We were pretty near the Narrows when
I thought it was about time to let the captain, or
one of the officers, know that there were some people
on board who didn’t intend to take the whole
trip. I had read in the newspapers that committees
and friends who went part way with distinguished people
generally left them in the lower bay.
But I was saved the trouble of looking
for an officer, for one of them, the purser, came
along, collecting tickets. I didn’t give
him a chance to ask Scott or any of the other fellows
for something that they didn’t have, but went
right up to him and told him how the matter stood.
“I must see the captain about
this,” he said, and off he went.
“He didn’t look very friendly,”
said Scott, and I had to admit that he didn’t.
In a few moments the captain came
walking rapidly up to us. He was a tall man,
dressed in blue, with side-whiskers, and an oil-cloth
cap. The purser came up behind him.
“What’s all this?”
said the captain. “Are you not passengers,
you boys?” He did not look very friendly, either,
as he asked this question.
“Two of us are,” I said,
“but four of us were carried off accidentally.”
“Accident? Fiddlesticks!”
exclaimed the captain. “Didn’t you
know the vessel was starting? Hadn’t you
time to get off? Didn’t you hear the gong?
Everybody else heard it. Are you all deaf?”
This was a good deal to answer at
once, so I just said that I didn’t remember
hearing any gong. Tom Myers and his brother George,
however, spoke up, and said that they had heard a
gong, they thought, but did not know what it was for.
“Why didn’t you ask, then?”
said the captain, who was getting worse in his humor.
I had a good mind to tell him that it would take up
a good deal of the crew’s time if Tom Myers
and his brother George asked about everything they
didn’t understand on board this ship, but I thought
I had better not. I have no doubt the gong sounded
when we were having our row in the state-room, and
were not likely to pay attention to it even if we
did hear it.
“And why, in the name of common
sense,” the captain went on, “didn’t
you come and report, the instant you found the vessel
had started? Did you think we were fast to the
pier all this time?”
Then Scott thought he might as well
come out square with the truth; and he told how they
made up their minds, after they found that the steamer
had really started, with them on board, not to make
any fuss about it, nor give anybody any trouble to
stop the ship, or to put back, but just to stay quietly
on board, and go back with the pilot. They thought
that would be most convenient, all around.
“Go back with the pilot!”
the captain cried. “Why, you young idiot,
there is no pilot! Coastwise steamers don’t
carry pilots. I am my own pilot. There is
no pilot going back!”
You ought to have seen Scott’s face!
Nobody said anything. We all
just stood and looked at the captain. Tears began
to come into the eyes of Tom Myers and his brother
George.
“What are they to do?”
asked the purser of the captain. “Buy tickets
for Savannah?”
“We can’t do that,”
said Scott, quickly. “We haven’t any
money.”
“I don’t know what they’re
to do,” replied the captain. “I’d
like to chuck ’em overboard.” And
with this agreeable little speech he walked away.
The purser now took the two tickets
for Rectus and myself, and saying: “We’ll
see what’s to be done with the rest of you fellows,”
he walked away, too.
Then we all looked at one another.
We were a pretty pale lot, and I believe that Rectus
and I, who were all right, felt almost as badly as
the four other boys, who were all wrong.
“We can’t go to
Savannah!” said Harry Alden. “What
right have they to take us to Savannah?”
“Well, then, you’d better
get out and go home,” said Scott. “I
don’t so much mind their taking us to Savannah,
for they can’t make us pay if we haven’t
any money. But how are we going to get back?
That’s the question. And what’ll
the professor think? He’ll write home that
we’ve run away. And what’ll we do
in Savannah without any money?”
“You’d better have thought
of some of these things before you got us into waiting
to go back with the pilot,” said Harry.
As for Tom Myers and his brother George,
they just sat down and put their arms on the railing,
and clapped their faces down on their arms. They
cried all over their coat-sleeves, but kept as quiet
as they could about it. Whenever these two boys
had to cry before any of the rest of the school-fellows,
they had learned to keep very quiet about it.
While the rest of us were talking
away, and Scott and Harry finding fault with each
other, the captain came back. He looked in a little
better humor.
