Mr. Wicker's Window Part 16

The long days pa.s.sed on board the _Mirabelle_. The hours rolled majestically past as did the waves through which the _Mirabelle_ cut her way.

Amos and Christopher were kept out of sight until Mr. Wicker's ship was several days out to sea, for the crew, not knowing that the success of their voyage depended on Chris, would have been surly at the presence of two such young boys on board, useless cargo, in their opinion, who knew nothing of seafaring. But when Chris and Amos appeared under the banner of "stowaways," the sailors considered them full of s.p.u.n.k, and welcomed them warmly.

Both Chris and Amos found life on a sailing vessel strange and fascinating but difficult to get used to. Ned Cilley as their best friend on board was the one to whom they turned whenever his duties gave him free time. However, to Chris's surprise, it was the first mate, sad-looking Mr. Finney, who would patiently instruct them in sea terms and answer their endless questions.

As the days pa.s.sed and the _Mirabelle_ pursued her long course through tropical water, Chris, with many free hours to occupy, at last understood how the model of the _Mirabelle_ had been so painstakingly arranged inside a bottle. For the time seemed long between glimpses of sh.o.r.e and sh.o.r.e, or until they sailed for a time along some wild and beautiful tropic coast. Then Chris would lean on the side of the ship looking at the mountainous or jungled sh.o.r.e. A scent such as comes from the opened door of a hothouse would drift out to sea to the sailors, who looked yearningly toward the land and the greenness. A warm breath of flowers, damp moss, and leaves in the sun would mingle with the rough salt smell of the sea. Chris and Amos imagined to themselves what the forest or the mountainsides would be like if they could only land and investigate them.

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Now and again small flocks of birds, migrating perhaps or blown out to sea, would land on the _Mirabelle_, and Ned Cilley made a large cage for some of the sweet-singing gaily feathered creatures for Chris and Amos. And on one occasion when the _Mirabelle_ was sailing past Brazil, a flock of b.u.t.terflies was carried out on a breeze from sh.o.r.e and hung on the rigging until the boys imagined themselves in a blossoming wood.

Chris had found, his first day at sea, the conch sh.e.l.l Mr. Wicker had mentioned, and he alone of all the _Mirabelle's_ crew knew how the _Venture_ had fared.

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That first evening, in the little cabin Captain Blizzard had given Chris and Amos, Chris had waited impatiently for Amos to sleep. The two boys each had a hammock swung across the cabin by night which they rolled up and put away to give more room by day. But that first night poor Chris had begun to despair that he would ever hear Mr. Wicker's voice from the sh.e.l.l, for Amos was excited and had no wish to go to sleep. He swung back and forth, happy as a dark bird in his hammock, his round eyes looking toward the porthole where there was a faint gleam of night sea.

"Chris," Amos said, "we're sure going on a mighty far trip! That Mister Finney, he showed me on a map, but I never heard of any of the places we pa.s.s by. The Bahamas, he say to me, then the West Indies, Cuba, Barbadoes"--he was ticking them off on his fingers as he named them--"an' on to South America. Away down at the tippy end around--what's the name of that loud-named place?"

"Cape Horn?" Chris said. He was scarcely listening.

Amos tried to prop himself up on his elbow and promptly fell out of the hammock in a flurry of arms and legs and a heavy landing thump that brought a shout of laughter from Chris. After an attempt at making his bed again in the hammock, and some little difficulty in clambering safely back in again, Amos composed himself with the least possible movement in his swinging bed and yawned.

"I disremember," he said, "where else we're going. Wise Man islands, or Solemn Islands--"

"You mean, Solomon Islands?" Chris asked him. Amos gave another mighty yawn.

"That's what I said. Miss Becky, she read to me from the Bible about Solemn, how wise he was." There was a pause. "On that way--" Amos's voice was becoming indistinct.

"We go past the West Indian Islands next," Chris murmured, almost to himself. "I remember that."

"And the Cell-Bees Sea," Amos said in a whisper.

"Celebes," Chris corrected softly.

"What I said," came Amos's voice, and then at last there was silence in the cabin.

He almost got as far as the China Sea! Chris thought to himself, and holding to the hammock, eased himself out and on bare feet went quietly to his sea chest.

Its square bulk stood in the shadow of the wall, but fragments of light from the night sky caught the bra.s.s nailheads and bands upon it so that it appeared to wink cheerfully at Chris in the gloom.

Slowly, to avoid any creaks that might awake Amos, Chris lifted the lid, thrust in one hand and found the sh.e.l.l. He held it near the small port for a moment, its rosy interior faded of color in the gray light.

Then he turned it in his hand and put it to his ear.

At first he heard only the rushing sound of surf on a beach. Then the sea sound became fainter and a voice so familiar that it meant home to him came to Chris's ear as if from a long way off.

"Christopher? Christopher, here I am," came Mr. Wicker's voice. "How are you? All going well I hope. Please do me the favor to tell the Captain not to put ash.o.r.e at his usual place in Tahiti, but to go by night to a cove he will find twelve leagues farther along the coast. I will tell you what to do nearer that time. He will find ample fresh water near that cove, but the _Venture_ is up to mischief. You must escape it, and all on board the _Mirabelle_ shall be witnesses to what Claggett Chew plans to do."

The voice faded out and then returned.

