Mother Carey's Chicken Part 11

"Why, surely you don't want to send him ash.o.r.e?"

"Ash.o.r.e, nonsense! Very fine dog, sir. I should like to have him. Ah, there you are!"

For just then Bruff came slowly and sedately into the cabin from a walk round the deck, and going straight up to the mate, blinked at him, and gave his tail two wags before going under the table to lay his head in his master's lap.

"Well, Morgan, how are you getting on?" asked the captain.

"Splendidly, sir. Quite like home to have a lady pouring out the coffee."

"No, no; I mean with the cargo."

"Oh! I beg pardon, sir. All right. We're about where we were before the accident."

"Ah, I thought we should be able to sail to-day, Gregory!"

"Humph!" said the first-mate. "I'll trouble you for a little more of that fried ham, Captain Strong. Good ham, young Strong. I recommend it."

Mark was already paying attention to it, and, well rested as he was, thoroughly enjoyed his novel meal, and was soon after as eagerly feasting upon the various sights and sounds of the deck.

For the next four hours all was busy turmoil. Pa.s.sengers were arriving with their luggage marked "For use in cabin," last packages of cargo were being received, a couple of van-loads of fresh vegetables were shot down upon the deck as if some one was about to start a green-grocer's shop on the other side of the world, and the state of confusion increased to such a degree that it seemed to Mark that order could never by any possibility reign again. Wheels squeaked as ropes ran through tackle, iron chains clanged; there was a continuous roaring of orders, here, there, and everywhere; and at last, when the time for going out of dock arrived, the deck was piled up in all directions with cargo and luggage, and every vacant place was occupied by pa.s.sengers, their friends, dock people, and crew.

It seemed impossible for the tall three-masted ship to get out of that dock through the narrow gates ahead and into the crowded river; but, just about one o'clock, a man in blue came on board and took charge, began shouting orders to men on the quay, ropes were made fast here and there and hauled upon, and the great ship was in motion.

Before many minutes had elapsed she had glided majestically into a narrow ca.n.a.l with stone walls, and from the high stern deck Mark saw that a pair of great gates were closed behind them, as if the ship had been taken in a trap. But no sooner was this achieved than another pair of gates was opened before her bows, and the slow gliding motion was continued till, almost before he knew it, the _Black Petrel_ East Indiaman, Captain Strong, outward-bound for Colombo, Singapore, and Hong-Kong, was out in the river without having crushed any other craft.

As she swung out there in the tide, a large unwieldy object which threatened to come in contact with one or other of the many ships and long black screws lying in the river, all of a sudden a little, panting, puffing steamer came alongside and, amidst more shouting, ropes were thrown and she was made fast, while another appeared off the _Black Petrel's_ bows, where the same throwing of ropes took place, but this time for a stout hawser to be fastened to the rope which had come through the air in rings. Then the rope was hauled back, the stout hawser dragged aboard, a great loop at its end placed over a hook on the tug-boat, which went slowly ahead, the hawser tightened, slackened, and splashed in the water, tightened and slackened again and again, till the great steamer's inertia was overcome without the hawser being parted, and kept by the tug at the side from swinging here and there, the great ship went grandly down the Thames.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

HOW MARK HAD A SURPRISE.

Blackwall and Woolwich, Gravesend, and the vessel moored for the night.

There a few preliminaries were adjusted, and the next morning, with the deck not quite in such a state of confusion, the vessel began to drop down with the tide.

And now Mark woke to the fact that the captain was once more only a secondary personage on board, the pilot taking command, under whose guidance sails dropped down and the great ship gradually made her way in and out of the dangerous shoals and sand-banks, till, well out to sea on a fine calm day, the pilot-boat came alongside, and Captain Strong, as the pilot wished him a lucky voyage, again took command.

