Dorymates: A Tale of the Fishing Banks

CHAPTER III. THE HAULING OF THE SEINE.

In less than five minutes after the first cry announcing the appearance of the eagerly expected fish, the great thirty-foot, double-ended seine-boat, rowed by eight men, had left the schooner and started in the direction of the school. In its stern, with his hand on the long steering oar, stood the seine-master, directing the course of the boat and keeping a sharp lookout ahead. Pulling after them as fast as he could was Breeze McCloud, in the single dory that the Curlew carried. The schooner, left in charge of the skipper and cook, was thrown up into the wind, and was held as nearly stationary as possible until it could be seen where she would be wanted.

“Come, stretch yourselves, lads! stretch yourselves! Let’s see who’ll break the first oar! Those other fellows are just humping themselves. It’s Yankee against Yankee this time, and you’ve got a tough lot to beat,” shouted the seine-master.

He would, of course, have been very sorry to have an oar 38broken, but he had such confidence that the men could do no more than bend the tough ash blades, no matter how hard they tugged, that he was perfectly willing they should try. By the “other fellows” he meant the crew of another fishing schooner, which daylight of that morning had disclosed not far from them, and which had evidently discovered mackerel about the same time they had. They, too, were out in their seine-boat, and doubtless looked forward with as great confidence as did the men from the Curlew to taking the first fare of the season into New York.

“Easy, lads, easy now!” ordered the seine-master, in a tone of suppressed excitement; “here’s our school.” Now he tossed overboard a small keg, or buoy, to which was attached one end of the upper, or cork line of the great net. Near this Breeze was to wait in his dory. Then, bending to their oars, the boat’s crew began to pull, with lusty strokes, in a great circle around the school of fish that was rippling the water close beside them. Swimming in a dense body close to the surface, often throwing themselves clear of the water, with their steely blue sides flashing in the morning light, the mackerel were darting madly hither and thither. At one instant the whole school, moved by some mysterious impulse, would make a simultaneous dash in one direction, and the next it would 39as suddenly rush back again. In the cool dim depths beneath them, dog-fish, sharks, and other hungry sea pirates were breakfasting off the newly arrived strangers, and devouring them by the score. In the air above them circled and swooped great fishing hawks, anxious to make a meal off of fresh mackerel. Now to these enemies was added man, the most cruel and greatly to be dreaded of all. No wonder the poor fish were frightened and undecided as to the direction of their flight from so many imminent dangers.

Meantime the great net, a quarter of a mile long, had been skilfully drawn completely around them. Breeze, in his dory, obeying previously given instructions, carried the buoy that had first been thrown overboard to the seine-boat, in which the other end of the cork-line was still held and made fast. The circle was now perfect, and the fish were surrounded by a wall of fine but stout twine. Their only chance of escape lay at the bottom of the net, and in another minute this opening would also be closed against them.

While the upper edge of the seine was floated by means of numerous large corks attached to the rope that ran along its entire length, its lower edge was sunk and held straight down by an equal number of leaden rings. Through these ran a second stout line, known as the 40“purse rope,” an end of which remained in the boat. By pulling on this all the leaden rings could be drawn close together, and as the net was now in the form of a circle, its lower edge would form a purse in which there would be no opening for escape.

Hauling on this rope and “pursing” the seine is the hardest part of the entire job, and takes the united efforts of the seine-boat’s crew. It is also a most exciting operation, for if it is successfully accomplished the fish are caught and an ample reward for all the previous toil is almost certain. If, on the other hand, the fish take alarm at the last moment and dart downward through the still open bottom of the net, all the hard work goes for nothing and must be done over again, perhaps many times before a successful haul is made.

Such was the case in this instance. Success was almost within reach of the Curlew’s crew, when suddenly the entire school of fish, upon which they were building such high hopes, dropped out of sight like so many leaden plummets, and were gone. They had evidently decided that there were more chances for life among the sharks and dog-fish than within the power of their human enemies, and had wisely seized their last chance of escape from them.

It was a bitter disappointment, and it was made the 41keener by the sight of certain movements on board the rival schooner that indicated a successful pursing of their seine and a heavy catch of fish. Slowly, and with much grumbling over their hard luck, the Curlew’s men gathered in their net and empty seine. They piled it up carefully, rings forward and corks aft, in the after-part of their boat, ready for the next time. Then they listlessly pulled towards their schooner, which was lying near by, and on board which breakfast awaited them.

The Curlew sailed close to the other schooner in order to learn her luck, and witness the lively scene about her. The stranger’s seine had enclosed an enormous school of fish, which was estimated at nearly, if not quite, five hundred barrels. One end of it had been got on board the schooner, and the dipping out of the fish was about to begin. They were greatly frightened, and rushed from side to side with such violence that many of them were crushed to death. All at once they sank, and their weight was so great as to draw one gunwale of the heavy seine-boat under the water, although eight men were perched on the opposite side to counterbalance it.

When a crew find a greater quantity of fish on their hands than they can take care of, as was the case now, it is customary, if there is another vessel within hail, to give her the surplus rather than to throw it away. Having 42often done this himself, Captain Coffin did not hesitate, as the two schooners drew close together, to hail the other skipper and ask if he had any fish to give away.

“No, I haven’t,” was the surly answer. “If you want fish go and catch ’em.”

“All right,” answered Captain Coffin, somewhat provoked, but still good-naturedly; “we’re the lads can just do that, and we’ll beat you into New York yet.”

“Looks like it now, doesn’t it?” shouted the other, scornfully. “If you do, though, it won’t be because I helped you. I’d rather lose every fish I’ve got alongside here than to give you one of them.”

These words were hardly out of his mouth when the captured fish darted violently towards the bottom of the net, and the seine-boat was nearly capsized, as has been related. Its crew hurriedly scrambled to the upper side. Suddenly the boat righted, so quickly that the whole eight men were flung overboard, and found themselves floundering in the cold water.

The situation was startling as well as comical, though the explanation of what had happened was very simple. The frightened fish, in their downward rush, had torn a great hole in the net, which was an old one, and through it they had instantly darted to depths of safety. The seine, being thus relieved of its burden, no longer pulled 43the boat down, and it at once yielded to the weight of the men on its upper gunwale.

Under ordinary circumstances this mishap would have excited the sympathy of those on board the Curlew. Now, on account of the uncivil reply of the rival skipper to their captain, they were inclined to rejoice at what had happened, and they roared with laughter at the rueful faces of the dripping men as they scrambled back into their boat.

To Breeze the whole affair presented itself in such a comical aspect that he laughed louder and longer than any of the others, though in a perfectly good-humored way, and without a trace of an unkind feeling towards those who had been so unfortunate. His mirth was, however, deemed peculiarly irritating by one of the rival crew, a young man with an ugly face that bore unmistakable traces of dissipation. He shook his fist at Breeze and called out,

“Never you mind, young feller, I’ll not forget you! And maybe I’ll find a chance to make you laugh out of the other side of your mouth some day.”

This speech sobered Breeze at once, though at first he looked around in a bewildered way, thinking it could not possibly be meant for him. When he realized that it was he shouted back,

44“Seems to me I wouldn’t feel so bad about it if I was you. I wasn’t laughing at you, anyway. I was laughing to think how surprised those mackerel must have been when you went diving down after them, trying to catch ’em in your hands.”

This raised another shout of laughter from the Curlew men, but the young man towards whom it was directed only shook his fist again at Breeze, and turned away without a word, going below to find some dry clothes.

Breeze saw that he had unwittingly made for himself an enemy in this stranger, and for a time the knowledge caused him real distress. He was a warm-hearted boy, preferring friendships to enmities, and would at any time sacrifice his own pleasure or comfort to win the former and overcome the latter. At the same time, he was not sorry that he had asserted his own independence and answered back as he had. The incident soon passed from his mind, however, in the rush of more stirring events, and it was some time before he was again reminded of it.

Captain Coffin was much puzzled to account for the surliness of the rival skipper until the Curlew passed astern of the other schooner, so that her name, Roxy B., and her hailing port could be read. Then it flashed across him that this was the Rockhaven craft that was thought to 45be so fast, but which he had beaten in a fair race on a run into Boston the summer before.

“SEEMS TO ME I WOULDN’T FEEL SO BAD ABOUT IT IF I WAS YOU.”

To bear ill-will for such a cause certainly showed a small and mean mind, and Captain Coffin said he was very glad the other had refused to let him have any fish, for he should hate to be under obligations to such a man.

The Curlew had not gone more than a mile from the Roxy B. when the fish of which she was in search began to rise to the surface on all sides of her. The seine-boat was quickly sent out, while Breeze, in his dory, followed it as before. This time a school was successfully surrounded, and the net was pursed without a mishap. A flag hoisted on an oar in the boat was the signal to the schooner that they had made a large haul and needed her assistance. She was soon brought alongside of the pursed seine with its burden of glittering fish, and from it a long-handled scoop-net, worked with a tackle, was dipping them, a half-barrelful at a time, and transferring them to her deck.

The catch was about one hundred and fifty barrels of mackerel that were of a prime quality as to size, but so thin that they would have been unfit to split and salt. The afternoon was drawing to a close before they were all got on board and the seine was properly stowed in its boat; but there was no rest for the tired crew yet a while. 46Sail was made on the schooner, and she was headed for Sandy Hook, nearly three hundred miles away. Then all hands, except the cook and the man at the wheel, turned to and began “gibbing” and packing the fish.

Mackerel are so delicate that they die almost as soon as they touch a deck, and will quickly spoil if not cared for at once. So there was no time to lose, and the whole catch must be “gibbed,” or cleaned, and packed in ice before sleep could be thought of.

In “gibbing” a mackerel the gills are plucked out, and with them come the entrails. This operation was performed with marvellous rapidity by the skilled workers of the crew, the refuse matter was tossed into square wooden boxes known as “gib-tubs,” and the cleaned fish were thrown into bushel baskets.

Down in the hold the blocks of ice were removed from a pen, and reduced to small bits by heavy sharp-pointed “slicers.” A layer of this broken ice was shovelled over the bottom of the empty pen, and above it was spread a basket of fish. Then came another layer of ice, then more fish, and so on until the pen was full, when another was emptied and filled in the same manner. It was long after midnight before the crew of the Curlew knocked off work, with the last of their fish safely packed away; but, tired as they were, they were also highly elated by their 47success, and by the prospect of being the first mackereller of the season into New York.

The next day, spent in running up the coast with a brisk westerly breeze, was one of the happiest that can come to the in-shore fisherman. Everybody was in the best of humor, from the knowledge that they had, stowed beneath their hatches, a fair-sized catch of the very earliest mackerel of the season. They knew these would bring an extra price, and pay each of them at least twice as much as they would make under more ordinary circumstances. There was little to do except stand watch and clean ship; so that most of the day was devoted to the spinning of yarns in the forecastle, and the singing of songs to a banjo accompaniment in the cabin. The cook made them a great dish of Joe-floggers (peculiar pancakes stuffed with plums) for breakfast, and a gorgeous plum-duff for dinner. Upon the whole, Breeze enjoyed the day so thoroughly that he wondered how anybody could complain of the hardships of a fisherman’s life, or think it anything but fascinating.

They passed the double Highland lights, and rounding Sandy Hook, stood up New York Bay some time during the following night; the next morning, by daylight, they were snugly moored in the Fulton Market slip, among scores of other fishing vessels, none of which had on board a single mackerel. Theirs was the first catch of the season, 48and before breakfast-time it had been sold in bulk for three thousand dollars. Of this, after expenses were deducted, each full share amounted to ninety-two dollars, while the half share credited to Breeze was forty-six dollars. This seemed to him a large sum of money to have been earned in a week, only one day and night of which had been devoted to real hard work. He at once wrote to his mother telling her the good news, and as he did so he felt that he had become, if not an important member of society, at least a very wealthy one.

In the afternoon he took a short walk through the lower part of the great city, but became so bewildered by the noise, bustle, and crowds of people that he dared not go very far for fear of getting lost. On one of the downtown streets that he did visit he was attracted by the sight of a jeweller’s window. This reminded him of what his mother had said, that if anybody could open the golden ball that hung from the chain around his neck it would be a city jeweller.

Entering the store, he stepped up to an elderly gentleman who stood behind a desk, and unclasping the chain, handed it and the ball to him, saying, “I don’t know whether this ball will open or not; can you tell me, sir?”

The jeweller examined the trinket carefully, and seemed particularly interested in the unique tracery with which 49it was ornamented. For several minutes he did not speak; then he asked, abruptly, “Where did you get this?”

Breeze told him in a few words all that he knew of its history as well as his own.

“H’m,” said the jeweller. “You wait here a moment, while I show this to my partner.”

He was gone so long that Breeze began to grow uneasy, and had just about made up his mind to go in search of him, when he returned. He was accompanied by a low-browed, swarthy individual, who, when Breeze was pointed out, stepped up to him and said,

“This trinket, that you have brought in, is quite a novelty in our line, and I should like to buy it of you. It is a puzzle-charm of East Indian make. Unless one knows the secret of its construction, it cannot possibly be opened except by an accident that might not happen in ten thousand times of trying. I learned my trade in Calcutta, and am probably the only man in New York City to-day who can open this little ball. You see that I can do it.”

Here he showed Breeze the ball open, but did not let him see its contents. Then turning his back for an instant, he again displayed it closed as before.

“What will you take for it?” he asked.

“It’s not for sale,” answered Breeze, “but I am willing 50to pay for learning the trick of how to open it, for I am curious to know what it contains.”

“That information is not for sale either, nor will I tell you what the ball contains,” said the jeweller. “Moreover, if you will not sell it to me, or show me some proof that you are its rightful owner, I shall keep it until I can place it in the hands of the police, for it is my belief that you have stolen it.”

CHAPTER IV. A SUDDEN DISASTER.

The jeweller’s accusation was so unexpected and startling to Breeze that he flushed hotly, and for a moment found no words to answer it. Then he demanded, indignantly,

“How dare you say such a thing? Give me back my property instantly, or I shall be the one to call in the police!”

“Certainly, my young friend, certainly, when you produce the proof that it is yours,” replied the man, dropping the trinket into a drawer, of which he turned the lock.

There was no element of decision lacking in Breeze’s character; he was quick to act in emergencies, and without another word he stepped to the door. A small boy was passing.

“Sonny,” said Breeze, “run quick and bring a policeman. If he is here within five minutes I will give you five cents.”

The boy, keenly alive to a situation that promised so 52much excitement as this, started off on a run. Breeze remained standing where he could survey the whole interior of the store, and could especially keep an eye on the drawer in which lay his property.

The men inside watched him closely. They had seen him despatch the boy on some errand, but had not overheard what he said, and did not know what it was. Now the one who had opened the ball approached him and said,

“Why don’t you go for your proofs? You had better hurry, as we shall close up soon, and then we could not look at them until to-morrow.”

“I have sent for them,” answered Breeze, simply.

“Oh,” said the man, somewhat disconcerted. “Well, of course, if they come in time, and are satisfactory, you shall have your charm back, and an apology into the bargain.”

“Here comes one of them now,” replied Breeze, as he handed a five-cent piece to a breathless small boy, who came running up just in front of a big policeman.

"THAT GENTLEMAN THERE REFUSES TO RETURN A GOLD BALL AND CHAIN THAT I HANDED HIM FOR EXAMINATION."

To this officer Breeze said, “That gentleman there,” pointing to the dark-skinned jeweller, “refuses to return a gold ball and chain that I handed him for examination. He says he thinks I stole them, and he has locked them up in a drawer. I think I can bring one of the best-known 53men in New York to vouch for my honesty; but it may be some time before I can find him. Now, I want to know if you will take this trinket, as the gentleman calls it, and keep it for me until I return?”

“Why not just as well leave it where it is?” interrupted the jeweller, eagerly. “It will be perfectly safe here, as this officer knows.”

“No,” said Breeze, “that will not do. You must give it to the officer at once, or else I shall go to the police-station, and enter a complaint against you for stealing.”

The partners whispered together for a minute. Evidently the bold stand taken by the lad, and his prompt action, had made a decided impression upon them.

Before they could reach a decision as to what they should do, the officer spoke up and said,

“The young man is right. If there is any stolen property in the question, the proper place for it is in the station-house. So, if you will just hand over this article, whatever it is, I will take it there.”

There was no appeal from this decision. The locket was reluctantly given up to the officer, who took both it and Breeze to the station-house near by. Here the sergeant in charge listened attentively to all that he had to say, as well as to the story Breeze had to tell.

“Go with him,” he said, finally, to the officer, “down 54to the schooner, and see what sort of a character his captain gives him. Then bring him back here.”

With this he placed the golden ball and chain in a drawer of his own desk, and again turned to his writing.

Breeze and the officer found Captain Coffin talking to the gentleman to whom he had sold his cargo of fish that morning. He happened to be not only a prominent business man, but an active local politician, and was the very person whom Breeze had in his mind when he had offered to bring a well-known citizen to establish his character.

Begging their pardon for the interruption, Breeze told his story to Captain Coffin, and the politician also listened to it.

When the story was finished, the latter, turning to the captain, said, “Can you vouch for this lad’s honesty, skipper?”

“Certainly I can, as I would for my own,” was the answer. “I have known him from his babyhood, and, moreover, I have often heard this golden ball spoken of by his adopted father, though I have never seen it.”

“Then,” said the other, “supposing we step up to the police-station, and have it returned to him. It is one of the most curious cases I ever heard of, and I am interested to see that the boy comes out of it all right.”

Within ten minutes the sergeant had been satisfied 55that Breeze was the rightful owner of the locket, had returned it to him, and he had again clasped its chain about his neck. He was very happy in thus regaining possession of it, and very thankful to those who had so promptly assisted him. When Captain Coffin proposed that they should now go to the jeweller’s shop and get him to again open the ball, Breeze begged him not to think of such a thing. “I don’t want that man ever to get it into his possession,” he said, “and I don’t believe he’d open it for us anyway, now.”

“I guess the boy is about right,” remarked the politician, thoughtfully. “That fellow has evidently some strong reason for wishing to obtain the trinket, and if he got hold of it again he might change it for another that looked just like it, and we never be the wiser.”

This was just what Breeze had thought of when he had refused to leave the jeweller’s shop and go in search of proofs of his ownership of the locket, and he was greatly pleased at this evidence that he had acted wisely.

That night the Curlew sailed out of New York Bay, and was once more headed to the southward in search of the early mackerel. The following day was clear and bright, but very cold for that season of the year. There were only a few clouds to be seen; but the sky was coppery in color, and the wind, which was still off-shore, 56was fitful and baffling. At supper-time, about an hour before sunset, the man at the wheel, who happened to be one of those who ate at the first table, said,

“Here, McCloud, you belong to second mess; take the wheel while I eat supper, will you?”

“Certainly I will,” answered Breeze, cheerfully. “What’s the course?”

“South by west, half west, an open sea, a favoring wind, and no odds asked or given,” was the laughing response, as the man hurried forward.

Captain Coffin was impatient to get back among the mackerel, and so the schooner was running under all the sail she could carry, including a jib-topsail and a huge main-staysail.

Somewhat to his surprise, Breeze now found himself the sole occupant of the deck. The skipper and half the crew were eating their supper in the forecastle, while the others were in the cabin, sleeping, reading, and keeping warm. On account of the cold, they had drawn the slide over the companion-way.

It was the first time the young sailor had been left in sole charge of the vessel, and he realized the responsibility of his position. Still, owing to his father’s teachings and careful training, he felt quite competent to manage her, so long as no especial danger threatened. He also comforted 57himself with the thought that there was not the slightest chance of anything happening in the short time before he should be relieved.

While thus thinking, and at the same time keeping a sharp watch of the sails, the compass, and the dog-vane that, fluttering from the mainmast-head, denoted the direction of the wind, he was startled by a curious humming sound in the air above him. It was a weird, uncanny sound, unlike anything he had ever before heard, and it filled him with a strange fear. He was just about to call the men in the cabin, when suddenly there came a roar and a shriek above his head. Then the little circular tornado, directly in whose track the unfortunate Curlew happened to be, struck her such a terrible blow that she was powerless to resist it. In an instant she was knocked down and thrown on her beam ends. The white sails, that had soared aloft so gracefully, and offered so tempting a mark for the spinning whirlwind, now lay flat in the water, heavily soaking and holding the schooner down.

Breeze had spun the wheel with all his might, and thrown the helm hard down, in the hope of bringing her up into the wind; but the blow had been too sudden and too heavy. The rudder no longer controlled her, and she lay as helpless as though waterlogged, held down by that terrible dragging weight of top-hamper.

58As she went over, one man had struggled up from the forecastle and been instantly buried in the sea beneath the heavy canvas of the foresail. Breeze knew that the reason no more came was that a torrent of water was rushing with resistless force through the narrow opening. Beneath him he could hear the smothered cries and struggles of the prisoners in the cabin. In a few minutes more the vessel would sink, and all within her would be miserably drowned. Their only hope was in him. What could he do? What could he do?

Standing on the weather side of the wheel when the schooner was struck, he had saved himself from going overboard by clinging to it. Now he scrambled to the upper side of the house, and holding on to the weather-rail, began to hack desperately at the lanyards of the main rigging with his sheath-knife. If only the masts would break off and relieve the vessel of that awful weight of soaked canvas, she might right herself.

One after another the lanyards snap like strained harpstrings. There! the rigging has gone and the mast cracks. Now for the fore rigging! How he reached it the boy never knew; in fact he afterwards had very little recollection of what he did amid the terrible excitement of those two minutes; but he did reach and cut it.

Then there came a rending of wood as the tough masts 59broke off. Then slowly, very slowly, the vessel righted herself, and once more rode on an even keel, though half full of water, and as sad a looking wreck as ever floated.

As she righted, the after companion-way was burst open by the mighty effort of those beneath the slide, and they rushed out gasping for breath and with glaring eyes. They had been very nearly suffocated by steam and gas generated by the water pouring down the funnel on the glowing coals in the cabin stove.

From the forecastle also emerged, one by one, the half-drowned figures of those who had been imprisoned in it. But for the prompt action of the brave boy on deck, they would never have left its flooded recesses. One of their number was missing, and he was the man whose place at the wheel Breeze had taken, and who had forced his way out as the vessel capsized, only to be drowned beneath the canvas of the foresail. He would be sincerely mourned later, but there was no time to think of him now. The others were still in too imminent peril of losing their own lives.

