THE OCEAN-BORN.
“What do you make it, Neil?”
“Longitude 69°, 48′, 32′′; latitude, 43°, 9′, 55′′.”
Neil Brandon, the captain of the steam-yacht, Ocean-Born, a young man of eighteen, was seated at a table in the forward cabin. He had just completed his calculations for latitude and longitude, and obtained the result announced to Berry Owen, the mate, who was at the wheel in the pilot-house, from which a door opened into the cabin. The captain was now working a parallel ruler on a chart of the eastern coast, spread out before him.
“What’s the course?” asked the pilot.
“Hold on a minute till I get the variation,” replied Neil Brandon. “I have it now: north-north-east, half north.”
“North-north-east, half north,” repeated Berry Owen, looking into the binnacle in front of the wheel, and then shifting the helm to the course given out.
“We have done first rate; our last day’s run is two hundred and seventeen miles, which is an average of nine knots an hour,” added the captain.
“That’s splendid, considering the heavy sea we have had. But where are we, any how, Neil?”
“Let’s see,” answered the young navigator, as he ran his dividers over the chart; “Cape Elizabeth bears about north-west, twenty-eight sea miles; Bald Head, a little west of north, thirty miles; Manhegan Light, which we are running for, is about thirty-eight miles. We shall fetch it about half past four.”
“Der dinner ist ready,” said a young man with a German face, who had been preparing the after end of the table for the noonday meal. “But I dinks der roast beef ist boiled zoo mooch.”
“What makes you think so, Karl?” asked the captain, as he seated himself at the head of the table.
“Because he looks so black as der gook hisself; and I dinks der bodadoes ist zoo rare.”
“That is a matter of opinion on your part,” added the captain.
“Was is dat?” asked Karl, rubbing his head, whereon the hair had been shaved down as close to the scalp as shears could do the job, though what was left of it stood up as straight as so many shoe-pegs.
“A matter of opinion, I say.”
“A blatter of inions? I brings all der blatters as der gook tells me zoo bring.”
“Did you call the engineer?” asked the captain.
“No; I calls der captain.”
“Call Gerald Roach.”
“I calls him. But de inions?”
“See here, Karl Schnaffer; you must not learn English of the cook: onions, not _inions_.”
“Onions,” repeated Karl, pronouncing the word very well.
“I don’t want any onions; I seldom eat them, and never when I am going on shore within twenty-four hours.”
“What for you says a blatter of onions?”
“I didn’t say so. I said a matter of opinion,” laughed the captain. “Call Gerald.”
“A madder of obinion! I don’t know. I vill zee as der gook has any,” added Karl, shaking his head.
“Go along! but call Gerald and Ben first.”
Things appeared to be entirely democratic on board of the Ocean-Born, for Ben was the deck-hand. Presently he appeared, and soon after, Gerald Roach, the engineer, entered the cabin.
“Der gook says he don’t petter hab no madder of obinion do-day;” said Karl, entering the cabin. “He hab plenty in de ice-house; but he don’t dink he gooks none do-day.”
“All right; we will have it for supper,” replied the captain. “Sit down; eat your dinner, Karl, and don’t wear out your brains with one effort.”
Karl seated himself. Just at that moment the steam yacht rolled heavily, and the three ribs of roast beef slid out of the platter into the plate of Ben Lunder, the deck-hand; the guard on the edge of the table prevented it from going into his lap.
“I’ll thank you for that roast beef, Ben,” said Captain Brandon, who was flourishing the carving-knife and steel; “that is, if you don’t want it all yourself.”
“I’m hungry, captain; and this piece is no more than a pattern for me,” replied Ben, thrusting his fork into the beef to keep it from jumping into his lap. “However, I can’t eat it whole, and you may cut it up.”
The deck-hand returned the ribs to the platter, and the captain proceeded to carve it. Contrary to the prediction of Karl, the red juices flowed from it, and the slices came off rare and tempting.
“I hope we shall be able to fill you up, Ben, before we return to Philadelphia,” said the captain.
“I don’t think you will, for this life on the rolling deep makes a vacuum in my stomach faster than I can fill it. By the way, Neil, the perfection of the art of carving in New York is to cut roast beef as thin as tissue paper. Don’t be too artistic. Half an inch thick for hungry fellows is about the gauge,” continued Ben. “Creation! how this tub rolls!”
