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Title: The Young Supercargo: A Story of the Merchant Marine

Author: William Drysdale

Illustrator: Charles Copeland

Release date: November 16, 2021 [eBook #66747]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: W. A. Wilde & Company, 1898

Credits: davidkpark; Sue Clark; the image following page 211 provided by The Young Supercargo: a Story of the Merchant Marine. 1898. Courtesy of Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature, Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida; and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG SUPERCARGO: A STORY OF THE MERCHANT MARINE ***





THE YOUNG SUPERCARGO




BRAIN AND BRAWN SERIES.

  BY WILLIAM DRYSDALE.

  ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES COPELAND.

  =THE YOUNG REPORTER. A Story of Printing House Square.= 300 pages.
      With five full-page Illustrations. Cloth. 12mo. $1.50.

  =THE FAST MAIL. The Story of a Train Boy.= 330 pages. With five
      full-page Illustrations. Cloth. 12mo. $1.50.

  =THE BEACH PATROL. A Story of the Life-Saving Service.= 318 pages.
      With five full-page Illustrations. Cloth. 12mo. $1.50.

  =THE YOUNG SUPERCARGO. A Story of the Merchant Marine.= 352 pages.
      With five full-page Illustrations. Cloth. 12mo. $1.50.

*.* _Other volumes in preparation._




[Illustration: “‘WHY, THIS IS NO WHARF-RAT, OFFICER.’”]




THE YOUNG SUPERCARGO

  A Story of the Merchant Marine

  BY
  WILLIAM DRYSDALE

  _Author of “The Young Reporter,” “The Fast Mail,”
  “The Beach Patrol,” etc., etc._

  ILLUSTRATED BY
  CHARLES COPELAND

  [Illustration: Docendo discimus]

  BOSTON AND CHICAGO
  W. A. WILDE & COMPANY




  COPYRIGHT, 1898,
  BY W. A. WILDE & COMPANY.
  _All rights reserved._

  THE YOUNG SUPERCARGO.




CONTENTS.

  CHAPTER                                        PAGE

        I. KIT SILBURN’S START IN LIFE              9

       II. A VOYAGE TO YUCATAN                     26

      III. A NORTHER ON THE GULF                   44

       IV. KIT’S CONNECTICUT HOME                  61

        V. A BURGLAR IN THE CABIN                  78

       VI. THE STRANGE CASE OF JOHN DOE            97

      VII. KIT BECOMES A SUPERCARGO               109

     VIII. NEWS FROM THE WRECKED SCHOONER         129

       IX. KIT INSPECTS LONDON                    149

        X. A LETTER FROM THE STATE DEPARTMENT     168

       XI. A VOYAGE TO MARSEILLES                 186

      XII. IMPRISONED IN THE CASTLE D’IF          203

     XIII. A VISIT TO NOTRE-DAME-DE-LA-GARDE      221

      XIV. THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER FROM ROME      237

       XV. NEWS FROM NEW ZEALAND                  256

      XVI. KIT LEAVES THE “NORTH CAPE”            272

     XVII. OVERBOARD IN THE PITCH LAKE            287

    XVIII. A VOYAGE TO BERMUDA                    306

      XIX. KIT FINDS HIS FATHER                   324

       XX. LOVE’S YOUNG DREAM IN BARBADOES        340




ILLUSTRATIONS.

                                                                PAGE

  “‘Why, this is no wharf-rat, officer’”       _Frontispiece_     14

  “‘You are young for a supercargo, Señor’”                       48

  “‘Can you take me to No. 32 Fenchurch Street?’”                136

  “‘Here--is the hole he cut through into the priest’s cell’”    211

  “They had a beautiful view of the Mediterranean”               240




THE YOUNG SUPERCARGO.

CHAPTER I.

KIT SILBURN’S START IN LIFE.


A big black steamship lay beside the wharf in front of Martin’s Stores,
in Brooklyn. The cold November night was so dark that from the brick
warehouse, a hundred feet away, hardly anything could be seen of her
but the lantern that swung in her rigging, a faint light that shone
through her cabin portholes, and occasionally one of her tall top-masts
standing out against the pale moon that tried with little success to
show itself between the scudding clouds. It was bitterly cold, for
November; and a stiff wind from the northeast was driving the black
clouds seaward at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour.

The steamer was the _North Cape_, arrived the week before from
Sisal, in Yucatan, with a cargo of hemp in bales. Though everything was
dark and quiet about her on that wintry night, evidences of hard work
in unloading lay all around. The bales had been taken out of her hold
faster than the warehousemen could trundle them into the building, and
the hundred feet of space between wharf and warehouse was littered with
them. Some were piled up in tiers, and others lay scattered about in
confusion.

That open space between the warehouse and the harbor was well sheltered
from the cutting wind; and patrolman McSweeny, of the Brooklyn police,
with ears and fingers tingling found it a warm corner, and made more
frequent visits to it than his duty really required. If he had gone
into one of the neighboring coffee-houses to warm himself, he might
have been caught by the roundsman and fined; but in going through the
brick archway under the building and prowling among the goods on the
wharf in search of tramps or thieves he was strictly obeying orders. So
on the cold November night he paid particular attention to the wharf
of Martin’s Stores, and visited it so often that no burglar in the
neighborhood would have had the least chance.

Patrolman McSweeny had been a Brooklyn policeman long enough to
understand all the favorite police ways of stirring out homeless tramps
who are so desperately wicked as to go to sleep in the warmest corner
they can find. Among such goods as bales of hemp, for instance, he
took his long nightclub and jabbed it into all the dark spaces that
were wide enough for a boy or man to squeeze into. That way, he found,
was certain to produce results, if anybody was there. Either the soft
feeling at the end of the club told him that he had found a victim, or
the vigor with which he poked it made the victim cry out with pain.

For a policeman weighing nearly two hundred pounds, and armed with a
big club and a revolver, patrolman McSweeny, it must be admitted, made
his rounds among the bales with great caution. The ordinary tramp is a
mere bag of dirt for the average policeman to prod and cuff and shake
as he likes; but about ten days before Mr. McSweeny had stirred up two
tramps on that same wharf who had more muscle than most of their clan,
and in their anger they had turned upon him and thrown him overboard.
So he felt that his dignity needed a little polishing up, and he was
ready to polish it up on the next tramp he caught.

And tramps were not his only victims along the wharves. Sometimes he
came across a boy,--a frowsy, ragged, shivering, homeless boy; and
that always gave him great delight, for a boy, unless he is a big one,
is not as troublesome to handle as a hungry and desperate man. Some
policemen have big hearts, and would rather buy a cup of coffee and a
roll for a hungry boy than take him to the station house and lock him
up; but patrolman McSweeny was not of that kind. He was trying to make
a record on “the foorce,” and every arrest added to his laurels.

It was about eleven o’clock when the patrolman made his fourth trip
that evening among the hemp bales. Never very good-natured, he was
particularly cross that night. Something at the station had annoyed
him; and with his aching fingers and one or two draughts of a stronger
beverage than coffee, he was rather a dangerous person to be trusted
at large with a club and a revolver and the authority of law. His next
victim on the wharf of Martin’s Stores was pretty sure to have an
unpleasant time.

He went from pile to pile of the bales, poking his club viciously into
every dark nook and corner, always ready for a sudden attack. And he
had not gone far before he poked something soft, lying between two
bales, and heard a voice cry out, in startled but still sleepy tones:--

“Hey! who’s there?”

The voice was a relief to him, for it was the voice of a boy.

“Git up here, ye young thafe, till I show ye who it is. Will ye come
out or shall I fan yer carcase wid me club?”

In answer to this gentle summons a boy’s head and shoulders appeared
above the bales, and the big policeman seized the section of coat
collar that was visible and snatched the rest of the boy out with a
jerk.

“Stop that! Let go of me!” said the boy.

Such resistance as that almost took the policeman’s breath away. He
was accustomed to having boys beg him to let them off, and promise
to go home, or go to work, or almost anything else, to get out of
his clutches. But here was a boy who demanded his liberty instead
of begging for it. In such a case it would have made no difference,
probably, even if it had been light enough for him to see that instead
of an ordinary vagabond or river thief this boy was clean and well
dressed.

“Lit go av ye, then, is it!” he repeated, giving his prisoner another
shake; “it’s in the cells I’ll lit go av ye, an’ not before, ye young
thafe. Yer caught in de act, an I’ll run yer in.”

“I am no thief,” said the boy, “and you have no business to poke me
with your club or shake me. If you want to arrest me, I will go with
you peaceably; but I have done nothing to be arrested for.”

“Done nothin’!” the policeman exclaimed, letting go of the boy’s collar
and taking him by the sleeve; “didn’t I ketch ye stealin’?”

“What was I stealing?” the boy asked.

“Hemp, av coorse,” said the officer.

Indignant as he was, the boy could hardly help laughing at the idea of
his stealing five hundred pound bales of hemp.

“I was sleeping there,” the boy answered, “because I had nowhere else
to sleep.”

“Thin I’ll give yer a safe place ter slape!” the policeman declared.
“You come wid me;” and he started toward the archway, still holding his
prisoner by the sleeve.

They were just about to turn from the outer end of the arch into the
almost deserted street when they nearly ran into a man who came along
the sidewalk at a swinging gait and turned short about to enter the
dark tunnel.

“Hello, officer; what’s this?” said the man, stopping to look at the
young prisoner under the gas lamp.

“Good avenin’ to you, Captain Griffith,” the policeman answered, in a
very different tone from the one he had used in speaking to the boy.
“It’s one of them loafin’ wharf rats I’ve caught among your bales of
hemp, sir. But I’ll put him where he won’t be sn’akin’ around the
wharves for one while, sure.”

“Why, this is no wharf rat, officer,” the newcomer said, taking the boy
by the shoulder and turning him around under the lamp to have a better
view of him. “He looks like a respectable boy. What were you doing on
the wharf, my boy?”

“I went there to sleep between two of the bales, sir,” the boy replied,
“because I had nowhere else to go.”

“Well, that’s no crime,” said the man; “we all have to sleep somewhere,
I suppose. I think I wouldn’t lock him up just for that, officer. He’s
a decent-looking boy, and I can give him a place to sleep aboard the
ship. It’s no wonder a youngster hunts a warm place on such a night as
this.”

“Af ye think best, Captain,” the policeman readily answered, releasing
his hold on the boy’s arm. “It’s in luck ye are, bye, that Captain
Griffith of the _North Cape_ put in a good word for ye, or ye’d a
been in a cell by this toime. Then I lave the bye with you, Cap’n.”

“Very good,” said the Captain. “Good night, officer; you’ll have cold
work to-night. Come along, my boy.”

The next minute the boy was retracing his steps through the tunnel,
no longer a prisoner, but sure of a warm place to pass the night. He
had no time to wonder why it was that the captain of a freight steamer
had so much influence with the Brooklyn police; and no matter how much
he had wondered he could hardly have guessed the truth, that every
time the _North Cape_ lay at Martin’s Stores policeman McSweeny
received a five-dollar tip for keeping extra watch over her at night.
The big patrolman was too shrewd not to oblige his patron whenever he
could.

Captain Griffith led the way up an inclined gangway to a lower part of
the deck, then up an iron ladder to a higher deck amidships, then down
a companionway to the snug little cabin of the _North Cape_, where
he turned up the big cabin lamp that had been burning dimly. That done,
he threw off his overcoat, sat down in a revolving-chair at the head
of the cabin table, and looked at the boy for several minutes as if he
intended to look right through him, clothes and all.

What he saw standing by the cabin table, hat in hand, was a
manly-looking boy of about sixteen or seventeen, perhaps a little
large for his age, strong of build, with a good honest face and bright
bluish-gray eyes, and wavy dark brown hair, and hands and face bronzed
by the sun.

“No place to sleep, eh?” the Captain asked, at length.

“No, sir,” said the boy.

“What are you doing in Brooklyn without a place to sleep?” the Captain
went on.

“I came to New York to look for work, sir,” the boy replied. “This
afternoon I answered an advertisement in Brooklyn, but did not get the
place.”

“Where do you live?” the Captain asked.

“In Huntington, Connecticut, sir,” the boy replied.

“What’s your name?”

“Christopher Silburn, sir; they call me Kit.”

“And how did you happen to come to New York to look for work without
any money?” the Captain continued.

“I had some money when I came, sir,” Kit answered, “but I have been
here for three days, and it is nearly all gone. What little is left I
am saving to buy food with.”

“Have you no friends?” the Captain asked, looking at Kit’s clothes,
which though evidently not of city make, were clean and whole.

“I have a mother and sister, sir,” he answered, “and it is on their
account that I have come to the city, for they need what I can earn.
My father is dead--at least, I am afraid he is.”

“Afraid he is!” the Captain repeated; “don’t you know whether he is
dead or not?”

“Not for certain, sir,” Kit replied. “He was first mate of the schooner
_Flower City_, which sailed from Bridgeport for New Orleans with
machinery nearly a year ago. She was sighted by a steamer off Hatteras,
but she has never been heard from since, nor any of her crew. She was
given up long ago, and there is hardly any hope.”

“Lost at sea!” the Captain said thoughtfully; and it was evident that
from that moment he took a greater interest in the boy he had rescued.
“The old story, I suppose. No money; family at home; wife and children
left to starve.”

“Not quite as bad as that, sir,” Kit answered, “but very nearly. My
father left us a little house in Huntington, nearly all paid for, and
my mother earns some money by sewing. It is a hard pull; but if I can
find something to do, it will make things a little easier.”

“Well, Mr. Kit Silburn, of Huntington,” the Captain said, after another
long look at him, “you tell a very straight story. I thought out in the
street that you looked like an honest boy; that’s the reason I got you
away from the policeman. But I don’t judge boys by their faces; some of
the best faces are owned by the biggest rogues. I have a sure way of
my own of finding out whether a boy is likely to steal my spoons and
cushions. I judge a bank by what it has in its safes, and a boy by what
he has in his pockets. Empty out your pockets here on the table, till I
see what you carry.”

Kit was a little surprised at this request, which was delivered more
like an order on deck; but he obeyed promptly. He began with the
trousers pocket on the right-hand side, and laid out an old knife, a
key-ring without any keys on it, and a small foot rule. Then from the
left-hand pocket he took a well-worn pocket-book.

“What’s in the purse?” the Captain asked.

Instead of replying in words, Kit opened it and held it upside down
over the table, and there rolled out a half-dollar, a bright quarter, a
five-cent piece, and two pennies.

“That your whole stock?” the Captain asked.

“Yes, sir, that is all the money I have left,” Kit answered. Then he
began on his vest. From the upper pocket on the left-hand side he took
a toothbrush, and a pocket comb fastened to the back of a small mirror.
In a lower pocket, on one side, he had four collar buttons; and on
the other side a card with his name and home address written upon it,
prepared by his mother, as he explained, in case anything should happen
to him.

Then he began to empty the pockets of his coat. From the breast pocket
he took his handkerchief, and two clean handkerchiefs, folded, that
were beneath it.

From one of the lower pockets he took a morning newspaper, with
several of the advertisements marked with pencil. Then he put his hand
up to the inside breast pocket, but paused.

“Well, go on,” said the Captain.

With a little hesitation Kit took from the pocket two clean collars,
folded in the middle, and laid them on the table. Then a little
pocket testament with gilt edges. Then a letter that had been opened,
addressed to “Mr. Christopher Silburn, General Post Office, New York.”

“That’s all, sir,” he said.

“Where do you carry your matches?” the Captain asked.

“I don’t carry any matches, sir,” Kit answered.

“Nor cigarettes?”

“No, sir, I never smoke.”

The Captain picked up the testament and opened it at the fly-leaf
and read, written in a neat womanly hand, “Christopher Silburn, from
Mother. ‘The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.’”

“Now, my boy,” the Captain continued, “I see you have a letter there.
Letters always tell their own story. If you want to tell me more about
yourself, you can read that letter to me. But you need not do it unless
you choose.”

“I am quite willing to read it, sir,” Kit replied, taking up the
letter. “It is from my sister, with a few lines added by my mother.”

He took it from the envelope and stepped up closer to the light. The
body of the letter was in a scrawly, girlish hand, and the postscript
was written evidently by the same hand that wrote the inscription in
the testament.

  MY DEAR KIT [he read]: We are so worried about you for
  fear something will happen to you in that big city. Mamma says it
  is more than fifty times as big as Bridgeport, and I am always a
  little afraid when I go there. I cried half the night last night,
  and I know Mamma was crying for you in the evening, though she
  didn’t think that I saw her. Dear old Turk was so quiet all day, I
  know he missed you, too.

  I do hope you will find some situation you like, and get a good
  start. But if you don’t find one, we want you to come home, Kit;
  Mamma says so.

  I bought stamps with one of my dollars to-day and send them to
  you in this, for fear you may run out of money. If you don’t get
  anything to do, send me a postal card, and I will send you the
  other one too, so you can come home in the boat. I do wish you were
  here this evening.
                         Your loving sister,
                                            GENEVIEVE.

Then he read the postscript:--

  MY DARLING BOY: Sister has written for me, as my eyes ache
  in the evening. We hope to hear from you by to-morrow. Be sure we
  both miss you very much. God bless you, my boy, and take care of
  you. Remember what I told you before you started.
                                               MOTHER.

“And you have spent your sister’s stamps, I suppose?” the Captain
asked, when Kit, having finished, refolded the letter.

“No, sir, I was robbed of them,” he replied. “I took them into a
little shop in one of the avenues to have them changed into money,
and the man put them in the drawer, but would not pay me for them.
He accused me of stealing them. ‘You’re not the first office boy has
stolen his boss’s stamps and come here to sell them,’ he said. ‘Go and
bring your boss, till I give him back his stamps.’”

“And being a country boy, you did not think of taking the address of
the shop, I suppose?” the Captain asked.

“No, sir,” Kit answered. “He threatened to call a policeman if I didn’t
go away, so I went.”

“Looks as if the shopkeeper was the thief himself,” said the Captain,
smiling at Kit’s innocence. “Well, put your things back in your
pockets. How old are you?”

“Sixteen, sir,” Kit answered; “nearly seventeen.”

“Ever been to sea?”

“No, sir. I know very little about the water, for a sailor’s boy.
Huntington is ten miles back from the Sound, and a good many of the
people there are seafaring men, but the boys don’t see much of salt
water.”

“Would you like to go to sea?” the Captain asked, looking up at him
suddenly.

“Yes, sir; I should like it very much indeed,” Kit answered promptly.

“Well, I haven’t taken all this trouble with you just for amusement,”
the Captain went on. “I am in need of a cabin boy; and when I saw you
in the hands of the policeman I rather thought that fate had sent me
one without farther trouble. I never take a boy who has run away from
home, and for that reason I wanted to find out about you by what you
had in your pockets. And I find that you have not run away, and that
you have very good references. A boy with a Bible in his pocket and a
letter from his mother and sister has as good references as I want. I’m
not very much of a church man myself; know more about log books than
prayer books, maybe; but I like to see a boy who’s started out right.
Would you like to be my cabin boy?”

“Yes, sir; I should like very much to have the place,” Kit replied.

“Then I’ll tell you what the place is, so you’ll know what you’re
about,” the Captain continued. “You know what a tramp steamer is, I
suppose?”

“Yes, sir,” Kit answered. “It is a steamer that belongs to no regular
line, but goes wherever she can get freight to carry.”

“That’s it,” the Captain assented. “And the _North Cape_ is a
tramp steamer. She belongs to no regular line, but goes wherever she
can get freight to carry. She is chartered for one more voyage to Sisal
after hemp, and after that she will go wherever business offers. It may
be on one side of the world and it may be on the other. So if you go
with me, you are just as likely to be in China six months from now, as
to be in New York.”

Such a prospect made Kit’s eyes sparkle.

“I should like that very much, sir,” he answered.

“Very well, then,” the Captain resumed. “Your pay will be six dollars
a month, and you are not to go ashore without leave. That is not very
much pay, but on the ship you will get your board, so you will have
more money at the end of the month than you would have with more pay on
shore. Your work will be to do whatever you’re told, and you’ll have
to walk a very straight line. Don’t think because I have talked to you
so much to-night that I’m going to pet you, for I’m not. When a ship
leaves port, there is only one law for everybody on board, and that is
the captain’s orders.”

He paused a moment, and then went on:--

“There is another boy on this ship, the engineers’ mess-room boy.
You’ve heard the old saying, I suppose, that one boy is half a boy and
two boys are no boy at all. But it’s not so on the _North Cape_.
Each boy has to be a whole boy here, from the top of his head to the
soles of his boots. I don’t allow any skylarking, or any quarrelling.”

Kit saw that he was expected to make some reply, so he said, “I will
try to please you, sir.”

“I think you will,” said the Captain. “Now you have a start,--not a
very big one, but as good as most boys have,--and the rest lies with
yourself. You can push your way up in the world, or you can make a fool
of yourself and go to the dogs. Nobody but yourself can say which it
shall be.”

“I am very much obliged to you, sir,” Kit answered. “I found it pretty
hard to get the start, but now that I have it I shall try to make the
most of it.”

“It’s time to turn in,” said the Captain, glancing at the cabin clock
and seeing that it was almost midnight. “To-morrow you must write home
for whatever clothes you have. No matter what they are, they will
be good enough when we are at sea. And you must ask your mother’s
permission to go; I won’t take you without that, but as soon as you
get it, I will let you sign the crew list; and you can begin your work
to-morrow morning, while you’re waiting for it. We’ll not be away from
here for a week yet, and there’s plenty of time. You can sleep on one
of the cabin sofas to-night.”

With that the Captain turned the big lamp down low, picked up his
overcoat, and disappeared through a door at the end of the cabin,
leading, as Kit learned afterward, to his own stateroom.

Kit was a little dazed at first by the rapidity with which things were
happening. Late in the afternoon he had concluded to go without any
supper, because he was not very hungry and he could not afford to eat
just because it was meal time. Then he had looked about for a place to
sleep outdoors, having no idea how many thousand homeless people in
New York are doing that same thing every night, nor how vigilant the
police are to drive them away or arrest them. He had spent two nights
in cheap lodging-houses in the Bowery, but everything was so foul and
uncomfortable there that he preferred the open air. Then he had gone
to sleep between the hemp bales, only to be poked with a club and
shaken and put under arrest. And now here he was an hour later with as
good a situation as he had hoped to find; and a chance to sleep in as
snug and comfortable a cabin as he ever dreamed of; and a prospect of
breakfast in the morning that would not have to be paid for out of his
poor little eighty-two cents.

He went around the table to the longest of the three sofas in the
cabin, and found it covered with soft leather cushions. There was even
a leather pillow at the end. He lay down and tried to think things
over. He had no doubt that his mother would consent to his going, for
it had always been intended that he should go to sea with his father.
Then he thought about Genevieve and her stamps, and about Turk, and in
five minutes he was fishing in his dreams, in Bonnibrook, the stream
that runs through Huntington.

A noise in the cabin awoke him. It was the steward giving the place its
morning cleaning; and half asleep as he still was, Kit saw that the sun
was streaming through the port-holes.

“Hello, there,” said the steward, “where did you come from?”

Kit sat up and looked around. He had to think a moment before he could
tell where he did come from.

“I’m the new cabin boy, sir,” he said.

“Get up, then, and stir yourself,” said the steward.




CHAPTER II.

A VOYAGE TO YUCATAN.


For five days after Kit’s arrival on board the _North Cape_
the steam winches were at work ten hours a day with their deafening
clatter, first in hoisting the remainder of the hemp bales out of the
hold, then in taking in what shipping men call a “general cargo,”
consisting in part of barrels of flour, boxes of tea, cases of cloth,
hats, shoes, and other things necessary in a country where little but
hemp is produced.

On the fifth day there came indications that the ship was about to
sail. The last of the piles of merchandise on the wharf disappeared,
the winches stopped, and two of the hatches were battened down. Kit was
prepared for this, for he was now a legal member of the ship’s family,
having signed the crew list. He had written home and had received his
mother’s permission to go to sea, coupled with many loving expressions
and much good advice; and had received, too, an affectionate letter
from Genevieve, and a little bundle containing the clothing he had left
at home.

Early in the afternoon the Captain’s bell rang, and it was Kit’s
business to answer it.

“Go tell the chief I want steam at eight o’clock,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Kit answered, and ran up to the chief engineer’s room to
deliver the order. When he left the chief’s room he was stopped near
the engine-room skylights by the boatswain.

“Here, youngster,” said he, “run up for’ard and ask the first officer
to send me the load-water-line; I’ve got to take soundings.”

“Yes, sir,” Kit answered again, and was about to start on the
errand when he was stopped by Tom Haines, the fourth engineer, a
pleasant-faced young Scotchman of about twenty, who was leaning against
the skylights.

“Don’t go, young ’un,” Haines said; “he’s trying to make a fool of you.
The load-water-line is painted on the side of the ship; besides, we
don’t take soundings lying at a wharf.”

Kit laughed good-naturedly at the joke, and Haines added:--

“They’ll soon get tired of playing tricks on you, as you don’t get mad.
Just keep your eyes open and your mouth shut, and you’ll soon know as
much about the ship as any of them.”

“Oh, I don’t intend to let them make me mad,” Kit answered, “no matter
how many tricks they play on me. A new boy has to expect that sort of
thing, I suppose.”

Before he reached the cabin companionway he was stopped by “Chocolate”
Cheevers, the engineer’s mess-room boy, whose nickname was generally
abbreviated to “Chock.” This boy had already played more tricks upon
Kit than all the rest of the crew combined, and the new cabin boy
felt sure that he would not be a pleasant companion on the voyage.
The curious nickname that the sailors had given him came, it was easy
to see, from the brown hue of his skin; and this and his tight-curled
black hair and velvety brown eyes marked him for a light West Indian
mulatto. He was about a year older than Kit, tall and slender.

“Say, farmer,” he said, laying a hand on Kit’s shoulder (disliking his
own nickname, he was anxious to attach one to Kit), “don’t you want to
go ashore with me and have a look at the town to-night? This will be
our last night in port.”

“Why, we’re going to sail at eight o’clock,” Kit answered.

“Well, you are a green one!” Chock laughed. “How can we sail before we
get our crew on board? We’ll not leave the wharf before midnight, and
then she’ll anchor out in the harbor till morning.”

“But I can’t go on shore without leave,” Kit protested, “nor you
either.”

“We can get leave fast enough, on the last night. Come along, and we’ll
take in some of the shows on the Bowery. It’s a gay old place, that
Bowery.”

“Oh, that’s what you mean by taking a look at the town, is it?” Kit
laughed. “I don’t care about that kind of a look, thank you. I saw a
little of the Bowery when I was looking for a job, and I’m not fond of
it; and I have no money to throw away on such things. We’d better both
stay on board and attend to our business.”

“Ah, the cabin boy is a preacher as well as a farmer, is he?” Chock
sneered. “Service of song every Sunday morning.”

“No, I am no preacher,” Kit answered pleasantly; “but I am not fool
enough to spend my money on Bowery shows, either.”

The Captain’s bell rang again, and he had to hurry away before Chock
had a chance to retort. He was wanted this time to help the Captain
get ready to go ashore; and after the Captain had gone he took the
opportunity to write his last letter home before sailing, as he always
had less to do when the Captain was away. There were writing-materials
on the big cabin table, and he sat down and wrote:--

  DEAR MOTHER AND VIEVE:--We are getting up steam and will
  be off to-night or to-morrow morning, so this is the last letter
  you will get from me till I am back from Yucatan. And won’t I be a
  regular old sailor by that time!

  The Captain has gone ashore, and we expect the rest of the crew
  this evening. You see only about half the crew stay by the ship
  all the time; the rest are shipped new for every voyage. The
  regular ones are the Captain, the first and second mates, the
  chief engineer and his three assistants, the boatswain, the cabin
  steward, cabin boy (that’s the undersigned!), cook, galley boy
  (that boy is about thirty!), and the engineers’ mess-room boy.
  Then before sailing we ship six men “before the mast,” and four
  firemen, or stokers. That will make twenty-three of us on board
  when we sail.

  I think I have given the Captain satisfaction so far, and I like
  it first-rate. Of course we are only in port yet, but I shall like
  it at sea too. We have a beautiful little cabin, and the Captain’s
  room is about half as large as the cabin. I have to take care of
  his room, keep it clean, and keep his clothes in order; clean the
  cabin every morning, fill and polish the big lamp, run when the
  Captain’s bell rings, and, as he says, “do whatever I’m told,”
  which of course I do.

  At the other end of the cabin, across a little alley, are three
  good staterooms. The first and second mates have one together, and
  the cabin steward and I have another. He sleeps in the lower berth,
  and I in the upper. It makes fine quarters for us; but we would
  have to move out if there were passengers on board.

  At meal times the Captain and first mate eat together first, then
  the second mate comes down and eats, and after he is done the
  steward and I eat together. The engineers have their own mess-room.
  Of course there is plenty to eat, and our china is all marked N.
  C., for _North Cape_. You wouldn’t think things would be
  so grand on a freight ship. Why, the cabin is all furnished in
  mahogany, with soft leather cushions. Oh, I forgot to say that I
  have to help the steward wash the dishes, so it’s well you taught
  me how.

  Don’t think I am off on a pleasure trip. I didn’t leave you
  both for that. I have lots of work to do; and I hope to do it
  faithfully, so that before long I may be something better than a
  cabin boy. But cabin boy isn’t so bad for just now.

  The _North Cape_’s size is 2850 tons, and she is a very strong
  iron ship; so you need not be worried about me. Shake dear old
  Turk’s paw good-by for me. You know how much love I send to you
  both. Good-by for a month or six weeks.
                                       Your loving
                                                  KIT.

That was the longest letter he had ever written; and by the time it was
finished he had to help set the supper table, for the ship’s meals must
go on whether the Captain was on board or not. Then the dishes were
hardly washed and put away after supper before the Captain returned,
to be followed in a few minutes by a shipping agent who brought the
crew--the six sailors and four stokers, most of whom had been supplied
with enough liquor to make them willing to sign orders for advances on
their pay, for the benefit of the agent and boarding-house keeper. Some
of them were quite sober, however, and there was one young man of good
appearance whom Kit thought he should like.

It was nine o’clock by the time the sailors were aboard and quartered
down in the forecastle, but still there were no further signs of the
ship’s moving; on the contrary, the Captain went ashore again, and the
usual harbor lights were kept burning in the rigging. About eleven
o’clock, having nothing to do, but feeling too much excited over the
start to turn in, Kit went up on deck, and was glad to find Tom Haines
taking the air while he waited for his watch to begin at midnight.

“I wonder why we don’t get off, sir,” Kit said, going up to the young
engineer.

“You mustn’t say ‘sir’ to me, young ’un,” Haines laughed. “It’s only
the Captain and the two mates and the chief engineer that you’re to say
‘sir’ to. But we’ll be off in a few minutes now.”

“Then we’ll be out at sea in two or three hours!” Kit exclaimed.

“Not a bit of it,” Haines answered. “We’d hardly go to sea without the
Captain, and he is spending the night on shore. We’ll drop down below
the Statue of Liberty and anchor there, and some time to-morrow we’ll
get off.”

“What delays us so long, when everything is ready?” Kit asked.

“Everything is not ready,” Haines replied. “We have to give the crew
a few hours to sober up in, for one thing; they are not fit for duty
now. It’s an outrageous shame the way the sailors are brought on board
drunk; but that’s always the way, so I suppose there’s no use worrying
about it. Then we can’t go till the charterers of the ship tell us to;
the minute they say go, we’re off. You may as well turn in, young ’un,
for you’ll not see her fairly under way much before noon to-morrow.”

Kit went down to the cabin and did such odd jobs as he could find, for
he knew it was useless for him to try to sleep when the ship was about
to move. When everything was straightened up, he sat down by the big
table under the lamp and took out the little book in which his mother
had written his name.

“I wish they’d had steamships in these Bible times,” he said to
himself; “I’d like to see what they had to say about them. There’s a
good deal here about ships, but they were all such little ones; and I
don’t see anything about cabin boys; maybe they didn’t have any cabins.”

He had not been reading long before the blowing of the big whistle
and the noise on deck told him that the ship was about to move, and
he hurried out. But that first little stage of the journey was a
disappointment. She merely crawled over to the Statue of Liberty and
dropped her anchor, and there was nothing to be seen but the great
blazing torch over the statue, and the twinkling lights on shore.

It was hardly daylight in the morning when Kit felt himself roughly
shaken, and heard the voice of the steward saying:--

“Come, hustle out here, boy. We’re away from the wharf now, and you’ve
got to stir yourself. Don’t lie there and say ‘yes, sir,’ but jump.
I’ll have no lazy boys about my cabin.”

Kit sprang up and dressed as fast as he could, but nothing he did
satisfied the steward, who ordered him here and there apparently for
the sake of showing his authority, scolded him, and once took him by
the shoulders and shook him.

“I’d rather hate to sail with the steward for captain!” Kit said to
himself, laughing inwardly at the little man’s feeble attempt at
violence. He did not even know the man’s name, for he was always
addressed as “steward”; but he was a middle-aged, dried-up little
fellow, his yellowish face marked from small-pox, and his body so
thin that his coat always hung like a bag. He spoke with a strong
foreign accent, and Kit had noticed already that the Captain did not
seem to like to have him about him; but he was a capital steward, and
understood his business from top to bottom.

“I ought to have brought a note-book along to keep a list of the things
I learn,” Kit said to himself after several hours of this nagging;
“I’ve learned a fresh thing this morning, anyhow--not to make a show
of myself by giving unnecessary orders if I’m ever put in any little
position of authority.”

How differently the Captain managed things! About ten o’clock a little
tug came alongside, and the Captain and the pilot climbed aboard.

“Put her under way, Mr. Mason,” he said to the first mate as he passed
him, as quietly as if he had been saying “It’s a fine day.” The steward
would have made more fuss over having the carving-knife cleaned.

It was a grand thing to be steaming out to sea in a fine ship like the
_North Cape_; but now that the moment had come Kit felt a little
more serious over it than he expected. He had never been away from home
before, and a thousand recollections of the old place crowded into
his mind. What were his mother and Vieve doing, and how long would it
be before he should see them again? Having little to do in the middle
of the morning, he went up on deck and leaned over the rail while the
steamer ran down through the Narrows and into the lower bay. Everything
was new and beautiful to him; but he would have enjoyed it more if
there had not been, somehow, a little bit of a haze before his eyes.
Suddenly he felt a friendly clap on the back, and heard the kindly
voice of Tom Haines:--

“Brace up, young ’un. You might as well start your first voyage
laughing as crying.”

“Oh, I’m not crying,” Kit protested; and he proved it by wiping the
back of his hand across his eyes. “You’ll think I’m a big baby, won’t
you?”

“Not at all,” Haines answered; “I salted the ocean myself a little when
I first left home. You’ll soon get used to being away.”

“It’s not only that,” Kit said thoughtfully. “This is the first time
I’ve ever seen the big ocean, and I can’t help thinking that my father
is lying at the bottom of it somewhere. He was lost at sea about a year
ago.”

“All the more reason for you to keep up a bold front, young ’un,”
Haines insisted. “If you have no father, you have to shift for
yourself, and for your family too, like enough. Keep at work and don’t
stop to think about such things. If you want to send a line home to let
them know you’re all right, you can send it ashore by the pilot, you
know, when we’re outside the Hook.”

Captain Griffith was not the man to leave his ship in the hands of the
pilot, as some captains do. He was up on the bridge, glass in hand, and
remained there till he had seen the flags run up that announced to the
signal station at Sandy Hook, “_North Cape_, for Sisal,” so that
her departure would be announced to the owners and all interested. Then
he went below, and the chief mate took his place on the bridge.

Kit was surprised, perhaps almost disappointed, to find that the sea
was as smooth as the bay. It was one of those days that come sometimes
even in winter, when there is hardly a ripple on the surface. There was
not a sign of the seasickness he expected, and while the Captain was on
the bridge he had an opportunity to write another “last line” home.

“Dear Mother,” he wrote with pencil, “I can write you another line to
send by the pilot. We are at sea now, just outside Sandy Hook, and it
is as smooth as Bonnibrook. I am not the least seasick. A little bit
homesick, but I’ll soon work that off. I have to help set the dinner
table now. Love to all. Kit.”

In another half-hour the pilot was gone, and they were fairly cut off
from the world till they reached the coast of Yucatan. The Atlantic
Highlands loomed up, and Seabright, and Long Branch, and so many more
places on the New Jersey coast, that it looked to Kit as if it must be
one continuous town. When darkness came they could still see the lights
on shore.

An hour after supper the Captain went into his stateroom, sat down at
his desk that had a bookcase over the top, and called Kit. He had a
bundle of very large sheets closely written in columns before him, and
more sheets of the same paper, blank.

“Can you read writing, my boy?” he asked. “Oh, yes, I know you can,”
he added, “for you read a letter to me. See whether you can read this
writing to me while I copy it,” and he handed Kit one of the big sheets.

Kit took it and began with the first line across the broad page:--

“‘Hernandez & Co., Merida,’” he read; “‘1 case dry goods; weight 168
pounds;’ then here’s some sort of a mark--a square with an ~H~
inside of it.”

“That’s what we call a diamond ~H~,” the Captain explained; “when
it’s in a circle, we call it a circle ~H~. Now go on.”

Kit read several more of the lines without difficulty, till the Captain
stopped him.

“You’ve been to school, then, have you?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, sir!” Kit answered. “I always went to school till about six
months ago. Since then I’ve been doing whatever work I could get.”

“Study geography?” the Captain asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you know about the place we’re going to--Sisal?”

“It is a small place on the coast of Yucatan, sir,” Kit answered
promptly; “a seaport for the city of Merida, which lies about twenty
miles inland. But I have learned most of that from your books here
since I came aboard, sir,” he added, blushing a little.

“Well, I am glad to see you are honest about it,” the Captain said,
with a smile. “I think you can stand there and read some of these
manifests to me while I copy them. These things are the plague of my
life. I have to make three copies of them before we reach Sisal, and
I’d rather navigate a ship around the world than do it. Go ahead, now,
and be very careful; for the least mistake will make no end of trouble.”

Kit began and read line by line with great care, while the Captain
laboriously copied. After fifteen or twenty minutes of the work the
Captain laid down the pen, and began to open and shut his hand and to
rub it.

“Ah, my fingers are not as nimble as they once were,” he said. “It
gives me cramp in the hand.”

For some time Kit had been revolving something in his mind while he
read, but could not quite determine to speak it out. This pause of the
Captain’s, however, decided him.

“I write a plain hand, sir,” he said; “if you could trust me, I think I
could copy them for you.”

The Captain looked up at him with one of the piercing looks that seemed
to go through him, and Kit was a little alarmed. Maybe it was presuming
too much for the cabin boy to suggest such a thing. Even then, though,
under that sharp gaze he thought it was worth the venture, for if he
succeeded, it would show that he was good for something better than
scouring the knives.

“Sit down here and let me see your handwriting,” the Captain said at
length, laying a bit of plain paper on top of the manifests.

Kit sat down and took up the pen, and had just begun to write when
something happened that gave him so much satisfaction that he could
hardly keep a straight face. There came a knock at the door, and the
engineers’ mess-room boy stepped in with the engineer’s report of the
number of tons of coal in the bunkers. For this boy to see him seated
in the Captain’s stateroom, writing at the Captain’s desk, with the
Captain himself standing by watching him, was the best answer he could
give to the assertion that he was a “farmer” and a “preacher.” Chock
Cheevers could not have looked more astonished if he had seen one of
the stokers on the bridge taking an observation.

The little interruption over, Kit wrote, as neatly and plainly as he
could, “Christopher Silburn, cabin boy, steamship _North Cape_,
for Sisal.”

“Yes, that is a good plain hand,” the Captain said, taking the paper.
“I will let you try it, at any rate. You can go ahead while I go up on
the bridge. Remember that you can’t be too careful.”

He hooked the stateroom door open as he went out; and he had hardly
been gone five minutes before Mr. Hanway, the big, powerful second
mate, went down to his room for a reefing jacket. Seeing the new boy at
the Captain’s desk, and being fond of a little quiet fun, he went up to
the open door, touched his cap in mock politeness, and said,

“She’s heading sou-sou-west, sir.”

Kit hardly knew whether he dared joke with the second mate or not; but
with an inspiration he looked up from his work without the least change
of countenance, and, returning the salute, replied,

“Very good, sir; keep her so, sir.”

More than an hour passed before the Captain returned from the bridge,
and in the interval Kit nearly filled one of the large sheets.

“That will do for to-night,” the Captain said, looking over the page.
“You have done it very well; but there’s more than one night; you can
do a little at it every evening.”

Then the steward had something to say when Kit went into the pantry,
which also opened from the cabin. The steward was not pleased to see
the new boy taken into the Captain’s favor.

“I want that cabin cleaned before six o’clock in the morning,” he
growled. “You needn’t think you’re going to shirk your work because you
write for the Captain.”

“Very well, sir,” Kit answered. “I don’t intend to shirk any work.”

It did not seem quite right, on his first voyage, that the sea should
be so smooth all the way down the coast. Even when the _North
Cape_ passed Hatteras there was no more than a little swell. When
she reached the Florida coast, in about four days, she kept so well in
shore that the sandy beach could be seen plainly, and the palm trees
just as he had seen them in pictures. He learned from Tom Haines that
steamers bound for the Gulf always run as close to the Florida coast
as they dare, to be inside of the Gulf Stream, which flows northward at
the rate of about four miles an hour, and retards a south-bound steamer
just that much when she runs against it.

On the seventh day they sighted the eastern cliffs of Yucatan; and
after two days of steaming along the coast, but so far out that they
could see nothing but the outlines of the low hills, Kit learned that
they were approaching Sisal. By that time he had made three copies of
the long manifest, working at it a little nearly every evening on the
cabin table.

It was early in a hot afternoon that they dropped anchor off Sisal;
and nowhere in the world is it more appropriate to say of a ship that
she lies “off” a port, for at Sisal a ship of any size must lie at
least three miles off. There is no harbor, and the shore slopes off so
gradually that no ship can approach the town.

“That must have been as smooth a voyage as ever a ship made,” Kit said
to Tom Haines, as they stood by the rail together when the anchor went
down. “I didn’t know it ever was so smooth for ten days at a time.”

“The Atlantic is a treacherous old pond,” Tom answered. “To-day it
makes you believe it’s only a big lake; to-morrow it knocks you all to
pieces. And this is a bad part of the coast we’re on, this south side
of the Gulf; when we get any bad weather here, we have to hoist anchor
and run to sea. But you want to keep your eyes open now; you’ll see
some queer people in a few minutes.”

“What are all those little boats coming out to us?” Kit asked;
“lighters to take off the cargo?”

“No indeed!” Tom laughed. “They don’t begin work as fast as that here.
Everything is ‘mañana’ here, which means ‘to-morrow’ in Spanish; these
people all speak Spanish, you know. That first boat, the one with the
flag at the stern and rowed by four men, is the government boat, that
brings out the Captain of the port, the health officer, and a lot of
custom-house men. After they have examined our papers and found that
we’re all well, the other boats will come up. They are what we call
‘bum-boats,’ with things to sell--cigars and tobacco, bead work, canes
plated with tortoise-shell, all sorts of nonsense; and they will be
on the lookout for passengers who may want to go ashore. But it’s the
officers in the first boat I want you to see; they’ll be aboard in a
minute.”

The gangway had been lowered, and after a great deal of shouting in
Spanish the government boat came up to it and made fast. Then there
came up the steps a dozen swarthy men whose appearance gave Kit more
surprise than anything else he had seen on the voyage. Each one, as
far as he could see, wore nothing but a white shirt and a high black
silk hat, with a belt around the waist with a big revolver stuck in
each side. They carried themselves with great dignity, which made their
costume all the more grotesque; and as they stood on deck shaking
hands with Captain Griffith, it was as much as Kit could do to restrain
his laughter.

“Don’t they wear trousers in this country?” he whispered to Tom.

“They all have trousers on--white linen ones,” Tom answered; “but they
roll them clear up so they won’t get wet in the boat. And it’s the
fashion in Yucatan to wear the end of the shirt outside instead of
inside the trousers. It wouldn’t be so bad in this hot climate, with
their bare feet and legs, if they didn’t wear the high black hats to
look stylish.”

The Captain took his visitors down into the cabin; and next minute his
bell rang, and Kit had to run.




CHAPTER III.

A NORTHER ON THE GULF.


When the port officers returned to shore they left behind four of the
custom-house men, who were to stay on board the _North Cape_ as
long as she lay there; and these men deposited their high hats in the
cabin and put on dark blue caps that they carried in their pockets,
rolled down their trousers, and thus, though still in their bare feet,
transformed themselves into respectable-looking citizens.

Kit heard the order given from the bridge, “Lower away the captain’s
gig!” and in a few minutes Captain Griffith followed the officers
ashore to arrange for lighters to land his cargo. He returned in time
for supper, bringing along a package of letters that had been handed
him at the custom-house--some for himself, and some for members of the
crew.

“I think I have something here for you, Christopher,” he said as he
passed through the cabin, where Kit was setting the table. “Yes,”
he went on, pausing under the lamp to look over the letters, “‘Mr.
Christopher Silburn, S. S. _North Cape_, Sisal, Yucatan.’ There’s
news from home for you. The mail steamer left three days behind us, but
she has beaten us down and gone on to Vera Cruz; so you will have a
chance to answer your letter when she comes back, in about a week.”

“Thank you, sir,” Kit answered, as the Captain handed him a letter
addressed in his mother’s familiar handwriting. He was delighted to
hear from home, but still the letter frightened him a little, for he
had not expected to hear while he was away, and his first thought was
that there must be something the matter. He hastily cut the envelope
open and read far enough to see that no one was sick, then put the
letter in his pocket till his work was done. It was not till the supper
dishes were washed and put away that he had any leisure, and then he
sat down under the cabin lamp and read it. The main letter was from his
mother, and there was a shorter one from Genevieve.

  MY DEAR BOY [his mother wrote]: Though I have no news to tell you,
  I want to send you a few lines by the first mail steamer, for I
  don’t want you to feel that you are entirely cut off from home and
  family. No matter how far away you are, you know we are always
  thinking about you.

  And I don’t want to tire you with a lot of advice, but I do hope,
  my dear boy, that you will take care of yourself in every way. It
  may be selfish in me to say so, but I want you to remember that you
  have not only yourself, but your mother and sister too, to think
  about and work for. You are all we have. I am sure you will do your
  best wherever you are, but I want you to take great care of your
  health. That is an unhealthy country you are in, and you must not
  expose yourself to the hot sun. I will try to have some new shirts
  ready for you when you get back to New York; and I think you had
  better buy a few handkerchiefs, for you have not enough. And don’t
  forget the little book I gave you, Kit.
                                   YOUR LOVING MOTHER.

Then he unfolded the note from Genevieve.

  DEAR KIT [she wrote]: This is the first note I ever wrote without
  mother’s seeing it, but I do not want her to see this, because I am
  going to write to you about father, and that always troubles her.

  I want you always, when you are travelling about the world, to keep
  your ears open for news of the _Flower City_ or some of her
  boats. It may be foolish, but I never can believe that we shall not
  see him any more. You know how many people have been shipwrecked
  and then come home again years afterwards. You’ll do this, won’t
  you?

  Dear old Turk is trying to write to you. He heard me say that I was
  going to write, so he sits here beside me, putting up first one paw
  and then the other. I am sure he would write if he could. With love,
                                                VIEVE.

He was about to read the letters over again, when the Captain’s bell
rang. All the doors and port-holes were left open now, for the heat was
intense even after dark, and he went into the Captain’s room without
knocking.

“Shut the door, my boy,” the Captain said; “I have something to say to
you;” and as Kit obeyed, he could not help wondering whether he had
done anything that he was to be scolded for. But the Captain’s first
words relieved his mind.

“I am going to put you at a job to-morrow that will require all your
brains,” he said. “The lighters will be here in the morning after
cargo, and I am going to send you ashore to make a list of every
package landed. I have to keep a sharp eye on these boatmen, or they
rob me. Everything will be checked off as it leaves the ship, and you
will keep a list on shore, and the goods go into the hands of our agent
in Sisal immediately, and he receipts for them.

“Now I want you to understand,” he continued, “that this is very
important work. I have never trusted such work to a cabin boy before.
If you miss a package, it may cost me a great many dollars. But I see
you have some brains, and I want you to use them, and do the work
carefully.”

“Thank you, sir,” Kit answered. “I will certainly do my best.”

Kit returned to the cabin, with a little flush on his face. He had seen
for some days that his position on the ship was much better than when
he started, but he had not dreamed of such an important commission as
this. It would give him a great amount of extra work to do, but what
of that? He was not afraid of work. Nearly any one in the crew would
jump at the chance to go ashore and do what he was to do. Copying the
manifests had given him extra work, but it had paid many times over by
giving the Captain a good opinion of him.