As the stricken craft rolled like a log in the sea-way, she pounded heavily against the masts and spars, which, still attached to her by the lee rigging and head-stays, floated close alongside. The danger that her planking might thus be crushed in was so great that, in spite of his 60own wretched condition, Captain Coffin saw it the moment he gained the deck. Calling upon the others to follow his example, he drew his knife and began to cut away the tangle of cordage that bound the vessel to this new enemy.

When it was finally cleared, the seine-boat, which was still dragging astern, was pulled up, and half the crew went in it to tow the mass of spars and canvas clear of the schooner, and save such of the sails as they could. The rest began to labor at the pumps, and to rig a jury-mast on which they might spread such sail as would carry her into port. The main-mast had snapped off so close to the deck as to leave nothing to which they might fasten a jury-spar; but of the foremast a stump some six feet high remained, and with this they hoped to accomplish their purpose.

While the skipper, Breeze, and two others were thus engaged, those at the pumps suddenly called out that the water was gaining on them, and that the vessel was about to founder.

It was only too true; the stanch little schooner had evidently made her last voyage, and would never again sail into Gloucester harbor. In fact, the water was gaining so rapidly that it was within a foot or two of her deck, and there was no time to lose in leaving her. Those 61in the seine-boat were fortunately within easy hail, and dropping their work, they quickly had it alongside.

There was no need of seeking an explanation of the rapid inflow of water. It was only too plain that gaping seams had been opened by the great strain of her masts and sails while the schooner lay on her beam ends. It was more than probable, also, that butts had been started here and there by the jagged ends of the heavy spars as they lay in the water pounding and grinding against her sides.

Nothing could be saved. There was barely time for all hands to tumble into the seine-boat and pull it to a safe distance from the fast-sinking vessel. Then they lay on their oars and watched her. She seemed like some live thing, aware of the fate about to overtake her, and struggling pitifully against it. The swash of the water in her cabin sounded like sobs, and the faces of the men who watched her, usually so bright and merry, were as sad as though they watched at the bedside of a dying friend.

The sun was setting red and angry in a mass of black clouds that came rolling up out of the west as she took the final plunge, and diving bows first, disappeared forever, leaving her crew silent, motionless, and awe-stricken at the catastrophe that had thus overtaken them.

62The skipper was the first to break the silence, and in a tone of forced cheerfulness he said, “Well, boys, the old Curlew has gone where all good crafts go, sooner or later, and we must be thankful she hasn’t taken us along with her. I honestly believe we should all have shared her fate, and that of poor Rod Mason, if it had not been for this brave lad and the quick wit that taught him to do exactly the right thing at the right moment. I have not the slightest doubt that we owe our lives to Breeze McCloud, and right here I want to thank him, and to pay my respects to the memory of the brave man who brought him up to act as a true sailor should in such an emergency.”

These were grateful words to poor Breeze, who was feeling the loss of his shipmate, and of the schooner, more keenly than any of his companions, and fearing that perhaps they would blame him for what had happened. He had given Captain Coffin a hurried account of the disaster, and of how he had cut away the masts; but the skipper had found no time then to say what he thought of the course the boy had pursued.

Now, one by one, the men reached forward to shake hands with him, and had it not been for the thought of the drowned man, he would, in spite of their miserable situation, have felt as light-hearted as though already in port.

63There were neither water nor provisions in the boat, they had no mast, sail, nor compass. Most of them were wet through, and already chilled to the bone by the cold wind, which was rising, and promised to freshen into a gale before midnight. Breeze was the only one who was dry and had his oil-skins on, and but for his hunger he would have been comparatively comfortable.

They stopped near the floating wreckage of spars and sails long enough to obtain the schooner’s main-topsail, and the foregaff which they hoped to rig up as a mast in the boat. They also cut away a small lot of the lighter cordage. Then they headed their craft to the westward, and started to pull for the distant land. The skipper said they were not more than fifty miles from the coast, and if the sea did not get too rough, they ought to make it by noon of the next day.

They were divided into two watches, and while half of them rowed, the rest huddled together as close as possible in the bottom of the boat for warmth.

It was nearly midnight, the wind was blowing a gale dead against them, and they seemed to be making no progress whatever. Breeze, unable to sleep, was sitting up gazing out into the blackness behind them. Suddenly, as the boat rose on the crest of a great wave, he sprang to his feet and cried, “A light! I see a light!”

CHAPTER V. SAVED BY ELECTRICITY.

The joyful cry of a light at once put new life and hope into the hearts of the hungry, drenched, and shivering occupants of the seine-boat. Those who had huddled together under the wet canvas of the top-sail in the vain effort to keep warm, as well as those who were pulling hopelessly and wearily at the oars, gazed eagerly in the direction indicated by Breeze. Yes, there it was, faint and yellow in the distance, apparently that of some vessel approaching them from the southward. They could see it as their boat rose on the crests of the great billows, though it was lost again when they sank into the black hollows between them.

Soon they were able to distinguish a second yellow light, lower than the other, and by the position of these they knew that the approaching vessel was a steamer, and a large one at that. Then her red and green side-lights came into view. They watched anxiously to see which of these would disappear first, in order to determine 65on which side of them she was going to pass. If the red light should be lost to view, then they would know she was passing to windward of them. In that case there would not be the slightest chance of any cries they could utter reaching her, and she would go on her way unconscious of their presence. If the green light should disappear, it would be a sign that she was about to pass to leeward. In that case there was a possibility that their shouts, borne down the gale, might attract the attention of the watch on her deck. Still, she might not stop even then, and it was an almost unheard-of thing for a boat to be picked up at sea in the darkness of midnight, amid the noise and tumult of a gale. They fully understood their position, but, slight as their chance was, they watched for it hopefully.

All at once, as they were lifted from a deep, watery hollow, and looked for the lights, they gave utterance to exclamations of dismay. They could still see the green light and the two yellow lights, but the red one was no longer visible.

“’Tain’t no use. She’s going to windward of us;” muttered one of the men, at once giving up all hope, and again lying down in the bottom of the boat. “Luck’s against us, and we might as well reckon on help from the old Curlew as from that craft.”

66Most of the others evidently thought as he did, and they turned their eyes resolutely away from the lights, as though determined to be no longer tantalized by them. But Breeze could not give up so easily, and he still watched the lights whenever a lifting wave afforded him an opportunity of seeing them.

What! Can it be? Or are his eyes deceiving him? No. It certainly is the red light again, now much more distinct than before. The steamer has altered her course and is heading directly for them. The men are filled with new life at the boy’s exultant cry announcing his discovery. They spring up and gaze incredulously. It is true, and both lights are now to be plainly seen, not more than half a mile away and bearing directly towards them. Now they fear that she may run them down, and begin to pull to windward, so as to give her a clear berth. At last she is close upon them, and the green light disappears, while the red shows clear and steady.

“Now for a shout, men! All together as I give the word. One! two! three!” commands the skipper.

It is a wild, desperate cry that startles the lookout on the forward deck of the steamer from the half reverie into which he has fallen.

Again it comes to his ears, and again, borne on the wings of the gale across the angry waters; and now it is 67heard by the steamer’s captain, who has not left the pilot-house that night.

A gong clangs down among the engines, and a hoarse order is shouted to the engineer through the speaking-tube. The great screw under the steamer’s stern stops for a moment, and then churns the water violently as its motion is reversed and it revolves rapidly backward.

“See if you can pick them up with the electric,” is the captain’s order to the second officer, who has just appeared on deck. At the same instant a dazzling flash of white light darts forth from the steamer’s bow, and cuts a gleaming path-way between two solid walls of blackness above the raging waters.

The second officer seizes the handles at the back of the great lamp, and the broad band of light is slowly swept round to the direction from which the cries have come. In another moment it flashes full in the white faces of Breeze McCloud and his companions, sitting in their seine-boat not more than a hundred yards away. The wonderful eye of the search-light has discovered them, and they cover theirs with their hands, or turn away from the unbearable radiance.

“Pull under our lee,” shouts the captain of the steamer through a speaking-trumpet, “and we’ll try and get you aboard.”

68It was a difficult task, for the ship rolled so deeply that it would have been unsafe to open her side-ports, and they must be taken aboard over the rail. As the seine-boat lay alongside, it was at one moment on a level with the steamer’s deck, and the next so far below it that her wet side rose like a black wall high above them. Nothing could be done until she was turned, so as to lie head to the wind. Then, one by one, the wrecked men caught the ropes flung to them, fastened them under their arms, and were hauled up to the steamer’s deck, where they were received and pulled on board by the stout arms eagerly out-stretched to aid them. Some of them were buried beneath the huge waves that sprang after them as though furious at being thus robbed of their expected prey and still determined to clutch it. Others were bruised by being swung violently against the iron side of the steamer. At last all of them were safely rescued, and, with the seine-boat towing by a long line astern, the great steamer was again headed on her course.

Was there ever anything so delicious as the hot coffee at once served to them, or so welcome as the plentiful meal that awaited them in the steamer’s mess-room, after they had got into the dry clothes furnished by her crew? Breeze did not think there was. And when, soon afterwards, he found himself in a comfortable bunk, under 69warm blankets, and dropping to sleep, he felt that he was one of the most fortunate and marvellously cared for boys in the world.

IN ANOTHER MOMENT IT FLASHES FULL IN THE WHITE FACES OF BREEZE McCLOUD AND HIS COMPANIONS.

The steamer that thus furnished the weary fishermen with shelter, safety, and all the comforts of a sailor’s life was one of a line plying between Boston and a southern city, from which she was now bound. Her captain was one of those noble sailors who are never so happy as when rescuing other toilers of the sea from its perils. He told Captain Coffin that, without any definite reason, he had felt impelled to alter his ship’s course half a point to the eastward shortly before their cries had been heard. It was this change of direction that had brought the red light once more into view.

Before morning the gale had so increased in fury that it was not probable their light craft could have lived through it had they not been picked up when they were. As it was, the seine-boat, while towing behind the steamer, was struck soon after daylight by a great sea that capsized it. The next crushed it like an egg-shell, and the broken wreck was cut adrift.

Twenty-four hours later they entered Boston harbor, and the crew of the lost Curlew, after expressing their heart-felt thanks to the captain, passengers, and crew of the steamer, who had done everything in their power to 70make them comfortable, left her. They made their way at once to the market slip devoted to the use of fishing vessels, where they were sure of finding friends and fellow-townsmen.

While walking slowly along the wharf, and looking wistfully over the many fishing vessels crowded into the basin, in search of a familiar face, Breeze was slapped on the shoulder, and a well-known voice exclaimed,

“Vy, Breeza, ma boy! how you vas? Vere you come from, eh?”

Turning, he saw the smiling face of old Mateo, the Portuguese cook who, on board the Sea Robin, had fed him with milk from the “lit tin cow” when he was a baby. The old cook had always retained a warm affection for the boy whom he had thus cared for in his helplessness, and had never returned to Gloucester without visiting him and bringing him some present. Now to see him seemed to Breeze almost like a glimpse of home.

Mateo, who, in spite of his years, was still hale and hearty, and one of the best cooks to be found in the fishing fleet, would listen to nothing where they stood. He insisted upon dragging Breeze aboard a new and handsome schooner named the Albatross, in which he had shipped for a cruise to the George’s. She had left Gloucester the day before, and run up to Boston, where her skipper 71had some business to attend to. Now she was to sail again within an hour.

Pulling his young friend down into the forecastle, and seating him before the mess-table, Mateo exclaimed, “Vell, Breeza, you hongry, eh?”

To him eating was the most important business of life, and until Breeze had assured him that he had just finished one breakfast, and had no room for another mouthful, he would listen to nothing else. His mind being set at rest on this point, Mateo asked,

“Vell, you not hongry, ma boy, ver is ze C’loo?”

“Gone to the bottom,” answered Breeze, “and poor Rod Mason has gone with her.”

“Vat you say? ze C’loo loss, and Rod Mason drowned? Oh, ze holy feesh! an his bruzzer Bill here, on ze ’Batross!”

It was indeed so; the only brother of the drowned man had shipped in the Albatross the day before. When he heard the sad news brought by Breeze, he declared he must return at once to Gloucester, and make arrangements for the future of his brother’s family. He would not even wait for the skipper’s return, but, collecting his dunnage, hurried away to catch the first train for home.

The rest of the crew, most of whom knew him, were 72intensely interested in what Breeze had to tell them of the loss of the Curlew and the rescue of her crew. They were still plying him with questions when the skipper of the Albatross returned. He, like Mateo, had been one of the Sea Robin’s crew upon the memorable occasion when Breeze had come to her, and now he gave the lad a hearty welcome. When he learned of William Mason’s desertion he was somewhat annoyed, but in a moment his face cleared and he said,

“Why won’t you come with us in his place, Breeze? You shall go as an A1 hand, have a full share of the catch, and we are not likely to be out more than a couple of weeks anyhow. She’s a good vessel, and you are always such a lucky chap that you’ll be more than welcome aboard of her.”

“Yes, Breeza, come ’long,” urged the cook. “Ole Mateo feeda you till you git fat like dog-feesh. Joe-flog, sea-pie, hatch, plenty good t’ings.”

Breeze laughed at the earnestness of the old man and the inducements he held out, but said, “If I only could go home and see mother for a little while first, I’d go in a minute. I’d have to get a new outfit too; the only thing I saved from the Curlew is this oil suit.”

“We’ll wait an hour for you to write to your mother and tell her just how things stand. That’ll give you time 73to get an outfit in, too. I guess you’d better come along,” urged the skipper.

“Outfeet!” cried Mateo, eagerly. “Vat you want? Peajack, boota, gole vatch an’ chain, eberyting vat you vill hab me getta him.”

So it was finally settled, and an hour later, having written a loving letter home, and been provided, through the old cook’s generosity, with an outfit of clothes quite as good as the one he had lost, Breeze found himself sailing out of Boston harbor in the good schooner Albatross, bound for the George’s Bank. Certainly, nothing had been further from his mind than this, when he had entered the same harbor a few hours before; but he was rapidly learning that nothing is so likely to happen in this life as those things we least expect.

St. George’s Bank, which furnishes the finest cod and halibut found on the American coast, lies about ninety-five miles due east from Highland light on Cape Cod. Its waters are fished all through the year by a large fleet of vessels from New England ports, but its supply continues apparently undiminished. It lies in a dangerous part of the ocean, for it is swept by the current of the Gulf Stream, is subject to fearful storms and dense fogs, and is crossed by all the transatlantic lines of steamers.

Although it is so near at hand, and though fishing was 74one of the earliest industries followed by the New England settlers, it was not until about 1836 that trips to George’s became a regular feature of the business. The bank was known to exist, and fish were known to be plenty on it, long before, but the fishermen were afraid of it. This fear was owing to the belief among them that the current, always sweeping across it, was strong enough to drag under and sink any vessel that should anchor within its influence.

The first three fishing vessels that visited the dreaded bank kept close together, and their crews fished as they drifted about. Finally, one of the skippers, who was regarded as a perfect dare-devil for proposing such a thing, said he was going to anchor and take his chances. Several of his crew were so frightened that they begged to be put aboard the other vessels, whose skippers were not so venturesome. They were allowed to go, and volunteers were called for from the other crews to aid this bold skipper in his desperate venture. When enough brave fellows had gone on board to be able to get the anchor up quickly in case of trouble, it was let go, the cable spun out, was checked, the anchor held, and the schooner rode to it as easily and quietly as though in Gloucester harbor.

Now occurred the most amusing part of this bold experiment. 75The swift current quickly bore the other two vessels away from the anchored craft, but those on board the latter imagined that they were moving and leaving their friends behind. They began to heave desperately on their cable, got their anchor up, and started back in pursuit of their companions. When they were once more united, all hands were fully satisfied with their exploit; and though they had taken but a few quintals^[B] of fish they sailed back to Gloucester filled with pride because one of their number had dared drop an anchor on George’s.

In those days, and until 1846, fishing vessels did not carry ice in which to pack their catch and bring it fresh into market. In place of this, many of them were made into what are known as “smacks” by having tight compartments built in their hold amidships, and filled with sea-water from auger-holes bored through the vessel’s bottom.

The greatest depth of water on George’s is 212 fathoms,^[C] or 1272 feet, nearly a quarter of a mile. The average depth for fishing is sixty fathoms, though halibut are often taken in water two hundred fathoms deep. It is, of course, tiresome work to drag these great fish to the surface from 76such great depths, and they are never sought for there if they can be found in shoaler water.

It is no rare thing to find a hundred fishing vessels at anchor at one time on George’s during any month of the year, and it was to join this fleet that the Albatross was now making her way swiftly around the point of Cape Cod. She was fitted out as a hand-liner--that is, her crew would fish with hand-lines over her sides--and she had a quantity of frozen herring stowed with the ice in her hold to be used as bait.

They reached the bank and caught sight of the anchored fleet early the following morning after leaving Boston. As they slipped along past one after another of the vessels already at work, they could see their crews hauling in their lines and tossing fish over the rail as fast as their arms could move. It seemed curious to Breeze that this busy work should always stop as soon as the Albatross drifted near any of the others. He asked why it was, and was told that they were afraid the new-comers would notice their good luck and anchor near them, which they did not wish to have them do.

As the Albatross moved slowly across the bank, soundings were taken, and the skipper kept a baited hook down. At last, in fifty fathoms of water he got a strong bite, and at once ordered the anchor to be dropped, Then the 77sails were snugly furled and the riding-sail set. This is a small triangular bit of canvas bent to the main-mast, and is used to hold the vessel’s head to the wind.

Now baskets of bait were got up, lines were overhauled, and soon every man on board had one or two over the side. They were allowed to run out until their leaden sinkers touched, when they were drawn up so that the hooks, that hung a fathom below them, were raised a few feet above the bottom.

There was an intense eagerness to bring up the first fish, and each man kept an eye on his neighbor’s line as well as on his own, to see if he were to be the lucky man. At last a shout announced a bite, and all turned to see Breeze McCloud tug away at something so tremendously heavy that it seemed to him he must be lifting a large piece of the bottom of the ocean.

CHAPTER VI. THE GALE ON GEORGE’S.

“Look out, Breeze! Let him run a bit!” shouted the skipper. “Don’t try to snub him yet, or he’ll snap your line like a thread.”

Whish-hiss-s-s goes the stout line as the fish at the other end takes a downward plunge. Now he runs upward, and the slack is hastily gathered in. “There, he is off again! My, what a rush! There is evidently some serious work on hand here,” said the skipper, as he went to the young fisherman’s assistance. It took fifteen minutes of steady, patient, and skilful work to tire the powerful fish. During this time general attention was directed to the struggle, and the men almost neglected their own lines in their curiosity to see what sort of a creature Breeze had hooked.

Finally the exhausted fish gave up the fight and allowed itself to be drawn to the surface. Now was seen the great white head of a halibut, that looked to Breeze, who had never before caught a fish of this kind, large enough 79to be a whale. Two men with gaffs^[D] in their hands sprang to his assistance, but the fish was so huge that not until two more had also got gaffs into him was he lifted from the water and got on deck. Here he was despatched by a few smart taps on the head from the “halibut killer,” which is a short wooden club kept ready for this especial purpose.

Breeze was wild with delight over his capture, while the whole crew were more or less excited, as well they might be, for no such fish had been taken from George’s by any one else that season. It weighed three hundred and twenty-six pounds, and though larger halibut than this have been caught, they are few and far between. One of the men said that he was worth at least twenty dollars, and all admitted that he would create a sensation when they took him into port.

“Put your mark on him, Breeze,” said the skipper, “so that you will be able to pick him out when we get home. He might get lost, you know, among the really big ones that the rest of us are going to catch.”

The boy laughed, but felt very proud of his first fish, as with his sharp sheath-knife he cut a rude B like this, , 80in the thick skin on its head, and inscribed the same mark near its tail.

Old Mateo was as delighted at the success of his protégé as the boy himself, and in honor of the event brought him a cup of hot coffee and an extra nice Joe-flogger spread with butter and sugar.

“Me tell ’em so ven you lit babee, an’ eat ze harda tack. Me tell ’em you catch ze feesh bimeby plentee, plentee! Now zey find out, eh?” he exclaimed, in a tone of self-satisfied pride. It was as much as to say that if they would only bring all the babies to him, he could tell whether they would make successful fishermen or not. The men laughed at him, and made many jokes concerning his wisdom; but he only laughed back good-naturedly, and shook his head at them as he again disappeared in the depths of his own domain.

For the rest of the day the fishing went on so merrily, and halibut and cod were piled up on deck so rapidly, that nobody found time to stop for dinner; but snatched hurried mouthfuls of food as they tended their lines. It was lively and exciting work; but when it was time to knock off, and begin to clear and pack the day’s catch, Breeze, for one, found himself aching in every joint, while his hands were raw and water-soaked from handling the hard, wet lines.

81He would have gladly turned in at once, but the fish must be cleaned first, and after that it was his turn to stand a two hours’ watch on deck. Thus it was late in the evening before the exhausted lad tumbled into his bunk, where he dreamed of monstrous fish with twenty-dollar gold-pieces in their mouths, that turned into Joe-floggers as he reached for them.

The fishing was good for three days longer, and all hands were light-hearted and happy over their success. Songs and jokes were heard on all sides, and the yarns told at night in the cabin were all of big fares and quick trips to the Banks. It had been a stormy winter, and March had come in like an angry, roaring lion; but now it seemed to be anxious to prove the truth of the old saying, and to be about to go out like the meekest of lambs. Three days more of such luck as they had had would pull up their anchor and see them homeward bound. But March is a fickle month.

The fourth day broke cloudy and threatening. The sky was gray and the air was filled with a penetrating chill. The schooner rode uneasily, straining and surging at her cable in the heavy swell that rolled in from the eastward. The previous day had been what old sailors would call “a weather-breeder,” with the wind light and puffy from the south-west. The mercury in the barometer 82had stood about 30.7, which indicated a change, and something to be expected from off the sea.

As the day wore on there was a feeling of snow in the atmosphere, and the barometer fell steadily. The fish continued to bite eagerly, and every man did his best to swell the sum total of his catch while he had the chance. The luck of the Albatross had been noticed, and several other vessels were anchored near her, both ahead and astern.

