_
CHAPTER XXIII - THE BUDGET OF THE "CURRENCY LASS."
Before noon on the 26th November, there cleared from the port
of Sydney the schooner, Currency Lass. The owner, Norris
Carthew, was on board in the somewhat unusual position of
mate; the master's name purported to be William Kirkup; the
cook was a Hawaiian boy, Joseph Amalu; and there were two
hands before the mast, Thomas Hadden and Richard Hemstead,
the latter chosen partly because of his humble character, partly
because he had an odd-job-man's handiness with tools. The
Currency Lass was bound for the South Sea Islands, and first of
all for Butaritari in the Gilberts, on a register; but it was
understood about the harbour that her cruise was more than
half a pleasure trip. A friend of the late Grant Sanderson (of
Auchentroon and Kilclarty) might have recognised in that
tall-masted ship, the transformed and rechristened Dream; and
the Lloyd's surveyor, had the services of such a one been called
in requisition, must have found abundant subject of remark.
For time, during her three years' inaction, had eaten deep into
the Dream and her fittings; she had sold in consequence a
shade above her value as old junk; and the three adventurers
had scarce been able to afford even the most vital repairs. The
rigging, indeed, had been partly renewed, and the rest set up;
all Grant Sanderson's old canvas had been patched together
into one decently serviceable suit of sails; Grant Sanderson's
masts still stood, and might have wondered at themselves. "I
haven't the heart to tap them," Captain Wicks used to observe,
as he squinted up their height or patted their rotundity; and "as
rotten as our foremast" was an accepted metaphor in the ship's
company. The sequel rather suggests it may have been sounder
than was thought; but no one knew for certain, just as no one
except the captain appreciated the dangers of the cruise. The
captain, indeed, saw with clear eyes and spoke his mind aloud;
and though a man of an astonishing hot-blooded courage,
following life and taking its dangers in the spirit of a hound
upon the slot, he had made a point of a big whaleboat. "Take
your choice," he had said; "either new masts and rigging or that
boat. I simply ain't going to sea without the one or the other.
Chicken coops are good enough, no doubt, and so is a dinghy;
but they ain't for Joe." And his partners had been forced to
consent, and saw six and thirty pounds of their small capital
vanish in the turn of a hand.
All four had toiled the best part of six weeks getting ready; and
though Captain Wicks was of course not seen or heard of, a
fifth was there to help them, a fellow in a bushy red beard,
which he would sometimes lay aside when he was below, and
who strikingly resembled Captain Wicks in voice and
character. As for Captain Kirkup, he did not appear till the last
moment, when he proved to be a burly mariner, bearded like
Abou Ben Adhem. All the way down the harbour and through
the Heads, his milk-white whiskers blew in the wind and were
conspicuous from shore; but the Currency Lass had no sooner
turned her back upon the lighthouse, than he went below for
the inside of five seconds and reappeared clean shaven. So
many doublings and devices were required to get to sea with an
unseaworthy ship and a captain that was "wanted." Nor might
even these have sufficed, but for the fact that Hadden was a
public character, and the whole cruise regarded with an eye of
indulgence as one of Tom's engaging eccentricities. The ship,
besides, had been a yacht before; and it came the more natural
to allow her still some of the dangerous liberties of her old
employment.
A strange ship they had made of it, her lofty spars disfigured
with patched canvas, her panelled cabin fitted for a traderoom
with rude shelves. And the life they led in that anomalous
schooner was no less curious than herself. Amalu alone
berthed forward; the rest occupied staterooms, camped upon
the satin divans, and sat down in Grant Sanderson's parquetry
smoking-room to meals of junk and potatoes, bad of their kind
and often scant in quantity. Hemstead grumbled; Tommy had
occasional moments of revolt and increased the ordinary by a
few haphazard tins or a bottle of his own brown sherry. But
Hemstead grumbled from habit, Tommy revolted only for the
moment, and there was underneath a real and general
acquiescence in these hardships. For besides onions and
potatoes, the Currency Lass may be said to have gone to sea
without stores. She carried two thousand pounds' worth of
assorted trade, advanced on credit, their whole hope and
fortune. It was upon this that they subsisted--mice in their own
granary. They dined upon their future profits; and every scanty
meal was so much in the savings bank.
Republican as were their manners, there was no practical, at
least no dangerous, lack of discipline. Wicks was the only
sailor on board, there was none to criticise; and besides, he was
so easy-going, and so merry-minded, that none could bear to
disappoint him. Carthew did his best, partly for the love of
doing it, partly for love of the captain; Amalu was a willing
drudge, and even Hemstead and Hadden turned to upon
occasion with a will. Tommy's department was the trade and
traderoom; he would work down in the hold or over the shelves
of the cabin, till the Sydney dandy was unrecognizable; come
up at last, draw a bucket of sea-water, bathe, change, and lie
down on deck over a big sheaf of Sydney _Heralds_ and _Dead
Birds_, or perhaps with a volume of Buckle's _History of
Civilisation_, the standard work selected for that cruise. In the
latter case, a smile went round the ship, for Buckle almost
invariably laid his student out, and when Tom awoke again he
was almost always in the humour for brown sherry. The
connection was so well established that "a glass of Buckle" or
"a bottle of civilisation" became current pleasantries on board
the Currency Lass.
