Afloat at Last Part 14

He didn't know a bit, though, where he was, his eyes staring out from their sockets, which had sunk deep into his head, as if he were looking through us and beyond us to something else--instead of at us close beside him.

In a moment, however, recollection came back to him and he tried to raise himself up, only to fall back on Mr Mackay's supporting knee; and, then, he called out piteously what had probably been his cry for hours previously as he lay cramped up in the darkness of the forepeak:

"Hey, let Oi out, measter, and Oi'll never do it no more! Oi be clemmed to da-eth, measter, and th' rats and varmint be a-gnawing on me cruel!

Let Oi out, measter, Oi be dying here in the dark--let Oi out, for Gawd's sake!"

"It is as I told you," said Mr Mackay looking up at the captain; "he is starving. See, one of you, if the cook's got anything ready in his galley."

"Begorra, it wor pay-soup day to-day," cried Tim Rooney getting up to obey the order; "an' Ching w.a.n.g bulled it so plentiful wid wather that the men toorned oop their noses at it, an' most of it wor lift in the coppers."

"The very thing for one in this poor chap's condition," replied Mr Mackay eagerly. "Go and bring a pannikin of it at once."

Captain Gillespie sniffed and snorted more than ever of being baulked for the present in his amiable intention of giving the stowaway a bit of his mind, and, possibly, something else in addition.

He saw, though, that his unwelcome pa.s.senger was too far gone to be spoken to as yet; and so, perforce, he had to delay calling him to account for his intrusion, putting the reckoning off until a more convenient season.

"Ah, well, Mackay," said he, on Tim Rooney's return presently with a pannikin of pea-soup and a large iron spoon, with which he proceeded to ladle some into the starving creature's mouth, which was ravenously opened, as were his eyes, too, distended with eager famine craving as he smelt the food--"you see to bringing the beggar round as well as you can, and I'll talk to him bye and bye."

So saying, Captain Gillespie returned to his former place on the p.o.o.p, and contented himself for the moment with rating the helmsman for letting the ship yaw on a big wave catching her athwart the bows and making her fall off; while the first mate and Tim Rooney continued their good Samaritan work in gently plying the poor creature, who had just been rescued from death's door, with spoonful after spoonful of the tepid soup. Presently a little colour came into his face and he was able to speak, recovering his consciousness completely as soon as the nourishment affected his system and gave him strength.

In a little time, he also was able to raise himself up and stand without a.s.sistance; and, then, Mr Mackay asked him who he was and why he came on board our ship without leave or license.

He said that he was a country bricklayer, Joe Fergusson by name; and that, not being able to get work in London, whither he had tramped all the way from Lancashire, he had determined to go to Australia, hearing there was a great demand for labour out there. By dint of inquiries he had at length managed to reach the docks, hiding himself away in the forepeak of the Silver Queen, she being the first ship he was able to get on board unperceived, and the hatchway being conveniently open as if on purpose for his accommodation.

"But, we're not going to Australia," observed Mr Mackay, who had only contrived to get all this from the enterprising bricklayer by the aid of a series of questions and a severe cross-examination. "This ship is bound for China."

"It don't matter, measter," replied Mr Joe Fergusson with the most charming nonchalance. "Australy or Chiney's all the same to Oi, so long as un can git wa-ark to dew. Aught's better nor clemming in Lonnon!"

"You've got no right aboard here, though," said Mr Mackay, who could not help smiling at the easy way in which the whilom dying man now took things. "Who's going to pay your pa.s.sage-money? The captain's in a fine state, I can tell you, about it, and I don't know what he won't do to you. He might order you to be pitched overboard into the sea, perhaps."

The other scratched his head reflectively, just as Tim Rooney did when in a quandary, looking round at the men behind Mr Mackay, who were grinning at his blank dismay and the perturbed and puzzled expression on his raw yokel face.

"Oi be willin' to wa-ark, measter," he answered at length, thinking that if they were all grinning, they were not likely to do him much harm.

"Oi'll wa-ark, measter, loike a good un, so long as you gie Oi grub and let Oi be."

"Work! What can you, a bricklayer according to your own statement, do aboard ship? We've got no bricks to lay here."

"Mab'be, measter, you moight try un, though," pleaded the poor fellow, scratching his head again; and then adding, as if a brilliant thought all at once occurred to him from the operation, "Oi be used to scaffoldin' and can cloimb loike sailor cheaps."