“The only thing that can be
done with you boys,” he said, “is to put
you on some tug or small craft that’s going
back to New York. If we meet one, I’ll
lie to and let you off. But it will put me to
a great deal of trouble, and we may meet with nothing
that will take you aboard. You have acted very
badly. If you had come right to me, or to any
of the officers, the moment you found we had started,
I could have easily put you on shore. There are
lots of small boats about the piers that would have
come out after you, or I might even have put back.
But I can do nothing now but look out for some craft
bound for New York that will take you aboard.
If we don’t meet one, you’ll have to go
on to Savannah.”
This made us feel a little better.
We were now in the lower bay, and there would certainly
be some sort of a vessel that would stop for the boys.
We all went to the forward deck and looked out.
It was pretty cold there, and we soon began to shiver
in the wind, but still we stuck it out.
There were a good many vessels, but
most of them were big ones. We could hardly have
the impudence to ask a great three-masted ship, under
full sail, to stop and give us a lift to New York.
At any rate, we had nothing to do with the asking.
The captain would attend to that. But every time
we came near a vessel going the other way, we looked
about to see if we could see anything of an officer
with a trumpet, standing all ready to sing out, “Sail
ho!”
But, after a while, we felt so cold
that we couldn’t stand it any longer, and we
went below. We might have gone and stood by the
smoke-stack and warmed ourselves, but we didn’t
know enough about ships to think of this.
We hadn’t been standing around
the stove in the dining-room more than ten minutes,
before the purser came hurrying toward us.
“Come, now,” he said,
“tumble forward! The captain’s hailed
a pilot-boat.”
“Hurrah!” said Scott;
“we’re going back in a pilot-boat, after
all!” and we all ran after the purser to the
lower forward deck. Our engines had stopped,
and not far from us was a rough-looking little schooner
with a big “17” painted in black on her
mainsail. She was “putting about,”
the purser said, and her sails were flapping in the
wind.
There was a great change in the countenances
of Tom Myers and his brother George. They looked
like a couple of new boys.
“Isn’t this capital?”
said Scott. “Everything’s turned out
all right.”
But all of a sudden he changed his tune.
“Look here!” said he to
me, pulling me on one side; “wont that pilot
want to be paid something? He wont stop his vessel
and take us back for nothing, will he?”
I couldn’t say anything about
this, but I asked the purser, who still stood by us.
“I don’t suppose he’ll
make any regular charge,” said he; “but
he’ll expect you to give him something, whatever
you please.”
“But we haven’t anything,”
said Scott to me. “We have our return tickets
to Willisville, and that’s about all.”
“Perhaps we can’t go back,
after all,” said Harry, glumly, while Tom Myers
and his brother George began to drop their lower jaws
again.
I did not believe that the pilot-boat
people would ask to see the boys’ money before
they took them on board; but I couldn’t help
feeling that it would be pretty hard for them to go
ashore at the city and give nothing for their passages
but promises, and so I called Rectus on one side,
and proposed to lend the fellows some money. He
agreed, and I unpinned a banknote and gave it to Scott.
He was mightily tickled to get it, and vowed he’d
send it back to me in the first letter he wrote (and
he did it, too).
The pilot-schooner did not come very
near us, but she lowered a boat with two men in it,
and they rowed up to the steamer. Some of our
sailors let down a pair of stairs, and one of the men
in the boat came up to see what was wanted. The
purser was telling him, when the captain, who was
standing on the upper deck, by the pilot-house, sung
out:
“Hurry up there, now, and don’t
keep this vessel here any longer. Get ’em
out as quick as you can, Mr. Brown.”
The boys didn’t stop to have
this kind invitation repeated, and Scott scuffled
down the stairs into the boat as fast as he could,
followed closely by Harry Alden. Tom Myers and
his brother George stopped long enough to bid each
of us good-bye, and shake hands with us, and then
they went down the stairs. They had to climb over
the railing to the platform in front of the wheel-house
to get to the stairs, and as the steamer rolled a
little, and the stairs shook, they went down very
slowly, backward, and when they got to the bottom were
afraid to step into the boat, which looked pretty
unsteady as it wobbled about under them.
“Come, there! Be lively!” shouted
the captain.
Just then, Rectus made a step forward.
He had been looking very anxiously at the boys as
they got into the boat, but he hadn’t said anything.
