_ CHAPTER XXXIII. I MAKE A GLAD DISCOVERY
It was directly to my cat that I owed the great piece of good fortune that then came to me: but I must confess that he was an unwilling agent in the matter, and probably wished himself well out of it, the immediate result in his case being rather a bad squeeze to one of his fore paws.
We had been examining the machine-shop, the cat and I, and whatever his views about it may have been mine were of great satisfaction; for when I had got the dead-lights unscrewed so that I could see well about me I had been delighted by finding there everything that my boat-building project required. Indeed, I almost fancied myself back again in one of the work-shops of the Stevens Institute, so well was the place fitted and supplied--a completeness probably due to the fact that the _Ville de Saint Remy_ was intended for long voyages to out-of-the-way ports, and very well might have to depend upon her own resources for important repairs.
It was as we were leaving the machine-shop to continue our round of investigations that my cat suddenly took it into his head to jump down from my shoulders and stretch his own legs a little; and away he scampered--being much given to such frisking dashes, as I later discovered, though for the next week or so after that one he went limping on three legs mighty soberly--first down the deck aft, and then past me and up a dark passage leading toward the bows; and I, being pretty well accustomed to cat habits, stood waiting until he should have his fun out and so come back again with a miau by way of "if you please" to be taken up into my arms. But he did not come back in any great hurry, and off in the darkness I could hear his paws padding about briskly; and then there was silence for a moment; and then he broke out into a loud miauling which showed that he was in trouble of some sort and also in pain.
As there was no helping him until I could see what was the matter with him, I hurried first into the machine-shop for a wrench, and then went forward into that dark place cautiously--until by a glint of light on the ship's side I made out where a port was, and so got loose the deadlight and could look around. What I saw was my poor cat in such a pickle that I did not in the least blame him for crying out about it; he having, as it seemed, made an unlucky jump upon some small bars of iron which were lying loose and disorderly, with the one on which he landed balanced so nicely that it had turned suddenly and jammed fast his paw. And so he was anchored there very painfully, and was telling what he thought about it in the most piercing yowls.
Fortunately it was an easy matter to let him loose from the trap that he had got into; but even while I was doing it--and before I picked him up to look at his hurt and to comfort him--I gave a shout of delight on my own account that was a good deal louder than any of my poor cat's yells of pain. For there before me was a very stout-looking and large steam-launch--thirty-two feet over all, as I found when I came to measure her--stowed snugly in a cradle set athwart-ship and looking all ready to be put overboard into the sea. And at finding in this unexpected fashion what I had been so long looking for, and had quite done with hoping for, it is no wonder that I shouted with joy.
My cat coming limping to me to be pitied and cared for, holding up his pinched paw and with little miaus asking for my sympathy quite like a Christian, I had first of all to give him my attention. But his hurt was not a very serious one--the flesh not being cut, and no bones broken--and when I had comforted him as well as I could, until I got him soothed a little, I put him down out of my arms that I might examine carefully my great prize; but first of all opening all the ports so that I might have plenty of light for what I wanted to do.
Coming to this deliberate survey, I found that the launch truly enough was complete, but that she was very far from being ready to take the water; for while all her parts were there--and even duplicates of her more important pieces, in readiness against a break-down--most of her fittings and all of her machinery was lying inside of her boxed for transportation; being arranged that way, I suppose, because she would have been far too heavy to swing into the snug place where I found her and out again with everything bolted fast. She was a very beautiful little boat, evidently intended for a pleasure craft--but very strong and seaworthy, too; and it no doubt was to keep her in good order for delivery that she had been stowed between-decks for the long voyage. Indeed, only with a steam-winch and a good many men to handle her, could she have been got down there; and the first of my uncomfortable thoughts about her, of the many that I had first and last, came while I was taking stock of her equipment--as I fell to wondering how in the world I should manage, with only a cat to help me, ever to get her overboard into the sea.
As to assembling her parts, and so making her ready for cruising, I had no doubts whatever. That piece of work was directly in the line of my training and I felt entirely secure about it; but even on that score I quaked a good deal at the size of the contract to be taken by a single pair of hands, and at thought of the long, long while that would be required to carry it through. Yet the hope that came with finding this boat put such heart into me that my spirits did not go down far. Working on her--aside from the pleasure that any man with a natural love for mechanics finds in serious and difficult labor with his hands--would be a constant delight to me because of what it would be leading to; and in every moment of my work I would have to sustain me the thought that each rivet set in place and each bolt fastened brought me appreciably nearer to being set free.
Having cursorily finished with the boat, I continued my survey to her surroundings; that I might plan roughly my scheme of work upon her, and that I might plan also for getting her launched when my work upon her should be done. She was stowed on the main-deck--in a place that probably was intended for the use of third-class passengers, when such were carried--and the machine-shop was so close to her that in the matter of fetching tools and so on my steps would be well saved. Directly over her was the forward hatch; through which she had been lowered and set in place in the cradle previously made ready for her, and there fixed firm and fast. For a moment I had the fancy that I might get up steam to work the donkey-engine and so hoist her out again by that same way, and overboard too. But a very little reflection showed me that this airily formed plan must be abandoned, as all my work on her then would have to be done far away from the machine-shop and with the additional disadvantage that through the long time that certainly must pass before I could get her finished she would lie open to the daily heavy rains. And then I had the much more reasonable notion--though the amount of extra labor that it involved was not encouraging to contemplate--that I would do my work on her where she lay; and when I had finished her that I would cut loose a sufficient number of plates from the side of the steamer to make a hole big enough to get her overboard that way.
But having the hatch directly over where she was lying, though I could not get her up through it, made my undertaking a good deal easier and more comfortable for me. Even with all the ports open I would have had but little light to work by; and, what was of even more importance in that hot misty region, I would have had little fresh air--and still less when I had set a-going my forge. But with the hatch off I could have all the light that I needed and as much fresh air as was to be had--with the advantage that the hatch could be set in place every night when I went off duty and not opened again in the morning until the rain was at an end: so preserving my machinery against the rust that pretty much would have ruined it--for all that it was well tallowed--had my slow building gone on in the open air.
My preliminary investigations being thus well ended, and the morning ended too, I piped all hands to dinner; that is to say, I whistled to my cat--who had been sitting still and watching me pretty solemnly, his friskiness being for the time taken out of him by the pain in his paw--and when he perceived that I was paying some attention to him again he came limping to me on his three good legs and said with a miau that if I pleased he would prefer going to his dinner in my arms. And when I picked him up--as, indeed, I had to, for he positively insisted upon my carrying him--he forgot about his hurt and fell to purring to me at a great rate and to making little gentle thrusts against my arm with the fore paw that was sound. And so we went aft in great friendship and contentment and had a gay dinner together: the cat sitting on the table opposite to me with all possible decorum--but manifesting his daintiness by refusing to eat anything but tinned chicken, and only the white meat at that! _