"Ah, you must speak to the captain about that," replied Mr Mackay drily, turning aft and giving some whispered instructions to Tim Rooney to let the stowaway have some more food later on and give him a shake- down in the forecastle for the night, so that he might be in better fettle for his audience with Captain Gillespie on the morrow. "You can stop here with the men till the morning, and then you will know what will be done in the matter."

"Well," cried Captain Gillespie as soon as Mr Mackay stepped up the p.o.o.p ladder, "how's that rascal getting on?"

"I think he'll come round now, sir," said the first mate, thinking it best not to mention how quickly his patient had recovered, so that he might have a few hours' reprieve before encountering the captain's wrath. "I've told the boatswain to give him a bunk in the fo'c's'le for the night, and that you'll talk to him in the morning."

"Oh, aye, I'll talk to him like a Dutch uncle," retorted the captain, sniffing away at a fine rate, as if Mr Mackay was as much in fault as the unfortunate cause of his ire. "You know I never encourage stowaways on board my ship, sir; and when I say a thing I mean a thing."

"Yes, sir; certainly, sir," said Mr Mackay soothingly, taking no notice of his manner to him and judiciously turning the conversation. "Do you think, though, sir, we can carry those topgallants much longer? The wind seems to have freshened again after sunset, the same as it did last night."

"Carry-on? Aye, of course we can. The old barquey could almost stand the royals as well, with this breeze well abeam," replied "Old Jock,"

who never agreed with anyone right out if he could possibly help, especially now when he was in a bit of temper about the stowaway; but, the next instant, like the thorough seaman he was, seeing the wisdom of the first mate's advice, he qualified what he had previously said. "If it freshens more, though, between this and eight bells, you can take in the topgallants if you like, and a reef in the topsails as well. It will save bother, perhaps, bye and bye, as the night will be a darkish one and the weather is not too trustworthy."

Captain Gillespie then went down the companion into the cuddy to have his tea; and Mr Mackay, thinking I ought to be hungry after all my sacrifices to Neptune, advised me to go down below and get some too.

I was hungry, but I did not care about tea, the flavour of the pea-soup the stowaway had been plied with having roused my appet.i.te; so, receiving Mr Mackay's permission, instead of seeking out the steward Pedro, I paid a visit to Ching w.a.n.g in his galley forward.

"Hi, lilly pijjin," cried this worthy, receiving me far more pleasantly than I'm sure the Portuguese would have done, for as I pa.s.sed under the break of the p.o.o.p I heard the latter clattering his tins about in the pantry, as if he were in a rage at something. "What you wanchee--hey?"

I soon explained my wants; and, without the slightest demur, he ladled out a basinful of soup for me out of one of the coppers gently stewing over the galley fire, which looked quite bright and nice as the evening was chilly. The good-natured Chinaman also gave me a couple of hard ship's biscuits which he took out of a drawer in the locker above the fireplace, where they were kept dry.

"Hi, you eatee um chop chop," said he, as he handed me the basin and the biscuits and made me sit down on a sort of settle in the galley opposite the warm fire--"makee tummee tummee all right."

The effects of this food were as wonderful in my instance as in that of the poor starved bricklayer shortly before; for, when I had eaten the last biscuit crumb and drained the final drop of pea-soup from the basin, I felt a new man, or rather boy--Allan Graham himself, and not the wretched feeble nonent.i.ty I had been previously.

Of course, I thanked Ching w.a.n.g for his kindness as I rose up from the settle to go away, on the starboard watch, who were just relieved from their duty on deck, coming for their tea; but the Chinee only shook his head with a broad smile on his yellow face, as if deprecating any return for his kind offices.

"You goodee pijjin and chin chin when you comee," he only said, "and when you wanchee chow-chow, you comee Ching w.a.n.g and him gettee you chop chop!"

Then, I stopped in front of the forecastle, as Tim Rooney giving me a cheery hail, and saw to my wonder Joe Fergusson looking all hale and hearty and jolly amongst the men, without the least trace of having been, apparently, at his last gasp but an hour or so before.

