Meanwhile, where were we?
In about the 50th degree of southern latitude we had for weeks pleasant gales and prosperous weather, so that we scarcely required to lift tack or sheet, but bore on merrily. Joe Rudderford and his newly-recovered brother Willie were inseparable, and the memory of little Charlie Newcome often came back to me sadly, especially in the night-watches, which he and I had so often shared together, for the ship and her surroundings were all the same in many respects as when he sailed in her. But we had not been long at sea before we discovered that our new captain was a bad seaman and a bully.
Every order was given with an oath. Myself and the other apprentices he called 'young whelps,' and even respectable old Joe Rudderford was often greeted with taunts which he received in silence, remembering 'the least said, the soonest mended.'
'He is a coward,' said Joe to me one day.
'What makes you think so?' I asked.
'Because he is a tyrant, and tyrants are always cowards. We'll never have a captain again so good as brave old Archibald.'
In that latitude a curious incident occurred to us. On a fine morning, when running on a splendid breeze, with our port tacks on board and royals and top-gallants set, Willie Rudderford, who had the watch, reported a sail on the weather-bow—a large ship, full-rigged, with most of her canvas set, but all in confusion, and some of it thrown slack. Her top-hamper suggested perfect disorder, and not a soul was to be seen on board, or responded to our hailing, after we edged close down to her.
We hove to, threw the mainyard in the wind, and Joe Rudderford, the first mate, and two hands, of whom I was one, boarded her in the dingy.
I shall never forget the nervous, anxious, exciting and yet eerie emotions felt, as we clambered up the side of that silent ship.
She proved to be a new one of some 800 tons burden, laden with silk and indigo, to the value of £150,000, as her papers showed, bound from Calcutta to the Cape; but how she came to be in these southern waters surpassed our comprehension. The oddest thing of all was that there seemed to have been a panic on board, for the deck and cabins were strewed with the clothes of ladies and children; jewel-cases, jewels, and Indian shawls lay everywhere; but the chief part of the baggage had been taken away. Still more extraordinary was it to find that she had been scuttled in every compartment, evidently for the purpose of sinking her. Private letters, that we had no time to examine, lay strewed about, and cloaks and coats, bonnets and caps, yet hung on the hooks in the cabin. But what was her story, or the fate of those who had abandoned her, or why they had done so, we were fated never to know; for though our captain was in the highest glee at picking up so valuable a derelict, and proposed to put a few of the crew on board, and sail in company, a heavy gale came on after sunset, with thick clouds, and when day broke she was nowhere to be seen, and must have gone down in the night.