“Don’t you call the Ocean-Born a tub, Ben: it’s a personal insult,” interposed the captain.
“I take it all back; but she makes the soapsuds fly like a squall in the wash-house on Monday morning,” added Ben, as a cloud of spray dashed in at the open door of the cabin.
“Shut that weather door, Ben,” said Captain Brandon.
The deck-hand rushed to the lee door, which happened to be behind him.
“Not that!” exclaimed the captain; “that isn’t the weather door.”
“The weather door! I don’t know w’ether that’s the weather door or not; but it’s pretty rough weather out of either door.”
“The port door: the door on the port side.”
“Exactly so; but you told me this very identical door was the weather door yesterday; and things are not what they seem,” pleaded Ben.
“But the wind was south-east yesterday.”
“Writ in sand are all nautical terms,” added the deck-hand, as he closed the port door: “one day a word means one thing, the next day quite a different thing. I shall never learn.”
For a time silence pervaded, for the business of the moment was all-absorbing; but after a time, when Ben had devoured three slices of beef, used up four potatoes, and gnawed as many ears of green corn, even he began to manifest a sense of weariness.
“Captain Brandon, I regret that I can do no more,” said he. “My will is strong, but the flesh is weak.”
“Do you refer to the flesh you have eaten, Ben?” asked the captain.
“No; to my body corporate, which is too full for utterance.”
“In union there is strength; and, having united so many potatoes, slices of beef, slices of bread, and ears of corn within that body corporate, it ought to be strong.”
“Then my strength is weakness, for I can eat no more. I am aweary, Captain Brandon. The Ocean-Born rolls fearfully, and thus interferes with my laziness. Shall we ever cease to roll? I lie down in the sun, and the briny waves roll over me. I lie down in my downy bunk in the forecastle, and I roll out on the floor. I went out on the mainto’-gallant bobstay this morning, to adjust the mizzen royal jib-topsail downhaul, drenching my skysail boom, and putting out both of my dead-eyes. Shall we ever cease to roll, captain?”
“Are you seasick, Ben?”
“After that dinner?” laughed the engineer.
“Not seasick; no, not seasick; but the rolling interferes with my animal comfort, my _dolce far niente_. Can’t you make her go along smoothly, great commander of the Ocean-Born?”
“Perhaps I can: I’ll try, Ben. But I don’t think she rolls as heavily as she did at daylight this morning.”
“At daylight this morning! Can I ever forget it? As I lay in my downy bunk, thinking of the weary hours that must elapse before breakfast time, now bumping against the bunk-board, now against the side of the gallant steamer, I suddenly found myself sprawling upon my stomach on the ceiling of the forecastle. Can you explain that, Mr. Commander of the Ocean-Born?”
“I cannot.”
“Inversion, in rhetoric, is a trick by which the spouter makes the argument of an opponent tell on his side. My opponent was the stormy ocean. But in a moment more I was right side up; that’s when I shifted the argument to my side.”
“What do you mean, Ben?”
“Only that the steamer rolled clear over, just as my dog does when I tell him to do it.”
“Very good, Mr. Lunder!” exclaimed the engineer.
“Don’t you believe it? I found a kink in the mainto’-gallant quarter-deck which can be explained in no other way. The backto’-gallant mainstay had a twist in it, and the mizzen-royal smoke-stack was crusted with salt enough to pickle a whole crew of fresh-water sailors. O, I know she rolled clear over! Besides, my trousers were fearfully mixed when I turned out, or rolled out, for the starboard leg was in the larboard trousers-leg, and the larboard leg in the starboard trousers-leg. In other, but less classic, terms, they were on hind side afore. Shall we ever cease to roll, Grand Mogul of the Ocean-Born?”
“In the cabin, there!” shouted Berry Owen from the pilot-house; “I beg to remind you that I haven’t had my dinner yet; and it’s two bells in the afternoon watch.”
“That’s the way to put it! Two bells in the afternoon watch! I wonder what time it is! One o’clock. And I hope by fourteen bells in the evening watch this gallant steamer will cease to roll,” added Ben, as he consulted his watch.
“It’s too bad to keep Berry waiting so long for his dinner,” said the captain.