By noon angry spurts of snow were driving in the faces of her crew, the wind was moaning drearily through the rigging, and an occasional dash of spray wet the deck. About this time all hands were ordered to “knock off” fishing, dress the morning’s catch, stow all light articles below, and “snug ship.” Twenty more fathoms of cable were paid out. The foresail was loosed and three reefs were tied in it, so that it might be ready for instant use in case the vessel broke adrift. Then it was again furled, and securely tied.

The storm came on rapidly after that, until at four o’clock, when supper was served, the schooner was pitching furiously, and bringing up with vicious jerks on its straining cable. It was already quite dark, and the snow drove in horizontal lines, tingling against a bare face like cuts from a whip-lash. The wind howled through 83the taut rigging, and the spray, torn from the crests of the racing seas, was blown in blinding sheets above the slippery decks.

Breeze had never experienced anything like this. To him it was already a frightful gale, and, as he almost pitched down the forward companion-ladder in answer to the supper call, he was surprised to find how calmly the men were taking it. In spite of the tumult on deck, the creaking and groaning of the vessel’s timbers, and her mad pitching, several of them were seated at the mess-table eating as unconcernedly as though nothing unusual were happening. Another lay in his bunk, smoking and exchanging jokes with those who were eating.

After the storm-swept deck, the forecastle seemed warm, light, and cheerful. As Breeze sat down to the table, from which, in spite of the storm-racks, the dishes were every now and then flung to the floor, he wondered that he had never before noticed what a cosey and comfortable place it was.

“Vel, Breeza!” shouted old Mateo, whose entire energies were devoted to keeping the coffee-pot from sliding off the stove. “How you lak him? Pret good, eh?”

“I lak him very much better down here than I do on deck,” answered the boy between his mouthfuls of hot 84coffee and biscuit. “But, I say, Mateo, don’t you call this a pretty stiff sort of a gale?”

“No,” replied the old cook, scornfully; “zis only one-a lit Georgy shake-up. For ze gale you mus’ go to ze Gran’ Bank. Ah, zat ze place!”

With this the others chimed in, and began to tell of their experiences in real gales, to which this one was but a March zephyr.

For all this, a little later, when the crew were gathered in the cabin, where, around the little red-hot stove, wet clothing and boots were sending up clouds of steam, the skipper, after looking out of the companion-way, said,

“Boys, we are in for a regular ‘rip-snorter.’ I never saw a nastier night. You’d better get a nap if you can now, for after midnight there won’t be any chance for sleep aboard this craft. I want the watch on deck to keep the sharpest kind of a lookout, and to call me the moment a light is seen in any direction.”

The great danger of the night lay either in getting adrift, through the parting of their cable or the dragging of their anchor, and rushing into collision with some anchored vessel, or in being run down. In either case the result would probably be the almost instant death of all on board.

Following the skipper’s advice, Breeze crept into his 85bunk for a nap, but for a long time found it impossible to sleep. The violence of the pitching and the roar of the gale seemed to increase with each moment, and it was only by the strongest effort of will that he could restrain himself from springing up and rushing on deck. At last he did sleep, but was only aware of it when a dash of icy water in his face awakened him. Forgetting where he was, he sprang up, and struck his head violently against the low ceiling above him.

A great sea of solid water had broken over the schooner’s bows, and swept aft in such a volume that it must have flooded the cabin had not the skipper, who stood in the companion-way, pulled the slide. As it was, about a bucketful had made its way in, and a portion of it had fallen on Breeze.

Scrambling from the bunk, he found his companions clad in their oil-skins and prepared to hurry on deck at the first notice that their presence was needed. Several of them were picking themselves up from the floor, to which they had been flung by the shock of the big wave, and one was lamenting a broken pipe. They were much more sober now than at supper-time, and their conversation, which was entirely of wreck and disaster, was not calculated to fill the boy with cheerful thoughts. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was past midnight, and 86the skipper’s warning that there would be no sleep for them after that hour flashed into his mind.

Following the example of the others, he pulled on his oil-skins, and sat down to wait, he knew not what for. A few minutes later the summons came. It was an unintelligible cry from the watch on deck, but its meaning was clear to the practised ears of those below, and as the skipper sprang up the steps, the others followed.

When Breeze reached the deck and felt the full force of the blast, it seemed to drive the breath from his body. The wind was shrieking through the strained rigging like a hundred steam-whistles. The snow had turned into fine particles of ice that pricked like needles. The billows hissed and seethed as, with streaming manes of glistening white, they galloped past the quivering vessel. Now she was poised on the crest of a gigantic wave, and the next instant buried in a yawning depth, beneath a smother of broken waters that leaped high up on her masts.

By the rays of the riding-light, that still burned steadily just abaft the foremast, Breeze could make out the several members of the crew clinging to whatever seemed to promise the greatest safety, the fife-rail, halyards, or rigging. Away forward, beside the groaning windlass, was a figure which he knew to be that of the skipper, crouching, axe in hand, ready to cut the cable.

87All this had been taken in at one glance, the next revealed the cause of the outcry from the watch on deck. A light dead ahead was bearing swiftly down upon them. It was that of a fishing schooner torn from her anchorage, and being hurled by the storm giant, like a bolt of destruction, through the helpless fleet.

During the fearful suspense of the next minute the boy did not breathe, and his very heart seemed to cease its beating. Twice the gleaming axe in the skipper’s hand was raised to strike. Each time he thought of the vessels anchored astern of the Albatross, upon which she must drive in turn if cut adrift, and the blow was withheld.

Now the threatening light rose high above them, and then it swooped down and rushed past so close that they could almost have sprung aboard the drifting schooner. They caught a momentary glimpse of white faces, heard one wild cry, and felt the dragging of the broken cable as it was drawn across their own. Then all was again swallowed up in the furious blackness astern, and for them that danger was past.

The night was bitterly cold, but the first sensation of which Breeze was aware, when it was all over, was that of the profuse perspiration in which he was bathed.

There being no longer any need of their presence on deck, the members of the crew, after a fresh watch was 88set, again sought the shelter of the cabin. Here Breeze was advised to try and get some more sleep, as it would be his turn to go on watch at four o’clock. He lay down, but felt as though he should never sleep again; for he could not close his eyes without seeing, once more, the drifting phantom of destruction that had just swept past them. He started fearfully at each lurch of the reeling vessel, and fancied that he heard cries in the shriek of the blast overhead. Although he dreaded to go on deck, it seemed as though he should prefer it to remaining in the cabin, and it was a relief when he was called to go on watch.

The lad’s watchmate was much older than he, a weather-beaten sailor who had witnessed a hundred such gales, and felt that so long as the cable held, there was not much to fear. He helped Breeze up on the foregaff, where he would escape the worst of the great seas that continually broke over the schooner’s bows, sweeping her from stem to stern, and bade him keep a sharp lookout from there.

At last, faint and uncertain, the prayed-for, long-deferred, and anxiously awaited light of day began to creep over the wild scene, and the white foam-crests stretched away farther and farther. The snow ceased to fall, and there was some promise of a cessation of the gale. One of the first things they distinguished in the early light 89was the huge dim form of a square-rigged vessel that, under bare poles, drove past them, less than a quarter of a mile away, and vanished almost as soon as she was seen. Nothing was said, for only a shout close to the ear could be heard amid the tumult; but Breeze shuddered to think how powerless their little schooner would have been to resist that driving mass had they chanced to lie in its course.

They next saw a schooner plunging at her anchor, a short distance ahead of them, and noted how she had dragged during the night, for they had seen her the day before, but then much farther away. Her anchors had only caught just in time to save both her and them, and again Breeze realized the narrowness of their escape from the night’s perils.

As the daylight revealed her sad plight, they turned their attention to their own craft. The seas no longer broke over her so furiously as they had, but crushed bulwarks, and the deck swept clear of boat, gurry-kids, and everything not absolutely built into it told of their awful force.

All at once Breeze, from his slight elevation, noted a commotion on the deck of the schooner ahead of them. The men on watch seemed to be heaving lines at something in the water. It was evidently drifting past them, 90and their lines plainly failed to reach it. They were motioning, as though to attract his attention towards it, and the thought flashed into his mind that perhaps they had discovered a survivor of some wreck floating in the angry waters, and had tried unsuccessfully to save him. He told his companion of what he had seen, and they both watched eagerly in the hope that if it was indeed a man he might drift within their reach. They procured a couple of long light lines, made one end fast, and coiled them carefully, in readiness to be flung at a moment’s notice.

“I see him!” cried Breeze at length. “There, see! off our port bow; but he is going to drift clear of us.”

It was the figure of a man, clad in oil-skins, the yellow gleam of which had caught the boy’s eye as they showed for a moment on the crest of a wave.

As he came near they saw that he was apparently clinging to the bottom of an overturned dory. At the same time it was evident that he was going to drift far beyond their reach, and they doubted if their lines even could be made to reach him. They shouted again and again, but he gave no sign of hearing them.

Breeze began to tear off his oil-skins, then his jacket and boots, and to knot the end of a line about his waist.

“What are you going to do?” shouted his companion. “Not try and swim to him?”

91

“YOU’RE CRAZY, LAD! YOU CAN’T LIVE A MINUTE IN SUCH A SEA.”

“Yes, I am,” shouted Breeze, in reply. “It would be a pity if the best swimmer in Gloucester should let a man drown before his eyes for want of trying to save him.”

“But you’re crazy, lad! You can’t live a minute in such a sea!” and the man took hold of the boy’s arm to restrain him from the rash attempt.

With a single violent wrench Breeze freed himself from the other’s grasp, and just as some of the crew, who had been attracted by the shouts on deck, came up from the cabin, he plunged headlong into the raging waters.

CHAPTER VII. A STRUGGLE FOR A LIFE.

For half a minute Breeze was lost to the view of those who from the deck of the schooner watched anxiously to see him emerge from his brave plunge. They gave a shout as he reappeared. He had only time to draw in a single breath of air before he was again buried beneath a huge curling wave that, before it broke, towered many feet above his head. His comrades were just about to haul him back by means of the line they were paying out, and the other end of which was knotted about his waist, when his head was once more seen above the surface.

This time they were astonished to note what a distance he had gained, for being many feet under water had not prevented his swimming sturdily towards the object of his efforts. Now how gallantly he dashed forward! with what splendid overhand strokes he took advantage of the few moments of surface-swimming granted him before he was again swallowed up! He had won many a swimming-match 93in both smooth and storm-tossed waters about Gloucester. He had taken many a header through green walls of inrushing breakers, but never before had he swam as now; never before had he struggled for the prize of a human life.

When for the third time he emerged from the suffocating waters, he saw the yellow-clad form, to gain which he had fought so bravely, within a few feet of him. With one more desperate effort, for the line about his waist was now dragging him back almost irresistibly, he reached it, and grasped the stern becket of the overturned dory.

Out-stretched upon its flat bottom, with both arms and legs twined about the life-line,^[E] lay the senseless form of a young man, apparently but little older than the brave swimmer who now tried to rouse him. It was impossible to do so, and Breeze feared that he was dead. Without casting loose the line from about his body, he gathered a bight in it, and made this fast to the becket of the dory. Then he waved his hand as a signal to those on board the schooner to pull in.

The strain upon the light line was terrible, and in any 94other hands but those of expert fishermen it would have parted a dozen times before its precious burden was drawn as close as was safe under the stern of the schooner. Then a second line was thrown to Breeze, who, nearly exhausted as he was, still found strength to secure it about the body of the senseless lad beside him. He could not, however, undo the clutch of the rigid fingers from the life-line, and for a moment began to despair, even within reach of rescue, of saving him for whom he had risked so much. But help was at hand, and it came as he least expected it.

From the schooner’s deck old Mateo had watched the brave struggles of his boy, as he called him, in an agony of apprehension. Now, with senses quickened by affection, he was the first to comprehend the difficulty. Just as Breeze was about to relax his efforts, feeling that he could do no more, the old cook’s heavy jack-knife, with the end of a fishing-line attached to the ring in its horn handle, came flying across the dory, and dropped into the water beyond it.

Breeze secured it, opened it, and with a last effort cut both ends of the dory’s life-line, as well as the becket to which he had fastened himself. Then the knife dropped from his nerveless fingers, and, as the dory drifted away, two senseless figures were drawn through the wild waters 95to the plunging schooner. With a final effort for their destruction, a huge billow hurled itself bodily upon them, and the lines had to be slackened for a few moments, or they would have parted. The limp forms were buried deep beneath the green waters; but again they were drawn to the surface, and this time they came within reach of the eagerly out-stretched arms waiting to grasp them.

The unknown lad was carried into the cabin; while Breeze, claimed by Mateo, was tenderly taken into the forecastle. There, while two men stripped and rubbed him, the old cook heated blankets, and prepared hot stimulants, wailing as he bustled about, “Oh, Breeza! ma boy, ma boy! You no-a die; you must leeve!”

It was half an hour before their efforts were rewarded by a faint sigh and a flush of returning color in the livid cheeks. Then the boy opened his eyes, and gazed about him wonderingly for an instant. A few minutes later, wrapped in hot blankets, he fell asleep and was breathing regularly.

Almost the same scene was taking place in the cabin, only there it was so long before the patient showed the least sign of life that some of those who worked over him were several times ready to give up in despair. They were only kept at it by the skipper, who exclaimed,

96“Great Scott, men! it will be a shame if we cannot fetch him to, after that boy has nearly given his life to save him. I, for one, shall work over him from now till noon before I will give him up.”

At last he, too, was brought back to the life from which he had so nearly departed, and by noon, when the sun came out, both patients were doing finely. Neither of them was allowed to leave his bunk until the next morning; but they were kept warm, and encouraged to sleep as much as possible. In their exhausted condition this was easy to do. So with only one or two awakenings to take the light nourishment that Mateo prepared for them, by the aid of his never-failing “lit tin cow,” they slept through the rest of the day and the whole of the night.

The next morning they awoke, filled with the life and energy that always wait upon youth and a sound constitution, and almost inclined to believe their recent adventure to be but a troubled dream. Only a few bruises, and the marks about their bodies of the ropes by which they had been drawn aboard the schooner, remained as traces of what they had undergone.

The sea had gone down so rapidly the day before that the crew of the Albatross had been able to resume their fishing by noon, and had had remarkably good-luck until 97night. By a mutual agreement, suggested by the man who had been watchmate with Breeze that morning, they devoted half an hour to their brave young comrade, and the entire catch of fish, made during that time, was credited to him in the ship’s books.

The next morning when Breeze came on deck he saw the skipper talking to a well-built young stranger, whose naturally ruddy face had not yet wholly recovered its color. For an instant he wondered who it could be, and where he had come from. Then it flashed across him that this was the person whom he had rescued from the sea; and, not knowing exactly what to do or say, he stood looking at him curiously.

The young stranger noticing him, said something to the skipper, who turned quickly and exclaimed,

“Good-morning, Breeze! Why, you are looking as fresh as a daisy. This is Mr. Wolfe Brady,” he added, indicating the lad who stood beside him. “Although you two have already been dorymates, he declares he has never seen you before, and I am certain you have never been introduced. Mr. Brady, Mr. McCloud.”

In assuming this jesting tone the skipper hoped to put the young men at their ease, and relieve their first meeting of the embarrassment they might naturally be expected to feel under the circumstances.

98There was a long, firm hand-clasp between the two who had so nearly met death together; but for a moment neither of them spoke. Then Wolfe Brady said,

“They tell me you saved my life, and nearly lost your own in doing it. I can’t thank you, because I haven’t the gift; but if ever the time comes when you can use it, I will offer my life to you as freely as you offered yours for me.”

“Thank you,” answered Breeze, simply. “I am very glad I succeeded in reaching you; but how did you happen to be afloat on that dory?”

THERE WAS A LONG FIRM HAND-CLASP BETWEEN THEM.

“I hardly know myself. Yesterday morning I belonged to the trawler Ibis of Boston. Just before daylight, while half the crew, and I among them, were on deck, we were run down by a large square-rigger scudding under bare poles. It was so dark that we did not see her until she was right on top of us, and then, though we cut the cable, it was too late. She struck us before those below could get on deck, and crushed the schooner down as though she were a herring-box. Then I’ve no knowledge of what happened to the others, or even to myself. I only know that I was under water such a long time that I wonder I did not stay there. When I came up something was floating close beside me, and I got hold of it. The rest is a blank. The next thing I knew, I was 99lying in a bunk and somebody was trying to pour something down my throat. Your skipper was just telling me what a splendid fight you made to get me, and how near you came to losing the number of your mess, and sending your vessel home with her flag at half-mast in doing it. I’m awfully grateful, and I hope some time I may be able to prove it; for I’ve been a pretty bad lot, and was not ready to go up aloft yet.”

“No,” said Breeze, soberly, “I don’t suppose many of us are.” Then he asked, “Are you an American?” The other’s name, and a foreign accent to his speech, led to the question.

“Not yet,” answered Wolfe, smiling, "but I hope to be in two years more when I come of age. At present I am an Irishman. That is, my father is Irish, my mother is English, and I was born in England, but brought up in Queenstown, Ireland, where my parents live, and from which I ran away to sea about a year ago. Before they were married, my father was butler and my mother lady’s-maid in the household of Sir Wolfe Tresmont. That’s where I got my first name. My father is now a linen-draper in Queenstown, where his best customers are Americans. I was sent to school in England for four years, but I hated it, and from seeing and hearing so much of Americans, I had a great desire to come to this 100country. Last year my father took me from school and set me to work in his shop. I hated that worse than school, and seeing a chance to run away and ship on board a bark bound for Boston, I took it and came over here.

“By the time I got on this side I had had enough of merchant sailing; and, as I could not find anything else to do, thought I would try fishing. Since then I have made two trips, one of four months to the Newfoundland Banks, and one to George’s before this one. Now here I am, and you know more about me than I have told to another living soul since leaving home.”

“Well,” said Breeze, “you know a good deal more about yourself than I do about myself. I suppose I must have had a real father and mother, but I never knew them, for I was picked up at sea, floating in a cask, when I was a baby. I am almost certain I must be an American, though, for I know I could never love any other country so well. I’m glad you are going to be one too, as soon as you can. Don’t you think I look more like an American than anything else?” he inquired, a little anxiously.

“I don’t know,” replied the other, regarding him attentively. “Yes, on the whole I think perhaps you do. Still, with light hair and blue eyes, you know, you might 101be a Scandinavian, or a Dutchman, or an Englishman, or a Scotchman, or even an Irishman.”

They both laughed at this, and Breeze said,

“You might as well quote ‘Pinafore’ at once and be done with it.”

So the conversation between the two, which had been rather constrained at first, became more easy and confidential, until they found themselves discussing each other’s hopes and plans with the freedom of old friends.

Every now and then a shadow would sweep over Wolfe’s face, and he would speak in a lower tone as he thought of the probable fate of his recent shipmates. Still, as grieving could do neither them nor him the slightest good, he tried to keep cheerful, by remembering how marvellously he himself had been spared. He confessed to Breeze that he had caused his parents much trouble and anxiety, by his manner of life, both in school and at home, but declared that now he really meant to turn over a new leaf.

“I’ll begin by writing to my mother as soon as ever we reach port,” he said, “for it makes me feel ashamed of myself to remember that I have not sent home a single line since I left there. I do not suppose they have the slightest idea what has become of me, or whether I am alive or dead.”

102To Breeze, his mother was so near and dear, he had thought of her and written to her so often even during his short absence from home, that Wolfe’s account of his own neglect was most surprising. Still, he did not feel at liberty to express his feelings in the matter, and only said, “I would, if I were you, by all means; she must be feeling awfully at not hearing.”

The rest of the schooner’s crew had been hard at work catching fish since daylight, and during their conversation Breeze and Wolfe had also been busy with their lines. Several other schooners were still in sight, though at long distances from them. Most of the fleet had been scattered far and wide by the gale, which, though short, had been one of the severest of the season. After it was over many of the fishing vessels returned to port to refit, while the fate of others was told by the melancholy signs of wreck and disaster that every now and then floated past the Albatross. Her skipper knew that for a time fresh fish would command an extra price in the Eastern market, and so was anxious to carry in as large a fare as possible. For this reason, in spite of the damaged condition of his vessel, he remained on the bank two days longer before getting up the anchors that had held her so well, and heading for home.

In the mean time tidings of the gale and its destruction 103of lives and vessels had reached Gloucester, and had caused the greatest anxiety there. As one after another of the schooners that had escaped sailed into the harbor, their crews were eagerly questioned for news of this one or that one not yet heard from. At last one came in bringing with her a dory that she had picked up, and on which was stencilled the name “Albatross.” Her skipper reported that on the night of the awful storm, during a slight lull, he had caught a momentary glimpse of two lights. They were so close together that the vessels bearing them must have been in collision. They bore from him just as the Albatross had when he last saw her. As he looked the lights suddenly disappeared, either from the shutting in again of the snow, or because they had gone to the bottom. Soon afterwards his own craft had parted her cables, but had managed to weather the gale, and on the following day he had picked up this dory. That was all, but it seemed to seal the fate of the schooner, whose return had until then been watched for so hopefully and so anxiously.

Mrs. McCloud had made Captain Coffin, who was still at home, promise to bring her the very first tidings, whether good or bad, that should come. Now with a heavy heart he walked slowly towards the little cottage, in which sorrow was becoming so familiar a visitor.

104The moment he opened the door, and the anxious loving mother caught sight of his face, she exclaimed, “He is lost; my boy is lost! I know he is! I can see it in your face!”

“You must not give up all hope yet,” said the captain, soothingly, seeking to comfort her, though he felt that his words would be in vain. “We do not yet know certainly the fate of the Albatross, though we have every reason to fear the worst.”

CHAPTER VIII. A FALSE FRIEND, AND AN OPEN ENEMY.

All night long the poor mother seemed to hear Captain Coffin’s last words, “We have every reason to fear the worst,” repeated over and over; but, as though to comfort her, they were always followed by the thought, “Nothing certain is yet known.” She always tried to find a bright side to her troubles, and by looking steadily at it, to forget that there was any dark side. This plan worked so well now that by morning she had determined to still hope for the best, instead of fearing the worst, until something more definite should be known. This was certainly the wisest thing to do, for more than half of all our troubles are those we think may come, but which, after all, never do come; and hoping steadily for the best goes a long way towards bringing the best to us.

