The White Squall Part 5

You have 'poor greatness, with dry rations,' hey?"

"That's true enough," replied dad; and then we all set to work with our knives and forks, demolishing, in less than no time, a grilled fowl and some delicious fried flying-fish, with the accompaniment of roast b.u.t.tered yams and fresh plantains.

I don't know when I ever had such a jolly tuck out. The long ride after my forced quietness at home, and the sea air, combined with my novel surroundings--I was so overjoyed at being on board a ship, and having a meal in a real cabin, the very height of my ambition and what I had often longed for--gave me a tremendous appet.i.te. It was the first really hearty meal I had eaten since my illness.

"Well, Eastman," said Captain Miles presently to dad, "I suppose you've come about the youngster. Do you want me to take him home with me this voyage, eh?"

Of course I p.r.i.c.ked up my ears on hearing this question; but dad did not satisfy my curiosity, although he noticed that I almost jumped up in my seat and was all attention.

"No," replied he, evading the subject, "I wanted to see you about shipping some cocoa. I've got a good lot ready, and you may as well take it as anybody else."

"Oh, I see," rejoined the captain, winking in a confidential way at dad, as if they had some secret between them. "We can talk over the bills of lading and so on, while the youngster has a run round to see what a ship is like, eh?"

"Yes," said dad; and turning to me he added, "You would like to go over the _Josephine_, would you not, Tom, now you are on board her?"

"Rather!" I replied, delighted at the idea, but still wondering what the captain had meant about "taking me home."

There was evidently something on the tapis.

"All right, my hearty, so you shall," said Captain Miles. "The boatswain will take you round and show you the ropes, while your father and I have a chat about business matters."

He then called Harry the steward, and directed him to give me in charge of Moggridge the boatswain, with instructions to show me everything that was to be seen alow and aloft in the vessel; whereupon the two of us went out of the cabin together, leaving the captain and dad to have an uninterrupted chat over their cigars.

Moggridge turned out to be the very sailor who had been in charge of the launch which had brought us off to the ship; so, from the fact of his knowing that dad had formerly been in the navy, and that I wished to enter the same glorious service, we were soon on the most confidential terms, the good-natured fellow going out of his way to make me thoroughly acquainted with all the details of the _Josephine_. He first took me down to the hold, where I saw the hogs-heads of sugar being stowed, the casks being packed as tightly as sardines in a tin box. We then went through the ship fore and aft between the decks, from the forecastle to the steward's pantry. After this the boatswain completed his tour of instruction by showing me how to climb the rigging into the main-top, telling me the names and uses of all the ropes and spars; so that, by the time he had ended, my head was in a state of bewildered confusion, with shrouds and sheets, halliards and stays, stun'-sail yards and cat-heads, bowsprits, and spanker booms, all so mixed up together that it would have puzzled me to discriminate between any of them and say off-hand which was which!

However, the boatswain and I parted very good friends when he took me back to the cabin on the termination of our inspection of the ship--he promising to teach me how to make a reef-knot and a running-bowline the next time I came on board, and I shaking hands with him as a right good fellow whom I would only be too glad to meet again under any circ.u.mstances.

Dad and I stopped with Captain Miles until late in the afternoon; when, the glare of the sun having gone off, we were rowed ash.o.r.e in the captain's gig. My friend Moggridge took charge of us, and a crew of hardy sailors made the boat spin ash.o.r.e at a very different rate of speed to that which the heavy old launch displayed on our trip out to the vessel with the sugar hogs-heads.

Jake met us at the jetty with the horses, which he had put up in the stables of the adjoining plantation during our absence; and as we rode along the sh.o.r.e of the bay homeward, the sun was just setting, while a nice cool wind came down from the mountains, making it much nicer than it had been in the earlier part of the day. Skirting the bay, we could see the _Josephine_ in the distance gradually being shut in by a halo of haze, a thick mist generally rising up from the sea at nightfall in the tropics through the evaporation of the water or the difference of temperature between it and the atmospheric air.

If our ride out to Grenville Bay had been jolly in the morning, our journey back was simply splendid.

Almost as soon as the solar orb sank down below the horizon, which it did just before we turned away from the sh.o.r.e, the masts and spars of the _Josephine_, and each rope of her rigging, were all lit up by the sinking rays of light, their last despairing flash before their extinguishment in the ocean. At the same time, the hull of the vessel and every projecting point in the coast-line of the bay stood out in relief against the bright emerald-green tint of the sea. A moment afterwards, the darkness of night descended suddenly upon us like a vast curtain let down from heaven.

But it was not dark long.

As we pa.s.sed our way up the climbing mountain path that led back to Mount Pleasant, our road--bordered on the one side by the dense vegetation of the forest, which seemed as black as ink now, and hedged in on the other by a precipice--was made clear by the light of the stars. These absolutely came out _en ma.s.se_ almost as we looked upwards at them. I noticed, too, that the sky seemed to be of some gauzy transparent material like ethereal azure, and did not exhibit that solid appearance it has in England of a ceiling with gold nails stuck in it here and there at random; for, the "lesser orbs of night" in the tropics look as if they were floating in a sea of vapour. They appear a regular galaxy of beauty and splendour, and so many glorious evidences of the great Creator's handiwork.

Every now and then, also, the air around us was illuminated with sparks of green-coloured flame, while the woods seemed on fire from a thousand little jets that burst out every second from some new direction, lighting up the sombre gloom beneath the shade of the forest trees.

