Читать книгу The Island Treasure - John C. Hutcheson - Страница 4

“Thet swab of a Britisher boy,” so opprobriously designated by the first-mate as having been “fetched aboard at Liverpool” by the captain, as if he were the sweepings of the gutter, was really no less a personage, if I may be allowed to use that term, than myself, the narrator of the following strange story.

I happened, as luck would have it, to be standing just at his elbow when he made the remark, having come up the companion way from the cabin below the poop by the steward’s directions to tell Captain Snaggs that his dinner was ready; and, as may be imagined, I was mightily pleased with his complimentary language, although wondering that he gave me the credit of pulling and hauling with the others in taking in sail on ‘all hands’ being summoned, when every idler on board ship, as I had learnt in a previous voyage to New York and back, is supposed to help the rest of the crew; and so, of course, I lent my little aid too, doing as much as a boy could, as Mr. Jefferson Flinders, the captain’s toady and fellow bully, although he only played second fiddle in that line when the skipper was on deck, could have seen for himself with half an eye.

Oh, yes, I heard what he said; and I believe he not only called me a ‘swab,’ but an ‘ugly’ one as well!

Indeed, I heard everything, pretty nearly everything, that is, and was able to see most of what occurred from the time when we were off the Tuskar Light until Captain Snaggs hailed the cook to come aft; for I was in and out of the cuddy and under the break of the poop all the while, except now that I went up the companion, and stood by the booby hatch over it, waiting for the captain to turn round, so that I could give him the steward’s message.

But the skipper wasn’t in any hurry to turn round at first, sticking there grasping the rail tightly, and working himself up into a regular fury because poor Sam didn’t jump out of his galley at the sound of his voice and answer his summons; when, if he’d reflected, he would have known that the wind carried away his threatening words to leeward, preventing them from reaching the negro cook’s ears, albeit these were as big and broad as the bell-mouth of a speaking trumpet.

The captain, though, did not think of this.

Not he; and, naturally, not recognising the reason for the negro’s non-appearance immediately on his calling him, he became all the more angry and excited.

“Sam—Sambo—Sam Jedfoot!” he roared, raising his shrill voice a pitch higher in each case, as he thus successively rang the changes on the cook’s name in his queer way, making the first-mate snigger behind him, and even I could not help laughing, the captain spoke so funnily through his nose; while Jan Steenbock, the second-mate, who was standing by the mainmast bitts, I could see, had a grim smile on his face. “Sam, ye scoundrel! Come aft hyar at once when I hail, or by thunder I’ll keelhaul ye, ez safe ez my name’s Ephraim O Snaggs!”

The bathos of this peroration was too much for Jan Steenbock, and he burst into a loud “ho! ho!”

It was the last straw that broke the camel’s—I mean the captain’s—back, and he got as mad as a hatter.

“Ye durned Dutch skunk!” he flamed out, the red veins cross-hatching his face in his passion. “What the blue blazes d’ye mean by makin’ fun o’ yer cap’n? Snakes an’ alligators, I’ll disrate ye—I’ll send ye forrud; I’ll—I’ll—”

“I vas not means no harms, cap’n,” apologised the other, on the skipper stopping in his outburst for want of breath, the words appearing to be choking in his mouth, coming out too quick for utterance, so that they all got jumbled together. “I vas hab no bad respect of yous, sare. I vas only lafs mit meinselfs.”

“Then I’d kinder hev ye ter know, Mister Steenbock, thet ye’d better not laugh with yerself nor nary a body else when I’m on the poop,” retorted Captain Snaggs, not believing a word of this lucid explanation, although he did not seemingly like to tell him so, and quarrel right out. “I guess though, as ye’re so precious merry, ye might hev a pull taken at thet lee mainbrace. If ye wer anything of a seaman ye’d hev done it without me telling ye!”

Having administered this ‘flea in the ear’ to the second-mate, the captain turned round abruptly on his heel, with a muttered objurgation, having some reference to Jan Steenbock’s eyes; and, as he looked aft, he caught sight of me.

“Jee-rusalem, b’y!” he exclaimed; “what in thunder air ye doin’ hyar? The poop ain’t no place fur cabin b’ys, I reckon.”

“The steward sent me up, sir,” I replied, trembling; for he looked as fierce as if he could eat me without salt, his bristly beard sticking out and wagging in the air, as he spoke in that snarling voice of his. “He t–t–old me to tell you, sir, that dinner was ready in the cabin, sir.”

The ship at the moment giving a lurch to port, as a fresh blast of wind caught her weather side, sending a big sea over the waist, I rolled up against him as I answered his question.

“Then ye ken skoot right away an’ tell him thet I guess I’m boss hyar,” cried he, after shoving me back with an oath against the cabin skylight, which I almost tumbled over. “I’m goin’ to hev my meals when I chooses, I say, younker, an’ not when anybody else likes, stooard or no stooard!”

With this return message, I retreated nimbly down the companion, glad to get out of his reach, he looked so savage when he shoved me; but I had hardly descended two steps, when he called after me with a loud shout, that echoed down the passage way and made my flesh creep.