Hemstead's province was that of the repairs, and he had his
hands full. Nothing on board but was decayed in a proportion;
the lamps leaked; so did the decks; door-knobs came off in the
hand, mouldings parted company with the panels, the pump
declined to suck, and the defective bathroom came near to
swamp the ship. Wicks insisted that all the nails were long
ago consumed, and that she was only glued together by the
rust. "You shouldn't make me laugh so much, Tommy," he
would say. "I'm afraid I'll shake the sternpost out of her." And,
as Hemstead went to and fro with his tool basket on an endless
round of tinkering, Wicks lost no opportunity of chaffing him
upon his duties. "If you'd turn to at sailoring or washing paint
or something useful, now," he would say, "I could see the fun
of it. But to be mending things that haven't no insides to them
appears to me the height of foolishness." And doubtless these
continual pleasantries helped to reassure the landsmen, who
went to and fro unmoved, under circumstances that might have
daunted Nelson.
The weather was from the outset splendid, and the wind fair
and steady. The ship sailed like a witch. "This Currency Lass
is a powerful old girl, and has more complaints than I would
care to put a name on," the captain would say, as he pricked the
chart; "but she could show her blooming heels to anything of
her size in the Western Pacific." To wash decks, relieve the
wheel, do the day's work after dinner on the smoking-room
table, and take in kites at night,--such was the easy routine of
their life. In the evening--above all, if Tommy had produced
some of his civilisation--yarns and music were the rule. Amalu
had a sweet Hawaiian voice; and Hemstead, a great hand upon
the banjo, accompanied his own quavering tenor with effect.
There was a sense in which the little man could sing. It was
great to hear him deliver _My Boy Tammie_ in Austrylian; and
the words (some of the worst of the ruffian Macneil's) were
hailed in his version with inextinguishable mirth.
Where hye ye been a' dye?
he would ask, and answer himself:--
I've been by burn and flowery brye,
Meadow green an' mountain grye,
Courtin' o' this young thing,
Just come frye her mammie.
It was the accepted jest for all hands to greet the conclusion of
this song with the simultaneous cry: "My word!" thus winging
the arrow of ridicule with a feather from the singer's wing. But
he had his revenge with _Home, Sweet Home,_ and _Where is
my Wandering Boy To-night?_--ditties into which he threw the
most intolerable pathos. It appeared he had no home, nor had
ever had one, nor yet any vestige of a family, except a truculent
uncle, a baker in Newcastle, N.S.W. His domestic sentiment
was therefore wholly in the air, and expressed an unrealised
ideal. Or perhaps, of all his experiences, this of the Currency
Lass, with its kindly, playful, and tolerant society, approached
it the most nearly.
It is perhaps because I know the sequel, but I can never think
upon this voyage without a profound sense of pity and mystery;
of the ship (once the whim of a rich blackguard) faring with her
battered fineries and upon her homely errand, across the plains
of ocean, and past the gorgeous scenery of dawn and sunset;
and the ship's company, so strangely assembled, so Britishly
chuckle-headed, filling their days with chaff in place of
conversation; no human book on board with them except
Hadden's Buckle, and not a creature fit either to read or to
understand it; and the one mark of any civilised interest, being
when Carthew filled in his spare hours with the pencil and the
brush: the whole unconscious crew of them posting in the
meanwhile towards so tragic a disaster.
Twenty-eight days out of Sydney, on Christmas eve, they
fetched up to the entrance of the lagoon, and plied all that night
outside, keeping their position by the lights of fishers on the
reef and the outlines of the palms against the cloudy sky. With
the break of day, the schooner was hove to, and the signal for a
pilot shown. But it was plain her lights must have been
observed in the darkness by the native fishermen, and word
carried to the settlement, for a boat was already under weigh.
She came towards them across the lagoon under a great press
of sail, lying dangerously down, so that at times, in the heavier
puffs, they thought she would turn turtle; covered the distance
in fine style, luffed up smartly alongside, and emitted a
haggard looking white man in pyjamas.
"Good-mornin', Cap'n," said he, when he had made good his
entrance. "I was taking you for a Fiji man-of-war, what with
your flush decks and them spars. Well, gen'lemen all, here's
wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year," he
added, and lurched against a stay.
"Why, you're never the pilot?" exclaimed Wicks, studying him
with a profound disfavour. "You've never taken a ship in--don't
tell me!"
"Well, I should guess I have," returned the pilot. "I'm Captain
Dobbs, I am; and when I take charge, the captain of that ship
can go below and shave."
"But, man alive! you're drunk, man!" cried the captain.
"Drunk!" repeated Dobbs. "You can't have seen much life if
you call me drunk. I'm only just beginning. Come night, I
won't say; I guess I'll be properly full by then. But now I'm the
soberest man in all Big Muggin."
"It won't do," retorted Wicks. "Not for Joseph, sir. I can't have
you piling up my schooner."
"All right," said Dobbs, "lay and rot where you are, or take and
go in and pile her up for yourself like the captain of the Leslie.
