CHAPTER XVIII.
A VOYAGE TO BERMUDA.
IF Kit had been less at home in the water, there is little doubt that they would both have found their long rest down among the black columns of pitch. But besides being a strong swimmer he was well versed in all the arts of managing a drowning companion. He knew that without his assistance the purser at least must drown, so he quickly brought his right hand around, and seizing the struggling man’s nose with a grip of iron, he bent the purser’s head back till it seemed as if his thick neck must break. But this had the desired effect, as Kit knew from experience that it would. Mr. Clark let go his hold to save his neck, and in an instant Kit had him firmly by the waist.
This was done almost in a second; and when they came to the surface again, Kit grabbed at the slippery edge of the “mushroom.” His hand slipped off, but struck against the floating plank, which he had not seen in the darkness; and that was better still. He guided one of Mr. Clark’s hands to the plank, and then let go his own hold.
“Now hold fast for a minute, sir,” he said, “and we’ll be all right.”
“I’m g-gone, Silburn!” the purser gasped; “I c-can’t (ah!) swim!”
“You’ll be on shore in a moment, sir, if you hold tight,” Kit answered; and he scrambled up on the nearest “mushroom” and laid one end of the plank upon it. But he could not risk the leap to the opposite shore in the darkness, so he plunged into the water again and swam across and soon had the other end of the plank in place.
But getting Mr. Clark out was no easy matter, even with the plank made firm again. Kit climbed out, and walking the plank till he could reach the purser’s nearest arm, he grasped it firmly and helped him toward the shore.
“Now get one knee on the plank,” he said, when he had him in the corner between the plank and the edge of the “mushroom”; and stooping down he seized the knee that his companion was trying in vain to raise high enough, and pulled it up.
“Now one grand pull, and we’re all right.” Kit was on the pitch bed again by this time, with a firm hold under the purser’s arms. He pulled with all his strength. Mr. Clark got the other knee on the “mushroom,” and in an instant more he was safe on land, but exhausted with his efforts, and unable to rise.
Kit quickly turned the purser over on his face and raised his feet to let any water run out of his mouth that he might have swallowed; and that was no light undertaking with so heavy a man. Then he turned him over again, and finding that he was breathing regularly, though heavily, he began to urge him to rise.
“We must get ashore to dry our clothes,” he said. “It won’t do for you to lie here in the wet.”
“Oh, I never can walk ashore!” the purser gasped; and putting up his hand, he added, “I must have struck my face against something down in that hole; my nose is so sore.”
In spite of the unpleasant surroundings, it was all that Kit could do to keep from laughing; for he knew what was the matter with that nose.
“No, sir,” he answered; “you had me by the throat, and we were both drowning, and I had to take you by the nose to make you let go.”
The purser laughed himself at this; and thinking that a good sign, Kit took hold of him again and half dragged him to his feet. Then he ran across the plank to get his coat, the only dry garment they had between them, and with a little more urging Mr. Clark consented to make an effort to reach the station.
It was almost totally dark now, and they had to feel their way along, moving very slowly.
“I don’t know what put it into my head to bring you with me to-day, Silburn,” the purser said when they were near enough to shore to feel safe. “But it was the best thing I ever did in my life. If it hadn’t been for you, the catfish would be making a supper of me by this time in this miserable lake.”
“Oh, you might have taken a different route entirely, if I had not been with you, sir,” Kit answered. “What we want now is a fire to dry our clothes by. If we have a little time at the station, we must find one somewhere, or build one.”
Finding at the station that they had more than an hour to wait for the return train, and indoor fires being almost unknown in that part of the world, they went out to the edge of the road and built a little camp fire with such stray sticks as they could find, and piece by piece dried their outer clothing, much to the amazement of a crowd of coolies that soon gathered and stood watching them. And the station agent, learning what had happened, brought them each a steaming cup of coffee.
By the time they reached the ship and put on dry clothes Mr. Clark was quite ready to crack jokes over his mishap, though he insisted that but for Kit he should have been drowned. And Captain Fraser refused to see any but the funny side of it, and declared that such a roll of fat as the purser could not possibly have been in danger of drowning.