Though all this had nothing to do with bringing Breeze McCloud home, he came nevertheless. While his mother was busy, with almost her usual cheerfulness, preparing breakfast, she heard a joyous shout in the little front 106yard, the door was burst open, and the next moment her boy’s arms were thrown about her neck.

The Albatross had made a glorious run home, and passed in by Eastern Point at sunrise that morning. The moment she was made fast to her wharf Breeze had jumped into a dory and pulled across the harbor, so as to be the first to tell his mother of his own arrival. He could stay to breakfast, but must get back to the schooner as quickly as possible afterwards, and help discharge the fare of fish she had brought in. One of the boy’s first questions was,

“Is there any news from father yet, mother?”

“Not yet,” was the answer; “but I feel certain there will be soon, and that when it comes it will be good news. How much we shall have to tell him when he does get home, and how proud he will be of you!” she added, fondly.

Her faith in her husband’s return was still as strong as ever, and Breeze had always shared it.

While they were at breakfast there came another shout in the front yard, the door again opened, and before he got fairly inside, Captain Coffin exclaimed, “It’s all right, Mrs. McCloud! The Albatross is in, and Breeze is--”

“Here, and mighty glad to see you, sir!” cried the lad, jumping up from the table to greet the new-comer.

“Bless my soul!” exclaimed the astonished skipper, 107shaking Breeze heartily by the hand, and gazing at him incredulously, “you have both out-footed and out-pointed me this time. I didn’t suppose the Albatross was tied up yet, and thought I had at least half an hour’s start of you.”

The captain sat down to breakfast with them, and between mouthfuls Breeze tried to give them an outline of his recent adventures. They were all so excited, and Mrs. McCloud had to jump up from the table so often to replenish the plates, that she only received a confused impression that her boy had saved somebody’s life and caught the biggest fish that ever was seen. This, however, satisfied her for the present; the details she could learn afterwards.

As soon as breakfast was over, Breeze started back for the schooner, and Captain Coffin went with him. While they were rowing across the harbor the latter said,

“I’ve got a new schooner, Breeze, and a finer craft was never built in Essex. Her name is the Fish-hawk, and she is fitting out for a salt trip to Grand Bank. Don’t you want to ship on her? I can offer you a full share now.”

“I don’t know, sir. It seems as though I ought to stay with mother a few days at any rate.”

“So you can; we sha’n’t get off for a week yet, but I 108thought I would speak about it now, so that if you decided to go I could hold the place for you. Besides, you could put your dunnage right aboard, which would save you the trouble of carrying it home when the Albatross hauls out for repairs.”

“All right, sir,” said Breeze; “I should like to go with you better than with anybody else, and I guess, inside of a week, I can persuade mother to let me start off again. If you’ve got room for another, I’d like to speak for a berth for a friend of mine too.”

“Do you mean the one you went dorymate with on George’s the other day?” asked the captain, laughing.

“Yes, sir. His name is Wolfe Brady, and he has been on one trawling trip to the Banks already, besides two to George’s.”

“Well, I’ve got about all the men I want, except a cook, and I don’t suppose he can fill that berth, but I’ll take a look at him, and if we suit each other perhaps I can make room for him.”

“If you want a cook,” said Breeze, eagerly, “why not try and get old Mateo? He is the best cook sailing out of Gloucester, and if the Albatross is going to be laid up for some time, perhaps he will go with us.”

“I see that you were cut out for a regular shipping agent,” laughed the captain, “but I’ll get Mateo if I can.”

109Everything went well that day. Captain Coffin took a fancy to Wolfe and offered him a berth on the Fishhawk almost as soon as he saw him. Wolfe, who was willing to ship for any kind of a trip, was greatly pleased at the prospect of going with Breeze, and at once accepted the offer.

Old Mateo, too, who, now that his boy had become a sailor, seemed to think it his duty to follow and watch over him, was easily booked as cook of the new schooner.

The big halibut caught by Breeze sold for nearly twenty dollars, and the boy was handed a check for thirty-four dollars as the result of his eight days’ trip to George’s. Wolfe was also made happy by receiving twelve dollars as his share of the three days’ fishing after he had been picked up.

After getting his check cashed, and repaying what old Mateo had loaned him, Breeze carried the rest home to his mother. This money, added to what he had made on the mackerelling trip in the Curlew, amounted to sixty-five dollars. It would be hard to tell whether he or his mother was the prouder over this satisfactory result of the boys’ first efforts as a bread-winner.

During the long, happy talk that they had after supper, their one regret was that the father was not there to share their joy, but they spoke hopefully of his coming, and the 110future looked brighter to them than it had for many a day. Mrs. McCloud was greatly interested in what Breeze had to tell her of his adventure with the New York jeweller who had opened the golden ball. They both examined it minutely, but could discover no joint amid the delicate tracery of its surface. After it had been again restored to its place, Mrs. McCloud cautioned the boy to always guard it carefully, as she felt more than ever certain that some day it would prove of great value to him.

About eight o’clock Breeze started up, saying that he must go back to the schooner after Wolfe Brady. He had invited him to come home to supper and spend the night, but Wolfe had begged for a little time in which to purchase some very necessary additions to his scanty wardrobe, and Breeze had promised to meet him on board the Albatross soon after eight o’clock. Since then he had told his mother all that he knew of the young stranger, and so excited her interest in him that she now sent him an invitation to stay with them as long as he should remain in port.

Kissing his mother good-by, and promising to be back very soon, Breeze left the house; and taking her sewing, Mrs. McCloud sat down to await his return.

Neither Wolfe Brady nor anybody else was to be seen 111on the Albatross when Breeze reached her. Near by lay the Fish-hawk, to which he had transferred his dunnage that afternoon, but she too was deserted. On the opposite side of the wharf lay a shabby-looking old schooner, named Vixen, on which several men were still at work, evidently getting her ready for sailing. Breeze asked them if they had seen anybody answering Wolfe’s description about there recently.

“Yes,” answered one of them, “I seen a young feller like that hanging round here ’bout half an hour ago. He came over here and got talking with Hank Hoffer, one of our men, and they walked off uptown together. I expect they’ll be back directly.”

“Did you hear them say where they were going?”

“No; seems to me, though, I did hear Hank say something ’bout Grimes’s. Shouldn’t wonder if they’d gone up there to get a drink.”

Breeze started at the mention of Grimes’s, for he knew it to be one of the lowest and very worst drinking-dens in the town. Such places are not permitted by law to exist in Gloucester, but occasionally they escape the vigilance of the police for a short time, and in them many a sturdy fisherman is tempted to squander the money he has risked his life to earn.

Captain McCloud had seen so much of the pitiful misery 112and sorrow caused by drink that he had brought Breeze up to regard it with horror. As soon as the boy was old enough to realize what he was doing, he had promised his father that, so long as he lived, he would never touch a drop of any intoxicating liquor. He had never signed a pledge, nor had his father asked him to; for although Breeze was slow to make promises, he would as soon cut off his hand as to break one that he had made, and his father trusted him implicitly.

Now, although he was neither a prig nor a goody-goody boy it distressed Breeze to think of any one whom he called friend visiting Grimes’s. His one hope was that, being a stranger in town, Wolfe did not know what sort of a place it was, and that he would leave it and come back as soon as he discovered its character.

In this hope he waited for half an hour longer, and then, as Wolfe still failed to appear, he determined to go in search of him. He knew pretty nearly where Grimes’s was, and walked in that direction. Very soon he saw several men come out from a dark passage-way and turn down the street, talking and laughing loudly. He followed them until satisfied that Wolfe was not among them, and then returned and waited until another party came out from the same passage-way. His friend did not appear this time, and he felt that he must go in and either 113satisfy himself that Wolfe was not there, or persuade him to come away if he was.

He walked back and forth several times before he could make up his mind to go in. At last, feeling that he was acting the part of a coward, he entered the passage, and finding a closed door at its farther end, tried to open it. The noise that he made was evidently heard inside, for a slide in one of the upper panels of the door was pushed back a few inches, and a bright light flashed full in his face.

“Who are you?” asked a voice through the opening.

“No matter who I am,” replied Breeze. “I come to look for a friend and I want to be let in.”

“Well, you can’t come in until you’ve told me your name, and whether you are alone or not.”

“My name is Breeze McCloud, if you must have it, and I am alone,” answered the boy.

“That’s all right; I recognize you now,” said the voice, and the next moment the door was thrown open.

Just then two figures came through the dimly lighted hall-way that the open door disclosed, and in the voice of one of them Breeze recognized that of Wolfe Brady.

He waited until they got to where he was standing, and then, taking hold of his friend’s arm, he said, “I’ve been looking for you, Wolfe, and waiting to take you home with me.”

114“Hello, Breeze!” exclaimed the other, huskily; “glad to see you, old boy. You’re just in time to go back and have a drink with us.”

“No, thank you,” replied Breeze; “I never drink anything. I only came here to find you, and now I want you to go home with me.”

“Oh, come along in,” said Wolfe’s companion, in a disagreeable tone. “You ain’t afraid, are you?”

“No,” said Breeze, “I’m not afraid; but now that I’ve found my friend there’s no reason why I should go in, and I don’t choose to do so.”

“Well, you needn’t put on any of your high and mighty airs with me,” exclaimed the other, threateningly. “This gentleman is as much my friend as he is yours, and I’m going to prove it by taking him inside again. Come back in, old pard,” he added, grasping Wolfe’s other arm as he stood balancing himself unsteadily between the two.

“No,” said Breeze, decidedly, “he sha’n’t go back;” and with this he endeavored to pull Wolfe through the still open door-way into the street.

Here the door-keeper, who had watched the scene impatiently, interfered, and saying, “I can’t have any disturbance here, gentlemen; you’ll have to settle this business outside,” assisted Breeze to such purpose that the 115next moment all three were in the street, and the door was closed behind them.

This excited Wolfe’s anger so that he began to kick the door, at the same time screaming to be let in.

“Oh, come, this won’t do!” exclaimed Wolfe’s companion. “This racket’ll bring the police down on us in no time. You see now what a fix you’ve got us into, don’t yer?” he asked, turning to Breeze.

“I see what a fix you’ve got this poor fellow into by bringing him to such a place,” replied the latter, indignantly, “and I hope you feel as ashamed of yourself as you ought to be.”

“None of your preaching!” cried the other, fiercely, “or you and I’ll have a bigger score to settle than we’ve got now. Take hold of him, can’t you? and let’s get away from here before we get nabbed.”

Together they succeeded in pulling Wolfe from the door, and in directing his unsteady steps down the street in the direction of the wharf.

While Breeze was wondering what on earth he should do with his friend in this wretched condition, Wolfe’s intoxication assumed a new form, and he began to yell and sing at the top of his voice.

“Stop that noise, or I’ll take you all in,” shouted a gruff voice behind them.

116“Shut up, can’t yer?” exclaimed Wolfe’s companion to him, angrily. “Don’t you hear the police?”

But Wolfe only yelled the louder, and began to revile the police, and dare them to come and get him.

“We must cut for it,” said Hank Hoffer, for this was the name of Wolfe’s companion. “Grab him tight and run him. We’re pretty near there.”

Almost carrying Wolfe between them, the others hurried him along at such a pace as to quite take his breath away and put a stop to any further outcries.

As they reached the wharf Hank said, “Quick, now! let’s get him aboard this schooner. I belong here, and it’ll be all right. We’ll get him below, and put him in a bunk, where they’ll never notice him. Hurry, they’re coming!”

In the excitement of the moment Breeze did not stop to think whether this was a wise thing to do or not; and, only anxious to shield his friend from the consequences of his own folly, he blindly obeyed these instructions.

Wolfe stumbled on the deck of the schooner and fell, striking his head against the wheel. When they got him below he seemed stupid, and blood was flowing from a gash on his forehead.

“QUICK, NOW! LET’S GET HIM ABOARD THIS SCHOONER.”

Pulling forward a bucket of water, and handing Breeze a rag, Hank said, “You sponge him off, and keep him 117quiet while I go on deck and see whether the police have followed us down here or not.”

Without waiting for an answer, he sprang up the companion-way and pulled the slide over it. Then he went forward, and began to talk in a low tone to the skipper of the schooner, who, with several other men, was on deck. The police had evidently given up the chase some time before, for none were in sight on the wharf.

What Hank Hoffer said to the skipper was, “I’ve brought you a couple of first-class hands, and they’re both drunk down in the cabin; but they’ll be all right to-morrow. They were making such a racket in the streets that the police gave us a run for it. I’m afraid they’ll come after us yet; so, as long as we’re all ready, why don’t you cast off, drop out into the stream, and make a start.”start.”

Now, this skipper was not much liked by those who knew him, nor was his old schooner a popular boat; so he had found it somewhat difficult to get a crew for the trip she was about to make to the Newfoundland Banks. He had, however, succeeded in shipping all but two of the necessary number, and now that these two had come aboard of their own free-will, he saw no reason why he should not take Hank Hoffer’s advice and make a start.

The motion of the schooner was so gentle as she drifted 118away from the wharf that Breeze, busily bathing his friend’s head, did not notice it. When, however, those on deck began to hoist the sails, he recognized the sound quickly enough, and springing up, tried to push back the companion-way slide. It was locked. Then he began to pound on it furiously, and to shout for somebody to come and unfasten it; but no attention was paid to his outcries.

“It’s only those drunken fellows in the cabin,” explained Hank Hoffer to the rest of the crew; “they’ll quiet down directly.”

So Breeze McCloud and Wolfe Brady sailed away in the old schooner Vixen for Grand Bank, while in the little cottage on the eastern hill an anxious woman sat and waited for their coming.

CHAPTER IX. KIDNAPPED.--THE PROMISE.

Finding that no notice was taken of his shouts to be released from the cabin, Breeze finally sat down on the transom beside the bunk in which Wolfe was now sleeping heavily, and tried to puzzle out the meaning of what had taken place. At first he thought it might be a sort of a practical joke, and perhaps the Vixen was only being carried out in the bay to get a good position for an early start in the morning. In that case he did not doubt but he would be allowed to return to the city when she came to anchor. As time wore on, and the schooner still continued to move rapidly through the water, even this hope began to disappear. At last the motion of the vessel convinced him that she had passed out of the bay, and was now riding the long, regular swells of the open sea.

He now remembered that the Vixen had been fitting for a trip to the Grand Bank, and realized that she had really begun the long voyage that might last for months. If he could only have bidden his mother good-by, and told 120her where he was going! Now the thought of her distress at his unexplained absence completely overcame him. Throwing himself at full length on the hard transom, he buried his face in his hands and sobbed as though his heart would break. Finally, tired out by his long, hard day’s work, his recent excitement, and the strength of his emotions, he fell into a troubled sleep.

Soon afterwards the companion-way slide was pushed back, and the skipper, Hank Hoffer, and another man entered the cabin and tumbled into their bunks, but without waking the prisoners.

“Sleep sound enough, don’t they?” remarked the skipper.

“Yes,” answered Hank Hoffer. “Drunken men always do.”

It was broad daylight when Breeze awoke, cramped and stiff from lying so long on the bare boards of the transom. As he sat up and looked about him, his thoughts were in such confusion that he could not for a moment recall where he was. Seeing Wolfe Brady asleep in the bunk beside him brought back the events of the preceding evening with a rush, and starting up, he went on deck. There a single glance showed him that they were out of sight of land and heading to the eastward.

A young man whose face looked somewhat familiar 121to him was at the wheel, though he could not recollect where he had seen it.

“Hello!” exclaimed this individual. “Turned out, have yer? Feel any better than you did last night?”

Breeze started at the sound of the voice. It was that of Wolfe Brady’s companion of the night before, of whose face he had not at any time obtained a good view, but whom he now recognized. “What do you mean,” he asked, stepping up to the young man, “by playing such a trick on me? How dared you lock us into that cabin and bring us off in this way?”

“Ho, ho!” laughed the other, “I dare do almost anything. As for what I meant by it, I told you a while ago that I’d get even with you for laughing at me when that mackerel seine broke and pitched us all overboard. I’ve only kept my word.”

Now it flashed across Breeze where he had seen the face before. It was while on his trip in the Curlew, and this young man had been one of the crew of the Rockhaven schooner--the one who had shaken his fist and threatened him for laughing at their ridiculous mishap.

“I laid up another grudge agin you yesterday,” continued Hank Hoffer. “When I went to Captain Coffin and asked for a chance on the Fish-hawk, he said he had just engaged you and your mate, and didn’t want any more 122hands. So I had to ship on this old packet. When I found your mate hanging around alone last evening, I saw a chance to fix him, and thought I’d get even with you that way. Then you had to come along, like the greenhorn that you are, and walk right into the trap too. I tell you what, young feller, you won’t never gain nothing by running afoul the hawse of Hank Hoffer! So put that in your pipe and smoke it, and see that you remember it too.”

It was all plain enough to Breeze now, and he turned away angry and heart-sick, to think that his own carelessness should have led him into such a predicament. He thought he could not feel any worse than he did, but a minute later he found himself confronted by a new trouble, beside which the other became insignificant.

As he re-entered the cabin he found the skipper awake, and at once began to charge him with having kidnapped them, and to threaten that if they were not set aboard the first homeward-bound vessel they met, he would have him arrested the moment they again reached Gloucester.

The skipper listened to all this in amazement, and when Breeze had ended said,

“You’d better be careful in your choice of words, my young friend, or you may get yourself into trouble. I never kidnapped you or anybody else in my life, and I 123don’t know what you mean. You came aboard this vessel of your own free-will just as she was about to start. Your friend on deck there told me that you wanted to ship with us for the pleasure of sailing in his company. I took his word for it instead of talking with you, because you were too drunk to--”

“I drunk!” interrupted Breeze, excitedly. “I never drank a drop of liquor in my life, and anybody who says I was drunk last night lies; that’s all.”

“Oh, come now,” said the skipper, beginning to get angry in turn, “that’s too thin. Didn’t you come stumbling aboard last night as no sober man would have done? Didn’t you raise particular Cain down here in the cabin for a while, and then fall into such a heavy sleep that nothing could wake you from it? Don’t your eyes show that you have been drinking? Wasn’t the smell of whiskey almost strong enough to knock a man down when I came into the cabin to turn in, and nobody’d been here but you and your mate? Besides all this, didn’t I see you myself hanging round Grimes’s not more than half an hour before you came aboard? Don’t tell me again you wasn’t drunk. There’s nothing I despise so much as a sneak that tries to crawl out of a scrape by lying about it. Now wake up that partner of yours and turn him out, or I’ll come down here and do it for you with a bucket of salt-water.”

124With this the skipper went on deck, leaving Breeze bewildered and stunned by the charge just made against him, and the amount of apparent proof brought to sustain it.

The worst of it all was that if the skipper had seen him in the vicinity of Grimes’s, others might also have seen him there, and would report the fact when inquiries began to be made for him. Then, too, if the whole crew of the Vixen believed as their captain evidently did, that he had been drunk, would anybody ever believe his simple assertion that he had not been so, against their statement that he was? What would Captain Coffin think? What would his mother think? Would not her heart be broken by this horrid report coming on top of his mysterious and unexplained disappearance? In his agony of mind the poor boy groaned aloud. At this sound a voice behind him exclaimed,

“Hello! What’s the matter, Breeze?”

Turning quickly, he saw Wolfe Brady awake, but still lying in his bunk and regarding him with dull eyes.

“Matter enough,” he answered; “for if ever a fellow was in a worse fix than I am I should like to know it. You ought not to be the one to ask, anyhow,” he added, bitterly.

“Why, what do you mean, old man?” inquired Wolfe, 125leaning upon his elbow and gazing about the dirty cabin with a perplexed air. “Where are we, anyhow? What craft is this? Somehow, it doesn’t seem like the Albatross.”

“Albatross!” exclaimed Breeze. “I should say not. We are on board the Vixen, bound for the Grand Bank, with only our shore clothes for an outfit, and nobody in Gloucester knows what has become of us.”

“You don’t mean it!” cried Wolfe, now thoroughly aroused. “How did it all happen?”

“Do you mean to tell me,” said Breeze, “that you do not remember anything of what happened to us last night?”

“Not a thing. ’Pon my honor. The last I remember is that after waiting a while for you I fell in with a pleasant fellow on the wharf who wanted me to stroll uptown with him. He said we would not be gone more than fifteen minutes. We stopped in at some kind of a place to get a drink. He treated me, then of course I had to treat him, and after that I don’t remember anything more. What vile stuff it must have been! Ugh! my mouth tastes like brass and my head feels as though it were made of red-hot lead.”

“Well,” said Breeze, “that drink of yours has got us into about as mean a scrape as I know of, and if it hasn’t 126completely ruined my reputation and broken my mother’s heart, I shall be thankful.”

“My dear fellow, you don’t mean to tell me it is as bad as all that!” exclaimed Wolfe, now sitting up, and with a tone of deep concern. “It doesn’t seem possible. I wish you would explain what you mean.”

“There isn’t time now,” answered Breeze; “the cook called breakfast ten minutes ago, and we’ll have to hurry if we want to get any. You’d better get on deck and douse your head in a bucket of cold water. It will do you good. After breakfast I’ll tell you the whole story, and then we can make up our minds what to do.”

The men who sat at the breakfast-table with Breeze and Wolfe regarded them curiously, winked slyly to one another, and made a few jokes in low tones upon their appearance, but nobody spoke to them.

After the meal was over, as no particular attention was paid to them, they found a sheltered place forward, away up in the eyes of the schooner. There Breeze related to Wolfe all that had happened during the preceding night, bringing his story down to that morning, and not omitting the remarks the skipper had made to the effect that he had been intoxicated.

Before he had finished, Wolfe was worked up into a state of furious anger. “You miserable low-lived scoundrel!” 127he muttered through his clinched teeth, shaking his fist in the direction of Hank Hoffer, whom he now recognized as the one who had played him such a mean trick the night before; “I’ll pay you off for this; see if I don’t.”

“It was a mean trick, and I hope he’ll live to be sorry for it,” said Breeze; “but don’t you think you were almost as much to blame as he?”

“I!” exclaimed Wolfe, in surprise; “how do you mean? By being so soft as to let that fellow get the best of me?”

“I mean by having anything to do with him when you found out that he wanted you to drink with him.”

“Why, man! I thought he only wanted me to take a glass with him in a friendly way.”

“And do you think it is right to take that kind of a glass?”

“Certainly; where’s the harm?”