That's business, I guess; grudged me twenty dollars' pilotage,
and lost twenty thousand in trade and a brand new schooner;
ripped the keel right off of her, and she went down in the inside
of four minutes, and lies in twenty fathom, trade and all."
"What's all this?" cried Wicks. "Trade? What vessel was this
Leslie, anyhow?"
"Consigned to Cohen and Co., from 'Frisco," returned the pilot,
"and badly wanted. There's a barque inside filling up for
Hamburg--you see her spars over there; and there's two more
ships due, all the way from Germany, one in two months, they
say, and one in three; Cohen and Co.'s agent (that's Mr.
Topelius) has taken and lain down with the jaundice on the
strength of it. I guess most people would, in his shoes; no
trade, no copra, and twenty hundred ton of shipping due. If
you've any copra on board, cap'n, here's your chance. Topelius
will buy, gold down, and give three cents. It's all found money
to him, the way it is, whatever he pays for it. And that's what
come of going back on the pilot."
"Excuse me one moment, Captain Dobbs. I wish to speak with
my mate," said the captain, whose face had begun to shine and
his eyes to sparkle.
"Please yourself," replied the pilot. "You couldn't think of
offering a man a nip, could you? just to brace him up. This
kind of thing looks damned inhospitable, and gives a schooner
a bad name."
"I'll talk about that after the anchor's down," returned Wicks,
and he drew Carthew forward. "I say," he whispered, "here's a
fortune."
"How much do you call that?" asked Carthew.
"I can't put a figure on it yet--I daren't!" said the captain. "We
might cruise twenty years and not find the match of it. And
suppose another ship came in to-night? Everything's possible!
And the difficulty is this Dobbs. He's as drunk as a marine.
How can we trust him? We ain't insured--worse luck!"
"Suppose you took him aloft and got him to point out the
channel?" suggested Carthew. "If he tallied at all with the
chart, and didn't fall out of the rigging, perhaps we might risk
it."
"Well, all's risk here," returned the captain. "Take the wheel
yourself, and stand by. Mind, if there's two orders, follow
mine, not his. Set the cook for'ard with the heads'ls, and the
two others at the main sheet, and see they don't sit on it." With
that he called the pilot; they swarmed aloft in the fore rigging,
and presently after there was bawled down the welcome order
to ease sheets and fill away.
At a quarter before nine o'clock on Christmas morning the
anchor was let go.
The first cruise of the Currency Lass had thus ended in a stroke
of fortune almost beyond hope. She had brought two thousand
pounds' worth of trade, straight as a homing pigeon, to the
place where it was most required. And Captain Wicks (or,
rather, Captain Kirkup) showed himself the man to make the
best of his advantage. For hard upon two days he walked a
verandah with Topelius, for hard upon two days his partners
watched from the neighbouring public house the field of battle;
and the lamps were not yet lighted on the evening of the second
before the enemy surrendered. Wicks came across to the Sans
Souci, as the saloon was called, his face nigh black, his eyes
almost closed and all bloodshot, and yet bright as lighted
matches.
"Come out here, boys," he said; and when they were some way
off among the palms, "I hold twenty-four," he added in a voice
scarcely recognizable, and doubtless referring to the venerable
game of cribbage.
"What do you mean?" asked Tommy.
"I've sold the trade," answered Wicks; "or, rather, I've sold only
some of it, for I've kept back all the mess beef and half the flour
and biscuit; and, by God, we're still provisioned for four
months! By God, it's as good as stolen!"
"My word!" cried Hemstead.
"But what have you sold it for?" gasped Carthew, the captain's
almost insane excitement shaking his nerve.
"Let me tell it my own way," cried Wicks, loosening his neck.
"Let me get at it gradual, or I'll explode. I've not only sold it,
boys, I've wrung out a charter on my own terms to 'Frisco and
back; on my own terms. I made a point of it. I fooled him first
by making believe I wanted copra, which of course I knew he
wouldn't hear of--couldn't, in fact; and whenever he showed
fight, I trotted out the copra, and that man dived! I would take
nothing but copra, you see; and so I've got the blooming lot in
specie--all but two short bills on 'Frisco. And the sum? Well,
this whole adventure, including two thousand pounds of credit,
cost us two thousand seven hundred and some odd. That's all
paid back; in thirty days' cruise we've paid for the schooner and
the trade. Heard ever any man the match of that? And it's not
all! For besides that," said the captain, hammering his words,
"we've got Thirteen Blooming Hundred Pounds of profit to
divide. I bled him in four Thou.!" he cried, in a voice that
broke like a schoolboy's.
For a moment the partners looked upon their chief with
stupefaction, incredulous surprise their only feeling. Tommy
was the first to grasp the consequences.
"Here," he said, in a hard, business tone. "Come back to that
saloon. I've got to get drunk."
"You must please excuse me, boys," said the captain, earnestly.
"I daren't taste nothing. If I was to drink one glass of beer, it's
my belief I'd have the apoplexy. The last scrimmage, and the
blooming triumph, pretty nigh hand done me."
"Well, then, three cheers for the captain," proposed Tommy.
But Wicks held up a shaking hand. "Not that either, boys," he
pleaded. "Think of the other buffer, and let him down easy. If
I'm like this, just fancy what Topelius is! If he heard us singing
out, he'd have the staggers."
