When Mr. Clark finished reading the above extracts, he handed them to John who placed them in his pocket without comment, and said: “Let us go at once and inquire when I can sail for Habana. I must find out and at once all this sailor knows. I believe the suspense will kill my aunt.”
“I am quite sure a ship sails tomorrow noon; we will make certain and engage your cabin. My father has a branch house in Habana and buys quite a lot of tobacco. I wrote his agent several days ago to interview the sailor and he has doubtless found him by now.”
They walked to the wharf and in a short time located the ship. Mr. Clark knew the captain, who spoke English. He introduced Mr. Campbell and engaged his cabin. When they were leaving the captain said: “Mr. Campbell, I am glad to have you for a passenger and will most cheerfully aid you in locating Esteban Luna. We will have no trouble in finding him. I know just where to look for sailors in Habana. You better come aboard by eleven o’clock, we sail at twelve, sharp.”
After an uneventful voyage of several days the ship anchored in Habana harbor. Mr. Campbell came ashore with the captain and about the first person the captain saw was the sailor they sought. They invited him to the tavern, where dinner was ordered for the three. After they had been eating some time, the captain noticing that John, who had ordered the dinner, had not included wine, [pg 268] which all Spaniards drink at dinner, supplemented the meal by a liter of strong red wine. Then turning to John asked in English: “Just what is it you desire to learn from the sailor? In a few minutes he will grow quite talkative; nothing loosens a Spaniard’s tongue like a good dinner and a bottle of wine.”
Having learned what was wanted the captain put several questions to the sailor, which he answered in monosyllables, as he was not quite through eating. When he had eaten a little more and finished the wine, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, tilted back the chair on which he sat, lighted a long cigarette and gave a grunt of contentment. Then the captain knew he was ready to talk and asked him to tell of his shipwreck off the African coast.
“You see it was this way: we were about three days out from the Strait of Gibraltar when it came on to blow the hardest I have ever seen in my fifteen years before the mast. We would have gone down in the first few hours, except that our frigate was the stanchest of the navy. For a while we pointed her nose angling to the wind and as best we could kept our course. It was no use, we had to turn tail and run with the wind; and that frigate under bare poles made greater speed than she would sailing in a fair wind before a stiff breeze with all sail set. On the second night, near daybreak, when it was so dark because of the spray and rain and clouds that you could not see your hand before you, nor hear a sound because of the roar of the wind and the pounding of the waves and the creaking of the ship, she was suddenly thrown in the air and seemed to come down in a thousand pieces. Many of the boys were killed outright as she was crushed as a nail keg by a sledge. Quite a few of those on deck were thrown clear over the rock into a quieter [pg 269] sea and swept upon a sandy beach, even into the desert grass, where the water rarely reached. There we lay waiting in the darkness until the day, too exhausted and wounded to move. With daylight all clouds vanished and the moisture of the spray and storm was soon wiped out by a hot, drying sun. We seemed in a land where it never rained. There was a fringe of salt water grasses on the edge of the beach and beyond nothing but gray and brown sand; a land as bare as the palm of your hand; of sand hills that shifted over night, riftling and moving like the surface of the ocean, riled by a squall.
“With daylight, the least crippled, searching along the beach, gathered together a few casks of provisions, some cordage, a torn sail and one small cask of water. With the broken timbers of our ship and the sail we built a rude shelter from the parching sun; then a signal fire upon a nearby sand hill, hoping thus to attract the attention of a ship, if any ever passed that way. Thus we spent the first day and night.
“On the morning of the second day, the prisoner, his name was Clark, and two of the sailors, being the least injured of any of us, went into the sand hills looking for food and water, as we had nothing but wet biscuit flour and salt pork. They climbed the highest sand hill and came running back, saying: ‘We have seen one of the ship’s boats; it is lodged in a crevice just over the crest of the big rock, else you could see it from here. We will swim out and bring it ashore.’
“These three, with Antonio, the cook, and I swam to the rock and after much labor lowered the boat and pulled ashore. It was fitted out as required by the ship’s rules, with a set of oars, a small cask of water, like the one we had found on the beach, a case of biscuits and a small sail; all securely strapped inside. By overloading, [pg 270] it might have kept afloat with eighteen persons. Out of a crew of ninety-two, twenty-seven of us had survived the wreck; of these two had broken legs, one a broken back and several broken or dislocated arms; and all were cut and bruised by the jagged rocks.
“It was decided that we five who brought the boat ashore should have places in the boat as also thirteen others who should draw lots, and so all did except the man with the broken back.