Henry Chester’s hopes, high-tide at noon, ere night are down to lowest ebb, and, greatly humiliated, he almost wishes himself back on the old farmstead by Godalming. He is even again considering whether it would not be better to give it up and go back, when his eyes chance to stray to a flag on whose corner is a cluster of stars on a blue ground, with a field of red and white bands alternating. It droops over the taffrail of a barque of some six hundred tons burden, and below it, on her stern, is lettered the Calypso. During his perambulations to and fro he has more than once passed this vessel, but the ensign not being English, he did not think of boarding her. Refused by so many skippers of his own country, what chance would there be for him with one of a foreign vessel? None whatever, reasoned he. But now, more intelligently reflecting, he bethinks him that the barque, after all, is not so much a foreigner, a passer-by having told him she is American—or “Yankee,” as it was put—and the flag she displays is the famed “Star-spangled Banner.”
“Well,” mutters the runaway to himself, “I’ll make one more try. If this one, too, refuses me, things will be no worse, and then—then—home, I suppose.”
Saying which, he walks resolutely up the sloping plank and steps on board the barque, to repeat there the question he has already asked that day for the twentieth time—“Can I speak with the captain?”
“I guess not,” answers he to whom it is addressed, a slim youth who stands leaning against the companion. “Leastways, not now, ’cause he’s not on board. What might you be wantin’, mister? Maybe I can fix it for you.”
Though the words are encouraging and the tone kindly, Henry Chester has little hopes that he can, the speaker being but a boy himself. Still, he speaks in a tone of authority, and though in sailor garb, it is not that of a common deck hand.
He is in his shirt-sleeves, the day being warm; but the shirt is of fine linen, ruffled at the breast, and gold-studded, while a costly Panama hat shades his somewhat sallow face from the sun. Besides, he is on the quarter-deck, seeming at home there.
Noting these details, the applicant takes heart to tell again his oft-told tale, and await the rejoinder.
“Well,” responds the young American, “I’m sorry I can’t give you an answer about that, the cap’n, as I told you, not being aboard. He’s gone ashore on some Custom House business. But, if you like, you can come again and see him.”
“I would like it much; when might I come?”
“Well, he might be back any minute. Still, it’s uncertain, and you’d better make it to-morrow morning; you’ll be sure to find him on board up till noon, anyhow.”