One could almost imagine that there was a crowd of fairies going before us, each carrying a torch which he waved about, now above his head, and then around lower down, finally dashing it to the ground with those of his comrades, as is the custom at the torchlight processions of the students in Germany on some festal night. As dad and I trotted along towards home, the sparks of flame appeared now rising, now falling, vanishing here, reappearing there, finally converging into a globe, or "set piece," as at a pyrotechnic display, and then dispersing in spangles of coruscation like a fizzed-out firework.

This beautiful effect, one of the wonders of a night in the West Indies, was caused by the fireflies. Of these insects there are two distinct species, one really a small fly which seems to be perpetually on the wing, flitting in and out in the air always, and never at rest; while the other is a species of beetle that is only seen in woody regions, where it takes up a more stationary position, like the glowworm over here. This latter has two large eyes at the back of its head, instead of in front in their more natural place; and these eyes, when the insect is touched, shoot forth two strong streams of greenish light, something like that produced by an electric dynamo, while, at the same time, the entire body of the "firefly," or beetle, becomes as incandescent as a live coal.

The light which even one of these little creatures will give out is so great that I have often seen dad, just for the sake of the experiment, read a bit out of a newspaper on a dark evening with a firefly stuck in a wine-gla.s.s for a candle!

For some time we jogged along silently; but just when we were nearing Mount Pleasant I could not help asking dad what Captain Miles had meant by that question he had asked him about taking me for a voyage.

I had been dying to know what the remark referred to ever since I had overheard it, but waited, thinking that dad would tell me of his own accord; so now, as he didn't speak, I had to brave the ordeal of the inquiry.

"He wanted to take you home to England to school, Tom," replied dad briefly in an absent sort of way, as if his thoughts were amongst the fireflies.

"Really?" said I hesitatingly--"and--"

"And, I have not quite made up my mind in the matter yet, Tom. Besides which, there's your mother to be consulted," interposed dad, answering my second question before I could put it.

"And if mother does not mind, you will let me go, then, in the _Josephine_ with Captain Miles, eh, dad?" I asked anxiously.

"I didn't say so, did I?" said dad quizzingly.

"But you meant it, dad, you meant it, I know," cried I exultantly.

"Hurrah, I am so glad! I am so glad!"

CHAPTER FIVE.

GOOD-BYE TO GRENADA!

"Are you really so glad to leave us all?" said dad somewhat reproachfully, as I could judge from his tone of voice; for, although the stars and fireflies illumined the landscape sufficiently for us to see our way, the light was too dim for me to observe the expression of his face.

"Oh no, dad, not that," I cried out almost with a sob at such an insinuation. "You know, you said I was to go to England this year to school; and, if I must, why I would rather sail in Captain Miles' vessel than any other."

"All right, Tom, I did not think you quite so heartless as your exclamation implied," replied dad, still speaking in a sad tone; "but it's only the way of the world, my boy. Young birds are always anxious to leave the parent nest, and you are no exception, I suppose, to the rule."

I did not make any answer to this. I could not speak, for my heart was too full.

Presently we arrived at the entrance to Mount Pleasant, when Jake rushed forward and opened the gate leading into the grounds, and we proceeded up the carriage drive towards the house in silence, the moon, which was just rising over the tops of the mountains beyond, lighting up the garden on the terrace in front and making it look like a dream of fairyland. The flowers and foliage shone out in relief as if tipped with silver against the dark background of the house; while the cool evening breeze was scented with the fragrance of the frangipanni and jessamine, now smelling more strongly than in the daytime, in addition to which I could distinguish the lusciously sweet perfume of the night- blooming cereus, a plant that only unfolds its luscious petals after sunset.

The whole scene lives in my memory now!

"Say, Ma.s.s' Tom," whispered Jake to me as he took hold of Prince's bridle on my dismounting to lead him away to the stables along with Dandy. "I'se heard what you 'peak jus' now to Ma.s.s' Eastman. Um railly goin' leabe de plantashun for true, hey?"

"Yes," said I. "I am to go to England in the _Josephine_, that big ship we saw to-day, if my mother consents."

"Den, I go too!" replied Jake impressively.

"Nonsense!" cried I, laughing at this determination of his. "Captain Miles won't take you."

"Won't him, dough--me 'peak to him byme-by, an' you see den!"

"You can speak if you like," I replied in an off-hand way as he went away with the horses; while I ascended the terrace steps and proceeded into the house to hear what mother had to say on the subject of my going away.

I found, however, when I got in, that dad had already told the news; and it came out presently that the matter had really all been arranged beforehand.

My father, I heard now, had received an offer to sell his plantation, as my mother told me, but my illness had prevented him from closing with it; and so the opportunity had slipped. Consequently, as he would still have to remain at Mount Pleasant for possibly an indefinite time, he had made up his mind to adhere to his original plan and send me home to school without further delay. He and my mother had settled to arrange a pa.s.sage for me with their old friend Captain Miles even before we started on our ride to Grenville Bay, dad and the captain having seen each other in the town and spoken about the matter previously, fixing the very day of our visit, as the substantial luncheon we had on board showed.

Now, therefore, that my inclinations chimed in with dad's views and arrangements, the thing was finally settled; and it may be imagined what a state of mind my mother and sisters were in about my going. They hugged and kissed me as if I were going to start that very minute!