Fred swallowed his cocoa. Quambo mixed the captain's last cup. Cassia-bud put his master's slippers on, and then lay down beside Hurricane Bob, the Newfoundland, and took his fore-paws round his neck; then Fred began to play and sing.
Fred had a sweet voice, and so modulated his accompaniment that there was nothing but fascinating unison from beginning to end of the song he sung.
The captain was right, the music really was infectious, and had you come on deck half an hour after Fred began to play, and strolled forward to the galley, a happier lot of sailors than that around the fire it would have been impossible to have imagined. Spinning yarns and singing songs to the music of the cook's old fiddle had become the order of the evening, and even IT—the mysterious IT, which had followed the ship so far—was forgotten in the general gaiety that prevailed, and in the harmony that reigned universal.
* * * * * *
Like Fred himself, and a large proportion of the crew, Captain Cawdor was Scotch, and, like many Scottish skippers, he was part owner of the barque he commanded. This was good for himself, but it was also good for the other owners, none of whom were sailors. But they knew the ship was in excellent hands, and that while they were sleeping quietly in their comfortable beds, Captain Cawdor was sailing the seas here and there throughout the world, taking "a voyage," as he termed employment, wherever he got it, and thus oftentimes managing to pay himself and brother shipowners cent. per cent. Then the vessel was heavily insured, and were she even to leave her bones on some foreign strand, the insurance office alone would have to mourn, and they could well afford to pay.
Cawdor had neither kith nor kin belonging to him, all were dead and gone.
"I'm getting up in years," he told Fred more than once; "but so long as I remain at sea I feel a young man, and, please the Lord, Fred, I'll die on the ocean, and be buried as a sailor should be."
On this voyage the San Salvador was on her way from Valparaiso with a mixed cargo for the Cape, and with much specie as well. The men knew there was gold and silver on board, and that the boxes lay in the captain's cabin, and yet neither he nor his mate had the slightest fear, so well chosen were the seamen.
There were, it is true, a few half-caste Spaniards on board; but however much mischief they might have liked to have worked, they were in too small a minority to count for anything.
And so, despite the evil-augured IT that had dodged around them, the ship sailed on and on over that lonesome waste of waters, and no evil befel her.