He was half lying down, half sitting on the edge of one of the bunks, nursing the big stray tortoise-sh.e.l.l tom-cat which had shared his lodgings in the forepeak, and he had mistaken it for a rat as it crept up and down the chain-pipe to see what it could pick up in the cook's galley at meal-times, which it seemed to know by some peculiar instinct of its own; and although thus partially partial to Ching w.a.n.g's society, the cat now appeared to have taken even a greater fancy to his bed- fellow in his hiding-place below than it had done to the cook, looking upon the stowaway evidently as a fellow-comrade, who was unfortunately in similar circ.u.mstances to himself.

Joe Fergusson not only looked all right, but he likewise was in the best of spirits, possibly from the tot of rum Tim Rooney had given him after his soup, to "pull him together," as the boatswain said; for, ere I left the precincts of the forecastle he volunteered to sing a song, and as I made my way aft I heard the beginning of some plaintive ditty concerning a "may-i-den of Manches-teer," followed by a rousing chorus from the crew, which had little or nothing to do with the main burden of the ballad, the men's refrain being only a "Yo, heave ho, it's time for us to go!"

A hint which I took.

The wind did not freshen quite so soon as either Mr Mackay or the captain expected; but it continued to blow pretty steadily from the north-west with considerable force, the ship bending over to it as it caught her abaft the beam, and bowling along before it over the billowy ocean like a prancing courser galloping over a race-course, tossing her bows up in the air one moment and plunging them down the next, and spinning along at a rare rate through the crested foam.

As it got later, though, the gale increased; and shortly after "two bells in the first watch," nine o'clock that is in landsman's time, Captain Gillespie, who was on deck again, gave the order to shorten sail.

"Stand by your topgallant halliards!" cried Mr Mackay, giving the necessary instructions for the captain's order to be carried into effect, following this command up immediately by a second--"Let go!"

Then, the clewlines and buntlines were manned, and in a trice the three topgallants were hanging in festooned folds from the upper yards, I doing my first bit of service at sea by laying hold of the ropes that triced up the mizzen-topgallant-sail, and hauling with the others, Mr Mackay giving me a cheery "Well done, my lad," as I did so.

Tom Jerrold, who now appeared on the p.o.o.p, and whom I had fought shy of before, thinking he had behaved very unkindly to me in the morning, was one of the first to spring into the mizzen-shrouds and climb up the ratlines on the order being given to furl the sail, getting out on the manrope and to the weather earing at the end of the yard before either of the three hands who also went up.

Seeing him go up the rigging, I was on the point of following him; but Mr Mackay, whose previous encouragement, indeed, had spurred me on, stopped me.

"No, my boy," said he kindly, "you must not go aloft yet, for you might fall overboard. Besides, you would not be of the slightest use on the yard even if you didn't tumble. Wait till you've got your sea-legs and know the ropes."

I had therefore to wait and watch Tom Jerrold swinging away up there and bundling the sail together, the gaskets being presently pa.s.sed round it and the mizzen-topgallant made snug. When Tom and the others came down, he grinned at me so cordially that I made friends with him again; but I was longing all the time for the blissful moment when I too could go aloft like him.

Previously to this, I had given Billy, the ship's boy, a shilling to swab out our cabin and make it all right, so that neither Tom nor Weeks could grumble at the state it was in; and Sam Weeks, at all events, seemed satisfied, for he turned into his bunk as soon as Billy had done cleaning up, having begged Tom Jerrold to take his place for once with the starboard men, who had the first watch this evening instead of the "middle watch," as on the previous night. This shifting of the watches, I may mention here, gives all hands in turn an opportunity of being on deck at every hour of the night and day, without being monotonously bound down to any fixed time to be on duty throughout the voyage, as would otherwise have been the case.

This alternation of the four hours of deck duty is effected by the dog- watches in the afternoon, which being of only two hours duration each, from four o'clock till six the first, and the second from six to eight o'clock, change the whole order of the others; as, for instance, the port watch, which has the deck for the first dog-watch to-night, say, will come on again for the first night watch from eight o'clock till twelve, and the morning watch from four o'clock until eight, the starboard watch, which goes on duty for the second dog-watch, taking the middle watch, from midnight till four o'clock, and then going below to sleep, while the port watch takes the morning one. The arrangement for the following night is exactly the reverse of this, the starbowlines starting with, the first dog-watch and taking the first and the evening watch; while the port watch has only the second dog-watch and the middle one, from midnight till morning.

I thought I had better explain this, as it was very strange at first to me, and I could not get out of the habit of believing sometimes that I ought to be on deck when it was really my turn to have my "watch in"

below.