Part 11

“’Tis a pius drink, s’help me, ’tis a pius drink,” he muttered. “Yes, a truly moral beverage, as they would say in the islands; but there’s no use thinking a dog of a mate will get any pleasure in these days of thieving ship-masters.” He walked fore and aft in no pleasant frame of mind, glancing at each turn at the distant loom of the land on the weather-beam.

“How d’ye head?” he bawled to the man at the wheel, in total disregard for the skipper and sleeping passengers.

“Sought b’ west a quarter west, sir,” answered the helmsman.

“Well, what in the name of the great eternal Davy Jones are you running the ship off like that for?”

“She’s touchin’ now, sir, an’ goin’ off all the time.”

“Going to----” but before he could finish the maintop-gallant-sail came aback against the mast.

“For’ard there! clew down the maint’gallant-sail!” he roared, ad he looked sharply to windward, where the giant Cape Horn sea came rolling down through the deepening haze.

“Maint’gallant-sail!” echoed the cry forward, as the men sang out and jumped for the halyards, while some of the watch sprang into the ratlines and made their way aloft.

“Come, bear a hand there! Get that sail rolled up and lay aft to the mizzen-top-sail.”

The vessel was driving along at a comfortable rate in spite of the heavy sea, and it looked as though she might give the grim Cape the slip and go scudding away on the other side of the world. A few hours running to the westward with the wind holding and she would go clear. But the giant sea began rolling down from the northwest, growing heavier, so by the time the maintop-gallant-sail was rolled up and eight bells struck it had the true Cape Horn heave to it.

Mr. Gantline came on deck to relieve the mate, and he soon had the ship dressed down to her lower topsails. It was not blowing more than an ordinary gale, but the tremendous sea made it dangerous to force the vessel ahead, so she drifted and sagged off to leeward. The “sea-calmer” was rigged forward, and soon the water to windward had an oily look, while the wind, catching up the tops of the combers, hurled a spray down upon the ship that made shroud and backstay, downhaul, and clew-line smell strong of fish-oil, as they cut the wind like bow-strings and hummed in unison until the volume of sound swelled into a deep booming roar.

“Let her come up all she will!” bawled Garnett into Gantline’s ear, as he started to go below. “If she sags off any more you better call the old man, for it looks bad. By the way, Gantline, where’s that bottle of alcohol the old man gave you for varnishing the wheel? I’ve got one of his porous plasters on my chest, and the blooming thing has glued itself to every hair on my body, and I can’t get it adrift.”

“It’s in the right-hand corner of the boson’s locker,” said the mate, with a grin. “But go easy, Garnett. The old man put a spoonful of tartar-emetic into the stuff, ‘for,’ says he, ‘tartar-emetic makes the varnish have a more enduring effect against the weather.’”

“Sink him for a scoundrel!” growled Garnett, his little eyes flashing and beard bristling with rage. “It’s always something he’s doing to make bad feeling aboard ship. Why should he suspect a man of drinking raw spirit, hey?”

“Why, indeed,” said Gantline.

And Garnett went below muttering a string of fierce oaths.

At six o’clock the gale had increased, and the noise of the bawling men struggling with the fore-and mizzentop-sails awakened the skipper, who, fearing all was not well, hastily made his toilet again and appeared at the head of the companion-way.

“How is it now?” he asked of Gantline, who stood near the wheel.

“Gone off two points, and there’s an almighty sea running. I’m shortening her down fast. Whew!”

As he spoke a great hill of water full forty feet high rolled down on the weather-beam. The ship headed it a couple of points and sank slowly into the slanting trough. Then she began to rise to it. The combing crest struck her forward of the main-rigging, and with a roar like Niagara crashed over the top-gallant-rail. It hove her down on her bearings and filled the main-deck waist-deep, while the shock made the skipper and Gantline clutch for support. The next instant Green sprang on to the poop.

“All hands there!” he bawled. “Get that fore-top-sail on the yard!”

Garnett came struggling on deck, muttering something about being afloat in a diving-bell, and was almost washed off his feet by the roaring flood in the waist. In a few moments he was on the foreyard bellowing out orders to the men stowing the topsail.

