The Great Quest Part 12

As with Arnold Lamont I followed Willie MacDougald, the little cabin boy, I was too tired to care a straw about life on board a ship; and before I should come on deck again, I was to be too sick. But as I threw myself into one of the berths in our tiny cubby, I welcomed the prospect of at least a long sleep, and I told Arnold how sincerely glad I was that we were to be together.

"Joe," he said, slowly and precisely, "I am very much afraid that we are going on a wild-goose chase. Seth Upham has been kind to me in his own way. He is one of the few friends I have in this world. Now, I think, he would gladly be rid of me. But I shall stay with him to the end, for I think the time is coming when he will need his friends."

I am afraid I fell asleep before Arnold finished what he had to say; but weary though I was, I felt even then a great confidence in this quiet, restrained man. He was so wise, so unfathomable. And I felt already the growing determination, which, before we had seen the last of Neil Gleazen, was to absorb almost my very life, to work side by side with Arnold Lamont in order to save what we could of Uncle Seth's happiness and property from the hands of the man who, we both saw, had got my poor uncle completely in his power.

CHAPTER IX

AN OLD SEA SONG

The noise of the crew as they catted the anchor and made sail must have waked me more than once, for to this very day I remember hearing distinctly the loud chorus of a chantey, the trampling of many feet, the creaking and rattling and calling--the strange jumble of sounds heard only when a vessel is getting under way. But strange and interesting though it all was, I must immediately have fallen asleep again each time, for the memories come back to me like strange s.n.a.t.c.hes of a vivid dream, broken and disconnected, for all that they are so clear.

When at last, having slept my sleep out, I woke with no inclination to close my eyes again, and sat up in my berth, the brig was pitching and rolling in a heavy sea, and a great wave of sickness engulfed me, such as I had never experienced. How long it lasted, I do not know, but at the time it seemed like months and years.

Perhaps, had I been forced to go on deck and work aloft, and eat coa.r.s.e sea-food, and meet my sickness like a man, I might have thrown it off in short order and have got my sea-legs as soon as another. But coming on board as the owner's nephew, with a stateroom at my command, I lay and suffered untold wretchedness, now thinking that I was getting better, now relapsing into agonies that seemed to me ten times worse than before. Uncle Seth himself, I believe, was almost as badly off, and Arnold Lamont and Willie MacDougald had a time of it tending us. Even Arnold suffered a touch of sickness at first; but recovering from it promptly, he took Uncle Seth and me in his charge and set Willie jumping to attend our wants, which he did with a comical alacrity that under other circ.u.mstances would mightily have amused me.

I took what satisfaction I could in being able to come on deck two days before Uncle Seth would stir from his bunk; but even then I was good for nothing except to lie on a blanket that Arnold and Willie spread for me, or to lean weakly against the rail.

But now, as I watched the blue seas through which the keen bow of the brig, a Baltimore craft of clipper lines, swiftly and smoothly cut its course, the great white sails, with every seam drawn to a taut, clean curve by the wind, the occasional glimpses of low land to the west, and the succession of great clouds that swept across the blue sky like rolling ma.s.ses of molten silver, I fell to thinking in a dull, bewildered way of all that we had left behind.

How long would it be, I wondered, before someone would take charge of the horses we had left on the wharf in Boston? I could imagine the advertis.e.m.e.nt that would appear in the paper, and the questions of the people, until news should come from Topham of all that had happened. Who then, I wondered, would get the team?

Well, all that was done with, and we were embarked on our great adventure. What was to become of us, no human prophet could foretell.

Cornelius Gleazen, who years before had got over his last attack of seasickness, welcomed me on deck, with rough good-nature; but something in his manner told me that, from this time on, in his eyes I was one of the crowd, no further from his favor, perhaps, than any of the others, but certainly no nearer it.

To me, so weak from my long sickness that I could scarcely stand unaided, this came like a blow, even although I had completely lost my admiration for the man. I had been so sure of his friendly interest! So confident of my own superiority! As I thought of it, I slowly came to see that his kindness and flattery had been but a part of his deep and well-considered plan to work into the confidence of my uncle; that since he had secured his hold upon Seth Upham and all his worldly goods, I, vain, credulous youth, might, for all he cared, sink or swim.