“I think I shall have to stop going ashore at any of the ports, except on business,” Kit said, after the accident had been well discussed; “particularly toward night. In all my voyages I have not had a sign of an adventure on the water; but as soon as I go ashore, something is sure to happen. The first night in Marseilles we were imprisoned in Louis-Philippe’s cell in Monte Cristo’s castle; the second night we were up in Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde when the elevators broke, and had a cardinal to entertain us; now here I go ashore for a little ride in the country, and tumble into the pitch lake.”
“Don’t you worry about adventures on the water, young man,” Captain Fraser said, almost precisely as Captain Griffith had once answered him. “All you have to do is to stick to the sea long enough, and your adventures are sure to come. I shouldn’t be in any hurry for them, either, if I were you. Sometimes a man comes out on the top side of an adventure; but more times he’s on the under side, and don’t come out at all.”
On the homeward voyage, whenever he had a few spare moments, Kit tried to think out what he ought to do. As soon as his cargo was out he would make a hurried trip home; that was the first thing. There could not possibly be a second letter from the New Zealand consul yet, but there might be a photograph. And if—ah! if the photograph proved to be what he hoped, he would fly back to New York and take his promised leave of absence, get Captain Fraser’s and Mr. Clark’s help to find a berth on some steamer going to Australia, and be off for New Zealand as fast as possible. And Captain Griffith would help him, too, if the North Cape had not sailed again. What a lucky fellow he was, he thought, to have three such friends to help him!
These were all reasonable and natural things for him to think of; perfectly proper plans for him to make. But when shall we see the happy time when the best laid plans may not sometimes go wrong?
When the Trinidad neared her pier on the North River, Mr. Clark was quite excited and very much annoyed to find that one of her sister ships, the Orinoco, was lying on the other side of the slip.
“Now that’s going to upset everything,” he exclaimed.
“Why, what difference does it make, sir,” Kit asked, “whether the Orinoco is here or not?”
“Difference!” the purser repeated. “A heap of difference to us all, as you may find. The Orinoco is running on the Bermuda line, and she ought to be out there now. Something has broken down about her, or she wouldn’t be lying here. And if that is the case, we will be put in her place for Bermuda. That means that we shall have to hustle this cargo out as fast as steam and men can move it, and get another in equally fast, and be off to sea again before we have time to say Jack Robinson.”
That was precisely what happened. As soon as the Trinidad was docked they received orders to prepare for a voyage to Bermuda; and as they must leave port within three days, Kit saw that he should be busy every minute, without the slightest chance of going home.
In the hurry of emptying the ship and reloading her in so short a time he barely had opportunity to write a brief note to Vieve, telling her of the circumstances and asking her to send him, the moment she received the letter, a telegram saying whether the photograph or another letter had arrived from New Zealand. All his plans were of course upset, but there was nothing for him to do but give himself up to work and forget, as far as possible, his own affairs.
The way the old cargo was taken out and the new one put in was very different from the manner of work he had become accustomed to in European and West Indian ports. The gangs of ’longshoremen, working by night under electric lights, were relieved every eight or ten hours; but only the purser and his assistant could attend to the clerical labor, and there was no relief for them.
The Trinidad was almost ready for sea again, and some of the Bermuda passengers were already on board, when a blue-coated telegraph messenger inquired his way to the purser’s office and handed Kit a telegram. He could not hesitate about opening it, for he had no time now to hesitate about anything; but he understood perfectly well that its contents might make a great change in his movements.
Christopher Silburn [the message read], Assistant Purser, S. S. Trinidad, New York.
No letter. No photograph. All well.
Genevieve.
Under other circumstances that would have been a disappointment; but now it was what he hoped for, for with so much extra work he felt that it would be unfair for him to leave everything to Mr. Clark until the ship returned from Bermuda.
On the second day out, while sitting at his desk working at the manifest, Kit leaned his head on one hand and took serious counsel with himself.