Immediately after breakfast next morning the gig was lowered again,
and the Captain was rowed ashore by two of the men, with Kit sitting in
the stern by his side. Kit knew how some of the crew were wondering to
see him going off in this style, but he had no chance to speak to them.
On the way they passed three of the lighters going out--open boats
about thirty feet long, very strongly built, with a single mast, each
with a large crew of half-clad Mexicans ready for work.

The Captain waited till the first of the lighters arrived with its
load, and showed Kit where he was to stand on the mole, as the Mexicans
call the wharf, and how he was to keep his list. Then he returned to
the ship, and the cabin boy was left to his own resources.

“I’m going to be roasted and broiled and frizzled here,” he said to
himself, “under this sun. But I can stand it if these fellows can. And
when there’s no lighter in sight I can get into the shade there beside
the warehouse.”

He soon found that he was to have company in the hot sun; for as the
agent had to receipt for the goods, he sent one of his own clerks
to check them off on one of the manifests that Kit had copied. The
clerk was a slender young man in a broad-brimmed Panama hat; and Kit
was greatly amused when he touched his hat to him, and called him
“Señor.” But the young man spoke a little English, and they soon became
acquainted.

“You are young for a supercargo, Señor,” the clerk said, in a lull in
the work.

[Illustration: “‘YOU ARE YOUNG FOR A SUPERCARGO, SEÑOR.’”]

Kit had read enough sea stories to know something about supercargoes,
though he did not know that he was doing the work of one at that minute.

“I’m not the supercargo, sir,” he replied; “I’m the cabin boy; we have
no supercargo.”

“Ah!” said the clerk; and it was still more amusing to see how
dignified he immediately became, and what a superior air he assumed.
But another trifling incident soon made him friendly again, for the
agent himself came down to the mole to inquire about something, and he,
too, touched his hat to Kit and called him Señor, whereupon the clerk
said something in Spanish that must have explained that Kit was only
the cabin boy, for the agent immediately replied, “Oh, cabin boy is he?
Well, he must be a good one, or he wouldn’t be put at this work. Bring
him up to the house to breakfast.”

Kit was under the impression that he had had his breakfast several
hours before, on board ship; but he followed Tom Haines’s advice to
“keep his eyes open and his mouth shut,” and before long he learned
that the southern custom is to take only a cup of coffee and a roll
in the early morning, and to wait till midday for the full breakfast,
which is really an early dinner.

About twelve o’clock there were no lighters in sight, for the boatmen
were eating their breakfast too, and the clerk took Kit through a
narrow street to a big one-story stone warehouse, the agent’s business
place, where, on a shady rear verandah, a long table was spread.
This was “the house” the agent had referred to; and by keeping both
eyes and ears open, Kit learned that it is the custom in Yucatan for
the proprietors and all the employees of large business houses to
eat together in the warehouses, a cook and waiters being kept on the
premises.

He was a little embarrassed to find that he was to be seated at the
right hand of Mr. Ysnard, the agent, near the head of the table; for he
was bright enough to see that the seats were arranged according to rank
in the firm, with the proprietor at the top of the table, the cashier
and chief clerks next, then the minor clerks, and the porters and boys
near the foot.

“Hadn’t I better go lower down, sir?” he asked. “I don’t think I belong
up here.”

“Oh, yes, you do!” Mr. Ysnard laughed; “you are my guest to-day, and my
guests always belong in the seat of honor.”

While the many courses were brought on, soup, fish, roasts, dessert,
and fruits, Mr. Ysnard asked Kit enough questions to keep him busy
answering--how long he had been on the _North Cape_, how he liked
it, where he lived, and all about himself. But when, after the meal was
finished, they all sat talking, and most of them smoking, he began to
grow uneasy.

“I shall have to ask you to excuse me, sir,” he said to Mr. Ysnard. “I
am afraid some of the lighters will be coming in, and I must not miss
anything.”

“Very true, my boy, you must attend to business,” Mr. Ysnard answered.
“And you can safely follow the example, Michel,” he called down the
table to Kit’s fellow-clerk on the wharf, who sat about the middle.

Together they returned to their work, and up to dark they had little
chance for conversation, for eight lighters were now busy bringing
cargo. When it was too dark to see longer, the gig was sent to take Kit
on board.

“Make way for the supercargo!” Chock Cheevers cried, as he stepped on
board. “Clear a gangway there. Don’t you see who’s come aboard?”

But the second mate had something more important to say.

“Bring your list into the chart-room,” he ordered, “and compare it with
my tally.” The second mate had been keeping the tally of everything
that left the ship; and when the comparison was made they corresponded
exactly, showing that on his first day, at any rate, Kit had made no
mistakes.

It seemed a little odd to go to washing dishes again after being a
clerk all day; but they were soon done, and next morning he was out
bright and early to clean the cabin and set the table. After breakfast
he was rowed ashore as before, but dressed this time in his thinnest
clothes. Even at eight o’clock the sun was burning hot, and the
cloudless sky seemed to indicate an intensely hot day. He was soon
to learn, however, that tropical skies change very rapidly. Five or
six of the lighters had come in with loads and returned to the ship,
when there came a single puff of wind from off the water that reminded
Kit of home. It was the first really cool thing he had felt since his
arrival in Yucatan; and this little puff, lasting only a few seconds,
was more than cool--it was actually chilly.

“Ah, that’s good!” he said to the clerk; “I wish they’d give us more of
that.”

The clerk shivered in his linen clothes, and pointed with one hand
toward the sky. There far in the north was a big dark-gray cloud, that
seemed to grow larger and darker as they looked at it.

“El Norte!” Michel exclaimed; and shivered again.

“What’s that?” Kit asked.

“A norther, you call it in English,” the clerk replied; “a great cold
storm from the north. That puts an end to our work for some days.
There’ll be a heavy sea on in a few minutes.”

“Then I ought to get back to the ship,” Kit said half to himself.

“You couldn’t do it,” said the clerk. “Look.”

He pointed seaward, and Kit saw all the lighters scudding toward shore
before a wind that they hardly felt yet on the mole. Thick black smoke
was pouring from the _North Cape’s_ funnel, and across the water
he heard the “click, click, click,” of the steam windlass.

“Why, she’s going off!” Kit cried; “she’s hoisting anchor!”

“Of course she is,” Michel laughed; “she’ll have to put to sea; she
can’t lie there in a norther, and you’ll see no more of her till the
storm is over. That often happens here.”

“And what becomes of a cabin boy who happens to be left on shore?” Kit
asked, half inclined to laugh at the predicament he was in.

“You’re better off here than on the ship,” Michel answered, “and we
won’t let you starve.”

By this time the whole sky was overcast, and frequent blasts of the
cold wind struck them. The foremost of the lighters arrived, and their
men worked like beavers to land what cargo they had. All about were
men on the beach drawing their boats far up on shore out of reach of
the heavy sea that they knew was coming. As fast as the lighters were
unloaded, they too were drawn up. It was as much too cold now as before
it had been too hot, but they had to stay on the mole till everything
was checked off.

“Now make a run for it to the warehouse!” It was the voice of Mr.
Ysnard, who had come down to see that all was left snug, and who
saw that both the youngsters were shivering. Already the spray was
beginning to fly over the mole, and in one glance seaward Kit saw that
the _North Cape_ was standing out into the Gulf. He was left alone
in Yucatan; but instead of waiting to worry over it, he took to his
heels and beat Michel to the warehouse by several yards.

There he hardly knew the place, it was so dark; for all the shutters on
the seaward side had been closed to keep out the wind, as there was no
glass in the windows. People were hurrying through the streets, and the
sky was growing blacker every minute.

“Now we’ll catch it, my boy,” Mr. Ysnard laughed, as he followed them
in, half soaked with spray. “Three days these things last, generally,
and then it takes two or three more for the sea to go down so that the
lighters can go out. So you are a prisoner in Mexico for five days at
least, and you will be my guest longer than you expected.”

“Thank you, sir,” Kit answered; “but I hope the ship will not be in any
danger.”

“Oh, no more than from any other storm. There is plenty of sea room,
and she will run out fifty or a hundred miles and keep her nose in the
wind. No, she will be all right.”

The breakfast table had to be set in the warehouse, as the verandah
was too much exposed to the wind; and Kit noticed that the norther
interfered with business and upset everything just about as much as an
earthquake would at home. The clerks really suffered from cold, though
Kit found it warm enough in the shelter of the building. The storm
increased every minute, and they soon began to hear the roar of the sea
breaking against the mole.

It was a relief to everybody when closing time came, five o’clock.
Mr. Ysnard’s open carriage arrived to carry him to his home in the
country, and he told Kit that he was to go along.

“But you must have something around you, in this wind,” he said; “I
think I can lend you a Mexican overcoat.” And he went into the office
and returned in a minute with two large red blankets, one for himself
and one for Kit.

“This is what we call a ‘serape,’”[1] he explained. “See, there is a
slit cut in the middle for the head to go through,” and he slipped the
blanket over Kit’s head and put his own on in the same way; and Kit
could not help laughing to see himself so suddenly transformed into a
young Mexican.

  [1] Pronounced ser-rap-pa.

As they were driven through the streets he saw that Sisal was a
desolate little place of few houses, some of them of stone plastered
over and some covered with corrugated iron; and the streets were nearly
deserted on account of the norther, and most of the shutters closed.
The few men to be seen were all wrapped in serapes, which warmed the
shoulders, but could not warm the bare feet, nor heads covered with
straw hats.

Mr. Ysnard’s house was on the brow of a low hill overlooking the town
and the sea, and after the late dinner he took Kit into his “den,” as
he called it, and they had a long talk before bedtime.

“As you copied the manifests,” the agent said in the course of the
conversation, “you are familiar with all the marks on the cargo. You
may see some cases coming ashore without any marks at all. Those are
little private ventures by some of the officers or crew; and when you
see one of them all you have to do is let it pass without putting it on
your list, you know. They escape paying duty by slipping them through
that way.”

“No, sir; I have no instructions of that kind,” Kit answered. “My
orders are to make a list of everything brought ashore.”

“But if there should be a little profit in it for you?” Mr. Ysnard
suggested. “Suppose you were paid a small commission on everything that
slipped through without your seeing it?”

“I don’t think you ought to ask it of me, Mr. Ysnard,” Kit replied.
“The Captain trusts me, and I should be ashamed to betray him. I
couldn’t possibly do it.”

“Ah, my boy, I was just trying you,” Mr. Ysnard laughed, giving Kit
a hearty clap on the shoulder. “I am glad to see that you are not to
be tempted. That is just what we want to avoid, the landing of such
smuggled cases, for they get both the ship and the agent into a lot of
trouble. I suppose the Captain sent you ashore because he was sure he
could trust you.

“There is always room for bright young fellows who can be trusted,”
he added; “in fact, I could make room in my own business for a young
American of about your age. How would you like to leave the ship and
make more money in Sisal?”

The question came so suddenly that it almost staggered Kit; but he soon
made up his mind how to answer.

“I think it is very pleasant here, sir,” he said, “but I don’t believe
in changing. I have a good start on the ship, and don’t think I ought
to leave it; but I am very much obliged to you, sir, for the offer.”

When he went out in the morning, he saw that the Gulf was almost white;
partly with foam, and partly from the white sand that was stirred up
from the bottom. Tremendous seas were breaking over the mole, and great
sheets of spray were flying over several of the warehouses.

The norther prophets were right in saying that the norther would last
for three days. Every night Kit went home with Mr. Ysnard, but without
meeting his wife, as she was an invalid and seldom left her room. On
the fourth day the dark clouds drifted gradually away, the wind lulled,
and the tropical sun shone hot again. About noon he was delighted to
see the _North Cape_ steam back to her old place and drop her
anchor.

“But you’ll not get out to her for a day or two yet,” Mr. Ysnard told
him; “no small boat could go out till this heavy sea subsides. I am
going into the country in a few minutes to see how much my plantations
have suffered, and if you like, you can go along and learn something
about this hemp you are going to be loaded with.”

The carriage came early that day, and they were soon driving between
broad fields of cactus plants.

“That’s the stuff,” Mr. Ysnard told him; “it is the leaves of this
cactus that yield the hemp. You see some of the leaves are six feet
long and four or five inches broad. We cut off the leaves and soak them
in water, then run them through a machine that extracts the fibre. That
fibre is the hemp. Another machine cleans and straightens it, and we
dry it and press it into bales, and it is ready to go north to be made
into ropes and matting. Now you know something about the cargo you are
to carry.

“But you have no idea,” he continued, “of the condition of the workmen
who raise this hemp. We call them peons, and on most of the plantations
they are little better than slaves, though I am glad to say that it
is not so on mine. In this country a peon cannot leave the land he
belongs on while he is in debt to his master; and as they earn only
about twelve and one-half cents a day they are always in debt. A son
is responsible also for his father’s debts, so they are practically
slaves, with no chance of ever freeing themselves. It is a terrible
system.”

“Your plants do not seem to have suffered much from the wind, sir,”
said Kit; “maybe it is because you treat your men better.”

“Well,” Mr. Ysnard laughed, “there is no great merit in that. They do
better work for me because I treat them well, and it pays better in the
end. Slave labor is always the poorest.”

The next day the lighters ventured out again, and there was more work
for Kit on the mole. Then when the cargo was all landed the loading
began, and he was kept on deck to keep tally of the number of bales
received. That took six full days, and still there was no sign of the
mail steamer returning.

“The storm must have delayed her,” Captain Griffith said. “No use
to send letters home now; for she has to touch at Havana, and we go
direct, and we’ll beat her up. We’ll be off to-morrow.”

Kit asked and received permission to go ashore to say good-by to the
agent who had been so hospitable to him. He had spent so much time in
the little town that it almost seemed like leaving home again. Mr.
Ysnard shook his hand warmly at parting.

“I have enjoyed having you here,” he said. “I like to see a bright,
faithful young chap like you. Our young Mexicans are slow coaches
beside you American boys. I was going to send you out a barrel of
Mexican fruit that I had put up for you, so I’ll have it put in your
boat. Keep pulling, my boy, and some day you may be down here in a
better position than cabin boy.”

Kit tried to think it over as he returned to the ship, but he could
not explain to himself what he had done to make Mr. Ysnard take such
an interest in him. There was something about him, he could not help
seeing, that pleased both the Captain and the agent; and he was glad of
it, though he did not know what it was.

When the ship passed the Sandy Hook signal station, eight days later,
the flags that she set told the brief story of the homeward voyage.

“_North Cape_,” they said, “eight days from Sisal, with hemp.
Smooth passage.”

And when a few hours afterwards she lay at her old place in front of
Martin’s Stores, her bow almost rubbed against the stern of a little
tug.

“Why, that’s the _Triton_!” Kit said to himself, when he saw the
tug’s name. “That’s Captain Judson’s boat, from Bridgeport, and Captain
Judson is our near neighbor in Huntington. If he is going back, maybe
he will take my barrel of fruit up to Bridgeport.”

“Yes, going back to-night,” Captain Judson said, when Kit found him. “I
towed a yacht down yesterday. Take up a barrel of fruit for you? Aye,
that I will, lad--and take you too, if you can get off. I know somebody
up there who’d be glad to see you. Eh, my boy?”

Take him too! That was something that Kit had not thought of; but what
a surprise it would be for the folks at home to see him come walking
in! Within five minutes he had seen Captain Griffith and had readily
been granted a week’s leave of absence.




CHAPTER IV.

KIT’S CONNECTICUT HOME.


The Huntington stage was the same old weather-beaten stage that Kit had
left a month before, but its wheels were gone. Fairfield County, all
the way from Bridgeport back to Huntington and beyond, was white with
snow, and the frozen roads were packed hard. The body of the stage had
been lifted from its wheels and put on runners, and the bells on its
two gaunt horses jingled merrily through the Bridgeport streets and
over the Connecticut hills.

“My folks all well, Silas?” was the first question that Kit asked when
he found the stage nearly ready to start.

“They was right peart when I come down this mornin’,” the driver
replied, “so I guess they hain’t gone into a decline since. Sakes
alive, but won’t they be surprised to see you, though! They was lookin’
for a letter. But what’s this, Kit? No overcoat! Here, wrap this hoss
blanket ’round you snug.”

“Oh, you don’t know how good the cold feels, Silas,” Kit laughed,
though he was glad enough to accept the blanket. “I’ve just come from a
country where the sun burns like a hot iron, and the trees were full
of fruit, ten days ago.”

Involuntarily he looked around to see that his barrel was safe.

“Now don’t you give yourself no consarn ’bout that thar bar’l!” the
driver exclaimed. “When Silas lashes a bar’l on behind his sleigh, you
can just make up your mind it’s thar to stay. While you youngsters
goes out an’ sees the world, old Silas he stays to hum an’ ’tends to
business, an’ carries your letters back to Hunt’n’ton.”

The only other passenger was Henry Steele, the Huntington shoemaker,
who had been down to Bridgeport to buy leather, and had it in a big
roll beside his feet; and he and the driver plied Kit with so many
questions about his travels that he was kept busy answering.

“What was you aboard this _North Cape_?” Silas asked.

Kit felt for a moment that considering the work he had been doing he
was entitled to lay claim to some higher position than the one he
really occupied; but he soon smothered that down.

“Cabin boy,” he answered; and added to himself, “There’s no use of a
fellow being ashamed of a good honest job, and one that he likes.”

“And you got good and seasick at the start, I’ll warrant!” Mr. Steele
laughed.

“No, sir, I wasn’t sick a single minute on the whole voyage,” Kit
answered.

“Well, Kit,” said the shoemaker, “if some boys were to tell me that,
I’d think they were drawing the long bow. But I’ve known you since you
were knee-high to a grasshopper, and I must say I’ve never known you to
speak anything but the truth.”

“Th-th-thank you!” Kit tried to say it with a laugh, but the laugh
turned into a shiver. It was all very well to feel at home in the
cold, but there were some holes in the horse blanket. And he was
growing impatient to see the familiar faces. He had not felt so down in
Yucatan, because there he knew it was impossible; but now that every
minute took him nearer, the minutes became dreadfully long.

Manly young sailor as he was, his heart beat faster as the stage
drew into the outskirts of Huntington--if so small a place can be
said to have outskirts. He had had already a glimpse of the white
church steeple from a distant hilltop. And now there was the church
itself! And he could have told with his eyes shut just how the land
lay opposite the church. First there was a little store, with some
empty barrels and boxes always in front. Then there was Dr. Thomas’s
big white house, with the white fence in front. And then came a small
house a story and a half high, with a light piazza across the front,
standing about thirty feet back from the street, with a weather-beaten
picket fence in front, and some big trees on each side extending their
thick limbs over its mossy roof. House and fence had once been brown,
but both were sadly in need of paint, and one end of the cornice was
coming loose. But in Kit’s eyes, that was the cosiest place of all; for
that was home!

There were no tracks in the deep snow between the road and the walk
in front of the house, and when Silas guided the horses in toward the
sidewalk they sank halfway to their knees. Then Kit unwrapped his
blanket and sprang out. Some one in the front room of the house saw
the stage stop, and that was a matter to be inquired into. All the
neighbors take an interest in it when the Huntington stage stops in
front of a house. The door opened, and a rosy-cheeked young girl of
about fourteen looked out.

“Hello, Vieve!” Kit cried, waving his hand to her. A tropical hurricane
could not have made his heart jump like that.

The girl paused long enough to cry out:--

“Mother! Mother! Quick! Here’s Kit!”

And the next moment she was down the walk, and the sailor boy was
smothered with hugs and kisses in a way that made old Silas and the
shoemaker feel quite young again, and Turk was barking a noisy welcome.
In another minute Mrs. Silburn joined them, and all the hugging was
repeated.

“Now don’t trouble yourself about the bar’l,” Silas insisted when Kit
at length made his way back to the stage. “’Taint no weight at all;”
and he took it by the rims and carried it to the piazza, then rolled it
into the house.

“I’ve brought you something better than the letter you was lookin’ for,
Mrs. Silburn,” he said, as he returned to the stage.

But Mrs. Silburn hardly heard. She had eyes only for Kit, ears only for
what he said.

“You’re not sick, Kit, that you’ve come home?” she asked, when the
three were in the sitting-room together. “No,” she added, “I need
hardly ask that; I never saw you look better. Why, you’re as brown as
an Indian.”

“Never was ‘weller’ in my life,” Kit answered as well as he could, for
his mother was holding fast to him while Vieve was trying to drag him
up to the stove to warm him. “A week’s leave of absence, that’s all,
while the ship discharges cargo.”

“Oh, a whole week!” Vieve cried, jumping around him in her glee.
“That’s the reason you’ve brought your baggage!” and she glanced toward
the barrel.

“Did he bring that in here?” Kit asked. “That won’t do. It came from a
hot place, but it must stay in the cool up here. Have you got a cool
room we can put it in?”

“I think you’ll find all the other side of the house cool enough,” Mrs.
Silburn laughed. “We don’t keep any fires across the hall now; it saves
both wood and trouble.”

Kit rolled the barrel across the hall into the cold parlor, and hurried
back to the stove. But he could not stay in one place long--not for
the first hour or two. He had to go to the windows to see how the
yard looked, and into the kitchen to look at the familiar pans hanging
against the wall, and upstairs to the little room with the sloping
ceiling where he had slept so many years. When he came down again,
Vieve was putting on her hat and coat.

“Say, avast there, now,” he cried; “you’ll have to take another tack.
(I suppose you’ll expect me to talk sea talk, now I’m a sailor.) I know
what you’re after, Vieve, and it won’t do. No going out to buy more
things for supper. I’m not the prodigal calf, you know--the prodigal
son, I mean. Whatever you were going to have for your own suppers is
just what I want.”

“Just put yourself in that chair, Mr. Silburn,” Vieve laughed, pointing
to her father’s armchair, that she had drawn up to the fire for him,
“and don’t begin to interfere so soon;” and she was gone before he
could stop her. And Mrs. Silburn brought her husband’s slippers, that
were carefully laid away, and would have untied Kit’s shoes if he had
let her.

“You’ve had a hard time of it, Kit,” she said, “and we must make you
comfortable at home.”

“Indeed, I’ve not, mother,” he answered; “you mustn’t spoil me on that
account. I’ve had a splendid time, and enjoyed every minute. I’ve made
some good friends, too, since I went away.”

“I’m sure you would do that, Kit,” she answered, her face full of
motherly pride. “And you’ve grown so, too!”

It was not long before supper was ready, for Vieve was both cook and
errand girl while her mother was busy sewing.

“You’ll not mind eating in the kitchen, Kit?” his mother asked. “We eat
there now, while we’re alone.”

“Mind it!” Kit exclaimed; “it’s just what I wanted to do. Oh, look
here, Vieve!” he went on, as he took his mother by the arm and led
her into the kitchen, “have you cooked all these things so quick?
Beefsteak, and fried potatoes, and ham and eggs, and coffee? Why, we
ought to have you for cook aboard ship.”

“Ah, you don’t know how good it all tastes!” he declared, when they
had set to work at the eatables. “We have good fare on the ship, first
rate; but it’s not like home. No such coffee as this, I tell you.
Coffee is always bad at sea, they say.”

“And do you have to eat out of a little mess pan, like the other
sailors?” Vieve asked.

“Do I!” Kit laughed. “I guess you don’t know what a dignified position
your big brother holds, my child. Why, I eat in the cabin, with silver
forks and spoons, and a monogram on all the dishes. And in the evening
I sit at the Captain’s desk and do my writing.”

“Oh, Kit!” Mrs. Silburn expostulated. She was not quite sure whether he
was joking with them or not.

“It’s a fact,” he answered, laughing to think how grand he could make
everything appear if he felt inclined to boast. “And I wash the dishes
afterwards, and clean the spoons; but that part we don’t speak of in
polite society.”

They were done eating, but still busy talking, when Vieve suddenly
asked:--

“What’s in that barrel, Kit?”

“Ah, Miss Curiosity!” he laughed. “You’re the same old Vieve, ain’t
you? I suppose that’s the way your relation Eve prodded poor Adam on to
his ruin. But to tell you the truth, Vieve, I don’t exactly know what’s
in it myself. Suppose I bring it in and we find out.”

No sooner said than done; the barrel was rolled in, and Vieve had the
hammer and chisel ready.

“Now shut all the doors, Vieve,” he said, as he unfastened the head;
“if it should be anything alive, it might get away.”

Vieve hastened to obey, but seeing him laughing at her, she threw them
open again.

When the head was raised from the barrel, the room was instantly filled
with a delightful tropical aroma that was familiar enough to Kit, but
that is seldom found in a house in Huntington.

“Just crush these in your hands, and then smell them,” he said to both,
taking up a handful of the fragrant lemon leaves with which the top
of the barrel was covered; and they thought they had never smelled
anything so sweet.

When he brushed the leaves aside, he found more than half a bushel
of lemons, limes, and oranges. Then a little partition nailed in,
and beneath it a great assortment of southern fruits--sugar apples,
loquats, sapadillos, sour sops, jelly cocoanuts, tamarinds, guavas,
and bananas. Then another partition, and beneath that a dozen of the
largest and finest pineapples he had ever seen. By the time the barrel
was emptied, every table and chair in the kitchen was covered with
luscious fruit.

“Where in the world did you get all these things, Kit?” his mother
asked.

“A present from one of my friends in Yucatan,” he replied; and then he
had to tell all about Mr. Ysnard and how kind he had been. While he
talked he was busy gathering up the fruit and laying it on the pantry
shelves, where it would neither freeze nor be too warm, and Vieve and
her mother fell to and washed the dishes.

“We’ll try one of these pineapples in the sitting-room,” he said; and
he took a sharp knife and began to pare off the rough outer skin. “I
want you to taste a real pine fresh from the orchard. They’re very
different from the hard little things we buy here.” When it was peeled
he took two forks and tore it apart into small pieces, as he had been
taught on the ship; and around the sitting-room stove they were all
agreed that no better or sweeter fruit could be grown.

But alas for Kit’s intentions to tell all his adventures that evening!
He had had little sleep on the tug, and before the pineapple was
finished, he caught himself nodding several times.

“There’s no use talking,” he laughed; “I’ve got to go to bed. The
wonderful adventures and hairbreadth escapes of Christopher Silburn,
Esq., will keep for another time. I guess I’m in a hurry to feel my old
bed.”

And before many minutes he was sound asleep in it, to know no more of
ships, or tropics, or home, till he sprang up in the morning, thinking
that he must hurry to clean the cabin.

Breakfast was hardly over before Harry Leonard, one of Kit’s old chums,
called to see him; for by that time it was known all over Huntington
that Kit was home. Harry was a good companion in every respect but one:
the boys called him the biggest boaster in Fairfield County.

“I’m thinking of going to sea myself,” he said, after they had talked
a few minutes. “I know where I can get a berth as second mate of a
bark, after I’ve made a voyage or two. What do you do on the _North
Cape_, Kit?”

“I’m assistant to the Captain,” Kit answered, with a sly wink at Vieve;
“I write out the manifests and such things. He and I were the only ones
who went ashore, and I spent several days with our agent in Sisal. I
want you to try an orange out of the barrel of fruit the agent sent out
to the ship for me. Oh, yes, I have to be back in five days more. I
don’t know who’d make out all the papers if I didn’t get there.”

With Vieve hiding her face and shaking, it was hard for Kit to keep
from laughing, but he did.

“Didn’t I give him a dose?” he roared, after Harry was gone. “He’s such
an awful bragger I thought I’d pay him in his own coin. But isn’t it
funny how you can change things by telling only one side of a story.
Everything I said was true, only I didn’t tell it all.”

That afternoon Kit was out in the snow with a ladder and hammer and
nails, fastening the end of the cornice that was loose; and before dark
he had mended the shaky front gate, and replaced some missing pickets,
and put a new hinge on the kitchen door.

“I’m not going to let you work so when you come home for a little
holiday, Kit,” his mother said in the evening when they were sitting
around the fire again. “You must rest.”

“Oh, that’s nothing at all,” Kit retorted. “I want the place to look
shipshape for a particular reason. Somebody may be coming home one
of these days, and he must find everything in good order. I know you
don’t like to talk about that, mother, but it has to be talked about
sometimes. As long as there is the least chance, we must not lose
hope; and both Captain Griffith and Mr. Ysnard think there is still
a possibility of father’s being alive. Of course it is a very slight
chance, but still it is a chance, and we must not give up.”

“Oh, Kit, I am so glad to hear you say so!” Vieve exclaimed. “You know
that’s what I have always said. And your Captain thinks so too!”

“Ah, don’t deceive yourselves, children,” Mrs. Silburn sighed. “How
could your father be alive without coming home or even sending us word
for nearly a year? And we know that his ship was lost.”

“Yes, there is no doubt his ship was lost, mother,” Kit admitted, “but
still there are many things that may have happened through which he may
be alive and yet not be able to get home, or even to write to us. Mr.
Ysnard has a friend whose ship was lost at sea, but who got home more
than two years after he had been given up. They took to the boats, of
course, and all the boats were swamped but the one he was in. That one
was picked up by a Norwegian brig bound for Honolulu. When they got
into the Pacific, after going around Cape Horn, the brig was wrecked
also, and the crew got to one of the little desert islands in the
Pacific where ships never touch. They were there over a year before
they got away. And there was an ending to that that won’t be likely to
happen in our case. When the man got home, he found his ‘widow’ just
about to be married to some other man.”

“No, I don’t think that will happen in our case!” Mrs. Silburn said,
smiling in spite of herself. “Such remarkable escapes happen sometimes
at sea, but we have no right to expect them. You may as well make up
your mind that you will have to be the head of the family, Kit.”

“A poor head at present, I am afraid,” Kit answered. “But I think the
day will come when I shall be able to take care of you both, if father
doesn’t come back. That’s what I am planning for, at any rate. It’s not
much of a position to be a cabin boy, but I expect to have a better one
some day. It sha’n’t be my fault if I don’t. If I can show them that I
am fit for a better place, I think I will get it in time. But even now
I can do a little bit toward helping things along; I nearly forgot that
part of the business.”

He put his hand in his pocket and took out some money, and laid a
bright new two-dollar note in Genevieve’s lap.

“You know the dollar’s worth of stamps you sent me, Vieve. I was
awfully glad to get them, too, for I felt pretty poor just then. So
there’s the dollar, with a little interest added.”

He had not the heart to tell her that he had been robbed of the stamps.
In all his accounts of his adventures he had not said a word about the
hardships he had gone through. When he told about how nearly he had
been arrested, it was only to turn it into a joke.

“No, I don’t want it, Kit,” Vieve protested, trying to hand him back
the note. “I sent you that for a present.”

“No back talk to the head of the family, miss!” he laughed, giving
his sister’s wavy hair a playful pull. “And here’s a little for you,
mother. I can leave you only three dollars this time, as it will cost
me a dollar to get back to the ship. But I hope before long to do
better than that. If I could only make a little more money, I’d like to
have some paint put on the house.”

“I’m not going to touch a cent of it,” Mrs. Silburn declared. “I don’t
need it, but you do. I want you to buy a cheap overcoat with that
money; you can’t be going about in winter without an overcoat.”

“I don’t need one,” Kit protested. “I tried on my old one up in my room
this morning, and it fits first rate. It’s plenty good enough till I
get in with the ‘Four Hundred’ in New York, and none of the Vanderbilts
or Astors have invited me to dinner so far. But I don’t need an
overcoat at all unless we go to some cold country next voyage.”

“And where do you expect to go next time?” Vieve interrupted.

“There’s no telling,” Kit answered; “it just depends upon who charters
the ship. We might go to China, or to Australia, or Bombay, or most any
seaport in the world. Maybe it will be back to Sisal, for all I know.
Even the Captain did not know, when I left.”

Kit had his own way about the money in the end, and made his mother
accept the three dollars.

“I’d be a nice head of a family if I couldn’t leave you any money!”
he argued. “You know I have no expenses like other fellows; and if
I should need money at any time I could draw against my wages. The
sailors nearly all do that; indeed, they have generally spent their
pay for the voyage before they start, so they have to work to pay the
bill.”

He was acting very much like the head of the family when he looked over
the old house one morning and announced that he thought it could be
made very comfortable for them as soon as he had more money.

“I like the arrangement of it,” he said; “this sitting-room in front
with the kitchen behind it is very handy. Then the parlor across the
hall and your bedroom behind that is very handy, too. When father comes
back, Vieve can take the other room upstairs.”

“Oh, it’s a shame to let you work so hard just to make us comfortable!”
Vieve exclaimed. “Other boys have such good times with their skating
and swimming and football and such things. I’m going to work myself
just as soon as I get a chance.”

“I hope you will,” Kit laughed. “Go to school and work there just as
hard as you can. If mother hadn’t made me go to school and attend
to my lessons, I’d be just an ordinary cabin boy now. I mean,” he
explained, blushing a little at the way he had put it, “I shouldn’t be
able to copy manifests for the Captain, or do a supercargo’s work for
him on shore. We don’t see at the time how much good study does us,
but I tell you we see it afterward, Vieve. And skating and football
and such things! Pshaw, don’t you think I got enough of them when I
was at home? When a fellow gets to my age” (and he drew himself up a
little taller, which made Vieve smile), “he has other things to think
of. I want to push myself ahead, Vieve, and earn enough to take care
of you both. And swimming, did you say? Who do you think has a better
chance for swimming than a sailor when his ship is in port? Oh, you
needn’t sympathize with me, my child. I’d rather go off and see foreign
countries than play football.”

On Sunday morning he and Vieve went together to the old white church
across the broad street, “just like old times,” as they said; and after
Sunday school he had to explain to a score of friends where he had been
and what he had been doing. His boy friends, he noticed, did not seem
to think it any hardship to go to sea in a fine steamship; most of them
would have jumped at the chance to go with him.

A whole week seemed so long when he left the _North Cape_ to go
home! And it seemed so short when the last day came! But the stage was
coming down the hill, and Kit had his old overcoat on, which was a
trifle short, but very warm. And under his arm was a little bundle of
shirts and things that his mother had made for him.

“I may have a chance to get home after the next voyage,” he said, when
they were half smothering him with good-bys in the cold hall, “and I
may be gone for six months; there’s no telling. But I’ll write whenever
I can, you may be sure, and tell you where to send letters. Turk,
you’re pawing me all to pieces, old fellow. Good-by, Vieve; good-by,
mother. I’d keep father’s chair and things ready for him, if I were
you, for he might walk in most any day. Good-by, Turk. He knows I’m
going away, doesn’t he?”

In a minute more he was in the stage, his mother waving to him from the
door, Vieve throwing kisses to him from the gate, and Turk jumping in
the snow, barking furiously.

“That’s a pretty little sister you’ve got,” said Silas, when a turn in
the road hid the old house from sight.

“I’m glad you think so,” Kit laughed, “for everybody says she is the
image of me!”

He was not the first boy who has tried to laugh on leaving home, to
conceal very different feelings.




CHAPTER V.

A BURGLAR IN THE CABIN.


“Oh, this is ahead of being a cabin passenger on one of the big
liners!” Kit said to himself, as he hurried through the brick tunnel
that led to the wharf of Martin’s Stores. “The passenger knows where
he’s going, so he doesn’t have the fun of wondering. But I don’t know.
Maybe the ship has been chartered for China while I’ve been away; or it
might be for Russia, to carry grain. There’s no seaport in the world
that we mightn’t go to. I think one will suit me just about as well as
another, though I’d rather like to cross the ocean.”

Tom Haines was one of the first men he met on deck.

“Well, have you made up your mind where you’re going to take the yacht
to this voyage?” Kit asked, as they shook hands.

“Don’t call her a yacht!” Tom laughed. “We’d have too many big bills to
pay if she was our yacht. It’s better as it is: we get a salary and a
sea-voyage at the same time. Yes, we’re chartered for Nassau this trip,
to bring back pineapples and sponges; and we’ll be off in four or five
days.”

“For Nassau!” Kit repeated; “why, that’s--” but there he stopped.

“That’s right,” Tom said, still laughing. “Stick to your old rule and
never say you don’t know a thing, but go and find it out. I know what
you’re thinking about. You want to go down in the cabin and look at the
map to see where Nassau is. But I’ll save you the trouble. It’s the
capital of the Bahama Islands, in the northern West Indies, and about
a thousand miles from New York; so that will make a short voyage. But
there’s more news for you: you have a new cabin steward.”

“No!” Kit answered, not at all sorry to hear it. “Where’s the old
steward?”

“I should think in Bellevue Hospital by this time,” Tom replied,
“unless he’s reformed. He got on a terrible spree and fell to breaking
the crockery, so the Captain sent him off in a hurry. The new man is
a Scotchman named MacNish, and that’s all I can tell you about him.
There’s a new galley boy, too; but that doesn’t count for much.”

“Not to you,” Kit declared, “but it does to me, because now I’m not the
newest hand on the ship. But I must go down and report myself.”

He did not see the new steward, who was at work in the pantry; but
Captain Griffith called him into his stateroom.

“I am glad you are back promptly,” he said, “for to-morrow we begin
taking in cargo for Nassau, and I want you to keep tally as it comes on
board. It is not exactly cabin boy’s work, but you do it carefully,
and it is good experience for you.”

“I am only too glad to do it, sir,” Kit answered. “I want to make
myself useful.”

“I thought of raising your pay two or three dollars a month for this
extra work,” the Captain went on, “but I have concluded not to do it at
present. I don’t want to make a pet of you; it’s better that you should
work your way gradually like other people. You can go to the steward
now and see whether he has anything for you to do.”

There was nothing to be done at the moment, for the new steward had
everything in order. Kit had never seen the pantry so clean, nor the
cabin brass-work so well polished. Mr. MacNish was apparently about
forty years old, a plump man of medium height, his florid round face
smooth except for a little tuft of iron-gray whiskers under each ear.

“Looks more like an Englishman than a Scotchman,” Kit said to himself;
and his accent certainly was more English than Scotch; but his manner
was much pleasanter than the other steward’s, and he used so many
biblical quotations when he talked that Kit thought he must be a very
devout man.

For the next four days the cabin boy was busy keeping tally of the
general cargo as it came aboard, and after the same performance as
before of anchoring by the Liberty statue and the Captain coming out in
a tug, the _North Cape_ got under way for Nassau. There was not
much to be seen of the New Jersey coast this time, for she stood out
to the southeastward all the first night, and in two days and a half
crossed the Gulf Stream and ran into warmer weather. And every day Kit
thought more and more of the new steward. He was so kind and gentle,
so willing to do things himself rather than give Kit trouble, so neat
and industrious, and above all so pious in his conversation, that it
worried the cabin boy to see that Captain Griffith treated him rather
abruptly, as if he did not care much for him.

“Was that a little Bible I saw you have last night, my boy?” Mr.
MacNish asked Kit one morning. “Ah, I thought so. I like to see boys
read their Bible. And maybe you’d lend it to me sometimes. Mine must
have been stolen, I’m afraid, for I always carry it in my satchel. Oh,
it’s a great comfort, lad, in times of trouble. My good old father”
(his voice grew a little husky) “taught me to read my chapter every
day, and I don’t like to miss it. I hope to see the day when we’ll have
morning and evening service on every ship afloat.”

On the sixth day after leaving New York they sighted Nassau, and Kit
was delighted with the appearance of the place from the water. The big
square stone houses, with their upper and lower balconies enclosed with
green Venetian blinds; the red tiled roofs, white streets running up a
steep hill, palm trees waving gracefully over many of the roofs, old
forts, half in ruins, to the right and left of the town, and the warm
summer weather in midwinter, made it seem like a little fairy-land.
But these things had to be seen from a distance, for the _North
Cape_ drew too much water to cross the bar. She anchored outside,
half a mile from the town, close under the long narrow strip of rock
called Hog Island, where she was exposed to the north wind and would
have to hoist anchor and put to sea if a gale came.

By the next day the lighters were ready, for the cargo had to be landed
in lighters as it had been in Sisal, though the distance was not as
great, and Kit was set ashore early to check off every package as it
was put on the wharf. He was no beginner at this work now, and as the
people spoke English he found it much easier than at Sisal, though the
boatmen and ’longshoremen were all negroes, and spoke a mixed jargon of
Congo African and Colonial English that was sometimes almost as hard
to understand as the Spanish. The day was intensely hot, and there was
no tree or building on the wharf to give him shelter, and the lighters
arrived so fast that he not only had no chance to see anything of the
city, but had not even time to stop for dinner.

The only break in the long day was when the mail steamer, the
_Santiago_, arrived from New York. She also was too large to cross
the bar, and a little tug went out to her and carried her passengers
and mails ashore.

When the day’s work was over, Kit was quite ready to return to the ship
and eat his supper; but while they were washing dishes the steward
proposed that they should get permission and spend the evening on
shore.

“I feel so lost without the Holy Scriptures I brought from home,” he
said, “and the precious hymn book I used when I was younger than you
are. Ah, how many times they have made my heart light when it was sore
with trouble. I can buy new ones on shore, but they’ll not be like the
ones I used so long. And I want to mail a letter to my dear old father.
I think the Captain would let us go if you were to ask him.”

Kit was rapidly gaining experience of the world, but he still had a
great deal to learn about the people who live in it. That there are men
who try to hide their wickedness under a cloak of deep piety he had no
suspicion. It was very nice in the new steward, he thought, to take the
first opportunity to replace his lost Bible and mail a letter to his
aged father; and though he felt more like going to bed, he went to the
Captain and readily got permission for them both to go ashore, without
the least suspicion that the steward would much have preferred to go
alone, but was using him as a cat’s-paw because the Captain would be
more likely to oblige him.

They were taken to the landing-steps in the gig, with the understanding
that the boat would return for them at half-past ten, Mr. MacNish
carrying along a small leather satchel, strongly mounted with brass,
that looked quite luxurious for the steward of a tramp steamship.

“I want to make a few trifling purchases,” he explained, “and this will
be handy to carry them aboard in. Perhaps I can’t find what I want, but
I’ll not worry over it; ‘sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’”

As they climbed up the slippery stone steps Kit noticed two men who
looked like Americans sitting on a bench in the little park, and
imagined that they looked very hard and sharp at him and his companion.
And he saw that the steward noticed them too; indeed there was little
that Mr. MacNish did not notice, now that they were ashore. He looked
around as if there might be highwaymen behind the trees, and clutched
his satchel a little tighter, though it was too dark for him to see the
men distinctly.

When they crossed the small park they were in Bay Street, the main
business street of the place; and they had not gone far before they
were in front of a dingy saloon, with doors standing wide open.

“I feel the chill of the night air,” Mr. MacNish said, stopping before
the door, “and it is dangerous to be chilled in the tropics. Let us go
in and get something to warm us.”

“I am warm enough, thank you,” Kit answered; “I don’t care for
anything.”

“You know the apostle advises us to take a little wine for the
stomach’s sake,” the steward urged.

“My stomach’s all right!” Kit laughed. “I suppose they didn’t have any
quinine in those days; quinine’s much better.”

“Then hold my satchel till I come out,” the steward said, putting it in
Kit’s hands; and a minute later he stood in front of the bar, pouring
out a tumblerful of something that looked stronger than wine.

While the steward was in the saloon, the two men who had been sitting
in the park passed by on the other side of the street, and Kit noticed
again that they were looking sharply at him and at Mr. MacNish. He was
positive now that they were watched, and it startled him; but he was
relieved to see that the two men paused and exchanged a few words with
a Nassau policeman a little further up the street. They could hardly
be highwaymen, he thought, if they were known to the police. When Mr.
MacNish came out of the saloon he spoke about them.

“Two men who look like Americans seem to be taking a great interest in
us,” he said. “They watched us pretty closely when we landed, and they
just walked past here, looking at us again.”

“What’s that!” MacNish exclaimed; “two men! What did they look like?”

Kit wondered that such a trifling thing should excite him so much, but
he described the men as well as he could.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” MacNish said, though his manner belied his words.
“You just imagine it. Here, we’ll turn up this way toward the hill; I
think the stores are better in the street above. You carry the satchel
for me a bit, my lad.”

They turned into a dark side street, and were no sooner around the
corner than the steward quickened the pace almost to a run. His manner
was so changed that Kit for the first time became suspicious, and
thought that he had better have nothing to do with the satchel.

“Here, you take your satchel, Mr. MacNish,” he said; “I can keep up
with you better if I have nothing to carry. We don’t need to hurry so
much, do we?”

MacNish snatched the satchel from his hands without replying, and
before they had taken ten steps more Kit was almost knocked down by two
men who sprang out from an alley and seized the steward by both arms
as if they were used to such work. By the dim light from a neighboring
shop window Kit saw that they were the men who had been in the park.

“Now, then, Slippery Jim, we want you,” one of the men said. “No
nonsense, unless you want some lead in you.”

Kit was too much astonished to speak, but the steward was equal to the
emergency. With a powerful jerk he wrenched himself free, and the next
moment Kit saw the gleam of a revolver in his hand and heard a shot
fired. It was done so quickly, however, that the bullet flew wide; and
the next minute two policemen in uniform emerged from the alley, and
all four men grappled with the desperate steward and bore him down.

His language as he lay struggling on his back on the sidewalk was
anything but pious; but he submitted to the inevitable when the
officers put handcuffs on his wrists and stood him on his feet.

“I am afraid you have made a mistake, gentlemen,” Kit at length said;
“this man is Mr. MacNish, steward of the steamship _North Cape_.”

“Steward nothing!” one of the men answered, contemptuously. “This man
is Slippery Jim, with fifty other names, and one of the slickest bank
burglars in the world. He’s the man that tapped the North Western bank
for a hundred and forty thousand dollars ten days ago, and I only hope
he’s got it in that satchel. Steward, indeed! He’s smart enough to turn
his hand to anything, and he took that way to escape from New York with
his booty. See here.”

As he spoke the man took hold of the whiskers on both sides of
MacNish’s face, and being false ones they came off very easily. Then he
rubbed his handkerchief across the steward’s face, and wiped off a big
patch of the pink stain that had given him a florid appearance.

“We got on his track just after you sailed,” the man continued, “and
followed him in the mail steamer. We are detectives from New York, and
you are a lucky boy that we don’t take you in as an accomplice.”

Meanwhile the other stranger had been trying to open the satchel.
Finding it securely locked, he impatiently took his knife and cut a
long slit in the leather and thrust in his hand.

“Here we have it!” he exclaimed, “or some of it. We’ll count it over at
the police station.”

Kit’s eyes bulged when he saw a big handful of greenbacks and bonds
taken from the satchel; not covetously, but in awe when he thought of
the great amount of stolen money he had been carrying.

The steward, seeing that his game had reached an end, was inclined to
laugh over his experiences on the _North Cape_.

“You’ll be wanting a new steward on the ship, Spooney,” he laughed,
“for I’ve accepted a steady situation on shore. I hope you’ll lend
your Bible to the next man; I found it awfully comforting. But I guess
I’ll not mail that letter to-night to my dear old papa; the old chap
was hanged about thirty years ago. I kept your blooming cabin in good
shape, anyhow, for a man with a hundred and forty thousand dollars in
his satchel.”

It was a relief to Kit when the officers took his former companion
away. He had heard of such desperate criminals, but had never been face
to face with one before. He had an hour yet before the boat would come,
and spent the time walking the streets, feeling sick at heart and a
little out of patience with himself.

“I don’t wonder he called me ‘Spooney,’” he reflected. “I ought to
have been smart enough to see through the man at once, as I think the
Captain did, to some extent. How easily he might have got me into a
heap of trouble if it had been worth his while! Even a poor boy with
nothing to be robbed of, has to be careful whom he associates with. So
remember that in the future, Mr. Kit Silburn!”

The Captain’s only remark, when he returned to the ship and told what
had happened, put Kit in a little better spirits.

“So that leaves us without a cabin steward,” the Captain said, “in a
small port where we can’t get another. I wish I could cut you right
straight in two, Christopher, for I want you in two places at once. As
soon as we have the cargo out you must act as steward till we get back
to New York; but for the present I must have you on shore.”

“I think I can manage with the steward’s work, sir,” Kit answered; “and
the cargo ought to be out in two or three days now.”

“And till then the engineers’ boy must look after the cabin too,” the
Captain added.

That night Kit had many things to think of as he lay in his berth.
Everybody feels a little sheepish to be so thoroughly deceived, and
he was no exception. But there were more important things to consider
than that. It was only a wretched burglar who had called him a spooney,
and his employer liked him well enough to want him in two places at
once. Kit was a good fellow, but he was human, like the rest of us, and
that remark of the Captain’s made him feel pretty well satisfied with
himself. And here was the steward’s place vacant. If he did good work
there for a week or two, he could get the place permanently, he felt
almost sure of that. But did he want it? He was not quite sure about
that. On the one hand it would bring him better pay, and on the other
hand if he became a steward he probably would never get any higher. And
after all, maybe the Captain would think him too young; and a dozen
more ifs and ands, and in the midst of it all he fell asleep.