As a matter of fact, Topelius accepted his defeat with a good
grace; but the crew of the wrecked Leslie, who were in the
same employment and loyal to their firm, took the thing more
bitterly. Rough words and ugly looks were common. Once
even they hooted Captain Wicks from the saloon verandah; the
Currency Lasses drew out on the other side; for some minutes
there had like to have been a battle in Butaritari; and though
the occasion passed off without blows, it left on either side an
increase of ill-feeling.
No such small matter could affect the happiness of the
successful traders. Five days more the ship lay in the lagoon,
with little employment for any one but Tommy and the captain,
for Topelius's natives discharged cargo and brought ballast; the
time passed like a pleasant dream; the adventurers sat up half
the night debating and praising their good fortune, or strayed
by day in the narrow isle, gaping like Cockney tourists; and on
the first of the new year, the Currency Lass weighed anchor for
the second time and set sail for 'Frisco, attended by the same
fine weather and good luck. She crossed the doldrums with but
small delay; on a wind and in ballast of broken coral, she
outdid expectations; and, what added to the happiness of the
ship's company, the small amount of work that fell on them to
do, was now lessened by the presence of another hand. This
was the boatswain of the Leslie; he had been on bad terms with
his own captain, had already spent his wages in the saloons of
Butaritari, had wearied of the place, and while all his
shipmates coldly refused to set foot on board the Currency
Lass, he had offered to work his passage to the coast. He was
a north of Ireland man, between Scotch and Irish, rough, loud,
humorous, and emotional, not without sterling qualities, and an
expert and careful sailor. His frame of mind was different
indeed from that of his new shipmates; instead of making an
unexpected fortune, he had lost a berth; and he was besides
disgusted with the rations, and really appalled at the condition
of the schooner. A stateroom door had stuck, the first day at
sea, and Mac (as they called him) laid his strength to it and
plucked it from the hinges.
"Glory!" said he, "this ship's rotten."
"I believe you, my boy," said Captain Wicks.
The next day the sailor was observed with his nose aloft.
"Don't you get looking at these sticks," the captain said, "or
you'll have a fit and fall overboard."
Mac turned towards the speaker with rather a wild eye. "Why,
I see what looks like a patch of dry rot up yonder, that I bet I
could stick my fist into," said he.
"Looks as if a fellow could stick his head into it, don't it?"
returned Wicks. "But there's no good prying into things that
can't be mended."
"I think I was a Currency Ass to come on board of her!"
reflected Mac.
"Well, I never said she was seaworthy," replied the captain: "I
only said she could show her blooming heels to anything afloat.
And besides, I don't know that it's dry rot; I kind of sometimes
hope it isn't. Here; turn to and heave the log; that'll cheer you
up."
"Well, there's no denying it, you're a holy captain," said Mac.
And from that day on, he made but the one reference to the
ship's condition; and that was whenever Tommy drew upon his
cellar. "Here's to the junk trade!" he would say, as he held out
his can of sherry.
"Why do you always say that?" asked Tommy.
"I had an uncle in the business," replied Mac, and launched at
once into a yarn, in which an incredible number of the
characters were "laid out as nice as you would want to see,"
and the oaths made up about two-fifths of every conversation.
Only once he gave them a taste of his violence; he talked of it,
indeed, often; "I'm rather a voilent man," he would say, not
without pride; but this was the only specimen. Of a sudden, he
turned on Hemstead in the ship's waist, knocked him against
the foresail boom, then knocked him under it, and had set him
up and knocked him down once more, before any one had
drawn a breath.
"Here! Belay that!" roared Wicks, leaping to his feet. "I won't
have none of this."
Mac turned to the captain with ready civility. "I only want to
learn him manners," said he. "He took and called me
Irishman."
"Did he?" said Wicks. "O, that's a different story! What made
you do it, you tomfool? You ain't big enough to call any man
that."
"I didn't call him it," spluttered Hemstead, through his blood
and tears. "I only mentioned-like he was."
"Well, let's have no more of it," said Wicks.
"But you ARE Irish, ain't you?" Carthew asked of his new
shipmate shortly after.
"I may be," replied Mac, "but I'll allow no Sydney duck to call
me so. No," he added, with a sudden heated countenance, "nor
any Britisher that walks! Why, look here," he went on, "you're a
young swell, aren't you? Suppose I called you that!" 'I'll show
you,' you would say, and turn to and take it out of me straight."
On the 28th of January, when in lat. 27 degrees 20' N., long.
177 degrees W., the wind chopped suddenly into the west, not
very strong, but puffy and with flaws of rain. The captain,
eager for easting, made a fair wind of it and guyed the booms
out wing and wing. It was Tommy's trick at the wheel, and as
it was within half an hour of the relief (seven thirty in the
morning), the captain judged it not worth while to change him.
