So the two kept their own counsel. Going on deck at dawn, they found the captain so sharing the mate's fears of a bad blow,—that he had decided to put back to Block Island. MacAlister sent Dick the faintest hint of a wink. When the old harbor in the east side of that green rolling island whose Indian name was Manisses was made, MacAlister said he and his friend would like to go ashore to stretch their legs a bit. The captain, doubtless deeming it not yet wise to arouse their suspicions, called a fisherman's boat, which landed them from the schooner's place of anchorage. They walked up from the landing to some fishermen's shingle houses, well back from the beach, and speedily closed a bargain with a sea-browned islander to take them to the mainland in his smack.
The fisherman, allured by the large price offered, and having less to risk than the captain of the laden schooner, promptly embarked, under the astonished eyes of the anchored captain, whom Tom gravely saluted by placing thumb to nose and wiggling his fingers. The captain replied by vociferously hoping to God the gale would blow the two travellers to hell. The gale, however, continued to remain in abeyance, though the sky was filled with clouds and the sea had an unaccountable choppy look and feel. Tom, having questioned the fisherman regarding localities, now proposed that the latter should take them to Newport, and doubled his offer of pay. Induced by greed and by the confidence born of previous good luck in all weathers at sea, the islander consented, regardless of the capricious behavior of his sail and the sudden ominous quiverings of his boat. Yet the storm held off.
Making clever use of the wind when it was brisk, the skipper had his boat at evening off the precipitous southern coast of the island on which Newport lies. As he was about to tack, in order to round the point and so reach the town, which then occupied only a spot on the island's western side, the storm came, almost without a moment's warning, and bringing with it a pelting deluge of rain. Before the mariner could regain any kind of mastery of his little craft, it had been dashed close to the corrugated land. Dick and Tom escaped being thrown out of the boat only by grasping its timbers and holding on with all strength. The vessel was tossed about, for a time, like a cork. Once it seemed in the act of hurling itself into a gaping chasm which rent the rough sea-wall from the height of forty feet to unknown depths,—a cleft as wide as a man is tall, and cut back into the land a hundred and fifty feet. But the boat fell short of these grinning jaws and in another minute was far away from them.
From the time when the storm first broke upon them to the time when, by some strange freak of wind and sea, the smack was riding in a broad bay east of the threatening sea-wall,—a direction therefrom exactly opposite to that which the elements seemingly ought to have borne it,—no one aboard spoke a word. But now the skipper, whose nasal voice and distinct New England enunciation easily cut through the tumult of wind and water, briefly expressed his intention of letting the sea carry the boat straight towards the smooth beach ahead, there being one chance of safety therein. Tom and Dick awaited the issue with more of curiosity than of aught else, MacAlister looking exceedingly grim, as always in times of peril, and Dick, as always in similar times, wearing a kind of droll smile, as if the joke were on his courage for having got into such a plight. Before either's senses had caught up to the passing occurrence, there was a sudden tremendous shock underneath them, a grinding through some gritty yielding substance, a rolling away of the sea from the nearly overturned boat; and they found themselves high on the beach, out of reach of the next wave, that rushed angrily in as if to clutch them back again.
"'Twas the big brother did it," shouted the skipper, starting to draw his craft farther up on the beach, and motioning for the aid of the others.
"What's the big brother?" shouted Dick.
"The third wave. It be always the highest. We'll make the rest of the voyage to Newport in these here craft," and he pointed down to his boots.
They moved off through the rain accordingly, and, after a walk of a mile and a half, arrived at the town, then a busy seaport with a goodly commerce and a lively trade to the African coast. "For a cold wetting outside, a hot wetting inside," said Tom, heading for the first tavern sign; and the three rain-soaked voyagers promptly put his prescription to the test, taking it in the shape of a steaming punch of kill-devil, and looking the while through the tavern windows at the rain pouring down upon the wharves and the vessels safe in harbor.
Next day's weather deterred the two travellers from taking the sloop through Narragansett Bay for Providence, but they arrived at that town on the 18th, and lodged in a tavern in the street that ran at the hill's foot on the eastern side of the Cove, occupying a room that looked up towards the street crossing the hillside and towards the college on the summit beyond. Leaving Providence the next day, and going afoot with a newly recruited body of troops bound for the provincial camp outside Boston, they passed through Attleboro and other places where the signs of war's proximity were increasingly plentiful, lodged for the night at Walpole, and on the evening of May 20th reached the outskirts of the camp of Rhode Island troops at Jamaica Plain.
Dick thrilled as his eyes ranged over the field dotted with tents, and as they rested on the muskets and cannon,—for the Rhode Island men had a train of artillery, and were well equipped, though as yet an insubordinate lot. Wishing to be nearer the heart of affairs, Dick hastened on to Roxbury, followed by the unobjecting MacAlister, and there found several Massachusetts and Connecticut regiments quartered in tents, log and earth huts, barns, taverns, and private houses. So well did MacAlister know what steps to take, that on the following Monday the two were accepted as volunteers, and quartered with Maxwell's company in Prescott's regiment; were comfortably lodged in a dispossessed horse's stall, and had traded off Dick's Irish officer's sword for a fiddle, with two fowling-pieces thrown into the bargain.