CHAPTER II.

It was a fine evening. The full moon had risen out of the ocean in matchless splendor, and was rapidly changing its blood-red hues for more silvery tints, as it soared into the cloudless sky.

The captain and passengers were on the quarter-deck, while Mr. Freeman hung over the rail with the comfortable assurance that the bark was making a better run in the second dog-watch than she had in the first, when the mate had been in charge.

“I told you, Miss Blake, I should get a good breeze in my watch, and you see I’m as good as my word.”

“So I perceive; and now that you have it, see that it doesn’t fail us before morning. Otherwise I shall think your fine breeze all the result of luck. How pleasant it is to hear the water gurgling around the ship.”

[Picture: “The full moon had risen in matchless splendor”]

Eight bells struck, and the dog-watch was over. The wheel and lookout were relieved, and Freeman went below, while Carl Bohlman came on duty to stand the first watch, which lasted until midnight.

“What are you thinking of, Aunt? For ten minutes you have not spoken a word.”

“The beauty of the night has cast a spell over me, Laura, and I was thinking of a favorite poem of mine. I never realized the significance of the first stanza more than on this evening, when we are out on the great ocean with every object bathed in white light.

“‘The dews of summer night did fall, The moon, sweet regent of the sky, Silvered the walls of Cumnor Hall, And many an oak that grew thereby.’”

“Excellent, my dear madam,” said Captain Maxwell. “You have a fine poetic instinct.”

“The oaks that grew around Amy Robsart’s luxurious prison are replaced here by the bark’s masts and sails, captain, but the effect is not less beautiful.”

“A fine conception, Mrs. Evans, but we must remember that it is not summer in these latitudes, even though the dew is gathering, and you may take cold sitting there. Will you take my arm?”

“With pleasure, captain.”

They had paced the deck for some minutes, and the widow was relating some story that seemed greatly to amuse the captain, when the latter stopped suddenly, dropped on one knee, and stared at one of the deadlights’ near his feet.

“Good heavens! How you startled me, captain. Robinson Crusoe couldn’t have been more astonished when he saw the footprint in the sand, than you seem to be. What is it?”

“Worse than a footprint, Mrs. Evans. The moonlight prevented our noticing it sooner. Stand here—where your shadow falls on this deadlight. {132} Now what do you see?”

“A light reflected from below. Oh, Laura, the lazarette is on fire!”

Captain Maxwell was already disappearing through the hatchway, while the mate and Miss Blake ran up at the widow’s exclamation. Even the silent figure at the wheel started at the mention of the word fire.

It was but a moment before the master of the bark reappeared, bearing a lighted lantern in one hand.

“The cause for alarm is removed, ladies,” he said quietly. “There is no fire in the lazarette, though nothing short of a miracle prevented it. This lantern was standing on the floor beneath the deadlight and caused the reflection to appear. Mr. Bohlman, have you any idea how it came there?”

He spoke with apparent calmness, which Miss Blake readily saw was more feigned than real.

The mate hesitated a moment before answering: “Dick must have left it there, sir.”

“_Dick must have left it there_! So that bright boy of yours has been in the lazarette again without permission? If I don’t have him triced up to the spanker-boom in irons early to-morrow morning, my name’s not John Maxwell.”

“He was in the lazarette, sir, but not without permission. I sent him there just before supper to bring up a coil of old rope that was to be ravelled out. He wasn’t there ten minutes.”

Both ladies glanced at the mate in surprise at these words, and Captain Maxwell looked at his chief officer in a way that was anything but complimentary to the latter. The captain had a temper of his own, which was under excellent control, but he found it necessary to cross the quarter-deck twice before trusting himself to speak.

“After that occasion a week ago, when this boy was discovered in the lazarette doing God knows what, I should have thought your own judgment would have prevented your sending him there again. There are plenty of men in your watch, and if none of them knew where this old rope was, you should have gone yourself, rather than let that fool of a boy take a light into such a place.”