“I have made a good many voyages,” he reflected; “to Sisal, to Barbadoes, twice across the Atlantic and back, and again to the West Indies. But I have never—”
He suddenly resolved to finish his reflections in the open air; and for greater convenience he leaned heavily against the rail.
“What’s the matter, Silburn?” Mr. Clark asked through the open door, catching a glimpse of his assistant’s white face. “You don’t mean to say that you’re—”
“Yes, I do, sir!” Kit answered, leaning over the rail again for fresh thought. “After all my voyages, this little choppy sea has made me just as sick as a dog!”
“Ah, you’re not the first victim of the Bermuda voyage!” the purser laughed. “I get sick myself out here sometimes. It’s the Gulf Stream that does it, my boy. We cross the stream diagonally, and the current catches us under the starboard quarter and gives us a nasty little motion, half pitch and half roll, that sends the oldest sailors to the rail sometimes. Lie down a few minutes, and you’ll feel better.”
“No, sir, I’m not going to give in to it,” Kit replied. “I’ll walk the deck a little in the air. I don’t see a single passenger on deck.”
“So much the better!” said the purser, with another of his jolly laughs. “When they’re all sick they can’t be haunting our office to ask questions. We can do very well without them.”
Kit’s nausea soon wore off under his open-air treatment; and before many hours he was too much interested in his first look at Bermuda to think of being sick. Though he had seen many places, this was entirely different from any of the others. Here were three hundred and sixty-five little islands (so report said; and that estimate looked about right) grouped together in mid-ocean, forming a tiny kingdom far removed from the rest of the world.
After taking a pilot, the Trinidad bore down toward one of the points of the largest island, which was shaped like a horseshoe, with a large smooth bay in the hollow. There was a town on the point, which the ship seemed to be heading for; but when near it she coyly circled away to follow the shoreline in the opposite direction, almost turning on her course, entered the horseshoe bay, and steamed for several hours, still skirting the shore, among tiny islets, nearly grazing half-hidden rocks, turning and twisting in here, out there, till she reached a smaller bay making in from the large one, on whose shore was another and larger town.
“How do you like that for a channel?” Mr. Clark asked. “It is called the most intricate channel in the world, and I suppose it is. That first town was St. George’s. We had to go so close to it because the channel runs that way. This place is Hamilton, the capital. Have you noticed that most of the people live in white marble houses?”
“Yes, I have been wondering at that,” Kit answered. “They must have marble quarries here.”
“Most strangers wonder at it when they first see the islands,” the purser went on. “But they are not all millionaires here, as you might think. Those walls are made of rough stone, plastered over and whitewashed; and from the sea they look exactly like marble. There are more queer things here than you could put in a sea-chest, and it’s a pity we’ll not have more time. They don’t quarry their stone out, you know, like other people, but cut it out with saws. It’s soft stuff, like that building-stone you must have seen in Marseilles, but hardens when exposed to the air. Now if you want to see a novel way of docking a ship, just watch.”
On shore was a broad street, with no buildings on the water-side except a long, low iron shed that was nothing but pillars and roof, with no walls. A great many colored people waited on the wharf, and a few whites, and Kit noticed two big round timbers lying near the edge, with a little pile of planks. The Trinidad was carefully brought to a stop about thirty feet from the wharf, her further progress being prevented by a hidden ledge of rocks; and a gang of colored laborers immediately began to shove out the heavy timbers, with a little help from the ship’s donkey engine and winches. In a few minutes one end of each timber rested on the wharf and the other end upon the ship’s deck, making the skeleton of a substantial bridge. To these large timbers the men lashed smaller cross-pieces, then laid on the planks for a flooring, and in about twenty minutes the steamer was connected with shore by a bridge strong enough for much heavier work than would be required of it.
There was part of one afternoon, while the Trinidad lay at Bermuda, that both the purser and his assistant were at liberty; but that was not long enough for the favorite drive to St. George’s.
“There’s one place that we could go, five or six miles from town,” Mr. Clark said, “and that’s the Walsingham caves and Tom Moore’s house.”
