Still I wondered at his interest in the miserable, half starved boy he had so wickedly abused; and I wondered at his strange question about money. There must be some mystery about Joe.
At seven o’clock, all being snugly stowed and the last of our fresh provisions taken aboard, we hoisted anchor and headed out toward the mouth of the bay. Our passenger had settled himself in a spare cabin an hour before, having brought with him two huge “telescopes” that appeared to contain all his belongings.
I did not let Joe out of his confinement until about midnight, and when from the swish of the water against our sides I knew we had reached the open sea.
CHAPTER III.
AN OBSTINATE PASSENGER.
It is useless to relate the unimportant incidents of our voyage to Gibraltar and up the Mediterranean. The Seagull behaved beautifully in both good and bad weather, amply fulfilling our most ardent expectations. It is true the voyage was unnecessarily long, since with our powerful engines we could have cut down our time to less than one-half; but we were obliged to concede this to Captain Steele’s prejudice in favor of sailing, and the breeze held so steady and persistent that we cut the waves like a clipper and made a most remarkable sailing record for the voyage.
It was not until we passed Sicily that the Seagull was required to prove her staunchness. The waves at the lower end of the Mediterranean were wilder than any I had ever before encountered, but our beauty rode them like a swan and never a seam spread nor a beam so much as creaked.
The voyage, however, served to make us better acquainted with both our boy passenger and my boy assistant—the rich man’s son and the runaway Joseph—though this acquaintance was not ripened without some interesting experiences.
A more willing or grateful follower no one could have than Joe Herring. The kindly treatment accorded him was in such sharp contrast to the dog’s life he had led aboard the Gonzales that he was anxious to show his appreciation on every possible occasion. His dark eyes followed me affectionately wherever I went, and he would leap quickly to anticipate my every order. Also he liked to serve Uncle Naboth and my father, and proved so considerate of their wishes and comforts that he soon won their hearts completely. Nor was Joe so frail as he seemed at first glance. His muscles were hard as iron and on occasion his thin frame developed remarkable strength. This he proved conclusively within the first week of the voyage, as you shall hear.
Our young passenger, whose imposing name we had quickly shortened to plain “Archie,” seemed likely to cause us unsuspected trouble. He at once developed two bad habits. The first was to sit on deck, lolling in a folding deck chair he had brought aboard, and play distressing tunes upon a harmonica—which he termed a “mouth-organ.” The lad must have had a most powerful inherent love for music to enable him to listen to his own awful strains; but it was clear his musical talent was not developed, or at least not properly educated to any artistic degree.
The first morning out the Captain, forced to listen to this “music,” scowled and muttered under his breath but forbore to interfere with the passenger’s evident enjoyment of his own performance. The second morning he yelled at Archie to “shut up!” but the boy calmly disregarded the order. The third morning my father stumped over to where I sat and ordered me to take away Archie’s “blamed ol’ jew’s-harp” and fling it overboard.