“I am only too glad to do it, sir,” Kit answered. “I want to make myself useful.”
“I thought of raising your pay two or three dollars a month for this extra work,” the Captain went on, “but I have concluded not to do it at present. I don’t want to make a pet of you; it’s better that you should work your way gradually like other people. You can go to the steward now and see whether he has anything for you to do.”
There was nothing to be done at the moment, for the new steward had everything in order. Kit had never seen the pantry so clean, nor the cabin brass-work so well polished. Mr. MacNish was apparently about forty years old, a plump man of medium height, his florid round face smooth except for a little tuft of iron-gray whiskers under each ear.
“Looks more like an Englishman than a Scotchman,” Kit said to himself; and his accent certainly was more English than Scotch; but his manner was much pleasanter than the other steward’s, and he used so many biblical quotations when he talked that Kit thought he must be a very devout man.
For the next four days the cabin boy was busy keeping tally of the general cargo as it came aboard, and after the same performance as before of anchoring by the Liberty statue and the Captain coming out in a tug, the North Cape got under way for Nassau. There was not much to be seen of the New Jersey coast this time, for she stood out to the southeastward all the first night, and in two days and a half crossed the Gulf Stream and ran into warmer weather. And every day Kit thought more and more of the new steward. He was so kind and gentle, so willing to do things himself rather than give Kit trouble, so neat and industrious, and above all so pious in his conversation, that it worried the cabin boy to see that Captain Griffith treated him rather abruptly, as if he did not care much for him.
“Was that a little Bible I saw you have last night, my boy?” Mr. MacNish asked Kit one morning. “Ah, I thought so. I like to see boys read their Bible. And maybe you’d lend it to me sometimes. Mine must have been stolen, I’m afraid, for I always carry it in my satchel. Oh, it’s a great comfort, lad, in times of trouble. My good old father” (his voice grew a little husky) “taught me to read my chapter every day, and I don’t like to miss it. I hope to see the day when we’ll have morning and evening service on every ship afloat.”
On the sixth day after leaving New York they sighted Nassau, and Kit was delighted with the appearance of the place from the water. The big square stone houses, with their upper and lower balconies enclosed with green Venetian blinds; the red tiled roofs, white streets running up a steep hill, palm trees waving gracefully over many of the roofs, old forts, half in ruins, to the right and left of the town, and the warm summer weather in midwinter, made it seem like a little fairy-land. But these things had to be seen from a distance, for the North Cape drew too much water to cross the bar. She anchored outside, half a mile from the town, close under the long narrow strip of rock called Hog Island, where she was exposed to the north wind and would have to hoist anchor and put to sea if a gale came.
By the next day the lighters were ready, for the cargo had to be landed in lighters as it had been in Sisal, though the distance was not as great, and Kit was set ashore early to check off every package as it was put on the wharf. He was no beginner at this work now, and as the people spoke English he found it much easier than at Sisal, though the boatmen and ’longshoremen were all negroes, and spoke a mixed jargon of Congo African and Colonial English that was sometimes almost as hard to understand as the Spanish. The day was intensely hot, and there was no tree or building on the wharf to give him shelter, and the lighters arrived so fast that he not only had no chance to see anything of the city, but had not even time to stop for dinner.
The only break in the long day was when the mail steamer, the Santiago, arrived from New York. She also was too large to cross the bar, and a little tug went out to her and carried her passengers and mails ashore.
When the day’s work was over, Kit was quite ready to return to the ship and eat his supper; but while they were washing dishes the steward proposed that they should get permission and spend the evening on shore.