men of the crew would gather forward. And the kettle was full of boiled meat, which was maybe the most welcome sight to us that we could have looked on. For, if we had managed to forget it, we were famished.

So then and there we made a royal meal, asking not at all what the meat might be, only knowing that it was good, thanks to the unknown hands which had made it ready. There was enough in that great sea cauldron for two more such meals as this, and the oatcake barrel was full. We had no fear of hunger again for a time, and if there was no more to be found by the time this store was ended, we should surely have found haven or help in some way, most likely by the coming of some ship in search with the morning at latest.

Now, as I sat on the deck and ate, once and again came to me that sharp smell of peat smoke, and at last I spoke of it, asking if the others had not smelt it.

"I smell somewhat strange to me," said Bertric. "It is a pleasant smell enough. What is amiss with it?"

"What, do your folk in England use no peat?" said Dalfin in surprise. "Why, we should hardly know how to make a fire without it. It is peat smoke you smell."