Part 2

I was a good swimmer, and made some headway until I butted hard into a floating object I failed to see in the darkness and nearly stove in my skull. I reached wildly upward, and my hands clutched the combings of a hatchway.

Then I recovered myself and drew my tired body clear of the sea. I had a float that would keep me from sinking as long as I had strength to stay upon it.

The Yarmouth bore down on me, and I cried out. She altered her course a point or two, but did not stop, and in a moment she was gliding away into the darkness, leaving me alone on the hatchway.

I could hear the rush of the water under her bluff bows, and the cries of the men on deck calling out orders. Then she faded away into the night.

In a little while I heard a cry from the dark water near me, and soon I made out a man’s head close to the hatch. I called to him, and reached out and pulled him up on the float, for he was too weak to help himself.

He raised his face as it came close to mine, and I recognized my brother-in-law, Mr. Robinson.

He was very feeble, and I soon saw that he was badly hurt, but he said not a word and lay there on his back, quietly gazing up at the stars.

I could see his features with that look of profound thought expressed upon them as in the days we worked in the ship-yard together.

My only feeling towards him was one of awe. No idea of killing him entered my head, though I could easily have disposed of him in his present weak state, so there I sat gazing at him, and he took no more notice of me than if I was part of the floating hatchway.

In a little while I made out another dark object in the water near us, and presently a voice hailed me. I answered, and soon afterwards a piece of spar supporting three men came alongside the hatch.

They were all Robinson’s followers. Taking some of the rigging that trailed from the spar, they lashed it to the hatch, and the two pieces together made a serviceable raft.

Then all drew themselves clear of the water and lay prone on the float to rest.

It was an awful night we spent on that bit of wood washed by the waves, but when morning dawned the breeze fell away entirely, so the sea no longer broke over us.

The sun rose and shone hot on a glassy ocean, and not a sail was in sight.

There is little use in describing the four days of suffering spent on that float. Robinson was horribly burned and badly cut by a blow from a cutlass. His left arm was shattered from the shot I fired at him, and he was otherwise used up from the minor blows he had received in his fierce rush. But he lived long enough to prevent his ruffian crew from killing me. I was bound by a solemn oath to say nothing of the affair as I had seen it, so that if we were the sole survivors--which we were not certain of being at that time--there could be no evidence to implicate my shipmates.

Robinson must have known that he was fatally hurt, and that is the reason he made them spare my life. Whatever I told would not harm him; and, besides, I really think he turned to the memory of my sister during those last hours.

He died very shortly after the Yarmouth picked us up, and the British officers and men buried him with some ceremony; especially respectful were they when they were told that he was our executive officer.

There was some truth in this grim falsehood, although not of the kind suspected.

He was sewn carefully in canvas the day after we were rescued, and had a twelve-pound shot lashed to his feet. The burial service was read by the ship’s chaplain in much the same tone I had heard Robinson quote from the Scriptures in my father’s house.

All the officers uncovered as he was dropped over the side, and the silence that followed the splash of his body into the sea was the most impressive I have ever observed to fall on so large a body of men.

Had they known the truth about this villain, it is doubtful if they would have shown him so much honor and respect; but then the truth is often hard to secure, and also often undesirable when attained.

Peggy mourned her husband a year or more, but after her boy began to occupy her attention she brightened up and married Mr. Rhett, who was ever faithful to her.

I kept my oath because I took it. The three surviving ruffians had joined the British navy and no retribution could be meted out to them; and as for my sister, she always held her husband’s memory sacred, and only harm could come to her and her son through knowledge of the truth about him.

Captain Vincent of the Yarmouth may have thought it strange a frigate like the Randolph should have met such a sudden end, but it was always understood that she must have blown up from the effects of the shot from his bow-chasers. Some of these did hull her, and it was the most reasonable way to understand the matter.

Now, when all are gone, there can be no harm in telling what I know of that affair.