“Well, I expect you and I have been differently brought up, then. My father thinks it is the very worst and most dangerous habit a young man can get into. As for the harm, seems to me it is plain enough in this case at any rate. If it hadn’t been for that glass we wouldn’t be in this fix now, and mother wouldn’t be breaking her heart at home, as I’m sure she is at this minute, for not knowing what has become of us.”

128“I hadn’t thought of it in that light,” said Wolfe, who had never been taught as Breeze had, to regard drinking as a sin.

“I wish I could get you to think of it in that light now,” said Breeze. “Oh, Wolfe! if you would only promise, this very minute, that you’d never touch another glass of liquor as long as you live, I believe I should be glad that all this had happened--will you?”

Wolfe looked at him for a moment without speaking, then he said, “Would you rather I’d promise you that than anything else, Breeze?”

“Yes, I would.”

“Then I’ll do it. Not long ago you risked your life to save mine, and I told you that from that time on it was at your service. This is the first thing you have asked of me since, and I’m not the lad to go back on my word. So now I promise you, and there’s my hand on it, that so long as I live I’ll never taste another drop of strong drink unless you ask me to.”

“Then you never will,” said Breeze, smiling; “and, Wolfe, if you only knew how glad I am to have that promise, it would make you very happy to think you had given it to me.”

“It makes me happy already to see you smile again, for I begin to see now how I have brought on all this trouble.”

129“Let’s not call it trouble any longer,” said Breeze, cheerily, “but do as my mother does, and try to look on the bright side of it. We were coming to the Banks, anyway, in a week or so, and perhaps this trip will be luckier than the one on the Fish-hawk would have been, who knows?”

Just then the skipper came up to where they were sitting, and said, “Well, boys! how goes it now? Feeling any better than you did?”

“Yes, very much,” answered Breeze, “but not so well as we should if you’d only get rid of the idea that I was drunk when we came aboard last night.”

“It’s true, skipper,” added Wolfe, earnestly, “I was a little under the weather, I acknowledge, but Breeze, here, never drinks, and was as sober as a halibut. I can vouch for that. And I’m never going to get that way again either. I’ve sworn off.”

“Oh, well,” answered the skipper, carelessly, “it’s all right now. There isn’t a drop aboard this craft,^[F] so I ain’t afraid but that you’ll keep straight enough till the end of the trip anyhow.”

“Now that you have got us off here,” said Wolfe, “what are you going to do in the way of finding us something 130to wear, besides these store clothes?” Here he looked ruefully at the new suit he had bought the day before, which was already showing signs of hard usage.

“What!” exclaimed the skipper, “are those all you’ve brought with you?”

“Of course they are; we have not a rag except what we stand in.”

“Well, now, that’s bad; but perhaps some of the other fellows can spare a few old things, and there are a couple of extra oil suits aboard that you can have and I’ll charge ’em up to you. By-the-way, I suppose you two will go dorymates?”

“Of course,” answered Breeze, promptly; “we’ve already been dorymates on one trip, and we mean to be on every other we ever take together.”

“You’ll use dory No. 6, then,” said the skipper, “and you’d better get to work overhauling your trawls right off. You want to have everything in order before we get to the Banks, ’cause there won’t be any time to waste then. When we once get to fishing I shall expect every man on board the old packet to jump quick and make every minute tell, or else he’ll have to reckon with me for it.”

“That’s all right, skipper. We’ve made up our minds to do our best so long as we are here and can’t help ourselves,” said Breeze. “But we belong to the Fish-hawk, 131you know, and if we should happen to run across her at any time while we are on the Banks, you must not be surprised if we turn up missing some fine day.”

“We’ll see about that when the time comes,” replied the skipper, grimly; “but mind you, if you leave the vessel before the trip’s finished, you’ll lose all interest in what has been caught up to that time, and can’t claim a cent’s worth of it.”

Both sides having thus arrived at a fair understanding with each other, the boys proceeded to make themselves as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. Though they declined to have anything to do with Hank Hoffer, they soon established friendly relations with the rest of the crew. They found the Vixen to be a dirty old craft, and very uncomfortable in many respects. She was, however, an able sailor and a good sea-boat, and after weathering a pretty stiff gale she reached Grand Bank, nearly nine hundred miles from Gloucester, during the night of the sixth day out.

Although the boys had said nothing more about deserting her, if they had a good chance they had fully made up their minds to do so. Little did they imagine, however, under what circumstances this leave-taking was to be effected, or how they should long to once more set foot on the well-worn deck of the old Vixen.

CHAPTER X. TRAWLS AND WHALES.

A trawler, such as the Vixen was, is fitted out very differently from a seiner or a hand-liner, the styles of craft on which Breeze had made his previous fishing trips. Instead of a large seine-boat, she carries from four to eight dories, and a crew sufficiently large to allow two men to each dory, besides the skipper and cook. The trawls are tarred cotton ropes the size of a lead-pencil, that come in lengths of about fifty fathoms, or three hundred feet each. To these are attached at distances of a fathom apart for cod, and a fathom and a half apart for halibut, short lines of from three to six feet long, to the ends of which hooks are made fast. About six of these lengths of trawl, or 1800 feet, are coiled in a tub, and each dory will carry out and set from four to six tubs of trawl in from twenty to two hundred fathoms of water. The lines contained in the several tubs are made fast to each other, and all are set in one straight line, from one to two miles in length. The trawls are anchored at each 133end, and buoyed by small kegs, so that the hooks shall hang just clear of the bottom.

As the Vixen was on a “salt trip,” the pens in the hold, instead of being filled with ice, contained several hundred bushels of coarse rock-salt. She had a crew of fourteen men all told, and on her deck, fitting into each other like nests of buckets, were six dories, three on each side.

The next morning after reaching the Bank a fishing-ground was chosen, and the anchor was dropped overboard. Then the canvas was furled, the riding-sail was bent on, top-masts were sent down, and everything was made as snug as possible, and put in readiness for all sorts of weather. Baskets of frozen herring were got up from the hold, and cut into bait sizes with sharp knives on the bait-boards. These are heavy planks laid on top of the cabin. With this cut-up herring each dory crew baited the thousand or more hooks of their own trawl, and coiled the lines snugly away again in the tubs.

That afternoon the trawls were set, one astern of the schooner, one ahead, one off each quarter, and one off each bow, these positions having been drawn for by lot beforehand. Thus the schooner formed the centre of a circle of trawls, the outer ends of which were nearly two miles from her. The position falling to Breeze and Wolfe was 134that directly ahead of the vessel. After going far enough away to be sure of being well clear of her, in case she should have swung round by morning, they began to set their trawl. Breeze continued to row in a straight line away from the schooner, while Wolfe, after dropping overboard the light anchor and the buoy-line attached to its floating keg, began to pay out the trawl with its baited hooks. It required great care and considerable skill to get them overboard without snarls or knots, so that each hook would be certain to hang straight down by itself and clear of all the others. After the job had been done neatly and properly, the second anchor was dropped, and a buoy, with a flag on it to mark the outer end of the trawl, was flung overboard. Then their work was finished for the present; for the line was to be left “set” all night, and would not be visited until early in the morning.

As they rowed back to the schooner Breeze said, “Wolfe, I want always to carry out some fresh water and some hard-tack in the dory after this. I’ve heard my father say a great many times that if all fishermen would only do this, half the lives that are now lost on the Banks might be saved.”

“You’ll be well laughed at on board for a coward if you do,” replied Wolfe.

135“I don’t care. I’d rather any time be laughed at than to be lost out there somewhere in a fog, and perhaps drift round for days without anything to eat or drink.”

“All right,” said Wolfe; “I guess I can stand it if you can.”

That night Breeze hunted up a small keg, which he filled with fresh water, and a box into which he put a couple of dozen ship biscuit wrapped in paper and stuffed into a sort of a water-proof bag that he made out of an old oil-skin jacket.

When the whole crew was turned out at daylight the next morning, they found dreary, shivering weather up on the cold deck; but after the hot coffee and hearty breakfast which the cook had ready for them, they felt better. All were then soon off in their dories, going in the direction of the several buoy-flags left at the outer ends of their trawls the night before.

As Breeze stowed his fresh water and provisions in the stern of dory No. 6, Hank Hoffer noticed what he was doing, and sung out to know what he was afraid of, and if he didn’t want to be tied to an apron-string for fear of getting lost.

Wolfe’s hot Irish blood rushed to his face at these taunts, and he would have answered back but for Breeze, who said,

136“Let him alone, Wolfe. It makes him feel a great deal worse not to be noticed at all. Nothing would please him better than to get us into a muss, and to have the skipper order us off about our business.”

“Well, I don’t know but what you are right, Breeze; but what a queer fellow you are, anyhow. It seems to me you must have been born with a wise head on your shoulders. Here I am a year older than you, but most any one hearing us talk would take you for the old boy and me for the young one.”

They rowed steadily while they talked, and soon reached the little canvas flag that marked the buoy at the outer end of their trawl.

“I wonder what luck we’re going to have?” said Breeze. “What I like best about fishing is the not knowing what you are going to catch, and the thinking whenever you have bad-luck you may have better next time.”

“I expect that is the most interesting part about most things in this world,” said Wolfe; “but with all my luck I can’t start this anchor. It’s got foul of something. I expect we’ll have to rig up the hurdy-gurdy.”

This was a small iron winch that could be set up in the bows of the dory, and which is often found necessary in heaving up heavy trawls. With its aid the refractory anchor was soon got aboard. The buoy had already been 137picked up, and at length the trawl began to appear. Now came the exciting moment. What would it bring? Would every hook have its fish, or would they be few and far between? They would not even consider the possibility of its being what fishermen describe as a “water haul,” or one bringing them nothing but empty hooks. Wolfe stood forward in the dory pulling in the line, while Breeze stood a few feet behind him, ready to take off the fish and stow the trawl in its tubs.

“Here he is!” cried Wolfe at last. “Number one a cod, and a jolly big fellow at that. My eye! but he must weigh fifty pounds at least. Our luck’s begun good at any rate. Bear a hand here with the gaff, Breeze. Quick! There, my hearty! lie still where you are put, and we’ll soon give you plenty of company.”

After this came two or three bare hooks, and then a small halibut. Then half a dozen more codfish, one close after the other, and next only the skeleton of a fish with its bones picked as clean as though there had never been a particle of flesh on them. It astonished Breeze greatly, and he said,

“Well! I never knew before that a fish’s skeleton would take bait. How hungry it must have been! It does look rather thin and gaunt, for a fact,” he added, laughing.

138“He was something a good deal better than a skeleton when he took that hook,” explained Wolfe, who had hauled trawls before. “The sand-fleas have made a meal off of him, and there must have been a pretty lot of them to go through him so quickly and completely.”

“Sand-fleas?” repeated Breeze, inquiringly.

“Yes, just such chaps as you may see almost any time hopping on a beach.”

A haddock bearing the teeth-marks of the halibut that had tried to swallow him after he was caught came next. Then followed cod, cod, cod, so fast that by the time the trawl was half hauled, dory No. 6 was deep in the water and her crew did not dare to put another fish into her.

They were in fine spirits over their good-luck, as they buoyed the trawl and pulled back to the schooner to get rid of their load before attempting to finish the haul. By this time a stiff northerly breeze was blowing, and the Vixen had swung with the change of wind, so that she now lay stern to them. This made their pull much shorter than it otherwise would have been. Owing to this they had the satisfaction of pitching the first fish of that cruise on the schooner’s deck. This greatly disappointed Hank Hoffer, who came up a minute later in dory No. 5, and who had fully expected to be able to claim the honor of “first fish.”

139He began to make ugly remarks to the effect that if they had waited to get a full load they would not have been back so quickly. This time the skipper cut him short with, “Look to your own load, Hank. If you’d ’a’ waited to make it as big as the one these lads have brought in, you wouldn’t have come for half an hour yet.”

As soon as the fish had been unloaded from dory No. 6, and the two tubs of trawl already hauled had been lifted out, the boys returned for the rest of their catch. They had hardly got the buoy aboard, and were just beginning to haul in the remainder of the trawl, when suddenly the most surprising thing occurred.

The dory was at once, and without the slightest warning, lifted bodily several feet into the air, and both its occupants were flung down, Wolfe striking and breaking a thwart in his fall. Immediately afterwards the dory slid on its side, and apparently downhill, into the water. It was only by scrambling hastily to the upper gunwale that the boys kept it from capsizing. As it was, it was half full of water before they succeeded in righting it.

At the same moment they heard a loud rushing sound like escaping steam, a column of spray was thrown high in the air, and they caught a glimpse of a huge black object sinking out of sight but a short distance from them. 140As it disappeared, their boat was rocked violently on the waves that surged over the place where it had been.

Both the boys were terribly startled, and for a moment greatly frightened, by this mysterious occurrence. They had instinctively begun bailing the water from the dory almost as soon as they found that she still floated right side up. Breeze was the first to recover the breath which had been nearly driven from his body by the shock of his overthrow, and now he gasped out,

“Do you think it was an earthquake, Wolfe?” Before Wolfe could answer, a large whale, evidently the mate of the one that had given them such a scare, rose to the surface to blow, a hundred yards to one side of them, and Breeze exclaimed, “So that’s what it was! Well, I’m mighty glad he didn’t come along and hoist us on his back while the dory was loaded down as she was half an hour ago.”

“So am I,” began Wolfe, “but hello!” he cried, stopping his bailing and starting up. “Whatever has got into the old Vixen? She must have a steam-engine aboard.”

A LARGE WHALE ROSE TO THE SURFACE TO BLOW

Breeze looked, and, to his astonishment, saw the schooner moving away from them, and going through the water at a speed of ten or twelve knots an hourknots an hour. Her sails were still furled, and apparently her anchor was still down; 141but she was certainly moving, and that at a rapid rate. The white water was foaming under her bows, and a wake, like that of a steamer, was trailing and eddying behind her.

“It’s one of those whales, and he’s caught a fluke of her anchor in his blow-hole or in his jaws. Yes, sir, he’s running away with her!” exclaimed Breeze, who had heard his father describe a similar occurrence as having happened to him once on the Banks.

“That’s what it must be,” said Wolfe. “But it beats anything I ever heard of. My eye! isn’t she going, though!”

“Well,” remarked Breeze, as they watched the rapidly vanishing schooner, “I should say that fishing in these waters was pretty exciting work. I know it beats mackerelling, or life on George’s. Do you know whether it is always as lively here as it seems to be this morning, Wolfe?”

“This goes ahead of anything in my experience,” was the reply. “I only hope the old man will cut his cable before he loses sight of us, or that he has had sense enough to take our bearings so that he can pick us up again. Now that we have got a quiet spell, I suppose we might as well finish bailing before the next performance begins.”

142After they had rid the boat of all the water she had shipped, they began once more to haul in on their trawl. They reasoned that if the schooner came back they would be so much ahead with their work, and if she did not, they could pitch the fish overboard; while, in the mean time, the occupation would keep them from worrying over what might happen.

They had got nearly to the end of their trawl, and the dory was again deeply laden with fish, when Breeze cried out, joyfully, “Here she comes back!”

He was right. The white sails of the schooner could be seen, though at a great distance from them, and they knew that she had in some way got rid of her unwelcome tow-boat, and was on her way back.

Two of the other dories that had been left behind now approached them, and a man in one of them called out, “I don’t suppose you fellows have got any fresh water aboard, have you?”

“Yes, we have plenty of it,” shouted Wolfe. “I declare I had forgotten it, though, and I’m awfully thirsty myself,” he added to Breeze.

The latter had no reason to regret his thoughtfulness when he saw how heartily they all enjoyed the water and a lunch of biscuit that, but for him, they would have gone without.

143So far had the schooner been towed before the whale had managed to clear himself from his encumbrance that she was nearly two hours in making her way back to them. Her skipper had refused to cut the cable, for he was a part owner in the vessel, and did not want to be put to the expense of a new one. Thus he showed one of the traits in his character that made him so unpopular. He was always ready to sacrifice the comfort, and even the safety, of his men, rather than run the risk of losing money.

At last the schooner did return to the waiting dories, and their loads of fish were transferred to her deck, after which the trawls were rebaited and again set out. Then came a busy time spent in “dressing down;” that is, cleaning the fish, cutting off their heads, splitting and salting them, and finally packing them in the hold. After this, the trawls were again hauled and again set for the night. Owing to the delay of the morning, the second catch had to be “dressed down” by lantern-light, so that it was nearly eleven o’clock before the tired crew were allowed to throw themselves into their bunks for a few hours’ sleep.

The air during the day had been growing steadily colder, and before dark the peculiar chill denoting the presence of ice at no great distance had been noticed, and 144had occasioned some anxiety. The season was unusually backward, and a recent succession of northerly gales had driven the arctic ice almost to the edge of the Gulf Stream. This had been reported before the Vixen left Gloucester; but, as her crew had not yet met with any ice, they hoped it had again gone north, and that they were to escape it entirely.

While Hank Hoffer was on watch that night he busied himself for some time with the contents of dory No. 6, and any one standing close beside him might have heard him mutter, “There, I hope those sneaks will enjoy the drink I’ve fixed for them. I’ll teach ’em that we don’t want any cowards aboard this craft.”

An hour later, or shortly before daylight, the tired sleepers in cabin and forecastle were roused from their dreams, and brought shivering out from their warm bunks by the hoarse voice of the watch on deck shouting down the companion-ways, “Hear the news below there! Tumble out all hands! Lolly ice all around us, and a big berg bearing down from dead ahead!”

CHAPTER XI. SURROUNDED BY ARCTIC ICE.

There is nothing more dreary or depressing in the whole experience of a fisherman’s hard life than to be awakened from a sound sleep and turned out from snug quarters to fight against ice. In either form, as it drifts down upon his vessel from arctic seas, or as it accumulates in the form of frozen spray upon her bows, until, to reduce the great weight that endangers her safety, he must attack it with axes and iron bars, it is an enemy to be dreaded and cordially hated. So, to the tired crew of the Vixen, the unwelcome announcement made at the close of the last chapter brought them on deck, grumbling at their hard fate and shivering in the deadly chill of the air.

There was no time to spare, for they could plainly distinguish, looming from out the gloom on their starboard bow, the vast form that threatened their destruction. They could already feel its icy breath, colder even than the chill of the night, and note that its motion, aided by 146converging currents of air and water, was such that within a few minutes it must sweep over the very place they were occupying.

As many as could man the bars sprang to the windlass and began to get up the anchor. One hurriedly cast off the stops from the furled foresail, while another loosed the jib. Then the former was hoisted, and at the same instant the cable was announced as “hove short;” but the anchor obstinately refused to break out. Once, twice, and again they heaved on it in vain.

The steady but silent advance of the monster now close upon them was awful in its relentlessness, and finally, given added strength by the terror of its nearness, the straining crew at the windlass made one last effort that tore the unwilling anchor from its hold just as the skipper had raised his axe to cut the cable.

The big jib seemed to run up the stay of its own accord, while powerful arms held its clew well over to windward. Breeze, who had tugged and strained with the others at the windlass until he was dripping with perspiration, sprang aft to the wheel and rolled it hard over. Then slowly, oh, so slowly! as it seemed to the breathless crew, the schooner began to pay off, and then to forge ahead. Even then they did not know but that they were too late. Already the small drift-ice pushed ahead 147of the berg was grinding against the vessel’s sides, while the towering mass was cutting off the wind from her sails and leaving her becalmed to await its pleasure.

It revolved slowly as it drifted, and all at once this rotary motion opened up to them a deep cleft in its formation, through which whirled a sudden gust of wind. As it struck the out-spread sails the schooner heeled over before it and bounded forward, as though only then awakened to the consciousness of her danger.

She just cleared it, and that was all. For her and her crew, five little seconds and a cat’s-paw of wind spanned the infinite gulf that separates safety from destruction, life from death. For a moment they could hardly realize they had escaped, and as the monster swept sullenly past them, still revolving like a gigantic millstone seeking to grind to powder all who dared oppose it, they gazed at it in silence and with bloodless faces.

But the reaction came quickly. The men who fish on the Newfoundland Banks learn to forget their perils almost before they have passed. At the hoarse command of “Ready about! Stand by the jib-sheets!” the crew of the Vixen seemed to awaken as from a troubled dream.

Within fifteen minutes their vessel was again at anchor in nearly the same place she had occupied before the berg drove them from it. Her sails were furled, and all who 148could be accommodated at the little mess-table were eating, with a relish, the breakfast that the cook had been steadily preparing amid all the exciting scenes that had just passed. He knew that, to live and to work, men must eat, and that so long as the vessel held together and floated, it was his duty to prepare food for them.

The berg that had caused all this trouble and anxiety was a solitary rover that had left its frigid companions in order to pursue its own erratic course. It was not even accompanied by large floe-cakes, but only by quantities of the small drift or “lolly” ice. This would not interfere to any great extent with the handling of the trawls, though it would render the work particularly cold and disagreeable.

As the daylight strengthened, however, practised eyes on board the Vixen detected a pale glimmer on the northern horizon that indicated the presence of those vast ice-fields that frequently sweep over the Newfoundland Banks in the spring of the year. They often carry death and destruction to the fishermen and their vessels, always bring hard, dangerous work, and threaten a disastrous loss of gear. Therefore, on the present occasion the skipper hurried the men through their meal, and despatched them as quickly as possible in the dories to haul their trawls. They were ordered to cut the lines if necessary, and to 149return to the schooner with all speed the moment the close approach of the ice should be indicated by the signal of the ship’s flag displayed in the main rigging.

In the present position of the schooner the trawl belonging to dory No. 6 was at some distance astern of her, and our dorymates had a long pull before reaching its outer buoy. They worked like beavers in getting the trawl aboard; and as it was nearly bare of fish, the ice having seemingly driven them away, they succeeded in hauling the whole of it before the recall signal was shown.

Just as he had got in the last anchor, Wolfe, casting a glance in the direction of the schooner, observed the flag, though there was not now wind enough to flutter it, and exclaimed, “There it is, Breeze! the skipper’s giving us the recall, and he is not the man to do it until the last moment. You may count on the ice being close to her now, as well as on the fact that we’ve got a stiff pull ahead of us to get back in time.”

