The Missing Merchantman Part 2

"Yes," Williams admitted, "I did overrun my ground-tackle a trifle; no mistake about that. Parsons sort of provoked me into it. But don't you trouble; it'll give the thing a start, and set the hands talking together; and as for Parsons, you'll see I'll put everything right next time we have a yarn together. He called me 'smart,' and he's right; I'm a precious sight smarter than he gives me credit for being, 'cute as he is. And there's no harm done; I could see that I've given some of 'em a new idea or two to overhaul and think about. I think that, even now, I could name three or four in our watch who'll prove all right when the time comes."

There was a great deal more said in the same strain which need not be repeated; the pith of the conversation has been given, and will suffice to suggest to the intelligent reader the idea that, even thus early in her first voyage, there was something radically wrong on board the _Flying Cloud_.

To the superficial eye, however, everything seemed to point to a prosperous voyage. The wind continued slowly but steadily to haul round from the northward, and by nine o'clock in the evening of the fifth day out the good ship, with a breeze at about due north and fresh enough to necessitate the stowing of all three skysails, was off Cape Finisterre and bowling along upon her course with studding, sails, from the royals down, set to windward, and reeling off her knots in a manner which caused the mates to stare incredulously at the line every time they hove the log.

As for the little party of pa.s.sengers in the saloon, they were delighted--charmed with each other, with the captain, with the midshipmen, with the crew--who seemed to them an exceptionally smart and steady set of men--with the ship, and with the weather; with everything and every body, in fact, but the two mates, who both proved to be very disagreeable men. There had not been a single symptom of _mal de mer_ among them, though the motion had been pretty lively during the pa.s.sage across the Bay of Biscay; and by this time they had thoroughly settled down and become almost as perfectly at home in the ship as though they had been born on salt water. The gentlemen chatted, smoked, walked the p.o.o.p, and played chess together, romped with the children, or read aloud to the ladies whilst they reclined in their deck-chairs and pretended to work, and otherwise made themselves generally useful. This was the usual disposition of their day from about nine a.m. to about eight o'clock p.m., the married ladies very frequently joining in their husbands' post-prandial promenade on the p.o.o.p until the latter hour, when, the air getting cool, the whole party would adjourn to the saloon, and, Dr and Mrs Henderson producing their violins and Mr Gaunt his flute, Mrs Gaunt or Miss Stanhope would open the piano which formed part of the saloon furniture, and the sounds of a very capital chamber concert would float out upon the evening air, to the great delectation of Captain Blyth, the officer of the watch, the helmsman, and--in a lesser degree, because less perfectly heard by them--the watch cl.u.s.tered forward on the forecastle-head.

In this quiet, methodical way life went on with the occupants of the saloon for some time; but at length ambition entered into and seized upon the imagination of Miss Stanhope, and she determined to learn to steer. Hour after hour had she watched the helmsmen standing in more or less graceful att.i.tudes at the wheel, with their sinewy hands upon the spokes, now drawing them gently toward them a few inches only to push them as far away again a minute or two later. It looked ridiculously easy; yet there was grandeur in the thought that, by these simple, effortless movements, the destiny of the ship and all within her was to a large extent controlled. There was something almost sublime, to her imagination, in the ability to "guide the furrowing keel on its way along the trackless deep," as she expressed it to herself; and she determined she would learn how to do it.

At length, making her way up on the p.o.o.p one glorious evening after dinner--the ship being at the time about in the lat.i.tude of Madeira, and close-hauled on the starboard tack, with a nice little eight-knot breeze blowing, and everything set that would draw, from the skysail down, and with the water as smooth as it ever is under such circ.u.mstances--she descried Ned standing aft at the wheel, with his left arm resting on its rim, his right hand lightly grasping a spoke at arm's-length, and his eye on the weather leach of the main-skysail, as he softly hummed to himself the air of a song she had sung a night or two before; and the young lady at once arrived at the conclusion that this afforded an excellent opportunity for her to take her first lesson. So she walked aft, and opened the negotiations by saying:

"Good evening, Ned." (Everybody on board, fore and aft, called the lad Ned; so she naturally did the same.)

"Good evening, Miss Stanhope," replied Ned, straightening himself up and doffing his cap with a sweep which would not have disgraced a--a--well, let us say, a Frenchman; "what splendid weather we are having! Here is another glorious evening, with every prospect of the breeze lasting, and perhaps freshening a bit when the sun goes down. If it only holds for forty-eight hours longer I hope it will run us fairly into the trades."

