How to reach the vessel, therefore, was the question.
Dad tried waving his handkerchief to attract the attention of those on board; but the crew of the Josephine appeared to be all asleep, for nobody took any notice of the signal. Foiled in this hope, dad turned round to me again with a puzzled expression on his face, as if wondering what he should do next, though of course I could not suggest anything.
Just then Jake, who had been looking at my father very attentively all this while, as if “taking stock” of his movements, so to speak, suddenly burst into one of his huge guffaws.
“Yah, yah, massa, golly you no see for suah!” he cried out in an ecstasy of enjoyment at what he considered a rare joke. “You am look de wrong way. Look dere, look dere!”
“Look where?” asked dad, not quite making out what particular direction Jake especially wished to draw his attention to, for the darkey was whirling one of his arms round him like a windmill to each point of the compass in turn; and, but that he had the bridles of the horses slung over his other arm, he would probably have gesticulated as frantically also with that.
“Dere, dere—t’oder way, massa,” repeated Jake, nodding his woolly head as he laughed and showed his teeth, this time indicating the extreme left of the bay, to which our backs had been turned; but where, on our now looking, we noticed a little jetty running out into the sea, with a boat putting off from it towards the ship.
“Oh!” ejaculated dad; “what a stupid I am, to be sure!”
Dad’s exclamation made Jake break out afresh into a loud cachinnation.
“Golly, dis chile can’t ’tand dat,” he shouted. “Massa um ’tupid, massa um ’tupid, yah, yah!” and he almost doubled himself in two with merriment, his hearty laughter being so contagious that both dad and I could not help joining in. So there were we all chuckling away at a fine rate at the idea of our not noticing either the jetty or the boat before. We had been so blindly anxious to reach the Josephine that we had looked in every direction but the right one for the means of getting on board her!
After a bit, dad was the first to recover his composure.