And it was a stiff pull. The strong young backs straightened out splendidly with every stroke, the tough oars bent and rattled sharply against their confining thole-pins, and the white water sped away from the prow of the old dory, as though she were a racing boat. But they had been too heavily handicapped; the ice had been 150allowed too great a start, and they were still several hundred feet from the schooner when a shout from her deck caused them to look around.

What they saw made them heart-sick, and for a moment their case seemed hopeless. They were already cut off from the vessel by several great cakes of ice that were grinding and crashing together angrily. Others were rapidly drifting into, and narrowing, the open space that still remained, and they could not see any chance of ever being able to pass this moving, treacherous barrier. All at once the loud cries and eager gestures of those on board the schooner directed their attention to a buoy lying on one of the cakes nearest to them. To their great joy they saw that to it was attached a line that was being paid out over the stern of the vessel. Somebody had been thoughtful enough to make this use of the cake as it drifted by.

Altering their direction slightly, the boys had, in a minute more, snatched the buoy from its ice raft, and Wolfe was making the line it had brought them fast to the rope becket in the bow of the dory. At the same moment a shout was heard from another direction. Looking up they saw another dory still farther off than they were, and evidently about to be cut off, not only from the schooner but from them, by the cruel ice.

IN A MINUTE MORE THEY HAD SNATCHED THE BUOY FROM THE ICE-RAFT.

151As quick as thought, Breeze tossed one of their trawl buoys, with its line still attached, to the cake of ice that had brought help to them from the schooner, and which was still within reach. It fell so close to the edge that he had to pay out the line most carefully to prevent its being dragged off. In a few minutes he had the satisfaction of seeing the dory pulled alongside of the floating cake, and one of her crew step carefully out upon it, and walk towards the buoy.

His weight bore the ice down so that water began to flow over its edge; and just as he stooped to pick up the buoy, it floated and eluded his grasp. He made a clutch and succeeded in seizing it; but at the same instant his feet slipped from under him, and he plunged headlong into the cold waters.

The cry with which the unfortunate man disappeared from view was echoed from the dory he had just left. In it Hank Hoffer was now as effectually cut off from the schooner as though he were already miles away, instead of almost within reach of her.

For the time being the crew of dory No. 6 paid but little attention to him. All their energies were directed towards saving the man in the water, who had now come to the surface, still grasping the buoy. A great cake bore down upon him, and threatened to crush him, or at least 152to force him under. Fortunately the line by which he was held passed over it, and he was able to draw himself on to its slippery surface. From it he again went into the water, and thus, slipping, scrambling, jumping, and swimming, but always clinging to the line, he finally reached the dory, cut, bruised, and nearly exhausted.

Then the dorymates began to look after their own safety, for they were still in great danger of going adrift. A portion of the line that connected them with the schooner was under the ice, and might at any moment be cut or parted. There was also the danger that the sides of the dory might be crushed in or cut through by the heavy jagged cakes, some of which were fifty feet wide, and from five to ten feet thick. By jumping out on the larger cakes, and pulling the boat over them, pushing aside the smaller ones, tugging, straining, and working with all their might for half an hour, they finally got the line clear and above the ice. All this time those on the schooner had held it taut. Now it was a comparatively easy matter to pull the boat, with its brave crew and the man whom they had rescued, close under the stern of the vessel, and to hoist her clear of the water by the davits.

Thankful enough were the dorymates to tread once more the firm deck of the old Vixen, and hearty was the welcome given them by her crew. All the other dories, 153except that which held Hank Hoffer, had been got safely on board, some with all their trawls, and others with only portions of them. The lost dory, with its solitary occupant, had become but a dim speck against the white background of ice that now covered the sea as far as their sight could reach. The boys barely caught a glimpse of it as it was pointed out to them from the deck of the schooner before it vanished entirely. They both sprang into the main rigging to get another sight of it; but, though they climbed to the mast-head, they could not again discover it. They did, however, see several icebergs drifting in that direction, and it was with heavy hearts and very sober faces that they descended to the deck and reported the probable fate that had overtaken their shipmate. He had proved himself their enemy, and even among the rougher members of the crew he had made no friends. Still he was a human being, who for more than a week had formed one of their little community, and been thrown into close companionship with them. Now he was called upon to suffer terribly, and alone, a fate that might have overtaken any one of them, and they pitied him from the bottom of their hearts.

With the exception of a few puffy squalls, the morning had been without moving air enough to lift the ensign that still drooped listlessly from the main rigging, but 154about noon a breeze sprang up from the southward. With the first sign of wind the Vixen’s anchor was hove up, sail was made, and she began to beat slowly in the direction taken by the missing dory, through a lead of clear water that had opened through the floe. There was not much chance that anything would ever again be seen of it or its unfortunate occupant; but they could not give him up without making an effort to save him, and so, for several hours, the almost hopeless search was continued.

Navigation was extremely difficult, for the spaces of open water were few and often very narrow. Sometimes they led abruptly into ice so closely packed that no headway could be made against it, and the schooner barely held her own, as it ground and scraped along her sides with a force that threatened to cut through even her stout planking.

At length Breeze, who had climbed to the mast-head to take a look through the skipper’s glass, reported that he could see something black that looked like a man on one of the icebergs they had noticed earlier in the day, and which they were now approaching.

After the object had been pointed out to the skipper, and he had looked at it long and carefully, he also expressed the opinion that it was a man, and ordered the schooner to be headed in that direction. Her progress 155was necessarily very slow, and the afternoon was well advanced before she reached a broad space of open water, beyond which rose the iceberg. It was now not more than half a mile from them; but it was surrounded by an apparently impassable barrier of floe ice. This, though in motion, was so densely packed along its outer edge that the vessel could not be forced into it. Again and again was the attempt made, but it only resulted in failure, and each successive shock threatened her with irreparable damage.

At length these efforts were abandoned, and the schooner began to cruise up and down along the barrier, seeking for some opening through which she might pass. The black object on the iceberg had remained in sight long enough for them to be certain that it was a man, but then it had disappeared. This disappearance greatly puzzled the Vixen’s crew. Some of them said he must have slipped off the ice into the water, and been drowned, or else he would certainly have remained in sight to make signals to them. Others thought perhaps the berg had swung round so as to hide him from them, and that he was unable to reach any point from which he could be seen. Among the latter were Breeze and Wolfe, who, as time wore on, became very impatient at the delay caused by the icy barrier.

156“If we do not get to him soon,” said Breeze, “he will certainly freeze to death. Wolfe, don’t you think we could get our dory across the floe to that iceberg, if we should try?”

“You don’t mean to say that you’d be willing to try it for the sake of that fellow, do you?” exclaimed his companion in amazement. “Why, man, the chances would be ten to one, yes a hundred to one, against your ever getting back to the schooner again.”

“That may all be,” replied Breeze, “but if they were a thousand to one against it I’d rather take the one chance than to go off and leave that poor fellow to die there without even trying to save him. I believe it can be done, and I’m going to ask the skipper to let me go.”

“Well,” said Wolfe, “you are the softest and the pluckiest fellow I ever met. I don’t believe the skipper will hear of your going, but if he should you sha’n’t go alone.”

“I was sure you’d say that!” cried Breeze, “and I’m just as sure that we’ll succeed if we are only allowed to try my plan.”

The skipper hesitated some time before giving his consent to the scheme proposed by Breeze; but at length, finding that no further headway could be made by the schooner, he yielded reluctantly, and said they might make the attempt.

157The rest of the crew tried to dissuade the boys from such a foolhardy undertaking, “especially,” as one of them said, “when the man doesn’t show up, and is probably gone long before this.” When they found them determined to go, however, they lent them every assistance in their power.

Before starting, both the boys drank a cup of hot coffee and ate a hasty luncheon. Into dory No. 6 they put a box of provisions, two pairs of blankets, a coil of rope, and a hatchet. Their water-keg was already full. The skipper promised to remain within sight of that iceberg until they returned, or until he knew what had become of them, and as they started the crew gave them a hearty cheer.

They found it hard and tedious work to get their dory over the first barrier of ice, which was about a hundred yards wide. After that was passed they progressed more rapidly, and discovered so many little lanes of open water that they reached the berg much more easily than they had expected to.

As they rowed alongside of it they discovered a small level place, close to the water’s edge, upon which a landing could be made. The ends of the berg rose into points fifty or sixty feet high, but above this point was a depression that did not rise more than twenty feet above the water.

158When they reached this place Breeze said, “Let me land here, Wolfe, and climb up to the top, where I can look over, while you stay in the dory.”

So saying, and taking the hatchet with him, he stepped out on the ice, and began slowly to make his way up the gentle but slippery incline. As he reached the top he stood there for a moment looking around, and then turned as though about to call out to his friend. Suddenly he seemed to slip, and to Wolfe’s dismay he threw up his arms, uttered a loud cry, and disappeared.

CHAPTER XII. AN ICE CAVE AND ITS PRISONERS.

At first Wolfe hoped that Breeze had merely slipped and fallen, and for a minute waited anxiously for him to reappear. Then it occurred to him that his companion might have slid into the water, and that possibly he was even now drowning, or struggling in vain to regain a footing upon the treacherous surface. Thus thinking, he sprang to his oars, and pulling furiously, soon carried the dory to the other side of the iceberg, which was not a very large one. To his dismay he could discover no trace of his friend even here, and he now began to be seriously alarmed. He could see the whole side of the ice island as it rose, glittering and sparkling above him, in the light of the setting sun. It shone with all the colors of the rainbow, and was coldly, awfully beautiful to look upon, but nowhere did it offer to his view the faintest trace of a human presence.

This side was rugged, and so precipitous that it would be impossible for any one to gain a foothold upon it from 160a boat, much less from the water; all of which Wolfe noticed with a feeling of despair. As he examined the frigid mass above him more closely he noticed that, near its top, there seemed to be several platforms or terraces, and he determined to pull back to the landing-place and climb up and examine them. Rowing slowly around the other end of the berg, and scanning every foot of its surface in the vague hope of discovering something, he finally came again to the place where Breeze had left him. Here, with a heavy heart, he made his preparations to follow the course his friend had taken. Hauling the dory partially out of the water, so that there would be less danger of its being crushed by floating cakes, he jammed its anchor into a crack of the ice and pulled the anchor rope taut. Then, taking advantage of the occasional holes Breeze had cut in the ice with his hatchet, he began to climb towards the summit of the ridge.

When at last he reached it he dreaded to look around him; for this was his last hope, and if he should see nothing of his dorymate from here, he felt that he must indeed give him up for lost. At length he forced himself to gaze, slowly and carefully, in every direction about him. There was only the ice, the water, the sunset sky, and, sharply outlined against it, the Vixen, standing off and on beyond the floe, waiting for them.

161Waiting for them, and he must return to her alone. This thought broke him down completely, and he groaned aloud in his distress. He knew now how strong a hold his sunny-faced young dorymate had gained upon his affections, and feeling that he had gone from his life forever, the whole world seemed as lonely and dreary and cold as the scene around him. In his misery he called out, “Breeze! oh, Breeze! come back to me.”

“Well, I’m coming as fast as I can,” answered a muffled voice so close to him that he started in affright, and came very near rolling down the incline he had just ascended. He trembled so that he could hardly speak; but he finally managed to call out, “Is that really you, Breeze? And where are you?” for, as yet, he could neither see his friend nor locate the spot from which his voice had come.

“Of course it’s me,” answered the voice, “and I’m down here in a hole with poor Hank. I wish you’d fetch the rope and throw one end of it down to me, for it’s mighty slow work cutting these steps, and I could get up by it a good deal quicker. We’ll want it for Hank, anyhow, because he’s hurt and can’t climb.”

The crest of the ridge on which Wolfe was seated--for he had not dared stand up as Breeze had done--was quite narrow, and sloped sharply down the opposite side from that up which he had come. This side was wet and very 162slippery, for the afternoon sun had been warm enough to melt the surface in places. A few feet below him the slope appeared to end with a short upward incline, beyond which the ice again fell away to the water.

In compliance with his friend’s request, Wolfe hurried back to the dory for the rope, with his heart as full of joyful emotions as a few minutes before it had been of sorrowful ones. He could not yet imagine what had happened to Breeze, nor in what sort of a place he was, and he hardly cared; the mere fact that he was alive was sufficient for the present.

He afterwards learned that the icy slope down the opposite side of the ridge ended abruptly about two feet above the short upward incline that, from his point of view, it had appeared to join; while between the two was a deep, narrow crevice, extending far down towards the heart of the berg. This crevice had originally been filled with snow, and in the angle between the two slopes there had collected, while the iceberg was still a part of some Greenland glacier, a bank of arctic sand. Attracting the heat of what little sunshine fell upon it, this material had gradually melted its way deep into the snow. Then water had flowed into the depression thus made, and moving the sand back and forth, had slowly enlarged the hole until it had finally become a deep crevice, with smooth 163walls of glare ice and a sandy bottom. No trap could have been better planned, and after waiting perhaps hundreds of years for its victims, it had caught two in one day. It would also have held on to them so long as the iceberg continued to float if Breeze had not happened to hold a hatchet in his hand when he nearly killed poor Hank Hoffer, and frightened as much as he hurt him by suddenly sliding down on top of him. He had done this without giving the slightest warning of his coming, about an hour after Hank had landed at the bottom of the crevice with a sprained ankle and no hope of ever getting out again.

After the first shock was over, and a few words of explanation had been exchanged between the two prisoners, Breeze had set to work to chop a series of footholds up the sides of the crevice, and to gradually make his way towards the top. Wolfe had heard the faint clicking sound of the hatchet, but imagined it to be the beating of small drift-ice against the base of the berg. When in his despair he called out the name of Breeze, the latter had nearly reached the top of the crevice, and was within twenty feet of where his dorymate sat, though still effectually concealed from his view.

When Wolfe again returned to the top of the ridge with the rope, Breeze had worked his way up so that his 164head could be seen above the edge of the crevice, and the friends gave each other a joyful greeting. After receiving the assurance that the other was not hurt, Wolfe said, “Did you say that Hank Hoffer was down there where you have just come from?”

“Yes, indeed he is, and pretty badly hurt. He is stiff with the cold too, and we must get him out as quick as we can.”

“I don’t see how we are going to do it if he can’t help himself,” said Wolfe. “Yes, I do too,” he added, after a moment’s thought. “But we must work fast, for it will soon be dark, and we don’t want to stay here all night. You just wait two minutes longer.”

With this he again made his way to the dory, took the anchor from the crack into which he had jammed it, thrust the blade of an oar down in its place, and made the dory fast to it. Then he carried the anchor to the top of the ridge, got the hatchet from Breeze by means of the rope which he let down to him, chopped a hole to receive a fluke of the anchor on his own side of the ridge, made the rope fast to it, and again tossed an end of the line to his companion.

First testing the strength of the rope and anchor thoroughly, he slid down to where Breeze was waiting, and the dorymates exchanged as warm a hand-clasp as though 165they had been separated for months instead of minutes.

All this time poor Hank had been groaning at the bottom of the crevice, and calling upon them to hurry. The rope was fortunately long enough to reach him, and Breeze, again descending to where he lay, knotted the end of it under his arms. While he was doing this Wolfe cut a few footholds on the face of the slope leading to the top of the ridge. Then Breeze came up, and the two athletic young fellows drew the almost helpless form of their shipmate slowly but steadily to where they stood. While Wolfe supported him there Breeze pulled himself, by the aid of the rope, to the top of the ridge, where he took in the slack of the line and fastened it anew to the anchor. Hank being thus secured against sliding back into the crevice, Wolfe left him, and joining Breeze, they together drew the sufferer to the top of the ridge. Slowly and carefully they helped him down the opposite side, and at last had the satisfaction of placing him safely in the bottom of the dory.

It was now quite dark, but they could still note the position of the Vixen by the light of the “flare,” that was kept constantly burning on board for their guidance. They dreaded leaving their comparatively safe position and attempting to force their frail craft through the 166masses of moving ice that lay between them and the schooner. The thought of spending the night where they were was, however, still worse, and they decided to try and reach her.

As there was enough open water to row in for a while Wolfe took the oars, and Breeze busied himself with the rescued man. He rolled him in the blankets they had brought, rubbed his hands and limbs briskly, and offered him food. Hank declined this, but asked for water, saying that he was dying of thirst.

“Why didn’t you get a drink on the iceberg?” asked Breeze, in surprise. “I’m sure there was plenty of water there; or you might have eaten a bit of ice.” At the same time he got out their little keg of water and handed it to the sufferer.

“I didn’t suppose an iceberg was made of fresh ice,” replied Hank, eagerly seizing the keg and applying his lips to the bung-hole for a long drink. The next instant he dropped it, spat out the mouthful of water he had taken, and sank down in the bottom of the boat with a groan.

“What is the matter?” cried Breeze, picking up the keg. As Hank made no answer, he lifted it to his own lips and tasted of its contents. It was full of salt water.

AND THE TWO ATHLETIC YOUNG FELLOWS DREW THE ALMOST HELPLESS FORM OF THEIR SHIPMATE SLOWLY BUT STEADILY TO WHERE THEY STOOD.

There was no time then for questions or explanations, 167as the floes on either side of them began closing together so rapidly that the dory was in danger of being crushed between them. The boys sprang from the boat, and managed to drag it out on the ice, just as the drifting masses met with a shock that ground their edges to powder and nearly threw Breeze and Wolfe from their feet.

Then began a struggle similar to that which they had gone through in the morning, only with the danger increased a hundred-fold by the darkness. Now they dragged the dory by main strength over some great cake that lay squarely in their way, then, both in the boat, they used the oars as poles and pushed it along from piece to piece. Occasionally a submerged mass would rise beneath the boat, and it was only by the greatest activity that they prevented it from capsizing. Several times one or the other of them slipped into the icy water; but they always clung to the dory, and managed to pull themselves out.

But for the flare, that continued to blaze brightly from the schooner’s deck, they would have given over the struggle a dozen times. Hank could lend them no assistance, but lay, numbed and stupid, in the bottom of the boat, a dead-weight.

At last, when after a harder struggle than usual, on 168account of their exhaustion, they had again dragged the dory out on the ice, Breeze threw himself down in it exclaiming, “I’m about done for, Wolfe; and I’m afraid we’ve got to give it up.”

“I feel the same way myself,” said Wolfe, “I can’t pull another pound.”

The frigid breath of the ice-fields, penetrating their soaked garments, chilled them to the marrow, and they shook as with the ague. A short time longer of such exposure would have finished the story of these dorymates, and one more tale of death would have been added to the long list that saddens the history of the Banks fisheries. But their situation was not yet utterly hopeless. One brave spirit of that little group was not yet wholly prepared to yield itself beaten by the terrors that surrounded them.

After remaining a few minutes motionless and silent, Breeze shook off the numbness that was stealing over him, and endeavored to arouse his companions. Wolfe responded readily to his efforts, but it was a difficult matter to rouse Hank Hoffer. When at last he seemed able to understand them, Breeze said,

“We mustn’t give up yet, fellows. The schooner isn’t so very far off, and though we can’t drag the dory any farther, perhaps if we give a shout all together they 169may hear it on board and do something for us. The wind is blowing that way.”

Breeze remembered his experience in the seine-boat, off the capes of Delaware, and how the combined voices of its crew had saved them on that occasion.

The others were willing to try, and as Breeze gave the word they raised a cry so wild and shrill that they themselves were startled by it. Again and again they shouted until their voices were spent; but no sound came to them in reply. Still they sat shivering in the chill wind, and feeling the awful numbness again creeping over them, but with their eyes fixed upon the schooner’s light, that seemed so near and yet so immeasurably far from them.

All at once Wolfe started up, exclaiming, “There’s another light! see it, Breeze? A little one, between us and the flare. They’re coming for us! They’re coming for us!”

It was a faint wavering light, like that of a lantern, and often, as they watched, it disappeared, but always to appear again. Now it seemed to be going away from them, and again finding their voices, they raised once more the cry for help.

This time they fancied they heard an answer, and a little later were sure of it. Half an hour of alternate fear and hope passed, before, guided by their shouts, the 170rescuing party of four brave fellows from the schooner reached them. They had made but slow progress, dragging their dory over the broken ice, and not knowing but that each step might plunge them into the water; but never since hearing that first cry for help had they hesitated for a moment, or thought of turning back.

The meeting between the rescued and the rescuers was too joyful for description; but there was no time for words. The new-comers had found an unbroken floe extending from the schooner, which was made fast to the outer edge of it; but there was no certainty that it would remain unbroken from one moment to another, and they could not hasten back too quickly.

New strength came to Breeze and Wolfe with renewed hope, and they were able to aid in dragging the dories back.

In less than half an hour later they were once more safe on board the Vixen, and the whole crew was striving to see who could do the most for their comfort, and show them how fully the brave deed they had accomplished was appreciated.

They now learned that ever since darkness set in, those who came to their rescue had held themselves in readiness to set forth the moment they should find out in what direction to go, and that their very first cries for help were heard and answered.

171Breeze and Wolfe were readily thawed out by hot drinks and blankets, so that they soon fell asleep, to awaken in the morning feeling but little the worse for their hardships. With Hank Hoffer the case was different. His hands and feet were frost-bitten, and besides having a badly sprained ankle, he was so prostrated by what he had suffered that he was confined to his bunk for many days, and never wholly recovered from his terrible experience.

He never could tell exactly how he escaped to the iceberg, after his dory had been crushed between it and the drifting cakes by which he was surrounded. He was able, however, to describe in vivid and forcible language his joy at sight of the schooner, his horror at losing his foothold and falling into the deep crevice while trying to signal her, and his fright when Breeze came sliding down on top of him. Towards Breeze and Wolfe his gratitude knew no bounds. He begged them to forgive him for the cruel tricks he had played upon them, and was never afterwards tired of sounding their praises.

In this taste of arctic trials and sufferings the dorymates thought they had met with adventures as strange as any they were likely to encounter. But their trip was by no means ended, and the Banks still held startling experiences in store for them, as they were to discover ere many days had passed.

CHAPTER XIII. LOST IN THE FOG.

For several days after that on which Hank Hoffer was rescued the wind blew steadily from the south, driving the ice-fields far back towards their northern home, but bringing in their place dense masses of the almost equally dreaded fog. Fog is the ever-present terror of the Banks, and hangs over them so constantly as to cause the remark to be frequently made that in this latitude three hundred and sixty-five days out of the year are foggy. Of course this is an exaggeration; but it is true that hardly a day passes that does not disclose a fog-bank rising above the horizon in one or another direction.

