“Sartain—a more lawful clearance was never given in Wall Street; it’s for Key West and a market. I did think of making it Havana and a market, but port-charges are lightest at Key West.”
“Then Key West is the place to which we are bound?”
“It ought to be, agreeable to papers; though vessels sometimes miss the ports for which they clear.”
Rose put no more questions, and her aunt being conscious that she had not appeared to advantage in the affair of the “land-fall,” was also disposed to be silent. Spike and Mulford had their attention drawn to the vessel, and the conversation dropped.
The reader can readily suppose that the Molly Swash had not been standing still all this time. So far from this, she was running “down Sound,” with the wind on her quarter, or at south-west, making great head-way, as she was close under the south shore, or on the island side of the water she was in. The vessel had no other motion than that of her speed, and the females escaped every thing like sea-sickness, for the time being. This enabled them to attend to making certain arrangements necessary to their comforts below, previously to getting into rough water. In acquitting herself of this task, Rose received much useful advice from Josh, though his new assistant, Jack Tier, turned out to be a prize indeed, in the cabins. The first was only a steward; but the last proved himself not only a handy person of his calling, but one full of resources; a genius, in his way. Josh soon became so sensible of his own inferiority, in contributing to the comforts of females, that he yielded the entire management of the “ladies’ cabin,” as a little place that might have been ten feet square, was called, to his uncouth-looking, but really expert deputy. Jack waddled about below, as if born and brought up in such a place, and seemed every way fitted for his office. In height, and in build generally, there was a surprising conformity between the widow and the steward’s deputy, a circumstance which might induce one to think they must often have been in each other’s way, in a space so small; though, in point of fact, Jack never ran foul of any one. He seemed to avoid this inconvenience, by a species of nautical instinct.
Towards the turn of the day, Rose had every thing arranged, and was surprised to find how much room she had made for her aunt and herself, by means of Jack’s hints, and how much more comfortable it was possible to be, in that small cabin, than she had, at first, supposed.
After dinner, Spike took his siesta. He slept in a little state-room that stood on the starboard side of the quarter-deck, quite aft; as Mulford did in one on the larboard. These two state-rooms were fixtures; but a light deck over-head, which connected them, shipped and unshipped, forming a shelter for the man at the wheel, when in its place, as well as for the officer of the watch, should he see fit to use it, in bad weather. This sort of cuddy, Spike termed his “coach-house.”
The captain had no sooner gone into his state-room, and closed its window, movements that were understood by Mulford, than the latter took occasion to intimate to Rose, by means of Jack Tier, the state of things on deck, when the young man was favored with the young lady’s company.
“He has turned in for his afternoon’s nap, and will sleep for just one hour, blow high, or blow low,” said the mate, placing himself at Rose’s side on the trunk, which formed the usual seat for those who could presume to take the liberty of sitting down on the quarter-deck. “It’s a habit with him, and we can count on it, with perfect security.”
“His doing so, now, is a sign that he has no immediate fears of the revenue steamer?”