Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/814

806 contradictory orders sung out at once, besides expecting to strike every minute, he had almost lost what little wits he had.

"As for Tubbs, he was like a hen with her head cut off,—one minute at the lee rail, and the next in the weather-rigging, then forrard to look out for the strange craft, and then aft to see why the schooner didn't answer her helm. Meanwhile, he was singing out to the watch to brace round the fore-topsail and help her, to let fly the jib-sheets, and to haul aft the main-boom; the watch below came tumbling up, and everybody was expecting to feel the bunt of our striking the next minute. I laughed as though I should split; for nobody could see me where I stood, in the shadow of the companion-way, and everybody was looking out ahead, for the other vessel. First I knew, the old man had got in board again, and was standing there aft, as if he'd just come on deck. 'What's all this noise here?' says he.—'What are you doing on deck, Mr. Cope? Go below, Sir!—Go below, the larboard watch, and let's have no more of this! Who's seen any vessel? Vessel, your eye, Mr. Tubbs! I tell you, you've been dreaming.' Then, as he got his head about to the level of the top of the companion-way, and out of the reach of any spare belaying-pin that might come that way, says he,—'I've just come in from the end of the flyin'-jib-boom, and there was no vessel in sight, except one topsail-schooner, with the watch all asleep,—so it can't be her that hailed you.'

"That cured all sleeping on the watch for that voyage, I tell you. And as for Tubbs, you had only to say, 'Port your helm,' and he was off."

Just then Mr. Brown came aft to ask if it wasn't time to have in the fore-topgallant-sail,—and a little splash of rain falling broke up our party and drove most of us below. I knew that reefing topsails would come in the course of an hour or so, if the wind held on to blow as it did; so, as I waited to see that same, I lighted a cheroot, and as soon as the fore-topgallant-sail was clewed up I made my way forward, for a chat with Mr. Brown, the English second mate.

Mr. Brown was a character. He was a thorough English sailor;—could do, as he owned to me in a shamefaced way, that was comical enough, "heverything as could be done with a rope aboard a ship." He had been several India voyages, where the nice work of seamanship is to be learned, which does not get into the mere "ferry-boat" trips of the Liverpool packet-service. He had been in an opium clipper, the celebrated of Boston,—and left her, as he told her agent, "because he liked a ship as 'ad a lee-rail to her; and the 's lee-rail," he said, "was commonly out of sight, pretty much all the way from the Sand'eads to the Bocca Tigris." He was rich in what he called "'ats," having one for every hour of the day, and, for aught I know, every day in the year. It was Fred 's and my daily amusement to watch him, and we never seemed to catch him coming on deck twice in the same head-gear. He took quite a fancy to me, because I did not bother him when busy, and because I liked to listen to his talk. So, handing him a cigar, as a prefatory to conversation, I asked him our whereabouts. "Four hundred miles to the heast'ard of Georges we were this noon, and we've made nothink to speak of since, Sir. This last tack has lost us all we made before. I hought to know where we are. I've drifted 'ere without even a 'en-coop hunder me. I was third mate aboard the barque 'Jenny,' of Belfast, when she was run down by the steamer 'United States.' The barque sunk in less than seven minutes after the steamer struck us, and I come up out of her suction-like. I found myself swimming there, on top, and not so much as a capstan-bar to make me a life-buoy. I knew the steamer was hove to, for I could hear her blow hoff steam; and once, as I came up on a wave, I got a sight of her boats. They were ready enough to pick us up, and we was ready enough to be picked up, such as were left; but how to do it was