The puffs were heavy but short; there was nothing to be called
a squall, no danger to the ship, and scarce more than usual to
the doubtful spars. All hands were on deck in their oilskins,
expecting breakfast; the galley smoked, the ship smelt of
coffee, all were in good humour to be speeding eastward a full
nine; when the rotten foresail tore suddenly between two cloths
and then split to either hand. It was for all the world as though
some archangel with a huge sword had slashed it with the
figure of a cross; all hands ran to secure the slatting canvas;
and in the sudden uproar and alert, Tommy Hadden lost his
head. Many of his days have been passed since then in
explaining how the thing happened; of these explanations it
will be sufficient to say that they were all different and none
satisfactory; and the gross fact remains that the main boom
gybed, carried away the tackle, broke the mainmast some three
feet above the deck and whipped it overboard. For near a
minute the suspected foremast gallantly resisted; then followed
its companion; and by the time the wreck was cleared, of the
whole beautiful fabric that enabled them to skim the seas, two
ragged stumps remained.
In these vast and solitary waters, to be dismasted is perhaps the
worst calamity. Let the ship turn turtle and go down, and at
least the pang is over. But men chained on a hulk may pass
months scanning the empty sea line and counting the steps of
death's invisible approach. There is no help but in the boats,
and what a help is that! There heaved the Currency Lass, for
instance, a wingless lump, and the nearest human coast (that of
Kauai in the Sandwiches) lay about a thousand miles to south
and east of her. Over the way there, to men contemplating that
passage in an open boat, all kinds of misery, and the fear of
death and of madness, brooded.
A serious company sat down to breakfast; but the captain
helped his neighbours with a smile.
"Now, boys," he said, after a pull at the hot coffee, "we're done
with this Currency Lass, and no mistake. One good job: we
made her pay while she lasted, and she paid first rate; and if we
were to try our hand again, we can try in style. Another good
job: we have a fine, stiff, roomy boat, and you know who you
have to thank for that. We've got six lives to save, and a pot of
money; and the point is, where are we to take 'em?"
"It's all two thousand miles to the nearest of the Sandwiches, I
fancy," observed Mac.
"No, not so bad as that," returned the captain. "But it's bad
enough: rather better'n a thousand."
"I know a man who once did twelve hundred in a boat," said
Mac, "and he had all he wanted. He fetched ashore in the
Marquesas, and never set a foot on anything floating from that
day to this. He said he would rather put a pistol to his head
and knock his brains out."
"Ay, ay!" said Wicks. "Well I remember a boat's crew that
made this very island of Kauai, and from just about where we
lie, or a bit further. When they got up with the land, they were
clean crazy. There was an iron-bound coast and an Old Bob
Ridley of a surf on. The natives hailed 'em from fishing-boats,
and sung out it couldn't be done at the money. Much they
cared! there was the land, that was all they knew; and they
turned to and drove the boat slap ashore in the thick of it, and
was all drowned but one. No; boat trips are my eye,"
concluded the captain, gloomily.
The tone was surprising in a man of his indomitable temper.
"Come, Captain," said Carthew, "you have something else up
your sleeve; out with it!"
"It's a fact," admitted Wicks. "You see there's a raft of little
bally reefs about here, kind of chicken-pox on the chart. Well,
I looked 'em all up, and there's one--Midway or Brooks they
call it, not forty mile from our assigned position--that I got
news of. It turns out it's a coaling station of the Pacific Mail,"
he said, simply.
"Well, and I know it ain't no such a thing," said Mac. "I been
quartermaster in that line myself."
"All right," returned Wicks. "There's the book. Read what
Hoyt says--read it aloud and let the others hear."
Hoyt's falsehood (as readers know) was explicit; incredulity
was impossible, and the news itself delightful beyond hope.
Each saw in his mind's eye the boat draw in to a trim island
with a wharf, coal-sheds, gardens, the Stars and Stripes and the
white cottage of the keeper; saw themselves idle a few weeks in
tolerable quarters, and then step on board the China mail,
romantic waifs, and yet with pocketsful of money, calling for
champagne, and waited on by troops of stewards. Breakfast,
that had begun so dully, ended amid sober jubilation, and all
hands turned immediately to prepare the boat.
Now that all spars were gone, it was no easy job to get her
launched. Some of the necessary cargo was first stowed on
board; the specie, in particular, being packed in a strong chest
and secured with lashings to the afterthwart in case of a
capsize. Then a piece of the bulwark was razed to the level of
the deck, and the boat swung thwart-ship, made fast with a
slack line to either stump, and successfully run out. For a
voyage of forty miles to hospitable quarters, not much food or
water was required; but they took both in superfluity. Amalu
and Mac, both ingrained sailor-men, had chests which were the
headquarters of their lives; two more chests with handbags,
oilskins, and blankets supplied the others; Hadden, amid
general applause, added the last case of the brown sherry; the
captain brought the log, instruments, and chronometer; nor did
Hemstead forget the banjo or a pinned handkerchief of
Butaritari shells.
It was about three P.M. when they pushed off, and (the wind
being still westerly) fell to the oars. "Well, we've got the guts
out of YOU!" was the captain's nodded farewell to the hulk of
the Currency Lass, which presently shrank and faded in the sea.
A little after a calm succeeded, with much rain; and the first
meal was eaten, and the watch below lay down to their uneasy
slumber on the bilge under a roaring shower-bath. The twenty-
ninth dawned overhead from out of ragged clouds; there is no
moment when a boat at sea appears so trenchantly black and so
conspicuously little; and the crew looked about them at the sky
and water with a thrill of loneliness and fear. With sunrise the
trade set in, lusty and true to the point; sail was made; the boat
flew; and by about four in the afternoon, they were well up with
the closed part of the reef, and the captain standing on the
thwart, and holding by the mast, was studying the island
through the binoculars.