For the next week he was the busiest boy in the Bahama Islands. As far
as possible he set things right for the day in the cabin before he went
ashore, then stood all day in the sun, checking off cargo, and was back
to the ship again in time to attend to supper. In the evening he washed
the dishes and cleaned up the pantry, and turned in early because he
had to turn out early. In those days it was only by good management
that he could get ten minutes of his own to write a short letter home.

“Well, you _are_ a softy!” Chock Cheevers said to him one morning
in the cabin--for it was Chock who had to wait on the Captain in Kit’s
absence. “Here you’re doing the steward’s work, and the cabin boy’s,
and the supercargo’s, all for six dollars a month. I’d strike for
double pay, anyhow, if I was you. I’m going to strike, myself, pretty
soon if this double work keeps on.”

“My child,” Kit laughed (he hardly noticed it himself, but he always
spoke to the mess-room boy now as if he were indeed the supercargo,
instead of only the cabin boy), “if I had time I would tell you how
many millions strikes cost every year without doing any good, for I
read it one day in an old newspaper. But I haven’t time; the boat is
waiting for me. You do the striking, and I’ll do the working. The
fellows who work don’t generally need to strike. Besides, I like to do
it.”

That evening Captain Griffith called Kit into his stateroom when his
work in the pantry was done.

“I want you to make me out a complete list of everything that has been
landed so far,” he said, “so that the agent ashore can receipt for the
goods. I suppose you see by this time something of what a supercargo’s
work is on board ship.”

“Yes, sir,” Kit answered; “he has to see that the whole cargo is taken
out and landed, and receipted for by the agent.”

“Yes, that and much more,” the Captain continued. “He is the agent on
board of the parties that charter the ship, and must look after their
interests in every way. He is not an employee of the ship, but of the
charterers. Suppose the _North Cape_ is chartered by John Smith &
Co. to carry a cargo to Rio Janeiro. They deliver their goods on the
wharf, and we load them and carry them to Rio, but beyond loading,
carrying, and unloading them, we legally have nothing to do with them.
It is the supercargo’s business to tally the goods delivered on the
wharf and put on board, see them safely landed at their destination,
and take the consignee’s receipt for them. But more than that, he
must take care of the cargo on the voyage. If there is live stock, he
sees that it is fed and cared for. If there are fruits or vegetables,
he takes care that they are kept cool in hot climates, and kept
from freezing in northern latitudes. In short,” he concluded, “the
supercargo must take as great care of the cargo as if it belonged to
him, always under the owners’ orders. And he is a passenger on the
ship, living in the cabin with the captain, and having nothing to
do, of course, with the management of the vessel. There are always
two interests on a chartered ship,--the interest of the ship, which
the captain takes care of, and the interest of the cargo, which is
the supercargo’s work. Unfortunately we have had only small charters
lately, that did not warrant the employment of a supercargo, so his
work has been left for me to do. When we are chartered for large and
valuable cargoes, the charterers always put a supercargo on board.”

Kit’s work on shore did not end when the small general cargo was
discharged, as he expected. Nassau business men have an easy way of
thinking that things can be done just as well to-morrow as to-day;
and when the _North Cape_ was empty her return cargo of sponges
and pineapples was not ready. He had to make frequent visits to Mr.
Johnson, the pineapple man, and Mr. Sawyer, the sponge man, to hurry
them up.

“I am just going out to the pine fields now,” Mr. Johnson said when
Kit first visited him; “come along, and see for yourself how things
are.”

Kit climbed into the carriage with him, and they drove out about two
miles back of the city to the nearest fields, where he saw for the
first time how pineapples grow. The field was a large one of twenty or
thirty acres, very rocky, but with soil between the protruding rocks
that was almost as red as bricks, and covered with plants from three to
four feet high, each plant with many long, narrow, stiff “leaves,” and
each leaf sharp with spines along its sides and a needle-like point.
The score of colored men who were cutting the pines all wore leather
leggings, he noticed, to protect them from the sharp points.

“And only one pineapple to a plant!” Kit exclaimed; “I thought they
would bear more than that.”

“Only one,” Mr. Johnson laughed. “The pine is a very large fruit to
grow on so small a plant, and each plant produces only one. When it is
ripe, we cut it, and that plant’s usefulness is over, except that it
sends out a great many little shoots, called slips, which we take up
and plant for next year’s crop. You see the pine grows on a long stalk
in the middle of the plant, and shoots up like a big cabbage head out
of a bush.”

With the promise of enough pines to begin loading next day, Kit went
to Mr. Sawyer’s sponge yard to hurry matters there, and was told that
Mr. Sawyer was at the Sponge Exchange; and through going there to find
him he learned enough about sponges to make him open his eyes wide.
The Exchange was a large stone building on one of the wharves, with a
series of broad open arches on each side, so that it seemed to have no
walls; and its concrete floor was covered with separate heaps of sponge.

“This is the most important industry we have in Nassau,” Mr. Sawyer
explained, “and this Exchange is the largest sponge market in the
world. The merchants fit out small sailboats for sponging, and the
colored men who navigate them get the sponges sometimes by diving,
sometimes by grasping them with long-handled rakes, like oyster tongs.
The sponges are cleaned with lime and sea-water, and then are brought
here and sold by auction. The members of the Exchange are so expert at
the business that for a pile of sponges worth two hundred dollars, the
bids frequently do not vary more than five or six cents. From here they
go to the sponge yard of the purchaser, where they are cleaned again
and sorted, and pressed into bales. I will go up to my yard with you
and see what the prospects are.”

The ground of the sponge yard was covered a foot deep with bits of
waste sponge, and a dozen colored men and women were sitting about with
scissors in their hands, examining the sponges, feeling them, cutting
out rough bits of stone or coral, and sometimes sewing loose ends
together to give the sponge a better shape. A rough, ragged, shapeless
sponge, after it went through these black hands, came out smooth and
shapely.

“Here is where we make the bales,” Mr. Sawyer explained, leading Kit
into a shed where a pile of sponge as big as a room was put under a
powerful press and squeezed down to the size of a cotton bale. “Sponge
is very compressible, of course. Some of these colored men take a
sponge as big as a bushel basket, and with crude levers press it into a
small cigar box. It is not only my own sponge, of course, that you are
to be loaded with; I buy wherever I can, and I think I can promise you
five hundred bales by two o’clock to begin on.”

With his mission successfully accomplished, Kit returned to the ship
and began his new duties as steward.

“Two more things to stow away in my knowledge box,” he said to himself.
“I’ve had precious little time to learn from books, but my work has
taught me some things from experience; all about Sisal hemp, to begin
with, and now about pineapples and sponges. And maybe a little about
people, too, for I’ve seen some queer ones.”

In the two weeks more that the _North Cape_ lay at Nassau, waiting
for a cargo that was made ready for her very slowly, Kit managed the
steward’s work in such a way that no complaints were made; and that he
reasonably considered a sure sign that he gave satisfaction, for the
officers of a freight ship are not slow to find fault when anything
goes wrong. While the loading was still in progress the mail steamer
returned from her visit to the south side of Cuba, and after touching
at Nassau went on to New York, carrying northward for trial and
punishment the man of many names and crimes, MacNish, the steward, who
had been lying in the Nassau prison. And when the _North Cape_
once more lay in front of Martin’s Stores, the newspapers were printing
long accounts of his attempted escape as steward of a freight steamer,
and his arrest in the West Indies.




CHAPTER VI.

THE STRANGE CASE OF JOHN DOE.


While Kit was picking his way through the pineapple fields and watching
the processes in the sponge yards of Nassau, something was happening on
the other side of the world that would have made the blood jump in his
veins if he could have known of it.

Though it was midwinter in New York, it was then, in January, midsummer
in the city of Wellington, New Zealand, which lies south of the
equator. Doors and windows stood open, and men and animals alike
sheltered themselves as far as possible from the burning rays of the
sun. Even the New Zealand boys, who are not little brown savages with
feathers in their hair, but white boys who speak English and go to
school and wear clothes made after London and Paris fashions--even the
boys found it too hot to enjoy their usual Saturday games.

On the very day that Kit was trying to hurry the pineapple men and
sponge men of Nassau, there was an unusual stir in the big public
hospital of Wellington. Not in the wards where the patients lay; no
matter what happened outside, they were always kept quiet and tranquil.
But downstairs in the Board room, where the Board of Governors of the
hospital meets four times a year to inquire into the management and
arrange the financial affairs, the windows were open and the big table
and soft armchairs all freshly dusted; and in the banqueting-hall
beyond, which the patients never see, but where the governors regale
themselves after their quarterly labors, a long table was spread as if
for a banquet.

Occasionally a carriage drove through the big gates, and one or two
gentlemen stepped out and disappeared in the house surgeon’s private
office. It was evident, to every one who knew the hospital routine,
that the quarterly meeting day had come, and that the governors were
arriving. They were to audit the accounts, to hear complaints, to make
any necessary changes in the staff, and last but by no means least to
eat the good dinner that almost invariably follows the meeting of any
board of charities.

At two o’clock precisely the chairman rapped on the big table and
called the Board to order; and the ten other gentlemen, five on each
side of the table, listened with more or less patience to the reading
of the minutes of the last meeting. Then came a batch of reports; for
the reading of reports and the appointment of committees to consider
them form a large part of the business of such meetings. The house
surgeon’s report gave a favorable account of the hospital’s work in
the last quarter. So many patients had been received, so many had been
discharged cured, and not so many but so few had died. If any stranger
had been allowed to be present, he must have thought it the most
remarkable hospital in the world. In the surgical ward, particularly,
not a single patient had died while undergoing an operation; every
operation had been successful. Some of the medical members of the Board
smiled faintly when they heard this, being familiar with the cheerful
medical custom of calling every operation successful when the patient
does not die on the spot; he may die that night or the next day, but
still the operation is called successful. There was a hush of interest
about the table when the clerk read:--

“The strange case of John Doe need not be further mentioned here, as
the house surgeon will ask the privilege of making a verbal report in
his case at the pleasure of the Board.”

Then followed the steward’s report, showing how many barrels of flour
and sugar and other eatables had been consumed and what they had cost;
and the apothecary’s report of the medicines used, and a dozen more;
and, after a half-hour’s discussion of these matters, that part of the
business was finished, and the chairman announced that he was “now
ready to hear the house surgeon’s report on what has appropriately been
called the strange case of John Doe.”

At this the house surgeon stepped forward with a small memorandum-book
open in his hand. He was a tall, slender man with iron-gray hair and
an extremely professional appearance, slow and accurate in his speech.

“Although this case has already been brought to the attention of the
Board, Mr. Chairman,” he began, “I will briefly rehearse the principal
facts for your further information. This man to whom we have given
the name of John Doe, because his real name is totally unknown to us,
was brought to this port six months ago by the British ship _Prince
Albert_; and being both physically and mentally incapacitated, he
was immediately brought to the hospital. The log of the _Prince
Albert_ showed that on the 27th of last June their lookout saw
a signal of distress flying from a pole on a small unnamed and
uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean, the latitude and longitude of
which I have a minute of, but do not at the moment remember. The ship
was immediately put about and a boat lowered, and sent ashore under
command of the second mate. The mate found what he at first supposed to
be the dead bodies of four men, all scantily clothed; but on examining
the bodies faint signs of life were found in one, the man whom we now
know as John Doe, who wore nothing whatever but a pair of trousers,
and, like the others, was much emaciated. The only property found
on the island was the small spar which had been set up for a signal
pole; and the plain inference was that the four men had escaped from
some wreck on the spar, without an opportunity to save any of their
property.

“The three men who were certainly dead were decently buried, and John
Doe, who was unable to speak or even to open his eyes, was taken
on board the _Prince Albert_, where under kind and judicious
treatment he improved so far physically that by the time she reached
this port he was able to walk a few steps, though still extremely weak.
But there was no corresponding improvement in his mental condition. He
was not able to speak, and apparently understood nothing that was said
to him. Such was his state when he was received in the hospital.

“It was my opinion, and that of the entire staff, that he was broken
down by the terrible hardships and privations that had caused the death
of his companions, starvation and exposure doubtless chief among them.
Under our treatment he has gained greatly in strength, so that he is
able to move about slowly; and if he were mentally sound I should feel
warranted in discharging him as convalescent. But mentally he is still
incapacitated. His memory is so utterly gone that he does not even know
his own name or country. We have tried every means to arouse him from
his stupor, but he has been able to articulate only six words, and
those indistinctly. They are: ‘I don’t know. I cannot remember.’

“Those few words are sufficient, however, to show that he belongs to
some English-speaking nation, probably either to our own country or
to America, or perhaps to some of the British colonies. And my object
in laying the case before you at this length is to enable the Board
to determine whether under the circumstances he is a fit subject for
further treatment in the hospital. Some question has been raised on
that point on account of the doubt whether the man is even a British
subject.”

“This is indeed an interesting case--a most interesting case!” the
chairman said, when the house surgeon sat down. “I do not remember
that such a problem has ever been presented to us before. Whether this
man, being no longer bodily ill, is entitled to our further treatment
and support, is what we are called upon to decide. I understand from
our worthy chief of staff that he is now strong enough to walk about
without assistance. Would it not be well to bring him into the room,
that we may see for ourselves?”

“Yes, yes; bring him in!” was echoed by several voices. “Let us see
whether we can make him out.”

“And if we find that he is an American,” one of the governors said, “he
should be taken in charge by the consul of his own country.”

“One word more, Mr. Chairman,” said the house surgeon, taking the floor
again. “I must explain that there _is_ some slight ground for
believing that the man is an American rather than a British subject.
The orderly on duty in the exercise yard reported to me several weeks
ago that a ship had that day come into the harbor, flying the American
flag; and that this John Doe, seeing it over the top of the wall,
showed more interest in it than in anything else since his arrival. He
extended his arm toward it, and tried to mutter some words that the
orderly could not make out. With this hint I have had it in mind to try
upon him the effect of the flags of other nations; but anticipating
your desire to see the result for yourselves, I have postponed the
trial until to-day, and have also asked the American consul to be
present--subject, of course, to your wishes. The consul is now waiting
in my office.”

“Let us see John Doe first,” said the chairman; and the house surgeon
pressed a bell button and gave some instructions to the orderly who
answered.

In a few minutes the door opened again, and the orderly escorted into
the room what seemed at first to be a bent and stiffened old man,
leaning heavily on a cane and making his way along with difficulty. His
hair and beard were almost white, and he shuffled in without raising
his eyes from the floor, as if he took no interest whatever in the
proceedings. Led to a chair, he sat down heavily, and half-closed his
eyes. But the professional eyes present saw that it was not age, but
suffering and illness, that had reduced him to this condition. The aged
look in his face was caused rather by pain than by years, for there
were few of the wrinkles in the forehead or about the eyes or mouth
that come with advanced age; and his hands were those of a man in the
prime of life, “sixty-five or seventy,” an unprofessional person would
have pronounced him; but the physicians present knew that he was very
little, if at all, past forty.

“Well, my good man, how are you feeling to-day?” the chairman asked.

“I don’t know,” John Doe answered, without raising his eyes, and with a
dazed look on his countenance.

“When did you leave London?” one of the governors asked; but the man
merely shook his head.

“Or did you come from New York?” another said; but still there was
no answer but a feeble shake of the head. It was too evident that he
understood very little of what was said, and could not answer even that
little intelligently.

Several of the medical members of the Board went up to him and felt
his pulse, examined the hue of his skin, raised the lids and looked
searchingly into his eyes, and felt his scalp carefully for traces of
an old injury, but could find none.

“Suppose that we see whether any of our flags will have an effect upon
him to-day,” the chairman suggested; and turning to the house surgeon
he added, “and invite the American consul to come in and see the
result.”

The surgeon went after the consul, and when they entered the room, they
were followed by an orderly, bearing an armful of folded flags. The
consul was invited to take a chair, after replying to the chairman’s
question that he was acquainted with the circumstances of the case; and
the orderly was directed to unfold one of the flags and show it to the
mysterious patient.

“Try the British flag first,” the chairman said; and the room was as
quiet as death while the orderly shook out the flag, and held it close
to John Doe’s face. But the feeble man paid no more attention to it
than he had paid to the questions.

“Now the French flag,” the chairman ordered; and still John Doe did not
raise his eyes from the floor.

“The American flag,” said the chairman. This was the test; and as the
orderly held out his arm with the beautiful stars and stripes hanging
over it, the members of the Board leaned forward eagerly to watch the
result.

For a moment John Doe did not seem to see the flag. But presently his
sunken eyes caught the brilliant red and white stripes, and instantly a
change was noticed in his face. A look of semi-intelligence came over
it that none present had seen there before. Leaning the cane between
his knees, he stretched out one hand and drew the orderly closer to
him, and with the other hand stroked the stripes as lovingly and gently
as he might have stroked a kitten or the head of a pet child. His lips
moved, and it was plain that he was trying to utter words that would
not come. And the hush in the room became still deeper when after a few
moments of this the feeble man drew the back of his hand across his
eyes to wipe away the moisture.

“That will do, Mr. Orderly; you can take the flags away,” the chairman
said; and every man in the room noticed that John Doe kept his eyes
fixed upon the flag until it was folded and carried away.

“If this remarkable experiment has had the same effect upon you as
upon me, gentlemen,” the chairman continued, “you have seen that the
sight of an old friend has for a moment roused the slumbering faculties
of this poor man’s brain. I have no longer any doubt that he is an
American; and I should like to hear the American consul’s opinion of
this strange case.”

“This is one of the most touching things that I have ever seen, Mr.
Chairman,” the consul said, stepping forward. “That this stricken and
unfortunate man, a stranger in a strange land, sick, destitute, almost
bereft of reason, should show this emotion at the sight of my flag, an
emotion that nothing else excites in him, leaves me no room to doubt
that he is my countryman. And yet I am compelled to say that this is
not legal proof of his nationality, and to explain, what most of you
doubtless know, that a consul is only permitted to give substantial aid
to distressed seamen who are beyond doubt citizens of his country. Still
I should be glad to strain a point and send this man home, if I only
knew where to send him; but that is yet one of the mysteries.

“What we have just seen, however, convinces me that his reason is not
dead, only sleeping. Any familiar sight, the face of a member of his
family, even the mention of a familiar name, might restore his lost
memory in an instant. I think you medical gentlemen will agree with
me in this, for you have seen such cases. We shall have within a few
weeks reports from our respective governments giving the names of all
the British and American vessels that were lost last year. It is highly
probable that the mention of the name of this man’s ship may awaken his
memory sufficiently to give us a clue to his identity; and I shall of
course lay the facts before the State Department at once. But meanwhile
I am so firmly convinced that this unfortunate man is my countryman
that I will willingly take upon myself personally the responsibility of
his support.”

The consul had hardly resumed his chair before one of the members of
the Board sprang to his feet.

“Mr. Chairman,” he almost shouted, “it is about two months, as you
know, since I returned from America. While there my interest in
hospital work naturally led me to visit the great hospitals in many of
the large cities. In New York, in Boston, in Chicago, in San Francisco,
in New Orleans, I found that at least ten per cent of all the patients
were British subjects, receiving every possible care and kindness
without question of their nationality. In that land they do not ask
whether a man is an American or a Briton or a Hottentot; the only
question is whether he is sick and in need of help, and if he needs it
they give it to him. I do not wonder that this unfortunate man shed
tears at the sight of his flag. And if we turn him out into the streets
to starve because he is a foreigner, we ought to shed tears at the
sight of ours, though for a widely different reason.”

As the speaker took his seat there was such a furious clapping of hands
that the chairman had to rap on the table for order.

“The Board seems to be so much of one mind,” he said, “that it is
not necessary to put a motion. John Doe will remain an inmate of the
hospital until the Board’s further orders. And now, gentlemen, the
orderly informs me that dinner is waiting. We hope, Mr. Consul, that
you will do us the honor to dine with us.”

At the precise moment when the Board went in to dinner, and the
tottering John Doe was led back to his favorite seat in the sunny yard,
Kit, in happy ignorance of his father’s condition, was learning that a
sponge as big as a bushel basket could be pressed into a small cigar
box.




CHAPTER VII.

KIT BECOMES A SUPERCARGO.


To have another run out to Huntington when the _North Cape_
returned from Nassau, was something that Kit had been looking forward
to. Not for a week this time, for he could not expect to have a week’s
holiday at the end of every voyage; but for two nights and a day,
perhaps; long enough to see the familiar faces and the old place.

But three days, four days, passed, and he was still acting as steward;
and he could not ask for leave of absence while he had that work to
do. And whether he ought to ask for the place permanently or not, he
could hardly make up his mind. He felt the need, more than ever before,
of some one to go to for advice and counsel. Tom Haines was a good
friend, but Tom could hardly advise him in such a matter; and to apply
to the Captain was out of the question. So he did not know whether to
feel glad or sorry when on the fourth day Captain Griffith brought a
stranger into the cabin and introduced him as the new steward.

“You know the lay of the land in the pantry, Christopher,” he said,
“so you can show him where things are kept.”

And that was the end of his dream of becoming steward of the _North
Cape_!

“I think I am rather glad than sorry,” he soon said to himself; “but if
I had really wanted the place, this would really serve me just right
for not making up my mind about it. Chances don’t wait for a fellow
if he does not seize them when they offer. So I am still the cabin
boy, and will still have a chance to copy the manifests and go ashore
to check off cargo. And maybe this will give me a chance for my visit
home.”

That evening he walked the deck a little in the cold moonlight,
deliberating whether he should ask for a furlough or not; and he had
no sooner made up his mind to do it than he started for the Captain’s
room, having seen enough of the dangers of delay. But before he reached
the head of the companionway the Captain’s bell rang for him.

“Come in and shut the door, Christopher,” Captain Griffith said. “I
have something to say to you.” Then when the door was closed, he
continued, “How old did you tell me you are?”

“I am past seventeen now, sir,” Kit answered.

“You have done very good work for me, Christopher,” the Captain went
on, “but still I am going to take your name off the crew list. I shall
have to have a new cabin boy.”

“I hope not, sir!” Kit answered; “I have tried to give you
satisfaction.”

“You have done very well, I must admit,” the Captain said; “but you are
not exactly fitted to the place. You are too bright for a cabin boy,
and there is no better berth in the crew that I can give you.”

So saying, he took out the book in which he kept the crew list and the
wages account, ran his finger down to Kit’s name, and took up his pen.

“I see there is seven dollars and a half due you,” he went on, “but we
will call it ten dollars on account of the extra work you have been
doing. So now I erase your name, and you are no longer a member of the
crew;” and he ran his pen through Kit’s name with a big, broad mark.

For a moment Kit felt as if a flash of lightning had come into the
stateroom and struck him.

“I hope you will tell me what I have done, to be sent away, Captain,”
he said, in a voice that was not altogether steady.

“Well, sit down, Christopher, and I will tell you,” the Captain said,
swinging his chair around as Kit took a seat. “I could not well invite
my cabin boy to sit down here for a talk, but as you are my cabin boy
no longer, I can invite you now. I see you take it very much to heart,
so I will tell you in few words.”

It seemed to Kit at first as if a judge were about to pronounce
sentence upon him; but something in the Captain’s face gave him a
little hope.

“The _North Cape_ has been chartered by the big firm of Hunter &
Hitchley for a long voyage. She is to go first to Barbadoes with a
general cargo, there take on a cargo of sugar for London, and return
from London to New York with another general cargo. Such a voyage
requires a supercargo; and when the firm asked me to recommend one I
recommended Christopher Silburn. So it means that instead of being the
cabin boy you will be the supercargo as soon as you go over to Hunter &
Hitchley’s office and sign the contract.”

“Oh, Captain!” Kit exclaimed; he did not see how he could say anything
more at the moment.

“Your pay will be only eighteen dollars a month for the present, on
account of your youth; and that is small pay for supercargo; but it is
better than six dollars as a cabin boy.”

“I should think so, sir!” Kit declared; “and I don’t know how I can
ever thank you for such a kindness.”

“Never mind about that,” the Captain laughed. “And now, Mr. Supercargo,
you must leave me to my work, for I have a great deal to do to-night.
Do you think you could find me a good cabin boy to take your place?”

“Yes, sir, I think I could,” Kit answered; and he thought immediately
of Harry Leonard, of Huntington.

“Then I will leave that matter with you,” the Captain said, turning
again to his work.

Kit had to go on deck again for a little fresh air after this sudden
change in his fortunes, and in his rapid march to and fro he met Tom
Haines, and was on the point of telling him the news, but stopped
himself. “I must tell the folks at home first of all,” he thought; and
after a little chat with Tom about other matters, in which Kit hardly
knew what he was talking about, he went down to the cabin to write a
letter.

“I hoped to be with you in Huntington by this time,” he began, “but you
will have to put up with a ten-dollar note and a bit of good news.”

Then he told the story of his promotion as plainly as his excited mind
would permit, and added, “Don’t mind taking the money, for I have a
little more, and of course I will get an advance for a long voyage like
that. I shall need some new clothes; for what is good enough for a
cabin boy would hardly be decent for a supercargo.”

And at the end he sent a message for Vieve to take to Harry Leonard.
“If he’s not second mate of that bark yet, maybe he would like to be
cabin boy of the _North Cape_ at six dollars a month. I can get
him the place if he wants it, but he must come or let me know the very
day you get this, or it will be too late. And now for Barbadoes, folks,
and London! across the big ocean and back again! I was hoping for that,
you know. I’ll write again, of course, before we sail.”

Kit’s interview with Hunter & Hitchley next day was something of an
ordeal, for after the contract was signed they had endless instructions
to give him. A hundred things he must attend to with the greatest
care; and another hundred things he must avoid; and such and such firms
must be seen in New York, and so and so in Barbadoes, and in London.

“You are very young for this work,” Mr. Hitchley told him, “but Captain
Griffith has recommended you highly. We take you altogether on his
recommendation.”

“I will do my best to give satisfaction, sir,” Kit answered. He had
made the same promise on becoming a cabin boy, and kept it, and was
determined to keep it again.

His new position brought many minor changes that he had not had time to
think of yet. When the cabin dinner bell rang that day he did not quite
know what to do, so he wisely waited and did nothing, and in a few
minutes the Captain sent for him to come down to dinner.

“The supercargo eats with the Captain, Silburn,” Captain Griffith said.
“I neglected to tell you that. And he is always ‘Mister’ to the crew;
but for my part I shall call you Silburn, because you are so young.”

It was odd enough to be eating there with the Captain and first
officer at the table he had helped to wait on before, but he soon
grew accustomed to it, just as he did to being called Mr. Silburn by
everybody but the Captain. In a few days he appeared in a new suit of
dark blue cloth and a cap to match, with a single gilt button on each
side; a costume in which he looked as nautical and business-like as
any young supercargo could desire.

Doing the clerical work in getting together and loading the cargo was
mere routine business for him now, thanks to the experience he had had
in former voyages; and by the time the _North Cape_ was ready
for sea again he felt considerable confidence in himself in his new
position. The non-arrival of Harry Leonard made him a little uneasy,
for it would not do to fail to have a cabin boy ready on sailing day.
Harry had written that he would be on at once, but nearly a week had
passed. He arrived, however, just as Kit was thinking of looking for
another boy.

“Oh, say, what a swell you are, Kit!” he exclaimed, “in that uniform. I
must have one like that some day. But I’ll take a shy at your old place
first, for a voyage or two. That’s good enough to begin on, I suppose.
Say, what does a fellow get promoted to from there? Does supercargo
come next?”

“Not always,” Kit answered. He could not help seeing that Harry’s ideas
were up too near the top-masts, and would have to come down nearer the
keel before long. “But it’s very pleasant work in the cabin of the
_North Cape_, as long as you don’t give the Captain any occasion
to use his rope’s-end on you.” Kit did not believe much in teasing the
new boys on board, but Harry was so full of his own importance that he
could not resist the temptation to frighten him a little.

“No! say, does he though?” Harry asked, in alarm. “Does he whack you
very hard?”

“Oh, not so very!” Kit laughed; “anyhow, you don’t mind it much after
you get used to it. Come down to the cabin; he told me to bring you
down to him when you came.”

“This is the boy I spoke to you about, sir,” Kit said to the Captain.
“His name is Harry Leonard.”

“I tried to come as soon as I got Kit’s letter,” Harry broke in, “but I
had to have some clothes made.”

“What’s that!” Captain Griffith exclaimed, looking at the new boy
sharply. “If you mean the supercargo, his name is Mr. Silburn. Don’t
forget that. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Harry answered quite meekly; and Kit thought that a good
time for him to withdraw, when the interesting process of training a
willing but conceited boy was beginning.

There was a large streak of good nature in Harry, however, as well as a
stock of humor; and he felt that he had wiped out this rebuff when he
went up to Kit on deck on the third day out, and, touching his hat very
formally, said:--

“Mr. Silburn, the Captain wishes to see you below, sir, if you please;”
then drew his left eye down into a wink that was big enough for a dozen
winks, stuffed his hands into his pockets, and strutted off whistling
“Yankee Doodle.”

Every day Kit was busy for some hours with his manifests, which he
worked at in the afternoons now instead of the evenings. And it was
fortunate for him that he wasted no time at the start; for on the
eighth day, when they were expecting every moment to sight Sombrero
Key, the first land since leaving New York, they ran into a little
tropical hurricane that tossed up a tremendous sea, and kept Captain
Griffith on the bridge for nearly ten hours without rest. He did not
stop his writing when the confusion on deck told him that they were
preparing the ship for rough weather; but in a few minutes his head
began to ache, and he closed his eyes to rest them. Then a chilly
feeling ran down the back of his neck; he felt as if he must have taken
a mixture of chicken salad, mince pie, ice cream, and soda water for
dinner, and began to wonder whether a siege of illness was coming on.
A minute later, however, Harry Leonard ran out of the pantry, holding
both hands against his stomach.

“Oh, Kit!” he cried, “or Mr. Silburn, or Supercargo, or whatever your
blessed name is, I’m so sick! oh, I wish you’d let me stay at home!”
and he threw himself on one of the sofas and lay moaning.

That told Kit what was the matter with him; it was no tropical fever
coming on, but a plain case of sea-sickness! On his third voyage, when
he had risen to be a supercargo, he was desperately seasick for the
first time, simply because it was the first really rough weather he had
encountered.

The heavy rolling and pitching of the ship in that howling wind and
tremendous sea, the incessant rattling and breaking of dishes in the
pantry, the creaking of joiner work, the shouting of orders on deck,
the men running to and fro to execute them, the whir and jar of the
screw when a lunge of the bow raised it out of the water, combined to
give Kit his first real idea of bad weather at sea. He went on deck,
and the fresh air made him feel better; and he exercised his privilege
as supercargo and went up on the bridge, where he instantly saw by the
anxious faces of the Captain and first officer that they were worried.
He knew that the storm alone was not sufficient to put the ship in
danger; but they were in the neighborhood of Sombrero and other small
islands of that group, night was coming on, and as there was no sun
that day for an observation they were not sure of their position, and
the outlook was not encouraging.

No supper was prepared in the cabin that evening, for neither the
Captain nor his mate had time to eat; but sandwiches and hot coffee
were put on the table; and when the Captain came down to swallow a cup
of coffee in haste he merely shook his head in reply to Kit’s questions.

Late in the evening Harry still lay groaning on the sofa, and Kit was
in and out, for neither of the boys felt inclined to turn in. About
eleven o’clock a terrible pounding began on deck. It sounded almost as
if one of the iron masts had fallen and was rolling about the deck.
First there was a thumping from port to starboard that seemed enough
to crush in the deck, followed by a moment of quiet, and then, as the
ship rolled again, the rolling went from starboard to port. Harry
sprang up in alarm.

“Kit, we’re goners!” he exclaimed; “the ship’s going down!”

“I don’t believe it,” Kit answered, “but something has carried away.”

They both ran for the companionway and scrambled on deck, where the
terrific wind almost tore them off their feet. Everything was dark as
pitch except for the light of a solitary lantern, and by that faint
light they saw that in the heavy rolling one of the winches had broken
loose and was rolling from side to side of the deck, to the imminent
danger of both deck and rail; and men were trying to lasso it with
heavy ropes, for no one could approach it without risking his life.
While they watched, the winch was caught and secured, and they returned
to the cabin.

About two o’clock Captain Griffith came down with the relieved look of
a man who had just rid himself of an aching tooth. “We’re all right,”
he said, as the steward brought him another cup of coffee. “We’ve just
sighted Sombrero light, so we’ll not visit Davy Jones’s locker just
yet. It’s time for you to turn in, Henry.”

Harry started off for his berth, and Kit and the Captain had a little
chat over their coffee.

“I don’t like being off a rocky coast on a bad night,” the Captain
said. “The _North Cape_ is good for any kind of weather, but the
ship has not been built yet that will stand a night’s pounding on the
rocks. Now by afternoon we should be off St. Kitts, and from that
all the way down to Barbadoes you will see some of the finest sights
you ever saw in your life. I have seen the Alps and most of the best
scenery in Europe, but never anything to equal these beautiful islands
we will soon pass--St. Kitts, Nevis, Montserrat, Martinique, Dominica,
and several more. Most of them are mountain peaks rising from the sea
and touching the clouds. Barbadoes itself is flat and uninteresting,
except for being the most thickly populated bit of land on the globe.
It contains only about forty square miles, and has forty thousand
inhabitants, or a thousand to a square mile, mostly negroes. But you
will soon see for yourself. I feel quite ready for a sleep. Good-night,
Silburn.”

“Good-night, sir,” Kit answered; and he made his way across the
unsteady cabin by holding on to the backs of seats, and was soon in his
own berth.

By the middle of the afternoon the young supercargo learned another of
the advantages of being in his new position. They were then skirting
the coast of the British island of St. Kitts, having left the storm and
the worst of the rough sea in their wake. Instead of taking a hurried
look at the shore over the rail, with both ears open for the Captain’s
bell, as the cabin boy must generally do, he could go up on the bridge
and take a good look through the Captain’s glasses; and he was soon
convinced that Captain Griffith had not at all exaggerated the beauty
of the scenery. He was used to high hills, for Huntington is surrounded
by them, but not hills like these.

“To think of a mountain coming right up out of the water,” he said to
himself, “and going on up and up till the peak is in the clouds, and
looking as green and smooth as the grass in a park--though I know it’s
not grass, for the Captain says it is fields of sugarcane below, and
trees toward the top. And the way those clouds gather around the peak!
It seems to catch them as they float by, and they grow thicker and
blacker every minute till there is more water than they can hold, and
it comes down without warning in a deluge of rain, and then the sun
shines again! I never saw anything like it.”

Then the next day he was equally enthusiastic over the French island
of Martinique, which is much larger and has many peaks instead of a
single one; and soon afterward the British Dominica, with scarcely
any inhabitants in its high mountains but the fragments of the
once-powerful race of Caribs, who live now by making baskets so tight
that they will hold water and are used for trunks. As they passed
the little port of Roseau, the capital of Dominica, they saw a large
steamer lying at anchor, which Kit learned was the New York mail
steamer the _Trinidad_, bound like themselves for Barbadoes; and
within the next hour she was under way and following in their wake.

In a longer race the _North Cape_ would have had little chance
against the speedier _Trinidad_; but the distance from Dominica
to the roadstead off Bridgetown, Barbadoes, is so small that the
two vessels dropped anchor there almost at the same moment, the
_North Cape_ as near to the breakwater as safety allowed, and the
_Trinidad_ farther out. As the day was about closing, Captain
Griffith was in no hurry to enter his ship at the Custom House, for
in any case he could not begin unloading until the next day; but it
was different with the other steamer, which had passengers on board
who were anxious to land. So it happened that the boat in which
Kit was set ashore to pay an early visit to his agent, reached the
landing-steps almost at the same moment as the boat that carried the
_Trinidad’s_ purser.

Kit was first up the steps, followed by the well-fed purser, who,
although not a tall man, weighed something over two hundred pounds.

“Just my luck!” the fat purser panted, as he looked about the large
open square. “If I--huh, ahuh, huh--if I didn’t want a--huh, huh--want
a carriage, the square would be full of them; but when I want one in
a--ah!--in a hurry, there’s none here. Here it’s four minutes to six;
and how’s a man of my--huh, huh--of my size going to get to the Custom
House before they close at six o’clock, I’d like to know!”

“Maybe I can be of use to you, sir,” Kit said, stepping up to him. “I
am supercargo of the _North Cape_, and I’m a pretty good runner.
I’ll take your papers up to the Custom House for you if you like.”

“Oh, thank you,” the purser panted, looking very much relieved. “I’ll
be a thousand times obliged to you. Here they are, then, all ready; all
you have to do is to shove them under the clerk’s nose.”

Kit made a hurried inquiry about the direction of the Custom House and
started on a run, and had the satisfaction of delivering the papers
just half a minute before business closed for the day. He next visited
his agent and arranged for lighters in the morning; and an hour later
he met the _Trinidad’s_ purser again, not quite so short-breathed
and red in the face this time.

“Here we are again, supercargo!” he exclaimed, seizing Kit’s hand. He
had a very jolly manner, and seemed as free with Kit as if they had
been acquainted for years. “You can’t miss anybody in this hole of a
place. They call it a town, but I call it a hole. I’m just going in
here to get something to cool me off, and I want you to come along.”

“I’m just as much obliged,” Kit answered; “but I suppose you mean
something to drink, and I never drink anything.”

“I suppose you’ve made a mistake, for the first time in your life,”
the purser rejoined, with a laugh that shook him all over. “I mean
something to eat; a big heaped-up plate of the coldest ice cream this
side of New York. We’re right in front of the ice-house, where I always
eat a lot of ice cream for the fun of hearing it sizzle as it goes
down. By the way, my name’s Clark; what’s yours?”

“Silburn,” Kit replied. “But the ice-house? This looks like a store.”

“So it is,” said the purser, as they climbed the stairs to a big
restaurant where scores of people were eating. “It’s store, restaurant,
ice-house, furniture-shop, a dozen things combined. I thought everybody
knew the Bridgetown ice-house. Ice is a government monopoly here, you
know, and these fellows buy the privilege of selling all that is used
on the island. Hello here, Snowflake” (to one of the black waiters; he
seemed to know every one in the place), “bring us two platters of your
best ice cream; platters, do you hear? Not saucers, or plates, but the
biggest platters you have.”

Kit found the ice cream excellent, and the purser a very entertaining
companion. He was full of good sea-stories, and knew how to tell them
in an interesting way. And he wanted to know all about the young
supercargo.

“You’re very young for such a place,” he said; “at your age I was
sweeping the cabin and brushing the Captain’s clothes.”

“So was I,” Kit laughed, “until this voyage;” and he had to tell how he
became a supercargo, after describing his rescue by Captain Griffith
from a Brooklyn policeman.

“Well, you’ll make your way, if you take care of yourself,” Mr. Clark
said, after Kit had finished his story and his ice cream together.
“Just you let drink alone and don’t get anything into your pockets
that belongs to some other fellow. It’s rum that spoils a good many
young fellows at sea, and you can’t keep too far away from it. I know
appearances are rather against me” (and his fat sides shook again);
“they tell me a man with my red face has no business to give temperance
lectures; but to tell the truth, I never drink any liquor, though I’ll
own up to being fond of good eating. Here, Snowflake, two more platters
of ice cream; and don’t stop to warm it.”

Kit soon found that notwithstanding his free-and easy manner and his
almost continual laughter, his new companion was a man of great sense
and good judgment, thoroughly acquainted with the work of both purser
and supercargo.

“I’m glad we ran across each other,” Mr. Clark said, as he shook the
young supercargo’s hand. “We’ll meet again sometime, certain sure.
Don’t forget me; and remember that when you need a friend you’ll always
find one in the purser of the _Trinidad_.”

That was another of the advantages of being a supercargo; he could
make friends and associate with people who would not have paid much
attention to a cabin boy. But he had more things to learn before
the day was over; for when he returned to the ship he found Captain
Griffith preparing to go ashore, and the Captain invited him to go
along and meet some of the merchants with whom he would have to do
business. They went to the Mercantile Club, where he found the latest
English and American newspapers, and news telegrams posted from London
and New York, and met some of the principal business men of Bridgetown,
and several large sugar planters who went “in to town” in the evenings
to hear what was going on in the big outside world. The conversation
was all about business and the price of sugar and the state of the
crops and the price of freights; and it did not take him long to
realize that with his new associations he was no longer a boy, but a
young man of affairs who must keep his eyes and ears open and inform
himself about a great many things that he had paid no attention to
before.

For nearly a week the young supercargo was so busy with getting his
cargo ashore and delivered that he had no further chance of seeing the
city or the island; but when it came to loading he had more time to
himself. The sugar came in slowly, and there were days when there was
not enough on the wharf to keep the lighters busy. On such days he had
several times to drive out to large plantations to hurry the work, and
the planters always treated him with the greatest hospitality. Every
night he had some new entry to make in the journal that he began to
keep when he became a supercargo--a journal that he refused to call
a diary, because he had no intention of writing in it regularly, but
only when he had something worth writing. Captain Griffith found
the little book lying on his desk one day and wrote on the fly-leaf,
“Kit Silburn, His Log”; and after that it was always known as “The
Supercargo’s Log.” Some of his entries tell in very few words the story
of part of his first long voyage.

“Feb. 12.--Still at Bridgetown, Barbadoes. Took in 146 hogsheads of
sugar to-day, with 12 lighters. The sugar is all done up in hogsheads,
weighing something over a ton each. It is black-looking stuff as it
comes from the mills, and has a sweet, sickish smell. The colored
people like to lie on the wharf in the sun and lick up the molasses
that leaks out of the casks. We have now 821 hogsheads on board.

“Feb. 13.--Still at Bridgetown. No lighters at work to-day, as there
was no sugar ready. Went out to three plantations to hurry things. At
the Sea View plantation Mr. Outerbridge took me all over the place, and
made me stay to dinner. (P.S. He has a beautiful young daughter, Miss
Blanche, and after dinner we had a pony race. She beat me.) They say
this sun would kill a white man in three months if he worked in the
cane-fields, but it does not hurt the negroes. Saw how they squeeze out
the cane-juice between big rollers, and then boil it down into sugar.
The planters promised me 150 hogsheads by to-morrow.

“Feb. 14.--Got 122 hogsheads sugar on board, and plenty promised for
to-morrow. Very curious thing happened to me to-day. When I came
aboard ship to supper, found a letter for me, though no mail steamer
in. Opened it, and found a handsome valentine. Can’t imagine who could
have sent it.

“Feb. 15.--Only 30 hogsheads loaded to-day, on account of heavy rain.

“Feb. 20.--Loaded 82 hogsheads. Have now 1455 on board. We hope to sail
for London on Saturday. Miss Blanche Outerbridge has invited me to a
lawn party at their plantation to-morrow. Half afraid to go, for never
was at a lawn party in my life.

“Feb. 21.--No sugar to-day. Went to the lawn party, and had splendid
time. The Governor was there, and Mr. Outerbridge introduced me to him.

“Feb. 23.--Loaded 160 hogsheads to-day. Sugar coming with a rush now.

“Feb. 25.--Sailed for London at two o’clock this afternoon, with 2415
hogsheads of sugar, making about $120,000 worth of cargo that I have to
look after. Must keep my eyes open. Will see no more land now till we
sight the Scilly Islands, off the English coast.

“March 15.--Expect to sight the Scillys to-morrow morning. Have had a
fairly good voyage so far, with some bad weather, but no hard gales. A
long stretch of water, this, from Barbadoes to England; but the seas
are no higher in the middle than along the coast. Cargo in good order.”




CHAPTER VIII.

NEWS FROM THE WRECKED SCHOONER.


Soon after daylight on a raw and chilly March morning the masthead
lookout cried “Land-ho!” And the officers and crew of the _North
Cape_ knew that their voyage across the Atlantic had reached its
last stage. Captain Griffith was on the bridge, as most careful
commanders are on entering the busy English Channel; and Kit was there
too, eager for a first sight of the Old World. An hour later the Scilly
Islands could be seen plainly without a glass, though at that distance
they looked like a single island with ships’ masts growing upon it like
trees. Kit had read as much as possible in the Captain’s books about
the places he was to see, so he knew that the group is composed of
about fifty small islands, and that what looked like ships’ masts were
the signal poles upon which are announced the arrival and departure of
more vessels than are signalled at any other place in the world.

The second officer was busy on deck making fast a series of six or
eight signal flags to a line, and at a word from the Captain they were
hoisted. A moment later a large black ball was run up on one of the
poles on shore, and the flags were lowered, folded, and returned to
the flag locker. It was done so quickly that Kit could hardly believe
that those few stripes of bunting had accomplished so much in so short
a time; but he knew that the flags said to the signalman on shore,
“_North Cape_, from Barbadoes for London, eighteen days, with
sugar”; and that when the signalman hoisted his black ball it said,
“All right; I understand you.” And he knew, too, that almost before the
flags were lowered a telegraphic message had gone to London, announcing
the ship’s arrival, to be posted in the Maritime Exchange, where her
agents would see it as soon as the Exchange opened for the day; and
that long before that the news would have gone under the ocean by cable
to be posted in the Exchange in New York, where it would appear a few
hours later in the afternoon newspapers. So by the hoisting of those
few flags the whole world was informed that the _North Cape_ had
made her voyage safely, and was approaching her destination.

“What’s the matter, Silburn?” the Captain asked, bringing his hand down
on Kit’s shoulder. “You look sorry to have the voyage nearly ended.
Would you rather turn round and go back?”

“No, sir!” Kit replied; “I’m anything but sorry. But I was just
thinking what a tremendous lot there is to learn in this world. Here we
have seen nothing but sky and water for eighteen days, and with only
the sun and stars to guide you, you knew almost the exact minute when
we should be here beside the Scilly Islands. Then you hoist a flag,
and in ten minutes they know in New York and in Barbadoes that we have
arrived. It is the most wonderful thing I ever saw.”

“Oh, no, Christopher,” the Captain answered; “you have seen stranger
things than that. Do you see the sun coming up out of the water there
to eastward? That is rather more wonderful, isn’t it? Every leaf on
every tree is more wonderful than anything that man has done. If we
knew half as much as we think we do, there would be no more sickness
in the world, because we would have a cure for every disease; no more
poverty, for the earth is full of wealth and we should know how to get
it out; and instead of merely sending a few dots and dashes by a wire
across the ocean, we should be able to see what they are doing over in
New York, and talk to them. We may come to that some day.”

“I wish we had come to that now, sir!” Kit exclaimed. “If we could see
all over the world, I should know where my father is, if he is alive.”

“It’s better as it is, my boy,” the Captain went on. “To see over the
world would gratify your curiosity, but it would give you a great deal
of worry. No, there are some mysteries of nature that we are better
off not to understand, at least until we have advanced enough in all
directions to understand that everything that happens is for the best.
Still, we must always make the best of what we do know. Some people,
for instance, know enough to go below when the breakfast bell rings.
Come along.

“This is a great coast to learn history from,” the Captain continued,
while they were eating breakfast. “A large share of the modern history
of the world has been made in this channel. We don’t want to see a
storm to-day, but if it had not been for a storm in this channel, you
would most likely be a Catholic, and we should have an image of the
Virgin Mary in the cabin.”

“Oh, yes, sir, I know about that,” Kit interrupted. “You mean the storm
that broke up the great Spanish Armada. But the British say they had
the Armada whipped before the storm came.”

“Trust the British for that!” the Captain laughed; “they won’t let even
nature have any of the credit. But that is only one thing in a hundred.
Here is Land’s End just off our port bow, on the coast of Cornwall. A
few years ago they were all singing a song beginning:--

  “‘And must Trelawny bleed? And must Trelawny die?
   Then twenty thousand Cornishmen will know the reason why.’

Now who was Trelawny, and why must he die? No, I’m not going to tell
you; you can hunt it up in some of my books. Then in a few hours we
will be passing a little town called Lyme Regis--a town that never
amounted to much, but some years ago the whole world was anxious about
what was happening there. Who was the prince who landed there with an
army, and tried to make himself King of England? You can hardly name a
spot along this whole coast, but has some important events connected
with it.”

Within the next twenty-four hours Kit saw a great many places that
before had existed for him only on paper. His father had often
brought home some of Clark Russell’s sea-stories, and Kit had read
them without stopping to think that the places mentioned in them
were real places. But here was “The Lizard,” a high point surmounted
by a light-house that looked like an old castle; and Bolt Head, and
Portland Bill, then St. Alban’s Head, and St. Catherine’s Point. He
had read of all of those. Then by the next morning they were well up
the Channel; and although the French coast was near enough to be seen
indistinctly, they were so close to the British shore that they had
a good view of Brighton, Eastbourne, Hastings, and Dungeness, all of
which Kit had heard of. Then they ran into the narrow straits of Dover,
past Folkestone, South Foreland, Deal, Ramsgate, Broadstairs, North
Foreland, and Margate, and headed straight for the mouth of the Thames.

