"How do you know, friend, whither I am bound? You have not asked me for my sealing ground, nor is it usual, in our business, to be hawking it up and down the country."
"All that is true enough, but I've a notion, notwithstanding. Now, as you'll be off so soon, and as I shall not see you again, for some time at least, I will give you a piece of advice. If you fall in with a consort, don't fall out with her, and make a distant v'y'ge a cruise for an enemy, but come to tarms, and work in company: lay for lay; and make fair weather of what can't be helped."
The men on board the sloop laughed at this speech, while those on board the schooner wondered. To Roswell Gardiner and his people the allusions were an enigma, and the former muttered something about the stranger's being a dunce, as he descended from the rigging, and gave some orders to prepare to receive the boat.
"The chap belongs to the Hole," rejoined the master of the schooner, "and all them Vineyard fellows fancy themselves better blue-jackets than the rest of mankind: I suppose it must be because their island lies further out to sea than anything we have here inside of Montauk."
Thus ended the communications with the stranger. The sloop glided away before a light south wind, and, favoured by an ebb tide, soon rounded the spit of sand that shelters the anchorage; and, hauling up to the eastward, she went on her way towards Holmes' Hole. The skipper was a relative of half of those who were interested in fitting out the rival Sea Lion, and had volunteered to obtain the very information he took with him, knowing how acceptable it would be to those at home. Sooth to say, a deep but wary excitement prevailed on the Vineyard, touching not only the sealing-islands, but also in respect to the buried treasure. The information actually possessed by the relations of the deceased mariner was neither very full nor very clear. It consisted principally of sayings of Daggett, uttered during his homeward-bound passage, and transmitted by the master of the brig to him of the sloop in the course of conferences that wore away a long summer's afternoon, as the two vessels lay becalmed within a hundred fathoms of each other. These sayings, however, had been frequent and intelligible. All men like to deal in that which makes them of importance; and the possession of his secrets had just the effect on Daggett's mind that was necessary to render him boastful. Under such impulses his tongue had not been very guarded; and facts leaked out which, when transmitted to his native island, through the medium of half a dozen tongues and as many fancies, amounted to statements sufficient to fire the imaginations of a people much duller than those of Martha's Vineyard. Accustomed to converse and think of such expeditions, it is not surprising that a few of the most enterprising of those who first heard the reports should unite and plan the adventure they now actually had in hand. When the intelligence of what was going on on Oyster Pond reached them, everything like hesitation or doubt disappeared; and from the moment of the nephew's return in quest of his uncle's assets, the equipment of the "Humses' Hull" craft had been pressed in a way that would have done credit to that of a government cruiser. Even Henry Eckford, so well known for having undertaken to cut the trees and put upon the waters of Ontario two double-bank frigates, if frigates they could be termed, each of which was to mount its hundred guns, in the short space of sixty days, scarce manifested greater energy in carrying out his contract, than did these rustic islanders in preparing their craft to compete with that which they were now certain was about to sail from the place where their kinsman had breathed his last.
These keen and spirited islanders, however, did not work quite as much in the dark as our accounts, unexplained, might give the reader reason to suppose. It will be remembered that there was a till to the chest which had not been examined by the deacon. This till contained an old mutilated journal, not of the last, but of one or two of the earlier voyages of the deceased; though it had detached entries that evidently referred to different and distant periods of time. By dint of study, and by putting together sundry entries that at first sight might not be supposed to have any connection with each other, the present possessor of that chest had obtained what he deemed to be very sufficient clues to his uncle's two great secrets. There were also in the chest several loose pieces of paper, on which there were rude attempts to make charts of all the islands and keys in question, giving their relative positions as it respected their immediate neighbours, but in no instance giving the latitudes and longitudes. In addition to these significant proofs that the reports brought through the two masters were not without a foundation, there was an unfinished letter, written by the deceased, and addressed as a sort of legacy, "to any, or all of Martha's Vineyard, of the name of Daggett." This address was sufficiently wide, including, probably, some hundreds of persons: a clan in fact; but it was also sufficiently significant. The individual into whose hands it first fell, being of the name, read it first, as a matter of course, when he carefully folded it up, and placed it in a pocket-book which he was much in the habit of carrying in his own pocket. On what principle this letter, unfinished and without a signature, with nothing indeed but its general and comprehensive address to point out its origin as well as its destination, was thus appropriated to the purposes of a single individual, we shall not stop to inquire. Such was the fact, however, and none connected with the equipment of the Sea Lion, of Holmes' Hole, knew anything of the existence of that document, its present possessor excepted. He looked it over occasionally, and deemed the information it conveyed of no trifling import, under all the circumstances of the case.