"You would probably like to know how far behind the _Venture_ is. She ran aground--most unfortunately and most surprisingly--and is three full days behind you. But she is a fast ship and will soon lessen the distance. Please to tell the Captain so; he is the only one to know of my gifts and that it is possible for me to communicate with you. Tell him not to stop for water or food until his stores are running low.

You must not waste time. Have you heard me? Tap the edge of the sh.e.l.l three times for 'Yes.'"

Chris tapped three times, feeling much happier and all at once not quite so much alone. The voice came back to his ear.

"I am following your progress from this room in the manner you know.

Practise your magic alone, or you will lose the knack. And now good night. Oh yes--Becky Boozer has been crying into her ap.r.o.n all day.

Partly for Ned Cilley but I fancy--" Chris heard a chuckle from a well-remembered room--"but I fancy, largely for two boys! Good night, Christopher. Sleep well."

CHAPTER 20

As the Mirabelle sailed farther into tropical seas, Chris and Amos worked out a pattern for their days. Before sunup, while the air was still cool from the night, the two boys were awakened by Ned Cilley or Abner Cloud. They joined the sailors on deck to do their share of ch.o.r.es--mending rigging, patching sails, scrubbing decks, or polishing bra.s.s. When the sun rose the boys breakfasted.

The men of the _Mirabelle_ then went on with their various tasks, but Amos went up to the Captain's bridge where he listened to Mr. Finney and Captain Blizzard, and Chris went down to their cabin for an hour or more.

Supposedly, Chris was studying lessons. This was only partially true, for instead of sums, he was practising magic, in which he soon attained a high degree of proficiency.

What he most enjoyed was turning himself into some small commonplace creature to plague his friends on board--a mouse, one day, a flea the next, a fly on the third. Quite naturally, no one suspected his ability to adopt such fantastic disguises. So little did they guess--he had one or two narrow escapes from being swatted or stamped on.

It was Zachary Heigh whom Chris wanted to watch, and as a flea or a fly he often rode about on Zachary's jacket listening and observing.

But it was not until the _Mirabelle_ had rounded Cape Horn one morning that Chris, in the disguise of a fly, rode unnoticed on Zachary's jacket when that sulky young man, after looking around to make sure the others were all at work, slipped down to the sailor's quarters below decks.

There he dragged out his sea chest, and from under his belongings pulled out a second chest. Fitting a key to the lock, he lifted up the lid. Chris, perched on his shoulder, peered over to see the contents.

They were disappointing--merely a gray powder carefully packed in a piece of tarpaulin.

Wonder why it has to be kept so dry? Chris pondered, but Zachary was already refolding the tarpaulin and locking the lid. In the next moment, Zachary had uncovered a length of white coils. Then Chris understood.

By golly! he exclaimed to himself, dynamite! Or gunpowder! And so much! What's it for?

Zachary made no other disclosures of interest that day, but after that Chris spent all the time he could, both day and night, watching the young sailor. He was determined to discover if he could what Zachary intended to do with the gunpowder.

It was hard for Chris not to be able to ask Mr. Wicker's advice and not to have his master's superior knowledge to lean on. Yet had he known it, it was just this lack which was making him quick witted and more resourceful.

One night a short time after Zachary's uncovering of the gunpowder, Chris noticed that Zachary remained on deck after the others had gone to bed, and continued to sit with his back to a stanchion dreamily gazing at the starry sky. Chris was in a fever for Amos to sleep, which his good friend soon did. Then a gray mouse scuttered along the wainscot of the ship's pa.s.sageways until it reached a good vantage point from which to see the young sailor on deck. Chris had chosen well; a mouse is used to the dark.

For several hours Zachary remained still and the mouse dozed, woke with a start, twitched its ears, and waited. Then, long after midnight when, alone of the entire ship's company, only the helmsman and night watch were awake, Zachary very slowly slid his way to the ladder leading to the hold. The mouse, scurrying forward, was able to follow by means of a dangling rope and a leap into pitch-blackness at the rope's end. The poor mouse hit something and ricocheted off. It lay stunned for a moment or two a few inches from Zachary's feet as the sailor stood at the foot of the ladder in the black heavy air of the hold. Then Zachary lit a candle end he had brought in his pocket, and lifted it up above his head to give the maximum amount of radiance.

The glow of the candle stub, like a yellow daisy in a cavern, spread petals of light for only a short distance. By its sputtering, the mouse looked up to the towering figure Zachary now made above it, and hearing the sharp squeakings and furtive scratches that signaled rats, the mouse thought it more prudent to adopt the shape of a fly. This Chris did, and on Zachary's shoulder the fly's many-faceted eyes could not only see everything, but see them several times over.

Zachary then put the candle on the corner of a packing case and from under his shirt pulled out the coils of the fuse Chris had seen a few days before. He took up the candle stub and began a long and patient search, measuring with the length of fuse, and hunting for a secure hiding place for the gunpowder. In the end he found a cramped s.p.a.ce, just big enough for him to slide into, made by the shifting of the cargo which had seemingly rewedged itself firmly, forming a curious little cave of barrel sides, crates, and heavy bales of cotton overhead. Dangerous, thought Chris, should anything rock the _Mirabelle_ in such a way that the cargo shifted back suddenly to its original tight formation. The hold of the _Mirabelle_ was large, the packing case cave was surrounded by hundreds of pounds of solid cargo.

It gave Chris a trapped feeling that he did not like, and he was relieved when Zachary edged and squeezed himself out again into a freer part of the hold.

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