"So it seems, sir. Pray haven't you a man aboard there of the name of Watson?"
"Ay, ay--he's my second-mate. I know what you mean, Captain Gar'ner-- you 're right enough, 'tis the same hand who was aboard you; but wanting a second officer, I offered him the berth, and he thought that better than taking a foremast lay in your craft."
This explanation probably satisfied all who heard it, though the truth was not more than half told. In point of fact, Watson was engaged as Daggett's second mate before he had ever laid eyes on Roswell Gardiner, and had been sent to watch the progress of the work on Oyster Pond, as has been previously stated. It was so much in the natural order of events for a man to accept preferment when offered, however, that even Gardiner himself blamed the delinquent for the desertion far less than he had previously done. In the mean time the conversation proceeded.
"You told us nothing of your having that schooner fitting, when you were on the Point," observed Roswell Gardiner, whose thoughts just then happened to advert to this particular fact.
"My mind was pretty much taken up with the affairs of my poor uncle, I suppose, Captain Gar'ner. Death must visit each of us, once; nevertheless, it makes us all melancholy when he comes among friends."
Now, Roswell Gardiner was not in the least sentimental, nor had he the smallest turn towards indulging in moral inferences, from ordinary events; but, this answer seemed so proper, that it found no objection in his mind. Still, the young man had his suspicions on the subject of the equipment of the other schooner, and suspicions that were now active and keen, and which led him directly to fancy that Daggett had also some clue to the very objects he was after himself. Singular as it may seem at first, Deacon Pratt's interests were favourably affected by this unexpected meeting with the Sea Lion of Holmes' Hole. From the first, Roswell Gardiner had been indisposed to give full credit to the statements of the deceased mariner, ascribing no small part of his account to artifice, stimulated by a desire to render himself important. But, now that he found one of this man's family embarked in an enterprise similar to his own, his views of its expediency were sensibly changed. Perfectly familiar with the wary economy with which every interest was regulated in that part of the world, he did not believe a company of Martha's Vineyard men would risk their money in an enterprise that they had not good reasons for believing would succeed. Although it exceeded his means to appreciate fully the information possessed by the Vineyard folk, and covetousness did not quicken his faculties on this subject, as they had quickened those of the deacon, he could see enough to satisfy his mind that either the sealing-islands, or the booty of the pirates, or both, had a reality, in the judgments of others, which had induced them also to risk their money in turning their knowledge to account. The effect of this conviction was very natural. It induced Roswell to regard the charts, and his instructions, and all connected with his voyage, as much more serious matters than he had originally been inclined to do. Until now, he had thought it well enough to let the deacon have his fancies, relying on his own ability to obtain a cargo for the schooner, by visiting sealing stations where he had been before; but, now, he determined to steer at once for Daggett's Islands, as he and his owner named the land revealed to them, and ascertain what could be done there. He thought it probable the other Sea Lion might wish to keep him company; but the distance was so great, that a hundred occasions must occur when it would be in his power to shake off such a consort, should he deem it necessary.
For several hours the two schooners stood on in company, keeping just without hailing distance apart, and sailing so nearly alike as to render it hard to say which craft had the best of it. There was nothing remarkable in the fact that two vessels, built for the same trade, should have a close general resemblance to each other; but it was not common to find them so moulded, stowed, sparred and handled, that their rate of sailing should be nearly identical. If there was any difference, it was slightly in favour of the Sea Lion of the Vineyard, which rather drew ahead of her consort, if consort the other Sea Lion could be termed, in the course of the afternoon.
It is scarcely necessary to say that many were the speculations that were made on board these rival vessels--competitors now for the commonest glories of their pursuits, as well as in the ultimate objects of their respective voyages. On the part of Roswell Gardiner and his two mates, they did not fail, in particular, to comment on the singularity of the circumstance that the Sea Lion, of the Vineyard, should be so far out of her direct line of sailing.
"Although we have had the wind at sow-west" (sow-west always, as pronounced by every seaman, from the Lord High Admiral of England, when there happens to be such a functionary, down to the greenest hand on board the greenest sealer) "for these last few days," said Hazard, "anybody can see we shall soon have easterly weather. There's an easterly feel in the air, and all last night the water had an easterly glimmer about it. Now, why a man who came out of the Vineyard Sound, and who had nothing to do but just to clear the west end of his own island, and then lay his course off yonder to the southward and eastward, should bear up cluss (Anglicé, close) under Blok, and stretch out to sea, for all the world as if he was a Stunnin'tun chap, or a New Lunnoner, that had fallen a little to leeward, is more than I can understand, Captain Gar'ner! Depend on it, sir, there's a reason for't. Men don't put schooners into the water, now-a-days, and give them costly outfits, with three whale-boats, and sealin' gear in abundance, just for the fun of making fancy traverses, on or off a coast, like your yacht gentry, who never know what they would be at, and who never make a v'y'ge worth speaking on."
"I have been turning all this over in my mind, Mr. Hazard," answered the young master, who was amusing himself at the moment with strapping a small block, while he threw many a glance at the vessel that was just as close under his lee as comported with her sailing. "There is a reason for it, as you say; but, I can find no other than the fact that she has come so much out of her way, in order to fall in with us; knowing that we were to come round Montauk at a particular time."