The White Squall Part 7

At length the parting was over, when dad calling me in a husky voice to come along, I proceeded with him down to the wharf, where the _Josephine's_ boat was lying alongside the steamboat landing-stage, waiting for me to start.

Here another farewell had to be taken of old Pompey and the negro servants who had brought my traps from the hotel; but, strange to say, I could see nothing of Jake, so I had to commission one of the others to say good-bye to him for me.

At the last moment, too, Doctor Martin came up and gave me one of his hearty hand-shakes, bidding me "always tell the truth and shame the devil," pointing out at the same time that he had sent down a lot of fresh cocoa-nuts for me that had been stowed in the ship's boat with my luggage. He thought they would "come in handy," he said, for a.s.suaging my thirst during the hot weather I might expect before getting out of the tropics. Then came the final wrench of dear old dad's last embrace and sad G.o.d-speed, after which the boat shoved off from the sh.o.r.e, bearing me, almost heart-broken, with all my belongings out to the _Josephine_, which anch.o.r.ed at the mouth of the harbour with her blue peter flying, her sails loosed, and every sign of departure.

"Cheer up, my sonny!" said Moggridge, my old friend the boatswain, as I sat in the stern of the boat with my face buried in my hands, for I had not the courage to look back at those I was leaving; "I thought you were a reg'lar chip of the old block, and your father told you mind, sir, to be a man."

These words put me on my mettle, so I picked up a bit and waved my handkerchief to dad, whom I could see standing still gazing after me; and, when the boat got alongside the vessel, I clambered up the side- ladder instead of allowing myself to be hoisted in as before.

"That's your sort," said Moggridge, who followed me up closely, in order that he might catch me should I tumble back. He also helped me into the entry port and on to the deck of the _Josephine_, where I found Captain Miles waiting to receive me.

"Ha, here you are at last, youngster!" he cried out in welcome. "I thought you were never coming out, and that we would have to start without you. Wind and tide, you know, wait for neither man or boy!

Hoist in his traps, boatswain," he added to Moggridge, "and be as sharp as you can about it too, for the breeze is just beginning to come off the land."

I may here mention a meteorological fact that Captain Miles subsequently explained to me. He said that this regular alternation of the sea and land breeze in warm lat.i.tudes, as in the tropics generally, when the wind blows for so many hours in the day on and off-sh.o.r.e, is owing to the different powers for the radiation and absorption of heat possessed by land and water, so that when the day temperature is highest on the land the alternating breezes will be stronger, and _vice versa_. During the day, to ill.u.s.trate this fact, the radiation of the sun's heat on the land causes the air to expand and so rise from the surface, which, creating a vacuum, the air from the sea rushes in to fill the void. At night this process is reversed, for, while the surface of the soil will frequently show in the West Indies during the daytime a temperature of a hundred and twenty degrees and more under the meridian sun, the thermometer will sink down in the evening to fifty or sixty degrees; whereas, the sea, being a bad radiator and its temperature rarely exceeding eighty degrees, even at the hottest period of the day, it is alternately colder and warmer than the land, and the direction of the wind accordingly oscillates between the two. The minimum temperature being at a little before sunrise in the early morning and the maximum somewhere about two o'clock in the afternoon, the change of these breezes usually occurs at some little time after these hours, the one lulling and the other setting in in due rotation--that is, of course, near the coast, for out in the open sea their effect is not so apparent.

In August, which is one of the "hurricane months" of the tropics, when the _Josephine_ left Grenada on her voyage to England, the winds are more variable, blowing at odd and uncertain times; so, there was every reason for Captain Miles' taking advantage of the first cat's-paw of air off the land now, as otherwise, perhaps, he might not have been able to make an offing before morning, when he would lose the advantage of the current amongst the islands towards Saint Vincent, where he had to call in for some puncheons of rum and coffee to complete his cargo.

Under the direction of Moggridge, the crew made short work of hoisting in my traps and innumerable boxes, including the cocoa-nuts Doctor Martin had sent down for me, all of which Captain Miles ordered to be taken into the cabin he allotted to me on the starboard side of the ship near his own; and then, the boat itself was hauled on board by the derrick amidships which had been used for getting in the cargo, there being no davits at the side as in a man-of-war.

After seeing this operation satisfactorily accomplished, I went up the p.o.o.p-ladder and walked aft to the side of Captain Miles, who was now busy about getting the vessel under weigh.

"Hands up anchor!" he roared out with a stentorian shout, and immediately there was a bustle forward of the men with much thumping of their feet on the planks and a clanking of the chain as the windla.s.s went round under their st.u.r.dy hands. Mr Marline, the first mate, I noticed, had charge of the crew engaged in heaving, while Moggridge went on the forecastle to see that everything was clear for catting and fishing the anchor as soon as it was run up out of the water and the stock showed itself above the bows.

"Clink, clank! clink, clank!" came the measured rattle as the slack of the cable was wound round the windla.s.s and carried along the deck to the chain locker; and then, after another spell of hard heaving, Moggridge sang out, "Swings clear, sir!"

"All right," responded Captain Miles, jumping up on a hen-coop by the taffrail so as to make his voice go further, as well as to command a clear view of all that was going on, "Hands, make sail!"

On hearing this order those of the crew who were not engaged at the windla.s.s swarmed up the rigging and threw off the gaskets of the foresail and mainsail, while a couple of hands ran out on the bowsprit and unloosed the lashings of the jib, the topsails having been dropped before I came on board.

"Man the topsail halliards!" then sang out the captain, and with a cheery cry the yards were run up with a will and the halliards then belayed.

