Mrs. Cliff's Yacht

by Frank R. Stockton

During this speech Mr. Burke, generally so eager to speak and to act, had stood silent and troubled. He agreed with Shirley that the thing to do was to go after the Dunkery Beacon at the best speed the yacht could make. He did not believe that Mrs. Cliff would object to his sailing away with her yacht on this most important errand,—but he remembered that he had no crew. These parsons must be put off at Kingston, and although he had had no doubt whatever that he could get a crew in this port, he had expected to have a week, and perhaps more, in which to do it. To collect in an hour or two a crew which he could trust with the knowledge which would most likely come to them in some way or other that the steamer they were chasing carried untold wealth, was hardly to be thought of.

"As far as I am concerned," cried Mrs. Cliff, "my yacht may go after that steamer just as soon as she can be started away!"

"And what do you say, Burke?" exclaimed Shirley.

Burke did not answer. He was trying to decide whether or not he and Shirley, with Burdette and Portman, and the two engineers could work the yacht. But before he had even a chance to speak, Mr. Hodgson stepped forward and exclaimed:—

"I'll stick to the yacht until she has accomplished her business! I'd just as soon make my vacation a week longer as not. I can cut it off somewhere else. If you are thinking about your crew, Captain, I want to say that so far as I am concerned, I am one volunteer!"

"And I am another!" said Mr. Litchfield. "Now that I know how absolutely essential it is that the Dunkery Beacon should be overtaken, I would not for a moment even consider the surrender of my position upon this vessel, which I assure you, madam, I consider as an honor!"

Mr. Shirley stared in amazement at the speaker. What sort of a seaman was this? His face and hands were dirty, but he had been shovelling coal; but such speech Shirley had never heard from mariners' lips. The rest of the crew seemed very odd, and now he noticed for the first time that although many of them were in their shirt sleeves, nearly all wore black trousers. He could not understand it.

"Mr. Litchfield, sir," said a large, heavy man with a nose burned very red, a travelling cap upon his head, and wearing a stiffly starched shirt which had once been white, no collar, and a waistcoat cut very straight in front, now opened, but intended to be buttoned up very high, "I believe Mr. Litchfield has voiced the sentiments of us all. As he was speaking, I looked from one brother to another, and I think I am right."

"You are right!" cried every one of the sturdy fellows who had so recently stepped from Synod to yacht.

"I knew it!" exultingly exclaimed the speaker. "I felt it in my heart of hearts! Madam, and Captain, knowing what we do we are not the men to desert you when it is found necessary to continue the voyage for a little!"