Mrs. Cliff's Yacht

by Frank R. Stockton

Edna was as enthusiastic and interested in this voyage as her husband. She sympathized in all his anxiety in regard to the safety of the treasure, but even stronger than this was her desire to see once more her dear friend, whom she had come to look upon almost as an elder sister.

During each day the Captain and his wife were almost constantly on deck, their glasses sweeping the south-eastern horizon, hoping for the sight of two steamers coming back to Kingston. They saw vessels coming and going, but they were not the craft they looked for, and after they left the Caribbean Sea the sail became fewer and fewer. On the second day after they left Tobago Island they fell in with a small steamer apparently in distress, for she was working her way under sail and against head-winds towards the coast.

When the Captain spoke this steamer, he received a request to lower a boat and go on board of her. There he found an astonishing state of affairs. The steamer was from a French port, she carried no cargo, and she was commanded and manned by Captain Hagar and the crew of the English ship Dunkery Beacon. Captain Hagar's story was not a long one, and he told it as readily to Captain Horn as he would to any other friendly mariner who might have boarded him.

He had left Kingston with his vessel as he left it many times before, and the Caribbees were not half a day behind him when he was hailed by a steamer,—the one he was now on, which had been following him for some time. He was told that this steamer carried a message from his owners, and without suspecting anything, he lay to, and a boat came to him from the other ship. This boat had in it a good many more men than was necessary, but he suspected no evil until half-a-dozen men were on his deck and half-a-dozen pistols were pointed at the heads of himself and those around him. Then two more boats came over, more men boarded him, and without a struggle, or hardly a cross word,—as he expressed it,—the Dunkery Beacon was in the hands of sea-robbers.

Captain Hagar was a mild-mannered man, an excellent seaman, and of good common sense. He had before found orders waiting for him at Jamaica, and had not thought it surprising that orders should now have been sent after him. He had firearms on board and might have defended himself to a certain extent, but he had suspected no evil, and when the pirates had boarded him it was useless to think of arms or defence.

The men who had captured the Dunkery Beacon made very short work of their business. They simply exchanged vessels. They commanded Captain Hagar and all his men to go over to the French steamer, while they all came on board the Dunkery Beacon, bringing with them whatever they cared for. Captain Hagar was told that he could work his new vessel to any port in the world which suited him best, and then the Dunkery Beacon was headed southward and steamed away.

When Captain Hagar's engineers attempted to start the engines of their vessel, they found it impossible to do so. Several important pieces of the machinery had been taken out, hoisted on deck, and dropped overboard. Whatever port they might make, they must make it under sail.

A broken-hearted and dejected man was Captain Hagar. He had lost a vast treasure which had been entrusted to him, and he had not ceased to wonder why the pirates had not murdered him and all his crew, and thrown them overboard. He hoped that in time he and his men might reach Georgetown, or some other port, but it would be slow and disheartening work under the circumstances.

Captain Horn was also greatly cast down by the news he had received. With the least possible amount of trouble, the pirates had carried off, not only the treasure, but the ship which conveyed it, and now in all probability were far away with their booty. He could understand very well why they would not undertake such wholesale crime as the murder of all the people on the Dunkery, for it is probable that there were men among them who could not be trusted even had the leaders been willing to undertake such useless bloodshed. If Captain Hagar and his men were set adrift on a steamer without machinery, it would be long before they could reach any port, and even if they should soon speak a vessel and report their misfortune, where was the policeman of the sea who would have authority to sail after the stolen vessel, or, if he had, would know on what course to follow her?

Captain Horn gave up the treasure as lost. The Dunkery Beacon was probably shaping her course for the coast of Africa, and even if he had a swifter vessel and could overhaul her, what could he do?