CHAPTER XIV
BEGINNING THE VOYAGE
Ruth bent a little lower over her coffee urn to hide the additionalflush that had come into her cheeks, and after that she guided theconversation to safer ground and took care to leave no opening forDrew's audacity.
The meal over, all went on deck. The captain took charge and sentDitty and Rogers, the second officer, below to get breakfast. The crewhad already breakfasted.
Tyke had been carefully helped up by Drew and Captain Hamilton andplaced in a chair abaft the mizzenmast, where his keen old eyes coulddelight themselves with the activities of the crew. Ruth had fussedaround him prettily with cushions and a rest for his injured leg, untilthe veteran vowed that he would surely be spoiled before the voyage wasover.
They had passed the Battery by this time, and were moving sluggishlywith the tide. Behind them stretched the vast metropolis, with itswonderful sky-line sharply outlined by the bright rays of the morningsun. The Goddess of Liberty held her torch aloft as though to guidethem in their venture. At the right the hills of Staten Island smiledin their vernal beauty, while at the left, white stretches of gleamingbeach indicated the pleasure resorts where the people of the teemingcity came to play.
Ditty had come on deck again. Unpleasant though his countenance was,and as suspicious as Drew was of him, it was plain that the mate of the_Bertha Hamilton_ was a good seaman.
He looked now at Captain Hamilton for permission to make sail. Thelatter signed to him to go ahead. Useless to pay towage with afavoring wind and flowing tide.
Ditty bawled to the crew:
"Break her out, bullies! H'ist away tops'ls!"
The halyards were promptly manned. One man started the chorus thatjerked the main topsail aloft.
"Oh, come all you little yaller boys An' roll the cotton _down_! Oh, a husky pull, my bully boys, An' roll the cotton _down_!"
In a trice, it would seem, her three topsails were mastheaded and theforetopsail laid to the mast. The fore-braces came in, hand over hand,the hawsers were tossed overboard and the tug fell astern. The _BerthaHamilton_ leaned gracefully to the freshening gale, and was shootingfor the Narrows.
"It is perfectly beautiful, isn't it?" cried Ruth.
"Magnificent," agreed Drew.
"It's the finest harbor in all the world, to my mind," declaredParmalee.
"I wonder when we'll see it again," mused Ruth, with a touch ofapprehension in her voice.
"Oh, it won't be long before we're back," prophesied Parmalee.
"And when we do come back, we'll have enough doubloons with us to buyup the whole city," joked Drew.
"Don't be too sure of that," smiled Ruth. "Those who go out to shearsometimes come back shorn."
"We simply can't fail," asserted Drew. "Especially as we're taking amascot along with us."
"The mascot may prove to be a hoodoo," laughed Ruth. "I've thoughtmore than once that I shouldn't have teased my father to take me along."
"He'd have robbed the whole trip of brightness if he had refused,"affirmed Parmalee.
"It's nice of you to say that," returned Ruth. "But if any serioustrouble should come up, fighting or anything of that kind, you mightfind me terribly in the way."
"We'd only have an additional reason to fight the harder," declaredDrew. "No harm should come to you while any of us were left alive.But really, there's nothing to worry about. This trip is going to be asummer excursion."
"Nothing more serious to fear than the ghosts of some of the oldpirates who may be keeping guard over their doubloons and may resentour intrusion," said Parmalee.
"I'm not afraid of ghosts," cried Ruth. "It's only creatures of fleshand blood that give me any worry."
"If anything should come up," said Drew, "we're in pretty good shape togive the mischief-makers a tussle. Your father has a good collectionof weapons down in the cabin."
"Yes," assented Ruth; "and I know how to load and handle a revolver."
Drew put up his hands in pretended fright.
"Don't shoot!" he pleaded.
Thus with jest and compliment and banter the time passed until theywere off Sandy Hook. The breeze, while brisk, was light enough towarrant carrying all sails, and a cloud of canvas soon billowed fromaloft. One after another the sails were broken out on all three mastsuntil they creaked with the strain. The _Bertha Hamilton_ heeled overto port, and with every stitch drawing before a following wind gatheredway until she boomed along at a gait that swiftly carried her out ofsight of land. Before long the Sandy Hook Lightship sank from viewastern, and nothing could be seen on any side but the foam-streakedbillows of the Atlantic.
When the schooner was fairly under way and the watches had been chosen,the captain gave her into charge of the mate and rejoined Tyke.
That grizzled veteran was enjoying himself more than he had done at anytime for the last twenty years. As the old warhorse "sniffs the battlefrom afar," so he already anticipated with delight the coming battlewith wind and waves.
"Well, Tyke, what do you think of her?" the captain asked.
"She's a jim dandy!" ejaculated Tyke enthusiastically. "She rides thewaves like a feather. Jest slips along like she was greased."