“Now, then, Silburn,” Captain Griffith said, when they were fairly in
the river, “your work will soon begin. I don’t know where this cargo is
to be landed, and it’s your place to find out. I shall run up as far as
Gravesend and wait there for orders from the agents. They ought to have
a tug there to meet us; but if they don’t, you will have to go on to
London and find out where we are to discharge. They may order us up to
the docks, or keep us below here.”

“Yes, sir,” Kit answered, as if “running up to London” were an everyday
affair with him.

“They have a saying over here,” the Captain went on, “that it’s not
worth while to do your own barking when you keep a dog; so as you are
the supercargo, you’d better do the barking, which, in this case, is to
find out where we are to unload. I’ll lower the gig and set you ashore
at Tilbury, just across the river from Gravesend, and you can get a
train from there up to London, and go to the agents’ office; that is,
of course, if they do not send some one to Gravesend to meet us.”

Kit went down to his room to make his papers ready, feeling anything
but comfortable over this prospect. How was he to go to London alone,
knowing nothing of the city, and make his way through strange streets
to the office of a strange agent? Going to make the acquaintance of
strangers was hard work for him at first, but he had grown used to that
now; but to make his way about London was another matter. However, he
did not let this worry him long.

“If I am going to be a child, afraid to go into a new city,” he said to
himself, “I’d better be a cabin boy again. When a fellow undertakes to
do man’s work, he must go at it like a man. Other youngsters have gone
to London, I suppose, without being eaten.”

Notwithstanding his brave ideas, he looked with some anxiety for the
agent when the _North Cape_ came to a stop in the Thames opposite
Gravesend and near the Tilbury shore. But no tug appeared, and it was
plain that he was destined to make the trip to London.

“Now listen sharp to what I tell you,” Captain Griffith said, “and you
will come through all right. We will set you ashore at Tilbury, and
the railway station is right at the wharf. Buy a second-class ticket,
and the train will carry you about twenty-five miles and set you down
in Fenchurch Street station, in London. The agents, as you know, are
Topping, Forwood & Hauts, at 32 Fenchurch Street, and that is only
three or four blocks from the station. But that part of the city is
greatly crowded, and rather than waste time by your losing yourself, I
want you to go up in a hansom. You will find scores of them in front
of the station, and the fare will be one shilling. Here is a pound in
English silver change, which I will charge to you. And before doing
your own business with the agents, have them send me a telegram saying
where we are to discharge cargo. Is that all plain?”

“Yes, sir,” Kit answered; “I think I can carry that through without
making any slips.”

The gig landed him at Tilbury wharf, and he immediately found himself
in a different world. His ticket he bought at the “booking-office,”
and when he went through to the train its antiquated appearance made
him smile. The cars were like little square boxes, not much bigger
than a street car, but divided into compartments holding eight persons
each, with the doors on the sides; and the engine looked like the small
locomotives of the elevated railroads in New York.

The hour’s ride took him first through open fields that looked
strangely green for the time of year, then past a settlement of immense
gas tanks, through several small towns, and then among such a maze of
houses that he knew he must be in London. When the train stopped in
Fenchurch Street station, he had no need to inquire his way to the
street, for he had only to follow the crowd. Down the long steps he
went through the lower part of the station, and found himself for the
first time in a crowded London street.

The Captain was right about the hansoms; there stood a row of them
reaching almost out of sight, and he went up to one of the nearest and
asked the driver:--

“Can you take me to No. 32 Fenchurch Street?”

[Illustration: “‘CAN YOU TAKE ME TO NO. 32 FENCHURCH STREET?’”]

The driver looked at him a moment, and shook his head doubtfully.

“I s’pose it kin be done, sir,” he answered, “but it’s a-goin’ to be
consid’able of a job, h’account of this ’ere crowd. It’s all a-owin’ to
the funeral. You see the Prince o’ Wiles’s mother-in-law she’s gone an’
died, sir, an’ they’re a-buryin’ of ’er hin the Temple this harternoon,
an’ the streets is blocked. But Hi kin tike you ’round cirkewetous-like,
sir.”

“Well, get me there as soon as you can,” Kit said; and he stepped
in, and the driver shut the two little half-doors, and they set off.
Certainly he had never before seen streets so crowded. The driver
turned off at the first corner, but even in the side streets he could
barely make his way through the crush. On and on they went, turning
here and turning there, but everywhere the crowd was the same; and in
every street Kit kept his eyes open for a look at the procession, but
saw nothing of it. A quarter of an hour passed, a half hour, and still
they were dodging through the throng.

Suddenly Kit gave one of his knees a tremendous slap and began to laugh.

“Didn’t they come near doing me for a countryman!” he said to himself.
“The Prince of Wales’s mother-in-law, indeed! Why, she was the Queen of
Denmark, and must have died before I was born. Anyhow, she wouldn’t be
buried in London; and this is no funeral crowd in the streets; it’s all
hansoms and ’busses and trucks--the usual London crowd, no doubt. The
cabby sees I am a stranger and will get as much out of me as he can.”

At length the hansom drew up in front of No. 32 Fenchurch Street, and
Kit stepped out, and handed the driver a shilling.

“Wot’s this for?” cabby asked, pretending to be very much surprised
“It’s six shillin’, sir, by the wiy we ’ad to come. Hi ought to say
ten, but Hi’m willin’ to make it six.”

“Oh, I guess not,” Kit laughed. “A shilling’s a good big fare for the
distance. It’s too bad about the poor Prince of Wales, isn’t it?”

Although cabby had climbed down from his high seat and was assuming
a very belligerent look, Kit felt bold to make this mention of the
funeral because he saw a big policeman walking slowly toward them on
the sidewalk, and he felt sure that the driver would not care to have
the question referred to the authorities. And he was right about this;
cabby growled a moment about a poor man having to live, but accepted
the shilling, and drove away before the officer reached them.

It was surprising how easily and quickly the business was done with the
agents. They sent a telegram at once to Captain Griffith, informing
him that he was to unload at Gravesend; and in a few minutes Kit was
talking with them as freely as if he had been taking cargoes to London
for years. He could not help noticing how much easier it was for him
now to become acquainted with people than it had been at first. The
rough edges were wearing off, and instead of a ship’s boy he was
becoming a man of business. It was easier, he found, to manage a cargo
in London than in the West Indian ports, because everything was done
in a more business-like way; and a cargo of sugar, being all in large
parcels, was much easier to handle than a miscellaneous cargo. When
he had received all the instructions the agents had to give him about
the sugar, he found that a young clerk from the office was to accompany
him back to Gravesend to arrange for storing the sugar in a bonded
warehouse.

“This is Mr. Watkins, one of our junior clerks,” the head of the firm
said. “Mr. Silburn, supercargo of the _North Cape_, Watkins.
You can travel to Gravesend together, as Mr. Watkins has to see the
warehousemen.”

Kit was a little surprised at the appearance of his new companion.
Mr. Watkins was about his own age, perhaps a trifle older and taller,
with rosy cheeks, and a voice that seemed, whenever he spoke, to come
up from the very soles of his shoes. He wore a long black frock coat,
rubbed a little shiny on the shoulders and elbows, and a shiny high
silk hat; and as they went down the stairs together, he drew on a pair
of leather-colored kid gloves.

“You’re--ah--aren’t you very young, you know, to be a supercargo, Mr.
Silburn?” the young clerk asked.

“Well, I’m growing a little older every day,” Kit answered.

“You must have paid--aw--aw--a heavy premium to get into such a place
at your age,” Watkins went on.

“Premium?” Kit repeated; he did not understand the English system of
paying a premium to have a boy apprenticed to any business.

“Y-a-a-s,” Watkins continued. “My father had to pay a hundred pounds to
get me into this office, and I’ll not earn enough to pay my board for
the next two or three years.”

“We don’t pay any premiums in our country,” Kit exclaimed. “A boy or
young man gets a salary there for working, and the more he’s worth the
more he gets.”

“Aw, really!” Mr. Watkins exclaimed. “No wonder America is such a good
country for young men. I’ve often thought of going over there, don’t
you know, if I could only get the chance.”

At first Kit felt something of a dislike for the young Englishman,
perhaps on account of his peculiar style of dress and strange manner of
talking. But when he came to know him better, the dislike melted away,
for he found Watkins to be a very clever fellow.

Instead of going to the railway station they went in the other
direction, down to the end of London Bridge, and there took one of the
little river steamers for Gravesend.

“I want to show you some of the sights of London,” Watkins said, “and
when I go over to America, you can show me around New York.”

“Oh, I’ll do that,” Kit readily promised, “if I am at home. So this
is London Bridge, is it? I’ve often heard of it, and the great crowds
continually crossing it.”

“Have you any bridges as large as that in America?” Watkins asked.

Kit was on the point of replying that there were a great many very much
larger; but he caught himself in time, remembering that it is not well
to boast of one’s own country in a foreign land.

“Oh, yes,” he said, “we have some as large as that; and some of our
rivers are quite as large as the Thames, I think.”

“Really!” Mr. Watkins exclaimed; “I should hardly have thought it.
But here comes the boat.” And they stepped aboard a steamer that Kit
thought a very small one, compared with the American boats; and his
companion soon began to point out places of interest.

“There is the Tower of London,” he said. “I will take you in there some
day, if you like. And there is St. Catherine’s dock, and next are the
London docks, and then the East India docks--you must have heard of
them. Here on the other side is the great Greenwich observatory. That
ought to interest you, for more than half the ships afloat take their
time from the big Greenwich clock. You see the river is very crooked.
These straight places between the bends we call ‘reaches.’ We have come
through Greenwich Reach and Woolwich Reach, and now we get to Barking
Reach, Halfway Reach, and Long Reach.”

By the time they got to Gravesend Kit felt that he had seen a great
deal of London for a first visit of two or three hours. And he had made
one acquaintance at least, and had done his supercargo’s business
with the agents as far as it could be done on the first day. There was
hardly any spot he had seen that he had not heard of before; for his
father had made many voyages to the great European city, and had often
told them stories about London.

When they landed, Mr. Watkins went in search of the warehousemen, and
Kit found that he had not far to go, for on receipt of the telegram the
_North Cape_ had moved up to one of the Gravesend wharves. He went
into the cabin and exchanged a few words with the Captain, and soon
afterward he met Tom Haines on deck.

“Say, Silburn,” Tom asked, “what did you say was the name of the
schooner your father was on when he was wrecked?”

“The _Flower City_,” Kit answered, much surprised at the question.

“I thought so,” Tom went on. “Then I have some news for you.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense over it, Tom,” Kit begged. “You know how you
would feel about it if it was your own father.” In spite of his efforts
to remain cool he felt his hand shaking a little.

“Oh, don’t be excited about it,” Tom continued. “I haven’t found your
father, you know, or anything of that kind. But there’s a man aboard
the ship who was before the mast on the _Flower City_ when she was
lost.”

“No!” Tom exclaimed. “Then he’s the first one of the crew who has ever
been heard of! Now don’t keep me waiting, Tom; where is the man?”

“He’s on deck, up forward,” Tom answered. “It’s an old sailor they call
Blinkey, because he has such a squint. He has a friend in our crew
and came aboard to see him, and I happened to overhear him telling
about his shipwreck in the _Flower City_. I thought that was your
father’s vessel, so I got into a talk with him and told him about you,
and made him promise to wait till you came back. He knew your father
very well.”

“Blinkey!” Kit repeated. “Why, the very last time father was home he
told us some funny stories about an old Irish sailor called Blinkey. It
must be the same man.”

He hurried forward, and soon found the old man talking to a group of
the sailors, still telling of his adventures in the Western World.

“And you’re Mr. Silburn’s lad!” Blinkey exclaimed, when Kit went up to
him. “A fine, well-growed lad, too, with the look of your daddy in your
eyes. And you’re a-learnin’ this bad trade, are you?”

One of the men nudged the old man and whispered that he was talking to
the supercargo, whereupon he scraped the deck with one foot in lieu of
a nod, pulled the peak of his cap, and gave the band of his trousers a
nautical hitch.

“It’s beggin’ yer pardon I am,” he went on, “me not knowin’ as how I
was speakin’ to a officer. But it’s the fine man yer father is, lad--I
mean Mr. Silburn. I never shipped with a better mate.”

“Is!” Kit exclaimed. “Then do you know whether he is alive?”

“It’s not me that’s knowin’, sir,” Blinkey replied. “He was in a good
tight boat the last I set eyes on ’im, but there’s no sayin’. I was
drownded mesilf in that wreck, an’ that was the third time. But a
sailor havin’ nine lives, like a cat, I’ve six yet to dispose of.”

Kit was kept in agony by the slowness of the old man in coming to the
point and the frequent interruptions of the sailors, so he took Blinkey
up to his stateroom, where they could talk in peace.

“Now tell me about the voyage, Mr.--Mr.--”

“Blinkey,” the old man interrupted. “It’s so long since I’ve had any
other I’ve forgot what it was. Well, sir, as I was a-sayin’, I shipped
for Ameriky in the bark _Margate_, and she took fire an’ burnt in
New York bay, so there was Blinkey out of a job. But I wasn’t a man in
them days to stay long on shore, sir, so I looks about--”

“Yes!” Kit interrupted, fearing that another long yarn was coming. “But
the _Flower City_.”

“I was a-gettin’ to that, sir,” the old man went on, without hastening
in the least. “So I looks about, as I was a-sayin’, an’ a berth offers
on the _Flower City_, an’ I ships on her. Well, sir, we made two
v’yages down the coast, an’ then we loaded with machinery for New
Orleans. Ah, it was that there machinery as done us up, sir. All went
well till we run into a gale off Hatteras; an’ we’d ’a’ pulled through
that if the cargo’d been better stowed. But we had a heavy load on
deck, an’ some of the big machines carried loose. Ah, it oughtn’t to be
allowed, sir, that it oughtn’t, to carry heavy cargo on deck.”

“And then?” Kit asked. It was to him the most interesting thing he had
ever listened to; and the old man was so slow in coming to the point!

“Then we give a lurch, sir, and over we went. Both our starboard
boats was under water, but we’d two on the port side, an’ we took
to them. Your father steered one, and the Captain the other, an’ I
was in the Captain’s boat. Night was a-comin’ on, an’ the last I see
of Mr. Silburn he was a-headin’ his boat about sou-sou-east, an us
a-followin’. That was the last, sir.”

“And you?” Kit asked.

“Me, is it? I was drownded. Nex’ mornin’ we was all dead. The sea
was too heavy for a small boat well loaded, an’ that night a wave
struck her an’ she went to pieces. I don’t know what I laid hold of
when everything went from under us, but it must ’a’ been some of the
wreckage; for some time next day I found myself on board a Spanish
brig, with a hole stove in the side of my head, an’ no notion of what
had happened to me arter the boat went to pieces. The brig took me
across the ocean to Barcelona, an’ after a while in hospital there I
worked my way back to London. Since that crack on the head I haven’t
been no use on a wessel, so I’ve got a job here in the big warehouses.
An’ that’s the whole story, sir. What became o’ that there other boat
is more nor I can say. But if it was my father as was in her, sir, I’d
be a-lookin’ any day fer him to come home. She was a better boat than I
was in, an’ you see I’m safe on shore, though I was drownded as dead as
ever anybody was. Leastways, I hope Christopher Silburn didn’t come to
no harm, for he was always werry kind to me, lad--always werry kind to
me.”

“Thank you,” Kit said, in a husky voice, seeing that the old man seemed
to feel badly over the probable loss of his former mate. “But I have
very little hope left, after what you tell me. Your being saved was
almost a miracle, and we can hardly look for two miracles in the same
shipwreck. You saw the _Flower City_ go down, did you?”

“Went down right before our eyes, sir,” Blinkey answered, “less than
five minutes after we left her. She couldn’t do nothin’ else, sir, with
them iron castin’s in her.”

“Was there water in either boat?” Kit asked; “or provisions, or a
compass?”

“Nothin’ in neither boat but the seats an’ oars, sir,” Blinkey replied;
“there wasn’t no time. Why, we couldn’t even lower the boats; had to
just cut ’em away, sir. An’ that reminds me. Did you ever see that
before, sir?”

As he spoke the old sailor put one hand into his trousers pocket and
drew forth a large iron-handled pocket knife, such as sailors often
carry. The handle was polished bright by long rubbing against the
pocket and its other contents.

“See it before!” Kit exclaimed; and his eyes moistened as he took the
knife in his hand. “I should think I had seen it before! My father
carried that knife as long as I can remember, and I often used to
whittle with it when he was at home. Here’s a scar on the palm of my
left hand now where I once cut myself with it.”

“Yes, sir, that was your father’s knife,” the old sailor answered. “He
handed it to me that last night to cut the boat’s lashings with. But
he couldn’t wait to get it back, and I put it in my pocket. The knife
belongs to you, my boy--Mr. Silburn, I mean. You must take it, sir.”

“Thank you,” Kit murmured, very willing to accept the gift. “I am glad
to have even that much from the wreck of the _Flower City_, though
I hope for more. And I want to take down your address, so that I can
find you in the future if necessary. Where will a letter reach you?”

“I don’t exactly know, sir,” the sailor replied, “for I haven’t
had such a thing for many a day. I think if you was to direct it
to Blinkey, an’ send it to the ‘Star an’ Garter’ public house in
Gravesend, though, sir, they’d know who it was for an’ git it to me.”

While the old man was bowing and scraping himself out, Kit slipped
into his hand all the change he had left from the pound the Captain had
given him, and then hurried through his supper. He had devoted that
evening to a long letter home, giving an account of the voyage and what
he had seen in London. But now he had even a longer letter to write,
and on a very different subject.




CHAPTER IX.

KIT INSPECTS LONDON.


The unloading of a steamer in England, the young supercargo soon found,
is not the rapid process that it is in America, though much cheaper.
The workmen receive smaller pay and move more slowly, the machinery is
not so modern, none of the facilities as good.

“This is about halfway between New York and the West Indies,” Kit was
forced to conclude, “in the way they do work. It must be true, as I
have often heard, that ‘New York is the quickest unloading port in the
world, and the most expensive.’”

He tried at first to hurry the men up and so save money for his
employers; but it was uphill work for one young American to change
the customs of centuries, and he had to let things take their course.
Even the agents, he noticed, were in no hurry. When the sugar was
all unloaded, there was no new cargo ready to take its place, and
the four or five days that might have sufficed to make the _North
Cape_ ready for sea again, expanded into several weeks. So in spite
of himself Kit had a good deal of idle time while the ship lay at
Gravesend--idle, that is, as far as his work was concerned; there were
too many new things to be seen all around him, too many facts about
London to be learned from the Captain’s books, for much of his time to
be really unemployed. Frequently he had to go to the agents’ office in
Fenchurch Street, and on those occasions whenever he had an hour or
two to spare he took a “’bus” to some other part of the city, taking
care to remain in the same one till it reached its destination and then
return in it, for fear of losing himself.

One morning when there was no cargo to load and no prospect of any
arriving, Captain Griffith suggested that they should go up together
and have a look at the city.

“I speak of ‘the city’ in the same way as I should speak of it at
home,” he added, “meaning the whole town. I suppose you have learned
that in London the part they call ‘the city’ is a very small section
where most of the financial business is done; so when a Londoner says
he is going into the city, he means into that small and crowded part of
the town. But I mean it in the larger sense, including the whole place,
or as much of it as we have time to see.”

“Why, that will be fine, sir,” Kit replied. “I have an appointment for
this morning with young Mr. Watkins, one of our agents’ clerks. He is
going to show me something of London, and we will both enjoy it if you
will go along.”

“Well, if you youngsters won’t think an old man in the road,” the
Captain laughed, “I will go with you. I once knew London pretty well;
but it is fifteen or eighteen years since I have seen much of it, and
perhaps I will need a guide as much as you do.”

On the way up in the train (it is always “up” when you go to London; no
matter if you start from the top of the highest mountain in Scotland,
you speak of going “up to London”) Kit told the Captain about the old
sailor from the _Flower City_, and showed his father’s knife.

“Do not set your hopes too high,” the Captain said after he had heard
the story; “but I should look upon that as a very encouraging piece of
news. It shows that their boats were sound and that the crew were still
afloat after the schooner went down. As one man was saved, another may
have been. There is still great doubt, of course; but I should continue
to hope.”

When they reached the Fenchurch Street office, they found Mr. Watkins
waiting for Kit, still arrayed in a long black coat and high silk
hat, but much newer and brighter ones than he wore while at work, and
looking so stiff and starched that Kit had to laugh to himself to think
what a figure he would cut in any American city at that hour of the
morning.

“Now where shall we go first?” the clerk asked, when they reached the
street.

“I don’t want to interfere with any plans you may have made,” Captain
Griffith answered, “but if you have not settled upon any place, I
suggest that we go first to see the Temple. That I consider one of the
greatest curiosities of London--like a quiet country village set down
in the very heart of the largest city in the world.”

“Is it a church, sir?” Kit asked.

“No, indeed!” the Captain laughed; “quite the opposite; it is one of
the headquarters of the London lawyers, though there is a fine old
church in the grounds. But it is so different from anything we have
in America that I can hardly explain it to you. You will soon see for
yourself, if we go there.”

“We can easily walk as far as the Temple,” Mr. Watkins said, “and you
can always see more in walking than in riding. This way, right up
Fenchurch Street. The way we give the same street different names in
London is puzzling to strangers, but you soon grow used to it. Now this
is one of the chief thoroughfares running east and west; and when you
learn the principal ones, you can easily find your way about. I believe
in your country each street bears the same name through its entire
length, but it is not so here. For instance, this is Fenchurch Street.
We keep right along in this street for miles, if we choose, but it has
a great many different names. In a short distance the name changes
to Lombard Street, then Cheapside, then Newgate Street, then Holborn
Viaduct, then New Oxford Street, then Oxford Street, then away out in
the West End it becomes Bayswater Road, though it is really the same
street all the way through. But we do not go as far as that. We will
have a look at the Bank of England as we pass King William Street, then
when we get to the end of Cheapside we will see the Post Office and
St. Paul’s Cathedral, and cut through St. Paul’s Churchyard to Ludgate
Hill, which will take us to Fleet Street, and there is the Temple.”

“I believe I have heard of every one of those places before,” Kit
exclaimed, as they made their way along the crowded street; “and I am
glad we are going through St. Paul’s Churchyard. I have heard so much
about the old London graveyards, and that must be one of the best of
them.”

Why did the Captain and Mr. Watkins look at each other and smile when
he said this, Kit wondered.

“You will find that nearly every London name is familiar,” said the
Captain, “if you have heard or read much about the place. But I am
afraid you will be disappointed in St. Paul’s Churchyard, for it is not
a burying-ground. It is only the name of a street; all the graves were
emptied long ago and the ground sold for business purposes.”

“Why, there are no windows in the Bank of England!” Kit cried, when
they reached that great, low, square building occupying a whole block.

“Plenty of them,” Mr. Watkins answered, “but not on the outside. These
outer walls that you see are not really part of the building. The real
building is inside these walls, and separate. It has to be very strong
and well guarded, you see, because so much money is kept there.”

“And that crowd in front of the big doors!” Kit went on. “Why, it looks
as if the bank had failed, and the depositors were trying to get their
money.”

“Ah, that crowd ought to remind you of home,” said Mr. Watkins,
laughing. “We often see such a crowd in front of the bank. The people
are generally American tourists, ‘Cook’s personally Conducted,’ we call
them, and they are visiting the banks among the other sights. They are
led about from one place to another like flocks of sheep.”

“You are seeing something of the world without being a ‘personally
conducted tourist,’ Silburn,” the Captain said. “We sailors have some
advantages, after all.”

“I don’t think I should like to be led about like a sheep,” Kit
laughed, “though I suppose it is cheaper and saves a lot of time. You
must see a great many Americans in London, Mr. Watkins; though of
course you do not always know them when you see them.”

“Oh, don’t we!” the clerk exclaimed. “They say there are always about
forty thousand Americans here, and we can tell one the minute we lay
eyes on him. They dress a little differently, you know; and then when
they speak they have such a different accent. I hope you’ll not mind my
saying so.”

“Not a bit of it!” the Captain answered; “give it to us. Turn about is
only fair play, and we always poke a little fun at the Englishmen in
America; when we see a stranger arrive with three or four big leather
satchels, a leather hat-box, a tin bath-tub, and two or three steamer
rugs, we know he is an Englishman before we hear him speak. We have a
great many of them, too, and generally disappointed because they can’t
shoot Indians in Broadway, or go buffalo hunting on Boston Common. You
English, somehow, are never happy unless you are shooting something.
But if I am not mistaken that group of large buildings is the Post
Office.”

“Yes, sir, that is the Post Office,” Mr. Watkins answered. “And I think
you will have to admit that it is the best-managed Post Office you ever
saw.”

“Yes, I admit that cheerfully,” said the Captain. “It is the very best
in the world. I can send a letter from Gravesend in the morning to the
further end of London, and have an answer the same afternoon. I could
not do that in any city in America.”

“What, better than the New York Post Office, sir!” Kit exclaimed, in
surprise.

“Much better managed,” the Captain replied; “very much better. And
the police force here is much better than in any American city. Here,
wait on this corner a minute, and see the ‘bobby,’ as they call him,
manage the great crush of vehicles and people. There, see that! He
just raises a finger, and every vehicle stops to let the people who
have been waiting get across. And now that they have crossed he gives
the slightest wave of the hand, and the vehicles start again. We have
nothing like that at home. But wait a minute longer. There! You see
by raising a finger again he stops the whole line of vehicles going
north and south, to let those pass that are going east or west; and
by another slight motion he stops the east and west ones, and opens
the north and south street. Oh, it is beautifully done. Without such
control there would be an endless block in the streets. By the way,
Silburn, I want you to watch this great ‘traffic,’ as they call it, in
the streets, and tell me to-night what you think are the peculiarities
of it; and at the same time keep an eye on the public buildings, and
tell me what you think of them.”

“Very well, sir,” Kit answered. “But I can tell you now what I think
of St. Paul’s. Oh, what a tremendous pile of stone! Why, I never saw
anything like it! What a handsome cathedral it would be if they would
scrub it! But it looks as dirty as if there had been a shower of ink.”

The others laughed at this odd description, but had to admit that
it was quite accurate--for St. Paul’s looks as if it needed a good
scouring. Contenting themselves for the time with admiring the outside
of the great building, they went on as far as Ludgate Circus, and
turned southward into New Bridge Street instead of going on into Fleet
Street.

“They have a circus here sometimes in this open space, I suppose?” Kit
asked as they were crossing Ludgate Circus.

“Oh, no,” Mr. Watkins replied. “There are a number of these ‘circuses’
in London--Regent’s Circus, Finsbury Circus, and so on. That does not
mean that there is ever a circus in them. It is simply the old Roman
way of designating a circle.”

A short distance down New Bridge Street, which leads to Blackfriars
Bridge, they turned to the right into Tudor Street, and in a few
minutes went through one of the big gateways into the grounds of the
Temple. It was indeed, as the Captain had said, like going into a
country village, in the green grass, the noble trees, the delicious
quiet, though separated only by a wall from the busiest part of the
world’s busiest city.

“This is historical ground we are on,” Mr. Watkins said as they walked
in. “Though given up to the lawyers now, this was originally the
quarters of the Knights Templars of Jerusalem--the order established
for the defence of the Holy Sepulchre, you know. That was nearly nine
hundred years ago, and of course there were not as many buildings here
in those days. Then it was taken from them and fell into the hands
of the Knights of St. John, and later on it became the property of
the lawyers of the higher courts, who still hold it. They have their
offices in these buildings, and many of them live here with their
families. Some of the buildings are nearly a thousand years old, and
some are quite modern. A beautiful place to live, isn’t it, almost in a
park, but with the city just outside the gate?”

“Why, there must be fifteen or twenty of these big buildings!” Kit
exclaimed; “and are they all full of lawyers?”

“All full of lawyers,” the clerk answered, smiling. “And there goes
one of the lawyers. He is on his way to court, as you can tell by his
wearing his wig. You know the barristers always wear a big wig in
court. Do you see that little shop over there by the arches? That is
the shop of a wig-maker who does business here and makes most of the
wigs. He has to pay well for the privilege of doing business here, too.”

“But wigs!” Kit asked. “What do they wear wigs for? They’re not all
bald, are they?”

“Oh, no!” Watkins laughed. “They wear them because that has been the
custom for hundreds of years--wigs and long black gowns, whenever they
appear in court. We never change old custom here, you know. If our
great-grandfathers did a thing, we think that sufficient reason for
our doing it too. But turn up this way; I want to show you the Temple
Church. I think it will interest you, for it is the Church the old
Templars used to worship in; it was built in 1185.”

They went through the big Gothic doorway of the Temple Church, where a
guide took them in hand and pointed out all the curiosities. Under the
dome at the front was a large open space, where there lay stretched
full length on the floor a dozen or more life-size figures of men clad
in armor, and all black like tarnished bronze.

“Some have their legs crossed, you will notice,” the guide explained,
“and others lie out straight. Those with crossed legs were the Knights
of the Cross, the others their squires and followers. The legs are
crossed so as to make the sign of the cross, you know. You would hardly
believe that the figures are made of white marble, would you? Yes, sir,
all white marble; they are so old that they have turned black.”

In the other part of the church, nearer the pulpit, he showed them the
handsomely carved pews that the lawyers sit in, and explained that
after attending service on Sunday mornings the occupants go into the
great hall to dine together in state. “It is always a fine banquet,” he
added, “so they are pretty regular in their attendance at church. Do
you see that little tower on the side, with just a slit for a window?
That was once the Temple prison where unruly knights were confined;
sometimes they were left there to starve.”

After inspecting the church they turned to the right into a narrow
court between the church and some other large buildings, where a number
of tombstones marked the graves of eminent persons. Most of the stones
were carved with armorial bearings, showing that the persons beneath
had been lords or dukes or other noblemen; but one tomb without any
such pompous tracing attracted Kit’s attention.

“Why, look here!” he cried. “This says, ‘Here lies Oliver Goldsmith!’
One of the best books I ever read (it was called the ‘Vicar of
Wakefield’) was by a man named Oliver Goldsmith. I don’t suppose it
can be the same one, though.”

“It is the very one,” the Captain told him. “There may have been a
thousand Oliver Goldsmiths in the world, but still there was only
one. See what a beautiful inscription it is. All the coronets and
coats-of-arms in the world could not make a tomb as interesting at
those simple words, ‘Here lies Oliver Goldsmith.’ A man could hardly
pass that tomb without stopping to look at it.”

“Well!” Kit exclaimed, “I never thought I should see his grave.”

“Oh, a great many celebrated men have been associated with these
Temples,” Mr. Watkins explained. “Dr. Johnson once lived here, you
know, and one of the newer buildings is called Dr. Johnson’s building.”

“By the way,” the Captain interrupted, “that reminds me. It is time we
had something to eat, and I want you both to take lunch with me after
we go down and have a look at the gardens.”

While they walked through the beautiful Temple gardens, with their
fountains, flower-beds, and gigantic trees, with the Thames flowing
in front and the great series of Temple buildings in the rear, Kit
wondered how speaking of Dr. Johnson reminded the Captain of eating
lunch. He could not at the time see any connection between them, but he
saw it a few minutes later.

“Let us go out this way,” the Captain said, “into the Strand. I have
not been here for many years, but these old places do not change much.
I know of a very good restaurant not far from here.”

In the Strand they turned to the right, and a few steps took them into
Fleet Street, where the Captain soon stopped and guided them into a
narrow alley bearing the sign, “Wine Office Court.” A few feet up the
court, on the right-hand side, they went through a doorway that looked
nearly as old as anything about the Temple, and so into a restaurant
with old-fashioned high-backed benches, stiff old chairs, heavy oak
tables, and a fireplace that looked as if it might have been used by
the Crusaders.

“You take that seat at the end of the table, in the corner, Silburn,”
the Captain said, “and Mr. Watkins and I will take the sides. We don’t
have to consider here about what we will eat, because the great dish
is a chop and a baked potato, with some of the baked Cheshire cheese
to finish up on. You know the name of this place is ‘The Olde Cheshire
Cheese.’ I was reminded of it as soon as Mr. Watkins spoke of Dr.
Johnson.”

“This is one of the famous old eating-houses of London, Silburn,”
the Captain continued. “I wanted to bring you here because I saw you
reading my ‘Boswell’s Life of Johnson’ the other day, so I thought it
would interest you.”

“Oh, he must have been a great man, sir,” Kit answered. “I am very much
interested in that book.”

“Well, look at that brass plate on the wall just over your head,” the
Captain laughed.

Kit turned his head and read the words, cut in a small brass plate that
was screwed to the wall, “The seat of Dr. Samuel Johnson.”

“Why, what does that mean, sir!” Kit exclaimed. “That can’t be the man
I have been reading about!”

“It is the very man,” the Captain declared. “This restaurant is so old
that it was here in his day, and it was his favorite eating-place. And
that exact seat where you are sitting was his favorite place, where he
sat every day to eat his dinner while he talked with many of the famous
men you read of in the book. You see you are on the track of famous
people to-day.”

“I feel as if I were a sort of character in a book,” Kit replied,
“instead of a real American eating chops and baked potatoes;
_such_ chops, too! this is a great country for chops, but I don’t
think much of their oysters. I tried some a few days ago, and they
tasted soapy, as if they had been raised in a wash-tub. Then when I
went into a drug store to look at a directory they charged me a penny
for the privilege. Think of paying two cents to look at a directory!
But those are small matters. It is an event in a fellow’s life to be
sitting where the great Dr. Johnson used to sit, and to see the grave
of such a man as Oliver Goldsmith. I can hardly realize it.”

“Oh, we will associate with some more noted people before we stop,” the
Captain replied. “If you both feel like it, we will take a hansom down
to Westminster Abbey when we finish here, where you can see the tombs
of more celebrated Englishmen than you have ever heard of. It is a good
place for a young man to go, for he naturally begins to inquire about
the great people who are buried there, and to read about them.”

When the lunch was concluded and they were about to go, Mr. Watkins
made a remark. It was something that he had been thinking about half
through the meal; for it was intended to be a joke, and an Englishman
approaches a joke as cautiously as a good driver nearing a railway
crossing.

“I suppose there will be a new plate on the wall next time you come
here, Mr. Silburn,” he said.

“Why so?” Kit asked.

“Well,” said Watkins, “you see that plate says, ‘The seat of Dr. Samuel
Johnson.’ Now they will have another one under it, I have no doubt,
adding, ‘Also of Mr. Supercargo Silburn.’”

“Oh, I’ve no doubt of it,” Kit replied. “I ought to laugh at the joke,
but I really cawn’t, don’t you know, after that big chop and potato.”
He tried to imitate the English manner of speaking; but if that was
another joke, it was all lost on Mr. Watkins.

The three crowded into a hansom and were soon set down in front of
Westminster Abbey, and for the next hour Kit had eyes for nothing but
the long rows of tombs. The architecture might have surprised him
under other circumstances, but no architecture was as interesting to
him as the burial-place of so many famous people he had heard of. The
tomb of David Livingstone was one of the first that caught his eye.
Then he found Sir Isaac Newton’s, and those of Browning and Tennyson
side by side, and Shakespeare, Dr. Johnson, Lord Macaulay, a bust of
Longfellow, and scores, hundreds of others whose names he had at least
heard.

“Shall we go in among the tombs of the kings?” Captain Griffith asked
at length.

“Not on my account, sir,” Kit replied; “I don’t want to spoil the
effect of these great people by looking at a lot of mere kings.”

“You mustn’t mind my young friend’s disparagement of your kings, Mr.
Watkins,” the Captain laughed; “he is a thorough young American, and
we don’t raise kings over there to any great extent. But it will suit
me not to spend any more time here. What do you say to having a look
at the town from the top of Primrose Hill, with just a glance into the
British Museum as we pass it?”

Both “the boys,” as the Captain called them, were pleased with this
proposition, and he called another hansom to take them first to
the British Museum. There Mr. Watkins took pains to show them the
interesting parts, and Kit was particularly interested in the mummies
and their curious casings. What he wanted most to see, however, was the
great library, one of the largest in the world; and he was disappointed
when told that it was impossible to get into the reading-room without a
ticket, which could be had only with a deal of red tape.

“I don’t believe they would let the Prince of Wales in without a
ticket,” the young clerk said, “so I am sure we have no chance.”

There was no disappointment, however, about the view from the summit of
Primrose Hill. They drove around through Hampstead to reach the hill
from the rear, and when they stood on its very top the whole of London
seemed to lie at their feet.

“Ah, it is a grand sight!” Mr. Watkins exclaimed. “We Londoners never
tire of looking at it, though it is an old story with us. You see what
a deep valley the city lies in, with the Thames running through the
middle of it. The hills on the other side of the valley are in Surrey
and Kent, two of our English counties. And do you see that blazing fire
near the top of the Surrey Hills? It looks like fire, but that is the
Crystal Palace with the sun shining upon it.”

“Yes, it is a grand sight,” the Captain said. “And you must not forget,
Silburn, that you are looking at this moment at the homes of more
people than you can see from any other spot on earth. Here are six
millions of people living between us and those opposite hills--more
people than there are in the kingdom of Belgium, and nearly as many as
there are in the whole of Canada. You never saw such a view as this
before.”

“No, sir, I never did,” Kit admitted; “it is a great sight; but I can’t
help wondering why they built such a big city down in such a hollow.
No wonder they have such thick fogs here. I suppose you’ll laugh at
me for it, but I think our hills out in Fairfield County are much
handsomer. I should rather live in Huntington than in London.”

“Well, I like to hear you tell the truth about it,” the Captain
laughed. “Some Americans who come over here think they must praise
everything because it is the fashion to do so. These Europeans like to
boast of their own countries, but they seem to immigrate to America
pretty fast. Eh, how is that, Mr. Watkins?”

“Yes, sir, they do,” the young clerk answered. “And I am one of them.
If I had half a chance, I should go to America myself.”

The setting sun gave warning to the sight-seers that it was time
to bring their excursion to an end. Both Kit and the Captain urged
Watkins to return to Gravesend and eat supper with them on the _North
Cape_; but he still had work to do in the office, and the party
separated in Trafalgar Square, Captain Griffith and Kit taking a ’bus
to the Fenchurch Street station, whence a train soon carried them to
Tilbury, opposite Gravesend.

“Now, Silburn,” the Captain said that evening while they sat in the
cabin, “I want you to answer those questions I asked you to-day. What
have you to say about the traffic in the London streets?”

“They are the most crowded streets I ever saw, sir,” Kit answered; “but
it does not seem to me that there is any more business done in them
than in a great many other streets I have seen. I looked out for big
trucks, express wagons, baggage vans, and such things, but did not see
a great many. The crowding seemed to me to be done by the great number
of ’buses and hansoms. If the ’buses were taken away, there would be no
great crowd in the London streets. So if they had the same modern means
of transit that we have in our American cities, fast cable and electric
cars and such things, there would be plenty of room.”

“And the public buildings?” the Captain asked.

“Some of them must have been very fine when they were new, sir,” Kit
replied; “but they are so dark with smoke and dirt and age that they
make a fellow feel gloomy. I should think the Londoners would have the
blues most all the time, with their dark buildings and those terrible
fogs. It is a great place, of course; but somehow it doesn’t seem to me
exactly like a city. It seems more like a lot of big villages that have
grown together.”

“Ah, they’re not going to make an Englishman of you, that’s certain!”
the Captain laughed. “But you are right in both the opinions you have
given. It is the lack of quick transit that crowds the streets; and
modern London is not exactly a city, but a collection of large towns
that have grown together. You will be quite an expert in cities some
day, if you study their points so carefully.”




CHAPTER X.

A LETTER FROM THE STATE DEPARTMENT.


“I think it’s a mean way to treat a fellow, Kit,” Harry Leonard
complained when they were alone together. “Oh, you needn’t think I’m
going to be calling you Mr. Silburn when nobody else can hear. I want
a chance to see something of London, and you know very well it’s only
fair I should have. I haven’t been allowed ashore since we came into
the Thames. You always used to go ashore when you were cabin boy, for
you’ve told me so.”

“That was a little different,” Kit exclaimed. “I was doing a
supercargo’s work when I was cabin boy, and I had to go ashore on
business. But I think the Captain will let you go up to town if you ask
him. I know he likes you, from the way he speaks of you. You’re a very
different boy, Harry, if you don’t mind my saying so, from what you
were when you came on board. We all have to learn, I suppose, that we
don’t get things for favors, but by working for them, and you are doing
your work well.”

“Thawnk you very much, Mr. Supercargo!” Harry retorted, taking off his
cap in mock humility. “I like to be appreciated by my superiors.”

“Well, it’s a fact,” Kit laughed. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. All this
stuff on the wharf will be aboard by two or three o’clock, and if you
like I will ask the Captain to let you go up to London with me after
that. You know it is daylight here till eight or nine o’clock in the
evening.”

“Hooray for you!” Harry shouted. “If you ask, it’s a sure thing, for
you get whatever you want. I wish I had such a pull with the Captain as
you have.”

“I have no ‘pull’ at all--” Kit started to say; but he was interrupted
by footsteps on the companionway, and a moment later Captain Griffith
entered the cabin with a handful of letters.

“There seems to be something for most everybody in this lot,” he said,
laying the letters upon the big table and looking them over. “Captain
Griffith, Captain Griffith, Mr. Mason, Mr. Christopher Silburn, Mr.
Hanway, Mr. Christopher Silburn--here are two for you, Silburn, so your
folks have not forgotten you.”

Kit saw at a glance that one of the letters was from his mother and the
other from Vieve; and the one from his mother was so large and thick
that it rather alarmed him. He went to the corner of the long sofa and
hurriedly opened it, and found two enclosures, besides a page or two in
his mother’s handwriting.

“We are so flustered by these letters that we don’t know what to do,”
Mrs. Silburn wrote. “But your sister and I both think that the best
thing will be to send them right over to you, so that you will be sure
to get them before you leave London. We have kept copies, in case they
should be lost. Oh, Kit, do you think there is any chance that this man
may be your dear father? I am afraid it is only exciting our hopes in
vain, but we ought to do something about it, though we don’t know what.
How could we ever get along without a great, big _man_ like our
Kit to advise us?”

After reading this mysterious introduction Kit turned hurriedly to
the enclosures. The first was on a sheet headed “Bryant & Williams,
Bridgeport, Conn.,” whom he immediately recognized as the owners of his
father’s schooner, the _Flower City_.

  MRS. CHRISTOPHER SILBURN, Huntington, Conn. [the letter began]:

  Please find enclosed a copy of a letter we have just received from
  the State Department at Washington, which explains itself. We have
  sent similar copies to the families of all the members of the crew
  of the schooner _Flower City_, as far as they are known. While
  we have slight hopes that the person referred to in the letter
  may have been a member of that unfortunate crew, we deem it only
  right to lay the information before you, that you may take whatever
  measures seem to you proper.
            Very respectfully yours,
                                    BRYANT & WILLIAMS.

Kit was beginning by this time to chafe over the delay in getting at
the mysterious information. But the other enclosure must give it, and
he quickly unfolded the sheet.

  STATE DEPARTMENT, Washington, D. C. [it began].
      OFFICE OF THE FOURTH ASSISTANT SECRETARY.
              Folio G x R. No. 2814 F.

  MESSRS. BRYANT & WILLIAMS, Bridgeport, Conn.

  _Dear Sirs_: The department is informed by the Consulate at
  Wellington, New Zealand, that a patient who has been in the public
  hospital there for some months is supposed to be a shipwrecked
  American sailor. This man was landed in Wellington from the
  British ship, _Prince Albert_, having been picked up by that
  ship on the 27th of June last on a small unnamed island in the
  Pacific Ocean, where his three companions had died of hardship and
  starvation, and where he was reduced to such a mental and physical
  condition that he was unable to move or give any account of himself.

  Since his reception in the hospital he has been restored to
  physical health, but he is still unable to give his name or place
  of residence, though from certain tests that have been applied it
  is believed that he is a native-born American citizen. He is of
  medium height with gray hair and beard, and looks sixty years old,
  though he is probably much younger.

  The Life Saving Service has supplied this department with a list of
  all the American vessels that have been lost within the last two
  years; and a copy of this letter is sent to the owners of each of
  such lost vessels, as far as they can be traced, to enable them to
  communicate with the families of the lost crews.

  Requests for information on the subject should be addressed to the
  Chairman of the Board of Governors, Public Hospital, Wellington,
  New Zealand; or to the American Consulate at that port.
                           Yours, etc.,
                                       H. R. BATTAWAY,
                      _Chief Clerk to Fourth Assistant Secretary_.

On opening the letter from Vieve he found that it was full of questions
and surmises about the mysterious man in New Zealand, so he put that
in his pocket to be read later on. The State Department letter was
too important to let anything interfere with it. He read it again and
again, and tried to estimate what the chances were that this man might
be his missing father. Suppose there were twenty lost vessels, each
with a crew of twenty men? That would give only one chance in four
hundred. But one chance in forty thousand, he thought, would be a great
thing. Sixty years old? His father was not nearly as old as that; and
there was not a gray hair in his head. But who could say what suffering
he might have gone through, or what changes it might have made in his
appearance?

It was hard work to put those letters into his pocket and go on quietly
checking his lists as the cargo came aboard; but it was necessary, and
Kit did it. The engagement he had just made with Harry Leonard must be
postponed, for he must have time to think, and then time to write some
letters. But what was he to write?

All through the morning and until the last case of cargo on the wharf
was put in the hold and duly checked off, the young supercargo stuck
manfully to his work. Harry Leonard was disappointed when told that his
trip to London would have to be put off, but when Kit explained the
reason Harry was more than willing to wait.

“Why, they’d give him a big reception in Huntington,” he exclaimed, “if
your father should come home alive.”

With all his thinking Kit could not decide upon a better course than to
show the letters to Captain Griffith and ask his advice. “He knows more
in five minutes than I know in a week,” he said to himself, “and his
advice is sure to be good. It’s a valuable thing to have good friends
to go to when you need advice.”

Captain Griffith, as he expected, was very much interested when he
heard the contents of Kit’s letter. First he listened while Kit read
the letter from the State Department, and then took it and read it
carefully over himself. Then he got out a map to look at the position
of Wellington, New Zealand.

For some minutes he leaned back in his revolving-chair, looking hard at
the ceiling, deep in thought.

“It’s a strange case, Silburn,” he said at length. “I’ve been trying to
figure out what happened to your father when his schooner went down.
They took to the boats, and in the heavy sea your father’s boat went to
pieces. He kept afloat on some piece of wreckage, and in the morning
he was seen and picked up by a passing ship. She was an American ship,
I should say, bound ’round the Horn for San Francisco or the northwest
coast. But when they got into the Pacific that second ship was wrecked,
and your father and three others made their way to a little island,
where he was afterwards picked up by the British vessel and carried to
New Zealand. Yes, it is all plain enough.”

“Why, Captain!” Kit cried; “do you really think so, sir?”

“I don’t say that I think so, or that I don’t think so,” the Captain
answered. “I wanted to see whether there was any reasonable theory
by which I could account for your father’s being found on a desolate
little island in the Pacific. I see that there is; it might easily have
happened just as I have described it. So we begin by knowing that it
is possible that this man may be your father. And having reached that
point we came to a sudden stop through somebody’s remarkable stupidity.
Do you see how badly this inquiry has been managed?”

“Yes, sir,” Kit answered, “I think I do. They ought to have sent a
photograph of the man and a full description.”

“Of course they ought!” the Captain declared, thumping his fist down on
the desk. “The fullest description possible--his height, weight, color
of his eyes, condition of his teeth, marks on his body, every possible
particular. I suppose we must be satisfied that the State Department
has taken the trouble to give even this much information about the
case; but it would have been easy to give a little more. However, this
oversight does not put an end to the business; it only entails a great
waste of time. Now you have been thinking about this thing all day;
what has it occurred to you ought to be done?”

“Well, sir,” Kit answered, “it seemed to me that the best way would be
to write to the American consul at Wellington, and ask him to send a
description of the man. If it is my father, he is nothing like sixty
years old, but what he has gone through may make him look much older
than he really is.”

“That’s it,” the Captain agreed. “That is exactly the proper thing for
you to do. And write from here, at once; but have the answer sent to
your home in America, for there is no telling where you may be. Now
tell me something about your father. How tall a man was he?”