"I hope it will, I am sure," said Miss Stanhope, "if 'running fairly into the trades' is going to do us any good. I presume you are referring to the trade _winds_, about which Captain Blyth has been talking during dinner."

"Precisely," acknowledged Ned.

"Could you not _tie_ that wheel, and sit down comfortably, instead of standing there holding it as you are doing?" inquired Sibylla, by way of leading up gradually to the proposal she intended to make.

Ned laughed. "It _looks_ as though one might as well do so," he said.

"But you've no idea how capricious a ship is. I've not moved the wheel for the last ten minutes, and look how straight our wake is. Yet, if I were to lash this wheel exactly as it is now, it would not be half a minute before the ship would be shooting up into the wind."

"How very curious!" remarked Sibylla. "And yet, so long as you hold the wheel the ship goes perfectly straight. How do you account for that?"

"I watch her," answered Ned, "and the moment I detect a disposition to deviate from the right course I check her with a movement of the wheel.

The slightest touch is sufficient in such fine weather as we are having at present."

"I see," remarked the young lady. "The ship is as obedient to her guide as a well-trained child. And it seems easy enough to guide her. I believe I could do it myself."

"Certainly you could. Would you like to try?" said Ned, who at length fancied he could see the drift of his fair interlocutor's remarks.

"I should very much," answered Miss Stanhope. "But I did not like to ask, fearing that such a request would be a transgression against nautical etiquette."

"By no means," said Ned. "Captain Blyth is one of the most gallant of men; he would never dream of opposing so very reasonable a desire on the part of a lady--at least, not _now_, when no possible harm can come of it. If you will take my place on this raised grating, I shall be delighted to initiate you into the art. _This_ side, please--the helmsman always stands on the weather side. That is right. Now grasp this spoke with your left hand, and this with your right, so--that is precisely the right att.i.tude. Now, you feel a slight tremor in the wheel, do you not? That indicates that the water is pressing gently against the rudder--the ship carries a small weather-helm, as a well- modelled and properly rigged ship should--and if you were to release the wheel it would move a spoke or two to the right, and the ship would run up into the wind. Now, at present we are steering 'full and by,' which means that we are to steer as near the wind as possible, and at the same time to keep all the sails full. You see that small sail right at the top of all on the mainmast? That is the main-skysail. It is braced a shade less fore and aft than the other sails; so if you keep it full you will be certain to also have all the rest of the canvas full. Now you will observe an occasional gentle flapping movement of the weather leach of that sail--the _edge_ of it, I mean. That indicates that the sail is just full and no more; and you must keep your eye on that weather leach and maintain just precisely that gentle flapping movement. If it ceases, the sail is unnecessarily full, and you are not keeping a good 'luff,' and you must turn the wheel a shade to the right; if it increases, you are sailing rather too near the wind, and must press the wheel a trifle to the left. Do you understand me?"

"I think so," answered Sibylla, compressing her lips, grasping the spokes tightly, and concentrating her whole attention upon the weather leach of the skysail.

She proved an apt pupil; and though for the first ten minutes or so the course of the ship was a trifle erratic, and steering in a straight line proved to be not quite so simple and easy a matter as she had deemed it, Miss Sibylla soon caught the knack, and at the end of half an hour the _Flying Cloud_ was making as straight a wake again as though the best helmsman in the ship had her in hand.

"Why, this is _splendid_!" exclaimed Ned. "You are evidently a born helmsman--or _helmswoman_, rather--Miss Stanhope. Permit me to congratulate you on your success. Not a man in the ship could do better than you are now doing. I foresee that, before long, whenever any extra fine steering has to be done, we shall have to request you to take the wheel."

"Thank you; that is a very neatly turned compliment," remarked Sibylla.

"But I am afraid I do not wholly deserve it. For the last five minutes I have been steering, not by the little sail up there, as you told me, but by that small dark object right ahead. It is so much easier--"

"Small dark object! where away?" interrupted Ned. "Ah! I see it. Sail ho! right ahead Mr Bryce," he reported to the chief-mate.

The mate, who was sitting smoking on a hen-coop, to leeward, close to the break of the p.o.o.p, rose slowly to his feet, walked to the weather side of the deck, and, shading his eyes with his hand, looked ahead, but was apparently unable to see anything.

"There she is, just over the weather cat-head!" exclaimed Ned, as he placed himself in line with the mate.

"All right! I see her," responded the mate, as he at length caught sight of the small purple-grey spot on the south-western horizon, and he sauntered back to his seat.