Bohlman smarted under this speech, though he maintained a discreet silence, knowing it would be useless to attempt to justify himself in the captain’s present humor. Inwardly, however, he cursed Dick Lewis for having forgotten the lantern, and thus bringing his superior’s censure upon himself.

Orders were given for Dick to come aft, and the youth shortly appeared on the quarter-deck for the second time that day in the role of culprit. He quailed before the captain’s glance, and nervously shifted his old felt hat from one hand to the other.

“Do you know why you have been sent for?”

Dick pointed to the accusing lantern, and said in a frightened tone: “Yes, sir. I—I remember now I forgot to bring up the lantern when—when I fetched the rope.”

This was a lie. He had turned the wick low and then left it in the lazarette purposely, knowing well that no one would enter the place after the day’s work was done. But for the accidental circumstance of its having been placed too near one of the deadlights, the presence of the lantern would never have been suspected.

“Do you know what I ought to do with you?”

The captain’s tones were so stern that Dick was hardly able to articulate “No, sir.”

“I ought to take a rope’s end and beat you within an inch of your life. That’s what any captain would have done twenty years ago, and what some would do now. You left this light down there among bales of oakum, sennit, old sails, rockets, signal-lights, and other inflammable stuff, and if there had been enough sea running to heel the bark over a trifle more, the lantern would have upset, setting the whole place on fire—and we out in the South Atlantic, a good week’s sail from the nearest port!”

The captain’s passion mastered him, and he shook Dick until the boy’s teeth chattered. Suddenly releasing him, he turned to Mrs. Evans and her niece.

“I ought to apologize, ladies, for this outburst; but I lost one ship by fire years ago, and this boy has tried me beyond endurance.”

“I do not blame you in the least, captain,” said the alarmed widow; “I feel sure my husband would have inflicted a severe punishment for such an offense. It is as bad as Guy Fawkes and the gunpowder plot.”

“You see, madam, we officers have to put up with a good deal from sailors now-a-days,” said Captain Maxwell, sarcastically. “If I punished that boy as he deserved, he would have me arrested the moment we reached port. Then, aided by some unscrupulous lawyer and the testimony of various members of the crew, I should be convicted of ‘cruel and unusual punishment,’ and fined heavily, or imprisoned. The evidence of yourself and niece might clear me in this case, but all the papers would print articles about the barbarity of captains and mates in general, and the lot of the poor, abused merchant-sailor,—forgetting to mention the fact that a vessel, her cargo, and all hands, had narrowly escaped a terrible disaster at the hands of one of these persecuted saints!

“Dick, you were warned a week ago that if you entered the lazarette again without permission you would be put in irons. But it seems you had permission,” with a glance at the mate,—“and so we shall have to let you off easier. Go up on the fore royal yard and sit there until the watch ends at midnight.”

Dick was unable to repress a sigh of relief as he turned away, but his sharp ears heard Captain Maxwell say to the mate: “As soon as it is light enough to-morrow morning to see objects in the lazarette without a lantern, bring up that canister of powder and those four boxes of rockets and signal-lights. They shall be kept in a locker in the cabin during the rest of the voyage. Another thing—never again let that boy go anywhere with a light.”

“Yes, sir.”

The cause of this trouble went forward, muttering to himself: “Powder! the captain said powder! I might have found it to-night if they hadn’t caught onto the lantern. How did they know it was there, I wonder?”

He climbed the fore rigging, unmindful of the taunts of the crew at his second punishment that day, and the captain’s words kept ringing in his ears.

“To-morrow morning they’ll all be put where I can’t get at ’em,” he muttered, “and if only they hadn’t found the lantern, I could have got away with some of them rockets to-night. And the powder! I can’t do nothing without a lantern, though, and I ain’t even got a match.”