“Moore’s house!” Kit repeated; “you don’t mean the poet, Thomas Moore, I suppose.”
“That’s the man,” the purser answered. “He lived here for some time. It is just a nice drive out to his house, and the caves are very near it. But as to going out there with you, no I thank you! The caves are very spooky-looking places, dark and slippery; and you admit yourself that you are a hoodoo on shore. When you go to Monte Cristo’s castle, you are locked in a cell. When you go to that church on the hill, the elevators break down. When you go with me to the pitch lake, I am all but drowned. If I should go to the caves with you, I’d no doubt be buried alive. I beg to be excused.”
“If that is the only objection,” Kit laughed, “maybe we can make a compromise. I never cared anything about caves, but I should like to see the house that Mr. Moore lived in. My collection of foreign curiosities includes a count and a cardinal so far, you know. I should like to add a poet.”
After a little bantering, Mr. Clark agreed to go as far as Walsingham, Mr. Moore’s house, but declared that he would on no account go near the caves. And it was as well that there were two to divide the expense of the carriage between, for Bermuda cab fares are “on the American plan,” not on the cheaper European scale.
They found the poet’s house to be a plain double two-story edifice of stone, so blackened by time and weather that it looked gloomy in the extreme; and the yard in front grown up with bushes, a large lake in the rear studded with black rocks and bordered with dismal drooping mangrove trees, and the general dilapidation of the place, added to the sombreness.
Kit was much amused at Mr. Clark’s positive refusal to get out of the carriage, for fear of something happening. But he got out himself and went all over the place, and was satisfied that nothing but the most solemn poetry could ever have been written in so gloomy a place.
“You don’t really mean that you’re afraid of something happening when you go ashore with me, Mr. Clark, do you?” Kit asked his companion on the way back to the ship. “You must be joking about that.”
“Not exactly in the way you mean,” the purser answered. “But some people are always having adventures of one kind or another; it comes natural to them; and I think you’re one of that sort. It’s all very well for youngsters like you. But when you come to be my age, or especially my weight, you’ll find that a trifling adventure may mean something serious. To slip into a lake means a bad cold, as I know to my cost; a fall may mean some broken bones. No; adventures are for the young and spry, not for the old and fat.”
“Well, we have certainly had a safe and quiet trip ashore this time, sir,” Kit said, with a laugh, as, once more on deck, they reached the door of their office. “This whole voyage is about as quiet a trip as any one could ask for.”
At that moment his eye caught sight of a small bluish envelope lying sealed upon his desk. It was addressed simply to “Silburn, str. Trinidad, Bermuda,” and the printing across the top indicated that it was a cable message. He hastily tore it open and read:
“Silburn str Trinidad Bermuda Photograph received very encouraging Genevieve”
There was no punctuation, hardly any divisions between the words; but its meaning was plain enough.
“Now isn’t that a thoughtful sister of mine!” he exclaimed, handing the message to Mr. Clark. “She knows that I’ll be in a hurry to set off if we identify the picture. So she sends me this cable to give me time to make any arrangements on the way up to New York.”
“This is important news for you, Silburn,” the purser said, after reading the few words. “It looks very much as if you would find your father.”
“It is the best news I ever got in my life, sir,” Kit answered. “I don’t quite understand what my sister means by ‘very encouraging,’ but I imagine they are still in a little doubt after seeing the picture, though they think it looks like my father.”
“That is exactly what I anticipated after hearing your story,” the purser agreed. “You have no idea how hardships and sickness can alter a man’s appearance in a few months; and from what you tell me, your father, if this is your father, must have gone through a great deal. Now what do you propose to do about it?”
“I think I ought to get out there just as soon as possible, sir,” Kit answered, “if we are all agreed at home that the picture bears a reasonable resemblance to my father.”
“I can’t advise you against it, Silburn; I can’t advise you against it,” Mr. Clark said, more seriously than was his custom. “If I were out there in that fix, I should expect one of my boys to come after me just as fast as a ship would bring him. I don’t want to lose you for a few months, but it is your duty to go. You must remember, though, that you are to come back to me. I will get some one to take your place while you are gone, but I want you back again when you return.”
