He had been in his youth first mate of an Indiaman, afterwards captain of a fruiterer, and now he was the commander of what had once been his father’s craft, then called the Sea-gull, but now rebaptised the Mary Jane. At home he had not found trawling a very profitable business, so with three other west-countrymen he had started with his little craft to barter with the natives on the West African coast.
How he got there was rather surprising. His only chronometer was his father’s old watch. He took no observations, but merely guessed at his position from the distance run and the log. Occasionally he took soundings—i. e., when he could find them; chart he had none. Small success had, however, attended his bold efforts, although he had several very grand “specs” on hand. In the hold were a lot of real Birmingham guns, bought at 7s. 6d. apiece, which had but one fault, that of sometimes sending off their contents at the wrong end, hitting the shooter instead of the object shot at. There were also scores of magnificent crowns for African kings, made up of tinsel paper, brass spikes, wax pearls, and glass diamonds. He had even once, he said, furnished a mighty Ashantee potentate with a throne. This, however, he seemed to regret, it having been an old family piece of furniture. Strange as this may seem, I believed it to be quite true, as the throne in question was merely an old arm-chair, the legs, arms, and back of which had been severely shaken and cracked by many a toss and tumble in the cabin of the Mary Jane.
On my expressing surprise at his placing so shaky a seat for the support of a king, he with a sharp twinkle of the eye replied, “That is the look-out of the occupant; and,” added he, “these old-fashioned articles, if spliced at the proper time and place, still last for some good length of time.” Sam, like myself, was a stanch Conservative, and preferred to patch his coat all over to turning it. Not that he preferred an old coat to a new one, but he liked the old constitutional cut.
Notwithstanding all his grand undertakings, Captain Sam had not succeeded as he wished, and he thought that he had been humbugging and humbugged enough. After struggling for two long years through fevers on land and heavy surf-breakers on the shore, he had finally reached Cape Town, from whence he was now engaged in carrying Government stores along the coast as far as Natal.
These and many similar yarns were spun in the cabin of Sam’s little craft, in which I was now cooped up, in an atmosphere which I found fearfully clammy and stuffy after inhaling le grand air for two years on African uplands. Sam, however, did all he could to cheer the comfortless surroundings of his small cribbed cabin by the ever-varying novelty of his yarns. He related many a hard-fought fight with the storms of old ocean, to which, in spite of all, he still clung, and with which he still hoped to have many a tussle ere he was piped to settle his own long account.
When wearying sometimes with his tales, and the sound of the surges striking the thin wooden sides of the trembling Mary Jane, I would go upon deck, and there watch the long rolling waves that sweep round the Cape, or listen to the cheery voice of his sailor-boy, as he sang many a ditty of Cornish and Devon heroes, and the glorious deeds of Drake on the Spanish main.
In this way we furrowed our way along, making very wet weather round the coast, until we came to the spot where the Birkenhead had gone down so recently with all hands. Here we luffed up for a time, and, baring our brows to the breeze, offered a parting salute to the gallant crew and stout-hearted red-jackets who had here gone to their last account at duty’s call; then, sheering off once more, filled our sails to a half gale of wind, and bounded off like a startled sea-gull towards Table Bay.
After this fashion we sped on through the sea, throwing up ridges high above our decks, and on the 12th July rounded the Lion’s Mountain. Here becalmed for a time we stayed our course, when a heavy puff from the crest of that huge emblem of African life sent such a staggering pressure on our outspread canvas as nearly brought us to grief. With a sudden whirl we were on our beam-ends! My berth on board had never been very dry, but now I rolled into one still more watery in the lee-scuppers. By good luck the tackling gave way, the topsails went overboard, and the stout craft righted again, as Captain Sam expressed it, none the worse for a little deck-swabbing. I managed also to regain my place on board, none the worse for my startling bath.
The next morning I declined to land in Captain Sam’s little punt, much to his annoyance, as he volunteered himself to pull me ashore. I, however, gave him to understand that it was beneath the dignity of two such west-country commanders as we were to land in such a tub-looking receptacle. The fact is, after Sam had placed his own burly person in the centre of his boat, I saw no place except his own brawny shoulders on which I could perch.