Three days before the Retriever finished loading, the captain wired a trustworthy Seattle crimp recommended by Mr. Murphy, instructing him to send down a second mate, eight seamen and a good cook--and to bring them drunk, because the vessel was laden with creosoted piling. Captain Noah Kendall, Matt's predecessor on the Retriever, had been raised on clipper ships and as he grew old had allowed himself the luxury of a third mate, to which arrangement Cappy Ricks, having a certain affection for Captain Noah, had never made any objection; but something whispered to Matt Peasley that the quickest route to Cappy's heart would be via a short payroll, so he concluded to dispense with a third mate and tack ten dollars a month extra on the pay-check of the excellent Murphy.
The Retriever was lying in the stream fully loaded when the crew arrived, convoyed by the crimp's runner. In accordance with instructions they were drunk, the crimp having furnished his runner with a two-gallon jug of home-made firewater upon leaving Seattle. One man--the second mate--was fairly sober, however, and while the launch that bore him to the Retriever was still half a mile from the vessel the breezes brought him an aroma which could not, by any possibility, be confused with the concentrated fragrance of the eight alcoholic breaths being exhaled around him. Muttering deep curses at his betrayal, he promptly leaped overboard and essayed to swim ashore. The runner pursued him in the launch, however, and gaffed him by the collar with a boat-hook; the launch-man, for a consideration, aided the runner, and the unwilling wretch was carried struggling to purgatory.
"Oh, look who's here!" Mr. Murphy yelled to the skipper, as the bedraggled second mate was propelled forcibly up the ship's companion-ladder to the waiting arms of the first mate. "Welcome home, Angus, my lad."
It was Mr. MacLean, their quondam second mate, cast back on the deckload of the Retriever by the resurgent tide of maritime misfortune. Mr. Murphy sat down and held himself by the middle and laughed until the tears ran down his ruddy cheeks, while Matt Peasley joined heartily in the mirth. The unfortunate Mr. MacLean also wept--but from other causes, to wit--grief and rage.
"I'm happy to have you with us again, Mr. MacLean," Matt saluted the second mate. "While your courage and loyalty might be questioned, your ability may not. So the crimp swindled you, eh? Told you he wanted you for another ship and then switched the papers on you, eh?"
"You should never trust a crimp, Angus," Mr. Murphy warned him. "And you should never do business with them unless you're cold sober. Let this be a lesson to you, my lad. Never be a drinking man and you'll never have to go to a crimp for a snug berth. Run along to your old room, now, Angus, and shift into some dry clothes, if you expect to finish the voyage."
"I'll gie ye ma worrd I'll desert in th' discharrgin' port!" Mr. MacLean burred furiously. "Ye hae me noo, body an' bones--"
"Aye, and we'll keep you, Angus. Have no fear of that. And you'll not desert in the discharging port. I'll see to that," Matt Peasley assured him.
When the last man had been assisted aboard Matt signaled for the tug he had engaged. By the time she had hooked on and towed them over the bar three of the seamen were sober enough to assist the skipper and the mates in getting all plain sail, with the exception of the square sails, on her, and, with a spanking nor'west breeze on her quarter she rolled away into the horizon.
Despite the fact that the Retriever's bottom was rather foul with marine growth, and the further fact that her master had to lay her head under her wing in a blow which, with an ordinary cargo, he would have bucked right into, the run to Antofagasta was made in average time. And when Matt Peasley went ashore to report by cable to his owners he discovered that Cappy Ricks had provided him with a cargo of nitrate for Makaweli.
"What did I tell you, sir?" Mr. Murphy growled when the captain informed him of the owners' orders. "I tell you, sir, the dirtiest cargo Cappy Ricks can find is too good for us. Praise be, the worst we can get at Makaweli is a sugar cargo."
Mr. Murphy's grudge against nitrate lay in the annoyance incident to taking on the cargo properly. Nitrate is very heavy and cannot, like sugar, be loaded flush with the hatches, thus rendering shifting of the cargo impossible. In loading nitrate a stout platform must be erected athwart ship, above the keelsons, in order that the foundation of the cargo may be laid level; for, as the sacked nitrate is piled, the pile must be drawn in gradually until the sides meet in a peak like a roof. It must then be braced and battened securely with heavy timbers from each side of the ship, in order that the dead weight may be held in the center of the ship and keep her in trim. Woe to the ship that shifts a cargo of nitrate in a heavy gale; for it is a tradition of the sea that, once a vessel rolls her main yard under, she will not roll it back, and ultimately is posted at Lloyd's as missing.
When the cargo was out Mr. Murphy went ashore and purchased a lot of Chinese punk, which he burned in the hold, with the hatches battened down, while Mr. MacLean, who had once been a druggist's clerk, and who, by the way, had concluded to stay by the ship, sloshed down the decks with an aromatic concoction mixed by a local apothecary. The remnant of their spoiled stores Matt Peasley, like a true Yankee, sawed off to good advantage on a trustful citizen of Antofagasta, and credited the ship with the proceeds; after which he got his nitrate aboard and squared away for the Hawaiian Islands.
The run to Makaweli was very slow, for the ship was logy with the grass and barnacles on her bottom. At Makaweli he found a sugar cargo awaiting him for discharge at Seattle; and, thanks to the northwest trades at her quarter, the Retriever wallowed home reasonably fast.