He perched himself upon the royal yard, with a lunatic’s cunning, inventing various schemes for getting at those fire-works. That was his mania. Although as sane as anyone on other subjects, he was an absolute monomaniac in everything relating to such matters; and since the day when he had overheard a remark relating to the signal-lights and rockets, his fingers had itched to investigate them and see what they were like. Not even the certainty of punishment could stand in his way.

Some people, when they ascend to the roof of a high building, have an almost irresistable desire to leap from it. It is not that they wish to do so, but some strange power seems urging them to it in spite of themselves. Others have a similar feeling when in close proximity to a swiftly-moving railroad train, and require all their will power to keep from casting themselves before the locomotive. So it was with Dick Lewis. He could no more keep his mind off the lazarette and its contents, than steel can resist the influence of a magnet. He sat there as the hours passed, looking ahead into vacancy; thinking and thinking; and imagining just how the rockets must look, as they lay side by side in their boxes down in the midnight darkness of the lazarette. How quiet and silent they were! And yet the touch of a match—

He put up a hand before his eyes and turned his head to one side, as though to ward off a blow.

* * * * *

“Aunt, we really must go below. It cannot be far from twelve o’clock, and we have staid on deck nearly two hours past the usual time.”

“That is true, Laura; and yet I feel strangely wakeful. But, as you say, it is very late, and high time that we turned in. So good night, captain, and pleasant dreams. Good night, Mr. Bohlman.”

Mrs. Evans paused as she reached the companion-way.

“How beautiful the moonlight is,” she said, so low that no one heard; “and from what an awful peril have we this night been delivered.”

She slowly followed her niece to the cabin.

Captain Maxwell did not linger long on deck after his passengers had turned in. He, too, usually retired early, and arose at daylight. But the incident of the lighted lantern disturbed him. To the master who has once experienced fire at sea, the mere possibility of another visitation conveys a dread that the worst hurricane cannot inspire. He paced the deck for some time, and then, after a glance aloft, went below.

Midnight came; and the mate was relieved by Frank Freeman, who found his superior in no very pleasant frame of mind.

“You’ve still got a fair wind,” Freeman observed; “she’s slipping through it in good shape.”

“I suppose you expected to come on deck and find a dead calm, with me and my watch ahead in the long-boat, towing the bark.”

Bohlman left the quarter-deck with this good-natured rejoinder, while the second mate smothered a laugh as he lit his pipe.

Dick climbed down the fore rigging with alacrity, and entered the forecastle with the rest of the port watch. His plans were matured. There was a triumphant light in the boy’s eyes, and a furtive smile on his ill-favored features as he crept into his bunk and feigned sleep.

* * * * *

A lantern swung from the dingy ceiling, casting a flickering light upon the tiers of bunks, and upon various other objects in the forecastle. There were oilers and rubber boots thrown about here and there, old books without covers, and sea-chests of various patterns. The numerous initials, names, and dates, cut into the walls indicated that the _Western Belle_ had sailed the seas for many years. On one side some one with a talent for drawing had recently executed a chalk picture of the whale swallowing Jonah, which was a marvel of realism. Near this artistic production was tacked a printed card setting forth what rules the crew were expected to obey, what compensation they were to receive, and other matters of like import.

Sea air and insomnia are deadly enemies, and before one bell struck, a chorus of snores assured Dick that his companions were asleep. He suffered a few minutes over the half hour to elapse, and then slipped noiselessly from his bunk. Gliding to the open door, he looked stealthily out. That side of the deck was thrown into shadow by the forecastle, and no one was to be seen but two of the watch on duty slowly walking up and down the main deck, as they conversed in low tones. The others were doubtless on the opposite side of the forward-house.

Dick turned from the door, waited a moment to be sure that all were asleep in the bunks around him, and then produced a towel. Next he took down the lantern from its hook overhead, and wrapped the towel about it so that the light was invisible. That done, he made for the door,—stepped out on deck,—and crept forward in the shadow of the building.

