This will not be his last trip to the Antipodes either, for rumour has it that, not improbably, Frank Harness, promoted to the rank of a master in the mercantile marine, will proceed shortly again to Otago in command of a ship of his own, when, possibly, he will have one especial item of human freight to bring home with him on his own account!
Chapter Thirty Five.
The Last of the Old Ship!
There is one thing more to tell.
It all arises from the unpardonable stupidity of that donkey of a steward, Llewellyn, who forgot the memorandum concerning the circumstance and left it down below in the cabin—and that, too, in spite of Ben Boltrope’s telling him to be certain to bear it mind, besides his wife, Mary, having continually jogged his memory on the subject! Had it not been for this, the omission would never have occurred, as the matter would have been mentioned in its proper place some time ago.
Shortly after the Matilda Ann set sail from the little whaling station at Betsy Cove with the rescued castaways of Kerguelen Land on board, and just as she was weathering the Cloudy Islands, as they are called—a group of rocks that lie to the north-east of the mainland—the look-out man in the fore cross-trees, who was keeping a keen watch for breakers, the navigation at this point being rather ticklish on account of the treacherous reefs and stray currents that wander about there, suddenly shouted down to the man at the wheel to put the helm down, which of course he immediately did.
“What is it?” called out the steersman, who happened to be the master of the schooner himself. He noticed no sign of breakers anywhere near and wondered at this sudden alteration of the vessel’s course—“Where’s the reef?”
“’Tain’t no reef, sir,” sang out the man aloft in answer, “but I see something like a man in the water.”