Walter McRoberts

“ The majority of the crew contemplated the stranger with feelings akin to indifference. Many of them did not know the name of the vessel they were in search of,—neither did they care. But Albert was looking at a genuine wreck for the first time, and his heart beat faster as the ocean waif grew more and more distinct, with her shattered masts, disordered rigging and general appearance of desolation.
“Neptune!” cried Captain James, as he made out the gilded letters on the port bow. ”

“ Everyone near by, including the mate, had all he could do to save his own life, and none of them knew for a few moments what had happened. Captain Meade, from the quarter-deck, saw the awful accident, and his cry of “Man overboard!” and Gene’s despairing shriek mingled together. The captain was a cool man, and he desperately hurled a coil of rope in less time than it takes to tell it, but even had the lost man been able to grasp it, he could no more have held on at the rate the ship was going than he could have seized a flash of lightning. ”

“ The iron yards and lower masts were freshly painted, the wooden top-masts and top-gallant masts had been scraped, sand-papered and oiled, the rigging tarred down, the life-boats and deck-houses cleaned and painted, and the decks holystoned and oiled up to the top notch.
Now each man in the crew was working as only desperate men can, to heave overboard every inflammable article about the ship. Buckets of tar and paint; cans of benzine and linseed oil; spare spars and planks; empty barrels; old sails; oakum and sennit;—all covered the placid surface of the ocean. ”

“ A heavy snowstorm hid Cape Horn from view that afternoon, a contrary wind sprang up, and the ship was driven entirely off her course, being compelled to head for the South Pole. The passengers arrayed themselves in oilers, not forgetting to tie strands of rope about their boot-tops to keep the water out, and paced the quarter-deck, where George Marsh, the mate, entertained them with tales of torrid Singapore. ”

“ Chapter II.
“Come on deck if you want to see Cape Horn!” called out Captain Meade to the passengers in the cabin, who instantly hurried on deck, for one can’t see the famous Cape every day.
The captain silently pointed his finger, and there, looming up out of the morning mist, the passengers saw Cape Horn. It was nearly twenty miles off, but so deceptive are distances at sea that it seemed not half that distance away. Who can behold without a feeling of awe, that black and naked rock, rising precipitously from a low islet to a height of five hundred feet! ”

“ Even the moaning, whistling sound in the rigging was gone, and the Cape pigeons and albatross circled through the air with a seemingly new significance, which was doubtless imaginary, as these Antarctic birds revel in storm and cold. A gentle wind had come with the rising sun, and that morning, for the first time in six weeks, the Sagamore presented nearly her whole spread of canvas to the breeze; everything, in fact, but skysails. ”

“ Here, at the southern extremity of the American continent, were ten ships and three barks, carrying the world’s products to San Francisco. Scores of eager faces lined the bulwarks, while on the poop of the nearest craft stood a woman—the first representative of the fair sex that anyone on the Sagamore had seen for three months. As the large vessels, with all their canvas set, slowly mounted the regular swell, a murmur of admiration burst from the passengers, who longed for a far-reaching camera to preserve the beautiful picture through years to come. ”

“ No matter how neat and tasteful a man may be—and Captain Maxwell was both—he can seldom give to a room or dwelling that indescribable air of home-like comfort and domesticity that a clever woman finds it so easy to impart. There was something cheerful in the appearance of the widow’s open work-box, with its pretty blue lining, and an anchor worked on the inside cover,—for Mrs. Evans affected everything nautical,—while a large rug or mat made of spun-yarn and sennit bore witness to her skill. The vessel’s name was neatly worked in the center. ”

“ 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 next man landed proved to be the mate—a small, wiry fellow, who bore his sufferings well. He thanked the keeper and surfman who helped him out of the buoy and stamped upon the wet sand as though enjoying the sensation of having something firm beneath his feet. His hands were stiff from clinging to the rigging, and were almost useless from the action of the bitter wind and freezing water. But he picked up fast, and after borrowing a dry suit of clothes and an overcoat, insisted on returning to the beach. ”

“ Soon after a ship has passed the latitude of Rio de Janeiro, the pigeons begin to make their appearance, and they follow that vessel for weeks and weeks, until she has passed around the Horn, and far up into the Pacific. Then they disappear gradually as the warm latitudes are reached, transferring their allegiance to some craft bound back in the opposite direction. How they obtain sleep and rest is a mystery, for one never lights on a ship; but no matter how fast a vessel may go, or how severe a gale may rage, the whole tribe is in attendance every morning, like an army following its general. ”

“ During the week following the rescue, the Sagamore, with streaming decks, slowly but surely beat her way to the westward against contrary winds. Sometimes it was useless to attempt to proceed against the tremendous head sea, and she was hove to for a time. Then a gale would swoop down, sails would be furled or reefed; and after it was over, a few hours of what Captain Meade facetiously called “pleasant weather” would intervene. Then, if it happened to be day, old Sol shed his kindly warmth upon the ship, and the leaden sky was changed to an alluring blue. ”