_TIMBER NOGGINS_

Mr. Ropesend, the senior member of the firm of Snatchblock, Tackle & Co., sat in his office and drew forth his pocket-knife. Upon the desk before him lay a small wooden box which contained a patent taffrail log. After some deliberation he opened his knife and began to pry off the lid of the box, whistling softly as he did so. In doing this he awakened a strange-looking animal which lay at his feet. But the animal, which Mr. Ropesend called a “daschund,” after raising its long body upon four twisted and double-jointed legs until its belly barely cleared the floor, appeared overcome by the effort and flopped down again with its head towards its master and its hind legs trailing out behind on the floor.

Mr. Ropesend carefully removed the lid of the box and with considerable anxiety removed the instrument. Then he laid it carefully upon the table, while Gaff, his pet, looked lazily up with one eye, and then, not caring for logs, slowly closed it again.

Presently Mr. Ropesend appeared to have developed an idea. He rang the bell. A boy appeared almost instantly at the door leading into the main office.

“Tell Mr. Tackle to step here a moment, please,” said Mr. Ropesend in a soothing tone.

The boy vanished, and in a few minutes a man with red whiskers trimmed “dishonestly”--with bare chin--made his appearance.

“Good-morning, Mr. Tackle; here’s the patent log for Captain Green. What do you think of it?”

“H’m. Yes. H’m-m. I see. I don’t know as I’m any particular judge of logs, although I’ve been in this shipping house for twenty years. But it appears to me to be a very fine instrument. Very fine indeed, sir. Sort of screw-propeller that end affair, ain’t it?”

“That’s it, of course,” said Mr. Ropesend in a tone bordering on contemptuous; “sort of a fin-screw with long pitch. It says in order to regulate it you simply have to adjust the timber noggins. I should suppose a man who has been in a shipping house as long as you have would know all about a plain taffrail log and be able to regulate it so as to use it, if necessary.”

“Ah, yes, I see,” said Mr. Tackle instantly, without appearing to hear the last part of the senior’s remarks. “Eggzackly. Regulated by timber noggins, of course. I didn’t notice it, but any one might know it couldn’t be regulated without timber noggins. Let me see it closer. That new cord gave it a strange look.”

“I’m glad you like it and understand all about it,” said Mr. Ropesend in a tone of decision, “for I’m very busy, and you can just take it into your office and explain it to Captain Green when he comes for it. He will be here presently.”

So saying the senior quickly replaced the instrument in the box and had it in the astonished Tackle’s hands before he could get out an H’m-m. Then he commenced writing rapidly upon some important-looking papers before him, giving Mr. Tackle to understand that the incident had closed.

Mr. Tackle flushed, hesitated a moment, and then quickly retired into the outer office, and Mr. Ropesend, having rid himself of the log, smiled grimly to Gaff, turned half-way around in his chair, proceeded to light a cigar and puff the smoke at the dog’s face.

This provoked the animal to such an extent that he growled, snarled, and grew quite savage, much to Mr. Ropesend’s delight.

The dog finally grew frantic, and had just risen from the floor to find more congenial quarters, when the door opened suddenly and Captain Green stepped into the room with a hoarse roar of “Good-morning, Mr. Ropesend; I’ve come for that patent log.”

This sudden entrance of the loud-voiced skipper was too much for Gaff’s nerves, and he no sooner found himself attacked in the rear than he made a sudden turn, and grabbed the first thing that came within his reach.

This happened to be the calf of Captain Green’s left leg, which he held on to in a manner that showed he had a healthy appetite.

“Let go, you son of a sea cook!” bawled the skipper. “Let go, or I’ll stamp the burgoo out o’ you.”

“Let go, Gaff; that’s a good doggie,” said Mr. Ropesend in his mildest tone. “Let go, Gaff; you’ll hurt your teeth, doggie.”

“Let go, you son of a pirate!” roared the skipper. “Let go, or I’ll smash you!”

“Good heavens, Captain Green, you forget yourself. What, strike a poor dumb brute!” cried Mr. Ropesend. And he arose from his chair as if to ward oft a threatened blow.

Gaff at this juncture looked up, and apparently realized the energy stored within the skipper’s raised boot. He let go and waddled under his master’s desk, his long belly touching the ground amidships, as his legs were too short to raise it clear. From this safe retreat he sent forth peculiar sounds which were evidently intended by nature to terrify the enemy.