On the homeward voyage there were some serious talks in the purser’s office about how Kit was to be got to New Zealand.
“It just amounts to this,” Captain Fraser said, after the matter had been well discussed. “If there is any ship going that way that I know the master of, or the owners of, I can almost certainly arrange it for you; and if there isn’t, I can’t. You will have to go without pay, you understand; just for your passage there and back.”
“I will willingly do that, sir,” Kit answered.
“Then I’ll tell you how I think it can be done,” the Captain continued. “Here’s a steamer, we’ll say, loading for Australia, with a supercargo at so many dollars a month. Now after seeing the owners or agents and convincing them that you are a supercargo of experience and understand your business, and getting their consent, we go to the supercargo and say, ‘Here’s a seafaring man got a sick father in New Zealand; wants to go out there and bring him home; willing to make the round voyage and do your work for the sake of the passage. We have seen your agents and they are willing. You stay ashore this voyage and draw your pay and enjoy yourself, and he’ll do your work.’”
“Well, I wonder that I never thought of that before!” Kit exclaimed. “It’s the very best plan that could be made.”
“I think it can be done, if we can strike the right ship,” the Captain continued. “You couldn’t very well do it for yourself, you understand; but what’s the use of having friends if they can’t help you along a little? It’s a different matter if an old shipmaster like myself goes to the firm and says, ‘I know this young man. I recommend him.’ And I take Captain Griffith along, if he is in port, and he says, ‘This man was trained on my ship; he is a good supercargo; I recommend him.’ And Clark goes along and says, ‘This man is my assistant purser on the Trinidad; he understands his business and will take care of your interests; I recommend him.’ You see that makes a pretty strong backing; and if that isn’t enough, I’ll get the Quebec Steamship Company to put in a word too. Just you go home after you get your cargo out and leave me your address, and we’ll attend to the rest for you.”
Kit began to try to thank them both for their good opinion of him; but seeing what was coming they quickly changed the subject.
The photograph had caused many a tear to be shed in the Silburn cottage in Huntington, and there was a fresh flood when Kit reached home. So old the man looked; so wan and worried; so bent and gray! What sufferings must he not have endured if that was indeed a picture of Christopher Silburn!
“Take off the beard,” Kit declared, “trim the long hair, straighten the back, smooth out the wrinkles, and there is father! Of course it is not a certainty, but I feel reasonably sure of it.”
“So do I!” Vieve echoed.
“I pray you may both be right!” was all that Mrs. Silburn could say.
Two days later a neighbor’s boy ran in to say that Kit was wanted at the telephone office in a hurry. He ran up the hill to the post-office, in which was a station of the New York and New England telephone line.
“That you, Silburn?” a familiar voice asked. “Yes, I’m Captain Fraser, in New York. It’s all arranged for you. You’re to take the supercargo’s place on the steamer Brindisi, sailing for Melbourne next Thursday. Come in and report to Hayes, Ward, & Burt’s, 82 South Street, as soon as possible. Got that down? Good luck to you, my boy. Here’s somebody else wants to speak to you.”
“That you, Kit?” It was the familiar and beloved voice of Captain Griffith. “It’s all fixed for you. You’ll be over to the North Cape to say good-by, of course. Remember what I told you long ago about money.”
Before Kit could answer, a third voice came over the wire.
“Look out for pitch lakes over there!” There was no mistaking the cheery voice of Mr. Clark. “We’ll be gone before you see us, but never mind. We’ve done a good day’s work for you to-day, Silburn. A good voyage to you, and—success!”
There were so many hundred things to be done at home in so few hours! And that ever-present, ever-troublesome question of money! The hard saving of the whole family for months had not been for nothing. Kit was surprised to find how much his mother had saved for this occasion; and she was equally surprised to learn that he had nearly two hundred dollars in his pocket. With the joy of the errand and the sorrow of parting he hardly remembered just what happened when he said good-by.
“Be careful of my little parcel!” Vieve called after him as Silas cracked his whip and the stage rattled down the road.