“He was just five feet ten and a half inches, sir,” Kit replied. “I
remember that very well, because he used to measure me when I was
little and say, ‘I wonder whether you will ever be as tall as your
father, youngster?’ It hardly looked likely then, but I am within about
an inch of that now, and still growing.”

“Very well; put that down on this slip of paper; height, five feet ten
and a half inches. Was he stout, or slender?”

“Just about medium, sir,” Kit went on; “I think he weighed about one
hundred and sixty pounds. And he was dark in the hands and face, from
the sun, and had dark brown eyes and hair to match, the hair just a
little bit curly, like mine.”

“Put it all down,” the Captain said. “Were his teeth good or bad?”

“Oh, he had beautiful teeth, sir,” Kit declared. “He never had to go
to the dentist’s, and they were as white and regular--well, I used to
tell him they were almost as handsome as a set of false ones.”

“Put it down,” the Captain repeated. “And do you know whether there
were any marks on his body that he could be identified by?”

“The only mark I know of was a long scar on his left temple, sir,” Kit
answered, “running down like this;” and he drew a finger across his own
temple to show the direction. “He got that when he had such a narrow
escape from being killed. A block fell from aloft and came just near
enough to make a gash in his skin. A quarter of an inch more would have
killed him on the spot, of course; but he only laughed at it when he
told us about it.”

“Ah, that is a good point; put it down. A man may lose his teeth, or
grow fat or thin, or his hair turn gray, but he never can get rid of a
scar. That cut on the temple will go further than anything else to tell
us whether this is your father or not. Now when you write to the consul
tell him all these things that you have told me, and as much more as
you can think of. And there is another thing. To make such an inquiry
as this, and get your father home, if it proves to be your father, will
cost some money. You are willing to spend whatever you can afford, I
suppose?”

“Why, Captain,” Kit exclaimed, “what would I care for money in exchange
for my father! I would sell the last shirt off my back just to hear
that he is alive. And we could raise a little money in Huntington, if
it came to the worst. I know mother would spend her last cent to find
him. But I think I can manage it myself, if it does not cost too much.”

“Well, Silburn,” the Captain said, laying his hand on Kit’s shoulder,
“you have a good name, and that is always something to fall back on. I
have a little money that I have saved year after year, and if you need
more than you think, I will lend you a few hundred, and you can pay me
interest on it and pay it off gradually. I should consider it quite as
safe in your hands as if it remained in the bank.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Kit answered. “I am more grateful to you than I
can tell you. But it will be months before we can hear from the consul,
and by that time I shall have a little more money of my own. I want to
send him a little money in the letter and ask him to have a photograph
taken of the man in the hospital. If it is my father, I think we should
recognize him, no matter how much he is changed.”

“That is a capital idea,” the Captain assented; “and by writing from
here your letter will get to New Zealand much sooner than if you sent
it from America.”

That evening Kit had his hands full with letter-writing. There was one
to be written to his mother, and one to Vieve, and a note to Bryant &
Williams, thanking them for their letter, and last of all, a long one
to the consul at Wellington, in which he gave the fullest possible
description of his father.

“The mention of some familiar names,” he wrote, “might cause him to
remember things that he has forgotten, if, as I hope, it proves to be
my father. He lives in Huntington, Connecticut, opposite the church,
and my mother’s name is Emily Silburn. His two children are Genevieve
and Christopher Silburn; he always called us Vieve and Kit. Our dog’s
name is Turk. The _Flower City_ was the schooner he was wrecked
on. The scar I have mentioned looks whiter than the rest of his face.
If he seems to recognize any of these names, that will be pretty good
evidence that he is Christopher Silburn.”

“Ah, my!” Kit said to himself, rubbing his eyes after finishing the
long letter, “this not knowing whether you have a father or not is bad
business. But just suppose we should see him sitting again in his old
chair in Huntington! I mustn’t think of that, though, for it may be
only preparing for a disappointment.”

Captain Griffith approved of the letter to the consul when he read it;
and when Kit asked permission for Harry Leonard to go up to London with
him next day, it was given immediately.

“I don’t like to have my boys going into these big towns alone,
getting into mischief,” he said; “but if Harry goes with you, that
is a different matter. You know you are not a boy any more, but a
supercargo; and you must keep Harry straight. By the way, Silburn,
stand out there in the light a minute till I look at you. There; that
is just the way I stood you out the night I rescued you from the
policeman in Brooklyn. Do you know it occurred to me while you were
describing your father this afternoon that you were giving almost an
exact description of yourself? You must be very much like him.”

“I am glad to hear it, sir,” Kit laughed, “for he was always called a
fine-looking man.”

When the Captain’s two “boys” took the ferryboat over to Tilbury in the
morning, Harry was like a young colt in a spring pasture. No wonder,
either, for he had not set foot off the _North Cape’s_ deck before
since she left New York. He was full of fun now that he was away from
the restraint of the ship, and, like Kit, he was not disposed to admire
everything simply because it was in a foreign country; on the contrary,
most things he saw he regarded as fair game for ridicule.

“And they call these things cars, do they?” he asked, when they were
seated alone in one of the compartments of the train. “Well, they look
to me very much like our coal cars in America, with roofs put on them.
I suppose they have such little windows because larger ones would be
of no use; you never can see more than fifty yards in this country,
on account of the fog. Did you ever see such a foggy hole? I know now
why the sun never sets on the Queen’s dominions: it’s because it never
rises, ‘don-cher-know?’ What do they want with an old Queen here,
anyhow? I guess if a President’s good enough for us, it’s good enough
for them.”

“I always thought you were an Irishman, Harry,” Kit laughed; “now I’m
sure of it, from the way you find fault with the English. Wait till you
see London; you may change your mind then.”

“Oh, London!” Harry sneered. “You’d think the sun rose out of the
Thames and set in Buckingham Palace, to hear these Britishers talk.
I’ll bet it’s not as fine a city as Bridgeport. Look at the big
factories they have there, and the new court-house, and the--”

“We may as well get out here,” Kit interrupted, “as this is Fenchurch
Street station and the end of the line. I don’t believe they’ll carry
us any further.” He found it very entertaining and novel to act as
a guide to London, particularly with a companion who looked upon
everything from such original standpoints as Harry, and who was so
determined to see nothing equal to America in the British capital.

Harry was so much interested in Kit’s accounts of the mummies and other
curiosities in the British Museum, that they took a hansom and drove to
the Museum first.

“This sort of thing will do occasionally in London,” Kit said, “where a
cab costs a shilling. But we’ll have to come down to street cars again,
or walking, when we get back to America.”

“Where are the high buildings, Kit?” Harry asked, after they had gone
a few blocks. “These are all small affairs, so far. Can’t we have him
drive past some of the tall buildings?”

“I’m afraid we should have hard work to find any,” Kit answered. “I
have seen no buildings here more than six or eight stories high.”

“Six or eight stories!” Harry cried; “and they call this a great city!
Why, there are some buildings in New York twenty-six stories high, and
lots of them from twenty to twenty-five stories. Yes, it’s just as I
expected: they brag so much about London, but I don’t believe it’s
‘in it’ at all beside America. They can’t fool me with their mummies,
either, for I saw some in a museum in New York when I was there. I know
a thing or two about dried Egyptians.”

As he was prepared to find fault with the mummies, it was not hard to
be disappointed in them. “They’re a very ordinary lot,” he declared
when he saw them. “Those in New York were all kings and emperors and
such things, but these are just common people. They don’t look as
life-like, either. Why, those fellows in New York seemed just ready to
sit up and eat their dinner.”

Some mention being made of Buckingham Palace, Harry immediately
became anxious to see it. “Not that I suppose it amounts to much,” he
explained, “but we may as well see what sort of tenement houses they
lodge their royal family in. Royal family, indeed! Why, in our country
we’d elect a new queen every year or two if we had to have one at all.”

“Very well,” Kit assented; “I should rather like to see Buckingham
Palace, too, and we can have a look at the Thames Embankment at the
same time. We can walk over to Gower Street station and take the
underground road to St. James Park station, and that is near the
Palace. We both want to see the great underground railway, of course.”

Feeling surer of making his way in the main streets, Kit led Harry to
Tottenham Court Road, and turned up Euston Road to the Gower Street
station. In Euston Road they found a great many openings in the
street and in the yards on each side, through which poured clouds of
sulphurous smoke.

“Bah!” Harry cried, as one of the dirty clouds enveloped and half
choked them; “there must be a sulphur mine underneath here, and it’s
caught fire. Or do you suppose it’s a match factory?”

“I suppose these must be airholes for the underground road,” Kit
replied; “for it runs under this street. But I don’t see how the people
can stand such rank smoke, that’s a fact. And it’s cheerful to think
that that’s the air we will have to breathe in the underground train.”

They bought their tickets for St. James Park station and went down
two long and dirty stairways into the bowels of the earth, where they
found a long cave arched with smoky bricks, dimly lighted with a
half-dozen gas-jets, with a very dirty platform on each side and two
tracks between them. Twenty or thirty other persons were waiting for
the train, all breathing the thick smoky atmosphere, that coated their
throats and made them cough.

In two or three minutes a faint rumbling began in one of the dark
tunnels leading out of each end of the cave; and the rumbling grew
louder and louder till it became a roar, and the train drew up. There
was a great banging of doors, people got out and others got in, Kit and
Harry scrambled into an empty compartment, and in a few seconds the
lights of the platform faded away and they were in darkness save for a
very dim gas-jet in the roof of the car.

“Now this is real luxury!” Harry laughed. “Everything you touch is
black as a chimney, and the air you breathe is thick enough to cut.
These tunnels would make good sewers, Kit. But do you think our folks
would believe the Londoners really ride through such holes in the
ground? Ain’t it simply frightful?”

“I shall have to agree with you this time,” Kit answered. “I had no
idea the underground roads were as bad as this. It would be a terrible
place for an accident, wouldn’t it, in these dark caves?”

They went on and on past station after station, and after half an hour
of jolting and half suffocating Kit began to suspect that he must have
made some mistake, for it was less than a mile from Gower Street to St.
James Park. He took out his map and examined it as well as he could
under the feeble light.

“See here, I’ll tell you what we’ve done,” he explained, “we’ve taken
an outer circle train. You know this underground road runs in a small
inner circle and a big outer circle. And we’re in the wrong train,
that is carrying us away round the city. But no matter, it will bring
us to St. James after a while. That’s rather a good joke on us, Harry,
for a hansom would have taken us across in half the time and for half
the money.”

“Oh, well,” Harry answered, “no matter. It’s just as well to get a good
dose of the underground this time, for I never want to see the thing
again. One dose is enough, well shaken and taken.”

It took them fifty minutes to reach the St. James Park station; and
after they had climbed the long stairs to the surface they stood awhile
on the edge of the park to get some fresh air into their lungs.

“It’s just as I expected,” Harry declared, “only a good deal worse.
They don’t half know how to do things over here. And that’s Buckingham
Palace, is it, where the Queen lives? Why, it’s only two stories high,
and a basement! Now, Kit, you know as well as I do that this palace
ain’t a patch to Mr. Barnum’s house out in Seaside Park, in Bridgeport.
No, sir, it doesn’t compare with it.”

“Oh, Harry, you can’t please a fellow who’s determined not to be
pleased,” Kit laughed. “When you come to London, you must make up your
mind that things are better than anywhere else, and tell the people
so. Then they’ll pat you on the back and say the Americans are their
cousins.”

“How could I tell them?” Harry asked; “they don’t understand me when
I speak to them, and I never half know what they say. I should think
they might know how to speak their own language.”

By the time night came they had seen the new Thames Embankment, and
Madame Tussaud’s waxworks show, Trafalgar Square, and Pall Mall, St.
Paul’s Cathedral, and several of the curious old churches, and had
walked through the Strand and Fleet Street, and many more of the busy
parts of the city. And within forty-eight hours the Scilly signals were
set in motion again, and over the wires flashed the brief announcement,
“Passed, steamer _North Cape_, for New York.”




CHAPTER XI.

A VOYAGE TO MARSEILLES.


Between being a cabin boy with no responsibility beyond setting the
table straight and keeping the cabin clean, and being a supercargo with
a large and valuable cargo to look after, there is a wide step, as
Kit realized when the _North Cape_ lay once more at the wharf in
front of Martin’s Stores. Harry Leonard set off gayly for home before
the ship was fairly moored in her berth; but for his own part, with
nominally far more liberty, he could not think of going further away
than his employers’ office till all the cargo was out; and he could not
tell whether even then he should be able to take a long enough holiday
for a run out to Huntington.

“You see these things work both ways, Harry,” he said to the cabin boy
before the latter set off. “You complained in London about not being
able to go ashore, but I am just as badly off here, where I have so
much to do that I cannot leave the wharf for a week at any rate.”

“But you don’t complain about it, Kit,” Harry answered. “I don’t
believe you ever complain about anything.”

“Why should I complain about this,” Kit asked, “when it is my work that
keeps me and I am glad to have the work to do? What would the owners
think of the Captain if he said he could not sail on the day they
ordered, because he had some business of his own to attend to? No, I am
not complaining about it, but just telling you the fact. And I spoke of
it because I want you to take a little bundle up to Huntington for me,
and tell my folks that nothing but my work keeps me from going home at
once. I shall know in a few days whether I can get home this trip, and
of course I have written.”

There was no reason why the supercargo should explain to the cabin boy
that the “little bundle” he sent home was the result of many visits to
Peter Robinson’s, in Regent Street, and to another London place known
as “Louise’s,” in the same street; and that it contained some things
whose buying required as much care on his part as the stowing of a
cargo. It was not such a little bundle, either, nor so light; but Harry
took it cheerfully, and promised to deliver all of Kit’s messages.

Instead of Kit applying to the Captain now for information about the
ship’s movements, it was rather the other way. As supercargo it was his
business to know what the next cargo was to be, and where it was to be
taken. But for some days neither of them knew, and it was impossible to
learn, because the charterers did not yet know, themselves.

“I imagine from what I heard in the office to-day,” Kit said to the
Captain one evening, “that they are thinking of sending us next to
Marseilles.”

“Yes,” the Captain answered, “they are talking of it, I know. But
nothing is settled yet.”

“I hope they will,” Kit went on; “that would give us a fine voyage
into the Mediterranean and past Gibraltar. Marseilles must be a little
further than London, of course.”

“Yes, it is just about four thousand miles,” the Captain answered.
“It would be a good thing for you, for several reasons. The _North
Cape_ ought to go into dry-dock to be scraped and painted before
crossing the ocean again, for one thing, and that would give you
time to go home. For another thing, Marseilles is one of the most
interesting places in the world. But our firm won’t take those things
into consideration in making up their minds,” he added, laughing.

“What cargo should we probably take if we went to Marseilles, sir?” Kit
asked.

“Oil,” the Captain replied; “and as Marseilles is one of the great
olive-oil shipping ports, that would be carrying coals to Newcastle
with a vengeance, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t quite understand, sir,” Kit answered.

“Well, you will soon see into it,” the Captain said, “if we go to
Marseilles. You see they make a great deal of olive-oil all along that
part of the Mediterranean coast. And it is shipped from Marseilles.
Olive-oil, you understand, is a very expensive product. We make a
great deal of cotton-seed oil in this country, and that is a very cheap
product. So they buy our cotton-seed oil, and we take it over to them.”

“But you don’t mean that they mix our cotton-seed oil with their
olive-oil, and sell it for pure oil, do you, sir?”

“I never saw them mix it,” the Captain said, laughing quietly to
himself. “But when you put this and that together, and considering that
they have no other use for cotton-seed oil over there, it certainly
looks very much like it, doesn’t it?

“However, I don’t think you need worry your mind about our share in
the transaction,” the Captain went on, seeing that Kit looked very
thoughtful over it. “If they pay us for carrying the oil, we have
nothing to do with the use they make of it. We might carry a cargo of
cotton to Manchester; and if some dishonest cloth-maker there mixes
a lot of it with his wool, that dishonesty cannot be laid on our
shoulders.”

“Captain, do you think there is a really honest man in the world?” Kit
asked.

“Yes, two,” the Captain laughed; “Christopher Silburn and Captain
Griffith.”

The uncertainty about their next destination could not last long,
for the cargo was nearly out; and on the same day that Kit was told
definitely that he was to go to Marseilles, the Captain induced his
charterers to let him have a week in dry-dock first for overhauling the
ship. The supercargo, however, could not arrange for more than four
days’ leave of absence, there being many things to see to; and that
would give him only two full days at home.

Going out by train this time, for greater speed, Kit reached Bridgeport
too late for the stage; but without hesitation he set off over the
hills on foot, glad of the chance to see so much of the country just as
the trees and grass were putting on their new spring suits; and when he
stepped without warning into the little house opposite the church, his
mother and Vieve were at the supper table.

“You gave me a great start when you came in, Kit,” Mrs. Silburn
declared after the first greetings were over. “You walk exactly as your
father did; my first thought was that he had come home. And upon my
word you are just his size. My, my, what a man you have grown! I have
no little Kit any more, but a big grown man.”

“Don’t speak of growing!” Kit retorted. “Where’s the little sister I
left at home? What have you done with her? This great big girl can’t be
Vieve, can she? And you are looking so much better, too, mother. I’m
afraid those little things I got you in London are about four sizes too
small.

“I wanted to get you some really good things in England,” he went on,
“but those letters you sent me from Bridgeport and Washington made
me more careful of my money. If that mysterious man in New Zealand
should really prove to be father, we would need all the money we could
possibly raise to bring him home comfortably. I don’t feel as if my
wages belonged to myself, exactly, till that thing is settled.”

“Oh, it was such a comfort, Kit, the way you managed those letters,”
his mother declared. “We did not know what to do at all. I don’t feel
so much now as if I had no one to depend upon.”

“Well, the Captain advised me,” Kit modestly answered. “He always knows
what ought to be done. You must not set your heart too much upon it,
but still there is a chance. Since one man escaped from the wreck of
the _Flower City_, why not another? It will take weeks and weeks,
perhaps months, to get an answer from the consul at Wellington; and
until it comes, we can do nothing but wait patiently.”

The next morning Kit settled himself in his father’s armchair by the
window, with a big volume in his hands.

“It’s a good thing father bought this set of cyclopædias,” he said,
“for I think it will give me just the information I want. Our next
voyage is to be to Marseilles (did I tell you last evening?), and I
want to find out something about the place. You’ve no idea what a help
it is in going to a new city to read everything you can find about it
beforehand. All the way over to London, when I had any spare time, I
read the Captain’s books about it and studied the maps, and by the time
I got there I knew a great deal about it.”

“Harry Leonard must have been a great help to you there,” Vieve
suggested slyly; “he says he showed you around so much.”

“Does he?” Kit laughed. “That’s just like Harry! He makes a very good
cabin boy, but he hasn’t quite got over his boasting habit yet. The
only visit he made to London was when I got leave for him one day and
took him for a trip on the underground railway. We took the wrong
train, too, by the way, and went about fifteen miles round to get a
mile across town. But let’s see about this place in France. M-a-r; here
we are--‘Marseilles, the third city of France, population about four
hundred and fifty thousand. Well situated in a valley on the shore of
the Mediterranean. Chief city of the Department of Bouches-du-Rhone.
Marseilles is one of the oldest cities in Europe, having been founded
about 600 B.C.’

“Think of that, mother! This place I am going to was founded six
hundred years before the time of our Saviour!

“‘The first settlement,’” he continued to read, “‘is usually ascribed
to the Phœnicians. Lazarus is said to have been one of the early
bishops of Marseilles, and a skull purporting to be his is still
preserved in a portion of the original church in which Lazarus
preached. Aside from this, the most remarkable building in Marseilles
is the church of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, which, standing on the
summit of a high hill, is church and fort combined, and is reached by
hydraulic elevators. Marseilles is the scene of the principal part
of Alexander Dumas’ remarkable story of the “Count of Monte Cristo.”
The Castle d’If, in which Monte Cristo was confined in a dungeon for
fourteen years, stands on a rocky islet in the harbor, and is still
in a good state of preservation. The chief articles of commerce are
olive-oil, figs, dates, almonds, and wine. Marseilles is one of the
principal ports of the Mediterranean, from thirty to fifty vessels
entering or leaving daily. The Peninsular and Oriental steamers call
here on their way to and from India and Australia.’

“I tell you there’s going to be something to see, in a place like
that!” Kit exclaimed, as he closed the book. “Six hundred years before
those things happened that we read about in the New Testament! A fellow
can hardly get that into his head. I hope I’ll have a chance to see
that church on the hill, that’s both church and fort. And Lazarus!
That’s going it a little strong, it seems to me; I don’t remember
reading anything in the Bible about Lazarus being a bishop. But I
should like to see that old church.”

“Oh, I wish they had ‘cabin girls’ on ships!” Vieve declared; “I’d like
to go and see these queer places the way you do. Girls never have a
chance to see anything.”

“They’re a very lucky lot,” Kit answered. “They only have to stay at
home and be comfortable, while their fathers and brothers go away to
work for them.”

“Now, children, I’ll have to punish you both if you begin to quarrel,”
Mrs. Silburn laughed. “The most important thing is when you will be
back from this next voyage, Kit; and that you haven’t told us yet.”

“We can safely say in about two months,” Kit replied, “if all goes
well. And by that time I think we ought to have an answer from New
Zealand.”

Those two days at home were many hours too short, but there was no help
for it. Kit had nearly two months’ wages to hand over to his mother,
and after taking a good look at the outside of the house he suggested
that she should get some one to mend the two or three broken places and
then have it painted.

“That will not cost very much,” he said, “for it is a small house. And
if--if that should--well, you know what I mean. We want everything
looking nice if he comes home.”

Silas did not go down to Bridgeport with his stage in time to catch the
9.15 train, the one that Kit wanted to take; so he walked down as he
had walked up, glad to have another two or three hours among the green
fields after so much blue water.

From the time of his reaching New York again the young supercargo had
very little time to himself until the _North Cape_ cleared for
Marseilles, for the cargo began to arrive next day, and he had to give
his attention to it.

“It hardly seems to me as if we had been home,” he said to Captain
Griffith as they stood on the bridge, watching the gradual fading
away of the Navesink Highlands. “They keep us going so fast; to-day in
Barbadoes, to-morrow in London, next day in Marseilles. I see you have
the ‘Count of Monte Cristo’ among your books, Captain. I will get you
to let me read it when I am through with my work. I have been reading
everything I could find about Marseilles.”

“Oh, yes, you can take it,” the Captain answered. “You will find it a
very interesting story, particularly when you are bound for Marseilles.
But there is something about it that to me is of more interest than the
story itself. I won’t tell you what it is; you can find that out for
yourself.”

For four or five days Kit was busy with his manifests, but after that
his time was his own, except for an occasional visit to the hold to see
that his cargo was in good order--his “magic oil,” he called it; for as
far as he could make out it was to go into Marseilles nothing but plain
cotton-seed oil, and return to New York “pure olive-oil,” worth two
dollars a gallon.

The ocean seemed a vast desert of water on this voyage. They were far
out of the usual track of vessels crossing the Atlantic, except those
bound for the far East by way of the Suez Canal; and in the eighteen
days before Gibraltar was sighted they passed only three sails. But in
those days Kit put all his papers in order and read the “Count of Monte
Cristo” with great care.

“I should not have spent so much time on an ordinary story,” he said
when it was finished, “but this tells so much about Marseilles. And I
wanted to find out what you considered of more interest about it than
the story itself.”

“And did you find it out?” the Captain asked.

“I think so, sir,” Kit replied. “The story was evidently written about
the middle of this century, or less than fifty years ago. I think the
author wanted to show what wonderful things could be accomplished by
a man with fabulous wealth. So after the hero had been imprisoned
in that Castle d’If a great many years, he made his way through the
walls to the dungeon of a very wise priest who was confined there.
The priest became so attached to him that before he died he told him
of the secret hiding-place of an immense treasure; and after the hero
escaped he went to the island and got the treasure. As nearly as I
can make out, the treasure amounted to about three million dollars,
and he did all his wonderful things with that money. The interesting
thing is, as I understand it, that less than fifty years ago, a great
author, living in Paris, when he wanted to write about a man with
as much money as anybody could imagine, much less really have, gave
him only three million dollars, which in those days seemed beyond
belief; whereas now within a single lifetime, some of our American
millionaires are so much richer that three million dollars would seem
like a small sum to them.”

“That’s it, exactly,” the Captain replied; “I am glad you caught the
idea. It just shows how the wealth of the world has increased in the
last fifty years--or perhaps how it has fallen into comparatively few
hands. Half a century ago three millions was as great a fortune as
could be imagined; now when a man gets three he is not satisfied till
he turns it into thirty.”

“It has made me anxious to see that Castle d’If and its dungeons,” Kit
said.

“I hope to have another look at it myself,” the Captain answered. “I
was there once, but it was many years ago--long before you were born.
We will go out together some day.”

When Gibraltar was reached, the hoisting of two or three flags caused
a telegraphic message to be sent by cable to London and thence to New
York, “Passed, steamer _North Cape_, New York for Marseilles. All
well,” so that the ship’s owners and the crew’s friends knew within a
few hours that she had once more crossed the Atlantic in safety.

“I should hardly like to be sailing past here in a ship that that
tremendous fort was trying to keep out,” Kit declared. “It looks as if
nothing could get past, with those great tiers of guns commanding this
narrow passage. This is the strangest thing I have seen yet--Africa
just across the channel, Spain on this side, and that great tall rock
at the end of the peninsula belonging to England. I have read how the
rock is full of underground passages and hidden batteries. They call
it the impregnable fortress; don’t they, sir?”

“Impregnable is a very good word, Silburn,” the Captain answered, “but
no place is impregnable in these days. That rock has been taken and
retaken a number of times, so it cannot be impregnable. The English
have fortified it very strongly, because it is an important point; but
in case of attack they would have to depend largely upon their navy to
defend it. A few dynamite cartridges thrown against the rock would soon
reduce it.”

“Well, it doesn’t really look as if the English had any business with a
big fort right on the best corner of Spain,” Kit went on.

“You will soon find yourself in deep water if you go into such
questions as that, young man,” Captain Griffith laughed. “What business
have the English in India, or Egypt, or Africa? What business have the
Spaniards in Cuba? What business have we in America, for that matter,
which belonged to the Indians? You will save yourself trouble by taking
things as you find them. You’ll be saying next that the Phœnicians
ought to own Marseilles, instead of the French, because they founded
it.”

After two days of skirting the Spanish coast the _North Cape_
sighted the Balearic Isles; and two days more took her into the Gulf of
Lyons, within a few hours of Marseilles. The last half of her journey
in the Mediterranean, however, was not as pleasant as the first; for
a heavy wind from the northwest made the air raw and chilly, even in
that warm climate, and stirred up a heavy sea.

“It is the Mistral,” the Captain explained. “That is the name they give
the cold north wind all along this coast. It comes up very suddenly
once every six or eight weeks, and makes the natives shiver. I am just
as well satisfied to have it now, for it only lasts a day or two, and
we will be pretty sure of fine weather in port.”

As they approached Marseilles, Kit recognized many of the points
from what he had read. There was the semicircle of mountains at the
rear, forming a vast amphitheatre in which the city lay--desolate,
barren-looking mountains of grayish-white rock, with hardly any traces
of vegetation. And there was the church on the summit of a high hill
rising from the valley, with a great gilded statue of the Virgin
Mary on top; he knew that must be Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, from the
descriptions of it, and imagined that the long straight lines running
up the side of the hill must be the track of the elevators. Then when
they drew nearer he saw the long breakwater, extending a mile or
more along the shore, which makes Marseilles one of the best ports
in Europe. And to the right lay a group of three rocky islands, some
distance apart, one of which he was sure must be the island of the
Castle d’If.

“I suppose we run in behind the breakwater, Captain?” he asked. “I see
there is quite a forest of masts in there.”

“No,” the Captain answered, “we go into the Old Port--the Vieux
Port, as they call it here, _vieux_ being the French word for
_old_. That was the original port, of course, that was the making
of Marseilles; and a very curious place it is; a natural basin running
right up into the heart of the city, with a narrow entrance. However,
you will soon see it all for yourself.”

It was before ten o’clock in the morning that the ship ran between
the two old-fashioned forts, one on each side of the narrow entrance,
and ploughed her way slowly up the Old Port. It did not look to Kit
as if there could possibly be room for another steamer on any of the
three sides, so thickly were the vessels crowded in--big steamers and
little, sailing-ships, tugs, beautiful yachts, fishing-boats, excursion
boats, every sort of craft he could think of. All around, except at the
entrance, were broad streets full of people, lined with tall buildings
of light stone, many of them looking as if they might have stood since
the old Phœnician days. But room was found on the east side for the
_North Cape_, and as soon as she was made fast, both the Captain
and Kit went ashore--the former to attend to his custom-house business,
and Kit to find his agents.

Within ten minutes they were both back at the ship, each with a
disgusted look in his face.

“Well, did you find your agents, Silburn?” the Captain asked. “Just
about as much as I got into the Custom House, I suppose. Every business
place is shut up tight as a drum. This is some saint’s day or other,
and all business is stopped; the only places open are the cafés and
tobacco shops. They don’t care very much for Sundays in these Catholic
countries, except as a time for bull-fights and the opera; but just
give them a saint’s day, and you couldn’t induce one of them to work.
This is a wasted day for us, and I don’t like it.”

“Nor I,” Kit answered; “but I suppose we must put up with it. It
wouldn’t be so bad if we had some work to do on board.”

“No, there is nothing to do,” the Captain growled. It was not hard to
see that he was very much annoyed at the delay. “We might as well go
out and see some of the sights, I suppose. How would you like to go up
to that church on the hill? or would you rather go out to Castle d’If?”

“Why, I should much rather go out to Monte Cristo’s castle, sir,” Kit
answered, wondering that circumstances had made the trip possible on
his very first day in port.

“Then Monte Cristo it is!” the Captain exclaimed. “I’ll be getting
angry at these saintly Frenchmen pretty soon if I don’t do something
to work it off. Then you step ashore, Silburn, and find out how we can
get there. There used to be a little steamboat or two going out, and I
suppose they still run. Just find out what time they start.”

Kit returned in a few minutes with a longer face than before.

“No boats to-day, Captain,” he reported. “They are all afraid of the
rough water outside.”

“Right enough for them,” the Captain answered, “since they are small
excursion boats and made for smooth water. But there’s nothing outside
to-day to hurt a good sea-boat. Step over there to the head of the port
where you see those sail-boats to hire, and see whether you can get a
boatman to take us over.”

Kit was gone longer this time, but once more he returned with bad news.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to give it up, Captain,” he said. “Not one of
the boatmen will venture outside the port. I made them understand by
saying ‘Castle d’If,’ and pointing out; but they only shook their heads
and answered ‘Le Mistral! le Mistral!’”

“Well,” the Captain exclaimed, with an expressive shrug of the
shoulders, “this town is pretty well closed to-day, isn’t it? But I
think I can find a way to get to that island. Lower away the longboat,
Mr. Mason.”




CHAPTER XII.

IMPRISONED IN THE CASTLE D’IF.


There was a great deal of the boy left in Captain Griffith, as Kit had
long suspected; though he attended so thoroughly to his business that
it did not often have a chance to show itself. But having made up his
mind to enjoy a little holiday at the Castle d’If, he entered fully
into the spirit of it. His ordering the longboat lowered was sufficient
indication that he intended to sail out to the island, for it would
have taken six or eight men to row it against the heavy sea, and it was
the only one of the ship’s boats that was fitted with a mast and sail.

“We can hardly be back in time for dinner,” the Captain said, looking
at his watch. “Put us up a good big basket of lunch, steward--enough
for five or six men, for I must have some passengers along for ballast,
in this breeze. Suppose you step up and ask the chief engineer whether
he would like to go out to the castle, Silburn; and you can bring your
friend Haines too, if he likes to come. I will take you along, Henry,
to look after the lunch.”

The little trip to the castle was developing into a regular picnic,
much to Kit’s delight. With the Captain and Tom Haines and Harry along,
they were sure to have a lively time. Both the chief engineer and Tom
Haines were glad to go, and in a few minutes they were all ready for
the start.

“Now let me see,” said the Captain, before he went down the ladder to
the little boat, in which the mast had been stepped. “We must have
everything we are likely to need, for there’s no telling how we may
find things out there. The island belongs to the government, and they
used to keep a man there to show the castle to visitors, but I don’t
know how it is now. Plenty of lunch in the basket, steward?”

“Enough for twice as many, sir,” the steward answered, “and dishes too.
You’ll not go hungry, sir.”

“Then I don’t know of anything else we want.”

“Water, sir?” Kit suggested; “hadn’t we better take some water along?”

“There’s always a keg of water in the boat,” the Captain answered.
“See that it’s full, Henry. Besides, there is a big well or tank in
the castle, enough to supply a whole garrison. But we may need some
candles, for some of those dungeons are so dark you can hardly see your
hand before your face. Put a good package of candles in the basket,
steward.”

The steward ran back to the cabin for the candles, and in another
minute they were off, the five men making just about a proper ballast
for the boat when the sail began to draw. The Captain took the helm
and the main sheet, Harry and Tom Haines were sent up forward to keep
her a little down by the head, and Kit and the chief engineer seated
themselves amidships.

“This is Fort St. John on the right,” the Captain said, as they sped
through the harbor entrance, “and on the left is Fort St. Nicholas. Now
look at this big building on the high point to the left--the one that
stands in the handsome park. They call that the Château de Pharo. It
belonged to the Emperor Napoleon III., and he presented it to the city.
In the great cholera epidemic of 1885 they used it for a hospital,
and it has since been turned into a medical school with a hospital
attached. That is the handsomest site in Marseilles; trust an emperor
for picking out the choice spots. Now look out for a little tossing
when we round the point.”

It was more than “a little tossing” that they got when they were once
out in the big bay. Great waves chased their stern, and occasionally
the boat tumbled down from the crest of a billow with a violent slap.
But there was no fear in any of the party to mar the pleasure of the
sail. They not only felt perfectly safe with the Captain at the helm,
but knew, too, that he would not have taken them out if there had been
any danger in so stanch a boat.

“Now you have a fine view of Marseilles,” he said, when they were well
out. “Off to the left there the breakwater runs so far that you can
barely see the end of it. And to the right of the point is what they
call ‘the Corniche.’ That is a long, smooth, winding drive along the
shore, and one of the handsomest places to be found anywhere. When you
go out there two or three miles you come to the end of the Prado; and
by turning into that you come to the heart of the city again.”

“See how old Notre-Dame stands out on the hilltop,” he went on. “You
would hardly think that statue of the Virgin, on the summit, was
thirty feet high, would you? But it is. They have to gild it every
few years to keep it bright, and it costs twelve thousand dollars to
cover it with gold-leaf. It is so windy up there that they have to
build a little house around it for the painters to work in. That is the
favorite church with the Marseilles sailors. Many of them go up there
to say their prayers before setting out on a voyage. Then when they are
in danger at sea they promise an offering to the Virgin if their lives
are saved, and when they get back to port they present a little toy
ship to the church, or a tablet to be put on the walls. It is full of
such things.”

“Don’t you think, sir, it would be better for them to give their
attention to navigating their ship, when they are in danger?” Haines
asked.

“Well, that is their form of religion,” the Captain answered; “we must
not ridicule them for living up to their faith. But what do you think
of this boat for a sailer, boys? It is two miles from the port out
to the castle, and we shall be there in five minutes more. Why, she
deserves to be taken up to Nice and entered in the spring regattas.”

At this mention of the castle they all looked toward it and saw that
it was a large and very old building of stone, with battlements on the
top, and a high tower rising far above the rest, the whole standing
upon a great rock that rose from the water’s edge to a height of thirty
or forty feet.

“That must have been a very strong place before the days of heavy
guns,” Kit suggested.

“It was one of the strongest forts in France,” the Captain replied.
“For centuries the most important political prisoners were confined
here. There was not the least chance for them to escape or for their
friends to rescue them. Do you see that high battlement that runs up
almost straight from the water? That is where Monte Cristo, according
to the story, was thrown into the sea when he pretended to be dead and
was sewn up in a sack. And if I’m not mistaken he was no wetter then
than we are going to be before we get ashore, for there is a heavy sea
running against this rock.

“There is the landing-place, just at the foot of that rocky path,”
he continued, standing up in the stern to look about. “It is a wharf
of natural rock, with three or four fathoms of water. But there’s no
landing there to-day, with this sea breaking over it. We must get
around to leeward and try to find a bit of beach.”

The island offers very little in the way of beach, but on the sheltered
side they found a smooth slope that answered their purpose, and in a
few minutes they were safely on shore and had dragged the boat well up
out of harm.

“Now this way,” the Captain directed. “One of you youngsters help Henry
carry the basket. We’ve got to get around to that path we saw, for the
gate at the top of it is the only entrance.”

By scrambling over the rocks they soon reached the path, and followed
it over rough and slippery rocks, up a steep incline, to the heavy
gate, which was closed, but not locked. Once through the gate, the path
showed more evidences of care, though it was still rough and difficult,
rising in a sort of rude stairway, with a step followed by four or
five feet of steep incline, then another step and another incline. On
the right was a thick stone wall, with long narrow slanting slits for
firing muskets through.

Up and up the path led, growing rougher the nearer it approached the
castle, till it ran across a large open yard and ended at the moat,
over which a heavy wooden drawbridge was lowered.

“There’s a sample of old times for you,” the Captain said, when they
reached the drawbridge and paused for breath. “Two or three days’ work
would make a good path of that; but in two or three centuries not one
commander of the place had ambition enough to repair it.”

Crossing the bridge over the dry and rocky and weedy moat, they reached
the entrance to the castle proper, where the massive doors stood
hospitably open, and they walked in without challenge or hindrance. It
was soon evident that there was no other person on the island, for they
hallooed and shouted, but received no reply.

“Strange that they leave such a historical place without any one to
take care of it,” said the chief engineer. And it did look odd, but the
fact was that the man in charge had gone ashore on some errand, and the
heavy sea had prevented his return.

Having passed through the main portal, they were in a large stone-paved
courtyard, nearly in the centre of which stood an old-fashioned
well-curb. A heavy stone stairway on the opposite side led to a solid
gallery of iron and stone running completely around the court, both
stairs and gallery having a strong rail of wrought iron. Numerous doors
opened from both the ground floor and the gallery, some closed and some
standing open, and over several of the doors were small signs bearing
the names of their former occupants.

“Put your lunch basket here in the corner,” the Captain directed
Harry. “There doesn’t seem to be any one here to disturb it. But get
out some candles, and we’ll have a look at these lower dungeons first.
Nearly every one of these solid doors leads to a dungeon, I suppose
you understood, and some of them to a series of dungeons. Silburn is
anxious to see Monte Cristo’s late residence, I am sure. Do you see his
name on the sign there under the stairway, Silburn?”

“Yes, sir, I saw that the first thing,” Kit answered. “But there is
so much to see here a fellow hardly knows where to look. It is like
going back two or three hundred years at a single step. Even in the old
buildings of London I saw nothing like this. It is a regular feudal
castle, such as we see sometimes in pictures.”

“It adds a little to the romance of the thing to have the place
entirely to ourselves,” said the Captain. “We are as safe from
intrusion as if we raised the drawbridge and bolted the big doors, for
you may be sure none of the French boatmen will come out in this sea.
Now, then, if you are all ready, we will visit Monte Cristo first. Give
me a candle, and I will lead the way.”

With a lighted candle in his hand the Captain went through a broad but
low arched doorway, followed by all the others, into a small dark cell,
paved with stone, to which a few faint rays of light were admitted by
a slit a foot long and about two inches wide in the upper part of one
wall.

“And did Monte Cristo spend fourteen years in such a dark hole as
this!” Kit exclaimed, with a shudder.

“No, indeed,” the Captain answered; “he was in a far worse place than
this. Now look out for your footing on this slant and for your heads in
the low doorway.”

He led the way to another and smaller doorway in the darkest corner,
not high enough to stand erect under, and reached by going down a dark
and dangerous incline of a few feet.

“This,” said he, “is Monte Cristo’s dungeon. You see it is lower than
the other, and even darker. Here on the side is the hole that he cut
through into the priest’s cell. Do you see where a large stone has been
removed? We could crawl through there into the other cell, but it is
not worth while, as they are much the same. Well, Mr. Supercargo, how
do you like this sort of a residence?”

“Terrible!” Kit answered. “The only good thing I see about it is that
it is entirely dry. There does not seem to be any of the dampness that
we expect in a dungeon.”

“That is because these dungeons are all above ground, and founded on
rock,” the Captain explained. “And this Monte Cristo cell is the worst
of all. It is not more than ten or twelve feet square, you see, and the
ceiling is low. In fact, it is no better than a dark cellar. But in the
upper tier there are some fine cells. Occasionally they caught a king
or prince and caged him here, you know, and they had better quarters.”

“Then let us go and see them!” the chief engineer exclaimed. “It’s
enough to give a man the shivers to look at such holes as these.”

Cautiously they crawled out of the lower dungeons and went to the
stairway. As they passed the well-curb, Harry stopped and raised the
lid and looked down.

“Water!” he cried; “I should say so. Here’s a big square tank with
water enough to float a ship.”

[Illustration: “‘HERE--IS THE HOLE HE CUT THROUGH INTO THE PRIEST’S
CELL.’”]

They went up the broad, heavy stairs to the gallery, and the Captain
paused before a door that was marked “Louis-Philippe, 1792.”

“Hello!” Kit cried; “did they have Louis-Philippe in here? Why, he was
one of the kings of France!”

“This was not the king, if I remember rightly,” the Captain replied,
“but the Duke of Orleans, and father of the king of the same name. You
will see a very different cell here from Monte Cristo’s, if the door is
not locked.”

The huge door opened readily, and they stepped into a large and lofty
room, moderately well lighted by a window that overlooked the court,
but that was not quite wide enough to offer a chance of escape. The
stone floor and heavy stone walls gave the apartment, to be sure,
something of the air of a prison; but it was eighteen or twenty feet
square, and on one side was a handsome fireplace, with a broad stone
seat on each side, and a carved mantel of stone that evidently had once
been a work of art, but that was badly chipped and broken by time,
perhaps with the assistance of some of the royal prisoners. When they
looked up the chimney, through which they had a glimpse of the scudding
clouds, they saw that although the opening was nearly four feet across,
it was not more than five or six inches wide, so that a prisoner could
not escape through it.

“You see they had better quarters for their distinguished prisoners
than they gave to poor sailors like Monte Cristo,” the Captain said.
“Just imagine this room fitted up with rugs and hangings and handsome
furniture, as no doubt it was when Louis-Philippe occupied it. A man
could hardly want a better place. There are more such rooms on this
tier, that you can look at later on. Some of them were occupied by
Albert del Campo, Bernardot, a rich armorer of Marseilles who was mixed
up with the Duc de Richelieu. The Man in the Iron Mask, the Count de
Mirabeau, the Abbé Peretti, and a great many more famous men of their
times. Now if you want a good view of the bay, come up to the top of
the tower.”

The Captain led the way up the iron stairs of the tower, all the
others following. But before Kit and Harry Leonard, who brought up the
rear, reached the top, they heard an exclamation of surprise from the
Captain, who hurriedly began to descend the steps.

“Make for the boat, boys, as fast as you can!” he cried. “The wind has
shifted, and the sea is tumbling in on that side hard enough to break
her to pieces. We must get her further up in a hurry, or we’ll lose a
good boat.”

The party made a scramble down the stairs, across the court, and down
the rough steps outside, then along the jagged rocks, till they reached
the boat, which, by their united strength, was soon dragged out of
reach of the waves. But the spot where they had landed in comparatively
smooth water was now beaten by heavy seas that wet them with their
spray.

“That was a narrow escape!” Kit exclaimed. “It wouldn’t have taken many
minutes to break her up, where she lay. But she’s all right now.”

“Yes, the boat is all right now,” Captain Griffith answered; “but
that’s about all we can say. There’s no such thing as launching her
from these rocks while the wind holds in this quarter. We’re as safely
imprisoned in Castle d’If as ever Monte Cristo was. We are in for a
night of it here, at any rate; you can make up your minds to that.”

“Hurrah!” Harry Leonard cried, waving his arms. “Ain’t that a jolly
lark! We have plenty of provisions and lights and a big tank of water,
and I wish the Mistral would last a week.”

But the Captain gave him such a look that Harry suddenly made his face
as serious as if the voice had come from the blackened rocks.

“It would make bad work for us if this wind should hold too long,” the
Captain said. “But I think we can look for a change in the night; and
for the present we have no great cause to complain. We may consider
it settled, at any rate, that we must spend the night in the castle.
Chief, you and Haines bring along the sail and hang it somewhere to
dry; we may need it to-night to lie on. And we will all go back to the
court till I organize you into a proper garrison and set the watches.

“Now I am going to establish a headquarters,” he went on, when they
were in the court again. “Shall we be romantic and take Monte Cristo’s
cell, or be comfortable and camp in Louis-Philippe’s big room?”

“Let us be kings while we can,” the chief engineer answered, as the
Captain looked at him for a reply. “It looks a little rheumatic in
Monte Cristo’s place, and the other is a fine large room.”

“Very well, then,” the Captain decided; “headquarters established in
room No. 14, formerly the residence of the Duke of Orleans. Henry, you
are appointed quartermaster; you and Silburn bring up the provisions.”

He led the way again to Louis-Philippe’s cell, and looked about to see
what they most needed.

“Chief,” he soon said, “I am going to put you in charge of a foraging
expedition. If you will take Haines and Henry with you down to the
big yard across the moat, you will find the remains of an old shed or
something that has collapsed there. I noticed it as we came in. Let
them bring up a good stock of the old boards. It will be cold to-night,
and we shall need a fire, and some of them can be made into seats.”

The departure of the other three left Kit and the Captain alone in the
cell.

“This is more of an adventure than we bargained for, sir,” Kit said. “I
didn’t think when I was reading that story, that I should be a prisoner
myself in Castle d’If. None of us will forget it in a hurry, and I
think I am rather glad it has happened.”

“So am I, to tell the truth,” said the Captain. “It won’t do us any
harm if the weather lets us away in the morning. I don’t go in for this
sort of thing very often; but now that we _are_ in for it, we may
as well enjoy it.”

Within the next hour the big cell bore a more homelike look than it
had had for many a day. With two of the boards a rough table was
made between the chimney-place and the inner wall. More boards were
converted into two rough benches; still others were arranged slantingly
against a wall to make a springy bed; and by resting one end of the
remainder on the stone seats and jumping upon them they were soon
converted into a formidable heap of firewood.

“How many candles, Mr. Quartermaster?” the Captain asked.

“Eleven, sir,” Harry answered, “besides one that was partly burned when
we were in Monte Cristo’s cell.”

“Very good. The fire will give us light enough most of the time. And
the provisions?”

“I’ll see, sir,” Harry replied; and taking the napkin from the top of
the basket he spread it upon the improvised table and began to lay the
food out upon it.

“Here’s more than half of a boiled ham, sir,” he began, “and a roast
chicken, and three loaves of bread and some rolls, butter, pickles,
some cold roast beef, a big pot of cold coffee, pepper and salt, and a
lot of dishes and knives and forks. That’s all, sir.”

“All!” the Captain laughed. “The castle is provisioned for a siege.
It’s a good thing the _North Cape_ has such a liberal-minded
steward. I was afraid we might only have enough for one meal; but if
we take a good sandwich apiece now, we will have plenty for supper and
breakfast. Make us five big ham sandwiches, Mr. Quartermaster.”

“Aye, aye, sir!” Harry replied. He was so excited over being at once a
shipwrecked mariner and a prisoner in a celebrated old castle, that it
was well for him to have something to do.

With the sandwiches in their hands they strolled among the dismal
cells, finding something on every hand to interest them. Afterward they
went out to explore the island outside the castle walls, and found
caves made by the angry water, and in several places steps cut in the
rock, where small boats could land passengers. When the first signs of
dusk appeared they returned to the castle; and Kit in wandering about
found two things that excited his curiosity.

“There are some locked doors down on the ground tier,” he said to the
Captain, “that may lead to places of interest. And I have found a very
small narrow cell, hardly high enough for a man to stand up in, without
any window at all. I wonder what that can have been for.”

“I don’t know about the locked doors,” the Captain answered, “but most
likely they lead to the rooms occupied by the people who take care of
the place. There must be somebody in charge of it, and they may have
gone ashore and been kept there by the storm. It is very natural that
they should lock the doors of their rooms on going away. The small dark
cell that you have discovered, however, was the death chamber. When a
prisoner was condemned to death he was taken there without any warning,
generally in the night or early morning. A guillotine was set up there,
and the man never came out alive. I suppose this castle could tell some
terrible tales if it could talk. But we must be thinking of supper.
Haines, you and Henry bring up a few more loads of boards first; that
light wood burns up very rapidly, and it is growing chilly.”