There had been so much going on in lashing spars in their places, getting down the last of the cargo, and securing the ship's boats, along with a hundred other matters connected with clearing the decks and making things ship-shape, that Mark saw little of his father and the officers, except at mealtimes; and hence he was thrown almost entirely in the company of his mother. There were the pa.s.sengers, but they, for the most part, were somewhat distant and strange at first; but now, as the great ship began to go steadily down channel, before a pleasant south-easterly breeze, the decks were clear, ropes coiled down, hatches battened over, and there was a disposition among the strangers on board to become friendly.

They were not a very striking party whom Captain Strong had gathered round his table, but, as he told Mrs Strong, he had to make the best of them. There was a curiously dry-looking Scotch merchant on his way back to Hong-Kong. An Irish major, with his wife and daughter, bound for the same place. A quiet stout gentleman, supposed to be a doctor, and three young German agricultural students on their way to Singapore, from which place, after a short stay, they were going to Northern Queensland to introduce some new way of growing sugar.

But just as the pa.s.sengers were growing social, and the panorama of Southern England was growing more and more beautiful, the weather began to change.

Its first vagary was in the shape of a fog while they were off the Dorsetshire coast, and with the fog there was its companion, a calm.

"One of a sailor's greatest troubles," Mr Morgan said to Mark as they were leaning over the taffrail watching the gulls, which seemed to come in and out of the mist.

"But capital for a pa.s.senger who only wants to make his trip as long as he can," said Mark laughingly.

"Ah! I forgot that you leave us at Plymouth," said the second-mate.

"Penzance," cried Mark.

"That depends on the weather, young man. If that happens to be bad you will be dropped at Plymouth, and I'm afraid we are going to have a change."

The second-mate was right, for before many hours had pa.s.sed, and when Start and Prawle points had been pointed out as they loomed up out of the haze upon their right, the sea began to rise. That night the wind was increasing to a gale, and Mark was oblivious, like several of the pa.s.sengers, of the grandeur of the waves; neither did he hear the shrieking of the wind through the rigging. What he did hear was the creaking and groaning of the timbers of the large ship as she rose and fell, and the heavy thud of some wave which smote her bows and came down like a cataract upon her deck.

"Come, Mark, Mark, my lad," the captain said, "you must hold up. You're as bad as your mother."

"Are we going to the bottom, father?" was all Mark could gasp out.

"No, my boy," said the captain, laughing, "I hope not. This is only what we sailors call a capful of wind."

Mrs Strong was too ill to leave her cabin, but the first-mate came to give the sea-sick lad a friendly grip of the hand, and pat poor Bruff's head as he sat looking extremely doleful, and seeming to wonder what it all meant Mr Morgan, too, made his appearance from time to time.

Then all seemed to be rising up and plunging down with the shrieking of wind, the beating of the waves, and darkness, and sickness, and misery.

Was it day or was it night? How long had he been ill? How long was all this going to last?

Once or twice Mark tried to crawl out of his berth, but he was too weak and ill to stir; besides which, the ship was tossing frightfully, and once when the captain came in it seemed to the lad that he looked careworn and anxious. But Mark was too ill to trouble himself about the storm or the ship, or what was to become of them, and he lay there perfectly prostrate.

The steward came from time to time anxious looking and pale, but Mark did not notice it. He for the most part refused the food that was brought to him, and lay back in a sort of stupor, till at last it seemed to him that the ship was not rocking about so violently.

Then came a time when the cabin seemed to grow light, and the steps of men sounded overhead as they were removing some kind of shutter.

Lastly he woke one morning with the sun shining, and his father, looking very haggard, sitting by his berth.

"Well, my lad," he said, "this has been a sorry holiday for you. Come, can't you hold up a bit? The steward's going to bring you some tea."

"I--can't touch anything, father; but has the storm gone?"

"Thank Heaven! yes, my lad. I never was in a worse!"

"But you said it was a capful of wind," said Mark faintly.

"Capful, my lad! it was a hurricane, and I'm afraid many a good ship has fared badly."

"But the _Petrel's_ all right, father?"

"Behaved splendidly."

"Are we--nearly at Plymouth?" was Mark's next question.

"Nearly where?"

"At Plymouth. I think, as I'm so ill, I'd better not go any farther.

How is mother?"