"Well," he would say carelessly, "how's the lad this morning?" And when I would reply from the depths of my misery, he would respond briefly, as he strolled away, "Better pull yourself together.

There's work ahead for all hands."

It was not in his words, you understand, that I found indication of his changed att.i.tude,--he was always a man of careless speech,--but in his manner of saying them. The tilt of his head, and his trick of not looking at me when he spoke and when I replied, told me as plainly as direct speech could have done that, having gained whatever ends he had sought by flattery, he cared not a straw whether I came with him or followed my own inclinations to the opposite end of the earth.

So we sailed, south, until we entered the Straits of Florida. Now we saw at a distance great scarlet birds flying in a row. Now schools of porpoises played around us. Now a big crane, speckled brown and white, alighted on our rigging. Now we pa.s.sed green islands, now sandy shoals where the sea rose into great waves and crashed down in cauldrons of foam. And now we sighted land and learned that it was Cuba.

All this time I had constantly been gaining strength, and though more than once we had pa.s.sed through spells of rough weather, I had had no return of seasickness. It was natural, therefore, that I should take an increasing interest in all that went on around me.

With some of the sailors I established myself on friendly terms, although others seemed to suspect me of attempting to patronize them; and thanks to the tutelage of Captain North, I made myself familiar with the duties of the crew and with the more common evolutions of a sailing ship. But in all that voyage only one thing came to my notice that gave any suggestion of what was before us, and that suggestion was so vague that at the time I did not suspect how significant it was.

In the first dog watch one afternoon, the carpenter, who had a good voice and a good ear for music, got out his guitar and, after strumming a few chords, began to sing a song so odd that I set my mind on remembering it, and later wrote the words down:

"Old King Mungo-Hungo-Ding A barrac.o.o.n he made, And sold his blessed subjects to A captain in the trade.

And when his subjects all were gone, Oh, what did Mungo do?

He drove his wives and daughters in And traded for them, too."

He sang it to a queer tune that caught my feet and set them twitching, and it was no surprise to see three or four sailors begin to shuffle about the deck in time to the music.

As the carpenter took up the chorus, they, too, began to sing softly and to dance a kind of a hornpipe; but, I must confess, I was surprised to hear someone behind me join in the singing under his breath. The last time when I had heard that voice singing was in the village church in Topham, and unless my memory serves me wrong, it then had sung that good hymn:--

"No, I shall envy them no more, who grow profanely great; Though they increase their golden store, and shine in robes of state."

It was Cornelius Gleazen, who, it appeared, knew both words and tune of the carpenter's song:--

"Tally on the braces! Heave and haul in time!

Four and twenty n.i.g.g.e.rs and all of them was prime!

Old King Mungo's daughters, they bought our la.s.ses rings.

Heave now! Pull now! They never married kings."

They sang on and on to the strumming of the guitar, while all the rest stood around and watched them; and when they had finished the song, which told how King Mungo, when he had sold his family as well as his subjects, made a raid upon his neighbors and was captured in his turn and, very justly, was himself sold as a slave, Cornelius Gleazen cried loudly, "_Encore! Encore!_" and clapped his hands, until the carpenter, with a droll look in his direction, again began to strum his guitar and sang the song all over.

As I have said, at the time I attributed little significance to Cornelius Gleazen's enthusiasm for the song or to the look that the carpenter gave him. But when I saw Captain North staring from one to the other and realized that he had seen and heard only what I had, I wondered why he wore so queer an expression, and why, for some time to come, he was so grave and stiff in his dealings with both Gleazen and Uncle Seth. Nor did it further enlighten me to see that Arnold Lamont and Captain North exchanged significant glances.

So at last we came to the mouth of Havana harbor, and you can be sure that when, after lying off the castle all night, we set our Jack at the main as signal for a pilot, and pa.s.sed through the narrow strait between Moro Castle and the great battery of La Punta, and came to anchor in the vast and beautiful port where a thousand ships of war might have lain, I was all eyes for my first near view of a foreign city.