"Well, and where's your station?" cried Mac.
"I don't someway pick it up," replied the captain.
"No, nor never will!" retorted Mac, with a clang of despair and
triumph in his tones.
The truth was soon plain to all. No buoys, no beacons, no
lights, no coal, no station; the castaways pulled through a
lagoon and landed on an isle, where was no mark of man but
wreckwood, and no sound but of the sea. For the seafowl that
harboured and lived there at the epoch of my visit were then
scattered into the uttermost parts of the ocean, and had left no
traces of their sojourn besides dropped feathers and addled
eggs. It was to this they had been sent, for this they had
stooped all night over the dripping oars, hourly moving further
from relief. The boat, for as small as it was, was yet eloquent
of the hands of men, a thing alone indeed upon the sea but yet
in itself all human; and the isle, for which they had exchanged
it, was ingloriously savage, a place of distress, solitude, and
hunger unrelieved. There was a strong glare and shadow of the
evening over all; in which they sat or lay, not speaking, careless
even to eat, men swindled out of life and riches by a lying
book. In the great good nature of the whole party, no word of
reproach had been addressed to Hadden, the author of these
disasters. But the new blow was less magnanimously borne,
and many angry glances rested on the captain.
Yet it was himself who roused them from their lethargy.
Grudgingly they obeyed, drew the boat beyond tidemark, and
followed him to the top of the miserable islet, whence a view
was commanded of the whole wheel of the horizon, then part
darkened under the coming night, part dyed with the hues of
the sunset and populous with the sunset clouds. Here the camp
was pitched and a tent run up with the oars, sails, and mast.
And here Amalu, at no man's bidding, from the mere instinct of
habitual service, built a fire and cooked a meal. Night was
come, and the stars and the silver sickle of new moon beamed
overhead, before the meal was ready. The cold sea shone about
them, and the fire glowed in their faces, as they ate. Tommy
had opened his case, and the brown sherry went the round; but
it was long before they came to conversation.
"Well, is it to be Kauai after all?" asked Mac suddenly.
"This is bad enough for me," said Tommy. "Let's stick it out
where we are."
"Well, I can tell ye one thing," said Mac, "if ye care to hear it.
When I was in the China mail, we once made this island. It's
in the course from Honolulu."
"Deuce it is!" cried Carthew. "That settles it, then. Let's stay.
We must keep good fires going; and there's plenty wreck."
"Lashings of wreck!" said the Irishman. "There's nothing here
but wreck and coffin boards."
"But we'll have to make a proper blyze," objected Hemstead.
"You can't see a fire like this, not any wye awye, I mean."
"Can't you?" said Carthew. "Look round."
They did, and saw the hollow of the night, the bare, bright face
of the sea, and the stars regarding them; and the voices died in
their bosoms at the spectacle. In that huge isolation, it seemed
they must be visible from China on the one hand and California
on the other.
"My God, it's dreary!" whispered Hemstead.
"Dreary?" cried Mac, and fell suddenly silent.
"It's better than a boat, anyway," said Hadden. "I've had my
bellyful of boat."
"What kills me is that specie!" the captain broke out. "Think of
all that riches,--four thousand in gold, bad silver, and short
bills--all found money, too!--and no more use than that much
dung!"
"I'll tell you one thing," said Tommy. "I don't like it being in
the boat--I don't care to have it so far away."
"Why, who's to take it?" cried Mac, with a guffaw of evil
laughter.
But this was not at all the feeling of the partners, who rose,
clambered down the isle, brought back the inestimable
treasure-chest slung upon two oars, and set it conspicuous in
the shining of the fire.
"There's my beauty!" cried Wicks, viewing it with a cocked
head. "That's better than a bonfire. What! we have a chest
here, and bills for close upon two thousand pounds; there's no
show to that,--it would go in your vest-pocket,--but the rest!
upwards of forty pounds avoirdupois of coined gold, and close
on two hundredweight of Chile silver! What! ain't that good
enough to fetch a fleet? Do you mean to say that won't affect a
ship's compass? Do you mean to tell me that the lookout won't
turn to and SMELL it?" he cried.
Mac, who had no part nor lot in the bills, the forty pounds of
gold, or the two hundredweight of silver, heard this with
impatience, and fell into a bitter, choking laughter. "You'll
see!" he said harshly. "You'll be glad to feed them bills into the
fire before you're through with ut!" And he turned, passed by
himself out of the ring of the firelight, and stood gazing
seaward.
His speech and his departure extinguished instantly those
sparks of better humour kindled by the dinner and the chest.
The group fell again to an ill-favoured silence, and Hemstead
began to touch the banjo, as was his habit of an evening. His
repertory was small: the chords of _Home, Sweet Home_ fell
under his fingers; and when he had played the symphony, he
instinctively raised up his voice. "Be it never so 'umble, there's
no plyce like 'ome," he sang. The last word was still upon his
lips, when the instrument was snatched from him and dashed
into the fire; and he turned with a cry to look into the furious
countenance of Mac.