This stealthy enemy is ever lying in wait for the fisherman, and generally surprises him when he is least prepared for its coming. It swoops down and envelops him in its blinding folds when he is out in his dory, and when it again lifts, as though to mock him, he finds himself alone on the vast waters, with no vessel in sight. It steals his gear, and sends his craft drifting aimlessly hither 173and thither. Above all, it leads swift-rushing steamers to where the fishing schooners lie, and causes the great ships to spring upon them and crush them down beneath iron prows, never to rise again.

The fog is terrible; but whether it comes or whether it goes, the fish must be caught, for wives and children must be fed. So the dories go out from the vessels, and if they never return there are others to take their places. So accustomed does he become to its presence that the fisherman hardly gives the fog a thought, until in his turn it swallows him up, and he disappears forever.

The Vixen was now beset by a fog, sometimes so dense that it settled down upon the water like a pall. Again it would lift, so that her crew were able to set and haul their trawls, with some hope of finding their vessel when the task was finished. It was dull, dispiriting work, and in the midst of it an amusing incident, of which Breeze McCloud was the hero, was hailed with delight by his shipmates.

One night they were lying at anchor. The fog had lifted to such an extent that it was not thought necessary to keep the fog-horn constantly blowing. About midnight Breeze was turned out of his bunk to go on watch. He had hardly reached the deck, and was still rubbing his eyes, when suddenly he caught sight of a dim light. 174It rose from the mist at about the height of a steamer’s mast-head light, and was apparently bearing directly down upon them amidships. He made one spring for the companion-way and another into the cabin, yelling at the top of his voice,

“Turn out all hands! Steamer close aboard!” and snatching up the fog-horn, he again rushed on deck, blowing it furiously as he went, and followed by the startled crew.

Breeze did not even glance at the dreaded light again, so intent was he upon getting all the sound he could from his fog-horn; but all at once such a roar of laughter burst forth behind him that he dropped the horn and turned indignantly to learn what it meant.

“Blow, sonny, blow!” cried one of the men between his shouts of merriment. “You’ll have to do better than that to make the man in the moon hear you.”

Then poor Breeze realized that what he had mistaken for a steamer’s light was indeed the dim and watery moon struggling to show itself through the upper edge of a fog-bank. There was nothing for him to say or do, except to bear as meekly as possible the jokes of his companions and the bursts of laughter with which they greeted him whenever they met him the next day.

“BLOW, SONNY, BLOW!” CRIED ONE OF THE MEN.

The trawls were set as usual the following evening, 175for in spite of the fog the work of fishing was continued with considerable regularity, and the next morning dory No. 6 went out with the others in quest of its fare. It was customary in thick weather, while the dories were absent, to keep the fog-horn constantly sounding on board the schooner, so that they might be enabled to find her again.

On this occasion there was such a heavy sea running that unusual care was necessary in the management of the dory, and its crew were frequently obliged to swing her head to it to prevent her from capsizing. After considerable difficulty they discovered their buoy, and began to haul the trawl. In spite of the violent pitching of the boat they were conducting this operation successfully, and had nearly completed their task when, unnoticed by them, as their backs were turned to it, a larger wave than usual came rushing towards them.

It seemed to spring at the deeply laden dory, and lifted it so suddenly that Wolfe, who was leaning over the gunwale, was pitched head-foremost into the water. At the same instant Breeze, who had been standing up, was thrown violently backward against the opposite side of the boat, which was probably all that saved it from upsetting. As it was, she shipped a quantity of water, and this, in addition to the load of fish, sank her far below the limit of safety.

176Her head, which had only been held to the wind by the trawl, now swung off, and as Wolfe rose to the surface and clutched the stern becket she had turned completely around, and was beginning to drift.

Quickly recovering himself, Breeze went to his companion’s assistance, and was endeavoring to help him into the boat, when Wolfe gave a sharp cry of pain, exclaiming,

“I’m caught in the trawl! One of the hooks is in my leg! It’s dragging me down! Oh, Breeze, help me!”

For an instant Breeze was horror-stricken; but his quick wit enabled him to understand the situation at once, and also suggested a remedy for it. Wolfe now formed the connecting link between the dory and the trawl, which alone prevented it from drifting off before the wind. The strain on his arms was so great, and the pain from the hook in his leg was so intense, that he could not keep his hold on the becket more than a minute longer. When he should once let go he would instantly be dragged down beneath the dark waters.

While these thoughts were flashing through his mind Breeze had picked up the buoy-line, cut it free from its keg, and passing the end under Wolfe’s arms and around his body, had made it fast to the after-thwart. He thus effectually fastened his companion to the dory, and relieved, in a measure, the strain on his arms.

177He next threw off his oil suit, his heavy outer clothes, and his boots. Then, standing erect, with his sharp sheath-knife held between his teeth, he sprang overboard and disappeared, head-foremost, beneath the water, much as his dorymate had done a few minutes before. In another moment the trawl-line holding Wolfe was cut, and the terrible strain upon his leg was instantly relieved.

If Breeze had not been the splendid swimmer that he was, and brought up from his earliest boyhood to feel almost as much at home in the water as on land, he could not possibly have accomplished this feat. Neither would he have been able to regain the dory, which, taking a send of the sea, was at some distance from him when he again rose to the surface. He only reached it after a hard swim, and was breathless with his exertions by the time he had managed to clamber in over the bow.

His first act was to lighten it, and cause it to ride more buoyantly, by tossing overboard a quantity of the fish with which it was laden. Then he helped Wolfe into the boat; and though the poor fellow’s face was white with the pain he was suffering, he gave no expression to it, but at once began to bail out the water that still caused them great anxiety.

While he was thus employed Breeze was hard at work with the oars, pulling in what he supposed was the direction 178of the schooner, and keeping a sharp lookout for any waves of unusual size.

At last, when Wolfe had nearly finished bailing, he paused for a moment in his task and said, “Breeze, it was splendid! I don’t believe there was ever a finer thing done on the Banks.”

“Oh, pooh!” replied the other. “What would be the use of learning how to dive and swim under water if you couldn’t do it when it was necessary?”

“Yes, I know; it’s well enough to talk about doing such things within reach of shore, but out here in the middle of the ocean, with a sea like that running, makes it a very different matter. I say it was splendid!”

“Wolfe, if you knew how like a coward it makes me feel now to think of it, you wouldn’t speak of it again. I thank God that he put it into my heart, and gave me the strength to do what I did. Above all, I thank him that you are now with me in this boat, instead of at the bottom of the sea; but I don’t want to talk about it.”

“And I say ‘Amen’ to your thankfulness with all my heart,” replied Wolfe.

“By-the-way,” said Breeze, anxious to change the subject, “do you hear anything of the horn?”

“No, I do not, and I don’t think I have heard it since we were hauling the trawl,” exclaimed Wolfe, with a 179startled air, while an anxious expression swept over his face. “Let’s listen a minute.”

Breeze stopped rowing, and they listened until he was again obliged to use the oars to head the dory towards another big sea that he saw approaching; but they heard no sound, save the moan of the wind and the rushing of the waters on all sides of them.

It came upon them both like a shock, the terrible thought that they were lost on that wild sea, and in a fog so dense that they could not see fifty feet in any direction. Each saw by the other’s face what he was thinking, but neither of them had the heart to put the thought into words.

“I don’t suppose," said Breeze, at length breaking the silence, “that there’s any use in rowing so long as we don’t know in which direction the schooner lies."

“No,” replied Wolfe, “I don’t suppose there is. WeWe had better make a drogue and get it overboard, to hold her to the wind and keep her from drifting as much as possible. Then we’ll fix ourselves as comfortable as we can, until the fog lifts and we can catch sight of the schooner again.”

Neither of them would admit in words that they did not expect the fog to lift shortly, and that the schooner would still be in sight when this happened. They both 180knew, however, that it might enshroud them for days, and that they had but a slight chance of ever seeing the Vixen again.

They made a “drogue,” or drag, by fastening an end of the buoy rope to the bow of the dory, and the other to a couple of their trawl tubs, which they then dropped overboard with the trawl anchor attached, to serve as a weight. The tubs filled and sank until their upper edges were on a level with the surface of the water. In this position they acted as a floating anchor to the dory, which tailed off from them at once and rode head on to the wind and sea.

“Stow the oars snugly,” said Wolfe; “we must not lose them whatever happens. Then, I suppose we might as well toss the rest of these fish overboard, though it seems a pity, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, and I’m afraid we’ll be sorry for it when we get back to the schooner; but here goes,” and Breeze began to toss the fish overboard vigorously.

When this job was finished, and the dory rode the seas much more easily than she had done, Wolfe said,

“Now that you’ve made things snug and ship-shape, old man, will you help me a bit with this beastly hook? It’s hurting me more than a little.”

“Oh!” cried Breeze in a tone of pitying remorse. 181“Why didn’t you speak of it sooner? It was awful to leave it in there all this time.”

“Had too much else on hand. It couldn’t get away, and I knew we’d find it right there whenever we got ready to attend to it,” said Wolfe, with an attempt to relieve the anxiety of his friend by making light of his own sufferings.

Each of these two brave young spirits was intent upon presenting a cheerful front to the other, while hiding its own anxiety and forebodings, but neither of them was for a moment deceived as to the nature of their situation.

As carefully as possible, Breeze first cut away the small portion of line that still remained attached to the shank of the hook. Then, after cutting little slits in them and clearing them from it, he drew off Wolfe’s wet lower garments. The hook was fastened into the calf of the right leg, and had torn the flesh cruelly. Now, while Breeze could, if necessary, bear any amount of pain himself, it made him faint to inflict it in cold blood upon others. So, when Wolfe said, “It looks as if you’d have to cut the beggar out, old man,” he replied, “I can’t do it, Wolfe! I haven’t the nerve.”

“Then I must,” answered his companion; and without a moment’s hesitation he reached down, and with one powerful wrench tore the hook from his leg and flung it overboard. 182“That’s a good job quickly done,” he said, laughing at the other’s pale face. “Now if I only had something to bind it up with!”

For a moment they could think of nothing suitable, for all their garments were woollen. Then Breeze remembered his silken neck-handkerchief, and hastily pulled it off. As he did so it caught on the slender chain that he always wore clasped about his neck according to the promise he had given his mother, and the golden ball attached to it was brought into view.

Wolfe had never before seen it, and as he tightly bandaged his wounded leg he asked Breeze what it was, and why he wore it. In answer Breeze told him all that he knew concerning the ball, not forgetting the encounter with the New York jeweller who had opened it and then closed it again without allowing him to look at its contents.

Wolfe was greatly interested in all this, and examined the locket closely, in the hope of discovering its secret fastening, but without success. For some time they occupied their minds, and kept themselves from thinking of their unhappy situation, by speculating as to what it contained. They wondered who had first clasped the chain around the boy’s baby neck, and Wolfe declared that Breeze was undoubtedly a lost prince, who would some 183day come into his kingdom. He begged him not to forget his old dorymate when that happy event occurred.

The word “dorymate” recalled them to their present surroundings, and looking up, Wolfe said, “Well, there doesn’t seem to be any prospect of the fog’s lifting yet a while. I wish it would, though, in time to let us get back to the schooner for dinner, for I’m awfully hungry. Speaking of dinner, have we got a bite of anything to eat besides the raw fish we threw overboard?”

At another time Breeze would have laughed heartily at this Irish bull, but now he only answered by going to the dory’s little stern locker and drawing from it his oil-cloth provision-bag. A glance at its contents assured him that they were all right, and he exclaimed, joyfully,

“Here are two dozen large biscuit, and they’ve kept dry!”

“How about water?”

“I looked after that this morning, and the keg’s full of fresh water.”

“Then,” said Wolfe, “we’ve every reason to feel very grateful that we’re so well off; and if we only had a compass we would head for the coast of Newfoundland, and row to it, too, barring bad weather and accidents, before our provisions gave out.”

184“Yes,” said Breeze, “we’ve certainly got provisions enough to do it with, for if each of us eats one biscuit a day, they will last us twelve days.”

“Couldn’t we take two a day, and make it six days?” suggested Wolfe.

“How would you like to eat three a day, one each for breakfast, dinner, and supper, and call it a four days’ supply?” asked Breeze.

“Faith! I believe I could eat a dozen of them now, and then wish for the rest without trying, I’m so hungry. But say, Breeze, how long would they last us if we took three apiece the first day, two the second, one the third, and then began and did it all over again?”

Thus talking, and in slowly eating two of their precious biscuit, they managed to pass several hours, at the end of which they were gladdened by a ray of sunlight. The fog was lifting. Starting up, they eagerly scanned their widening horizon, which now extended for some miles on all sides of them. To their bitter disappointment, they could see no sign that any other human beings had ever floated on that dreary waste of waters.

Shortly before sunset the fog settled down again, thicker than ever; and lying down in the bottom of their boat, the dorymates very nearly abandoned themselves to despair. Finally, huddling as closely together as possible, 185for the sake of what warmth they could thus obtain, they both fell asleep.

In his sleep Breeze dreamed that he was sailing a boat into Gloucester harbor, but that instead of looking out for the familiar landmarks, he was steering her by compass. He dreamed this same thing over and over, until at last he awoke with it strongly impressed upon his mind.

It was night, and intensely dark, while the wind moaned mournfully above the dashing waters. Breeze had no idea of the time, nor how long it would be before daylight. While he was wondering about this he became conscious, to his great surprise, that in his hand he held the golden chain and locket that had been about his neck. His surprise was, moreover, quickly changed to amazement when he felt that the ball was open.

CHAPTER XIV. THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN BALL.

It seemed to Breeze as though daylight never would come, as he lay there holding the open locket in his hand and wondering about it. How had it come open? and what did it contain? He was adrift in a fog, far out at sea, in a frail open boat. He was wet, cold, and hungry. His situation was about as uncomfortable as can well be imagined; but all this was lost sight of and forgotten in the thoughts aroused by that golden ball, which during his sleep he must have taken from his neck, and which had so unaccountably been opened. It was the visible evidence of the great mystery of his life, that he so longed to solve, and in his curiosity he wished for the daylight only that he might see what it contained. He hoped Wolfe would wake up, that he might talk of all this with him; but he would not disturb him, and after a while he, too, fell asleep again.

When Breeze next awoke it was early morning, and daylight was sifting faintly through the fog. Wolfe had 187been aroused some time before by the pain of his leg. He had just finished attending to the wound as well as he was able, and was replacing the bandage.

The moment he noticed that Breeze had opened his eyes, he exclaimed, “Good-morning, dorymate! We seem to be in luck, as usual.”

“How?” asked Breeze, wonderingly.

“How! Why, don’t you notice that the wind has gone down and the sea is getting smooth? We have had a pretty comfortable night, and I shouldn’t wonder if the sun drove away this beastly fog before long, and shone out warm and pleasant. Then we must surely sight something, out of all the vessels that are cruising on the Banks.”

“That’s so!” said Breeze, quite cheered by this hopeful view of the situation. Then, bethinking himself of the wonderful event of the preceding night, and anxious to add his bit of pleasant intelligence, he continued, “And best of all, Wolfe, the ball is open.”

“The what?” asked Wolfe, greatly puzzled for the moment to know what his companion meant.

“The ball! The golden ball that I wear around my neck, and that we were looking at yesterday.”

“You don’t mean it!” exclaimed the other, now greatly interested. “How did you get it open? What’s in it? Where is it?”

188“I don’t know how I got it open, and I don’t know what is in it because it was too dark to see; but here it is.”

With this Breeze withdrew the locket from the bosom of his flannel shirt, into which he had instinctively thrust it for safe-keeping when he found himself dropping off to sleep, and they both bent over it eagerly.

One half had swung back from the other on a pivot, by which the two sections were still held together. After a single glance at it, Wolfe gave a shout.

“A compass, by all that’s wonderful!” he cried. “The very thing we’ve been wanting, above all others! Well, old man, any one who says we are not in luck now doesn’t know what he’s talking about, that’s all!”

One side did indeed hold a small but perfect compass, the daintiest that was ever seen. Its freely moving card was a thin plate of gold upon which were enamelled the four cardinal points and a coat of arms. The latter consisted of a blue shield with a diamond, cut in the form of a star, upon which the card was pivoted, in its centre. On the shield, above the star, and in the lower corners were three devices, which Breeze thought might be pyramids, and which Wolfe called volcanoes. Above the shield was a closed helmet, and beneath it, in letters of gold, the motto, “Point True.”

189As Wolfe repeated this over to himself, his face wore a puzzled look. “‘Point True,’” he said aloud; “I have certainly heard that before, and I wonder where?” Finally he satisfied himself that he must have read it in some book, and gave the matter no further thought.

In the other half of the ball was a second golden plate on which was enamelled the same coat of arms, with the only difference that the central star in this case was formed of a pearl. A spring, which they did not discover for some time, slipped this plate aside, and in the cavity beneath it the boys saw three tiny locks of hair, of which one had evidently been cut from the head of an infant. On the under side of the plate was engraved “Merab to Tristram,” and Ruth’s answer to Naomi, “Whither thou goest, I will go.”

Breeze could not help feeling somewhat disappointed when he found that this was all. Although the ball had yielded up its secret, it had in reality told him nothing. It had merely given a new direction to his curiosity. Who were Merab and Tristram? To whom had the locks of hair belonged? The only satisfactory features of its revelation were the coat of arms and the compass. The former might at some future time be located, while the latter could be immediately used.

This thought had also come to Wolfe, who had rejoiced 190at the very first sight of the little vibrating card, and who now said,

“Let’s have breakfast right off, Breeze, and then start for Nova Scotia. I’ve been thinking the situation over, and though I believe we are somewhat farther away from Nova Scotia than we are from Newfoundland, we’ll stand a better chance of falling in with some sort of a vessel by steering west than if we headed to the north. So what do you say to laying a course due west, and sticking to it, taking turns at the oars all day?”

“I don’t care much which way we go,” answered Breeze; “but I think it will be much better for us to row than to lie still, because it will at any rate occupy our time and keep us warm.”

“All right, then, west it is; and I wish the cook would hurry up breakfast so that we could make a start. I’m not only awfully hungry, but I’m in a great hurry to get to Nova Scotia.”

The cheerfulness and flow of spirits by which this Irish lad managed to sustain both his own and his dorymate’s courage were wonderful. They never flagged, and from the first to the last of that memorable voyage his constant effort was to make the best of everything, and turn every trifling circumstance to account for the purpose of provoking a smile or inspiring fresh hope.

191The two biscuit which, washed down with a swallow of water from the little keg, formed their breakfast, were quickly eaten. Then the drag to which they had been lying was taken aboard, and seizing a pair of oars, Wolfe, who had insisted upon keeping first watch, as he called it, began pulling vigorously in the direction indicated by Breeze. The latter made himself as comfortable as possible in the stern of the dory, with his gaze fixed upon the small compass that he held in his hand.

In addition to his own inclination to look upon the bright side of things, Breeze was happily influenced by his companion’s cheerful view of their situation, and now he said, “So long as we have lost the Vixen and found a compass, what a comfort the fog is!”

“Is it!” asked Wolfe, in surprise. “Well, I must confess I had not quite taken that view of it. How do you make it out?”

“Because it keeps us all the time hoping for something to turn up. It would be awfully discouraging to be able to see for miles, with nothing but water to look at. Now we may come upon some vessel at any minute.”

“That’s so. The skipper was telling the other night of some fellows who were out four days in a fog without food or water, and who had just given up in despair, 192when their dory was nearly capsized by drifting afoul of the cable of an anchored schooner.”

“I remember a story my father used to tell,” said Breeze, “about two men who were lost in a fog on this very Bank. They had been out only about an hour when the fog lifted, and they saw the flare their mates were burning for them. They rowed for it as hard as they could pull, but the schooner was under way, and kept just about the same distance ahead of them all night. The next day they could still see her, with her flag at half-mast for them; but they couldn’t get near enough for those on board to see them. After they lost sight of her they were out two days longer, both of them bright and clear. During that time they sighted and chased five more vessels. Then the fog shut down again, and an hour afterwards they were nearly run down by the schooner that picked them up. Now, if they’d been in the fog all the time they would have taken things a great deal more easy, and probably got picked up just as quick.”

“Yes,” admitted Wolfe, “that all may be very true; but I’m afraid there’s another side to it. Hark! didn’t you hear a whistle?” he exclaimed, resting on his oars to listen.

The next moment it came to them plainly, the hoarse 193warning whistle of some great steamer. At first they could not locate the sound; but as they heard it again, and this time much nearer, they fixed it as coming from the direction in which they were heading, and knew that it proceeded from some transatlantic liner, bound eastward. Then they became filled with a fever of apprehension, of mingled hopes and fears. What if she should run them down? What if she should pick them up? What if she should pass without seeing or hearing them? These were the questions they asked each other over and over again during the few minutes that elapsed before the vast, formless object rushed by them still concealed by the fog, but so near that they could hear voices from her decks. They had not been seen, nor were their frantic shouts heeded, if they had been heard.

In deep, dejected silence they sat motionless, listening to the sound of the whistle until it was lost in the distance. Then Wolfe said, “That’s the other side to it.”

“Yes,” replied Breeze, “and it’s a pretty dark side to have to look at too. If the fog had only lifted, ever so little, even for one minute, we might be on board that steamer safe and comfortable now, on our way to--I don’t knew where and I shouldn’t have cared. At any rate, we wouldn’t be here, lost, starved, and drifting 194through a fog-bank.” The boy’s tone was very bitter, and it showed the heaviness of his heart.

“Take a biscuit, old man,” said Wolfe, sympathetically, “it’ll cheer you up.”

For a moment Breeze tried to look angry, at what he considered an ill-timed levity on the part of his companion; but the expression of the other’s face changed his mood, and he laughed in spite of his unhappiness.

“That’s right!” exclaimed Wolfe. “Laughing’s a sight more becoming to you than crying, and whenever you ‘Point True’ to yourself, it’s plenty of the first and little of the last you’ll be indulging in.”

“But it is hard to bear such a disappointment. Just think how near she came to us!”

