“Where are you bound to?”
“London.”
“Will you take a letter for me?”
The man motioned assent and looked aloft, as though about to order his topsail to be backed. “I will chuck the letter aboard,” said Greaves, swinging the parcel by its line, that the man might guess what he intended to do. “Stand by to receive it!”
Again the fellow, who was, probably the captain, motioned; and then, waiting until the two craft were abreast, Greaves, with a dexterous swing of his arm, sent the parcel flying through the air. It fell on the deck of the passing vessel just abaft her mainmast. The fellow who had answered Greaves’ hail, running forward, picked it up, and held it high in his hand that we might see he had it. After this there was no opportunity for further communication; for scarce were the two vessels abreast when they were on each other’s quarter, rapidly sliding a widening interval betwixt their sterns.
The snow was the Lady Godiva. I read her name under her counter. But her being bound to London, now that my letter was aboard, was information enough about her to answer my turn.
From this date down to the period of our arrival off the west coast of South America my clear recollection of every particular of this voyage yields me little that is good enough to record. Incidents so far had not been lacking, but south of the equator our sea life grew as dull as ever the vocation can be at its dullest. Heavens! how incommunicably tedious is the mechanic round of shipboard days! Wonderful to me is it that sailors in those times, when a single passage kept them afloat for months, remained human. And less than human some of them were, I am bound to say. Think of their lodging—a small, black hole in the bows of the ship, dimly lighted by a lamp fed with slush skimmed from the coppers in the galley, no fire in bitter weather, no air in hot; every straining timber sweating brine into the dark interior, till the floor in a headsea was a-wash; till every blanket was like a newly wrung out swab; till there was not a dry rag in the hole of a living room to enable the poor devils to shift themselves withal. Think of their food—salted meat, out of which they could have sawn and chiseled blocks for reeving gear to hoist their sails with; biscuit that crawled on the innumerable legs of vermin, alive but unintelligent, for it came not to your whistle nor did it elude your grasp; tea from which the thirstiest of the fiery-eyed rats in the fore peak are known to have recoiled with lamentable squeaks and dying shrieks of disappointment. Think of their labor—the scrubbing, the tarring, the greasing, the furling and reefing and stitching, the kicks, the blows, the curses which accompanied the toil. Think of their pleasures—an inch of sooty pipe to suck, an ancient story to nod over, a song at long intervals.
Alas, poor Jack! What is it that carries thee to sea in the first instance? The love of freedom? Hie thee to the nearest jail; there is more freedom in it; better food, kinder words. The desire to see the world? What dost see unless thou runnest from thy ship? for in harbor all day long thou art sweating in the hold and stamping round and round to the music of the pawls; and when the night comes and thou goest ashore, if thou hast a shot in thy locker thou gettest drunk, and with whirling brains and blistered lips art thrust rather than conveyed to thy toil in the morning by the constable whom thy skipper hath sent in search of thee. And so much, therefore, Jack, dost thou see of foreign parts. But whatever may have been the cause that sent thee to sea, my lad, this will I affirm; that when once thou art afloat, there is nothing clothed in flesh, with an immortal spirit to be saved or damned, more deserving of pity.
But though we were a dull, we were a comfortable little ship. I never heard of any falling out among the crew. They worked well together. The common hope of the dollar that lay on t’other side the Horn was strong in them. It kept them well meaning. It was clear they all had full confidence in the captain’s yarn, and their spirits danced with anticipation of the money they would jingle when they got home—the money in wages and share per man. This I used to think.
They made much of their dog watches when the weather was fine. One of the Dutchmen played on the flute; one of the Englishmen had a fiddle. The fellows would save their noon-tide grog for a dog watch, and make merry. Yan Bol sang as a bull roars, but his singing was vastly enjoyed. Never did any mariner better dance the sailor’s hornpipe than the English sailor, Thomas Teach. He went through it grim and unsmiling, but his postures were full of that sort of elegance which is the gift of old ocean to such men as Teach. It is old ocean alone that can animate the limbs with the careless beauty of motion that Teach’s arms and legs displayed when he danced the hornpipe.