"I'll be damned if I stand this!" cried the captain, leaping up
belligerent.
"I told ye I was a voilent man," said Mac, with a movement of
deprecation very surprising in one of his character. "Why don't
he give me a chance then? Haven't we enough to bear the way
we are?" And to the wonder and dismay of all, the man choked
upon a sob. "It's ashamed of meself I am," he said presently,
his Irish accent twenty-fold increased. "I ask all your pardons
for me voilence; and especially the little man's, who is a
harmless crayture, and here's me hand to'm, if he'll condescind
to take me by 't."
So this scene of barbarity and sentimentalism passed off,
leaving behind strange and incongruous impressions. True,
every one was perhaps glad when silence succeeded that all too
appropriate music; true, Mac's apology and subsequent
behaviour rather raised him in the opinion of his fellow-
castaways. But the discordant note had been struck, and its
harmonics tingled in the brain. In that savage, houseless isle,
the passions of man had sounded, if only for the moment, and
all men trembled at the possibilities of horror.
It was determined to stand watch and watch in case of passing
vessels; and Tommy, on fire with an idea, volunteered to stand
the first. The rest crawled under the tent, and were soon
enjoying that comfortable gift of sleep, which comes
everywhere and to all men, quenching anxieties and speeding
time. And no sooner were all settled, no sooner had the drone
of many snorers begun to mingle with and overcome the surf,
than Tommy stole from his post with the case of sherry, and
dropped it in a quiet cove in a fathom of water. But the stormy
inconstancy of Mac's behaviour had no connection with a gill
or two of wine; his passions, angry and otherwise, were on a
different sail plan from his neighbours'; and there were
possibilities of good and evil in that hybrid Celt beyond their
prophecy.
About two in the morning, the starry sky--or so it seemed, for
the drowsy watchman had not observed the approach of any
cloud--brimmed over in a deluge; and for three days it rained
without remission. The islet was a sponge, the castaways sops;
the view all gone, even the reef concealed behind the curtain of
the falling water. The fire was soon drowned out; after a
couple of boxes of matches had been scratched in vain, it was
decided to wait for better weather; and the party lived in
wretchedness on raw tins and a ration of hard bread.
By the 2nd February, in the dark hours of the morning watch,
the clouds were all blown by; the sun rose glorious; and once
more the castaways sat by a quick fire, and drank hot coffee
with the greed of brutes and sufferers. Thenceforward their
affairs moved in a routine. A fire was constantly maintained;
and this occupied one hand continuously, and the others for an
hour or so in the day. Twice a day, all hands bathed in the
lagoon, their chief, almost their only pleasure. Often they
fished in the lagoon with good success. And the rest was
passed in lolling, strolling, yarns, and disputation. The time of
the China steamers was calculated to a nicety; which done, the
thought was rejected and ignored. It was one that would not
bear consideration. The boat voyage having been tacitly set
aside, the desperate part chosen to wait there for the coming of
help or of starvation, no man had courage left to look his
bargain in the face, far less to discuss it with his neighbours.
But the unuttered terror haunted them; in every hour of
idleness, at every moment of silence, it returned, and breathed a
chill about the circle, and carried men's eyes to the horizon.
Then, in a panic of self-defence, they would rally to some other
subject. And, in that lone spot, what else was to be found to
speak of but the treasure?
That was indeed the chief singularity, the one thing
conspicuous in their island life; the presence of that chest of
bills and specie dominated the mind like a cathedral; and there
were besides connected with it, certain irking problems well
fitted to occupy the idle. Two thousand pounds were due to the
Sydney firm: two thousand pounds were clear profit, and fell to
be divided in varying proportions among six. It had been
agreed how the partners were to range; every pound of capital
subscribed, every pound that fell due in wages, was to count for
one "lay." Of these, Tommy could claim five hundred and ten,
Carthew one hundred and seventy, Wicks one hundred and
forty, and Hemstead and Amalu ten apiece: eight hundred and
forty "lays" in all. What was the value of a lay? This was at
first debated in the air and chiefly by the strength of Tommy's
lungs. Then followed a series of incorrect calculations; from
which they issued, arithmetically foiled, but agreed from
weariness upon an approximate value of 2 pounds, 7 shillings
7 1/4 pence. The figures were admittedly incorrect; the sum of
the shares came not to 2000 pounds, but to 1996 pounds, 6
shillings: 3 pounds, 14 shillings being thus left unclaimed.
But it was the nearest they had yet found, and the highest as
well, so that the partners were made the less critical by the
contemplation of their splendid dividends. Wicks put in 100
pounds and stood to draw captain's wages for two months; his
taking was 333 pounds 3 shillings 6 1/2 pence. Carthew had
put in 150 pounds: he was to take out 401 pounds, 18 shillings
6 1/2 pence. Tommy's 500 pounds had grown to be 1213
pounds 12 shillings 9 3/4 pence; and Amalu and Hemstead,
ranking for wages only, had 22 pounds, 16 shillings 1/2 pence,
each.