"Sheet home!" was the next command, whereupon the sails were stretched out to their full extent, swelling out before the off-sh.o.r.e wind; and one of the men, by the captain's orders, now going to the helm, a few turns of the spokes brought the vessel's head round.

"Now, look alive there forward and heave up the anchor!" shouted Captain Miles.

In another minute the stock of the kedge showed above the bows, when the catfalls being stretched along the deck, and laid hold of by Moggridge, the rest of the crew tacking on after him, the flukes were run up to the cat-head to a rhythmical chorus in which all hands joined, the men pulling with a will as they yelled out the refrain--

"Yankee John, storm along! Hooray, hooray, my hearties! Pull away, heave away, Hooray, hooray, my hearties! Going to leave Grenada!"

The clew-garnet blocks now rattled as the main-sheet was hauled aft, when, the broad sail filling, the _Josephine_ paid off before the wind; and shortly afterwards she was making her way to leeward towards Saint Vincent, pa.s.sing almost within a stone's throw of Fort Saint George, as she cleared the northern point of the harbour and got out to sea.

The jib and flying-jib were now hoisted as well as the topgallant-sails and spanker, to get as much of the breeze as we could while it lasted, so that the vessel began to make fair progress through the water; and the hands under the superintendence of the two mates were then set to work coiling down ropes and getting in the slack of the sheets as well as making things ship-shape amidships, where the deck was still littered with a good deal of cargo that had not yet been properly stowed.

I was all this time standing by the side of Captain Miles on the p.o.o.p, alternately looking at the men jumping about the rigging like monkeys and at the fast-receding sh.o.r.e, which, as soon as the sun set, became dimmer and dimmer in the distance, until it was at length finally shut out from my gaze by a wall of mist.

"Fo'c's'le ahoy, there!" sang out Captain Miles presently, when it began to grow dusk.

"Aye, aye, sir!" responded the voice of Moggridge, the boatswain, from forward.

"Keep a good look out, my man, ahead, or we may be running down some of those coasting craft inward bound."

"Aye, aye, sir, I'm on the watch myself," sang out Moggridge; but hardly had he given this answer than, all at once, he cried out suddenly in a louder tone, "Hard a-port, hard a-port! There's something standing across our bows."

The man at the wheel immediately put the helm up, letting the head of the vessel fall off from the wind; but, at the same instant, there came a sudden crash ahead, followed by a loud yell.

"Gracious heavens!" cried out Captain Miles, rushing forwards to the forecastle, where several of the hands had also hurried on hearing the cry of the boatswain--I going after the captain in my turn to see what was the matter, dreading some fearful disaster.

There were several short and quick exclamations, amidst which I saw, in the dim light, Moggridge in the act of heaving a rope overboard towards some dark object in the water.

"Hooray, he's got it and has clutched hold!" I then heard somebody say.

"The line has fallen just over his shoulders, and he has got the bight of it."

"Haul him in gently!" cried the captain. "Pull easy--so!"

Next I saw a couple of the seamen bending over the side, and in another moment they helped a dripping figure to scramble on to the deck; when, as I pressed nearer to see who the rescued person was, I heard a well- known voice exclaim, in tones of earnest thankfulness and joy:

"Bress de Lor', I'se safe!"

It was Jake, the very last person in the world, most certainly, whom I could have expected to meet on board the _Josephine_, if I had guessed a hundred times!

CHAPTER SIX.

THE CAPTAIN'S COW.

"Why, Jake!" I cried out. "How have you contrived to come here?"

"Am dat you, Ma.s.s' Tom?" he answered catching sight of me behind the captain. "Golly, I tole you so; I'se tole you I come 'board ship wid you somehow or nudder. Who 'peak de trute now, hey? golly, yah, yah, I'se so berry glad!" and the poor faithful fellow commencing with one of his hearty African laughs ended in his voice breaking into a sob of joy that evidently came from the bottom of his heart.

From hearing his words Captain Miles immediately began to "smell a rat,"

as the saying goes.

"You impudent black rascal!" he said, half in joke, pretending to be angry, and yet partly in earnest. "What the d.i.c.kens do you mean by shipping yourself aboard my vessel in this fashion without leave or license?"

"I'se come for to go wid Ma.s.s' Tom," answered Jake meekly.

"But how did you get off from the sh.o.r.e and overhaul the ship?"

continued Captain Miles, pursuing his inquiries, the hands around meanwhile commencing to nudge one another and exchange grins as the colloquy waxed warm between the two princ.i.p.al performers.

"I tell you for true, ma.s.sa, beliebe me," said Jake earnestly. "Dis forenoon wen I see Ma.s.s' Tom agwine I'se go down to de warf an' dere I see um lilly boat lyin' widout n.o.body a-mindin' it; so I'se jump in and row out ob de harbor an' git roun' by de ole fort till I see de ship make sail. Den I'se pull, an' pull, an' pull, like de debbel, to come up wid you, an' I tinks I nebber reach de bessel, wen, jus' as I'se git 'longside an' cotch you up, de ship gib one big lurch an' squash in de boat, wen I'se trown in water an' you fish um out; dere, ma.s.sa, dat's de trute, s'help me!"

"Lucky for you you didn't go squash, too," observed the captain grimly.

"But, was there no one else with you?"

"No, ma.s.sa, only me," replied Jake.

"Thank G.o.d for that!" said Captain Miles fervently. "I was afraid I had run down one of those fishing sloops from Cariacou, and that all hands were drowned but you. Whose boat was it?"