“Wouldn’t strike him, hey!” roared the skipper, rubbing his leg. “Well, maybe I wouldn’t, I don’t think. By Gorry, Mr. Ropesend, that’s a long-geared critter. I didn’t know but what he was a sort o’ walking snake or sea-sarpint. I felt as if a shark had me. It’s a good thing I had on these sea-boots.”

“Calm yourself. Calm yourself, captain,” said the senior. “Did he hurt you?”

“No, confound him, not to speak of. It’s a fine watch-dog he is when he bites his friends like this.--I came for that log you spoke of the other day.”

“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Ropesend; “I’ve just given it to Mr. Tackle to give to you. He will explain it to you,--how it works and all that. Right in the front office,--yes, that door. Good-morning.” And the skipper went out cursing softly.

In the front office he met the boy with the box containing the log and a note from Mr. Tackle delivering the same to him, in which he excused himself from explaining the management of the instrument by the fact that he was called out suddenly. The note concluded, however, with the remark that “the instrument was quite easy to regulate by means of the timber noggins, and that he anticipated no difficulty with it.”

The captain took the box and carried it on board his ship, and locked it in the cabin. He was going to sea the next morning, and, as he had a good deal to attend to, he couldn’t stop to investigate further.

When the ship had crossed the bar, the next afternoon, and backed her main-yards in order to put the pilot off, the mate brought out the box containing the log, and proposed to put the instrument over the taffrail. The third mate happened to be standing near and noticed him.

The third mate’s name was Joseph, but being a very young man, and very bright, having a fine grammar-school education, he was familiarly called Joe by his superiors for fear that the handle of “Mister” to his name might trim him too much by the head. Joe despised his superiors with all the scornful feeling that a highly educated sailor has for the more ignorant officers above him, and it required more than ordinary tact on his part to keep from getting into trouble.

“Why, the skipper don’t know enough to be mate of a liner,” said he to the steward one day in a burst of confidence. “As for Gantline, he don’t know nothing. You just wait and see if I don’t get a shove up before we make another voyage around the Cape.”

He had waited, but Joseph was still in his old berth this voyage.

It was natural he should be a little more scornful than ever now, and as he watched the mate clumsily handling the patent log a strong desire to revenge himself for slighted genius came upon him.

When the ship’s yards were squared again the skipper took up the log and examined it.

“I suppose you know how to regulate the machine, Mr. Gantline,” said he, addressing the mate.

“Can’t say as I do. I never seen one like this before.”

“Why, blast you, all you’ve got to do is to twist them timber noggins till it goes right, and that does the whole business. Then you let her go.”

“Where’s any timber noggins hereabouts?” asked the mate.

“Why, on the tail of the log; see?” and the skipper took up the trailing-screw.

“Ah, yes, I see; but how about this clock machine that goes on the rail. Don’t seem to open exactly.”

The skipper took up this part and examined it carefully.

“That’s all right. It don’t open; you just keep on letting her twist, and add on to where you start from or subtract from where you are.”

“I see,” said the mate, and without further ado he dropped the trailing-screw overboard.

The third mate saw all this, and he determined to investigate the instrument during his watch that night.

When he went forward he stopped at the carpenter’s room.

“Chips,” said he, addressing his chum, “we’ve got a new log on board and the skipper and mate don’t know how to use it. Now, I’ll bet you they will have to get me to show them, and if I do, I’ll make them shove me up the next voyage. Why, I tell you, putting a good instrument like that in the hands of such men is like casting pearls before--before--Captain Green and Gantline. You just wait and see.”

That night there was very little wind, but the third mate wound the log up for about fifty miles more than the ship travelled.

“We don’t need any more sights for a while,” said the skipper the next morning. “Mr. Snatchblock said that the log was dead accurate, so we’ll let her run. Must have blown pretty stiff during the mid-watch, Mr. Gantline, eh?” he continued, as he looked at what the log registered.

“No, I can’t say as it did,” said the mate, scratching his head thoughtfully as he looked at the night’s run.

“’Pears to me as if we made an all-fired long run of it.”