The bare old cell soon looked quite cheerful, with a rousing blaze in
the fireplace, and its five occupants seated on the benches, eating a
good supper and drinking coffee that they had heated over the fire. The
Captain announced during the meal that Silburn was to stand watch from
six to ten, Haines from ten to two, and Harry Leonard from two till six.

“And the watchman must take care of the fire,” he added, “and keep an
eye on the weather. If the wind shifts, I am to be called immediately.”

Kit’s watch carried them through one of the most enjoyable evenings
he had ever spent. With the benches drawn up in front of the fire the
Captain began to spin sea-yarns, and told them tales of adventure and
hairbreadth escape in many seas in various parts of the world. The
chief engineer, too, had a good stock of such stories; and Haines spun
two or three yarns that kept them in roars of laughter.

“I can’t do my share at this business,” Kit lamented. “I’ve hardly seen
a real gale yet, much less had any adventures.”

“That would be no drawback, if you were a real Jack Tar instead of
a supercargo,” the Captain said, laughing. “When Jack is short of
adventures he invents a few. Some of the imaginary yarns are better
than the true ones, too. But you can spin a real yarn some time about
the night you were imprisoned in the Castle d’If.”

By ten o’clock the stories were pretty much all told, the sail, now
thoroughly dry, was spread over the bed of boards, and all but Haines,
the next watch, prepared for sleep. There was no covering, to be sure;
but the blazing fire promised to give them a warm and comfortable
night. Before turning in, the Captain went to the top of the tower, and
found the night intensely dark, but no change in the weather.

When two o’clock came, and Haines aroused Harry Leonard to relieve
him on watch, the others were all fast asleep; but the slight noise
woke the Captain, and he went out quietly to look at the sky, without
finding any change in the wind.

Harry began his watch by putting on more wood, and making a blaze that
illuminated the stone cell beautifully. But about four o’clock the
watchful Captain stirred, turned over, raised his head, and asked:

“Any change yet in the weather, Henry?”

The cell was dark and chilly, the fire burned down, and no answer came
from the watch.

Thoroughly awake in an instant, the Captain sprang up and found Harry
sitting sound asleep on one of the stone seats in the chimney-place.

Surprised and angered at this disobedience of orders, he stepped to
the door to look at the sky again before awaking the watchman in the
emphatic way that he contemplated. He put his thumb on the heavy
wrought-iron latch and pushed against the door, but it would not open.

He pushed harder and shook the door, but instead of its opening, the
shaking only gave him a still greater surprise. He could tell by the
feel and the rattling that the door was held fast by the heavy bolt on
the outside. Somebody or something had shot the bolt!

He went to the window and looked out, but all was black as ink. Then,
hardly able to believe his senses, he returned to the door and shook it
again.

It was so plain that he had to believe it. The bolt was shot, and they
were all securely imprisoned in the cell of Louis-Philippe, in the
Castle d’If.




CHAPTER XIII.

A VISIT TO NOTRE-DAME-DE-LA-GARDE.


The noise made by the Captain in shaking the door aroused Harry, and he
sprang up, looking very much frightened.

“It’s not six o’clock yet, is it, sir?” he asked; “I must have fallen
asleep just a minute ago.”

“Yes, you are a very valuable man on watch,” the Captain answered. “The
fire burned out in that minute while you were asleep, I suppose? And it
must have been in the same minute that some one came along and fastened
the door and locked us all in here, no doubt.”

“Locked us in, sir!” Harry exclaimed. “Why, there is no one on the
island to lock us in. I shut the door some time ago because it was
growing colder. But no one could have locked it.”

He went up to the door and shook it, but of course could not open it.

“The bolt must have slipped when I shut it, sir,” he said. “The wind
was blowing in so hard.”

“No matter what fastened it,” the Captain replied; “it is enough for
us to know that it is fastened. It is much more important to know why
you were asleep when I put you on watch. Don’t you know that that is
one of the most serious offences you could commit? But I shall have
something to say to you about that later on. Start up the fire, and put
the remainder of the coffee on to warm.”

It was in no very pleasant frame of mind that Harry set to work at
building the fire. There was something in the Captain’s manner that
looked ominous. Though it was plain that he was greatly displeased at
such a breach of discipline, and the results that had followed it, he
was cool and quiet, and that promised worse things for the offender
than if he had stormed and blustered. And even in his own mind, Harry
could not excuse himself. He had been left on watch and had gone to
sleep, and while he slept they had been locked in. He could not help
thinking of the death chamber below, and the prisoners called from
sleep to be guillotined. He felt, he imagined, very much as they must
have felt while walking down the stone steps, chained and guarded, to
enter the gloomy chamber.

The noise soon awakened Kit and the chief and Haines, and they could
not believe at first that they were really prisoners. But very little
experimenting with the door convinced each in turn that it was only too
true.

“The bolt must have slipped when the door slammed,” the chief engineer
decided, bringing his mechanical mind to bear on the problem. “Maybe we
can shove it back with a thin strip of board.”

He found a bit that he thought might answer the purpose and went to the
window with it, but one or two trials convinced him that the bolt could
not be reached in that way.

“Don’t waste your strength on that idea,” the Captain said. “These
heavy bolts cannot slip so easily. Indeed, I should be very sorry to
think that it had slipped of itself, for in that case we might possibly
be kept here for days, without sufficient provisions. Evidently some
one has fastened the bolt. Either there was some one else on the island
from the beginning, or the guardian of the castle has returned and shut
us in. I hope that is the case, for whoever shut us in will let us out.
At any rate, we will eat some breakfast before doing anything else. By
that time it will be daylight.”

Somehow it did not seem quite so romantic to be encamped in
Louis-Philippe’s cell when they were actually prisoners. Kit could not
help making a mental picture of some visitor opening the door after
weeks had passed, and finding them all lying starved to death. The
coffee was comforting in the raw morning, but the breakfast was not as
jolly a meal as the supper had been.

“Now,” said the Captain, when they were done eating, “we will see what
we can do toward getting out. It is growing light outside. You reach
a piece of board through the window, Haines, and pound it against the
wall, and halloo at the same time. If there is any one in the castle,
he will be pretty sure to hear it.”

Haines followed these directions, and made such a racket that it seemed
as if it must have been heard across the water in Marseilles.

“Somebody’s coming!” he exclaimed, after a minute or two of pounding.
“I hear a footstep on the stones below.”

“Halloo!” he shouted. “Halloo there! Come and unfasten the door! We
want to get out!”

“Here he comes!” Haines cried, a moment later. “It’s a soldier. He’s
coming up the stairs.”

“Then let me take your place,” the Captain said; “I will do the
talking.”

The footsteps came nearer and nearer around the gallery, and in another
moment a young soldier in the French uniform stood before the window.

“Good morning,” said the Captain. “Just slide that bolt back, please;
we are fastened in here.”

The soldier gave a military salute, but did not stir.

“Oh, he speaks French, of course,” the Captain exclaimed; “and I don’t
know enough of the language to talk to him. Do any of you speak French?”

“I can struggle with it a little,” the chief engineer answered, “though
I know very little about it.” He took the Captain’s place at the
window, and bowed to the soldier.

“Bon jour, monsieur,” he said. “Nous avons une grand desir to--to--(oh,
what a dreadful language!) to sortie. Ouvrir la porte, s’il vous plait.”

The soldier shook his head and made some reply in French.

“What does he say?” the Captain asked.

“He says why don’t we keep quiet,” the chief answered. “Oh, no; hold
on; I got mixed with that. He says why did we come in?”

“Tell him we came to see the castle,” the Captain said, “and could not
get away on account of the storm.”

The chief put this into French as well as he could, and the soldier
immediately began a long and very rapid tirade, in which they caught
the words “deux cent kilos de bois,” “hier soir,” and “batteau des
gendarmes.” But he showed no inclination to open the door.

“What’s all that?” the Captain asked.

“As well as I can make it out,” the chief replied, “he says that he is
the keeper of the castle, and he was detained on shore by the storm.
When the wind abated early this morning he got a boatman to bring him
out, and seeing a light in this cell he came up and found us here. That
we came without permission, and burned up two hundred kilos of his wood
(that’s nearly four hundred pounds), and that he is going to signal for
the police boat and have us taken in charge.”

“Oh, that’s what he is after, is it?” the Captain laughed. “Then I know
a language he will understand. Let me get there a moment.”

Again at the window, the Captain put his hand in his pocket and
drew out a ten-franc gold piece which he held between his thumb and
forefinger where the soldier could see it, and pointed toward the door.

Evidently that was the language he understood best. He immediately
began to smile and reached for the gold, which the Captain handed him;
and in thirty seconds more the big door was unbolted, and they all
slipped out. The gold piece changed the aspect of affairs entirely.
Instead of being their jailer the soldier tried to show them every
attention; and while the chief exchanged a few polite words with him,
Captain Griffith climbed the tower again, and found that the worst of
the wind had died out, what was left coming from another quarter, so
that there was no longer any difficulty about launching the boat.

It took some time to prepare to start, replacing the sail, packing
the dishes, and getting the boat into the water; but the sun was just
nicely up over the Corniche when they sailed into the Old Port again.

After reaching the _North Cape_, Kit soon went ashore to find the
agents; but it was still much too early for the Captain to do any
business at the Custom House, and he remained on board. Harry set about
cleaning the cabin, making a great show of industry, but wondering all
the time what the Captain would say or do to him. He had not forgotten
the remark that Kit had made to him, long before, about the rope’s-end
in the Captain’s room. To be sure, Captain Griffith had always treated
him very kindly; but he had never before done anything quite as bad as
to go to sleep on watch. The thought of the rope’s-end troubled him;
and it was still troubling him when the Captain’s bell rang.

“Now I’m in for it!” he said to himself. “I’m glad there’s nobody else
down here but the steward, anyhow.”

“Come in here and shut the door, Henry,” the Captain said, when he
answered the call.

“Oh, yes, I’m in for it now,” he thought. “This is the death chamber,
sure.”

“Come up here where I can look at you,” the Captain said. He was seated
in front of his desk. “I want to see whether you realize what it means
for a man to go to sleep on watch. If we had been left locked in that
cell, and had all starved there, who would have been responsible for
it?”

“It would have been my fault, sir,” Harry answered.

“It would have been your fault,” the Captain repeated. “If a sailor
goes to sleep on watch, and a collision results, and lives are lost, he
is responsible for it, and the law would punish him. The man on watch
often holds the lives of his comrades in his hand, and he should always
feel the responsibility.”

The Captain stood up as he spoke and stepped toward Harry, but the
cabin boy did not shrink. He had made up his mind to take whatever
came, without flinching.

“I think you understand what a grave fault you committed,” the Captain
went on, laying his hand on Harry’s shoulder, “and feel sorry for it.
That is not all the punishment you deserve, but it is all you will get
this time, as we were on shore and on a pleasure trip. But never let me
catch you asleep on watch again. Now get out about your business.”

Harry was not the first cabin boy who had gone into Captain Griffith’s
room expecting something unpleasant, and had come out feeling that he
would swim through stormy seas to serve such a captain as that. Perhaps
that was the reason that nearly every one of the Captain’s cabin boys
had turned out well.

It was almost noon when Kit returned to the ship, feeling rather
dissatisfied with the way his affairs had gone on shore.

“What’s the matter, Silburn?” the Captain asked him while they sat at
dinner. “Have they been doing you up? You have to look out for them
here, or they’ll get the strings right out of your shoes. This place is
famous for that. They have a large population in Marseilles from Italy,
Spain, Turkey, Greece, Syria, all over creation, all in a hurry to
make money without caring much how it is made. They tell me that when
Marseilles people buy anything in a store they very often won’t let the
shopkeeper wrap it up, for fear he will change it.”

“No, sir,” Kit answered, “they haven’t been robbing me; they have had
no chance. But our agents here are curious sort of people, and I am
afraid they will give me as much trouble as they can. Indeed, they have
given me a great deal more trouble already than there was any need of.
One of the first things they said was that they would smooth the way
for me to get my stuff through, and I could do the same for what they
would send over to New York.”

“Did they, though?” the Captain asked, laughing. “And what did you say
to that?”

“Why, I was green enough not to know what they meant, sir. I supposed
they referred to the cargo, so I said it had been properly entered and
there would be no trouble about getting it through, and it would be the
same thing in New York. I can see now, from the way they looked at me,
that they could not quite make out whether I was really so innocent, or
only pretending to be. At any rate, I soon found that they supposed I
had brought some goods on my own account, which I would want to smuggle
ashore, and that they wanted to send some in the same way when we go
back.”

“That was what they meant, and no mistake,” the Captain said. “There is
a great deal of that kind of business done.”

“Not by me, sir,” Kit went on. “I told them very plainly that I had
brought nothing but what was on my manifests, and that if they wanted
to smuggle anything into New York they would have to try some other
ship. That offended them, I am afraid, for they became very cool, and
left me to find my way about and make my own arrangements. If they can
find any fault here with my work, and give a bad account of me to my
employers, I think they will be pretty sure to do it.”

“Well, you have the satisfaction of being in the right,” the Captain
answered, “and they are very clearly in the wrong. They will hardly be
likely to expose their dishonest intentions by making any complaints
in New York. At any rate, your work will show for itself when you get
back, if you carry it through well.”

“I have got along all right so far without their assistance,” Kit
continued; “but it is a new experience to deal with agents who are
disposed to hinder rather than help.”

“Y-e-s,” said the Captain, dryly. “You will find that you have still
one or two things to learn in the world. Well?”

“I have picked up more information than I should have got if I had been
depending upon them. If they think I can’t land a cargo of oil without
their help, they are very much mistaken.”

“Oh, ho!” the Captain laughed; “my young supercargo is beginning to
feel his oats! Quite right, lad. And if they don’t have the homeward
cargo ready for you promptly, their principals will have something to
say to them. You may be sure of that.”

“This wharf that we are at,” Kit went on, “they call the ‘Quai de la
Fratérnité.’ The oil is to go into that warehouse just across the
street. They talked about keeping us a week before their stevedore
could take out our cargo, so I found one myself and made a contract
with him, and his men are to begin work to-morrow morning.”

“Good for the young American!” the Captain cried. “If these people get
too high, just remember that there is such a thing as a cable under the
ocean, and that in a few hours you can get orders from New York that
they are bound to obey as well as you.”

“Yes, sir; but I hope it will not come to that. That square stone
building across the port,” Kit went on, “is the Hôtel de Ville, or
City Hall. You see I am getting to be quite a Frenchman. And this
wide street that runs down to the end of the port is the Cannebiere,
the main street of Marseilles, that is mentioned so often in ‘Monte
Cristo.’ And when you follow it up a little ways, it changes into the
Allée Meilhan, where Monte Cristo’s father died, you know. Then over at
that corner of the port there begins a wide street called the Rue de la
République, which runs diagonally down to the breakwater.

“Well, you have made good use of your morning,” the Captain declared.

“Oh, that is only a beginning, sir,” Kit laughed. “I hear that this is
considered the unhealthiest city in Europe, because it is so dirty.
Why, only three or four years ago all the sewers emptied into this
basin, and they say the smell of it was something frightful.”

“I can testify to that,” the Captain interrupted. “Last time I was
here it was a standing joke that no ship need take in ballast in
Marseilles--the smell of the harbor was strong enough for ballast. It
is none too sweet yet, for that matter.”

“And still it is a very fine city,” Kit said; “the most interesting
place I have ever seen. There are so many strange things here. That
church of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde keeps staring at me from its hilltop
wherever I go. I have a strong notion to go to see it this afternoon,
for I shall be very busy after we begin work.”

“You will have plenty of time after dinner,” the Captain replied. “And
I can promise you that you will not be disappointed. We don’t hear much
about it in America, because Marseilles is very little known there; but
to my mind that church is one of the greatest sights in Europe. I won’t
go with you this time, for I lost too much sleep last night and want a
nap. But this will be a capital day to go. The Mistral is rising again,
and on the top of that hill you will learn something about the force of
the wind. You can take Henry with you if you want him, for sight-seeing
alone is stupid work.”

Kit was very glad for this permission, both on Harry’s account and his
own; and toward the middle of the afternoon they went ashore and took
an omnibus to the “Garden of the Ascenseurs,” as the starting-point for
the church is called.

“Well, if this is an omnibus, then I never saw a street car,” Harry
declared. “It’s exactly like a street car. Why do they call it an
omnibus, I wonder?”

“Because it does not run on tracks,” Kit explained. “You see there are
no rails; it goes right over the paving-stones. It does look like a
street car, that’s a fact, and has the same small wheels.”

“Everything is different here from anywhere else,” Harry went on. “Just
look at the names of the streets! First we came up the Cannebiere,
then up Rue Paradis. Then we turned up the Cours Pierre Puget into Rue
Breteuil, and now we are going up the Rue Dragon. What would they think
of such names in Huntington, Kit? But the ascenseurs! That’s what takes
me. What are they, Kit? some kind of animals?”

“Why, the word is almost English,” Kit laughed. “We call them
elevators, in London they call them lifts, and in France they are
called ascenseurs. They are elevators, that’s all, to take us up the
hill.”

“Say, old man, I don’t see where you learn so many things!” Harry
exclaimed. “We only got here yesterday, and you travel about this town
like a native.”

“What do you think my eyes are for?” Kit asked. “But here we are. This
seems to be the end of navigation.”

The omnibus had run through a big gateway into a small garden, and
could go no further because at the end of the garden an immense hill of
rock rose almost straight into the air. As they stepped out, an old man
held a tin box in front of them, with a hole in the top to drop coins
through.

“No, thank you,” said Harry, “I don’t care for any to-day. They have a
good stock of beggars in this town,” he added to Kit, “but that’s the
first one I ever saw in uniform.”

“He begs for the sailors’ hospital, so the guidebook says,” Kit
answered, as he dropped a ten-centime piece into the box. “There, what
do you think of going up the hill in that thing?”

He pointed, as he spoke, to a great pile of masonry that rose almost
straight up the side of the hill, with two tracks, one on each side,
and near the top a series of dark and forbidding arches. The whole
thing had an uncanny look; and they heard the rapid flow of a stream of
water, but could not see it.

“Phew!” Harry exclaimed. “I don’t like the looks of it very much. I’ve
never made a practice of going to church in an elevator, you know. But
I suppose it must be safe enough, as other people use it.”

At the foot of the masonry was a small open pavilion where a man
sold tickets for the elevators; and after paying their fares, eighty
centimes, or sixteen cents, each, which entitled them to go up and come
down, they passed through a turnstile and stepped into a car nearly as
large as a small room, with a seat across the back, large windows in
the front, and before the windows a narrow platform, on which stood the
brakeman.

The only other occupant of the car was a priest dressed in the garb
of his order--a low black hat, with broad brim turned up at the sides,
long black robe with a cape, and the usual black bow trimmed with a
narrow edge of white at the throat--the common costume of a Continental
priest. He was a pleasant-looking old man with nearly white hair; and
it was plain that he was accustomed to making the ascent, for he paid
no attention to the strange surroundings, but sat quietly reading a
small book.

“If you tell me what it is, you can have it,” Harry said, nudging Kit
with his elbow and directing his eyes toward the priest. “I suppose
it’s a man, though it’s dressed like a woman. What in the world do they
put black petticoats on their priests for in this part of the world?
But take a look at the hat, will you? Nobody could invent an uglier hat
than that, not if he sat up nights thinking about it.”

Before Kit could reply a bell tapped, the brakeman turned the little
iron wheel by his side, and the car began to ascend--not quietly and
smoothly, like most elevators, but with an oscillating motion and the
noise of a great rush of water.

In half a minute, as they went up, they were far above the roof of the
pavilion, above everything about them but the hill, and Marseilles
seemed to lie at their feet. It was a grand sight from the very
beginning, and grew grander every moment.

“Yes, it’s a big thing, Kit,” Harry cried. “It’s the greatest sight
we’ve seen yet. London hadn’t anything like this to offer.”

At this minute the priest closed his little book and leaned over toward
the boys.

“Is this your first visit to the Church of Our Lady, my young friends?”
he asked, very pleasantly and in excellent English. “You seem to be
strangers. You must let me be your guide when we get to the top, for I
am quite familiar with the place.”

It was such a surprise to the boys that they barely had presence of
mind to answer politely. And Harry could hardly look at the wonderful
view for thinking of the remarks he had made about the obliging
priest’s clothes.




CHAPTER XIV.

THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER FROM ROME.


When the car reached the summit, the priest stepped out, and the boys
followed.

“Here,” he said, stepping up to the parapet and making a sweep around
the horizon with one arm, “you have one of the grandest views in
Europe. It is not as extensive as the view from the Eiffel Tower in
Paris, and of course there is not such a wilderness of buildings around
us. But here you have what is lacking there, a great body of water
for a background. You do not see much of the Mediterranean from this
terrace, because the remainder of the hill is in the way; we still have
a considerable part of the hill to climb, you know. But from the level
of the church there is a grand view of the sea.”

“There could hardly be a better view of the city, sir, than there is
from here,” Kit answered. “The entire place seems to be just below us,
and the hills by which it is enclosed. The Old Port looks from here
like a little pond. But I can make out our ship very plainly, though
she looks like a toy boat from this distance. It is the third steamer
from the end, on this side, sir.”

“Ah, then you are sailors, are you?” the priest asked. “And I know from
your manner of speech that you are Americans.”

“Not exactly sailors, sir,” Harry said, thinking it time for him to
take a little part in the conversation. “Mr. Silburn is supercargo of
that steamer he showed you, the _North Cape_, and I am the cabin
boy.”

“Then you have a great opportunity to see many parts of the world,” the
priest answered. “But in all your travels you will hardly see anything
more unusual than the church we are about to visit. There are other
churches on hilltops, but none with as many curious phases as this. I
have remained for several weeks in Marseilles solely for the sake of
becoming well acquainted with it.”

“Then you do not live in Marseilles, sir?” Kit asked. “I suppose that
according to the custom of the country we ought to call you ‘father’;
but we are Americans and Protestants, and not accustomed to such
things.”

“It is not of the least consequence,” the priest answered, with a
smile. “I would not have you depart from what you believe to be right.
It is not a good plan to be Protestant in America and a Catholic in
Europe and a Mohammedan in Turkey, and a Confucian in China. Whatever
you are, stick to it wherever you go. No,” he went on, “I do not live
in Marseilles. My home overlooks this same beautiful blue sea, but it
is many leagues from here. I live in Rome.”

“We need not linger here,” the priest continued, “for the view is much
broader from the church. Come this way, and we will ascend to the
summit.”

He led the way under a heavy stone arch to a long, broad stone viaduct,
like a bridge, extending from the column of masonry to the hill beyond.
Then the wide stone walk went up, up, with occasional flights of five
or six steps. At the further end of this was a longer flight of stone
steps, then a turn and another flight, and they were in front of the
entrance to a solid stone fort, with a soldier on guard at the gate.
At this level the gale was so strong that they could hardly keep their
feet. But still they kept on, up more stone steps, till they came to
the portico of the church.

“We seem to be the only visitors this afternoon,” the priest said,
“though generally there are a number of persons here. I suppose they do
not like the high wind.”

Instead of ascending the last flight of steps, leading to the interior
of the church, they turned to the left on a broad stone promenade
extending around the building. On one side of this was a low stone
house with several doors, and over one of the doors a sign bearing the
words, “Café, chocolat, vins fins et ordinaire, spiriteaux, tabac.”

“Look at the gin-mill!” Harry exclaimed. “Who ever heard of a--” But he
recollected himself before he went any further, and stopped suddenly.

“Do not stop on my account,” the priest said, with a low, pleasant
little laugh. “It looks odd to you, I know, to see a liquor shop
attached to a church. But every country has its own customs, you know.
And here the conditions are very unusual. This is not only a church,
but a fort too, as well as a signal station. All the ships that enter
the harbor are signalled from the poles on the other side of the
building.”

When they turned the corner, they had a beautiful view of the
Mediterranean for many miles, and the harbor with its forts and
breakwater, and the long range of minor hills and valleys lying between
the city and its encircling mountains.

“This little house, I believe,” the priest said as they turned again,
pointing to a small stone building that stood on the edge of the
promenade, almost overhanging the precipice, “is for the use of the
clergy attached to the church. But I have not made the acquaintance of
any of them, so I cannot take you in. Perhaps we had better go up now
into the church.”

They stopped, however, in front of the church door while the priest
pointed out the moat, crossed by a heavy drawbridge, which they had
come over without noticing.

“On account of the fort it was necessary to make the church capable of
defence also,” he explained. “In case of need the church could make
a very strong defence, with the bridge drawn up. I think you have no
fortified churches in your country?”

[Illustration: “THEY HAD A BEAUTIFUL VIEW OF THE MEDITERRANEAN.”]

“No, sir,” Kit replied; “I never saw one before. There are a great many
things in Europe that we do not have in America.”

“Ah, but you are modest about it!” the priest laughed. “You have also a
great many things there that we do not have here.”

As they ascended the inner steps they found a little shop on each side
of the entrance, kept by elderly women who were evidently sisters of
some order, as they were clad from head to foot in white nuns’-cloth.
The goods they sold were crosses, medallions, strings of beads,
pictures of the church, and other sacred emblems. And just outside, in
full view, was the office where masses for the repose of the souls of
the dead could be arranged for and the bills paid, and where large and
small candles for church use were also sold.

A big doorway on the first landing opened into a crypt or lower chapel;
but the iron gate across was locked, and they went up another flight
of steps to the church proper--a church of no unusual size, but one of
the handsomest and most artistic in France, with walls and pillars of
marble, red jasper, and other costly materials. Near the doors were
two large stands with innumerable holders for candles, in which many
were burning, some as tall as a man, others not much larger than the
ordinary household candles.

The priest had pointed out the curious toy ships hanging from the
ceiling, all offerings from mariners who had been delivered from
peril; the hundreds of tablets on the walls, “like peppermint lozenges
with blue borders,” as Harry whispered to Kit; and the costly altar
decorations, when he suddenly stopped and looked at his watch.

“I think we had better go out a moment,” he said, “and learn how late
the ascenseurs run. It would be awkward to be left up here after they
had made their last trip for the night.”

When they reached the stone promenade they saw several men running at
great speed toward the ascenseurs; but whether something had happened
or whether the men were trying to catch the car, was more than they
could tell. The priest, however, asked the attendant who sat near the
church door, and so learned the truth.

“There is some trouble with the ascenseurs,” he explained, after a
short conversation in French with the attendant. “Not exactly an
accident, but some part of the engine was broken down, and they cannot
run till it is repaired. They think all will be in order again in half
an hour, so we need give ourselves no uneasiness about it.”

“That is a capital illustration of the fallibility of all things
human,” he continued, as they stepped back out of the wind. “Those
ascenseurs are supposed to be as nearly perfect as such mechanism can
be made. It was thought that nothing could possibly happen to them.
They operate on what is known as the ‘water balance’ system. As one car
goes down the other goes up; and there is a water tank under each car.
Before a car starts from the top, its tank is filled with water by an
engine that forces the water up through a pipe, and the added weight of
the water makes it so much heavier that it easily draws the other car
up. Then there are four large wire cables attached to each car, besides
the usual devices for bringing the cars to a stop in case the cables
should break. That looks as if every possible danger had been guarded
against, doesn’t it? Yet some trifling thing about the engine gives
way, and the whole beautiful mechanism is for the time made useless.
You will find all through life, my boys, that no matter how carefully
you lay your plans, they will sometimes miscarry. It is only those
things that the great Creator arranges for us that always go right.
This solid church may crumble, but the skies above it will still be as
blue, the wind still sweep as furiously across the summit of this hill.
Remember that, my children. Whether you follow the faith that I love,
or the newer forms that I hope you love equally well, you must find in
the end that all rests upon the one foundation, the great Creator who
makes no mistakes, whose love is eternal, who doeth all things well.”

Kit looked up in surprise to hear a priest speak in this way. There
were few Catholics in his part of Fairfield County, and he had never
given the subject much attention; but from what he had heard of them he
rather imagined that they--well, not that they would eat him exactly,
or insist upon burning candles in front of his face, but that at any
rate they would not be likely to see good in any religion except their
own. But this man was very different from the hazy ideas he had had
of Catholic priests. He did not look or speak like a bigot. As Kit
examined his face more closely he thought it one of the most kindly
and most intellectual faces he had ever seen. And certainly he was a
man of great knowledge. Whatever subject came up in the conversation,
he was familiar with. He had even talked about the management of a
steamship as knowingly as if he had been a sailor. He spoke English
and French with equal ease; as a priest he must also speak Latin; and
as a resident of Rome he must speak Italian. Kit noticed, too, that
although his outer clothing was shaped in the usual priestly fashion,
it was made of very fine materials. His boots were delicate and highly
polished.

The greater part of the half-hour they spent in examining the curious
objects in the church, and what the boys did not understand the priest
explained to them. He was an invaluable guide and a pleasant companion,
and they were sorry when he said that they had better go out again to
see whether the ascenseurs were yet running.

They were surprised to find that it was pitch dark when they went out
into the air, for the church was lighted with gas. And the wind had
increased and was blowing even a worse gale than before. They groped
their way down the steps as far as the entrance to the fort, and the
priest held a short conversation with the guard.

“He says the break has proved more serious than was thought,” their
guide said, “and the ascenseurs will not be able to move for several
hours. But workmen are busy making repairs, and they will be in running
order again some time during the evening. So under the circumstances I
think it will be safer for us to wait. Of course there is a path down
the hill, as I know to my cost, for I walked down it a few days ago,
lost my way, and had to do more climbing than I have done since I was
about your age. But it would be extremely difficult and dangerous in
this darkness, and on such a night. We cannot well wait so long in
the church; but if you will come with me, I will see whether I cannot
induce the authorities to give us more comfortable quarters.”

“You must not put yourself to any trouble on our account, sir,” Kit
answered, though he was rather pleased at the idea of spending a few
hours more with so agreeable a companion, as well as with having
another little adventure on his second night in Marseilles. “We can get
along very well in any sheltered place; and as you are a stranger here
it might put you to some inconvenience.”

“I am not a stranger in any church dedicated to the Holy Mother of
God,” the priest answered; and from the movement of his hands the boys
imagined that he was crossing himself, though it was too dark for them
to see. And he spoke as if he felt as sure of finding a welcome there
as though he were about to open the door of his own house.

The priest led the way up the steps again to the church door, and said
a few words in French to the attendant, which of course the boys did
not understand. But as he drew a silver card-case from an inner pocket
and handed a card to the man, they rightly judged that he was inquiring
for the clergyman in charge, and sending his card to him.

“I did not intend to introduce myself in Marseilles,” he said, after
the man had disappeared with the card; “but my poor old throat is too
weak to risk long exposure on such a night, and I must find shelter.
And you shall share it with me, for I am your guide, philosopher, and
friend on this occasion. You need not be surprised at anything you may
see. You are in the house of God, and in company of one of the humblest
of his servants.”

Kit would have given a great deal for a chance to exchange a few
words with Harry. But as that was impossible he had to do his own
thinking unassisted. He began to feel somehow as if he was on the
brink of another adventure, perhaps stranger even than the night in
Louis-Philippe’s cell. This was no ordinary priest, he was sure.
Instead of acting like a man asking for shelter, he seemed rather to be
waiting for something that he was entitled to.

And what could he mean by telling them not to be surprised at anything
they might see? Surprised! the boys were surprised enough already.
Their weird surroundings thrilled them. The hill of Notre-Dame, with
all its strange accessories, is thrilling under the broad noonday sun;
but on this night of inky darkness, with the lights of Marseilles
twinkling far beneath them, and the church walls, though solid as the
fort itself, trembling under the thundering blasts of the gale, it was
enough to stir the blood of older men than Kit or Harry, without the
addition of a mysterious priest warning them against surprise.

In a few minutes they heard footsteps coming down one of the long,
gloomy aisles, and the attendant returned, accompanied by a priest
dressed precisely like their companion, except that he carried no
hat. He looked around for a moment in the semi-darkness, this second
priest, approached the little group, and immediately dropped upon his
knees before the stranger. As he did so, the latter put out both hands
as if to help him rise, and the boys noticed that their companion had
removed his gloves, that his hands were beautifully small and white,
and that upon one of his fingers was a large and sparkling seal ring.
The kneeling priest took the hands in his and either kissed one of them
or kissed the ring, it was impossible to tell which.

The boys disobeyed instructions at once. They were both surprised
already.

Before rising the priest received the benediction from the newcomer,
and in another moment they were conversing in Latin; not, it seemed
to Kit, like equals talking together, but more like an inferior
speaking to a superior. The conversation lasted for some minutes;
and at its conclusion the priest of the church, with a profound bow,
led the way down the steps, across the stone promenade, and into the
small house in which, as their guide had told them, the clergy made
their headquarters. It was not, as the boys soon saw, a place where
the priests lived, but simply where they could sit and read and make
themselves comfortable while waiting for the numerous services during
the day and evening; and an adjoining room, the door of which stood
open when they entered, was evidently devoted to the uses of the
sisters in white.

The room was in darkness at first, but the priest began to light the
wax candles that seemed to be kept more for ornament than use, and
it was soon bright as day. He drew up chairs for the visitor and his
companions, and then, with many low bows, excused himself and went out.
The apartment looked somewhat bare, but its scant furniture was heavy
and solid.

“This will answer our purpose while we are detained here,” their friend
said when they were alone. “I have asked them to let us have a fire,
for the wind makes the air chilly.”

In an incredibly short time, the priest returned with a number of
attendants, each bearing a load of some kind--attendants, who were
evidently young men in training for the priesthood, for they all wore
semi-priestly costumes. Two of them carried a large and handsomely
carved armchair from the church. Another had a large purple cloth over
his arm. Another bore a footstool, and still another brought an armful
of wood.

Surprising as all this was, the boys were still more surprised to see
that each person as he entered the room immediately dropped upon his
knees, and rose only when their guide motioned them to do so, which he
did immediately. The two with the big chair had to set it down before
they could kneel; but the young man with the armful of wood had the
hardest time getting down and up again.

The big chair was placed by the side of the hearth, and with the heavy
purple cloth thrown over it, and the footstool in front, it began
to look, the boys thought, very much like a throne. But their guide
seated himself in it as readily as if a throne was his customary seat,
and talked in Latin again with the priest, while one of the young men
started a blazing fire. When the priest withdrew again, as he did in a
few minutes, accompanied by the young men, it was with many low bows,
and walking backward toward the door.

“Some of them are going to break their necks if this thing keeps on,”
Harry said to himself. He was fairly tingling for a chance to talk to
Kit, but that was still impossible. “But I’d like to know what sort of
a Grand High Panjandrum this is we’re travelling with. It must be an
awful nuisance to be such a big gun that people have to get down on
their knees to you. Why, I don’t believe you have to kneel when you go
to see the Governor of Connecticut; no, nor the President.”

“They are going to bring us some trifling refreshment,” their guide
said, “as we shall lose our dinners through this accident to the
ascenseurs.” Then seeing that the boys hardly knew how to conduct
themselves in what was for them a very awkward situation, he skilfully
led them into conversation. How long had they been in Marseilles, and
what had they seen?

Kit was soon started with the story of their visit to the Castle
d’If and what befell them there, in which their friend was very much
interested. Then he was led on and on, almost without knowing it, to
tell something of his own history; and that took him naturally to the
disappearance of his father, and the possibility that he might be the
strange man in the New Zealand hospital.

“It is a great trial to be kept in such suspense,” their guide said;
“but whatever comes of it you must always feel that it is for the best.
I am glad to know that I may perhaps be of a little assistance to you
in such a matter. We may never meet again, but I shall be happy if I
can give you cause to remember your visit to Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde
with the stranger from Rome. I have a very dear friend in New Zealand
who may be of the greatest assistance to you in identifying the man in
the hospital, or in providing suitably for him if he proves to be your
father--as indeed I hope he may. I will give you a line to my friend,
and you must not hesitate to use it if occasion arises.”

He took from an inner pocket, as he spoke, a small letter-case with
silver clasp and corners, opened it, and with the fountain pen it
contained wrote a brief letter, resting the case upon his knee,
enclosed it in an envelope which he addressed, and handed it to Kit.

“If you should go to New Zealand to make inquiries for yourself,” he
said, “do not fail to present it, or if you send it by mail, write a
letter of your own to accompany it, explaining the case. You will find
it of use to you.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” Kit answered, as he took the letter. “I
cannot tell what will be best to do till we hear from the consul there.”

The letter-case was hardly restored to its place before the priest
returned, bringing again several attendants who carried a large tray
loaded with silver eating and drinking utensils, a silver urn of
steaming tea, bread, meats, cakes, fruit, nuts, and cheese. Again they
all went through the kneeling process; and they were shortly followed
by several more priests, who were duly introduced to the distinguished
visitor.

While they were eating, all the priests and attendants withdrew; and
the “they” included the boys as well as the stranger, for he had
thoughtfully asked for food for his friends as well as for himself.
After a suitable interval the priests returned, kneeling as before, the
tray was removed, and the priests, at the stranger’s bidding, drew up
chairs, and a conversation followed, sometimes in Latin, sometimes in
French.

The boys could easily see that they were as much of a mystery to the
priests as the whole thing was to them. Here were two young men, whose
dress showed that they were not in holy orders, who did not even speak
the language of the country, but who sat and talked and ate with the
distinguished stranger as if with an equal; who did not kneel to him,
did not even bow when they stood before him, but spoke to him and asked
him questions as freely as if he had been their father. If the boys
could have understood a few words of the conversation, their situation
would have been much less awkward; but it was all as bad as Greek to
them, and they could do nothing but sit and listen.

For the next hour or two the priests were in and out, bowing themselves
out backwards always as they retired, kneeling always as they entered;
and in the intervals the boys enjoyed the conversation of their guide,
who had been in many countries and had seen many strange things. He had
been in America, much to their delight, and could tell them more than
they knew about New York and Boston. He had been in Bridgeport, too;
but when they asked whether he had been in Huntington he smiled and
shook his head.

There was no need now to make inquiries about the repairs to the
ascenseurs, for every priest who entered the room had something to say
about the progress of the work, and the visitor kept the boys informed
in English. They would be running again in an hour; in half an hour; in
ten minutes. Then came the news that they were running, but would make
a few trips first to be sure of their safety. It was between eleven and
twelve o’clock when they were told that all was in readiness for them
to descend.

Outside the door of the little house were two young attendants with
lanterns; and the priests themselves were there to take their visitor
by the arms and help him down through the stormy darkness to the
ascenseurs. And four priests went down with them in the car; and in the
pavilion at the bottom the whole four fell upon their knees around the
stranger to receive his benediction before he left them. And a handsome
carriage was waiting (the priests had taken care of that), in which the
stranger insisted that the boys should drive with him into the city.

“I am staying at the Hôtel de Louvre et de la Paix,” he said, “so it
will be directly in my way to set you down at the Old Port where your
ship lies.”

He bade them a fatherly good-by when they got out, and they climbed
aboard the _North Cape_ in the darkness.

“Just pinch me, will you, Kit,” Harry said, when they were safely on
deck. “I don’t know whether I’m a cabin boy or a sort of graven image
on that big altar.”

Captain Griffith was still up and reading, and he called the boys into
his room.

“You made a long visit to that church,” he said. “I was getting a
little alarmed about you.”

“We have been in good company, sir,” Kit answered. And he briefly told
the story of their adventure. “I really don’t feel quite sure yet that
we have not been dreaming,” he concluded. “Yes, it must have been real,
though, for here is the letter the gentleman gave me.”

He held the dainty envelope down under the light, and read the
address:--

      “THE MOST REVEREND
  THE BISHOP OF NEW ZEALAND
      _Wellington, N.Z._”

“Well,” the Captain exclaimed, “the letter is not sealed. You can
easily tell by the signature who your distinguished friend was.”

Kit took the letter out and tried to read it, but soon gave it up.

“It is all written in Latin, and I can’t make out a word of it,” he
said, handing it to the Captain.

“Don’t you see that little scarlet emblem up in the corner?” the
Captain asked, as soon as he glanced at it. “That is the emblem of a
cardinal, as I thought everybody knew. Yes, certainly. It is signed
‘Galotti.’ You youngsters have been hobnobbing with Cardinal Galotti.
Get off to bed, Henry; I can’t have my cabin boy fooling around with
Princes of the Church.”




CHAPTER XV.

NEWS FROM NEW ZEALAND.


The little cottage in Huntington took on a new coat of white while
Kit was seeing the world and earning money beyond the sea. All the
weak spots were mended, the yard was put in order, the trees trimmed,
and in the rear a neat garden was made, where, toward the end of the
afternoons, Mrs. Silburn and Vieve went out in sunbonnets and pulled
weeds and did such other work as women’s hands were able to perform. It
was a very different looking place from the dingy spot it had become a
year before under the shock of its owner’s disappearance. And better
than all, the last cent of indebtedness upon it had been paid off.

“I am glad you are able to do this, Mrs. Silburn; glad on your own
account,” the lawyer said when she made the last payment. “I hardly
expected it, with the trouble you have had. I was prepared to give you
as much time as you wanted in paying this up.”

“Oh, you have been very good, Mr. Clarkson,” Mrs. Silburn answered.
“For a time I thought I should have to ask you for an extension. But I
did not know then what a good boy I had. Yes, I knew it of course; but
I did not know that he would be able to do so much for me so soon.”

“Yes, you have a good boy, and no mistake,” the lawyer assented. “But
you can hardly call him a boy any more. When do you expect him home
again?”

“In three or four weeks, now, I hope. And you know we have a little
hope of seeing some one else, too. It is a faint chance; but if the
man I told you of in the New Zealand hospital should prove to be my
husband, we want to have everything in order for him when he returns.
That is the reason Kit was so anxious to have the house painted; and
that is why I have struggled to have all the debts paid. We are looking
every day for a letter from the consul in New Zealand.”

It was putting it very mildly to say that they were “looking” for a
letter from the consul. They were so eager for it that they did not
let a single mail arrive without going to the little post-office on
the hill. Not only that, but they had matters arranged so that as
Vieve came down the hill from the office, she could let her mother
know in advance of her arrival whether she had got any letters. Their
front windows looked across to the diagonal road that went up past the
post-office; and Vieve was to wave the letter, if she got one, as she
came down the hill, so that her mother, sitting sewing by the window,
would see it.

Vieve was cook and housekeeper, now that her mother was busy all day
sewing, and she took pride in leaving everything in good order when she
started for school. Not that the cooking was very hard work. They often
said, laughingly, that Kit would give them both a good scolding if he
should come home unexpectedly and see what they had for breakfast. A
cup of coffee, a few slices of bread and butter, occasionally some
eggs, or a handful of radishes from the garden, made their usual fare;
and the other meals were equally light, though Mrs. Silburn insisted
that every few days they should have a steak or some chops for health’s
sake.

“It’s a sinful waste of money!” Vieve always declared. “We don’t need
them half as much as we need the money. Remember you can’t bring a man
home from New Zealand for nothing. Anyhow, it’s a shame for us to eat
up the money that Kit works so hard for--and you sewing, sewing all the
time. I’m going to find a way to earn a little money myself, as soon as
I can. I don’t want to be the only one to make nothing.”

“Then who will take care of me?” Mrs. Silburn’s invariable answer was.

One morning she knew there was a letter by the way Vieve came running
down the hill, even before it was waved in the air for her. And Vieve
burst in flushed and breathless.

“I’m almost afraid to open it,” Mrs. Silburn said. “So much depends
upon this letter, and it may crush all our hopes.”

“Not _this_ letter!” Vieve laughed. “This is not from that consul
man, this is from Kit; and his letters never crush anybody’s hopes.”

It was a letter telling of his safe arrival in Marseilles, and his
night in Louis-Philippe’s cell in the Castle d’If, and his visit
to Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde with Harry and their meeting with the
distinguished stranger who proved to be a cardinal.

“A cardinal!” Vieve exclaimed; “just think of our Kit travelling about
with a cardinal. He’ll be so proud when he gets home we won’t know what
to say to him.”

“Indeed, I think any cardinal or anybody else ought to be proud to
associate with a young man like Kit,” Mrs. Silburn hastened to answer.
“I don’t know that I want him running about with cardinals, either.
They’re papists, and the papists are all tricky. It would be just
like them to try to make a Catholic of such a young man. That Louise
Phillips, or whatever her name was, can consider herself very much
honored, too, that Kit visited her cell.”

“Why, mother,” Vieve laughed, “Louis-Philippe was a man; a king, a
prince, or something.”

“I don’t care,” Mrs. Silburn went on, “Kit’s just as good as any of
them. Don’t bother, now, till I finish the letter. What do I care for
their kings or cardinals when I have a letter from Kit?

“‘The cardinal gave me a letter to the Bishop of New Zealand,’ she
continued to read from the letter, ‘and it may be of service to us
there. But I hope you have heard from the consul before this. I almost
wish I had asked you to send me a cable despatch telling me when you
got a letter and what it said. But cabling is so expensive--about forty
cents a word to Marseilles--that I shall have to wait in patience
till I get home. That will be in about three weeks after you get this
letter, I think; and I will be out to see you just as soon as I get my
cargo disposed of.’

“I do hope we will hear from that consul before Kit gets back,” Mrs.
Silburn said, after finishing the letter; and for the twentieth time
she figured out, as well as she could, how long it ought to take a
letter to go from London to New Zealand, and how long for the reply to
come to America.

“Well,” she continued, “Kit will find things very much improved here
when he comes home. I never saw the old place look so well. If only
he could stay here longer to enjoy it! He works and works to keep a
comfortable home for us, and then never can stay in it more than a few
days at a time. But you must be off to school, Vieve; and don’t forget
to put on your overshoes, the streets are so muddy. I don’t know how
many times I have told you to go and buy a new pair, but you go on
wearing those old things, full of holes. You’ll catch your death of
cold.”

“I don’t need new ones, mother,” Vieve replied. “They don’t grow on the
trees, you know, and all these things cost money. I’m not going to be
spending all of Kit’s money for my clothes.”

“You foolish child, don’t you know that he always likes to buy things
for you? He’d rather get new clothes for you than for himself.”

“I know it, mother,” Vieve answered. “He slipped some money into my
hand last time he was home, you know, and told me to buy something for
myself. But I’m not going to do it; I’d rather save it; you know what
for.”

“You don’t want your father to come home and find that you’ve died of
diphtheria, do you?” Mrs. Silburn asked. “Well, you must have your own
way about it, I suppose. Stop at the butcher’s when you come home at
noon, Vieve, and get a slice of ham--not a very thick slice. There are
two or three eggs left, and that will do for our dinner.”

It was as well that Kit could not see the pinching little ways at
home, or he would have worried over it. It was something new for the
Silburn family to live in this way, for Kit’s father had always made
good pay, and insisted upon the wife and children having plenty of
everything. But when he disappeared there came a change, and there
were grave doubts for a time whether Mrs. Silburn could make both
ends meet, even with the most rigid economy. Then Kit began to earn
a little; but although nearly every cent of his went to his mother,
she was determined that every cent of his little savings should be
set aside for his future use. It was only when there seemed a slight
possibility of her husband’s being alive that she consented to use some
of his money to repair and paint the house and pay the last of the
indebtedness upon it. Her own small income barely sufficed to buy the
plainest food. There was always, now, some of Kit’s money in the house;
but of their own, as they called it, money that they were willing to
spend, they were often reduced to two or three dollars.

Not long after the receipt of Kit’s letter, Vieve once more waved a
white envelope as she descended the hill from the post-office, and this
proved to be the long-expected answer from the consul in New Zealand.
Mrs. Silburn turned it over and over many times, and examined the
address and the postmarks and the strange stamp on the corner, before
she could raise courage to open it. It was addressed to “Christopher
Silburn, Esq.,” as it was in answer to his letter; and her agitation
was so great that she was half inclined to make this a pretext for
letting it stand unopened until Kit returned.

“Why, mother,” Vieve urged, “you know that was all arranged. He said
the answer would be addressed to him, but that we should open it just
the same. He would think we took no interest in it if we didn’t open
it.”

“No, Kit couldn’t think that!” Mrs. Silburn declared; “he knows us too
well for that.”

With trembling hand she cut off the end of the envelope with her
scissors; but that was as far as she could go. That letter was
destined, probably, either to overwhelm them with joy or fill them with
grief; and she could not bring herself to look at it.

“Here, you read it,” she said, handing it, still in its envelope, to
Vieve. “My hands shake so I can hardly hold it.”

Vieve quickly took out the letter and unfolded it.

  U. S. CONSULATE, WELLINGTON, N. Z. [she read].

  CHRISTOPHER SILBURN, ESQ., Huntington, Conn.

