But no one could calculate the value of that little episode in the passage to these long-suffering ones, or the benefit that the fresh food was to their salt-saturated blood. Frank thought that never in his life had he tasted anything so delicious as that fruit, and as for the eggs, well, Williams and Johnson had succeeded in obtaining two dozen, and as they had got no fruit there was a grand exchange, and at supper-time a feast of hard-boiled eggs, when the whole twenty-six were wolfed by the four boys without any feeling that they were playing the glutton.
Thenceforward the ship seemed to have entered a new world. The sea was full of wonders. Strange birds and multitudes of fish, with occasional troops of whales of various kinds, queer floating things, and sounds at night also made Frank feel that all his early dreams of the delights of a sea-life were more than realised; and he confided to his friend Hansen his perfect satisfaction in his choice, saying again and again that he felt sure he was right when he chose the sea as a profession, and now he knew that it was the only life he could ever have lived.
Hansen looked upon him pityingly, benevolently, but said nothing, feeling, perhaps, the uselessness of doing so, but at the same time he felt that Frank’s enthusiasm, beautiful as it was, would soon fade in the face of the stern realities of a sea-life when once he had reached man’s estate. And yet, there was Harry Carter, of Frank’s own age and with all of Frank’s opportunities, who had degenerated into a wastrel, who bent all his faculties to the hard task of shirking work, who wouldn’t learn and who would loaf, devoting as much brain power to getting out of the performance of his legitimate duties as would have made a man of him had he used them in the proper way.
One hundred and thirty-one days from home, and the joyful cry came ringing down from the mast-head of “Land-ho!” It was the voice of Hansen, who had been sent aloft by the mate to see if he could see anything, and from the fore-topsail-yard had sighted the beautiful outlines of Kandavu, an island of the Fiji group just south of Viti Levu, where the mail steamers from San Francisco used to call on their way to Sydney. The south-east Trades blew fresh, and the ship seemed to feel the call of the land, so that by sunset, amid wonders of nature that Frank felt could not be surpassed on earth, the Sealark anchored in the pretty bay of Levuka.
“The Sealark” enters the bay.
Who could hope to describe the tumult of mind experienced by Frank that evening, as he witnessed the fish-like gambols of the Fijians who came off in their canoes, or disported themselves around the ship like so many seals? How he listened to the strange mellifluous language they spoke, and the extraordinary attempts at English they made; how he feasted upon eggs and fruit, and vegetables and fish, until he felt a very glutton, then sat on the rail under the broad glare of the blazing moon and listened to the strange sounds, sniffed the curious sweet fragrance of the land, and dimly tried to recall the tales he had read of the far-off cannibal islands in his childhood.
Then tried to realise that he was really here—and right on the other side of the round world was that little family group whom he knew were always thinking of him. A sudden sense of the vast distance he had traversed came over him, a feeling of utter loneliness and longing to see the faces of those dear ones seized upon him, and to his own utter surprise a few hot drops came stealing down his cheeks, reminding him that for all his manly experiences he was but a boy after all.
That made him angry with himself, and roughly brushing away the tell-tale moisture he strode into the house and lit his pipe (I hadn’t mentioned this acquisition of his) and began to laugh and banter Harry, the butt of the house, who was as usual in trouble for forgetting to wash up the supper traps. But at the earliest moment he sought his bunk, for he wanted to forget his sudden homesickness, and in that dark corner was almost immediately lost to all his external surroundings.