The uproar and cries of the men startled the two passengers, Dr. Davis and his wife, who had undertaken the passage at a physician’s advice. The physician, knowing nothing at all about the sea, had unhesitatingly recommended a sea-voyage for the Reverend Dr. Davis as a certain cure for the nervous ailment from which that gentleman suffered. The strain at being face to face with death so often was doing wonders for the minister, and he in turn was doing what he could for the crew. All except Mr. Garnett had profited much by his presence on board, but the mate stubbornly held out against any form of religion.

“Keep the main on her as long as it will hold!” bawled Green. “It looks as if we will catch it sure.” Then, catching a glimpse of Dr. Davis’s face at the companion-way, he added, “I’ll be hanged if I ever overload a ship again and run such risk.”

The minister stepped out on deck.

“Good-morning, doctor; we are having a touch of the Cape this morning,” cried the skipper.

“So it seems; is the Cape in sight?”

“No; but I guess you’ll see it again before we get clear.”

“Mr. Garnett said he thought we would make some northing to-day. He does not believe in so much easterly variation, but says it is the drift that makes it appear so. It seems to me an easy thing to decide.”

“Garnett be hanged!” snorted Green in disgust “He will get into trouble some day with his fool’s ideas. Hello! there goes the steward with the hash,” and the skipper dived below, where he was followed by his passenger.

Garnett appeared at the table, but Mrs. Davis kept her bunk, as the plunging ship made it difficult to eat with comfort. No one spoke during the meal, as the crashing noise from the straining bulkheads drowned all sounds save the roar of the elements on deck.

Garnett stopped in the alley-way to light his pipe and get a few whiffs before relieving Gantline. Then he made his way to the poop and stood close to the mizzen, trying to get shelter from the wind and spray, while Gantline went below.

Dr. Davis came on deck and found the second officer trying to smoke, so he joined him.

“It’s harder to be mate with a man like Green than anything I’ve tackled,” said he. “I’ve been to a few places and seen a few men in my day, but most of them would reason things out. There’s no reason in him.”

“What’s the matter?” asked Dr. Davis.

“It’s all about variation now. He’s always trying to work off new-fangled notions on me. When I first began coming around this way the drift was good enough to figure by.”

“But hasn’t it been proved?”

“Proved nothing. How’s a man going to prove he’s steering north when he’s heading nor’west in a three-knot drift with nothing to get a bearing on? I’ll allow there’s some variation in a compass, but nothing like that. Besides, he does other unreasonable things. There’s no reason in him.”

“Well, I suppose it is hard to get along with unreasonable people,” said the minister; “but there are some things we know are true without being able to reason about them. For instance----”

“No, sir,” interrupted Garnett. “There ain’t anything we know about anything unless we can reason it out. You have your ideas and I have mine; that’s all there is to it.”

“Fore-staysail!” bawled the skipper from the wheel, and that piece of canvas was run up, quickly followed by the trysail on the spanker-boom. Dr. Davis, left alone, started aft. He went safely along until he reached the middle of the poop, when a heavy sea struck the vessel and made her heel quickly to leeward. The minister tried to seize the rail, but missed it, and the next instant fell headlong into the seething water alongside.

Garnett was not ten feet distant working at the trysail, and without a moment’s hesitation he seized a downhaul and plunged overboard with the line about him.

The passenger arose with a look of peaceful resignation on his face which contrasted strongly with the old mate’s fierce expression of determination. As the vessel was making no headway against the sea it was less difficult than it appeared to seize the drowning man and give the signal to haul away.

In another minute Garnett was on deck again with Dr. Davis, neither of them much the worse for their bath. The cold, however, made it necessary for them to change their clothes.

The gale held on all day, but nothing unusual occurred. At eight bells that evening Dr. Davis had recovered sufficiently to again venture on deck. It was Gantline’s dog-watch, but as there was as much light as there had been during the day, Dr. Davis kept him company.

“Mr. Garnett is a very hard man to convince when he has once set his mind against a thing,” said the minister. “There’s no way of showing him he is wrong when he has made a mistake.”

