The Flying Bo'sun Part 4

He was about a mile to the eastward of us. We set and wound our chronometer, and considered this luck indeed, as the Captain expressed it. He seemed quite happy, and, with an expression of confidence on his face, remarked:

"Well, we are all right again. You know I was very much worried about forgetting to wind the chronometer. I have been master for fourteen years, and this is the first time that I have neglected to do it. I have heard from old-timers that it is considered a bad omen."

"I don't believe in any such superst.i.tions," said I.

Here he called to the cook, who was throwing slop overboard from the galley: "Have you given Toby any water today?"

"Yessir," said the cook, and cursed a large black and white gull for eating more than his share of the sc.r.a.ps that were floating by. "Toby wants for nothing, sir. In fact, he has been getting out of the lazarette lately."

The Captain did not hear this last remark. He was watching the remains from the galley to see if there was any waste. Old sailors say they can tell how s.h.i.+ps feed by the number of gulls who follow in her wake.

(Now follow some extracts from my diary, kept during a portion of this trip.)

For the last week we have been having fine weather. The cook and crew seem to be very friendly. I notice that during the dog-watch from six to eight they gather around the mainmast. There the cook has a barrel in which he freshens salt meat. In this watch he puts it to soak. This evening he must have been carried away with his subject, for he was talking loudly and very excitedly, exclaiming:

"That is it exactly, and here we are. What are we getting? Nothing. And to think that we are the slaves of the owners--"

Some one interrupted, I believe that it was the Russian-Finn, saying: "I'll bet they," meaning the owners of our s.h.i.+p, "don't have to eat this old salt horse three times a day."

Riley voiced in with: "Begorra, and it's crame in their tay they are having, and divil a thimbleful do we get here."

This last expression from the Irishman pleased the cook, who brought his fist down sharply on the pork-barrel, crying: "And, men, your only salvation lies in the ballot-box."

The cook's ballot-box amused me. Who ever heard of a sailor voting? Out of ten of our crew, we had not one American citizen!

Our position at noon today was 17.24 north lat.i.tude,--longitude 142.10 west. The wind has been steady from the northeast for the last forty-eight hours. I am satisfied that this is the commencement of the trade-winds.

During the middle watch I was very sleepy, and decided to walk on the deck load as far forward as the mainmast, and back again, and so on. I noticed one of the crew standing against the weather main-rigging. As the night was dark, I could not make him out, and, remembering Old Charlie warning about the big Swede having it in for me, I stepped over to the fife rail and pulled out a belaying-pin, thinking that it might come in handy in case this ghost-like figure started anything. But just then he lit his pipe, and from the rays of the match I could make out the features of Old Charlie himself.

"Charlie," I said, "you scared me."

"I have been standing here thinking, sir. Have you noticed the Bo'sun flying low lately, sir?"

The "Bo'sun" Old Charlie alluded to is a tropical bird, snow-white with an exquisite tail, and flies very fast and usually very high. It is a common tradition among sailors that this beautiful bird is the embodiment of the souls of drowned sailors.

"No, Charlie," said I, "I haven't noticed them."

Taking a puff from his old pipe, and b.u.t.toning his overcoat around his neck as if expecting a squall, then looking around the horizon to make sure that we would not be interrupted by any wind-jammer:

"Yes, sir, at noon today one came near alighting on the end of the jibboom."

"You must have mistaken it for a sea-gull," said I.

"No, sir; it was no sea-gull. I have been sailing the seas for thirty-four years, and I have seen and heard strange things."

"Well, suppose it did light on the jibboom; it has to get a rest sometimes."

"They have their island homes and never come near a s.h.i.+p, unless,"

speaking very softly, "unless some one is going to die."

"Nonsense, Charlie. Surely you don't believe in such foolishness."

"I started to tell you some time back about an old s.h.i.+p I was in off the Cape of Good Hope. Maybe you remember her, she was called 'The Mud Puddler,'" and Charlie continued with a grin, "she was never in the mud while I was on her."

"Yes," said I, "I remember her. She sailed from Liverpool, didn't she?"

"Yes, sir; that's her; four-masted and bark-rigged. Well, as I was saying, we left Calcutta bound for Hamburg. One night, off the Cape, it was my lookout. It was a fine night with a fresh breeze, and we were ploughing along about eight knots. I heard two bells go aft, and in that s.h.i.+p we had to answer all bells on the foc's'le head."

"Is it one o'clock so soon?" thought I.

"You know," speaking to me, "where the fish-tackle davit is?"

"I know where it should be," said I.

"Well, that is where I was standing." (A lookout is very important on all s.h.i.+ps, especially at night, when they see a light or a sail they report to the officer on watch.) "As I was in a hurry to answer the bell, not wanting the mate to think I was napping, I rushed to ring it, and, standing there, sir, was a man I had never seen!"

"It was one of the crew playing a joke on you," said I.

"Oh, no, Mr. Mate, not at all, not at all. I knew every man on board of her, sir, and this man was not of this world. He had a pair of Wellington boots on, you know the kind, all leather, to just below the knee."

"Yes," said I, "I know the kind."

"He also had a sou'wester with a neat-fitting pea-jacket. And, sir, it was his face that frightened me. His eyes were fiery, his beard was dark and thick, with heavy, bushy eyebrows."

All this time I was getting very much interested in Old Charlie's story.

"What did you do? What did you say to him?" I asked, very impatiently.

"I reached in front of him to answer the bell. He spoke very mournfully, saying: 'You shall have a visit from the Bo'sun tomorrow;' and he instantly disappeared and left me with my hand still stretched out for the bell-rope...."

I could smell the smoke from a cigar, and knew that the Captain was pacing the p.o.o.p. I walked aft slowly, anxious to hear what happened on the bark "Mud Puddler." Sure enough, there was the Captain, walking up and down, and occasionally glancing at the compa.s.s. Evidently the s.h.i.+p was off her course when he came up from the cabin. He spoke to me rather harshly, saying: "Don't let these fellows," pointing to the man at the wheel, "steer her all over the ocean."

"Very well, sir. I was just forward seeing if the side-lights were burning brightly."

"Well, keep your eye on them, they are not to be trusted too long. And by the way, have the second mate get up the old spare sails in his morning watch; we have some roping and patching to do before we bend them. They are all right for this kind of weather. This breeze will carry us near the Equator."

"Very good, sir. I will have Olsen get them up."

He took one more look at the compa.s.s and went below. I went to the binnacle more to see the time than the compa.s.s. I was surprised to see that it was twenty minutes past three. I was anxious to go forward and have Charlie finish his story, but, seeing a light in the Captain's room, I was doomed to finish the watch around the man at the wheel.

My rather troubled sleep was ended by a rap at the door. It was the cook. "It has gone seven bells. Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes, sir." Dressing was easy for me. In fact, all it required was was.h.i.+ng and putting on my cap, for in the tropics one has little use for clothes, which was indeed fortunate for me.

"Steward," said I, as I perfected my toilet, "what have you for breakfast this morning?" He hesitated before answering, and well I knew what was pa.s.sing in his mind. "How does he dare to ask me what I am going to have for breakfast! I who have befriended him. What have I for breakfast indeed!"

"Tongues and sounds," said the Emanc.i.p.ator, very sharply.

"A breakfast fit for a king," I replied cheerfully.