At this moment Captain Blyth made his appearance on the p.o.o.p. "Did I hear a sail reported ahead, Mr Bryce?" he asked, as he reached the p.o.o.p.

"Very likely. There _is_ one," answered the mate, without offering to point her out.

Captain Blyth looked annoyed at this boorishness of speech and conduct, but it was habitual with the mate--he apparently knew no better--the skipper was becoming accustomed to it by this time, and, without noticing it, he walked aft and said:

"Where is she, Ned?"

Ned pointed her out.

"Ah, yes," said the skipper. "Is she coming this way, think you?"

"I should fancy not, sir," answered Ned. "It was Miss Stanhope who first sighted her; she has been steering by her for fully five minutes; and had yonder ship been coming this way I think we should see her more distinctly by this time than we do."

"I'll bet any money that it's the _Southern Cross_!" exclaimed the skipper with animation. "Get your gla.s.s, Ned, my boy, and slip up as far as the fore royal-yard, and see what you can make of her. I'll stay here, meanwhile, and see that Miss Stanhope doesn't run away with the ship."

And as Ned hurried away to execute his errand, Captain Blyth turned to Sibylla and laughingly began to banter her upon her new accomplishment.

Active as a cat, Ned soon reached the royal-yard, upon which he composedly seated himself, preparatory to bringing his telescope to bear upon the stranger. A little manoeuvring sufficed him to find her; but she was so far away--quite fifteen miles--that he could make out nothing beyond the fact that she was apparently a ship of about the same size as the _Flying Cloud_. He remained on his elevated perch watching her for fully a quarter of an hour, a period long enough to satisfy him that both ships were standing in the same direction, and then he descended.

"Well; what do you make of her?" demanded the skipper, as the lad joined him on the p.o.o.p.

Ned stated fully all that he had seen and all that he surmised--for a sailor is often able to shrewdly guess at a great deal when he sees but little; and when he had replied to the somewhat severe cross-examination to which he was subjected, Captain Blyth reiterated his former opinion:

"It is the _Southern Cross_, for a cool hundred! Mr Bryce"--to the mate--"be good enough to muster the watch, sir, and see if you cannot get those sails to set something less like so many bags than they are at present."

There had been a pretty heavy shower earlier on in the evening, which had sensibly stretched the new canvas, and now that it was again dry it hung from the spars and stays, as the skipper had said, "like so many bags"--a terrible eye-sore to a smart seaman--yet the mate had apparently not noticed it; or, at all events, had made no attempt to have the matter rectified.

Mr Bryce made no reply; but, rising nonchalantly from his seat, he went slowly down the p.o.o.p ladder and sauntered into the waist, where he came to a halt, and shouted:

"For'ard, there! lay aft here, all hands, and take a pull upon these sheets and halliards, will ye!"

"Confound the fellow!" muttered Captain Blyth. "I told him to muster _the watch_; and he must needs set all hands to work."

The men moved aft, very deliberately, clearly in no amiable mood at being given such a job in the second dog-watch, and began upon the main tack and sheet, gradually working their way upward, and from thence forward.

"What did I say, mates?" commented Williams, as they slowly brought the canvas into better trim. "This is the 'old man's' work--this swigging away upon sheets and halliards just upon night-fall; and there he is upon the p.o.o.p looking as black as thunder, because, I suppose, we're not more lively over the job. And what's it all for? Why, simply because that young sprig, Ned, happens to sight a sail ahead of us; and because we happen to be a smart ship the skipper won't be satisfied until we've overhauled her. This is just the beginning of it; it'll be like this every time we happen to see anything ahead; you mark my words."

"D'ye twig the new helmsman?" laughed another, jerking his head aft to direct attention to Sibylla, who still held the wheel.

"Ay, ay, mate; we see her," answered Williams, who seemed to think himself called upon to play the part of spokesman. "We see her; and a pretty creature she is. But do you think, mates, she'll ever give any of _us_ a spell when it's our trick? Not she! It's all very well when it's a smart young sprig of an apprentice--or midshipman, as they call themselves--that she can laugh and talk with; but it's a different matter with us poor sh.e.l.l-backs. The swells won't have anything to say to _its_."

"Now, you're wrong there, Josh, old shipmate, as I can testify," spoke up Jack Simpson, a smart young A.B. "Mrs Henderson and Mrs Gaunt has both spoke to me; and it was only a night or two ago that, when it was my wheel, Mr Gaunt gived me a cigar; and a precious good one it was too, I can tell ye."