“That’s true enough, especially if you try to rough him. He’s mad to-day because the skipper found fault with his swearing at the men.”

“He does swear most horribly,” said Dr. Davis.

“It’s nothing to what he used to. He don’t realize he does it at all now.”

“How do you mean?”

“Why, he used to be a most blasphemous old cuss. One day he went ashore at Tinian, and the missionary there asked him to dinner. When he asked Garnett what he would have he sung out, ‘Gimme a bowl of blood, ye tough old ram of the Lord,’ just to shock the good man. The missionary rose and ordered him out of the house, but Garnett wouldn’t go, so he struck him over the head with a dish of fried plantains, he was that mad. Garnett was two days getting over the stroke, for he had been stove down before by a handspike in the hands of a drunken sailor. He always thought the good man had called a curse down upon him, and since then he’s been slow at figures.”

“I see,” said Dr. Davis.

“Yes, it’s a fact, you’ve got to show a thing pretty plain to Garnett before he believes it. As to that missionary, he wasn’t overbright at converting savages.”

“What do you mean? That he wasn’t strong enough physically?”

“No, no, love ye, no; that missionary could take care of himself and not half try. What I mean is downright religious and Christian argument. There was one chief he never could convert. The fellow had an idol, the most uncanny thing I ever saw; sort of half bird, half beast, part fish, and having a strain of dragon. He used to pray to the thing, although he could speak English well enough and had seen plenty of white men. The missionary told him it was wrong to worship anything in an image of things in the heavens above, the earth beneath, or waters under the earth, and the chief took it all kindly. The good man finally gave him up, but the chief never could tell why. Once he offered to bet the missionary two wives against a bottle of rum that there wasn’t anything in the heavens above or earth beneath that resembled the strange thing in any way; and as the good man couldn’t prove it, the matter ended.”

The gale increased as the night wore on, and the vessel lay to on the port tack and drifted off with her head pointing northwest by north, but she was to the westward of the Ramirez. It was Garnett’s watch and the skipper was below. The ship was driving off to leeward, and the skipper determined to wear ship and stand to the southward again if she was headed off any farther. Garnett had orders to report any change which might take place.

The old mate had a chart in his room with the variation marked on it above the fiftieth parallel, some ten degrees less than where he now was. But even this variation appeared excessive to him, and, as the skipper told him to report if the vessel’s head fell off to the eastward of north, he held on. Figuring on a two-knot drift, he would not be in the vicinity of the rocks during his watch even if she headed as far as north by west, for at noon she had made a good westing.

The ship’s head was to the eastward at four bells, but, as there was really over twenty degrees’ variation, Garnett held on and made sail whenever he could. Long before his watch was out the vessel had been making little leeway and reaching heavily along under lower topsails. At seven bells the wind hauled again to the southward and came harder than ever, carrying the foretop-sail out of the bolt-ropes.

The noise of bawling men brought the skipper on deck, and he had the mizzentop-sail rolled up and the fore-staysail ready for waring ship. While he stood on the poop he looked to leeward. The mist seemed to break into rifts in the dull light of the early morning, and through one he saw an object that made him catch his breath. In an instant the flying spume closed in again and all was blank.

Garnett came aft, and, although it was cold, he took off his sou’wester and mopped the top of his bald head as he glanced at the skipper. The old man stood petrified gazing into the blank to leeward. Then he turned on the mate with a savage glare in his eye. “Get all hands on that fore-staysail, quick!” he roared, and Garnett went plunging forward, the skipper’s voice following him and rising almost to a shriek,--“Loose the jib and foresail!” Then turning, he dashed for the wheel and rolled it hard up. Back again on the poop he roared to Gantline, who came plunging out on the main-deck to loose the foretop-sail.

The men started to obey orders and sprang to the halyards and braces, looking over their shoulders to leeward at each roll of the ship to find out the cause of the excitement.

Suddenly the flying spume broke again, and there, dead under the lee, lay the outer rocks of the Ramirez not a mile distant. Then some of the crew became panic-stricken, and it was all the mates could do to keep them in hand.