“Well, I guess you were a little off your first night out. You’ll be sober in a day or so,” said the skipper, with a grin.

The next day it was dead calm and foggy, but in spite of this the log registered a good fifty-mile run, and, as the ship was to put into Norfolk to complete her cargo, she was headed more to the southward.

“I haven’t any faith in that log, captain,” said Mr. Gantline; “it don’t seem as if we were off shore enough to head the way we do.”

“Well, haul it in and let’s look at it,” said the skipper.

The third mate was standing close by and helped haul in the line. “Captain,” said he, as the screw came over the rail, “this log is not set right; and if we’ve been running by it, we are too close in to the beach.”

“Eh! what’s that? Too close in are we? How do you know the log ain’t all right?”

“Why, it’s just a matter of calculation of angles,” replied the third mate. “These fins that Mr. Tackle calls timber noggins are set at the wrong angle. You see the sine of the angle, at which this blade meets the water, must be in the same proportion to the cosine of the angle to which it is bent as its tangent is to its secant, see?”

“H’m-m, yes, I see,” growled the skipper; “but why didn’t you mention it before, if you knew it all this time, instead of waiting until we got way in here? Why didn’t you tell Mr. Gantline?” His voice rising with his anger. “Why didn’t you tell Mr. Gantline this when you knew he’d never seen a log like this before? What do you suppose you are here for, anyhow?” he fairly roared. “Go forward, sir; I won’t have such a man for a mate on my ship.”

“Mr. Gantline,” he said, after Joe had gone, “get the lead-line and make a few casts, sir, by yourself,--by yourself, sir,--and then come and tell me how much water we’ve got under us.”

The mate, without any unnecessary disturbance, got out the lead, and, as it was calm and the vessel had no motion, he had no difficulty in making a deep-sea sounding. He was also materially aided by the startling effect of the lead, when he hove it over the side with fifty fathoms of coiled line to follow it. To his great amazement the line suddenly ceased running out after the five-fathom mark had passed over, and it became necessary to heave the remaining forty-five fathoms of coiled line after it, in order not to transmit this startling fact to any one that might be looking on. Then, with a great deal of exertion, he laboriously hauled the forty-five fathoms in again, and then called to Joe to haul in and coil down the rest, and then put the lead away. After this he went quickly aft to the skipper and whispered something in his ear that sounded to the man at the wheel like “Shoal--Barnegat.” The man at the wheel might have been mistaken, and it is only fair to presume that he was, but in a very short time the ship was headed due east again.

As night came on, a slight breeze came through the fog and the ship gathered headway. The captain, who had been walking fore and aft on the quarter in his shirt-sleeves, mopping great beads of perspiration from his forehead, now seemed to be aware of the chilliness of the air and forthwith went below.

The ship made a very quick voyage around Cape Horn, and a year later, when she returned, Mr. Ropesend met Captain Green in his office the morning he arrived.

“How did you like the patent log, captain?” said Mr. Ropesend.

“Mr. Ropesend,” said the captain, in a deep voice that made Gaff look up and recognize his old friend,--“Mr. Ropesend, I don’t believe in these new-fangled logs what’s regulated by timber noggins, no more’n I do in these worthless third mates that’s only good for teaching school.”

_OFF THE HORN: A TALE OF THE SOUTHERN OCEAN_

The average man knows as little of the region where the backbone of the American continent disappears beneath the ocean as he does of the heart of Africa. The mighty chain of mountains that raise their peaks miles above the surrounding country at the equator sink gradually until only a single cone-shaped hump--the last vertebra--raises itself above the sea in latitude 55° 50’ south. This is the desolate and uninhabited end of the southern continent, commonly known as Cape Horn, and no man gets any nearer to it than he can help. Past it flows the deep ocean stream known as the Pacific Antarctic Drift, and over it whirl fierce hurricanes in almost uninterrupted succession.

To the southward and westward rise the jagged rocks of the Ramirez, but these do not break in any manner the force of the high, rolling sea which sweeps down from the Pacific. There is but little life on any of these tussock-covered peaks, and they offer no shelter, save to the white albatross and the wingless penguin.

