Fritz and Eric Part 23

"All right, I will give him your message," replied Fritz, as he shook hands with the fair little Rhode Islander, whose eyes were full of tears as she said good-bye, in spite of her sprightly manner and off-hand way.

"And now, ladies," he added, addressing them both collectively, "I must say farewell, hoping to have the pleasure of seeing you again on our return from Inaccessible Island, somewhere about two years hence."

"I'm sure I hope so, too," said the lady of the house kindly, Celia joining cordially in the wish; and Fritz then left the shanty, directing his steps down to the quay, where he expected to find the _Pilot's Bride_ still moored.

She was not here, however; but, after a moment, he could discern the vessel lying out in the river some little distance from the sh.o.r.e.

There, anch.o.r.ed almost in mid-stream and with a blue peter flying at the fore as well as the American stars and stripes trailing over her stern, she looked even more picturesque than when Fritz had seen her lying along the wharf on his first view of her.

It was much earlier in the month than Captain Brown had stated was his usual time for starting on his annual voyage to the South Atlantic; but the skipper had accelerated his departure in order to have time to go to Tristan d'Acunha on his outward trip, instead of calling there as he usually did just before returning to Providence--so as to allow the brothers to pick up a little information that might be of use to them from the little colony at Tristan, before proceeding to their own selected settlement on Inaccessible Island.

The ship was now, therefore, quite ready to start as soon as the wind and her captain willed it; for, her sails were bent, with the gaskets cast-off and the topsails loose, ready to be let fall and sheeted home at the word of command. A nautical man would have noticed, too, that she was hove short, right over her anchor, so that no time should be lost in bowsing that up to the cathead and getting under weigh, when the time came to man the windla.s.s and heave up the cable, with a "Yo-heave ho!"

Presently, Fritz observed a boat that had been towing astern of the ship hauled up alongside, and then this put off for the sh.o.r.e, with some one in the stern-sheets whom he did not recognise at first, on account of the person having a gilt-banded cap on; but, as soon as the boat got nearer, he saw that it was Eric, who now hailed him while yet a hundred yards away.

"Hullo!" he shouted; "how is it you're so late? The captain is only waiting for you to set sail, for the pilot's coming on board now!"

"I didn't think you were going until the evening," replied Fritz, descending the steps of the jetty, which the boat had now nearly approached.

"Nor were we, if this breeze hadn't sprung up since morning so very suddenly, when we least expected it! I suppose it's because of all that gunpowder firing that the air's got stirred up a bit? But, jump in, old fellow, the skipper seems a bit impatient; and the sooner we're all on board the better he'll be pleased."

With these words, Eric stretched out a hand to help his brother into the little dinghy, which could barely carry two comfortably besides the man pulling amid-ship, and then the frail little craft started on her way back to the mother ship, of which she seemed the chicken!

No sooner were they alongside and up the ladder, than Captain Brown's voice was heard rapidly giving orders, as if no time were to be lost.

"Veer thet boat astern an' hook on the falls," he roared in stentorian accents. "I want her walked up to the davits 'fore I can say Jack Robinson! There, thet's the way to do it, men. Now, get her inboard an' secure her; we shan't want her in a hurry ag'in, till we come back to the bay!"

"Mr Dort," he sang out presently to Eric, who was standing by ready for the skipper's orders and watching his eye--prepared to jump anywhere at a second's notice, and looking so full of eagerness and attention that Fritz felt quite proud of him!

"Aye, aye, sir," answered the lad, touching his cap; for, nowhere is deference insisted on so stringently from inferior officers to their superiors as on board ship, especially in merchantmen commanded by captains worth their salt. In no other way can proper respect be paid to authority, or the necessary orders requisite for the safety and comfort of all enforced.

"I give you charge o' the mizzen mast," said Captain Brown, meaning that Eric would have to see to all that was necessary for making sail in the after part of the ship. At the same time, the second mate stationed himself amidships, and the first officer went forward to the bows, to superintend the getting up of the anchor, each of them repeating the several directions of the captain in turn.