"She's a sweet sailer," declared the captain proudly. "Just wait tillyou see how she manages against head winds. Even when she's jammed upright into the wind, she's good for six knots, and with any kind of afair gale, she's good for ten or twelve."
"With ordinary luck, then, we ought to git to the Caribbean in ten ortwelve days," said Tyke.
"Unless we meet up with something that strips our spars," returned thecaptain confidently. "Of course, a hurricane might knock us out in ourcalculations. Taking it by and large though, and allowing for the timewe may have to cruise around before we find the island we're lookingfor, I'm figuring that we'll make Sandy Hook again in two months allright."
"Better count on three and be sure," cautioned Grimshaw. "You know itisn't a matter of simply finding the island, staying there mebbe a dayor two an' coming away again. This is more'n jest sending a boat'screw ashore for water. We may be a month hunting around and trying tofind the pesky thing."
"And even then we may not find it," laughed the captain.
"Well, it'll be some satisfaction if we even find the hole it used tobe in," said Tyke. "That'll show that we weren't altogether fools intaking the paper an' map for gospel truth."
"I don't know that there'd be much comfort in that," returned CaptainHamilton. "If you're hungry it doesn't do much good to look at thehole in a doughnut. There isn't much nourishment except in thedoughnut itself," and he grinned over his little joke.
The wind held fair for the rest of the day, and the schooner kept on ata spanking gait, reeling off the miles steadily. By night theincreasing warmth of the air showed how rapidly the South was drawingnear.
Ruth was a good sailor and felt no bad effect from the long oceanswells as the ship ploughed over them. Drew, too, who had no sea-goingexperience at all and had inwardly dreaded possible sea-sickness, wasdelighted to find that he was to be exempt.
Parmalee, however, although he had traveled extensively, had never beenimmune from paying tribute to Neptune. He ate but little at thenoon-day meal, and when the rest gathered around the table at night hedid not appear at all.
Drew felt that he should be sympathetic, and, to do him justice, hetried to be. He visited Parmalee in his cabin, condoled with him, andoffered to be of any possible service. But Parmalee wanted nothingexcept to be let alone, and, with the consciousness of duty done, Drewleft him to his misery and joined the rest at the table.
"I'm awfully sorry for poor Mr. Parmalee," remarked Ruth, as she pouredDrew's tea.
"Poor fellow," chimed in the young man perfunctorily.
"You don't say that as though you meant it at all," objected Ruthreprovingly.
"What do you expect me to do?" laughed Drew. "Weep bitter tears? I'lldo it if you want me to. In fact, I'll do any
thing you want me todo--jump through a hoop, roll over, play dead, anything at all."
"I didn't know you had so many accomplishments," remarked Ruth, with atouch of sarcasm.
"Oh, I'm a perfect wonder," replied the young man. "There isn'tanything I can't do or wouldn't do--for you," he added, dropping hisvoice so only she could hear it.
Ruth, however, pretended not to hear, and addressed her next remark toGrimshaw.
"How do you like Wah Lee's cooking?" she asked.
"Fine," replied Tyke. "There's no better cooks anywhere than theChinks. Want to look out that he don't slip one over on you, though,if the victuals run short. Might serve up cat or rat or something ofthe kind an' call it pork or veal. An' he'd probably git away with it,too."
Ruth gave a little shudder.
"Cat might not be so bad at that," remarked her father. "Down inChili, for instance, they haven't any rabbits and they serve up catsinstead. 'Gato piquante' they call it, which means savory cat. I'venever tasted it, but I know those who have, and they say that it makesthe finest kind of stew."
"Why not?" commented Drew, with a grin. "Catfish is good. So iscatsup. Why not cat stew?"
"I think you men are just horrid!" exclaimed Ruth. "Taking away poorWah Lee's character like this behind his back."
"Well, I guess we won't have to worry about his falling from grace onthis cruise," laughed her father. "We're too well stocked up for himto be driven to try experiments."
When they went up on deck, the moon had risen. Its golden light tippedthe waves with a sheen of glory and turned the spray into so muchglittering diamond dust. Under its magic witchery, the ropes andrigging looked like lace work woven by fairy fingers.
The crew were grouped up in the bow, and one of them was playing aconcertina. Mr. Rogers paced the deck, casting a look aloft from timeto time to see that the sails were drawing well. The wind had a slightmusical sound as it swept through the rigging, and this blended withthe regular slapping of the water against her sides as the _BerthaHamilton_ sailed steadily on her course.
The air was the least bit chilly, and this gave Drew an excuse fortucking Ruth cozily into the chair he had placed in a shelteredposition behind the deckhouse. His fingers trembled as he drew therugs and shawls around her. She snuggled down, wholly content to bewaited on so devotedly, and perhaps--who knows?--sharing to some degreethe emotion that made the man's pulse race so madly.