  _Dear Sir_:--Your letter in regard to the supposed American
  sailor in the hospital in this place was duly received, and I have
  made such investigations as the data you supplied made possible. I
  also secured the services of a physician to compare the unfortunate
  man with your description, thinking that his larger experience in
  such matters would give his opinion greater value than my own.

  But I regret that with all these inquiries my answer must still
  leave you in doubt whether this man is your father or not. We
  imagine that there is a slight scar upon the left temple, but it
  is so indistinct, if there really is one, that we think it hardly
  corresponds with the one you describe. Still we are not prepared to
  say definitely that it does not.

  This man’s height is about five feet nine and a half inches, and
  you say your father was 5, 10½. But he stoops so much that it is
  difficult to get his height correctly, and he may in better days
  have been 5, 10½. We are not prepared to either say that his eyes
  are brown; they are a sort of brownish gray; and his weight is
  about 140 pounds, though it was only 127 when he was received in
  the hospital.

  The teeth almost answer the description you give, being perfect
  except that one incisor on the left side is partly broken off. That
  is an accident, however, that might have happened since you last
  saw him.

  On the whole, as I said before, I am unable from your description
  to decide whether this man is your father or not. I have mentioned
  to him all the names and incidents given in your letter, without
  the least result. He improves in physical health daily, but there
  is no corresponding improvement in his mental condition. His memory
  seems entirely dormant.

  I had him photographed some time ago, but before the prints were
  made the negative was destroyed in a fire that burned a large
  share of the business portion of this city; and as soon as the
  photographers are able to resume business I will have a new
  negative made and send you a photograph.

  I suggest that you send me as many further particulars as you can;
  and meanwhile you may rest assured that this unfortunate man,
  whether he prove to be your father or not, is comfortably situated
  and receiving all necessary attention.
                   Yours very truly,
                                    HY. W. W. WILKINS,
                   _Vice-Consul of the U. S., Wellington, N. Z._

“Well, if _that_ ain’t a disappointing letter!” Mrs. Silburn
exclaimed, when Vieve had finished reading. “I should think a man right
there on the spot could tell something about it. Won’t poor Kit be
disappointed when he comes home, after all these weeks of waiting!”

“And still he has taken a great deal of pains about it,” Vieve
suggested; “even to getting a doctor, and having a photograph taken. We
can’t blame him because he is not able to say yes or no to a certainty.
He knows how awkward it would be if he should say ‘Yes, this is the
man,’ and then after we got him home he should prove to be another man
entirely. I am glad he is so careful about it, at any rate. And it
seems to me there is a great deal in the letter that is encouraging.
Let’s read it over again, and pick out the good points.”

“But you will be late for school, Vieve,” her mother objected.

“School!” Vieve cried; “if I hurry, I may learn that Rio Janeiro is on
the east coast of South America; and I don’t care a fig if it’s on the
west coast of Asia, when there may be news about father.”

Mrs. Silburn looked up in surprise at hearing Vieve speak in this
way, for school was a pleasure to her, not a labor. She saw that the
light-hearted girl was in a great state of excitement, though she tried
hard to suppress it, and the look was the last straw that brought on
the storm.

“Oh, mamma!” she sobbed, with one arm across her eyes. “I believe that
man--that man--in New Zealand--is my father!”

With another burst of tears she threw her arms around her mother’s
neck and sobbed till the chair shook. And as such things are always
contagious, Mrs. Silburn was soon crying too; and if tears are a
relief, they must have felt much better, for it was ten or fifteen
minutes before they were able to look at the letter again.

“Suppose it is your father,” Mrs. Silburn said at length, in a mildly
chiding tone; “that’s nothing to cry about, is it? This unsatisfactory
letter only makes another delay, that’s all. Kit will know what to
do when he comes. He always knows. What is it the man says about your
father’s teeth?”

“Well, he don’t say they’re father’s teeth,” she answered, trying to
laugh off the remnants of her tears. “But he says that that man’s
teeth--let me see what he does say--” and she turned to the letter
again.

“‘The teeth almost answer the description you give,’” she read, “‘being
perfect except that one incisor--’ what’s an incisor? oh, yes, I know;
‘that one incisor on the left side is partly broken off.’”

“Now isn’t that a good point?” she asked. “There ain’t many people have
teeth like father’s, I tell you. And it’s nothing that one of them
should be broken. I guess if we went through such a shipwreck we’d have
more broken than one tooth. It’s easy to see how a mast, or a keel, or
a--a--a breakwater or something might have struck him while he was in
the water.

“Then there’s that scar,” she went on. “Let me see--” and she found
that part of the letter again. “‘We imagine that there is a slight scar
upon the left temple,’” she read. “Now why should they imagine it if it
wasn’t there? You don’t imagine a scar; you see it. Oh, we couldn’t ask
for anything better than that.”

There was no school for Vieve that morning; she was too much excited
over the letter. But after it had been read again and well studied she
drew her father’s armchair to his favorite place by the fireside, got
out his slippers and stood them in order in front of the chair, just
ready to be stepped into, and laid in the chair his pocket knife, that
had been one of their treasures ever since Kit brought it home from
London. Then she called in Turk and made him sit down beside the chair.

“There!” she said; “there’s a beginning. We have the chair, the
slippers, the knife, and Turk waiting to be petted. And in New Zealand
we have got as far as father’s beautiful teeth and the scar on the
temple. Before long we’ll have a whole father sitting here with us, or
I’m very much mistaken. I don’t feel so much as if he was missing now.
We know where he is (at least I think we do), and we have only to get
him home.”

“Ah, you are very hopeful, Vieve,” her mother sighed. “I only wish I
felt as sure of it as you do.”

It was only two or three mornings after the receipt of the consul’s
letter that Vieve once more waved an envelope as she hurried down the
post-office hill.

“It’s another from Kit, mother,” she cried, as she burst into the room;
“and it was registered and I had to sign a receipt for it, so there
must be something important in it.”

There was no hesitation ever about opening Kit’s letters; they were
always so hopeful and cheery.

“We are going to get our cargo in a little sooner than we expected,” he
wrote, “and in about two weeks or two and a half after you receive this
you may hear of our arrival in New York.

“I intended to send you the cardinal’s letter last time I wrote, but I
was interrupted and had to mail it in a hurry, so I waited to send it
in this. And I will register this letter to guard against it’s being
lost in the mails, as a note from so powerful a person might be of
great use to us in New Zealand, and I must not lose it. It is written
in Latin, as you will see; and I am sorry to say that not one of us on
the ship knows enough about Latin to read it. But maybe you can get our
minister in Huntington or Vieve’s teacher to translate it for you. I
should like to know myself what is in it. I shall not be very long, I
tell you, about learning some languages besides English. I did not know
how much use they could be to a man till I came to travel. I am picking
up a little French in dealing with these French people, but have not
had much time for it--for you must not think I have had nothing to do
in Marseilles but look at the sights. I heard a funny little story the
other day about an Englishman who was learning French. You know the
‘sea’ in French is _mer_, pronounced _mare_, and ‘horse’ is
_cheval_. ‘Well,’ said he, after taking a few lessons, I never can
learn such a foolish language as this, where the sea is a mare and a
horse is a shovel.’”

“Did you ever see such a boy!” Mrs. Silburn exclaimed, handling
Kit’s letter as if it were more precious than gold. “He always finds
something funny wherever he goes.”

But Vieve was very much interested in the cardinal’s note, and the
little scarlet emblem in the corner.

“I might take it to school and ask the teacher to translate it,” she
said; “but I think Mr. Wright would be more interested in it. He always
takes such an interest in Kit; and then although he is a minister,
maybe he has never seen a letter from a cardinal.”

That same afternoon she took the letter to Mr. Wright, the clergyman
who preached in the church across the road, and he readily consented to
translate it.

“That is, if I can,” he added, smiling. “It is one good thing about the
Catholics that they teach their young men Latin much more thoroughly
than we learn it in our schools. The priests cannot only read and write
it, but they can always converse in it fluently. But I think I can
translate this for you; at any rate, I will write it out for you in
English, for you probably could not remember it all.”

He read it over first carefully, and then wrote the following
translation:--

  MOST REVEREND AND WELL BELOVED BROTHER: This will be
  presented to you by Mr. Christopher Silburn, a young American in
  whom I take an interest.

  His father has been shipwrecked and has disappeared, and it is
  hoped that a sailor now in one of your New Zealand hospitals may
  prove to be the missing man.

  I bespeak for my young friend your good offices in whatever manner
  may be fitting.

  Accept, brother, the assurance of my continued love and esteem.
                                              GALOTTI.

“Galotti--Galotti,” Mr. Wright said, musingly, as he copied the
signature; “why, there is a celebrated cardinal of that name. This can
hardly be from Cardinal Galotti, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir,” Vieve answered, swelling a little with pride in her
brother; “that is the man. He is one of Kit’s friends in Marseilles.”

Such an astonishing statement had to be explained; and in answer to
her pastor’s questions she repeated the story of their meeting in the
strange church as Kit had told it in his letter.

“I am remarkably glad to hear it,” Mr. Wright said, when she finished.
“Kit is a good boy, and sure to make good friends wherever he goes.
But I imagine you have no idea what a powerful friend he has made this
time. The cardinals hold the very highest position in the Catholic
Church, next to the Pope himself. Such a letter as this from a cardinal
to a bishop is almost equal to a royal command, and may be of the
greatest use to you. Wait a minute; I think I can tell you something
about Cardinal Galotti.”

He turned to a bookcase and took down a volume, and in a few minutes
continued:--

“Yes, Galotti is one of the most eminent of the cardinals, and
may eventually be the Pope himself. All the cardinals are called
ecclesiastical princes, you know; but Galotti is a temporal prince as
well, being a prince of Italy. No wonder he seemed so much at ease in
the little throne they arranged for him in that curious church. I
don’t believe in such things myself; but I am truly glad that Kit has
made so powerful a friend.”

Whether Vieve had anything to say to the girls at school about “Kit’s
friend the cardinal,” would be hard to tell; but in a little over two
weeks more she ran down the post-office hill so fast one morning that
her mother knew she had some news, though there was no letter in her
hand.

What she had was a little slip that one of the neighbors she met in the
office had torn out of his New York newspaper for her. It was only one
line of fine type, under the heading “Arrived Yesterday”:

“_North Cape_, Griffith, from Marseilles.”




CHAPTER XVI.

KIT LEAVES THE “NORTH CAPE.”


Though the voyage to and from Marseilles had been a pleasant one,
and the business had been transacted in a way that he knew must be
satisfactory to his employers, Kit was remarkably glad when the
_North Cape_ was inside of Sandy Hook again. It was time, more
than time, for an answer to his letter to New Zealand; and although at
his last news from home no answer had arrived, he felt sure that he
must find one when he reached Huntington.

“I shall be busy for five or six days getting out my cargo,” he wrote
home when his first rush on arrival was over; “but you can expect to
see me by the beginning of next week. I have so many things to tell
you; and I hope you will have news for me from Wellington.”

He was to have more things to tell them when he got to Huntington than
he then had any idea of; but he sent some messages and packages home by
Harry Leonard, as before, and worked away at his cargo till the greater
part of it was in the warehouse.

He had eight hundred boxes of soap among his other cases, for
Marseilles is a great point for the manufacture of soaps; “and it’s a
pity they send so much of it away,” he often said to himself, “when
they’re in such need of it over there.” But his soap needed particular
attention; and he had to make several trips to his employers’ office to
get directions concerning it. On his return from one of these trips he
went into the cabin and found that there was a visitor in the Captain’s
room.

“Come in, Silburn,” the Captain called through the open door. “Here’s a
friend of yours come to see you.”

Kit went in, wondering whether his mother could have received important
news and hastened to the city to tell him of it; but his hand was
instantly seized by the rotund purser Clark, of the _Trinidad_, as
fat and bluntly good-natured and short-breathed as ever.

“Glad to see you again, Silburn,” the purser puffed. “It’s not so long
since we cooled ourselves with ice cream in the ice-house down in
Barbadoes; but I hear you’ve been seeing a good deal of the world since
then.”

“Oh, a few corners of it,” Kit answered. “It’s hard to find a better
part of it than our own country, though.”

“You’re right there!” Mr. Clark acquiesced, bringing his hand down on
his fat knee with a bang. “You’re just right there, young man. But it’s
a good plan to see how the other fellows live, to make us appreciate
our own advantages. I’ve not been seeing much of it lately, for my
part; just going up and down, up and down, among those black rascals
in the West Indies. I’ve had a great deal too much work to do; it’s
wearing me down to skin and bone.”

Kit and the Captain were inclined to laugh at this, considering the
purser’s hearty appearance; but his face was as solemn as a judge’s.

“The work seems to agree with you pretty well, sir,” Kit suggested.

“No, it don’t!” the purser declared, giving his knee another sounding
slap. “That’s a mistake; work don’t agree with anybody, in spite of all
the twaddle about it. I don’t believe in work. My theory is that nobody
should have to work at all. Every man should have an income of at least
five thousand dollars a year, and live on his money. The trouble is
things are not arranged right, and some of us get left. No, work is all
humbug.”

It was impossible to tell from the purser’s round face whether he was
joking or not. He certainly was a hard worker himself.

“The only concession I will make,” he went on, “is, that being
compelled to work at all, it is better to do it well. I believe you go
on that theory too, Silburn; that’s the reason I’ve come to see you.
Although, as I say, I don’t believe in work, still when it has to be
done I like to see it done well. I believe you have been defrauded by
society, like myself, of the five thousand a year that every man is
entitled to, and have to work a little for a living? And that being the
case, how would you like to leave the _North Cape_ and come and
work for me?”

“For you, sir?” Kit exclaimed, naturally taken by surprise by the
suddenness of the question. “On the _Trinidad_, do you mean?”

“Well, I mean for my company, of course,” Mr. Clark replied; “but with
me, on the _Trinidad_. You see the situation is this. Our business
has increased so much down among those islands, both in passengers and
freight, that there is more work for the purser on the _Trinidad_
than any one man ought to be asked to do. I am away behind in my work
all the time, and that don’t do. So the company has consented to let me
have an assistant. And as my assistant will be with me all the time,
and I will be responsible for his work, it is only fair that I should
have the privilege of selecting him. They see the force of that too;
and the matter being left with me, I said to myself, young Silburn’s
the sort of man I want with me, if I can get him. He attends to his
business without any nonsense, and I’m going to hunt him up.

“So I have had a talk with the Captain here about you,” the purser went
on; “and if you want to be my assistant purser on the _Trinidad_
at one hundred dollars a month, you have only to say the word.”

For a few moments Kit hardly knew how to reply. Mr. Clark had been
jesting, he was sure, in talking about his dislike of work; and he was
still jesting. Kit thought, when he first spoke of Kit’s working for
him. But there was no joke about such an offer as he had just made.
That was sober earnest, and required an answer.

“Why, I should like to have one hundred dollars a month, sir,” he
replied, “very much indeed. And I should like to be with you. But on
the other hand I should dislike to leave Captain Griffith and the old
_North Cape_. And there is one thing that would interfere with my
going into a new place just now. I don’t know whether I told you about
my father, how he was shipwrecked and has been missing for a long time.
There is a man in New Zealand, in a hospital, who may prove to be my
father; and if he should, it might be necessary for me to go over there
to bring him home.”

“Yes, Captain Griffith has told me all about that,” Mr. Clark answered,
“and that need not be any objection. It is quite right that you should
do everything possible for your father. But it is not such a long
voyage to New Zealand in these days of steam, and I could put some one
in your place while you were gone. Besides, it takes money for such a
trip, and you would get the money much faster as my assistant than you
can make it as a supercargo.”

“Yes, sir, that is true,” Kit said; “I thought of that at once. And
it is very kind in you to make me such a liberal offer. But can you
let me have a little time to think of it in, Mr. Clark? Say a week or
ten days? I have always had a sort of horror of changing about from
one place to another, and should not like to do it without consulting
Captain Griffith and my mother.”

“Take a week and welcome to think it over in, my lad,” the purser
answered. “I can’t say more than a week, because I must have some one
before I start on the next voyage. But you can do a heap of thinking in
a week, if you set about it. And I hope you will make up your mind to
go with me. I think it will be to your advantage and mine too.”

After the purser was gone Kit had to look after his soap-boxes; but
as soon as they were attended to he returned to the cabin and had a
serious talk with Captain Griffith.

“I don’t like the idea of your leaving us, Silburn,” the Captain said;
“don’t like it at all. But it would be selfish in me to stand in the
way of your bettering yourself. The Quebec company is a good company,
the _Trinidad_ is a fine ship, and Mr. Clark is a good man to be
with. I have known him slightly for a long time. To be sure, he has
some odd ways, but then most of us have. He is always talking about not
believing in work, yet he works as hard as any man I know.

“And the one hundred dollars a month is a great object,” he continued.
“It is really large pay, considering that you would live on the
ship and would have hardly any expenses. You would have to wear the
company’s uniform, of course, and keep well dressed on account of the
passengers; but that does not amount to much. And you would likely
become one of their pursers in time, if you gave satisfaction. Much
as I should dislike to lose you, it is only fair for me to say that I
think it is a very fine offer. I don’t see how you can do anything but
accept it.”

To add to the unsettled state of Kit’s mind, the next day brought him
a letter from Vieve saying that they had heard from the consul at
Wellington. But she did not say whether the man in the hospital had
proved to be their father or not. This he looked upon as a bad sign,
for if there had been good news, she would have been in a hurry to tell
it. So with this matter to be discussed, and his Marseilles experiences
to be related, and his new offer to be considered and decided upon, he
felt as if a week at home would hardly be half long enough.

“I never had any regret at going ashore before, Captain,” he said, as
he shook the Captain’s hand in bidding him good-by. “But this time it
seems almost like leaving home. It has been so pleasant on the _North
Cape_, and you have always been so kind, I should feel strange to
belong anywhere else. If I accept Mr. Clark’s offer, I’ll not belong on
the old ship any longer, and it makes me feel bad in advance.”

“I don’t like to think of your going, Kit,” the Captain answered,
returning to the first name as a mark of affection; “but the manner of
your going makes a great difference, you know. If you were going under
compulsion, I should feel downright bad about it. Going to something
better is a different matter entirely. I suppose when a United States
senator is elected President he doesn’t have any great regrets about
leaving his old seat in the Senate Chamber. And it is the same thing
with you, in a smaller way. But we know each other, Kit, and though you
may leave the ship, we will still be friends. Anyhow, when you are in
need of a friend you need not go further than the cabin of the _North
Cape_.”

There was so much to be done at home that Kit laid out a programme on
his way to Bridgeport. The letter from New Zealand he thought the most
important matter, and that should be considered first. Then the offer
from Mr. Clark. He had pretty much made up his mind that that ought to
be accepted; but if his mother opposed it he was ready to give it up.
Then after all the business was done he could tell about his second
voyage to Europe. This time he caught the stage to Huntington, and so
saved himself a long walk.

“Why, you folks have grown so grand here I’m almost afraid to go in,”
he laughed, looking up at the freshly painted house as his mother and
Vieve ran out to the gate to meet him.

“Oh, I’m glad you think so!” Vieve answered, taking possession of the
side opposite her mother. “I thought maybe we would seem too poor and
common for you, since you’ve taken to travelling about with cardinals.
But I know more about your cardinal now than you do, Mr. Supercargo,
for Mr. Wright has translated his letter for me, and told me all about
him.”

They were all too full of the New Zealand letter to let that stand
long; and before Kit had been in the house many minutes he asked for
it. When they gave it to him he read it carefully, then read it again,
and thought over it for a few minutes without speaking.

“Well, it is not as bad as I feared,” he said, at length. “When Vieve
wrote that you had received the letter, without saying what was in it,
I thought there must be such bad news that you did not want to tell me.
But this is only more delay. What little news there is in it is good
news, for they seem to have found the scar, though they are not sure
about it, and the teeth correspond with father’s. It looks more hopeful
than ever, only we must wait till we can hear again. And the photograph
ought to settle the question, when that comes. I will write to the
consul again, and give him all the particulars we can all think of.”

“And that letter from the cardinal,” Mrs. Silburn suggested. “It
seems he is a very great man, and the letter is to the Bishop of New
Zealand--a Catholic of course, but I wouldn’t mind what he was if he
could help us. This is a nice time of life for a God-fearing Protestant
woman to begin talking about cardinals and bishops; but wouldn’t it be
as well to send that letter on and ask the bishop to help us?”

Kit asked to see the translation before he gave any opinion about it,
for he did not yet know what was in the letter.

“I am inclined to think it would be better to save this for another
purpose,” he said, after he had read it. “I have never said so before,
but I have often thought, and the same thing must have occurred to you,
that I may have to go on to New Zealand. It is a long journey, but any
of us would go further than that, further than the end of the world, to
have father with us again. If I should go there, this letter would be
a very valuable thing to take with me, and I think it ought to be kept
for that. The only thing is to have some reasonable certainty that the
man in the hospital is really father. With any good evidence of that,
even very slight evidence, I should go over there at once.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Silburn answered, with tears in her eyes; “I have often
thought of that, Kit. And I knew of course that you would think of it.
If we can get any reasonable evidence that that may be your father, I
think you ought to go. It will take all the money we can borrow on this
little place, and leave us badly in debt again, but we must not stop
for that. All the money in the world is nothing compared with having
your father back again.”

“Oh, we are not as badly off as all that!” Kit said. Never in his life
before had he felt so proud of being able to earn money. “You don’t
know how easily we sea-faring fellows can get about the world. I think
maybe I can get a job for one round voyage on some vessel bound for
Australia or New Zealand, even if I have to work only for my passage.
Then the only expense will be paying father’s fare home. Captain
Griffith would help me to get such a job, I know; and I have another
friend now who would help me to it, I am sure. You see I have some more
news for you, though I didn’t intend to tell you till to-morrow.”

Then he told of his offer of one hundred dollars a month from the
Quebec Steamship Company, and how he had consulted Captain Griffith,
and how the Captain had advised him to accept it; and explained that
he thought very favorably of it himself, but waited to hear what his
mother thought.

“A hundred dollars a month!” Vieve cried, throwing her arms about her
brother’s neck and nearly choking him. “You? Just for writing out those
paper things on a ship? That’s twelve hundred dollars a year! why, Mr.
Wright don’t get more than a thousand, I’m sure, and the parsonage; but
then you’ll have a sort of parsonage too--at least the ship to live in.”

“Ah! but Mr. Wright don’t travel about with cardinals!” Kit laughed.
“That makes all the difference in the world. What do you think of it,
mother? It is an important matter, and you are the one to decide it.”

“No, we have got beyond that, Kit,” Mrs. Silburn answered, as well
as her demonstrations of pleasure would allow. “You are the one to
decide questions for us, not we for you. As far as I can see I should
think you would not hesitate at all about it. But you know all the
circumstances better than I do. You must decide for yourself.”

“Then it is already decided, mother,” he said. “I had made up my mind
to accept it, provided you did not object. You don’t know how much I
love Captain Griffith and the _North Cape_. The Captain is one man
in a thousand; he has been like a father to me. But one hundred dollars
a month is a splendid offer, and the Captain himself advises me to take
it.”

There was a little feast in the Silburn cottage that evening to
celebrate Kit’s improved prospects. That was what it meant when he
beckoned Vieve into the hall and slipped some money into her hand, and
told her, after making her purchases, to go to Harry Leonard’s and
invite him to come over. Not very much of a feast; if she had had a
purseful of gold to spend she could not have bought the materials for
a banquet in the little shops of Huntington, at such short notice; but
what she found in her hurried trip answered every purpose.

“Now don’t you be making eyes at Harry Leonard, miss!” Kit warned her,
when she returned with the provisions, and began by unloading a fat
chicken and some bunches of Malaga grapes. “I know you used to be very
fond of him.”

“At Harry Leonard!” Vieve retorted, assuming her grandest air. “Humph!
I guess when I have a beau (which I won’t have), he’ll be nothing short
of a cardinal.”

“Then you’ll die an old maid,” Kit laughed; “don’t you know that
cardinals are Catholic priests, and never marry?”

They were a merry party at supper, though Harry was disconsolate for a
while at hearing that Kit was going to leave the _North Cape_.

“Why, I don’t know what we’ll do without him on board, Mrs. Silburn!”
he exclaimed. “It will be like a different ship. It will make a great
change for me, I tell you. No more good times on shore now for the
cabin boy, I suppose. The Captain thinks I’m too young and giddy to
go ashore alone in strange ports, though I’m not; but he was always
satisfied when I was with Kit.”

The whole story of their visit to Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde had to be
told while they were eating, and their meeting with the mysterious
stranger; and Harry kept them in roars of laughter when he described
how the old and young priests always entered the room “on their marrow
bones,” as he called it. Somewhere in Marseilles he had heard the
French pronunciation of Vieve’s name, and he added to the merriment by
insisting upon giving it the French twang whenever he addressed her:
“Miss Zhou-_vay_-ve; Miss Zhou-_vay_-ve.”

The spectre at the feast did not show itself till all was over and
Harry had gone home, for Kit guarded it carefully as long as he could.
But at last he had to let it out.

“My change of work will cut short my visit home,” he announced.
“I can’t go off suddenly and leave my employers in the lurch, you
know. They must have time to get some one else in my place; and if
they ask it, I may have to wait another voyage before going on the
_Trinidad_. But if they let me off, I will still have a great deal
to do. My accounts must all be straightened out, and I will have some
business with the tailors. I will have to wear the company’s uniform on
the _Trinidad_, you know.”

“Ah! that’s it!” Vieve declared, pretending to be hurt at Kit’s leaving
them sooner than he expected, though it was not all pretence. “He wants
to get his new clothes! Won’t he be grand, though, when he comes out in
a new uniform with gold braid!”

“Yes, you know I always think so much about my clothes,” he answered.
“But I’ll be with you all day to-morrow; and busy enough, too, writing
letters. To-morrow I must write to that New Zealand consul again, and
there are several more to be written. Then the next morning I must
go back to New York. But then this won’t be like those long trips to
Europe. Why, I’ll be back again in no time at all. The _Trinidad_
only runs to the island of Trinidad and back, stopping at St. Kitts,
Antigua, St. Lucia, Martinique, Dominica, and Barbadoes. She makes the
round trip in twenty-eight days. Being a mail and passenger boat, you
know, she has to make time.”

It was hard work for Kit to go back to the _North Cape_ to say
good-by, after his employers had generously released him at once, with
many expressions of satisfaction and good will. It was on her that he
had changed from a waif on the docks to a cabin boy, and from cabin
boy to supercargo. In her cabin he had made his start in life, and
every man on board was his friend. He could not bid good-by to Captain
Griffith in the cabin and then go away. The crew crowded around him
to wish him happiness and prosperity. Men who had never shown any
particular interest in him before, seemed grieved to have him go. He
had to shake hands with Mr. Mason and Mr. Hanway, with Tom Haines and
his chief, with the steward, even with Chock Cheevers.

In four days more, when in all the glory of bright new uniform he stood
on the deck of a faster and handsomer ship, watching once more the
hoisting of the flags as she sped by the Sandy Hook signal station, it
gave him a start when he saw that the uppermost flag did not bear the
familiar number of the _North Cape_.

“The _Trinidad_,” the signals said this time; “for Trinidad and
intermediate ports.”




CHAPTER XVII.

OVERBOARD IN THE PITCH LAKE.


The difference between a modern mail and passenger steamer and a vessel
built solely for carrying freight is so great that Kit could hardly
help liking his new surroundings, much as he regretted leaving his
old friend the _North Cape_. On the _Trinidad_ there was a
beautiful little office for the purser, in which Mr. Clark had one
desk and his assistant another; and although the work was ten times as
great as on the freighter, the facilities for doing it were ten times
better. It was vastly more labor to make up the manifest where there
were thousands of miscellaneous packages for different consignees at
different ports; but it had to be written only once, for there was the
copying-press ready to make as many duplicates as might be needed. Kit
had never seen so many facilities before for doing good and rapid work.

And there was not more change in the office work than there was in
everything else. No more “sea clothes” to be worn now, with forty or
fifty passengers in the cabin, and the necessity of going into the
grand saloon for every meal. It was a finer saloon than Kit had seen
anywhere before, fitted up in marbles and hard woods and shining glass;
and certainly the meals were far beyond anything he had dreamed of.
Mr. Clark’s seat was at the head of one of the tables, and Kit’s at
the foot; and he soon found that being agreeable to the passengers is
an important part of the purser’s work on a large steamer. That part
of the work Mr. Clark was quite willing to do himself, leaving his
assistant to attend to the clerical-business; and Kit was more than
willing to have it so, for he did not feel quite at home yet with so
many passengers on board ship.

The voyage was no novelty to him, as he had been over precisely the
same route before as far as Barbadoes. But this trip bade fair to give
him a much better knowledge of the intermediate islands, for the purser
told him that he was to do all the “shore work.”

“There’s no use of my roasting myself on those islands,” Mr. Clark
said, “when I have a young fellow to do it for me. You are accustomed
to that kind of work; you will find this almost the same as the work
you have been doing. You must never let a package get away from you
till somebody else becomes responsible for it and you have his receipt
for it. These fellows down here would steal the tan off your face,
if they didn’t have so much of their own. I have read in books that
there’s a great deal of honesty in the world, but somehow it doesn’t
seem to thrive around the seaports. Maybe you had a little experience
of that in Marseilles.”

“I rather think I did!” Kit laughed. “But I have learned pretty well
how to hold on to my goods. I don’t think they’re going to rob me much
down here.”

One of the pleasures of the evening was to have Captain Fraser come
into the office for a chat. In the long run between New York and St.
Kitts, the first island, with fair weather and no land for hundreds of
miles, the Captain had very little to do, and hardly an evening passed
without a visit from him. He was a big, jolly, hearty Nova Scotian, in
manner very much like Mr. Clark, Kit thought, at least in his habit of
saying things with a sober face that he neither believed himself nor
expected others to believe. The speed of the _Trinidad_ was one of
the things that Captain Fraser never tired of joking about. One evening
Kit made some remark about the good day’s run.

“Oh, I have to hold her back,” the Captain answered. “She’s a very fast
ship when we let her out, but the owners won’t stand it. Coming up
about three months ago we left St. Kitts a day late, and as we had fine
weather the chief engineer kept bothering me to let him make it up. So
at last I got tired hearing about it and told him to let her go. Go!
Well, sir, you never saw anything like it. You’ve been in a fast train
on shore and seen the telegraph poles fly past? That was exactly the
way the light-houses flew past all the way up the coast. We got into
port two days ahead of time; but when the port captain came aboard, the
first thing he said was:--

“‘Hello, here! what you been changing her color for? Don’t you know
black’s the color of this line?’

“‘Haven’t changed her color,’ said I.

“‘Look at her,’ said he.

“Well, sir, I looked over the side, and bless my weather binnacles
if the ship wasn’t a bright lead color. That was strange, you know,
considering that we’d left port black. I jumped ashore and rubbed my
hand over her, and she was smooth as--well, smooth as Clark’s bald head
there. There wasn’t a particle of paint on her; she’d come so fast it
was all stripped off, and the water had polished her steel plates till
they shone like a new quarter.

“That made her very handsome, but the owners didn’t like it because
they had to dock her to be painted.”

“She must have made a record that voyage, sir,” Kit suggested.

“Oh, that was only the beginning of it,” the Captain went on, with
a wink at the purser. “When we started out again and got down off
Hatteras we met a Dutch bark towing the biggest sea-serpent you ever
saw. Whether it was a sea-serpent or a whale they couldn’t quite make
out; but it was about 375 feet long and 35 or 40 feet through. They’d
had it two or three days, and they declared it bellowed all night
long, though that part I wouldn’t ask anybody to believe.

“I suspected something the minute I saw it, so I went aboard the bark
and said, said I:--

“‘I think that’s my property you’ve got there.’

“‘Guess not,’ said the skipper.

“‘I guess yes,’ said I, for I was sure of it now. ‘If you cut into the
beast somewhere abaft the mainmast I think you’ll find my trademark in
him.’

“Well, sir, they lowered a boat and sent a man to chop into the critter
with an axe, and with the first blow the whole thing flummixed--just
collapsed, for there was nothing in it but wind. But the man gave two
or three more cuts and laid over the flap, and right across it, in big
gold letters, was, ‘The Trinidad, New York.’ It was nothing in the
world but the paint off our ship, stripped off just like you’d skin an
eel. We sold it to the darkies in Dominica afterwards for waterproof
coats and galoshes; but I’m not going to put her at that speed again.”

The Captain never repeated his stories, because he always made them up
as he went along; and he was so companionable and full of fun that in
a short time Kit felt well enough acquainted with him to give him an
account of his father’s disappearance and tell him about the man in
the New Zealand hospital. The Captain listened with great interest;
but even in a matter of such importance he could not quite resist the
temptation to crack a joke.

“Didn’t he have a mark on his arm?” he asked. “In all such stories
that I’ve read, the missing man had a mark on his arm that he could
be identified by. I’ve often thought what an advantage one-legged or
one-armed or one-eyed men have. If one of them goes off missing, it’s
the easiest matter in the world to identify him.

“But seriously, Silburn,” he went on, “it does look a little as if that
man might be your father. It’s nothing against it that he was picked
up on an island in the Pacific Ocean. When a man is floating about on
a spar, say, or an oar, or anything else that keeps him up, and a ship
comes along, he don’t stop to ask whether she’s bound for China or New
York. Any port in a storm, and a ship’s as likely to be going one way
as another. Then the second ship may be lost, and there you are. If he
was the kind of father you want to bring back, I think you can find out
whether this is the right man or not. I’ve known some fathers who’d
be just as well left at a safe distance of twelve or fifteen thousand
miles.”

“Oh, mine isn’t that kind of a father, sir,” Kit answered, not quite
knowing whether to laugh or not. “We would do anything in the world to
get him back.”

“Then why don’t you go out to New Zealand and see for yourself?” the
Captain asked. “You could identify him better than any stranger; and
you can’t get anything done for you as well as you can do it yourself.”

This was precisely the point that Kit was trying to get the Captain’s
opinion upon.

“But don’t you think, sir,” he asked, “that it is as well to wait till
we hear something more definite from the consul out there, and till he
sends the photograph?”

“Yes, I think it is,” the Captain replied. “But let me tell you
something about consuls, young man. I suppose I’ve seen more of them
than you have, for I’ve had business with them nearly all my life.
There are some good men in the business--very good--who will put
themselves out of their way to do you a service. I don’t mean to deny
that. But in general a consul is a man who draws his salary for putting
his heels on the mantel and smoking cigars. They get their appointments
generally not because they are good men for the place, but on account
of some trifling political service. Under that beautiful system we get
consuls in important places who ought to be raising turnips out in
the southwest corner of New Mexico. I don’t know anything about the
consul in Wellington; but as a general rule, don’t you put your trust
in consuls, my boy. When you have important business to be done, go
and do it yourself. It’s the only safe way. If that was my case out in
New Zealand, I’d wait a reasonable time for the photograph, and if it
looked anything like my father, I’d be out there so quick I’d strip all
the paint off myself.”

“Do you think I would have any chance of getting something to do on
a steamer going to New Zealand and back, sir?” Kit asked. “Say as
supercargo, or purser, or something of that kind?”

“Not the least in the world!” the Captain answered emphatically; “not
from New York. All of our American trade with New Zealand you might put
in your vest pocket, and you wouldn’t find a steamer going there in
six months. But if you were to say Australia, now, that would be easy
enough. There are plenty of steamers going from New York to Australia,
and when you get there you are not far from New Zealand; you know you
could do that part of the journey on your own hook. Indeed, I know two
or three masters myself engaged in that trade; and if you make up your
mind to go, you let me know and I’ll help you along. Clark here tells
me he’s got the best young assistant in the country, though I suppose
he’s mistaken about that, for all the good pursers die very young. But
this is a case that would be easy to manage, because your father was a
sea-faring man and you’re a sea-faring man yourself going after him,
and most any good-hearted master would lend a hand. It’s all in the
family, you know; we help one another.”

This conversation seemed to Kit to make things look a little brighter.
If he could get to New Zealand and back without the great expense
of paying his passage, half the difficulties would be removed--yes,
nine-tenths of them.

“What are you doing so much with that sailor I see you talking to on
deck when you’re off duty, Silburn?” Mr. Clark asked him one day before
the first land was sighted. “You and he are not hatching a plot to
wreck the ship, are you?”

“No, sir,” Kit laughed; “though we say some very mysterious things. The
last thing I said to him yesterday was ‘my aunt has two apples, and my
uncle has two pears.’ It does sound a little like a plot, doesn’t it?
But the fact is the man is a Frenchman, Mr. Clark, and I have employed
him to teach me a little French in my spare moments. I made up my mind
in Marseilles that a sea-going man ought to know some languages beside
his own, so I bought two primary French books in New York; and this
man, who is quite an intelligent fellow, teaches me the pronunciation.
It may come of use in Martinique when I am able to speak a little, for
I have heard you say they speak nothing but French there.”

“It’s a capital idea,” the purser agreed. “I’ve always had hard sailing
in Martinique because I couldn’t jabber their miserable language. I’m
glad you’ve taken it up. And you’ll be remarkably glad yourself, some
day, if you stick to it.”

Kit was not destined to use any of his newly acquired French in
Martinique on that first outward voyage, however; for when they reached
the roadstead in front of St. Pierre, the chief city, where they were
to land both passengers and freight, they found danger signals flying
from the top of the light-house, and all the lighters and smaller
boats drawn far up on the beach. There had been enough of a storm in
those waters to stir up a heavy sea, and more wind was threatened, so
the cautious Frenchmen would allow no boats to go out. The passengers
for Martinique could look right up the hilly streets of their chief
city, almost into some of the windows, but there was no possible way
for them to get ashore.

“It is all small freight we have for here, Mr. Clark. Couldn’t we land
it and the passengers in our own boats?” Kit asked.

“Ah, my boy, the authorities on shore would fine us if we tried it
while they have the danger signals set,” the purser answered. “Besides,
we should lose the insurance if anything happened to the cargo. There’s
nothing for it but to wait till the signals come down.”

Captain Fraser evidently thought differently, however. After trying for
five or six hours in the roadstead he gave the order to go ahead.

“Why, we are going on!” Kit exclaimed. “What will become of our
passengers and freight for St. Pierre?”

“Well, they’ll have to go on to Trinidad and come back with us,” the
purser answered. “You know we touch here on the way back. That happens
sometimes, and people who live in this part of the world have to get
used to it. If they _will_ build their cities where there is no
harbor, only an open roadstead, they must take the consequences. We
can’t keep a mail steamer waiting for a storm that is supposed to be
coming.”

When they reached Barbadoes, Kit felt quite at home again. It was not
worth while, he knew, for him to have any hopes of getting out to the
Sea View plantation to see his friends the Outerbridges, for nearly
half of all their freight was for Barbadoes, and in the few hours that
they lay in the roadstead he was busy every minute, even at night. He
found time, however, to write a hurried note to Mr. Outerbridge, saying
that he was now assistant purser of the _Trinidad_, that they were
on their way to Port of Spain, and that when they returned in a few
days it would be a great pleasure to him if any of them happened to be
in the town.

Leaving Barbadoes late in the evening, the _Trinidad_ steamed very
slowly across toward the island of Trinidad, as Captain Fraser did not
care to go through the narrow passage before daylight.

“You’ll have to be out early in the morning if you want to see the
ship run into the muddy water of the Orinoco,” Mr. Clark told Kit that
evening while they were preparing their papers for the last port.
“It’s a curious sight, that you can’t see anywhere else, that I know
of. You know the numerous mouths of the river Orinoco all empty about
here--some into the Gulf of Paria, where we are going, and some below
it. The immense body of muddy water runs along shore with a rush, and
makes--well, I’m not going to tell you what it makes. If you turn out
by daylight you will see for yourself.”

With this hint Kit was sure to be out early; and he found that he was
not the only watcher, for some of the crew who had seen the curious
thing scores of times were out to see it again. When they were a
short distance above the very narrow entrance to the Gulf of Paria,
a dangerous channel that is called the Dragon’s Mouth, he saw ahead
a distinct line drawn across the water--a wall of water, it looked
like--a wall of muddy water two or three feet higher than the clear
water of the ocean.

“That’s just what it is, sir,” one of the sailors told him when he
asked a question. “You see that big body of fresh muddy water runs down
out of the Orinoco. When you see the line, that’s where the river water
running north meets the sea water running south. But the ocean’s the
stronger, sir, and it backs the river water up into that ridge you see.
Oh, yes, sir; we’ll run through that and you’ll never know it.”

So they did, the ship being too large and heavy to be visibly affected
by the slight difference in water levels; and in a few moments more
they were in the Dragon’s Mouth, with the high rocks of Trinidad on one
side and the equally high hills of Venezuela on the other, and both
so close that Kit could easily have thrown a stone against Trinidad
or against the coast of South America. Then in a short time they were
through the dangerous channel and in the broad Gulf of Paria; and by
eleven o’clock they were at anchor in smooth and shallow water about a
mile away from the wharves of the city of Port of Spain, the capital of
Trinidad.

Kit thought himself pretty well accustomed to the heat of the tropics
after his experiences at Sisal and Barbadoes; but he had never found
anything before that was quite equal to the stifling heat of Port of
Spain.

“We are on the line of greatest heat here,” Mr. Clark explained
when he went into the city with him to introduce him to the agents.
“It is hotter here than right on the equator. You understand about
the isothermal lines, I suppose! This place is ten degrees north of
the equator, but the ‘line of greatest heat,’ as they call it, runs
directly through here.”

For two days the assistant purser was continually bathed in
perspiration from his necessary walks into the city and looking after
his goods on the wharf. But by that time the cargo was out and his work
in the port was practically over, for there is very little freight to
carry from Trinidad to New York.

“I have to go out to La Brea this afternoon to see the superintendent
of the pitch lake,” Mr. Clark said on the third day. “It’s a nuisance,
in this heat, and I wish I could leave it to you. But I have had some
dealings with him, and the company charged me particularly to close a
contract with him this trip if I can. So I suppose I must go myself.”

“The superintendent of the pitch lake!” Kit exclaimed. “I have read
something about the great pitch lake in Trinidad; but what does it have
a superintendent for?”

“Because it is a very valuable piece of property,” the purser
answered. “It belongs to the government, you know, and they keep a
superintendent to look after it and sell the pitch. It goes all over
the world; a great many of the streets in New York and other American
cities are paved with it. They call it pitch here, but when it is
boiled down and ready for use we call it asphalt. We are negotiating
with the superintendent to send a freight ship down to carry away two
or three cargoes, and it will be a profitable job if I can close the
contract with him.”

“It must be a very curious sight--a lake of pitch,” Kit suggested.

“I believe it is hard enough on the surface to walk over,” the purser
replied; “but I have never seen it. You can go along with me if you
like. It is only twenty or thirty miles down the coast. The train
leaves at three o’clock, and we can be back by a little after dark.”

Kit was glad to avail himself of this permission, and at three o’clock
they took the train for La Brea. The railway ran through a country
that was given up largely to the cultivation of sugarcane; and at the
stations they passed they saw a great many men who were neither whites
nor negroes, in a curious costume of white stuff so arranged that it
covered one leg to below the knee, but left the other leg almost bare.

“They are coolies,” Mr. Clark said, seeing that Kit was interested in
these brown, slender people. “They bring a great many of them here
from India to work on the plantations. They have to work so many years
to pay for their passage, and after that they are free. But they’re
a queer lot. When a man is badly treated by his master he doesn’t
complain, but goes out and sticks a knife into himself, and they find
his body lying in the cane-fields.”

In a little over an hour the train set them down at La Brea, and they
found the pitch works not far from the station, on the edge of the
wonderful black lake. But the superintendent’s house, they learned,
was across one corner of the lake, about half a mile away; and they
immediately set out for it.

They were both a little cautious about walking over the pitch at first,
particularly where the path led over breaks between the beds of pitch,
and they had to feel their way across narrow planks for bridges. The
moving of the pitch beneath their feet did not tend, either, to give
them confidence.

“This is a very queer sort of a lake!” Kit declared, stopping at the
edge of one of the round beds to examine it. “I think I can see how
it is made. First there is a lake of water here, with a great bed of
molten pitch somewhere beneath. A column of the pitch shoots up, like
a waterspout, and when it reaches the surface, the top of it flattens
out, like an immense mushroom, held up by the narrow column that
reaches down dear knows how far. This water between the black mushrooms
looks very deep and black; bah! I shouldn’t care to fall in there.”

“That’s about the way the thing grows,” Mr. Clark agreed. “Some of the
‘mushrooms,’ as you call them, are only a yard or so in diameter, and
some are twelve or fifteen feet. Gradually enough of them have come up
to cover the entire surface of the lake, which must be two or three
thousand acres. What a desolate-looking place, isn’t it? And they tell
me that no matter how much is cut out, a fresh column of pitch shoots
up and fills the hole. I shouldn’t care to wander around here much
after dark.”

It was not a very safe path even by daylight. In some places the
“mushrooms” not only touched, but crowded and indented each other; but
in other places there were gaps two, three, sometimes even six feet
wide, that had to be crossed on the planks. When they stood in the
middle of one of the big “mushrooms,” it was firm enough; but when they
stood upon its edge, their weight bent it down until the water ran over
its surface.

They made the passage in safety, however, and Mr. Clark had a long talk
with the superintendent while Kit remained on the lake. It was a very
satisfactory talk, the purser said when he came out, for everything
had been arranged and the contract signed. But Kit had been watching
the sky for some time with uneasiness. Engrossed with his business,
Mr. Clark had given no attention to the passing of time, and it was
with some alarm that Kit had seen the sun set behind the mountains and
darkness begin to gather.

Mr. Clark was a little uneasy about it, too, when he saw how long he
had stayed. He was not particularly fond of walking, even on a good
pavement; and the prospect of crossing the end of the lake in the
dusk, sometimes on narrow planks across the openings, sometimes on the
yielding pitch beds, did not please him.

“We’ll have to hurry up, Silburn,” he called to Kit when he reached the
edge of the lake. “You know there’s precious little twilight in this
part of the world; it’s either daylight or it’s dark. One of those old
rattletrap cabs in Bridgetown would be better than walking over these
tarry islands. But come on, youngster! You may think I’m no walker, but
I’ll show you!”

He started out at a great pace, with Kit following. But Mr. Clark’s
physique was not adapted to severe exercise. After the first hundred
yards he began to breathe hard, and soon he stopped entirely.

“I’ve got to--to--(hech!) to stop and get my (hech! hech!)--my second
wind!” he panted. “Hang their old (phew! phew!) old pitch lakes! If
they make--make (hech!) streets out of ’em, I wish they’d (phew! phew!)
make some here. It’s getting darker every--every minute, too!”

“We started out too fast, sir,” Kit answered; “if we take it slower,
I think we’ll get along all right. It’s going to be dark before we get
across, anyhow, so we may as well take our time to it.”

Mr. Clark was compelled to take his time to it, for he had no more wind
for fast walking. It was not fairly dark yet, but “pretty thick dusk,”
as Kit called it, and they had to feel their way along. The purser
remained in the lead when they set out again, for Kit hesitated to go
ahead, for fear of going too fast for him.

They were about to cross one of the widest crevices, and Mr. Clark was
half way over on the plank, when Kit heard a startled cry.

“Silburn!”

And plank and purser went down together, Mr. Clark disappearing beneath
the black water.

Kit saw in an instant what had happened. The end of the plank had
slipped from the edge of the opposite bed of pitch.

Mr. Clark, he knew, could not swim; and besides he might come up
beneath one of those horrible “mushrooms,” and so almost inevitably
be drowned. But Kit was not long in making up his mind what to do. He
instantly threw off his coat and knelt on the edge of the “mushroom”
he was on, with his head close to the water, ready to dive for his
companion as soon as he could get a glimpse of him.

He had no chance to dive, however. As soon as the impetus of his
fall was over, the purser shot to the surface again like a cork; and
catching a momentary glance at Kit’s head he grabbed at it with all
the energy of a drowning man, and got his arm around the neck before
Kit had time to draw back.

As he started to go down again, which he did at almost the same
instant, only one result was possible. Kit was overbalanced and dragged
into the water, and they went down together into the black depths, both
in deadly peril from drowning, and Kit with the additional danger of
the arm wound around his throat like a vise.




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.




CHAPTER XIX.

KIT FINDS HIS FATHER.


It was a beautiful spring-like day in the latter part of September when
Kit stepped ashore on the quay in the city of Wellington, New Zealand.
Fresh new leaves were upon the trees, fresh green grass in the lawns,
bright fresh flowers in the beds. Nature had recently awakened from her
winter sleep, and the young city of the Antipodes was at its brightest
and best.