Upon reaching the corner, he stopped and listened The distant murmur of voices was heard on the opposite side of the house, but the moonlit stretch of deck ahead was untenanted. Apparently no one was about the extreme forward part of the vessel except the lookout. The boy’s unshod feet made no sound as he darted across the strip of moonlight that fell between the forward-house and the forecastle deck. Now he was standing by the open fore hatch.

In large sailing vessels that stand well out of water, it is customary to leave the fore hatch off at all times unless some very severe gale is threatened. The forecastle deck overhead prevents rain or salt water from entering, and as it is often necessary to go down to the fore peak half a dozen times a day, it would be a useless trouble to move the hatch-cover each time. This was the case with the _Western Belle_.

Dick well knew he could not enter the lazarette at the customary place without being seen by the man at the wheel and the officer on duty, and had conceived the laborious, but perfectly feasible plan, of descending through the fore hatch to the ’tween-decks, and then crawling aft over the cargo the whole length of the vessel to accomplish his purpose.

Without losing time, he placed his foot upon the first step of the flight of stairs that led down to the fore peak, and then rapidly descended. It was black as Erebus when he reached the bottom, and before taking another step he uncovered the lantern and stuffed the towel in his pocket. Cautiously walking over old sails, ropes, barrels, casks, etc., the boy was soon out of the fore peak proper, and at that part of the ’tween-decks where the cargo began to be stowed.

The foremast looming up ahead gave him quite a start, and a sort of dread possessed him at thought of the long distance to be traversed in that profound darkness. Dick had not realized until now the magnitude of the task before him, but he only wavered a second, and pushed on.

It soon became impossible to walk, and he dropped on his hands and knees, creeping along on all fours; at the same time holding the handle of the lantern between his teeth. Its rays illumined but a short space in front, though they served to make the gaunt deck-beams assume all sorts of strange and fantastic shapes that he could not help noticing. Thus he crawled along over bales of flax and tow, boxes of Kauri gum and sacks of horns; picking his way carefully, and impatiently wondering how far he had progressed. This was at length made plain, though in an unexpected manner.

In attempting to accelerate his speed, the boy had grown a little careless, when he suddenly felt his left hand go off into space, and barely saved himself from plunging headlong downward. The shock was a severe one, and he drew a deep breath of relief when he had backed away from the yawning aperture.

“Fool!” he muttered; “I clean forgot the main hatch. I like to have fell all the way down to the lower hold and broke my neck. Well, Dick, you’re half way, anyhow.”

He crawled around the square opening and proceeded. In a few minutes the way was blocked by a great object that the youth could not account for, but which was really the iron tank containing drinking water. He avoided it and continued to advance, having stopped a moment to stretch his cramped limbs. Next he came to the after hatch, but was on the lookout for it and pushed on steadily, though he began to ache all over from crawling so long. Once a startled rat scurried across his stockinged foot in its haste to escape, causing another momentary scare. Had it not been for the increasing excitement under which he labored, the boy must have been chilled, for a draft of cold air like that in a cellar swept through the ’tween-decks from one end of the bark to the other.

The mizzen mast told Dick his journey was nearing its end, and he stopped a few seconds to take breath. His heart beat so quick and fast that he felt stifled, and his limbs trembled in a way that he could not account for. But the thought of the fire-works nerved him, and cans of powder danced before his disordered imagination.

There was not much further to go, so after shoving back the hair from his damp forehead, he crept on until the peculiar formation of the vessel’s timbers proved that he was in the stern.

He looked up. Directly overhead was a small opening.

“That must be _it_!” he whispered.

There were no stairs nor any ladder, but standing erect, his head was just on a level with the aperture. First arranging the towel about the top of the lantern so that the light should not be cast upward, he reached up and set it down on the floor above. Then, panting with excitement and bathed in cold perspiration, Dick placed both hands on the edge of the hatch.

One agile spring, and he was in the lazarette.