“ Hartley broke a short silence by saying; “To think that ten weeks have passed since I saw a newspaper! All sorts of events have happened on shore that no one here dreams of.”
“What do we care?” answered Wilbur, with a laugh. “We are in a world of our own, and as for me, I don’t bother about what is going on in the United States. It seems as if I had always lived on this ship, and my whole past life appears a vague dream. What I would like to know is, whether the Arabia and Iroquois are ahead of us or not. It will be too bad if they beat us to San Francisco.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lashed into fury by a gale, these waves are sufficiently remarkable, but they are then in such a state of turmoil as to destroy all regularity, making it impossible to tell where one begins and another ends. So, strangely enough, it is in a dead calm that one is more nearly able to conceive of their vast proportions. These periods generally follow a hard westerly gale, and then it is a sight no words can depict, to stand upon a vessel’s deck and watch the approach of those vast walls of water ”

“ Three times was the Swede ducked in the heaving swell, before being drawn up and lowered on deck again. He was then released, and patted on the back by the Mermaid, who said patronizingly:
“My son, you are a lubber no more,—in name at least,—and can now consider yourself a true subject of Neptune.”
The new subject was past speech, but he drew a deep breath of relief and got upon the galley roof, where he sat down to dry, as well as to see what befell Oscar and Josef. He had not been hurt in the least, but, as some one has said, “A man might as well be killed as scared to death.” ”

“ I was beginning to wonder what Ralph could be doing, for he actually seemed to be going away from us, when the mate cried out: “Look! the brig’s in stays! the Captain’s putting her about, so as to fetch us on the starboard tack. Hurray!”
Five minutes later, the Sea Witch, with the wind abeam, was running down to us at nearly right angles, evidently aiming to go between us and our pursuers, who were now hardly a quarter of a mile astern. We easily made out five people on the catamaran, two of whom Seth thought were convicts, while one of the others he took for the Governor himself. ”

“ There was one empty p. 290bunk in the forecastle; one man less to stand his trick at the wheel or on the lookout; one hand less to sing out as the watch hauled on the braces; and that one was the merriest and most light-hearted of all. His intelligence and ready ability were in marked contrast to the ignorance and stupidity which characterized most of the crew, and he was a pronounced favorite with all on board;—most of all with Mr. Marsh, who was difficult to please. The mate felt very badly over the matter, and would not discuss it, even with the passengers. ”

“ The full-rigged American ship Sagamore was now sixty-seven days out from New York bound for San Francisco, and on this September evening in one of the closing years of the nineteenth century, she was flying along in the South Atlantic under a stiff top-gallant breeze, at a rate that no steamer in that part of the world could eclipse, if, indeed, any could equal. ”

“ A patrolman on the northern beat had suddenly ignited his Coston light—the red emblem which both tells the watchful keeper that a wreck has been sighted, and assures the crew of the unfortunate vessel that succor is at hand.
The surfmen and patrolmen passed the signal along the beats and hurried to the station, each to perform his allotted part in the work of rescue. The keeper burned a rocket to inform the Fourth Cliff crew. ”

“ Still no wind, and the rudder-chains creaked and rattled as though to remind everyone that a calm prevailed.
While Captain Stafford waited for the sun to reach the zenith, the carpenter approached, with a serious face.
“There looks to be a fire, sir, in hatch No. 3. The further down the men dig the hotter the coal gets, and the smoke is so much thicker we can hardly keep at work. All hands are digging trenches, but I’m afraid, sir, that opening the hatches is making it worse.” ”

“ It is frightful to see a fellow creature perish before one’s eyes, and at the same time know that one is powerless to render the least assistance—for before p. 288the Sagamore could have been brought to a stand, Gene would have been a mile or more astern. But even had he then been in plain sight, no life boat ever constructed could have lived five seconds in that boiling cauldron. The instant it touched the water, it would have capsized or been crushed like an egg shell against the vessel’s side. ”

“ Tacking a large square-rigged vessel is considerable of a job at any time, but at night, and in a hurricane, it is an arduous task. The stiffened braces, wet with icy salt water, got tangled up, and occasionally a man would make a mistake amid the maze of ropes, thus adding to the confusion. But at last the work was finished, and the ship brought to a standstill. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Several times she went over so far that captain and mates hardly dared to breathe for fear she was on her side and would never right. But after remaining in that precarious position for a moment, the ship would keel over with a sickening velocity from one side to the other; the mast-heads p. 262reeling dizzily against the sky, until she brought up with a jerk, as a sea pounded against her side. At each roll, the bulwarks went far under, allowing a flood to come roaring and tumbling aboard; washing about the main deck, tangling up ropes, and knocking men off their feet. ”

“ 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. ”