“There’s no land there!” roared Garnett “H’ist away the fore-staysail.”

Then the ship’s head paid off, while the staysail tore to ribbons under the pressure. The topsail was loosened, and it thundered away to bits, almost taking the topmast with it. The jib followed suit, but together they lasted long enough to get her head off before the wind. Then Garnett, casting off the weather-clew of the reefed foresail, hauled it down far enough to keep the wind under it, and away they went. In a few moments her head swung to on the starboard tack, and as they hauled the wind a deep thunderous sound rose above the gale. The trusty maintop-sail was trimmed hard on the backstays, and all hands waited with eyes straining to leeward.

“Will she go clear?” asked Dr. Davis, calmly, as he stood by the skipper’s side on the poop. But Green’s teeth were shut tight, and the muscles of his straining face were as taut as the clews of the storm-topsail. Nearer and nearer sounded that dull, booming thunder, and now, right under her lee, they could see the great white rush of those high-rolling seas that tore over the ledges and crashed into a world of smother that hid everything beyond in a thick haze.

“She’ll go clear,” said Garnett, and he took out his handkerchief and mopped the dent in his bald head.

“But it’s a d--d close shave,” answered Gantline.

As he spoke a great rolling sea rose on the weather-quarter, lifting full forty feet from trough to crest as it began its shoreward rush. On and on it rolled in majestic grandeur, a gigantic, white-topped mass, until it vanished into the thick haze of flying spray, but still bearing more and more to the northward. They went clear.

Dr. Davis was not present at a little conversation held between Mr. Garnett and the skipper some minutes later, but during the mate’s next watch on deck he found a chance to speak to him. He saw him standing under the mizzen watching the main-top-sail, and he crowded close into the mast, wiping his spectacles.

“Well, what do you think of it now?” he asked.

“Nothing,” growled Garnett, “except I made a mistake; and if I’d held on ten minutes there’d have been thirty more men gone to a lower latitude, that’s all.”

“But think of the responsibility. How would you have felt with the lives of thirty men on your conscience? Don’t you see, we have to accept some truths without stopping to reason them out. There may be no reason for that variation, but you see it exists, after all. It is the same way in regard to the duty we owe our Maker, and I am afraid you will acknowledge it only after you have ‘held on too long,’ as you admit in this case. As for a man going to a lower latitude, as you call it, there is no such place. A man’s hell is his own conscience.”

Garnett remained silent for some minutes watching the clews of the maintop-sail, and appeared to be absorbed in deep thought.

“Maybe you’re right about there not being any hell below, and maybe you’re not,” he finally said. “I hope you are right; but I’ve had some experience in my day, and had all kinds of luck, both good and bad. It don’t seem probable I’d strike it as rich as that. No, sir, it ain’t probable; though, of course, it’s possible.”

And Dr. Davis left him standing there with a strange, hopeful gleam in his eyes.

_TO CLIPPERTON REEF_

This rather singular expedition left San Francisco under the direct charge of Professor Frisbow, of the West Coast Museum. While an entirely private affair, its object was to secure specimens of several of the almost extinct species of pelagic fish.

The vessel used for the purpose was a small sealing schooner of about seventy-five tons, and the crew, including the captain and mate, consisted of five able-bodied men. The rest of the party were the professor and myself.

As we were both good sailors, the size of our vessel did not inconvenience us, so that, after fitting up two state-rooms in the cabin, we found, although a little crowded, we were as snug “as weevils in a biscuit”

The wind was blowing almost a gale when we towed out between the heads of the bay, and as it came from the northwest, a stout pea-coat was far from uncomfortable while walking the narrow limits of the quarter-deck.

The setting sun shone red on the rolling hill-side of North Head, where herds of cattle cropped the short grass of the highlands. In the clear atmosphere small objects were visible with strange distinctness. To the southward the jets of spray shooting skyward told plainly of the heavy sea that fell upon the Seal Rocks. Our skipper shook out the double reef he had in the mainsail and determined to drive his vessel off shore as far as possible while the fair wind held.