“B’y!” he yelled, making a jump, as if to grab hold of me. “B’y!”

“Ye–e–e–yes, sir,” I stammered, in mortal terror, looking back up the hatchway, though too frightened to return to nearer quarters with him again. “Ye–e–yes, sir.”

My alarm amused him. It was a sort of implied compliment to his bullying powers; and he laughed harshly, nodding his head.

“What in thunder air ye afeard on?” he said. “I ain’t goin’ to kill ye this time, b’y; it’s another cuss I’m after, a kinder sort o’ skunk of a different colour, I guess. Look hyar, b’y, jest ye make tracks forrud when ye’ve told the stooard what I’ve said, an’ see whether thet tarnation black nigger’s asleep in his galley, or what. Won’t I give him fits when I catch him, thet’s all—thaar, be off with ye, smart!”

I did not need any second intimation to go, but plunged down the companion stairway as if a wild bull was after me; and, telling the Welshman, Morris Jones, who acted as steward, a poor, cowardly sort of creature, that the captain did not want his dinner yet, hastened through the cuddy, and on to the maindeck beyond, coming out by the sliding door under the break of the poop, which was the ‘back entrance,’ as it were, to the cabin.

The ship being close-hauled, heeled over so much to leeward that her port side was almost under water, the waves that broke over the fo’c’s’le running down in a cataract into the waist and forming a regular river inside the bulwarks, right flush up with the top of the gunwale, which slushed backwards and forwards as the vessel pitched and rose again, one moment with her bows in the air, and the next diving her nose deep down into the rocking seas; so, I had to scramble along towards the galley on the weather side, holding on to every rope I could clutch to secure my footing, the deck slanting so much from the Denver City laying over to the wind, even under the reduced canvas she had spread. To add to my difficulties, also, in getting forwards, the sheets of foam and spindrift were carried along by the fierce gusts—which came now and again between the lulls, when it blew more steadily, cutting off the tops of the billows and hurling the spray over the mainyard—drenched me almost to the skin before I arrived within hail of the fo’c’s’le.

However, I reached the galley all right at last, if dripping; when, as I looked in over the half-door that barred all admittance to the cook’s domain except to a privileged few, what did I see but Sam Jedfoot sitting down quite cosily in front of a blazing fire he had made up under the coppers containing the men’s tea, which would be served out bye and bye at ‘four bells’, enjoying himself as comfortably as you please, and actually playing the banjo—just as if he had nothing else to do, and there was no such person as Captain Snaggs in existence!

He had his back turned to me, and so could not notice that I was there, listening to him as he twanged the strings of the instrument and struck up that ‘tink-a-tink a tong-tong’ accompaniment familiar to all acquainted with the Christy Minstrels, the cook also humming away serenely to himself an old ditty dear to the darkey’s heart, and which I had heard the negroes often sing when I was over in New York, on the previous voyage I had taken a few months before, to which I have already alluded—when I ran away to sea, and shipped as a cabin boy on board one of the Liverpool liners, occupying a similar position to that I now held in the Denver City.

This was the song the cook chaunted, with that sad intonation of voice for which, somehow or other, the light-hearted African race always seem to have such a strange predilection. Sam touching the strings of the banjo in harmonious chords to a sort of running arpeggio movement:—

“Oh, down in Alabama, ’fore I wer sot free,

I lubbed a p’ooty yaller girl, an’ fought dat she lubbed me;

But she am proob unconstant, an’ leff me hyar to tell

How my pore hart am’ breakin’ fo’ croo-el Nancy Bell!”

He wound up with a resounding “twang” at the end of the bar, before giving the chorus—

“Den cheer up, Sam! Don’ let yer sperrits go down;

Dere’s many a gal dat I’se know wal am waitin’ fur you in

de town!”

“I fancy you do want cheering up, Sam,” said I, waiting till he had finished the verse. “The skipper’s in a regular tantrum about you, and says you’re to come aft at once.”

“My golly, sonny!” cried he, turning round, with a grin on his ebony face, that showed all his ivories, and looking in no whit alarmed, as I expected, at the captain’s summons, proceeding to reach up one of his long arms, which were like those of a monkey, and hang the banjo on to a cleat close to the roof of the galley, out of harm’s way. “What am de muss about?”

“Because you didn’t turn out on deck when all hands were called just now to reef topsails,” I explained. “The ‘old man’ is in a fine passion, I can tell you, though he didn’t notice your not being there at first. It was that mean sneak, the first-mate, that told him, on purpose to get you into a row.”

“Ah-ha! Jess so, I sabby,” said Sam, getting up from his seat; although he did not look any the taller for standing, being a little man and having short legs, which, however, were compensated for by his long arms and broad shoulders, denoting great strength. “I’se know what dat mean cuss do it fo’—‘cause I wouldn’t bring no hot coffee to um cabin fo’ him dis mornin’. Me tell him dat lazy stoo’ad’s place do dat; me ship’s cook, not one black niggah slabe!”

“He’s always at me, too,” I chorussed, in sympathy with this complaint. “Mr. Flinders is harder on me than even Captain Snaggs, and he’s bad enough, in all conscience.”