“Better he than I. Shall I take the wheel?” asked Ben.
“Take the wheel! What will you do with it?”
“Get up a revolution.”
“I am afraid you would roll her over again, and get your trousers snarled up once more. No, Ben; go below, and turn in.”
“Turn over, you mean.”
Captain Brandon hastened to the wheel-house to relieve Berry Owen.
“North-north-east, half north,” said Berry, as he relinquished the helm.
“North-north-east, half north,” repeated Neil, as he took the wheel.
The roast beef had been sent to the galley to be kept hot, as soon as the first course at the captain’s dinner was finished. It was now returned, with fresh supplies of vegetables, for the mate’s dinner, as it was called; and Martin Roach, the fireman, relieved at the engine by his brother, dined with him. The yacht continued to roll very heavily, and Ben Lunder could find no rest. He sat down in the pilot-house; he lay down in the cabin; he stretched himself on the hurricane deck; he leaned against the foremast, for the yacht was schooner-rigged; he spread himself out on the divan in the after-cabin; but still he rolled over, was jerked off his feet, pitched into the scuppers, and tumbled off his resting-place. The water washed the deck, and half drowned him. In the forecastle, the dashing sea, beating against the bow and side of the vessel, made a noise like the machinery of a cotton factory. When he had finished his dinner, the mate returned to the pilot-house.
“All hands on deck!” shouted Captain Brandon. “We will try to take some of the roll out of her.”
“I am a believer in that doctrine; but I don’t see how it can be done,” added Ben.
“On deck, and I’ll show you,” replied Neil.
All hands, except the mate and the engineer, mounted the hurricane deck, where the wind was fresh enough to take them off their feet.
“Off with the stops of the foresail!” continued the captain.
“The stops! Here am I, captain; but I stop to be told what the stops are,” said Ben, jamming his hat down over his eyes, to prevent it from being carried away by the fresh breeze.
But the stops were all removed before Ben could learn what they were. The sheet was made ready.
“Now, stand by the sheet, Ben,” continued the captain.
“That’s just what I’m doing,” replied the deck-hand.
“Catch hold of it!”
Ben seized the sail.
“That isn’t the sheet, you lubber!” shouted Neil.
“I should say not. It’s a pretty rough sheet, and I shouldn’t care to sleep between a couple of such sheets.”
“This rope is the sheet,” added the captain, laying hold of it himself.
“Worse and worse! A rope sheet! I’m in despair.”
“Man the halyards!”
“Which--the foreto’-mizzen or the mainto’-backstay halyards?”
“Here you are, Ben!” called Martin Roach.
“Here I am, but I am unmanned, and don’t know how to man the halyards.”
“You take the throat with Karl, and I will take the peak.”
“Shall I take Karl by the throat?”
“No; take this rope, which is the throat-halyard,” explained Martin, as he put the line into the hands of Ben and Karl.
“I can pull die ropes so veil as never vas,” said Karl.
“Heave ahead, my hearty, then. This is the throat-halyard: choke him!” shouted Ben.
“Steady!” cried the captain.
“Steady as a judge: haven’t drank a drop to-day,” said Ben.
The wind was on the beam, and very fresh, and, of course, it was quite impossible to hoist and trim the sail, while the steamer was going ahead full speed on this course.
“Ben, ask Berry to luff her up,” shouted Neil.
“What, ho! In the pilot-house! Berry Owen!” yelled the deck-hand.
“On deck!” replied the mate, looking out through the low windows upon the hurricane deck.
“Stuff her up!” screamed Ben; and the noise of the threshing sail compelled him to speak loud enough to be heard above it.
“Stuff her up?” queried Berry.
“No, no; luff her up,” added Martin Roach.
“Luff! I thought he said stuff her up; and nothing is too strange to be done at sea,” laughed Ben.
The pilot put his helm down, and presently the steamer pointed her nose into the wind’s eye.
“Now, lively on your halyards!” said Neil, and, no longer needed at the sheet, he took hold with the deck-hand and steward. The sail was set, and the captain seized the sheet again, catching a turn over the cleat.
“Ben, ask Berry to lay her course again,” said he.
“Belay your horse again, Mr. Owen!” said Ben to the mate.
“What?” asked the puzzled helmsman.