It was nearly dark before the tug gave a short whistle for the men forward to cast off the tow-line, and as the last light on the western horizon faded into shadow the head-sheets were flattened and we stood away to the southwest.

Clipperton Isle or Reef lies 10° 17´ north latitude and 109° 10´ west longitude. The distance on a straight course being but little over fifteen hundred miles from our starting-point, but as the northeast trade is very light and unsteady along the coast of the continent, we deemed it wiser to take the regular sailing route to the southward and make our easting afterwards.

The first twenty-four hours out were uncomfortable enough, as the heavy sea caught us fair on the starboard beam and made the stanch little vessel roll horribly. Gradually, however, the wind hauled more to the northward and we made better weather of it. Our Bliss log registered two hundred and fifty-four miles for the first day’s run, and on the fourth day out we picked up the trade in 26° north latitude and headed away due south.

Our reason for selecting this almost unknown spot for our field of operations was owing, principally, to the reports of the captains of two whaling ships who had been consulted in regard to our object, and also, I fear, to the keen desire of my companion, the professor, to explore this curious island.

Fish of several varieties which we desired to procure abounded along the southern coast of California, and the California Gulf swarmed with almost every species of shark except the one we wished for. We had finally decided, however, to stick to deep water, and had procured the schooner for a small amount and the services of Captain Brown, an old whaleman, who had been in the vicinity of the island on several voyages.

During the first week out we had an opportunity to get acquainted with our skipper, who with his mate occupied the starboard side of the after-cabin.

Old Captain Brown was a typical whaling skipper and as crusty an old sailor as one could wish to sail with. He had acquired the true sailor habit of finding fault with everything, and divided his time between making sarcastic personal remarks to the mate and cursing the men.

As for Garnett, the mate, I had sailed before in his company and knew him thoroughly. He had been nearly everything that was bad, and had been in every part of the world. He was fifty-five and over, but he was one of the roughest and toughest specimens of humanity, both morally and physically, I had ever seen. His hairy chest bore a mark where a bullet had passed through, the calf of his right leg was twisted where a bayonet had penetrated, for he had been a soldier, and the index-finger of his left hand was missing. Besides these trifles he had a large dent, nearly half an inch deep, on the top of his bald head, where a sailor had “stove him down” with a handspike. This was the only injury he had received that had ever given him much trouble, and sometimes the pain in his head affected his eyesight.

In spite of his ugly record and many drawbacks I knew him to be the best sailor that ever handled canvas and worth a whole ship’s company in an emergency. Therefore we let the skipper rate him, and while he confined himself to sarcasm and insolence I believed Garnett would not turn rusty.

It was not long before Captain Brown found out the mate’s defect in vision, and at about the same time he was convinced that he was also the greatest liar afloat. After this he used to amuse us by calling out “Ship ahoy!” and gazing steadfastly at a part of the blank horizon. Then, if Garnett was near, he would discuss the ship in detail, and the mate would swear positively, with great emphasis, “My God! but that’s the old Moose,” or some other vessel he had sailed in; and then the skipper would suddenly break off and begin to walk fore and aft with rapid and excited strides. When he would reach the vicinity of Garnett he would look up at the main-top-sail and wish to know, in a loud voice, why in the name of Ananias all the liars were not struck dead. Then he would storm and swear at all people who ever told the truth, and thank heaven he never told the truth when he could possibly help it; all of which noise had about as much effect on Garnett as if he had been pouring water gently into the dent in his oily bald head.

“Aren’t you afraid to curse and call on the Lord so often?” I asked, during one of his fits.

“’Fraid o’ nothin’. Do you suppose the Lord minds my cursing at such a fellow as Garnett? What difference does it make, anyhow? The Lord never yet answered either prayer or curse of mine.”

“Yes,” I replied, “but Garnett might, and then----”

“He might, might he? Now, by all thunder, I guess not. He might as well git it through his head that if there’s any swearing to be done I’ll do it. Yes, sir, I’ll do it, s’help me----” And here he broke off into a string of such expressive profanity, relating to gods, devils, and men, that Frisbow came up from below to listen.