“I——yes: but what makes her shake so? and how awful dark it is!” replied Bob, who trembled a little in spite of himself. To his inexperienced eyes it looked as though George were heading the boat squarely toward the bank.
“O, every steamer shakes more or less, but none quite so badly as this one. She is almost ready to die of old age. Her hull is not half strong enough for her engines.”
“I can’t understand how you can see where you are going. Can you see the water?”
“Not very plainly; but I can see the trees on the bank, and they are what I go by.”
“I wish I was out there among them,” said Bob. “I’d rather camp out alone than be here. What did Mr. Black mean by saying that this boat is going to lay her bones between here and St. Louis?”
“O, is that what troubles you? Well, it is all moonshine.”
“But what did he mean by it?”
“I am almost ashamed to tell you. I don’t know whether you know it or not, but river men are just as superstitious as sailors. I once heard a seafaring man in New Orleans say that if rats deserted a ship, it was a sure sign that something was going to happen to her. River men have some equally absurd ideas. One of their sayings is, that a minister and a gray horse will sink any boat that floats. If that is the case we are bound to go down, for a minister who owned a gray horse boarded us at New Orleans and went with us as far as Donaldsonville. That’s what troubles Mr. Black; but it doesn’t trouble me half as much as this bad piece of river does that we’re coming to now. There is a sawyer about here somewhere that has been doing a good deal of damage of late. The John Barleycorn went down in this very bend about two weeks ago, on just such a night as this, and twenty-five of her passengers and crew went down with her. I’ll ring the bell, and when we touch the bar I shall know just where to look for the snag.”
Attached to a ring in the roof of the pilot-house was a long rope leading out of the window to the tongue of the huge bell which stood on the forward part of the hurricane deck. This rope was for the use of the pilot, who, when he wanted to know how much water there was in the channel through which his boat was passing, struck the bell once or twice, according as he wanted the lead thrown on the starboard or port side of the forecastle. George laid hold of the rope, and just then the door opened and the captain came in. The young pilot did not take a second look at him after he found out who he was, for he was a man he did not like. He rang the bell for the lead, and moved over to the other side of the wheel; the captain seated himself by Bob’s side on the elevated bench, and looked out of the window; and the watchman came up and took his stand on the hurricane deck, near the bell, to pass the word.
“Where is Mr. Black?” asked the captain.