Guy heard the call, and was hurrying aft in response to it when he was met by the second mate.
“Look here, my hearty,” said the officer, “you’re to go ashore to carry the captain’s basket. But listen now—no nonsense. I know every hole and corner in ’Frisco, and if you don’t come back with the old man I’ll be after you with a sharp stick, and if I catch you—well, you know me.”
The mate finished with a peculiar nod of his head, which had a peculiar meaning in it.
Guy picked up the captain’s basket in obedience to a gesture from that gentleman, and followed him into the boat. His mind was in such a whirl of excitement and uncertainty that he took no note of what was going on around him. Here was a chance for liberty, but he did not know whether to improve it or not. He had nothing with him except his money, and that he always carried in his monk-bag, which was slung around his neck. The blankets and extra clothing which he would probably need before he could have time to earn others, were in his bundle in the forecastle, and so was that book of Henry Stewart’s, which was to him what chart and compass are to the mariner.
Guy set great store by that book. It would, he thought, be of as much service to him as the blankets and extra clothing, for he knew nothing about hunting and trapping; in fact, he had never fired a gun half a dozen times in his life, and he could make but poor headway until he had received instructions from some source.
Having no mind of his own and knowing next to nothing outside of school books, he had leaned upon somebody ever since he had been away from home—Bob Walker first, and then Flint—and he had expected when he left the vessel to have the book for a counselor. It told how to build camps, how to cook squirrels and venison on spits before the fire, how to travel through the thickest woods without the aid of a compass or the sun, and how he ought to conduct himself in all sorts of terrible emergencies, such as fights with Indians and grizzly bears. It would be a rather risky piece of business for him to depend on his own judgment and resources, and it would be equally risky to wait for another opportunity to desert, for it might never be presented.
Guy did not know what to do, and there was no one to whom he could go for advice.
“Thomas, you stay here till I come.”
These words aroused Guy from his reverie. He looked up and found himself standing at the foot of a long, wide stairway leading up into a building which looked like a warehouse. The Santa Maria was hidden from his view by the masts and rigging of the vessels lying at the wharf, the boat in which he had come ashore was out of sight, and so was the captain, who went quickly up the stairs and disappeared through a door, which he slammed behind him. Now or never was the thought that passed through Guy’s mind, and without stopping to dwell upon it an instant, he dropped the basket and darted away as fast as his legs could carry him, turning down every street he came to, and putting as many corners as possible between himself and the harbor.
Guy had learned at least one thing during the eight or nine months he had been on the water, and that was that in all seaport towns the sailors’ quarters are located near the docks, hence his desire to leave that part of the city behind him in the shortest possible space of time. He never wanted to meet a sea-faring man again—he had learned to despise the name as well as the calling. Besides, he knew that if the second mate fulfilled his threat of searching the city for him, that part of it to which the sailors most resorted would be the very first place he would visit. Guy wondered if there was a hunters’ boarding-house in town. The officer would never think of looking for him there.