On every side were small boats plying back and forth, some laden with freight of every description, from fresh fruit to nondescript, dingy bales, others carrying only one or two pa.s.sengers or a single oarsman. There were scores of ships, some full of stir and activity getting up anchor and making sail, others seeming half asleep as they lay with only a drowsy anchor watch. On sh.o.r.e, besides the grand buildings and green avenues and long fortifications, I could catch here and there glimpses of curious two-wheeled vehicles, of men and women with bundles on their heads, of countless negroes lolling about on one errand or another, and, here and there, of men on horseback. I longed to hurry ash.o.r.e, and when I saw Uncle Seth and Neil Gleazen deep in conversation, I had great hopes that I should accomplish my desire. But something at that moment put an end for the time being to all such thoughts.

Among the boats that were plying back and forth I saw one that attracted my attention by her peculiar manoeuvres. A negro was rowing her at the command of a big dark man, who leaned back in the stern and looked sharply about from one side to the other. Now he had gone beyond us, but instead of continuing, he came about and drew nearer.

He wore his hair in a pig-tail, an old fashion that not many men continued to observe, and on several fingers he wore broad gold rings. His face was seamed and scarred. There were deep cuts on cheek and chin, which might have been either scars or natural wrinkles, and across his forehead and down one cheek were two white lines that must have been torn in the first place by some weapon or missile. His hands were big and broad and powerful, and there was a grimly determined air in the set of his head and the thin line of his mouth that made me think of him as a man I should not like to meet alone in the dark.

From the top of his round head to the soles of his feet, his whole body gave an impression of great physical strength. His jaws and chin were square and ma.s.sive; his bull neck sloped down to great broad shoulders, and his deep chest made his long, heavy arms seem to hang away from his body. As he lay there in the stern of the boat, with every muscle relaxed, yet with great swelling ma.s.ses standing out under his skin all over him, I thought to myself that never in all my life had I seen so powerful a man.

Now he leaned forward and murmured something to the negro, who with a stroke of his oars deftly brought the boat under the stern of the Adventure and held her there. Then the man, smiling slightly, amazed me by calling in a voice so soft and gentle and low that it seemed almost effeminate: "Neil Gleazen! Neil Gleazen!"

The effect on Cornelius Gleazen was startling almost beyond words.

Springing up and staring from one side to the other as if he could not believe his ears, he roared furiously: "By the Holy! Molly Matterson, where are you?"

Then the huge bull of a man, speaking in that same low, gentle voice, said; "So you know me, Neil?"

"Know you? I'd know your voice from Pongo River to Penzance,"

Gleazen replied, whirling about and leaning far over the taffrail.

The big man laughed so lightly that his voice seemed almost to tinkle. "You're eager, Neil," he said. Then he glanced at me and spoke again in a language that I could not understand. At the time I had no idea what it was, but since then I have come to know well--too well--that it was Spanish.

And all the time my uncle stood by with a curiously wistful expression. It was as if he felt himself barred from their council; as if he longed to be one of them, hand in glove, and yet felt that there was between him and them a gap that he could not quite bridge; as if with his whole heart he had given himself and everything that was his, as indeed he had, only to receive a cold welcome.

Remembering how haughtily Uncle Seth himself had but a little while ago regarded the good people of Topham, how seldom he had expressed even the very deep affection in which he held me, his only sister's only son, I marveled at the simple, frank eagerness with which he now watched those two; and since anyone could see that of him they were thinking lightly, if at all, I felt for him a pang of sympathy.

For a while the two talked together. Now they glanced at me, now at the others. I am confident that they told no secrets, for of course there was always the chance that some of us might speak the tongue, too. But that they talked more freely than they would have talked in English, I was very confident.

At last Gleazen said, "Come aboard at all events."

Instead of going around to the chains, the big man whom Gleazen had hailed as Molly Matterson stood up in the boat, crouched slightly, and leaping straight into the air, caught the taffrail with one hand. Gracefully, easily, he lifted himself by that one hand to the rail, placed his other hand upon it, where his gold rings gleamed dully, and lightly vaulted to the deck.

I now saw better what a huge man he was, for he towered above us all, even Neil Gleazen, and he seemed almost as broad across the chest as any two of us.

He gently shook hands with Uncle Seth and Captain North, to whom Gleazen introduced him, again glanced curiously at the rest of us, and then stepped apart with Gleazen and Uncle Seth. I could hear only a little of what they said, and the little that I did hear was concerned with unfamiliar names and mysterious things.