Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/812

804 "Were you frightened, Captain Cope?"

"Well, no,—I can't say I was; though I must say I never expected to see morning again. I never saw any one more scared than was old Captain Tucker that night. We dragged over the outer bar and into Bootle Bay, and there we lay, the ship full of water, and everything gone above the monkey-rail. The only place we could find to stand was just by the cabin gangway. The 'Moscow' was built with an old-fashioned cabin on deck, and right there we hung, all hands of us. The old man he read the service to us,—and that wouldn't do, he was so scared; so he got the black cook, who was a Methodist, and made him pray; and every two minutes or so, a sea would come aboard and all in among us,—like to wash us clean out of the ship.

"After midnight the life-boat got alongside, and all hands were for scrambling aboard; but I'd got set in my notion the ship would live the gale out, and I wouldn't go aboard. Well, the old man was too scared to make long stories, and he tumbled aboard the life-boat in a hurry. The last words he said to me, as he went over the side, were,—'Good-bye, Mr. Cope! I never shall see you again!' However, he got up to the city, to Mrs. McKinney's, and there he found a lot of the captains, and he was telling them all how he'd lost his ship, and what a fool poor Cope was to stick aboard of her, and all that. When the morning came, the gale had broke, and the old man began to think he'd been in too much of a fright, and he'd better get the tug and go down to look after the ship.

"I was so knocked up, for want of sleep, and the gale and all, that, when they got down to us, my head was about gone. I don't remember anything, myself; but they told me, that, when they got aboard, I was poking about decks as if I was looking for something.

"'How are you, Mr. Cope?' sung out old Tucker. 'I never expected to see you again in this world.'

"'I can't find my razor-strop,' says I; I've lost my razor-strop.'

"'Never mind your strop,' says he. 'What you want is to go aboard the tug and be taken care of. We'll find your strop.'

"Well, they could hardly get me away, I was so set that I must have that strop; but after I got up to town, and had a bath and some breakfast, and a couple of hours' sleep or so, I was all right again. That was the end of old Tucker's going to sea; and when the 'Moscow' was docked and refitted, I got her, and kept her until the firm built me the 'Pogram,' here."

"Mr. Brown, isn't it about time we were getting in that mizzen to'gall'nt-s'l? It's coming on to blow to-night."

"Steward," (as that functionary passed us,) "put a handful of cigars in my monkey-jacket pocket, and have a cup of coffee ready for me about twelve."

"Then you mean to be up, to-night?" said the father of pretty Mrs. Bates,—the only one of us to whom Captain Cope fairly opened his heart.

"Why, yes, Mr. Roberts—I think I shall. It looks rather dirty to the east'ard, and the barometer has fallen since morning. I've two as good mates as sail; but if anything is going to happen, I'd rather have it happen when I'm on deck,—that's all."

"Wasn't Stewart, of the 'Mexican,' below, when she struck?"

"Yes, he was,—and got blamed for it, too. I don't blame him, myself; he was on deck the next minute; and if he had been there before, it would have made no difference with that ship; but if I lose a vessel, I don't want to be talked about as he was. I went mate with him two voyages, and he'd put on his night-gown and turn in comfortably every night, and leave his mates to call him; but I never could do that. I don't find fault with any man that can; only it's not my way."

"But don't you feel sleepy, Captain Cope?" asked Mrs. Bates.

"Not when I'm on deck, Ma'am; though, when I first went mate, I could sleep anyhow and anywhere. I sailed out of Boston to South America, in a topsail-schooner, with an old fellow by