Both the enterprises of which we have given an opening account were perfectly characteristic of the state of society in which they were brought into existence. Deacon Pratt, if he had any regular calling, was properly a husbandman, though the love of money had induced him to invest his cash in nearly every concern around him, which promised remunerating returns. The principal owners of the Sea Lion, of Holmes' Hole, were husbandmen also; folk who literally tilled the earth, cradled their own oats and rye, and mowed their own meadows. Notwithstanding, neither of these men, those of the Vineyard any more than he of Oyster Pond, had hesitated about investing of his means in a maritime expedition, just as if they were all regular ship-owners of the largest port in the Union. With such men, it is only necessary to exhibit an account with a fair prospect of large profits, and they are ever ready to enter, into the adventure, heart, hand, and pocket. Last season, it may have been to look for whales on the coast of Japan; the season before that, to search for islands frequented by the seals; this season, possibly, to carry a party out to hunt for camelopards, set nets for young lions, and beat up the quarters of the rhinoceros on the plains of Africa: while the next, they may be transporting ice from Long Pond to Calcutta and Kingston--not to say to London itself. Of such materials are those descendants of the Puritans composed; a mixture of good and evil; of the religion which clings to the past, in recollection rather than in feeling, mingled with a worldly-mindedness that amounts nearly to rapacity; all cloaked and rendered decent by a conventional respect for duties, and respectable and useful, by frugality, enterprise, and untiring activity.
Roswell Gardiner had not mistaken the persons of those in the boat. They proved to be Phil Hazard, his first officer; Tim Green, the second mate; and the two sealers whom it had cost so much time and ingenuity to obtain. Although neither of the mates even suspected the truth, no sooner had they engaged the right sort of man than he was tampered with by the agents of the Martha's Vineyard concern, and spirited away by means of more tempting proposals, before he had got quite so far as to sign the articles. One of the motives for sending Watson across to Oyster Pond had been to induce Captain Gardiner to believe he had engaged so skilful a hand, which would effectually prevent his attempting to procure another, until, at the last moment, he might find himself unable to put to sea for the want of a complement. A whaling or a sealing voyage requires that the vessel should take out with her the particular hands necessary to her specific object, though, of late years, the seamen have got so much in the habit of 'running,' especially in the Pacific, that it is only the craft that strictly belong to what may be termed the whaling communities, that bring back with them the people they carry out, and not always them.
But here had Roswell Gardiner his complement full, and nearly everything ready to sea. He had only to go up to the Harbour and obtain his clearance, have a short interview with his owner, a longer with Mary, and be off for the antarctic circle, if indeed the ice would allow him to get as far south. There were now sixteen souls on board the Sea Lion, a very sufficient number for the voyage on which she was about to sail. The disposition or rating of the crew was as follows, viz.
- Roswell Gardiner, master.
- Philip Hazard, chief mate.
- Timothy Green, second do.
- David Weeks, carpenter.
- Nathan Thompson, seaman.
- Sylvester Havens, do.
- Marcus Todd, do.
- Hiram Flint, do.
- Joshua Short, seaman.
- Stephen Stimson, do.
- Bartlett Davidson, do.
- Peter Mount, landsman.
- Arcularius Mott, do.
- Robert Smith, do.
- Cato Livingston, cook.
- Primus Floyd, boy.