LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
| FACING PAGE | |
| It was a bleak, gloomy day in January when I first beheld her | [Frontispiece] |
| We could have put in several months on that barren patch of sand quite happily | [64] |
| A huge sea rose between us, hiding her from view, and when we soared on the crest of the next one she was gone like a foam flake | [100] |
| At each tremendous lift and heave of the doomed vessel all hands would make a frantic rush to the side | [124] |
| For a short minute or so they faced him, their eyes glaring with the lust of superstitious cruelty | [133] |
| Everybody on deck was terrified at the apparition of a mother-naked giant, armed with the cook's axe | [151] |
| Twenty miles down the river we ran into the region of a bush fire | [276] |
| "I suppose you don't believe in this, do you?" | [325] |
THE LOG OF A SEA-WAIF.
CHAPTER I.
MY FIRST SHIP.
Many boys clamour for a sea life, will not settle down to anything ashore, in spite of the pleading of parents, the warnings of wisdom, or the doleful experiences of friends. Occasionally at schools there breaks out a sort of epidemic of "going to sea," for which there is apparently no proximate cause, but which rages fiercely for a time, carrying off such high-spirited youths as can prevail upon those responsible for them to agree to their making a trial of a seafaring life. All this is quite as it should be, of course, in order that Britain may continue to rule the waves; but many a parent, whose affectionate projects for the future of his offspring are thus rudely shattered, bitterly resents what he naturally considers to be unaccountable folly.
In my own case matters were quite otherwise. I belonged to the ignoble company of the unwanted. In spite of hard usage, scanty food, and overwork, I ridiculously persisted in living, until, at the approach of my twelfth year, an eligible opening presented itself for me to go to sea. Being under no delusions whatever as to the prospect that awaited me, since I had known intimately those who had experienced all the vicissitudes of a sailor's life, I was not unduly elated at the idea. Nevertheless, food and shelter were objects peculiarly hard of attainment ashore, while I felt satisfied that at sea these necessaries would be always provided, even if their quality was none of the best.
The vessel in which I obtained a berth as cabin-boy was commanded by my uncle: a stubborn, surly, but thoroughly capable old seaman. Soured by misfortune and cross-grained by nature, it was small wonder that he had no friends, not even the sterling honesty of his character, or his high ability, being sufficient to counterbalance the drawback of his atrocious temper. His latest command was not calculated to improve him, for she was a survival of a bygone day, clumsy as a Dutch galliot, impoverished by her owner, who was heartily sick of seeing her afloat, and would have rejoiced to hear that she was missing; and withal leaky as a basket. When I first saw her huddled into a more than usually dirty corner of the West India Docks, I was filled with wonder to see that her cutwater was sunken between two swelling bows like the cheeks of a conventional cherub. Though I could be no critic of marine construction, this seemed an anomaly for which there appeared to be no excuse. Her bowsprit and jibboom soared into the air exactly like those of the galleons of old, and her three skimpy masts stood like broomsticks at different angles—the foremast especially, which looked over the bows.