“Belay your horse. I don’t know what it means; but that’s what the captain says,” added Ben, stooping down at the after windows of the pilot-house. “I suppose you are to hitch the animal, and give him his oats.”
“I don’t understand you,” answered Berry, impatiently.
“O, well, if you don’t, I give up the conundrum.”
“Lay her course!” cried the captain.
“Lay her course! I understand that,” said the helmsman.
As the steamer fell off, Neil trimmed the foresail, and then belayed the sheet. The mainsail was set by the same process. The steamer heeled well over under the influence of the fresh breeze, and her motion was much steadier than before. Karl went below to wash the dishes; Ben stretched himself on the lee divan in the forward cabin, and the captain remained on deck to watch the sails. The Ocean-Born tore through the water at a furious rate, the sails adding two or three knots to her speed.
Suddenly, as the captain was looking up to windward, a little cloud of smoke rose, apparently from the water, and an instant later the sound of a gun came to his ears.
“What was that, Berry?” he asked, going to the pilot-house.
“A gun; but I see no vessel in that direction.”
“What can it be?”
“I don’t know.”
“Pass up my glass, if you please.”
The spy-glass was handed up through the window, and Neil proceeded to make a minute examination of the surface of the ocean. The steamer had been out of sight of land all day, though it was now about time, if the calculations made were correct, to make out Seguin Light to the northward. While Neil was engaged in his survey, another puff of smoke, followed by the report of a gun, guided his examination, and he discovered something white. The gun was fired several times.
“Do you make it out, Neil?” asked Berry.
“I see something white on the water. There is no mast or sail; but it must be a boat. Somebody has been blown off from the shore,” replied the captain.
“Somebody in distress--isn’t it?”
“I suppose so; though I don’t see how a boat without a mast should happen to have on board a gun big enough to make all that noise. There’s another gun. They are not firing for the fun of it.”
“She must be in distress, whatever it is.”
“There goes a signal--a red cloth on a pole.” continued the captain, taking another look with his glass.
“We must run down to her,” said Berry.
“Certainly; but she is dead to windward of us, and we must take in sail. Send all hands on deck!”
It was an easier job to take in the fore and main sails than it had been to set them. The course of the steamer was changed and the firing on board of the stranger ceased.
“What’s the matter now, high and mighty commander of the Ocean-Born?” asked Ben, when the sails were secured, for thus far he had had no time to ask questions.
“There’s a boat in distress directly ahead of us, Ben,” replied Neil. “Didn’t you hear the guns she fired?”
“Not a gun: I was fast asleep in the forward cabin, digesting my dinner, which I found to be a heavier operation than usual to-day.”
“I should think you would, after the quantity of beef and green corn you ate.”
“But who is in distress, captain?”
“I don’t know: I haven’t been introduced to him or them yet.”
“Are they really in distress?”
“If they are not, they ought to be sunk for compelling us to go out of our course. I think it must be some boat blown off by the fresh breeze.”
“How delightful!” exclaimed Ben. “A real vessel or boat in distress, shooting cannon on the boundless ocean! What a sensation! I shall write a nautical romance when I return to Philadelphia, full of bobstays, jib-booms, and fo’peaks. A young lady shall be rescued from the awful wreck, hoisted into the steamer by the foreto’-backstay, and all that sort of thing. I shall buy a ton of salt to pickel the romance in.”
“I can see her now without the glass,” said the captain.
“Do you see the lady, young and pretty?”
“No; but I see that she is not a row-boat, as I supposed. She is a yacht of thirty feet or so long. Her masts have been carried away, and she is rolling in the trough of the sea. If there is any heroine on board of her, she must be seasick in the cabin, and not quite in a situation to take her place on your pages.”
The Ocean-Born continued to approach the stranger until she could be clearly made out, as she rose on the heavy waves.
“She is a dismasted sloop. There are four young fellows on her deck,” said Captain Brandon.
“What a cheerful sight the steamer must be to them!” added Ben.
“As true as you live, Ben, there is a lady on board of her!” exclaimed Neil.
“I knew it! She is clinging to the mainto’-gallant hatchway--isn’t she?”
“There’s another lady.”
“Two! That spoils the romance, and I give it up.”
In a few moments more the steamer was within hailing distance of the wreck.