“Dat am true,” replied the cook, who had been my only friend since I had been on board, none of the others, officers or men, having a kind word for me, save the carpenter, a sturdy Englishman, named Tom Bullover, and one of the Yankee sailors, Hiram Bangs, who seemed rather good-natured, and told me he came from some place ‘down Chicopee way’—wherever that might be. “But, never yer mind, sonny; needer de cap’n nor dat brute ob a mate ken kill us no nohow.”

“ ‘Cheer up, Sam! Don’ let your ’perrits go down—’

“Guess, dough, I’se better go aft at once, or Cap’n Snaggs ’ll bust his biler!”

And so, humming away still at the refrain of his favourite ditty, he clambered along the bulwarks, making his way to the poop, where the captain, I could see, as I peered round the corner of the galley, was still waiting for him at the top of the ladder on the weather side, holding on to the brass rail with one hand, and clutching hold of a stay with the other.

I pitied the negro; but, of course, I couldn’t help him. All I could do was to look on, by no means an uninterested spectator, though keeping cautiously out of sight of Captain Snaggs’ watchful eye.

The wind was not making such a noise through the shrouds now, for one could distinguish above its moaning whistle the wash of the waves as they broke with a rippling roar and splashed against the side like the measured strokes of a sledge-hammer on the ship breasting them with her bluff bows, and contemptuously sailing on, spurning them beneath her fore foot; so, I was able to hear and see nearly all that passed, albeit I had to strain my ears occasionally to catch a word here and there.

He had waited so long that perhaps his anger had cooled down a bit by this time, for Captain Snaggs began on Sammy much more quietly than I expected from his outburst against him when I was up on the poop.

He was quite mild, indeed, for him, as I had learnt already, to my cost, during the short acquaintance I had of his temper since we had left the Mersey—as mild as a sucking dove, with a vengeance!

“Ye durned nigger!” he commenced; “what d’ye mean by not answerin’ when I hailed ye?”

“Me no hear yer, mass’ cap’n.”

“Not haar me, by thunder,” screeched the other, raising his voice. “Ye aren’t deaf, air ye?”

“Golly, yeth, massa,” said Sam eagerly. “I’se def as post.”

“Ye ken haar, though, when grog time comes round, I guess!” retorted the captain. “Whar wer ye when ‘all hands’ wer called jest now?”

“Down in de bread room, gettin’ out de men’s grub wid de stooard,” answered the cook, with much coolness; “me no hear ‘all hands’ call.”

“Thet’s a lie,” said Captain Snaggs, furiously. “The stooard wer up hyar on deck, so ye couldn’t hev been down below with him, ye durned nigger! I’ve a tarnation good mind to seize ye up an’ give ye four dozen right away.”

“Me no niggah slabe,” said Sam proudly, drawing himself up and looking up at the captain, as if daring him to do his worst. “I’se one ’spectacle culled gen’leman, sah!”

“Ho! ho! thet’s prime!” laughed out the skipper, astounded at his cheek; while the first-mate sniggered his aggravating “he! he!” behind him. “Oh, ye’re ‘a ’spectable coloured gentleman,’ air ye?”

“Yeth, massa; me free Jamaica born, an’ no slabe,” repeated Sam, courageously, the first-mate’s chuckle having put him on his mettle more than the captain’s sneer. “I’se a free man!”

“Guess ye’ve come to the wrong shop then, my bo,” said Captain Snaggs; “ye’ll find ye ain’t free hyar, fur I’m boss aboard this air ship, an’ want all hands to know it. Ye shipped as cook, hey?”

“Yeth, massa,” replied Sam, as sturdily as ever. “I’se jine as cook fo’ de v’yage to ’Frisco at ten dollar de month.”

“Then, Master Sam, Sammy, Sambo Clubfoot, ye’ll be kinder good enuff to take yer traps out of the galley an’ go furrud into the fo’c’s’le, as one of the foremast hands. As ye wouldn’t turn out when all hands wer called jist now, ye’ll hev the advantage of doin’ so right through now, watch in an’ watch out all the v’yage! D’ye hear thet, Sam Clubfoot?”

“Dat not my name,” said the other indignantly. “I’se chris’en Sam Jedfoot.”

“Well then, d’ye underconstubble what I’ve sed, Mister Jedfoot, if ye like thet better—thet ye’re cook no longer, an’ will hev to muster with the rest of the crew in the port watch? I’ll put him with ye, Flinders, I know ye hev a hankerin’ arter him,” observed the skipper, in a stage whisper, to the first-mate, who sniggered his approval of this arrangement. “D’ye understand thet, ye durned nigger, or, hev yer ears got frizzed agen, makin’ ye feel kinder deaf?”

“I’se he-ah, cap’n,” replied Sam sullenly, as he turned away from under the break of the poop, and made his way forward again to where I stood watching his now changed face, all the mirth and merriment having gone out of it, making him look quite savage—an ugly customer, I thought, for any one to tackle with whom he might have enmity. “I’se he-ah fo’ suah, an’ won’t forget neider, yer bet!”