It is past this dreaded cape, in a region of almost continual storm and with a rapidly shifting needle, the navigator of the sailing vessel has to drive his way. The Straits of Magellan offer no passage to the handler of square canvas, and the furious, whirling current of the Le Maire is usually avoided, as when navigated it only saves a few miles of westing. The floating ice is always a dreaded menace, for with the spume-drift flying before a freezing gale and surrounded by the gloom of the high latitude in winter, it is difficult to distinguish an object fifty fathoms ahead of a ship’s cut-water.

Rough, hard men were the “wind-jammers” as they were called, who earned a right to live by driving overloaded ships around this cape, from 50° south latitude on one side to 50° south latitude on the other. With the yards “jammed” hard on the backstays, they would take advantage of every slant in the wind, until at last it would swing fair, and then away they would go, running off for the other side of the world with every rag the vessel would stand tugging away at clew and earring, sending her along ten or twelve knots an hour towards the latitude of the trade-wind.

Men of iron nerve, used to suffering and hardship, they were, for they had to stand by for a call to shorten sail at any hour of the day or night. Their food consisted of salt-junk and hardtack, with roasted wheat boiled for coffee, and a taste of sugar to sweeten it. Beans and salt pork were the only other articles to vary the monotonous and unhealthful diet. As for lime-juice, it existed only in the imagination of the shipping commissioner who signed-on the men.

* * * * *

The Silver Sea was manned and officered by a set of men who had been longer in the trade around the Cape than any others of the deep-water fleet. She crossed the 50th parallel on the morning of June 20, and not being certain of her exact longitude, Captain Enoch Moss headed her a trifle to the eastwards to clear Staten Land. The second day afterwards land was looked for, the first to be seen in eighty days out of New York.

Enoch Moss was said to be a hard man among hard men. His second mate was a man named Garnett, a fellow who had been so smashed, shot, and stove up, in the innumerable fracases in which he had taken part, that to an unnautical eye he appeared an almost helpless old man. His twisted bow-legs, set wide apart, gave him a peculiar lurching motion when he walked, and suggested the idea that he was continually trying to right himself into equilibrium upon the moving world beneath his feet.

A large, red-headed Irishman, with a freckled, hairless face, named O’Toole, was the first officer on board. It was his watch on deck, and he stood, quadrant in hand, calling off time sights to the skipper, who sat below checking up his reckoning.

Garnett sat on the main-hatch and smoked, waiting and resting, for he seldom turned in during his day watches below. A man sat in the maintop, and, as O’Toole took his last sight, hailed the deck.

“Land ho!” he bawled. “Little for’ard o’ the beam!” And he pointed to the ragged peaks of Staten Land showing dimly through the haze to the westward. It was very close reckoning after all, and O’Toole was well pleased as he bawled the news down the companion-way to the skipper. Then he turned to Garnett, who had come on the poop.

“’Tis a pity, Garnett, yer eddication was so misplaced ye don’t know a hog-yoke from a dead-eye, fer ye miss all the cream av navigation.”

Garnett removed his cap and mopped the dent in the top of his bald cranium.

“You an’ your hog-yoke be hanged. If I used up as much canvas as you the company would be in debt to the sail-makers. I mayn’t be able to take sights like you, but blast me if I would lift a face like yourn to heaven. No, stave me if I wouldn’t be afraid of giving offence. I mayn’t have much of a show hereafter, but I wouldn’t like to lose the little I have.”

“Git out, ye owld pirit! And say, Garnett, ye know this is the first land sighted, so ye better get your man ready to go ashore. The owld man swore he’d put him ashore on the first rock sighted, for sez he, ‘I don’t want no more cutting fracases aboard this ship.’”

The man referred to was a tall, dark-haired Spaniard, who had already indulged in four fights on board in which his sheath-knife had played a prominent part. Having been put in double irons he had worked himself loose, so the captain, not wishing to be short-handed with wounded men off the Cape, had decided to hold court in the after cabin before marooning the man, as he had sworn to do when the ruffian had broken loose and again attacked a former opponent. The news of sighting the land brought him on deck while the mates were talking, and he made known his course in the matter a few moments after O’Toole had ceased speaking.