During the long voyage he had had ample time to determine just what
he must do on arrival. First, of course, he would go to the American
consul’s and introduce himself; and how often he had hoped that the
consul would not detain him long, for he would be so anxious to get
to the hospital! And then he would hurry to the hospital, and in five
minutes the great question would be decided.

But now that he was actually on the spot, things did not look, somehow,
exactly as he had expected. No place ever does look just as we expect
when we have long been thinking about it and then go to see it for the
first time. He looked with curiosity at the big buildings, wondering
which was the hospital, which the consulate. He could hardly grasp the
idea that in all probability his father was in one of those buildings
before him. But suppose that, after all, the man in the hospital should
not prove to be his father; suppose he had made this long journey for
nothing? He quickened his steps up the street to walk these useless
fancies away.

“Will you be kind enough to tell me the way to the American consulate,
sir?” he asked a gentleman whom he met.

“It is in that red brick building on the other side,” the gentleman
answered. “You cannot very well miss it.”

In two minutes more he had made himself known to Mr. Wilkins, the
vice-consul and acting consul.

“I rather thought we should see you here,” Mr. Wilkins said, “but
hardly so soon. My second letter must have made good time over to
America.”

“Your second letter!” Kit exclaimed; “we had not received a second
letter from you, sir, when I left home. I started as soon as we got the
photograph you sent.”

“Oh, yes; I see,” said Mr. Wilkins. “Then you recognized your father in
the photograph, did you?”

“Not with certainty,” Kit replied; “but there was a resemblance. But
was there any further news in your second letter, sir?”

“Well, I can hardly say any further news, except that there has been
a great improvement in your father--at least in the man in the
hospital. Even since the photograph was taken he has improved very
much. Physically, I mean; he is a great deal stronger, and looks and
acts much younger. And mentally he has improved somewhat, too. He is
not able to give the least account of himself, to be sure; the past
seems to be a perfect blank to him; but in affairs of the present he
takes some intelligent interest. I am glad that you will see him in his
improved condition rather than as he was some months ago. It was a hard
matter for the consulate to deal with. A distressed American sailor
we are allowed to send home at the public expense; but there was no
evidence that this man is an American sailor--or indeed an American at
all.”

“I think I can soon settle that question when I see him, sir,” Kit
answered. “If he is my father, I shall know him, no matter how much he
is changed. And naturally I am anxious to see him as soon as possible.
If you will be kind enough to give me a line of introduction to the
hospital authorities, I will go there at once.”

“Of course you are anxious!” the consul assented. “You have been kept
in suspense a terribly long time; but you shall know the best or the
worst without delay. I will go over to the hospital with you at once.
It is only a few steps from here.”

In the hospital they were shown into the house surgeon’s office;
and when the surgeon entered he was greatly interested to find that
some one had come from the other side of the world in the hope of
identifying the mysterious John Doe.

“It is a case that we have all taken much interest in,” he said. “If
you could have seen him when he arrived here, you would be assured by
his present appearance that we have taken good care of him. But you
have made a long journey to find a father, and I will not keep you
waiting. For some weeks this patient has been going in and out at his
own pleasure, under the necessary restrictions; but his favorite place
is the sunny courtyard. To avoid exciting him unduly, I think the best
plan will be to induce him to walk in the courtyard; and we three will
then walk quietly through. That will give the best opportunity to see
whether you can identify him, or whether he will recognize you.”

“You know best about that, sir,” Kit answered.

The surgeon tapped his bell, and in a moment an attendant entered--the
same one who had held the flags in front of the patient long before.

“I want you to get John Doe into the courtyard for a walk,” the surgeon
said. “This gentleman hopes to identify him, and in a few minutes we
will walk through the yard. But give the patient no hint that anything
unusual is happening. Just ask him out for a walk; he is always ready
for a walk in the sun.”

“I must caution you,” the surgeon said to Kit after the attendant had
gone to execute his order, “that in these cases of suspended memory we
have to be prepared for almost anything. Nothing is surprising. If the
patient proves to be your father, he may recognize you at once, and the
shock may restore his lost memory in an instant. On the other hand, he
may not recognize you at all. Or if he does, he may treat you as if
you had left him only a few minutes before--as if your being here was
a perfectly natural thing. If he knows you at all, it is an extremely
favorable indication. With one little beginning, his whole past will
almost certainly come back to him.”

As they walked through the long corridor toward the door that was to
admit them to the courtyard, Kit felt his heart beating against his
ribs as though trying to break them. The consul said something, but it
made no impression upon him. He heard footsteps on the stone pavement
outside, and tried to recognize them, but could not. The surgeon threw
open the door, and they stepped out.

At the farther end of the yard, where the sun shone brightest, “John
Doe” was walking slowly up and down, with his hands clasped behind him.

“That is my father!” Kit said very quietly.

It surprised him that he could speak so coolly, for he felt anything
but cool. The moisture in his eyes was beyond his control; but he had
firmly made up his mind that he would make no scene, whatever happened.
He had too often been disgusted at seeing bearded Frenchmen hug and
kiss each other like school-girls; he would have none of that--at least
not in public.

For a moment neither of his companions spoke. They appreciated his
feelings and gave him time to collect himself. But the consul’s hand
stole into his and gave him a warm grip. Then another hand; that was
the surgeon’s.

After a short delay the surgeon put his arm through Kit’s, and the
three walked across the yard toward the patient. It was a terribly
trying moment for Kit. The impulse to rush forward and clasp his
father’s hands was almost irresistible, but he restrained himself.

Before they were half way across the yard, “John Doe,” now John Doe
no longer, but Christopher Silburn, hearing footsteps, turned and
looked around. Recognizing the surgeon, he nodded to him, and was about
to resume his walk, when something about their party attracted his
attention. He looked again, and turned his steps toward them--not in
his former aimless way, but as if he had an object in view. In a moment
more Kit and his father were face to face.

“Now what’s kept you all this time, Kit?” Mr. Silburn asked, in an
annoyed tone. “When I send you on an errand, I want you to do it and
come straight home. I will not have this sort of thing.”

It was so utterly different from anything he had anticipated that Kit
was completely taken off his guard. But as soon as he recovered himself
he was filled with joy at being recognized at all. He must, he knew,
humor his father’s mood, and lead him gradually along.

“I got here as soon as I could, father,” he answered, in a tone as
tender as a girl’s. “There were some things I had to do for mother
first.”

“Where _is_ mother?” Mr. Silburn asked, looking around as if he
expected to find her behind him.

“She’s in the house--at home,” Kit answered.

“And Vieve?” he asked.

“She’s at home, too.”

“Well, you must do your mother’s errands, of course,” Mr. Silburn went
on. “But I don’t like to have you away so long, Kit. I’ve been wanting
you to bring me my other clothes. I can’t find them anywhere, but they
must be some place around the house. I’m tired of these gray ones.”

He held out one arm and looked at the sleeve, then down at the legs of
the trousers, as if they were something new to him.

“Hadn’t we better go down to the tailor’s and get your new ones?” Kit
asked. “They must be done by this time, and you will have to try them
on.”

He looked at the surgeon as he spoke, and the surgeon gave him an
approving nod, as if to say, “Yes, humor him as much as you can.”

“Yes, we will go and get the new ones,” Mr. Silburn answered. “I don’t
like these gray ones at all.”

“In just a minute, father,” Kit said. “I want to run into the house a
minute first.”

The surgeon took the hint and followed him in, for he saw that Kit
desired to speak to him.

“Perhaps it will make him feel more like himself to have the kind of
clothes he is accustomed to--a dark blue suit,” he suggested. “If you
think best I will take him out to a tailor’s to buy some. And he would
like to have his hair and beard trimmed in the old way, I am sure.”

“Yes, the more you can make him look like his old self, the better,”
the surgeon assented. “He is doing famously. Don’t contradict him in
anything. Just let him take his own way as he has been doing, and it
will not be long before he will discover that there has been some
change in his surroundings. Then he will begin to ask questions, and
you can tell him what has happened.

“I advise you to bring him back here,” the surgeon continued, “at least
for a few days. It would not be well to make everything too strange for
him at first. We will give you a room here with two beds, so that you
can stay with him. By the time you get back from your walk you may find
a great improvement in him; I can see that having you with him makes
him feel happier.”

When the two Christopher Silburns started down the street for the
tailor’s, the consul went with them, for he was very much interested in
the strange case; and it was not long before the patient was arrayed
in a dark blue suit, with a new derby hat; and after his hair and
beard had been trimmed to the way he was accustomed to wear them, he
looked so much like the old Christopher Silburn that Kit could hardly
help dancing around him for joy. But he held himself in, and made no
demonstrations. It was evident that his father was very much pleased,
too, with the change in his appearance; he admired himself in the
mirror, drew himself up till the stoop was gone from his shoulders, and
was very particular to have the new hat on straight. It was nothing but
the truth when the consul said that he looked like a new man.

“I should like to go to the cable office for a minute or two,” Kit
said, when they were done with the barber. “I don’t want to keep all
this pleasure to myself.”

But writing a cable message home, when every word cost more than a
day’s salary, was no easy matter. The first one he wrote contained
sixteen words, and that was far too long. After many trials he got it
reduced to nine, in this fashion:--

  SILBURN, Huntington, Conn.
      Father much improved. Knows me.
                                                  KIT.

“That tells them that I have found him, and that we are both all
right,” he reflected. It was just like Kit that the first real
extravagance he ever committed was for his mother and Vieve, not for
his own pleasure. The message cost him nearly thirty dollars.

“Who is that to?” his father asked, as he handed the telegram to the
clerk.

“To mother,” Kit replied. “It’s just to let her know that we are all
right.”

“And where is mother?” was the next question.

“Why, at home, in Huntington,” Kit answered, thinking that now were
coming the questions that the doctor had said were sure to come sooner
or later. But he was mistaken. His father looked perplexed, as though
trying hard to think about something, but walked out of the office with
them without saying more, stroking what the barber had left of his
beard.

On the way up the street to the consul’s office, however, he stopped
and seized Kit by the arm.

“Kit,” he said, “what place is this?”

“This is Wellington, New Zealand, father,” Kit replied.

His father merely nodded his head and went on stroking his beard, but
asked no more. It worried Kit to see how very hard he was trying to
remember something, without succeeding. But it was not till they were
seated in the consul’s office that he spoke again.

“There is something I don’t understand,” he said then to Kit. “And I
see you don’t want to tell me; but tell me this, is anything wrong at
home?”

“Not a thing, father,” Kit answered.

“Nobody dead?”

“No, indeed; nor sick, either; and in an hour or two they’ll be the
happiest couple in the world, when they get my message.”

“Well, then I can wait,” Mr. Silburn answered. “I don’t know what it
all means, but it’s all right, since you’re here. You’re such a big
fellow, Kit; I had no idea you were such a big boy. And you’re going
home with me?”

“In the very first ship,” Kit answered.

“Then it’s all right,” he said; “you can tell me when you get ready.
Things are all in a muddle, somehow.”

The consul had a great many questions to ask about Kit’s voyage, and
his business, and how long he was going to stay; and after a little
conversation, of which Mr. Silburn took no notice, he asked one in
which the former patient took a sudden interest.

“Don’t you both feel as if you could eat something? There is an
excellent restaurant across the street, and I should be glad to have
you eat dinner with me.”

“Yes, I’m hungry,” Mr. Silburn answered. “I haven’t eaten anything
since--no, I’m getting mixed again. The last thing I ate was a bit of
raw lobster, but I can’t remember where it was.”

When they were seated at the table, the patient gave ample proof that
his loss of memory did not affect his appetite.

“That lobster you spoke of,” the consul said, hoping to revive the
subject, “was that on the island?”

“It seems to me it was on an island somewhere,” Mr. Silburn answered.
“Not much of an island, as far as I can remember; just a little place,
with only a few people on it. I’m glad you spoke of it; though it seems
to put me in mind of something, though I can’t think what it is. Give
me some more of the roast beef, please.”

When Kit and his father retired to their room in the hospital early
that evening, a room evidently kept for some of the staff rather than
for patients, Kit drew one of the big chairs up to the table, and
seating his father in it, proceeded to open the small package that
Vieve had entrusted to him.

“You see Vieve hasn’t forgotten you, father,” he said. “She thought you
must miss your slippers, so she made me bring them over to you. And
here’s something else. Do you remember this?”

He reached into one of the slippers and took out his father’s pocket
knife that the sailor from the _Flower City_ had given him.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for that knife,” Mr. Silburn said, taking
it as coolly as if he had mislaid it somewhere the day before. “Where
did you find it, Kit?”

“I got it from the man you handed it to, to cut away one of the
_Flower City’s_ boats with, sir,” Kit answered. “Do you remember
that?”

“Why shouldn’t I remember it?” Mr. Silburn asked, a little petulantly.
“I handed it to Blinkey, and they got away from the schooner all right.
Has anything been heard from them yet?”

“Blinkey is safe in England,” Kit replied, as he took off his father’s
shoes and put on his slippers. “But you and he are the only ones who
have been heard of.”

“Oh, well, they’ll be all right,” Mr. Silburn exclaimed; “they were
good tight boats, and--no, our boat went to pieces, though. I get these
things so mixed. My head’s all in a muddle with trying to remember,
and it tires me. I think you’d better help me get to bed, Kit. I’ll be
rested by morning.”

“Kit!” he called, as Kit was tucking the bedclothes snugly about him;
“you still here, Kit?”

“Yes; here I am, father.”

“And you’ve come all the way to New Zealand to take me home?”

“Yes; we’re going home just as fast as we can.”

“And you won’t go without me, Kit?”

“Do you think I’d be likely to do such a thing, father?” Kit asked.

“No, you wouldn’t, Kit; you always were a good boy. And I’ll be rested
by morning.” And with Kit’s hand firmly clutched in his he closed his
eyes and gave up trying to remember.

Kit stood by the bedside for some minutes, till he was sure that his
father was asleep; then he sat down at the table and wrote a long
letter home, knowing that the mails would reach America weeks earlier
than the slow _Brindisi_ could arrive. And a letter to Mr. Clark
too, and another to Captain Griffith. It was nearly midnight before he
got to bed, but the fatigue and excitement of the day insured a good
night’s sleep.

“Kit, my boy, wake up. I want you to tell me something.”

When Kit opened his eyes, the sun was streaming in the windows, and
his father, already dressed, was standing by his bed. He sprang up and
began to put on his clothes.

“I want you to tell me, Kit,” he repeated, seating himself in one of
the big chairs, “how long I have been away from home.”

“Nearly two years, sir,” Kit answered.

“Two years!” Mr. Silburn exclaimed, springing from his chair. “You’re
not making game of me, Kit? You wouldn’t do that, my boy!”

“No, sir,” Kit answered; “it is true. After the wreck of the _Flower
City_ you disappeared, and we almost gave you up. Then after a
long time we heard of an American sailor in the hospital here in New
Zealand, and got them to send us a photograph. We were not sure even
then; but I came on, and found you. So that trouble is all over, and
you mustn’t worry yourself about it.”

“No, I’ll not worry about it,” his father replied. “But I want to know;
it makes a man feel so foolish not to know where he has been. How did
you get here, my boy?”

That made a long story; for Kit had to tell how he had been a cabin
boy and a supercargo; how he had become an assistant purser; and how
his good friends on the two ships had paved the way for him to New
Zealand. As he got on with the recital, his father seized his hand and
fondled it; and before he finished, great tears of love and gratitude
were rolling down the old sailor’s cheeks.

While he was still in this position, the house surgeon called to learn
how his former patient had passed the night.

“That’s what I want to see,” he said, as he took in the situation. “You
shed no tears while you remembered nothing, Mr. Silburn. This is one
of the best symptoms, to have your emotions aroused. Don’t try to push
your memory now; it will all come back to you; give it time.”

In the four days that Kit could spend in New Zealand, he saw
improvement every day. Gradually it came back to his father that after
the _Flower City’s_ boat went to pieces, he was a long time in the
water. That when he was about to give up, he was rescued by some ship,
he could not remember her name, that carried him around Cape Horn. That
that ship was also wrecked and abandoned. Then there was a hazy picture
in his mind of a desert island, and terrible suffering from hunger and
thirst. All beyond that was still a blank.

Kit was so jealous of anything that took him away from his father, that
it was a relief to hear that the Bishop of New Zealand had gone to
Australia on business; so it would be useless for him to present his
letter from the cardinal. That would have been valuable in case of
trouble, but all had been smooth sailing.

Throughout the long voyage home, in which Mr. Silburn was a passenger
on the _Brindisi_, he continued to improve. There was hardly
anything now about his adventures that he could not remember, except
his long stay in the Wellington Hospital. Every little incident had
been discussed over and over. But it was not till the vessel had passed
Sandy Hook, and was steaming slowly up New York Bay, that he let Kit
know of something that had been worrying him.

“There was a payment due on the house about the time I ought to have
been home,” he said. “I’m afraid we are going to have trouble about
that.”

It was worth all the hard work to Kit, all the hard saving, to be able
to tell his father that the indebtedness had been paid to the last
penny.




CHAPTER XX.

LOVE’S YOUNG DREAM IN BARBADOES.


Old Silas beamed all over as he and Kit tucked the robes around Mr.
Silburn in the Huntington stage, once more on runners. It seemed to the
young supercargo that the very horses had a pleased look.

“Well, sir, I didn’t expect to see this again!” Silas declared. “Many
a time I’ve took Kit up to Hunt’n’ton, this last year or two. Why, Mr.
Silburn, the first time he went up with me he didn’t have no overcoat
to put on, an’ I had to wrap him in the hoss blanket. But next time
he come home, bless you, his clo’es was good as anybody’s. I says to
myself, says I, ‘That there boy’s a makin’ his way, he is.’ An’ then he
comes with gold braid on his cap; an’ look at him now, will you! But I
swan to goodness, I didn’t expect to see him ridin’ up alongside of his
father any more. We’d all give you up, Mr. Silburn.”

“No, not quite all!” Mr. Silburn laughed. “Here’s one fellow didn’t
give me up, or I wouldn’t be taking a ride with you to-day, Silas. If
he hadn’t stuck to me through thick and thin” (and he gave Kit a clap
on the shoulder), “I’d still be out in New Zealand eating stewed mutton
in that hospital.”

“I wasn’t the only one who didn’t give him up,” Kit protested. “We
always kept his chair and slippers ready for him.”

“And you ain’t brought no baggage, Mr. Silburn?” Silas asked.

“Baggage?” Mr. Silburn repeated; “this little satchel here, that Kit
got me. The rest of my baggage is pretty well scattered, Silas. Let me
see; I have a chest of clothes somewhere off Hatteras, but they’ve been
on the bottom of the ocean for two years, so I’m afraid they must be
damp. Then there’s a quarter interest in a flag pole on some island in
the Pacific, but I had to leave that behind. And there’s a suit of gray
clothes in the Wellington hospital. I never want to see them again,
whatever happens, though they were very kind to me out there.

“That’s a pretty good team you have there, Silas,” he went on; “look as
if they could take these Fairfield County hills without losing their
wind. Suppose you let them out once, and show us what they can do.”

“Ah, you’re in a hurry to see the folks!” Silas declared. “An’ no
wonder, Mr. Silburn. I’ll git you out to Hunt’n’ton jist as quick as
ever the trip was made, if nothin’ don’t give ’way.”

Kit had a nice little plan arranged to introduce his father as “Mr.
John Doe, of New Zealand,” when they reached the gate; but it fell
through most ingloriously. The truth is there was very little said at
first when they reached the house. Mrs. Silburn and Vieve had hold of
the wanderer before he was out of the sleigh, and in the excitement his
satchel would have been carried away if Silas had not come running in
with it.

There was not only the joy of seeing him sitting in his own chair again
by the fire, but of seeing him almost as well as ever, only a little
older and grayer. Kit had had no chance to write them from the steamer
of his father’s steady improvement, so it was a fresh pleasure to find
that his memory was fully restored, except that he never could quite
realize that he had been months, instead of days, in the Wellington
hospital.

They wanted him all to themselves that day, but that was impossible.
The news soon flew through Huntington that Mr. Silburn had returned,
and the neighbors began to pour in at such a rate that Vieve and Kit
had to fly around and start a fire in the parlor stove, to give their
mother a chance to set her grandest dinner table in the sitting-room.
And every visitor had so much to say about Kit that he began to wish
himself a cabin boy on the _North Cape_ again.

“I’ll have to look out for myself here,” Mr. Silburn laughed, “or I’ll
be of no account in my own house. Everything’s ‘Kit,’ ‘Kit,’ ‘Kit.’
Well, I must say there ain’t many boys--”

“Oh, look here, father!” Kit cried; “are you going to begin on that
too! Look at Vieve; nobody stuck to you tighter than Vieve. You don’t
know how she used to encourage us when we were inclined to give you
up.” And he told for the first time how Vieve had sent him one of her
two dollars when he went to New York, and how he had been robbed of the
stamps.

“Genevieve, come here to your father!” Mr. Silburn said, in a tone of
mock severity. And he put his arm around her to lift her to his knee
as he used to do, but found that was a task that required both hands.
Fathers are so slow to see it when their daughters grow into young
women; it takes the sons of other fathers to make that discovery.

“Why!” he exclaimed, “you’re as heavy as a kedge anchor, and bigger
than your mother. And you sent one of your dollars to Kit, did you? Now
if I was half a father, I’d have handfuls of gold to shower over you on
coming back from the sea, wouldn’t I? And the fact is I haven’t a cent
but a little money that Kit made me put in my clothes--the clothes that
he bought me, too. He--”

“Oh, Vieve has turned miser since you went away,” Kit interrupted,
fearing that his father might go back to the old subject. “She wouldn’t
spend a cent for fear we might not have enough money to get you home.
She wants a rich husband, too. She has her eye on a cardinal that I met
over in--”

Of course Vieve would not let him finish the sentence; and in the
midst of the playful quarrel she was called to help her mother with
dinner; and if any one should ask just how the reunited family spent
that first day, not one of them could give anything like an exact
account.

After a few days Vieve declared that the family reminded her of three
kittens, so pleased with everything that they sat around the fire
purring.

“You’d better enjoy it while you can,” her father answered. “Kit
will soon have to be going back to his ship; and for my part, I’m
not going to sit here the rest of my life doing nothing. You needn’t
think it. It’s just the time for a man to go to sea again, after being
shipwrecked; lightning don’t strike twice in the same place, you know.”

“Oh, Christopher!” Mrs. Silburn exclaimed. “You wouldn’t think of going
to sea again, would you?”

“I’ve got to do something,” he answered, “and navigation don’t go very
well on shore. But no more long voyages, likely. Maybe you’ve forgotten
what I told you before I went away about a firm in Bridgeport that
wanted me to take charge of a schooner line between there and New York?
You see my memory works all smooth now, don’t it? Well, if they’re
still of the same mind, I may do some business with them. You’re not
going to lay me away on the shelf yet awhile, anyhow.”

“Oh, then I’d have a chance to go to New York with you some time!”
Vieve cried. “You know I’ve never been there yet.”

“That’s just where I shall have to go to-morrow,” Kit announced. “I see
by the paper that the _Trinidad_ is due this afternoon, and it’s
not fair to stay away too long. I’ll be back again for a few days, you
know, but I must be on hand for the next voyage.”

It was purely by accident that he mentioned it just as Vieve showed
how anxious she was to see the metropolis; but the coincidence set him
to thinking. Here he had been half over the world, and Vieve had never
been further than Bridgeport. Why shouldn’t he give her a trip to New
York?

“How would you like to go along with me, Vieve?” he asked. “I’ll show
you my ship, and bring you back in two or three days.”

“Oh, Kit!” his mother exclaimed; “that’s just like a boy. How can the
child go to New York without any clothes fit to wear?”

“Bother the clothes,” Kit retorted, still just like a boy. “She’s not
going to set the fashions, is she? I’ll lend her one of my blue suits.”

It was so quickly settled that Vieve was to go, that Mr. Silburn was
led to exclaim:--

“There’s no parental discipline at all in this family, is there?”

“Well, there’s none needed, that’s one thing,” Mrs. Silburn answered;
and she sat up half the night getting Vieve ready. She was relieved to
find that they would not have to go to a hotel, for there would be any
number of vacant staterooms on the _Trinidad_.

That trip to New York with Vieve was one of the greatest pleasures that
Kit had ever enjoyed, next to finding his father. Everything was so
new to her. She had never even been in a railway train before. And Mr.
Clark was so kind to her, and took her all over the ship, and she was
so delighted with everything. And in the evening he had a talk with the
purser in their office that must have been very satisfactory, for next
morning he said to Vieve:--

“Vieve, do they have tailor shops for girls? I mean places where a girl
can buy things all ready to put on, the way a man can?”

“Oh, do they!” Vieve answered. “To think that anybody shouldn’t know
that! Why, dozens of them.”

“Well,” he went on, “I heard a great piece of news last night, and feel
like celebrating a little to-day. We’ll get the stewardess directly and
go out and see whether you can find anything to fit you. You can buy
the whole business, can you? Hat, coat, dress, shoes, and all?”

“Yes, when you have money enough,” Vieve laughed. “But what is it, Kit?
What is this great piece of news? Ah, now, Kit, you ought to tell me; I
always tell you everything.”

“Not till we get home, Miss Curiosity,” he answered. “When we get home
I’ll tell you all about it.”

Kit wisely declined to go further than the door of any of the big
bazaars that the stewardess led them to. But Vieve’s first experiment
in “shopping” must have been successful, for when Kit took her over the
Brooklyn Bridge toward evening to see Captain Griffith and the _North
Cape_, her appearance was so changed that her mother would hardly
have known her.

And to tell the good news about his father to Captain Griffith was
almost equal to telling it at home, the Captain took such an interest.
He had to go over the whole story of his voyage to Melbourne and then
across to Wellington, and describe his first meeting with his father,
and everything that happened afterwards.

“Well, Miss Silburn,” the Captain said, when Kit concluded--“or I think
I’ll have to call you Miss Vieve,--I’m almost one of the family, you
know, and one of the first things I did when I got hold of Christopher
was to read a letter you wrote him--”

“Oh, yes, sir, I hope you’ll call me Vieve,” Vieve interrupted; “I
shouldn’t know who you meant if you called me Miss Silburn.”

“Well, I was going to say,” the Captain went on, “that I took an
interest in you all from the time Christopher read me those letters
from home on the first evening I knew him. And when I heard about the
dollar’s worth of stamps you sent him, and the way he was robbed of
them, I came very near handing him a greenback to send in his letter
to you. But I was afraid it might spoil him. Boys are very easily
spoiled; specially cabin boys. I don’t suppose he’s ever told you
about how I had to train him in, in the first voyage or two.”

“Don’t you believe it, Vieve!” Kit laughed; “the Captain wouldn’t hurt
a cat.”

“I gave him plenty of work to do, at any rate,” the Captain went on.
“I don’t want to make him conceited by saying he did it well; but he
seems to have turned out pretty well, like most of my boys. The great
point about your brother was that he made up his mind to do his work
well, and push his way ahead. Boys who start with that idea generally
succeed, even when they have no great brains to begin with.”

“Ahem!” Kit interrupted. “Can’t we find something more interesting to
talk about than me? Where do you go next time, Captain?”

“To Barbadoes again,” the Captain answered. “We went there last voyage.
You fellows in the big mail steamers mustn’t think you are the only
ones to go to the West Indies. And I saw a friend of yours there, too.
Do you remember any one named Outerbridge, in Barbadoes?”

Kit began to blush so hard that the Captain immediately added:--

“Oh, not the young lady. It was her father that I saw. He wanted to
be remembered to you, and hoped to see you next time you visited the
island.”

“Ah!” Vieve exclaimed, “he never told us anything about a young lady in
Barbadoes, Captain. You’re getting so you don’t tell me anything, any
more, Kit. Do you know, Captain, he heard some great piece of news last
night, and he won’t tell me what it was.”

“No, I won’t tell even Captain Griffith what it was, not at present,”
Kit retorted. “And he will say that I’m right not to tell the business
affairs of the company I work for.”

“It would be very unlike you to do it, I’ll say that,” the Captain
assented; “and very improper besides. But you are going right back to
the _Trinidad_, of course? and I may expect to see you while we
are lying at Barbadoes?”

“I’m off in her next Saturday, sir,” Kit answered. “That’s the reason I
have to start for home to-morrow morning, and can’t make you a longer
visit. But my sister was anxious to come over and see Harry Leonard,
and--”

“Why, _Kit_!” Vieve cried, with a blush that made her look
prettier than ever; “I never mentioned his name, or thought of him.”

“Of course you both want to see Henry,” the Captain laughed; and in
answer to his bell Harry soon appeared, and Kit had to retell his
latest adventures in brief. But it was growing late, and they could
not prolong their stay, and they crossed the East River on a Fulton
ferryboat to give Vieve a view of the big bridge by night.

Such a trip was like delving into an Arabian Nights palace for the
young Huntington girl, and for weeks afterward she could talk of
little but the wonderful things she had seen. And from what Kit heard
while he was home, he imagined that the most wonderful things of all,
the most beautiful, most lovely and enchanting, were not the busy
streets or tall buildings, not the big ships, the great bridge, or the
crowds, but the fascinating things she saw in the big bazaars, which
she described with more technical terms than he thought she had ever
heard of.

But Kit’s great news had to be told before they could let him go. He
intended to tell it in the home circle, but he would have been more
than human if he had not let Vieve tease him a little for it just after
seeing how anxious she was.

“It is not to be mentioned outside of the family,” he said, “because I
mustn’t be telling office secrets; but Mr. Clark told me I could tell
it at home. You must know, then, that--ahem--ahem--”

“Oh, Kit, do go on!” Vieve burst out. “I’ll tell all about that
Barbadoes girl if you don’t.”

“You can’t,” Kit retorted; “you don’t know anything about her.
But to come back to business, the company is building a fine new
steamer, larger and better than any of the others, to be called the
_Maida_. She is under way now, and when she is finished, Captain
Fraser is to command her, because he is the senior captain of the line;
and Mr. Clark is to be her purser, because he is the senior purser.
That, as you can see, will leave the _Trinidad_ without a purser;
or _would_, rather. But if the present arrangements are carried
out, the new purser of the _Trinidad_ will be--”

“Oh, Kit!” Mrs. Silburn cried.

“I see you’ve guessed it, mother,” he went on. “His name is Kit
Silburn. But I only said _if_ present arrangements are carried
out, mind you. There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip. The
company may change its mind, or--or lots of other things may happen
meanwhile. A purser gets exactly fifty per cent more pay than an
assistant purser, and that part I should be very well satisfied with.
But the _Trinidad_ would seem strange without Captain Fraser or
Mr. Clark.”

“Lots of other things,” as Kit predicted, did happen in the ten or
eleven months that passed before the new _Maida_ was ready for
sea. The Silburn residence, for one thing, grew from a little story
and a half cottage into a pretty two-story house, one of the best in
Huntington. The new line of schooners between Bridgeport and New York,
of which Mr. Silburn was manager and one of the stockholders, proved a
profitable venture. Harry Leonard became a supercargo himself, and felt
six inches taller from that minute. And it happened in the strangest
way that the dinner-parties given at Sea View plantation, in Barbadoes,
always fell upon the days when the _Trinidad_ was in port.

Kit did not hesitate to speak at home about Miss Blanche Outerbridge,
and for a time Vieve was inclined to be jealous of “that Barbadoes
girl,” as she insisted upon calling her. But after a while Mr.
Outerbridge brought his family to America for a visit, and upon
becoming well acquainted with her, she had to say that Barbadoes
produced some very pretty and companionable young ladies.

It was not till long after Kit became purser of the _Trinidad_,
however,--not till the day came when there was neither need nor excuse
for his spending any more of his earnings in Huntington,--that in one
of his confidential talks with Vieve he told her how good the prospect
was that she might in course of time be suitably provided with a
sister-in-law.




_W. A. Wilde & Co., Publishers._

War of the Revolution Series.

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  _THREE COLONIAL BOYS._ A Story of the Times of ’76. 368 pp.
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       *       *       *       *       *

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      pp. Cloth, $1.50.

    Kit Silburn is a real “Brain and Brawn” boy, full of sense
    and grit and sound good qualities. Determined to make his way
    in life, and with no influential friends to give him a start,
    he does a deal of hard work between the evening when he first
    meets the stanch Captain Griffith, and the proud day when he
    becomes purser of a great ocean steamship. His sea adventures
    are mostly on shore; but whether he is cleaning the cabin of
    the _North Cape_, or landing cargo in Yucatan, or hurrying the
    spongers and fruitmen of Nassau, or exploring London, or sight
    seeing with a disguised prince in Marseilles, he is always the
    same busy, thoroughgoing, manly Kit. Whether or not he has a
    father alive is a question of deep interest throughout the
    story; but that he has a loving and loyal sister is plain from
    the start.

The set of four volumes in a box, $6.00.

  _SERAPH, THE LITTLE VIOLINISTE._ BY MRS. C. V. JAMIESON. 300 pp.
      Cloth, $1.50.

    The scene of the story is the French quarter of New
    Orleans, and charming bits of local color add to its
    attractiveness.--_The Boston Journal._

    Perhaps the most charming story she has ever written is that
    which describes Seraph, the little violiniste.--_Transcript,
    Boston._

_W. A. Wilde & Co., Boston and Chicago._




_W. A. Wilde & Co., Publishers._

Travel-Adventure Series.

  _IN WILD AFRICA._ Adventures of Two Boys in the Sahara Desert,
      etc. BY THOS. W. KNOX. 325 pp. Cloth, $1.50.

    A story of absorbing interest.--_Boston Journal._

    Our young people will pronounce it unusually good.--_Albany
    Argus._

    Col. Knox has struck a popular note in his latest
    volume.--_Springfield Republican._

  _THE LAND OF THE KANGAROO._ BY THOS. W. KNOX. Adventures of Two
      Boys in the Great Island Continent. 318 pp. Cloth, $1.50.

    His descriptions of the natural history and botany of the
    country are very interesting.--_Detroit Free Press._

    The actual truthfulness of the book needs no gloss to add to
    its absorbing interest.--_The Book Buyer, New York._

  _OVER THE ANDES; or, Our Boys in New South America._ BY
      HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH. 368 pp. Cloth, $1.50.

    No writer of the present century has done more and better
    service than Hezekiah Butterworth in the production of helpful
    literature for the young. In this volume he writes, in his own
    fascinating way, of a country too little known by American
    readers.--_Christian Work._

    Mr. Butterworth is careful of his historic facts, and then
    he charmingly interweaves his quaint stories, legends, and
    patriotic adventures as few writers can.--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._

    The subject is an inspiring one, and Mr. Butterworth has done
    full justice to the high ideals which have inspired the men of
    South America.--_Religious Telescope._

  _LOST IN NICARAGUA; or, The Lands of the Great Canal._ BY
      HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH. 295 pp. Cloth, $1.50.

    The book pictures the wonderful land of Nicaragua and continues
    the story of the travelers whose adventures in South America
    are related in “Over the Andes.” In this companion book to
    “Over the Andes,” one of the boy travelers who goes into the
    Nicaraguan forests in search of a quetzal, or the royal bird of
    the Aztecs, falls into an ancient idol cave, and is rescued in
    a remarkable way by an old Mosquito Indian. The narrative is
    told in such a way as to give the ancient legends of Guatemala,
    the story of the chieftain, Nicaragua, the history of the
    Central American Republics, and the natural history of the
    wonderlands of the ocelot, the conger, parrots, and monkeys.

    Since the voyage of the _Oregon_, of 13,000 miles to reach Key
    West the American people have seen what would be the value of
    the Nicaragua Canal. The book gives the history of the projects
    for the canal, and facts about Central America, and a part of
    it was written in Costa Rica. It enters a new field.

The set of four volumes in a box, $6.00.

  _QUARTERDECK AND FOK’SLE._ BY MOLLY ELLIOTT SEAWELL.
      272 pp. Cloth, $1.25.

    Miss Seawell has done a notable work for the young people of
    our country in her excellent stories of naval exploits. They
    are of the kind that causes the reader, no matter whether young
    or old, to thrill with pride and patriotism at the deeds of
    daring of the heroes of our navy.

_W. A. Wilde & Co., Boston and Chicago._




_W. A. Wilde & Co., Publishers._

Fighting for the Flag Series.

By Chas. Ledyard Norton.

  _JACK BENSON’S LOG; or, Afloat with the Flag in ’61._ 281 pp.
      Cloth, $1.25.

    An unusually interesting historical story, and one that will
    arouse the loyal impulses of every American boy and girl. The
    story is distinctly superior to anything ever attempted along
    this line before.--_The Independent._

    A story that will arouse the loyal impulses of every American
    boy and girl.--_The Press._

  _A MEDAL OF HONOR MAN; or, Cruising Among Blockade Runners._
      280 pp. Cloth, $1.25.

    A bright, breezy sequel to “Jack Benson’s Log.” The book has
    unusual literary excellence.--_The Book Buyer, New York._

    A stirring story for boys.--_The Journal, Indianapolis._

  _MIDSHIPMAN JACK._ 290 pp. Cloth, $1.25.

    Jack is a delightful hero, and the author has made his
    experiences and adventures seem very real.--_Congregationalist._

    It is true historically and full of exciting war scenes and
    adventures.--_Outlook._

    A stirring story of naval service in the Confederate waters
    during the late war.--_Presbyterian._

The set of three volumes in a box, $3.75.

  _A GIRL OF ’76._ BY AMY E. BLANCHARD. 331 pp. Cloth, $1.50.

    “A Girl of ’76” lays its scene in and around Boston where the
    principal events of the early period of the Revolution were
    enacted. Elizabeth Hall, the heroine, is the daughter of a
    patriot who is active in the defense of his country. The story
    opens with a scene in Charlestown, where Elizabeth Hall and her
    parents live. The emptying of the tea in Boston Harbor is the
    means of giving the little girl her first strong impression
    as to the seriousness of her father’s opinions, and causes a
    quarrel between herself and her schoolmate and playfellow, Amos
    Dwight.

  _A SOLDIER OF THE LEGION._ BY CHAS. LEDYARD NORTON. 300 pp.
      Cloth, $1.50.

    Two boys, a Carolinian and a Virginian, born a few years apart
    during the last half of the eighteenth century, afford the
    groundwork for the incidents of this tale.

    The younger of the two was William Henry Harrison, sometime
    President of the United States, and the elder, his companion
    and faithful attendant through life, was Carolinus Bassett,
    Sergeant of the old First Infantry, and in an irregular sort of
    a way Captain of Virginian Horse. He it is who tells the story
    a few years after President Harrison’s death, his granddaughter
    acting as critic and amanuensis.

    The story has to do with the early days of the Republic, when
    the great, wild, unknown West was beset by dangers on every
    hand, and the Government at Washington was at its wits’ end
    to provide ways and means to meet the perplexing problems of
    national existence.

_W. A. Wilde & Co., Boston and Chicago._




_W. A. Wilde & Co., Publishers._

  _THE ORCUTT GIRLS; or, One Term at the Academy._ BY CHARLOTTE M.
      VAILE. 316 pp. Cloth, $1.50.

    A well-told story of school life which will interest its
    readers deeply, and hold before them a high standard of living.
    The heroines are charming girls and their adventures are
    described in an entertaining way.--_Pilgrim Teacher._

    Mrs. Vaile gives us a story here which will become famous as a
    description of a phase of New England educational history which
    has now become a thing of the past, with an exception here and
    there.--_Boston Transcript._

  _SUE ORCUTT._ A Sequel to “The Orcutt Girls.” BY CHARLOTTE M.
      VAILE. 330 pp. Cloth, $1.50.

    It is a charming story from beginning to end and is written in
    that easy flowing style which characterizes the best stories of
    our best writers.--_Christian Work._

    It is wholly a piece of good fortune for young folks that
    brings this book to market in such ample season for the
    selection of holiday gifts.--_Denver Republican._

    The story teaches a good moral without any preaching, in fact
    it is as good in a way as Miss Alcott’s books, which is high
    but deserved praise.--_Chronicle._

  _THE M. M. C._ A Story of the Great Rockies. BY CHARLOTTE M.
      VAILE. 232 pp. Cloth, $1.25.

    The pluck of the little school teacher, struggling against
    adverse circumstances, to hold for her friend the promising
    claim, which he has secured after years of misfortune in other
    ventures, is well brought out. The almost resistless bad luck
    which has made “Old Hopefull’s” nickname a hollow mockery
    still followed him when a fortune was almost within his grasp.
    The little school teacher was, however, a new element in “Old
    Hopefull’s” experience, and the result, as the story shows, was
    most satisfactory.

  _THE ROMANCE OF DISCOVERY; or, a Thousand Years of Exploration,
      etc._ BY WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS. 305 pp. Cloth, $1.50.

    It is a book of profit and interest involving a variety of
    correlated instances and influences which impart the flavor of
    the unexpected.--_Philadelphia Presbyterian._

    An intensely interesting narrative following well-authenticated
    history.--_Telescope._

    Boys will read it for the romance in it and be delighted, and
    when they get through, behold! they have read a history of
    America.--_Awakener._

  _THE ROMANCE OF AMERICAN COLONIZATION; or, How the Foundations of
      Our Country Were Laid._ BY WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS. 295 pp.
      Cloth, $1.50.

    To this continent, across a great ocean, came two distinct
    streams of humanity and two rival civilizations,--the one
    Latin, led and typified by the Spanish, with Portuguese and
    French also, and the other Germanic, or Anglo-Saxon, led and
    typified by the English and reinforced by Dutch, German, and
    British people.

  _A SON OF THE REVOLUTION._ An Historical Novel of the Days of
      Aaron Burr. BY ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS. 301 pp. Cloth, $1.50.

    The story of Tom Edwards, adventurer, as it is connected with
    Aaron Burr, is in every way faithful to the facts of history.
    As the story progresses the reader will wonder where the line
    between fact and fiction is to be drawn. Among the characters
    that figure in it are President Jefferson, Gen. Andrew Jackson,
    General Wilkinson, and many other prominent government and army
    officials.

_W. A. Wilde & Co., Boston and Chicago._




_W. A. Wilde & Co., Publishers._

  _MALVERN, A NEIGHBORHOOD STORY._ BY ELLEN DOUGLAS DELAND. 341 pp.
      Cloth, $1.50.

    Her descriptions of boys and girls are so true, and her
    knowledge of their ways is so accurate, that one must feel an
    admiration for her complete mastery of her chosen field.--_The
    Argus, Albany._

    Miss Deland was accorded a place with Louisa M. Alcott and Nora
    Perry as a successful writer of books for girls. We think this
    praise none too high.--_The Post._

  _A SUCCESSFUL VENTURE._ BY ELLEN DOUGLAS DELAND. 340 pp. Cloth,
      $1.50.

    One of the many successful books that have come from her pen,
    which is certainly the very best.--_Boston Herald._

    It is a good piece of work and its blending of good sense and
    entertainment will be appreciated.--_Congregationalist._

  _KATRINA._ BY ELLEN DOUGLAS DELAND. 340 pp. Cloth, $1.50.

    “Katrina” is the story of a girl who was brought up by an aunt
    in a remote village of Vermont. Her life is somewhat lonely
    until a family from New York come there to board during the
    summer. Katrina’s aunt, who is a reserved woman, has told her
    little of her antecedents, and she supposes that she has no
    other relatives. Her New York friends grow very fond of her and
    finally persuade her to visit them during the winter. There new
    pleasures and new temptations present themselves, and Katrina’s
    character develops through them to new strength.

  _ABOVE THE RANGE._ BY THEODORA R. JENNESS. 332 pp. Cloth, $1.25.

    The quaintness of the characters described will be sure to make
    the story very popular.--_Book News, Philadelphia._

    A book of much interest and novelty.--_The Book Buyer, New
    York._

  _BIG CYPRESS._ BY KIRK MUNROE. 164 pp. Cloth, 1.00.

    If there is a man who understands writing a story for boys
    better than another, it is Kirk Munroe.--_Springfield
    Republican._

    A capital writer of boys’ stories is Mr. Kirk Munroe.--_Outlook._

  _FOREMAN JENNIE._ BY AMOS R. WELLS. A Young Woman of Business.
      268 pp. Cloth, $1.25.

    It is a delightful story.--_The Advance, Chicago._

    It is full of action.--_The Standard, Chicago._

    A story of decided merit.--_The Epworth Herald, Chicago._

  _MYSTERIOUS VOYAGE OF THE DAPHNE._ BY LIEUT. H. P. WHITMARSH.
      305 pp. Cloth, $1.25.

    One of the best collections of short stories for boys and
    girls that has been published in recent years. Such writers as
    Hezekiah Butterworth, Wm. O. Stoddard, and Jane G. Austin have
    contributed characteristic stories which add greatly to the
    general interest of the book.

_W. A. Wilde & Co., Boston and Chicago._




_W. A. Wilde & Co., Publishers._

  _PHILLIP LEICESTER._ BY JESSIE E. WRIGHT. 264 pp. Cloth, $1.25.

    The book ought to make any reader thankful for a good home, and
    thoughtful for the homeless and neglected.--_Golden Rule._

    The story is intensely interesting.--_Christian Inquirer._

  _CAP’N THISTLETOP._ BY SOPHIE SWETT. 282 pp. Cloth, $1.25.

    Sophie Swett knows how to please young folks as well as old;
    for both she writes simple, unaffected, cheerful stories with
    a judicious mingling of humor and plot. Such a story is “Cap’n
    Thistletop.”--_The Outlook._

  _LADY BETTY’S TWINS._ BY E. M. WATERWORTH. 117 pp. With 12
      illustrations. 75 cents.

    The story of a little boy and girl who did not know the meaning
    of the word “obedience.” They learned the lesson, however,
    after some trying experiences.

  _THE MOONSTONE RING._ BY JENNIE CHAPPELL. 118 pp. With 6
      illustrations. 75 cents.

    A home story with the true ring to it. The happenings of the
    story are somewhat out of the usual run of events.

  _THE BEACON LIGHT SERIES._ Edited by NATALIE L. RICE. 5 vols.
      Fully Illustrated. The Set, $2.50.

    The stories contained in this set of books are all by
    well-known writers, carefully selected and edited, and they
    cannot, therefore, fail to be both helpful and instructive.

  _THE ALLAN BOOKS._ Edited by MISS LUCY WHEELOCK. 10 vols. Over
      400 illustrations. The set in a box, $2.50.

    One of the best and most attractive sets of books for little
    folks ever published. They are full of bright and pleasing
    illustrations and charming little stories just adapted to young
    children.

  _THE MARJORIE BOOKS._ Edited by MISS LUCY WHEELOCK. 6 vols. Over
      200 illustrations. The set, $1.50.

    A very attractive set of books for the little folks, full of
    pictures and good stories.

  _DOTS LIBRARY._ Edited by MISS LUCY WHEELOCK. 10 vols. Over 400
      illustrations. The set, $2.50.

    In every way a most valuable set of books for the little
    people. Miss Wheelock possesses rare skill in interesting and
    entertaining the little ones.

_W. A. Wilde & Co., Boston and Chicago._




Transcriber’s Note:

Punctuation has been standardised. ~H~ has been used for the character
used in the original publication to represent “diamond H”. Hyphenation
has been retained as it appears in the original publication. There is
perhaps confusion between the names “Harry” and “Henry” but these also
have been retained as they appear in the original publication.

Changes have been made as follows:

  Facing page 48
    YOU ARE YOUNG FOR A SUPERCARGO, SENOR _changed to_
    YOU ARE YOUNG FOR A SUPERCARGO, SEÑOR

  Page 69
    loquats, sappadillos, sour sops, _changed to_
    loquats, sapadillos, sour sops,

  Page 119
    men were trying to lassoo _changed to_
    men were trying to lasso

  Page 142
    _The Flower City_ _changed to_
    The _Flower City_

  Page 167
    be done by the great num- _changed to_
    be done by the great number

  Page 173
    advice it sure to be good _changed to_
    advice is sure to be good

  Page 196
    some of our American millionnaires _changed to_
    some of our American millionaires

  Page 198
    sighted the Belearic Isles _changed to_
    sighted the Balearic Isles

  Page 209
    in a large store-paved courtyard _changed to_
    in a large stone-paved courtyard

  Page 226
    Captain Grffith had always treated him _changed to_
    Captain Griffith had always treated him

  Page 269
    treasures ever since Kit bought it home _changed to_
    treasures ever since Kit brought it home

  Page 305
    his throat like a vice _changed to_
    his throat like a vise

  Page 317
    not all millionnaires here _changed to_
    not all millionaires here

  Page 350
    easily spoiled; sp cially cabin boys _changed to_
    easily spoiled; specially cabin boys

  Page v of the advertisements
    Portugese and French also _changed to_
    Portuguese and French also

  Page vii of the advertisements
    EDITED BY NATALIE L. RICE. _changed to_
    Edited by NATALIE L. RICE.



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