“Where are you going?”
said I; for, as quick as a flash, the thought came
into my mind that Rectus’s heart had failed him,
and that he would like to back out.
“I think I’ll go back
with the boys,” he said, making another step
toward the top of the stairs, down which the man from
the pilot-boat was hurrying.
“Just you try it!” said
I, and I put out my arm in front of him.
He didn’t try it, and I’m
glad he didn’t, for I should have been sorry
enough to have had the boys go back and say that when
they last saw Rectus and I we were having a big fight
on the deck of the steamer.
The vessel now started off, and Rectus
and I went to the upper deck and stood and watched
the little boat, as it slowly approached the schooner.
We were rapidly leaving them, but we saw the boys climb
on board, and one of them it must have
been Scott waved his handkerchief to us.
I waved mine in return, but Rectus kept his in his
pocket. I don’t think he felt in a wavy
mood.
While we were standing looking at
the distant pilot-boat, I began to consider a few
matters; and the principal thing was this: How
were Rectus and I to stand toward each other?
Should we travel like a couple of school-friends,
or should I make him understand that he was under my
charge and control, and must behave himself accordingly?
I had no idea what he thought of the matter, and by
the way he addressed me when we met, I supposed that
it was possible that he looked upon me very much as
he used to when we went to school together. If
he had said Mr. Gordon, it would have been more appropriate,
I thought, and would have encouraged me, too, in taking
position as his supervisor. As far as my own
feelings were concerned, I think I would have preferred
to travel about on a level with Rectus, and to have
a good time with him, as two old school-fellows might
easily have, even if one did happen to be two years
older than the other. But that would not be earning
my salary. After a good deal of thought, I came
to the conclusion that I would let things go on as
they would, for a while, giving Rectus a good deal
of rope; but the moment he began to show signs of
insubordination, I would march right on him, and quell
him with an iron hand. After that, all would
be plain sailing, and we could have as much fun as
we pleased, for Rectus would know exactly how far
he could go.
There were but few passengers on deck,
for it was quite cold, and it now began to grow dark,
and we went below. Pretty soon the dinner-bell
rang, and I was glad to hear it, for I had the appetite
of a horse. There was a first-rate dinner, ever
so many different kinds of dishes, all up and down
the table, which had ridges running lengthwise, under
the table-cloth, to keep the plates from sliding off,
if a storm should come up. Before we were done
with dinner the shelves above the table began to swing
a good deal, or rather the vessel rolled
and the shelves kept their places, so I
knew we must be pretty well out to sea, but I had
not expected it would be so rough, for the day had
been fine and clear. When we left the table,
it was about as much as we could do to keep our feet,
and in less than a quarter of an hour I began to feel
dreadfully. I stuck it out as long as I could,
and then I went to bed. The old ship rolled,
and she pitched, and she heaved, and she butted, right
and left, against the waves, and made herself just
as uncomfortable for human beings as she could, but,
for all that, I went to sleep after a while.
I don’t know how long I slept,
but when I woke up, there was Rectus, sitting on a
little bench by the state-room wall, with his feet
braced against the berth. He was hard at work
sucking a lemon. I turned over and looked down
at him. He didn’t look a bit sick.
I hated to see him eating lemons.
“Don’t you feel badly, Rectus?”
said I.
“Oh no!” said he; “I’m all
right. You ought to suck a lemon. Have one?”
I declined his offer. The idea
of eating or drinking anything was intensely disagreeable
to me. I wished that Rectus would put down that
lemon. He did throw it away after a while, but
he immediately began to cut another one.
“Rectus,” said I, “you’ll
make yourself sick. You’d better go to bed.”
“It’s just the thing to
stop me from being sick,” said he, and at that
minute the vessel gave her stern a great toss over
sideways, which sent Rectus off his seat, head foremost
into the wash-stand. I was glad to see it.
I would have been glad of almost anything that stopped
that lemon business.
But it didn’t stop it; and he
only picked himself up, and sat down again, his lemon
at his mouth.
“Rectus!” I cried, leaning
out of my berth. “Put down that lemon and
go to bed!”
He put down the lemon without a word,
and went to bed. I turned over with a sense of
relief. Rectus was subordinate!