“Good morning, Martin,” began Master Edgar. “I have brought the captain to see my boat. Will you show it him, please?”
“Well, you see, sir,” remonstrated Martin, obviously embarrassed by my presence, “’tain’t hardly fair to ask me to hexhibit the boat until she’s finished. There ain’t much of her yet, and what there is, is all in the rough. It’s a little job, sir,” he continued, turning in an explanatory way to me, “as I’ve undertook to do for this young gentleman in my afternoon watch below; and, as I said, she’s all in the rough at present—what there is of her.”
“Never mind that, Martin,” said I, seeing a shade of disappointment resting upon the child’s features; “bring her up, and let us have a look at her.”
Thereupon, the man dived below into the forecastle, and presently reappeared, bearing in his hand the skeleton of a miniature yacht, about two and a half feet long, half planked down. My first sensation, when I set eyes on the model, was surprise at the dainty, delicate character of the workmanship exhibited in it, which was greatly increased when, upon taking it into my hands and more closely inspecting it, I had an opportunity of examining its lines. They were as nearly perfect as anything I had ever seen; in short, it was evident that, when finished, the model would be a faithful miniature reproduction of a crack racing yacht of the most approved form.
“Why, Martin,” said I, greatly pleased at this example of his skill, “this is excellent. Where in the world did you learn to model lines like these?”
“Well, sir,” explained Martin, “you see, I was five years in the yard of the Fifes at Fairlie, yacht buildin’, before I shipped in the Northern Queen; and before that again I was more than three years with Summers and Payne, of Southampton; so I ought to know a little about the shape of a yacht, didn’t I, sir?”
“Assuredly you ought,” said I; “and evidently you do, if one may judge by this.” And I replaced the model in his hand, fully determined to regularly ship him if I could, now that I had seen what a handy, clever fellow he promised to be. For I may here tell the reader, in strict confidence, that there is nothing I more thoroughly enjoy than boat-sailing, and very few things that I more highly appreciate than a good model of a ship or boat. A few days after this I made the proposition to Martin that he should ship for the remainder of the voyage, offering him the same pay that I was giving our own carpenter; and he at once gladly assented. This arrangement, as will be seen later on, was destined to lead to more important results than either of us at the moment anticipated.
At length, after a phenomenally good passage as far south as the twenty-eighth parallel, we lost the trades, and immediately picked up a strong westerly wind, before which we bore away, under every rag we could spread, to round the Cape. When off Agulhas the wind southed upon us, and we fell in with the tremendous swell that is almost invariably met with about this spot. I had passed over the same ground ten times already—five times outward-bound, and five times on the homeward passage—and had always found a heavy swell running, but on this last occasion it was far heavier than I had ever before beheld it. To convey some idea of the enormous bulk and height of these liquid hills I may mention that while off the Agulhas Bank—where the swell was by no means at its highest—we overhauled and passed a barque of about our own size, at a distance of less than a cable’s length, yet so high was the swell that, when we both settled into the trough, she was completely hidden from us, to her topmast-heads!
In longitude 26 degrees East, with a moderate breeze from south-east, we bore away for the Straits of Sunda; and a few days afterwards met with a piece of exceptional good fortune. It was during the forenoon watch, the weather being beautifully fine, and a very gentle breeze blowing, under the influence of which we were slipping through the water at a speed of about five knots. The watch were busy, in a deliberate fashion, about various odd jobs on deck and aloft; and the occupants of the poop were lounging in their deck-chairs, amusing themselves according to their several fancies. As for me, I was engaged—as was indeed often the case—in a severe mental effort to find the key to Dick Saint Leger’s cryptogram. The gentle motion, the warm, genial sunshine, and the soft splash of the water along the bends, with the absence of any hurried movement on board or sharply spoken orders, seemed to have wrought in the entire ship, fore and aft, a condition of half-dreamy, blissful listlessness, from which we were suddenly startled by a man crying out, from halfway up the lee fore-rigging—
“Luff! luff hard! down with your helm, or you’ll be into it!”