There was no land in sight, and no vessel, nothing but that gently heaving, golden ocean; but I imagined that the Elizabeth Islands were concealed behind haze on the horizon, and that I was bound home across the Bay. I wondered how my father would seem, and what he was doing at that moment; and I saw in imagination my mother’s face as she caught sight of me. I knew what she would be doing at that moment. She would be cooking supper—perhaps it was half an hour too early to be cooking supper, but soon she would be cooking supper; or frying doughnuts, although she was more apt to do that in the morning; or making soda biscuit. I could just see the great pan of them, and mother stooping before the open oven door. We had a plenty of good, homely food, and mother’s soda biscuits were—well, they were mother’s soda biscuits. There was nothing like them.
We got into Fayal in about a week. Wright was taken ashore the first thing, and put into the hands of a surgeon. We left him there. His hip was pretty bad, and he was really sick besides. He had consumption, although he would not acknowledge it. He went back to New Bedford on the tender, which left after we did, and I am afraid we all forgot him quickly.
Lupo was delivered to our consul, and was also sent back on the tender, according to the best recollection I have of the matter to be tried in New Bedford—or in the Federal Court in that district. I had to sign and swear to a deposition, which was merely a copy of my journal of the fight. When that duty was over I felt much better, for it had weighed on my mind for some days, although it turned out to be nothing but a formality, and the consul was very kind and friendly, as was everybody concerned except Lupo. I do not know what became of him.
The tender was waiting for us. I finished up my journal, so far, and my letters. The letters were not long, for all my narrative was contained in my journal. There was a long letter from my mother, filled with the news of home since I had left, and with the kind of thing that mothers’ letters are always filled with. Boys treat them carelessly sometimes, and affect not to value them, but they always do value them, I think. My father had written a postscript to my mother’s letter, not long, for my father never wrote long letters, and was not given to that form of self-expression—to any form of self-expression, for that matter. I wore that letter to a rag, carrying it about with me, and reading it and re-reading it. It brought back my homesickness. I rather cherished my homesickness, I think.
We had about a hundred barrels of oil to send home, and to be put aboard the tender, supplies and provisions to get, and a whaleboat if we could, and two men to recruit to take the places of Wright and Lupo, and we were likely to stay there four or five days at least.
Some of us were given liberty ashore, and Peter, the Prince, Black Man’el, and I undertook a tour into the interior. I cannot now remember much about that trip. I know that we wandered about the town for a half a day, and saw a little white and ancient-looking chapel, which we were told that Columbus had visited on his return from discovering America; and that we traveled on foot into the country. Fayal is less mountainous than most of the other islands, but the roads were not good. On the high ground back from the town we passed farms, and many small, round, terraced areas, not much bigger than a barn floor, with low walls of small boulders. They were floored with a very hard sort of clay. I believe these areas were used as threshing-floors. I remember best that I was pretty sore still.
Our oil was transferred, supplies and provisions on board, the new men shipped, and Captain Nelson impatient to get away; but several of the liberty men were not back, and although their liberty was not up until the next day Mr. Tilton was sent ashore with two men to find them. Mr. Tilton knew the places in Fayal where they would be likely to be, and he came back in a little over an hour, bringing the men, who were very drunk, and singing and shouting, or maudlin or sullen and vicious, according to their natures. Azevedo soused them with cold water, and we got under way at once.
Our course was a little east of south until we struck the northeast trades in latitude 28° N., although there was a good easterly wind all the way from Fayal, and the Clearchus did pretty well for her. We did not stop at Tenerife, which would have been several hundred miles out of our way. With the trades on our quarter we did better yet on a course a little west of south. This took us to the Cape Verde grounds.
During all this time from Fayal up to getting on the Cape Verde grounds, we hardly started a sheet, and the men had a good deal of time to themselves. Most of them were occupied with scrimshawing. I finished my pie marker, but did not begin anything else. A boy on shipboard does not have nearly as much spare time as would naturally be supposed by people who do not know; none of the crew have, either, although the crew is much larger than necessary for working the ship, and they do not care much for appearances, or for doing things smartly or in shipshape fashion. A boy has none of the duties of the men, except pulling and hauling when the boats are away, but he is at the beck and call of all officers. I really do not know whether all the officers have that right, but that was the way it worked out, and I never questioned it. Then I had my studies, at which I was really working. What spare time I had I preferred to spend on deck, gazing at the sky and the sea, and what I could see in them, rather than working with my eyes in my hat. There was little to be seen in the air, but the sea sometimes seemed alive with porpoises, and one day I saw a dolphin swimming just below the surface of the water alongside the ship. As it passed, with no perceptible effort, under the seas, with the sun shining upon it, it showed beautiful colors, changing every instant from one delicate shade of blue or green to another, like dissolving views. Then there came another and another, and flying fish leaping from the water. Some of the flying fish came aboard, or went clear across the deck in their flight, and I tried to catch them in my cap as they passed. I did catch three.
In about 14° N. latitude we ran into the doldrums, which prevail over but two or three degrees at this point and at this season. We were more than a week in getting out of them. It did not rain so much as I had expected, although the clouds hardly broke, and heavy showers were likely at almost any time.