It was only after the gale had died away, and a new topmast had been sent aloft, that we lads came to understand how much mischief or trouble, whichever you choose to term it, might come of that disaster which had terminated so happily.
Once our watch was at leisure, the men began speculating upon the significance of what they were pleased to call an “omen,” and those whom I had looked upon as the bravest appeared to be the most disheartened by the mishap.
The breaking of the spar, which was doubtless brought about by some serious defect in the timber, dismayed them, and one and all argued as if eager to prove that the accident was but the forerunner of direst disaster.
Master Joshua looked grave as any owl while he told a yarn of a vessel which had lost a spar while leaving port, and was never heard of afterward, declaring solemnly that the mishap had come about solely as a means of warning the crew not to sail in the craft.
“But if they had already left the port, how would it be possible for the men to go back, even though the captain had been willing to stand by and see his crew desert?” Simon asked, innocently, whereat Master Joshua fell into a passion, because “a boy” had dared make such foolish inquiries regarding what was as “plain as the nose on a man’s face.”
“It ain’t for the likes of you to be askin’ questions about the signs that are sent to sailormen,” he roared, shaking his fist at the lad who was simply trying to gain what might prove to be useful information. “Anybody who ain’t a natural born fool knows that sich things are seen by them as live on the ocean, an’ the pity of it is there are idjuts what can’t take warnin’.”
“Then you’re ready to believe that this ’ere cruise won’t be a payin’ one, eh?” the captain of Number Four gun asked, seriously.
“Accordin’ to what I’ve seen in this ’ere world, I wouldn’t want to put very many hopes on the America’s ever gettin’ into the home port again.”
After this gloomy prediction, for such it was because of the tone in which the words had been spoken, all hands began to look down in the mouth, and it can well be imagined that even Simon and I were feeling far from cheerful.
Had any other member of the crew suggested such a possibility, simply because we had carried away a topmast immediately after leaving port, I could have laughed at him; but Joshua Seabury was, to my mind, the ablest seaman afloat, and all he said carried great weight with it, so far as I was concerned.