"All hands make sail!" then shouted the skipper, who, with his hands in the pockets of his monkey jacket, stood on the p.o.o.p deck aft, looking everywhere apparently in one glance, it was so comprehensive of everything that was going on below and aloft; whereupon, the men, racing up the rigging with alacrity, the topsails were soon sheeted home and the yards hoisted, after which more canvas was unfolded to the breeze, that came in short, sharp puffs off the land.

The headsails were then backed, as the ship brought up over her anchor; and, the windla.s.s coming round with a ringing "clink, clank!" of the pawl to the hearty long heaves of the sailors--who worked at it with a will, singing in chorus the while--the heavy weight of metal that still attached the _Pilot's Bride_ to the sand and sh.e.l.ls at the bottom of Narraganset Bay was ere long lifted gradually above the water and run up to the cathead. The jib and foretop-sail were then allowed to fill again and the yards squared; when, the vessel, paying off, began to move, at first slowly, and then more rapidly as she gathered way, out of the harbour away towards the open sea, some thirty miles beyond.

The wind being light and flickering, the crew were soon ordered aloft again to set the top-gallant-sails, for the breeze was so far favourable that the ship did not have to beat out of the bay; consequently, she was able to spread more canvas than if she had been forced to tack, or had to be steered by her sails.

Nor was Captain Brown satisfied with top-gallants alone; for, quickly, the order came to set the royals and flying jib before the men could climb down the ratlins; and, soon, the vessel was under a cloud of sail alow and aloft, taking advantage of every breath of air. Towards the afternoon, the north-westerly breeze still lasting, the ship cleared Narraganset Bay, running before the wind; when, shaping a course between the treacherous Martha's Vineyard on the one hand and Gardiner's Island on the other, she was steered out into the open Atlantic.

No sooner had they got to sea than Captain Brown called all hands aft, mustering the crew--who numbered some twenty in all, including the cook and a couple of boys. He then gave them a short speech from the p.o.o.p.

Some of the men had been with him before, he said, so they knew what he was; but, as for those who didn't, he would tell them that, as long as they did their duty manfully, they would find him always considerate towards them. If they "turned rusty," however, why then "they'd better look out for squalls," for they would discover, should they try on any of their notions, that he was "a hard row to hoe!"

The men were next divided into watches and dismissed to their several duties; after which the _Pilot's Bride_ settled down steadily to her voyage.

At first, Fritz found the life on board very enjoyable. The motion of the ship was so slight, as she slipped through the water with the wind on her quarter, that there was no rolling; and the difference of her arrangements, with clean cabins and the absence of that sickening smell of the engine-room which had permeated the steamer in which he had made the pa.s.sage from Bremen to New York--his only previous acquaintance with the ocean-made him fancy that he could spend all his days on the deep without discomfort. But, after a time, the routine grew very monotonous; and long ere the _Pilot's Bride_ had reached tropical lat.i.tudes, Fritz would have been glad if she had reached their appointed destination.

Truth to say, the vessel was not that smart sailer which a stranger would have imagined from all the skipper had said about her. It was nearly three weeks before she ran into the north-east trades; and three more weeks, after she got within these favouring winds, before she managed to cross the Line, which she did somewhere about 24 degrees West. All this time, too, to add to Fritz's disgust, they never pa.s.sed a single other sail!

The weather throughout the voyage, up to now, had treated the vessel fairly enough, so no complaint could be made on that score; but, no sooner had they arrived at the equator, than the wind suddenly shifted round to the west and south-west, accompanied by a violent squall that would have settled the _Pilot's Bride_, if Captain Brown had not fortunately antic.i.p.ated it and prepared in time.

The ship was nearing Pernambuco, off the South American coast, on a short "leg," before taking the long one that would fetch down towards Tristan d'Acunha, proceeding in the ordinary track of vessels going round the Cape of Good Hope; when, suddenly, towards evening, it fell nearly calm and sheet lightning was noticed towards the eastward, where a dense bank of dark clouds had mounted up, obscuring the sky.

This was enough for Captain Brown, who had gone through a similar experience before.

"All hands take in sail!" came his order, without a moment's delay.

The men sprang aloft immediately and furled the royals and top-gallant- sails; while others below took in the flying jib and hauled up the mainsail and trysail--the hands wondering all the time what on earth the skipper was at, taking in all the spread of the vessel's canvas, when there wasn't a breath of air blowing!

