The Wind-Jammers

by T. Jenkins Hains

In a short time we hauled our wind around the point, and, with everything drawing fore and aft to the puffs that came over the highlands, we started to make our offing, leaving the Blanco Encalada with her brass-work shining in the first rays of the rising sun. We had gone clear without mishap, but although we were making six knots an hour off the land, we knew the breeze would not hold after the sun rose. As we expected, it fell before the men had finished breakfast, and we lay becalmed a few miles off shore on a sea of oily smoothness.

The passengers came on deck to take a last look at the harbor astern, and their voices sounded pleasant to the ear as they held forth on the beauties of a morning in the South Pacific.

These passengers were both clerical-looking men, and were fair types of the missionaries who live on the islands of the South Sea. They had engaged passage to the States more than a week before we sailed, and since then were almost inseparable. Their clothes were of some dark material, much alike in cut, but their faces and head-gear were in marked contrast.

The younger one had a smooth, sallow face, without a sign of beard, and wore a low black hat with a broad rim. The other looked to be ten years older, apparently a little over fifty. His face was as brown as a sailor’s and an enormous beard covered it almost to the eyes, which sparkled merrily from under an old slouch hat. His hair was also long, and his figure was of gigantic build.

“I was speaking to those poor fellows in the prison there only yesterday,” the younger one was saying, as I came aft, “and I did my best to cheer them, but they were both much set against spiritual consolation; and the one, McManus, stole my pocket-knife with its saw blade, which I used to carry to cut cocoanuts.”

“How do you know it was he who took it? Might not you have lost it?” asked the big man, with a smile.

“Do you suppose I would bear false witness against any man?” replied the younger, in a tone of reproach. “I noticed he came close to me while I was praying for him, and felt his hand touch me, but did not know my loss until after I left the prison. It will do him little good, however, as he and his companion in crime are to be shot this morning. It is probably just as well, for I know that those sailor men are a wicked lot and much given to wine, women, and desperate deeds.”

“Ah!” said the big man in a deep voice, “it is probably true; but you are rather severe on sailor-men, for all that. These sailors are an intelligent lot for the most part. And think you, dear friend, that there is probably not one who would not rather marry a sweet, good woman and live a pleasant and pious life, even as we ourselves do. We do this because we have money to maintain our positions; but the sailor has our feelings and longings without the means to gratify them, and, as he is intelligent enough to see that his life is hopeless, he gets as much pleasure out of it as possible and hesitates not at a desperate deed for gain.”

“Charity is very good and noble, but it gives me great pain to hear you express such unsound views as that. If it were not for the many noble deeds you have done for the islanders, I should be tempted to shun you as a recreant I trust you only jest, but it is even ill to jest on such subjects,” answered the younger, with a flushed face and a voice vibrating with suppressed feeling.

The big man made no answer to this, but suddenly called his companion’s attention to several large “alberco” which had followed the ship until she lay becalmed, and then plunged and jumped like so many porpoises in the wake. We drifted slowly all the morning, and about noon the sea-breeze set in from the southward and sent us along at a comfortable rate. Nothing occurred to make it necessary for a man to go aloft in the foretop, and those who had gone up the main and mizzen in the early morning had noticed nothing unusual. The platform in the top was as large as that in a full-rigged ship, so the men who were hiding were not visible from the deck as long as they lay flat on their backs or faces.