From talking and brooding on these figures, it was but a step to
opening the chest; and once the chest open, the glamour of the
cash was irresistible. Each felt that he must see his treasure
separate with the eye of flesh, handle it in the hard coin, mark it
for his own, and stand forth to himself the approved owner.
And here an insurmountable difficulty barred the way. There
were some seventeen shillings in English silver: the rest was
Chile; and the Chile dollar, which had been taken at the rate of
six to the pound sterling, was practically their smallest coin. It
was decided, therefore, to divide the pounds only, and to throw
the shillings, pence, and fractions in a common fund. This,
with the three pound fourteen already in the heel, made a total
of seven pounds one shilling.
"I'll tell you," said Wicks. "Let Carthew and Tommy and me
take one pound apiece, and Hemstead and Amalu split the
other four, and toss up for the odd bob."
"O, rot!" said Carthew. "Tommy and I are bursting already.
We can take half a sov' each, and let the other three have forty
shillings."
"I'll tell you now--it's not worth splitting," broke in Mac. "I've
cards in my chest. Why don't you play for the slump sum?"
In that idle place, the proposal was accepted with delight.
Mac, as the owner of the cards, was given a stake; the sum was
played for in five games of cribbage; and when Amalu, the last
survivor in the tournament, was beaten by Mac, it was found
the dinner hour was past. After a hasty meal, they fell again
immediately to cards, this time (on Carthew's proposal) to Van
John. It was then probably two P.M. of the 9th February; and
they played with varying chances for twelve hours, slept
heavily, and rose late on the morrow to resume the game. All
day of the 10th, with grudging intervals for food, and with one
long absence on the part of Tommy from which he returned
dripping with the case of sherry, they continued to deal and
stake. Night fell: they drew the closer to the fire. It was
maybe two in the morning, and Tommy was selling his deal by
auction, as usual with that timid player; when Carthew, who
didn't intend to bid, had a moment of leisure and looked round
him. He beheld the moonlight on the sea, the money piled and
scattered in that incongruous place, the perturbed faces of the
players; he felt in his own breast the familiar tumult; and it
seemed as if there rose in his ears a sound of music, and the
moon seemed still to shine upon a sea, but the sea was
changed, and the Casino towered from among lamplit gardens,
and the money clinked on the green board. "Good God!" he
thought, "am I gambling again?" He looked the more curiously
about the sandy table. He and Mac had played and won like
gamblers; the mingled gold and silver lay by their places in the
heap. Amalu and Hemstead had each more than held their
own, but Tommy was cruel far to leeward, and the captain was
reduced to perhaps fifty pounds.
"I say, let's knock off," said Carthew.
"Give that man a glass of Buckle," said some one, and a fresh
bottle was opened, and the game went inexorably on.
Carthew was himself too heavy a winner to withdraw or to say
more; and all the rest of the night he must look on at the
progress of this folly, and make gallant attempts to lose with
the not uncommon consequence of winning more. The first
dawn of the 11th February found him well-nigh desperate. It
chanced he was then dealer, and still winning. He had just
dealt a round of many tens; every one had staked heavily; the
captain had put up all that remained to him, twelve pounds in
gold and a few dollars; and Carthew, looking privately at his
cards before he showed them, found he held a natural.
"See here, you fellows," he broke out, "this is a sickening
business, and I'm done with it for one." So saying, he showed
his cards, tore them across, and rose from the ground.
The company stared and murmured in mere amazement; but
Mac stepped gallantly to his support.
"We've had enough of it, I do believe," said he. "But of course
it was all fun, and here's my counters back. All counters in,
boys!" and he began to pour his winnings into the chest, which
stood fortunately near him.
Carthew stepped across and wrung him by the hand. "I'll never
forget this," he said.
"And what are ye going to do with the Highway boy and the
plumber?" inquired Mac, in a low tone of voice. "They've both
wan, ye see."
"That's true!" said Carthew aloud. "Amalu and Hemstead,
count your winnings; Tommy and I pay that."
It was carried without speech: the pair glad enough to receive
their winnings, it mattered not from whence; and Tommy, who
had lost about five hundred pounds, delighted with the
compromise.
"And how about Mac?" asked Hemstead. "Is he to lose all?"
"I beg your pardon, plumber. I'm sure ye mean well," returned
the Irishman, "but you'd better shut your face, for I'm not that
kind of a man. If I t'ought I had wan that money fair, there's
never a soul here could get it from me. But I t'ought it was in
fun; that was my mistake, ye see; and there's no man big
enough upon this island to give a present to my mother's son.
So there's my opinion to ye, plumber, and you can put it in your
pockut till required."
"Well, I will say, Mac, you're a gentleman," said Carthew, as
he helped him to shovel back his winnings into the treasure
chest.
"Divil a fear of it, sir! a drunken sailor-man," said Mac.
The captain had sat somewhile with his face in his hands: now
he rose mechanically, shaking and stumbling like a drunkard
after a debauch. But as he rose, his face was altered, and his
voice rang out over the isle, "Sail, ho!"
All turned at the cry, and there, in the wild light of the
morning, heading straight for Midway Reef, was the brig
Flying Scud of Hull.
Content of CHAPTER XXIII - THE BUDGET OF THE "CURRENCY LASS." [Robert Louis Stevenson's novel: The Wrecker]
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