However, the "old man," as he was generally called by the crew, knew better than they; and so, with the ship's yards stripped and squared, he awaited what science and forethought had taught him to expect.

Science and forethought had not caused him to make these preparations in vain!

The blackness in the south-east extended round the horizon to the west, and, presently, a thick mist came rolling up from that quarter, enveloping the vessel in its folds and covering the stars in front like a curtain, although those lesser lights of the night shone out brightly in other parts of the sky.

Then, all at once, the squall burst with a furious blast that made the ship heel over almost on her beam ends, the wind being followed by a shower of rain and hail that seemed as if it would batter in the decks.

"Let go the halliards!" sang out Captain Brown; and, his order being promptly attended to, the vessel was not taken aback--otherwise every spar would have snapped away, or else she would have gone down stern foremost.

Now, however, instead of any accident happening, the good ship, although reeling with the blow like a drunken man, paid off from the wind handsomely--running on for some time before the gale and tearing through the water with everything flying, "as if old Nick were after her," the men said!

All hands being then called again, the topsails and trysails were close- reefed, the courses furled, and the foretopmast-staysail set; when, the barque was brought round nearly to her course again, with the weather- braces hauled in a bit to ease her.

This was the first rough weather Fritz experienced, and it cannot be said to have increased his admiration for a sea life, all he saw of which only tended to make him wonder more and more every day what could induce his brother Eric to have such a pa.s.sionate inclination towards it! It was a strange fancy, he thought, as he watched the disturbed state of the wild ocean, lashed into frenzy by the force of the gale, which seemed to wax more l.u.s.ty each hour; for, the ship appeared to be, now, careering like a mad thing through some deep watery valley, between lofty mountainous peaks of spray, and, the next moment, seeming to be on the toppling edge of a fathomless abyss, into which she looked about to plunge headlong to destruction as she rose above the plane of tempest- tossed water, borne aloft on the rolling crest of one of the huge waves that were racing by each other as if in sport--the broken, billowy element boiling and seething as far as the eye could reach, in eddies of creamy foam and ridges of turbid green, with the clouds above of a leaden tinge that deepened, as they approached the horizon, to a dark slatish hue, becoming blue-black in the extreme distance.

"That Shakespeare was a fine fellow!" Fritz said to Captain Brown, who stood close by the binnacle, keeping an eye to the two men who were now at the wheel steering; for, the ship required careful handling in the heavy sea that was running to prevent her from broaching to, and it needed very prompt action frequently to jam down the helm in time, so as to let her fall off her course before some threatening mountain of water that bore down on her bows.

"Ha-ow?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the skipper inquiringly, turning to the other, who was looking over the taffrail surveying the scene around and had spoken musingly--uttering his thoughts aloud.

"I mean Shakespeare, the great dramatist," replied Fritz, who, like all educated Germans, had a keen appreciation of the bard and could quote his pregnant sayings at pleasure. "He wrote plays, you know," he added, seeing that Captain Brown did not quite comprehend him.

"Oh, I rec'lect now," replied the skipper, understanding him at last, and his face beaming with curious intelligence. "Him as wrote a piece called 'Hamlet,' hey? I reckon I see it once when I wer to Boston some years ago, an' Booth acted it uncommon well, too, yes, sirree!"

"Well then," said Fritz, going on to explain the reason for his original remark, "Shakespeare exactly expresses my sentiments, at this present moment, in the words which he puts into the mouth of one of his characters in the 'Tempest,' Gonzalo, I think. 'Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, anything: the wills above be done, but I would fain die a dry death!'"

The young fellow laughed as he ended the apt quotation.

The skipper, however, did not appear to see the matter in the same light.

"I guess thet there Gonzalo," he remarked indignantly, "wer no sailor; an' Mister Shakespeare must hev hed a durned pain in his stummick when he writ sich trash!"

Some hours afterwards, fortunately for Fritz's feelings, the gale broke; when, the wind shifting round to the northward of west, the _Pilot's Bride_ was enabled to steer away from the South American coast and shape a straight course for Tristan d'Acunha.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

ARRIVAL AT TRISTAN D'ACUNHA.