Soon the faces on shore became indistinct. The brig took in her kedge anchors, the trilling of her capstan falls ceased, her jibs rattled up the stays, the yards creaked aslant, and we caught the light westerly breeze. The tide was setting out, and we made good travelling of it.
I was not the only passenger. There was a Virginian, by the name of Chaffee, a tobacco-planter, who was going on the voyage as a sort of supercargo, and his wife (a slight, black-eyed woman of much spirit) accompanied him.
The Captain and first mate were both New Bedford men, and tiptop sailors, as circumstances proved afterwards. The crew of eight men were Americans also, so far as I could judge, three of them being negroes—great, deep-chested black fellows, worth large sums of money in the market; but they were free men, and held themselves differently from slaves, although one, Pompey, waited on the cabin table.
Whether the Minetta's crew was a picked one or not I do not know, but no man would have felt ashamed of being over them. I can say that much. As for the brig, she was something over one hundred and eighty tons burden, and loaded with tobacco, sole-leather, and turpentine; she was light in ballast, and in good trim for fast sailing.
The crew for the most part slept in a tall deck-house on the forecastle, built around the foremast, and the cabin was given up to Mr. Chaffee and his wife; the two officers and myself bunked in a little cubby-hole forward of the after-skylight.
The Minetta was old-fashioned, and her high poop and top sides gave her a clumsy look; her spars and masts were very heavy for her tonnage, and I think had been built for a larger vessel; but she spread a great show of canvas, and the way she boiled the water up in front of her proved she was no laggard.
We kept well to the eastern shore as we went down the bay, but, nevertheless, I soon made out the mouth of the Gunpowder River, and could see the stark walls of my old home standing out against the trees.
Here I was, scarce fourteen years of age, and starting into the wide world alone, verily with my bridges burned behind me! Mr. Chaffee had entered into conversation with me, and he and his wife displaying great interest, I told him as much of my story as I thought proper. So far as the Captain and first mate went, I might not have existed.
That night as I lay on my narrow little shelf, I was so full of thinking that at first I could not sleep. I longed for comfort, and would have given worlds to have rested my head on Aunt Sheba's shoulder. I half sobbed aloud from loneliness, but at last I dozed off, and was awakened some hours afterwards by feeling the vessel pitching heavily.
