Then Mr. —— asked that the hands might be called aft. When they came he invited them into the cabin, and said, “Now, men, will you take a word of advice from a man who knows a good deal more of the world than you do, and also who knows sailors pretty well? You will probably have the biggest sum you have ever handled in your lives out of this business, for I find that the vessel and cargo are insured for £20,000, and that will probably work out, at salvage of two-thirds, at about £350 apiece for each of you, if not more. Will you be wise and go straight out of Sailor Town, living somewhere quietly and soberly until you get it, and then putting it away carefully somewhere where you can always lay your hands on it when you want it? I’m prepared to advance you money now, in order to enable you to get away at once to some cheap hotel out of Sailor Town, and I will see that you get your wages due up to the time of leaving the Sealark to-morrow.”
They all thanked him, and promised to do as he said. So he gave them £5 apiece on account, and dismissed them to get the mooring gear ready, as she was drawing near her destination, the Southwest India Dock. There she was speedily moored, and the men, shaking hands warmly with Frank, jumped ashore, to be surrounded at once by the usual gang of harpies, who lie in wait for the sailor homeward-bound off a long voyage. But Scotty, who had received the address of a nice little moderately-priced hotel just off Oxford Street, took the lead of his little crowd, and commissioned a boy to go and fetch two four-wheeled cabs, in which they took their departure, and amidst a round of cheering which sent that queer creeping feeling all over Frank’s body, they drove away through the shoal of discomfited sharks.
The ship was duly handed over to the representatives of the owners, and Mr. ——, taking Frank under his wing, drove off to his comfortable hotel, where his wife was awaiting him with a warm welcome for “the dear boy,” as she said, who had shown himself to be such a brave sailor and a man. And there, over a dinner which seemed to Frank to be a heavenly dream, after his long course of the ship’s poor grub, well above the average as it had been, Frank had to tell the story of the second voyage of the Sealark over again. And then to a beautiful bed and the sweet sleep of the untroubled young, although, to say truth, he wakened several times during the night, and found himself listening to what was a-doing on deck, as he thought. For we do not shake off responsibility such as his had been so easily. But each time he thus roused and listened, the blissful remembrance of his successfully accomplished feat came over him, and he sank to sleep again with a contented, happy sigh.
CHAPTER XIV
TO SEA ONCE MORE
The process of adjudicating the reward due to the successful salvors of a ship is a very complicated one, and any description of it would be calculated to tire the most enthusiastic reader of a sea story. Wherefore I do not propose to touch the subject further than by saying that the value of the Woden and her cargo was adjudged to be £17,500, out of which Frank was awarded £2500, and a most flattering testimonial from the underwriters engrossed on vellum, which I am sure pleased him much more than the money. The other members of the crew were duly awarded their shares by the court, and, as far as I have been able to learn, were not only satisfied but sensible in the way they disposed of these well-earned gains.
And now we must return to Frank for a while, who at the earliest possible moment hastened home to dear old stony Dewsbury, and was received, as you might expect, by the admiring crowd of friends and relatives with immense enthusiasm. But his mother and his sisters felt at once that the boy was gone for ever. In his place had returned a man with clear untroubled sight and firm voice, accustomed to command, and with confidence in his own power to do. His mother shed a few tears, as women will, but secretly worshipped him; while his sisters hung upon his lightest word, and looked with scorn upon all the other young men they knew as utterly unworthy to compare with their stalwart brother. Only his father of all the family now met him as an equal, and talked about men and things with him as one man to another, feeling his heart swell with pride as he looked upon this grave and self-possessed man of eighteen.
Only a few days, however, had elapsed before he began to grow restless. He wanted to be off again. The company of the youths of his own age did not either interest or amuse him; they bored him with what he considered their inane, incessant conversation about cricket and football. Had they talked business, he could have understood them and learned from them, but that topic they shunned as if it were the plague. The serious side of life appealed to him, and while his sense of humour was as strong as possible, and his enjoyment of life very keen, he turned with positive disgust from people who thought of nothing with any interest except games, and only thought of work under compulsion, taking no pride in it at all. As a result of this he was in an entirely receptive mood for the owner’s letter from Liverpool, received after he had been at home a month, although one part of it disappointed him bitterly. It informed him that the Sealark, having secured a good charter to carry case oil from New York to Hong-Kong, would of course not be coming to England at all until the close of the present voyage, if she did then. And by the same post came a farewell letter from Captain Jenkins, full of heartiest congratulations upon his success, and keenest regrets at being compelled to sail without him.
The consolation, however, came in the postscript to the owner’s letter, which informed Frank that he had been appointed third mate of the Thurifer, a very large and fine steel ship, for those days, of 2000 tons register, and carrying twenty-two A.B.’s and eight apprentices. He would, of course, be an apprentice still, not a great deal more than half his time having been served; but he would live in the cabin, and be treated in every respect like an officer. This news caused Frank’s heart to leap for joy, and he was especially elated at the prospect of having a cabin to himself; for although he had endured it cheerfully, the dog-hole of a place which he had been compelled to share with three other inmates on board the Sealark, had always been his greatest hardship at sea.