“Faith! It might have gone harder with us if she’d come nearer. For my part I’m just thankful she didn’t run us down entirely. Those same steamers are the terrors of the Banks. I mind well the last trip I was here in the old Walpus. We were lying to an anchor in a fog every bit as thick as this, and minding our own business, when one of them came rushing down on us. They paid no attention to our shouting, or to our horn, and turned neither to port nor starboard; but just came on tooting their old whistle for all other folks to get out of their way. Well, sir, we were all in the act of piling over the 195stern into the dories when she drove past within a handshake of the end of our jib-boom, and we could see the scared faces of the people on her deck looking down at us. She was that close that the patent log towing behind her caught on our cable and parted its line. We hauled it in the next day when we hove up our anchor. No, sir! none of your steamers for me! They’re too careless and overbearing-like, and I say we’ve just had a mighty lucky escape, and should be thankful for it. Come, now, stand your watch like a good fellow, and pull for Nova Scotia, or for some decent, easy-going sailing-vessel that’ll pick us up.”

So Breeze took a spell at the oars, and thus rowing by turn, and telling each other yarns of their own experience, or repeating what they had learned from others to divert their thoughts, they passed the second day in the dory.

The fog had not lifted for a single moment since morning, and when darkness again shut down upon them it still infolded them in its clammy embrace. Although the night was calm, they tossed their drag overboard lest a wind should rise while they slept. Then, after eating their scanty supper of a single biscuit each, they lay down, hugging each other closely for warmth, and prepared to pass the night in such comfort as their circumstances would permit.

196Before they dropped asleep Breeze heard Wolfe say, as though talking to himself, “We must have made something over fifty miles to-day, and at the same rate we’ll soon reach the Nova Scotia coast now.”

Breeze smiled at this too evident attempt to cheer him; for he knew, as well as Wolfe, that they had not made more than twenty or twenty-five miles at the most, and that the coast towards which they were heading was still several hundred miles from them. Three more days would finish their biscuit at the rate they had been eating them, and even now he was so hungry that he felt they might as well starve at once as to try and economize them any longer. Their fresh water was already half gone, and altogether their prospect was a very gloomy one.

The night passed uneventfully, but before daylight Wolfe was awakened by an exclamation of dismay from his companion. “What is the trouble?” he inquired, sitting up stiffly.

“The ball is closed,” answered Breeze.

“Closed?”

“Yes; it must have got pushed together somehow while I was asleep, and I can’t get it open again.”

“And a good job, too,” said Wolfe. “Now we’ll have no excuse for rowing this day, and I’m glad; for my back’s broke thinking of it.”

197“But don’t you want to get to Nova Scotia?”

“Indeed, I do not! An out-of-the-way place like that? I’d prefer to be picked up where we are by some craft that’ll take us into New York, or Boston, or maybe Gloucester itself.”

An hour later the sun rose, and under its cheerful influence the last trace of fog disappeared, and a perfect spring morning broke over the sparkling waters of the Grand Bank. It was just such a morning as would cause the New England birds to break forth in an ecstasy of song, and Breeze almost expected to hear them as he sat up in the dory and looked around.

His ears were not greeted by the songs of birds, but his eyes were gladdened by a sight so welcome that his first joyful exclamation was choked by his emotion.

Wolfe sprang up in alarm at the sound, only to see his friend pointing with trembling finger to the southward. There, not more than half a mile from them, he saw a square-rigged, deeply laden vessel, rising and falling gracefully on the long swells.

The next moment Breeze had cut the line that held them to their drag with a blow from his sheath-knife, and, under the impulse of two pairs of oars, dory No. 6 was surging over the calm waters as it had never before been driven in all its storm-tossed career.

198The dorymates spoke no word to each other, nor looked around, until they paused, breathless and panting, close beside the vessel. Although there was not a breath of wind, they had feared that somehow she might sail away and leave them. Now that there was no danger of that, they sat in their boat and gazed at her curiously. Her bottom was covered with sea-grass and barnacles, and she was weather-beaten to the last degree, though her spars were all in place and she still looked stanch and seaworthy. Not a human being was to be seen on board of her, nor did their hail receive any answer.

The strangest feature of the brigantine, for such she was, lay in her sails and rigging. Instead of showing a cloud of light canvas, as would naturally be expected in such weather, she was under a double-reefed main-sail, single-reefed fore-topsail, and fore-staysail only. Her fore-course was clewed up but not stowed, and the royal was furled; but the topgallant-sail seemed to have been blown away, judging from the few streamers of tattered canvas that still hung from the yard. Her running rigging was either hanging at loose ends, or tangled in the greatest confusion. To crown all, a ragged American ensign drooped at half-mast, and union down, from her main-peak.

NOT A HUMAN BEING WAS TO BE SEEN ON BOARD OF HER, NOR DID THEIR HAIL RECEIVE ANY ANSWER.

The boys pulled entirely around the vessel several 199times, wondering at her condition, but still unable by their shouts to attract the attention of her crew. On her stern they read her name, Esmeralda, of Baltimore.

Finally Breeze spied a rope hanging over her side near the fore-chains, and proposed that they board her by it. Having tested it and found it strong enough for their purpose, they went up hand over hand. Breeze was the first to clamber over the bulwarks and gain her deck. It was absolutely deserted, and he walked aft while Wolfe was making the dory fast.

There was something mysterious and awful about this apparently deserted brig that caused Breeze to shiver and gaze about him apprehensively. He walked as far aft as the quarter-deck, and as he gained it a gaunt, pale-faced man came slowly up the companion-way leading down into the cabin, and stood looking at him. Breeze, too, stared for a moment, and then sprang towards the trembling figure.

CHAPTER XV. A WONDERFUL MEETING.

As Breeze came towards him, the white-faced man in the companion-way, who was so weak and emaciated that he seemed to have just arisen from a sick-bed, tried feebly to wave him back. The effort was made in vain; for the next moment the boy had sprung to where he was standing, thrown his arms about his neck, and, half laughing, half crying in his excitement, was exclaiming,

“Father! oh, father! We knew you weren’t dead. We knew you’d come back to us--mother and I did!”

“Gently, lad, gently. I’m not quite steady on my pins yet, and if you don’t have a care you’ll pitch me down the steps,” answered Captain McCloud, trying to speak calmly and to quiet the excited boy. But tears stood in his eyes, and directly his weakness had mastered him. He cried out, brokenly,

“God bless you, Breeze! God bless you, my boy! I’d thought never to see you again, and in my heart I’d bidden you good-by, mother and you. But I wasn’t reconciled 201to it. I couldn’t die without seeing you. You’d not ask it, lad. You’ll not leave me again to the fever, will you?”

Then, overcome by his emotion, the man who had been so strong, but who was now so weak and wellnigh helpless, bowed his head and sobbed like a child.

This pitiful sight, and the piteous appeal just made to him, almost unnerved Breeze, but he controlled himself by a strong effort, and led his father to a seat, at the same time speaking soothing and loving words to him.

“No, father,” he said, “of course I’ll not leave you. I’ve come to stay with you, and take care of you, and carry you into port, where mother is waiting for us. Only you must hurry and get well, for it would never do to go back to her sick and looking like this, you know. It would frighten her to see you so.”

Just then, walking stiffly on account of his wounded leg, Wolfe came aft in search of Breeze, and was filled with amazement at what he saw. For once his ready tongue failed him, and he stood staring at the little group in silence. He wondered what could have affected them so deeply, and if they had ever met before, or whether he were not witnessing the effects of a mild species of insanity, as exhibited by the stranger.

“At any rate,” he said to himself, “I’ll not interfere 202with them, for Breeze seems to have a quieting way with the old gentleman, and maybe hearing another strange voice might send him off again.”

All at once his attention was attracted by the sudden appearance of the most uncouth and altogether peculiar human face he had ever seen. The head to which it belonged had just been lifted cautiously above the cabin companion-way, and the great eyes, which seemed to Wolfe to be wholly white, were rolling wildly at the sight of the strangers. The face was the color of black ashes, the flat nose expanded into a pair of enormous nostrils, while the lips were of unusual thickness, even for a full-blooded negro. This strange face was set off, and in a manner overshadowed, by a pair of most remarkable ears. Not only were they large, but they projected almost at right angles from the head, which gave them the appearance of always being pricked forward with an air of extreme attention or curiosity. Above and in front of these the head was covered with a thick growth of kinky hair, which had been for so long brushed, pulled, or otherwise trained forward that it surrounded the face like a sort of a furry hood. On account of it some wag in the far-away country from which this odd-looking individual came had called him “Nimbus,” and this name had clung to him ever since. He was so short as to be almost a 203dwarf, but his body was thick-set, and powerful enough to belong to a giant. The length of his arms was extraordinary, and so was the size of his feet, but his legs were so ridiculously short that he waddled rather than walked. He was as strong as two ordinary strong men, and at the same time he was tender-hearted, obliging, good-natured, a fair sailor, and a capital cook. He was a Guinea negro, from the west coast of Africa, but had passed the greater part of his life in the galleys of sailing-vessels, and had thus visited most of the principal ports of the world. He was fond of occasionally returning to his own country, which he managed to do about once in every two or three years. Such was the individual who now appeared at the top of the companion-ladder, and exclaimed,

"T’ank de good Lord, gemmen, you’s come at las’! Me an’ de cap’n, we’se been habin’ a mons’rous hard time, an’ we’se mos’ gib up. You mus’ scuse me, gemmen, fur not bein’ on de deck to receib you proper an’ ship-shape, but I ain’t had no sleep fur more’n a week, an’ I jus’ takin’ a nap. You see, fus’ de port watch on deck all night, den de cook he busy waitin’ on de cap’n all night, den de starbor’ watch he up all night, den de fus’ ossifer, den de secon’ ossifer, dey don’ get no sleep all night, an’ I is all ob um. Yes, sah, ole Nim he ebberyt’ing but cap’n ob de Esmeral now. De res’ all dead an’ go oberboard. 204De feber catch um. Sometime one, sometime two, t’ree togedder. De las’ one, he de fus’ mate, die more’n t’ree day. De cap’n here, he mos’ die, but ole Nim pull um troo; couldn’ be lef’ alone nohow. WhereWhere you’ ship, eh?"

As he asked this question Nimbus looked around with a perplexed air, in search of the vessel from which he supposed these strangers must have come.

Wolfe was delighted with this odd character, and now glad of a chance to use his tongue, he told their story as briefly as possible, and ended by saying that they were awfully hungry.

Nothing pleased Nimbus more than a chance to cook for strangers; and, with a broad grin on his hooded face, he waddled away towards the galley, saying,

“Dreckly, gemmen! dreckly ole Nim get you mons’rous fine breakfus.”

In the mean time Captain McCloud had recovered his composure, and now, to Wolfe’s amazement, Breeze introduced him as his father. At the same time he said, “Wolfe Brady is my dorymate, father, and next to you and mother, my dearest friend. We haven’t known each other very long, but what we’ve been through with has made us pretty well acquainted.”

“ME AN’ DE CAP’N, WE’S BEEN HABIN’ A MONS’ROUS HARD TIME.”

“Yes, sir,” said Wolfe, “we met only about three weeks ago, but in that time your adopted son has twice saved 205my life at the risk of his own, and we have been in some rather tight places together. I don’t mind saying, now that it is all over with and we are standing on a good solid deck once more, that drifting around in that dory, through the fog of the last two days, was about the meanest fix of them all, and I hadn’t much hope that we were going to get out of it either. I’d go through with all its suffering and anxiety again, though, for the sake of being present at such a wonderful meeting as this. I never heard of anything like it.”

“It is truly a wonderful meeting,” replied Captain McCloud, “and there have got to be a great many explanations made before we shall understand how it was all brought about. Certainly we have been guided in marvellous ways. You said your mother was well, Breeze?”

“Yes, sir, quite well,” answered Breeze, “and looking for you to come in at any time.”

“So she hasn’t given me up yet! Bless the little woman! Well, there’s a chance of getting there now. I didn’t think there was any hope of it three days ago, when the mate died, and left Nimbus and me alone on the old brig, and I too weak to lift a rope’s end.”

“Do you mean to say, father,” exclaimed Breeze, who had not comprehended the true state of affairs before this, “that you two are the only ones left aboard?”

206“Yes,” replied the captain, sadly, “we have buried all the rest, and are the only survivors of a crew of twelve souls.”

“That’s the reason, then, you’re under such short sail.”

“Yes, she was got under this canvas in a blow, two weeks ago, while the mate and two others of the crew were alive, and still able to work. Since then there has not been force enough on board to do anything with them. Nimbus is as strong as an ox, and he can manage the head-sails alone. I believe he got the course clewed up too; but the poor fellow has had a hard time trying to steer, cook, wait on me, keep a lookout, set the lights, ring the fog-bell, bury the dead, and in fact do all the work of twelve men. He fell asleep last night on the cabin floor, utterly exhausted. This morning I was going to try and shift for myself, and let him have his sleep out. I was about to look for something to eat when you came aboard. I’m feeling hungry for the first time in weeks.”

“Faith, sir!” cried Wolfe, “it must be catching. I’m so hungry myself that if starving’s any worse it would take a wiser man than I am to point out the difference. And to think, Breeze, of the elegant biscuit we left behind in the dory! If we’d only eaten them yesterday, and had the comfort of them! Never mind, we’ll have them up 207after a while for a dessert, like, for of all the sea-biscuit ever I tasted those have the finest flavor. But here comes breakfast now, praised be the cook!”

Nimbus was going to carry the breakfast down into the cabin, but Captain McCloud said they had better eat on deck, on account of the fever that had been in the cabin. “I tried to warn you, Breeze, against coming too close to me when I first saw you,” he added, “but you didn’t seem to pay any attention.”

“As if I could have, father, when I was so surprised and so happy!” replied Breeze, reproachfully.

Never had a meal tasted better, or been more thoroughly enjoyed by the dorymates than this one, and it seemed as though they could not stop eating. Even Captain McCloud developed a wonderful appetite for a sick man. He ate so heartily that Nimbus, who waddled around them, his face beaming with pleasure, as he brought them this thing or that, began to grow somewhat anxious and exclaimed,

“Take care, cap’n; you’ ’tomach’s powerful weak yet, an’ you mus’n’t s’prise um too much!”

“Which are you now, Nimbus, doctor or cook?” asked Captain McCloud, smiling at the faithful fellow’s anxiety.

“I’se bofe, cap’n. De ship’s doctor and de ship’s cook am de same. P’r’aps de cook tell you eat, an’ de doctor 208tell you not eat. You min’ um bofe, den you all right. You min’ de cook, you eat too much. Berry bad! You min’ de doctor, you eat too little. Berry bad too! You min’ ole Nim, you all right. Berry good!”

Wolfe was immensely amused at all this, and the negro’s comical appearance, together with his earnest manner, caused the young Irishman to roar with laughter. He declared that Nimbus had more sense in his woolly head than half the white folks he knew, and that if he were as good a doctor as he was a cook, he ought to be a member of the Royal College of Surgeons.

“Don’ know nuffin ’bout no surgins, sah,” replied Nimbus, showing the ivory of his teeth in a broad grin, and highly flattered by this praise; “but if de young gemman’s ready for anodder cup ob coffee, I’se got um a-bilin’ in de camboose.”^[G]

“Will I have another cup of coffee? Of course I will! It’s the best I ever tasted. I tell you what, Breeze, there’s nothing like drifting around a few days without anything to eat to make a fellow appreciate a meal like this.”

“We had the sea-biscuit,” said Breeze.

“Yes, sea-biscuit! But what did they amount to? Dry, 209tasteless things! I’d almost as soon eat so many chips,” exclaimed Wolfe, in a scornful tone, as he finished the last mouthful of a hot buttered roll.

“Then you are not going to have them up for a sort of a dessert?”

“Dessert! I should say not. I hope I’ll never have to see one, much less eat one again. They would always remind me of drifting through a fog-bank in an open dory.”

All of which goes to show how very differently a hungry man and a well-fed man may view the same object.

The sea still remained unruffled by a breath, and after breakfast Captain McCloud said, “So long as there’s nothing we can do until we get some wind, we’ve a chance for a yarn. If you’d like to hear about it I’ll tell you how I happen to be aboard this brig, and how she got into the sad condition you see her in now.”

As both Breeze and Wolfe expressed the strongest desire to hear the captain’s story, he related it to them as follows:

“You remember, Breeze, when I left home in the old Sea Robin last October for the Banks I said that if all went well I’d be back in time for Christmas?”

“Yes, sir, I remember.”

“Well, we made a fair trip, but did not fill up as fast as 210I had hoped we would, so that it got to be pretty near Christmas-day before we saw our way clear to picking up our anchor and heading for Gloucester. By-the-way, have any of the Robin’s crew ever turned up?”

“No, sir; not one of them. You were reported as seen on the 15th of December, but since then not a word has come from you until this day.”

"Poor fellows! they’re long since gone, then. Well, as I was saying, we were all ready to start for home the day before Christmas, when there came on such a gale of wind as I’ve rarely seen in these latitudes. By night it was a hurricane, and such a sea was running that it seemed as though each wave must swallow the schooner as it came rushing-down on her. We were hove-to under a three-reefed foresail, and the riding-sail with a bag-reef tied in it. About nine o’clock in the evening, I’d been on deck so long, and was so drenched and chilled, that I stepped into the forecastle to get a cup of coffee. There was one other man there, poor Dick Simonds--you remember him, Breeze--and the cook. The rest were either on deck or in the cabin.

"I had just braced myself between the foremast and the edge of a bunk, and was reaching for the coffee, when the vessel seemed to give a great leap in the air. When she dropped it was on her beam ends, and I could feel 211her settling down. The cook got out someway, how I don’t know; but Dick was met by the water pouring in the companion-way. He pulled the slide to keep it out, thinking she’d right in a minute if she didn’t fill first.

"At the first shock I was so braced that, lying on my back as I was, I couldn’t move, and when I did get right side up, there we were, Dick and I, shut up like two rats in a trap, and the schooner was bottom side up.

"Dick stood it as long as he could, which I suppose was some time the next day. By then it had got so quiet overhead that we judged the storm had gone down. At the same time we knew our air must be escaping, for we could feel the water slowly but surely rising in the forecastle. The rats were becoming troublesome, too, and swarming over us. Though we couldn’t see them, we managed to catch and drown quite a number of them.

"At last Dick said he couldn’t die but once anyhow, and that he was going to make a try for one more breath of fresh air and one more sight of God’s blessed daylight. He succeeded in smashing off the companion-way slide, and a faint light came in through the water, so we knew it was day. I didn’t remember till afterwards that it was Christmas-day, and I’m glad I didn’t.

"Dick’s plan was to dive through the opening with the hope that he’d clear the rigging and sails underneath it 212some way or another. I tried to dissuade him from trying it, and pointed out how slim his chance was; but he was bound to go. He said it was better to drown at once and have it over with than to stay in there and meet a slow death along with the rats. He stripped off his clothes so as to have a better chance of swimming, wrung my hand, and said, ‘Good-by, skipper. If I get out, you’ll hear me pounding. If you don’t hear anything you’ll know what’s happened.’ Then he drew in a long breath, and made a dive for the hole. He got through it, I know, for I saw the ray of light darken and then come again; but I didn’t hear a sound from him afterwards, though I listened for more than an hour.

“But hello, boys! here comes a puff of wind and there’s more behind it. If you and Nimbus can manage to get some sail on the old craft we will make a start for home, and I’ll spin you the rest of my yarn some other time.”

CHAPTER XVI. NAVIGATING THE BRIG.

The brigantine, on which our dorymates now found themselves shipped as able seamen under the command of Captain McCloud, had been almost left to herself for nearly two weeks, during which time the current of the Gulf Stream had carried her far to the northward of her course. No observations had been taken on board in all this time, and the dense fog, through which the vessel had been drifting for the past four days, would have effectually prevented this work even had Captain McCloud been strong enough to perform it. He was therefore not surprised to learn from the boys that he was now on the Grand Bank, but he determined to try and take an observation at noon that day, and discover their exact position.

The promise of wind that interrupted the captain’s story was fulfilled by a steady breeze from the southward, which, as their general course was westerly, was favorable and satisfactory. While the captain took the wheel, Nimbus and the boys hoisted the jib, got the foresail 214loosed and sheeted home, shook the reefs out of the fore-topsail, swayed up the heavy yard by means of a winch, and set the royal. They got one reef out of the main-sail without much trouble, but when it came to the second they found it so difficult to hoist the great folds of heavy canvas and its weighty spar that the boys became wholly exhausted with their efforts, and even the enormous strength of Nimbus was exerted to its utmost. After bracing the yards, trimming the sheets of the head-sails, and even getting in a bit of the main-sheet, they set to work overhauling the running rigging, and bringing order out of its confused tangle.

At this last work Wolfe, having sailed before the mast on a square-rigged vessel, was more at home than Breeze, but the latter was quick to comprehend, and so learned easily; for a ready comprehension is more than half of learning. While the boys were thus employed Captain McCloud called Breeze to take the wheel, as it was nearly noon, and time to take his observation. Fortunately, amid all the trouble and disaster that had overtaken the brig, her chronometer had not been allowed to run down, and with the sextant, and other instruments belonging to her late captain, it was still in a serviceable condition.

Bringing the sextant on deck, Captain McCloud gazed through it at the sun, as reflected in a small mirror, until 215it had reached its greatest altitude and stood exactly above the meridian, or, in other words, until it was noon. By looking at the chronometer, which was set to Greenwich time, the difference between the noon where they then were and Greenwich noon was found to be three hours and twenty-six minutes, or two hundred and six minutes. As the earth revolves from west to east at the rate of one degree--which at the equator is sixty miles--every four minutes, the whole number of minutes divided by four gave fifty-one and a half, or 51° 30´, as the longitude of the brig west from Greenwich.

The latitude of the place--its distance north or south from the equator--was obtained by another observation of the sun, taken with the sextant, for the purpose of finding the angle between it and the zenith, or point directly overhead. A glance at the Nautical Almanac under the date of that day, and a minute’s figuring, gave the required result. The latitude thus found was 43° 37´, and of course, being north of the equator, it was north latitude, or 43° 37´ north.

Having obtained these two figures, Captain McCloud got out a chart of that portion of the Atlantic, and drawing on it a fine north and south line through meridian of longitude 51° 30´ west, and a delicate east and west line to indicate parallel of latitude 43° 37´ north, he made a 216small cross at their point of intersection, and showed it to Breeze as the position of the brig at that moment. It was very near the southern point of the Grand Bank and almost due east from Gloucester, but over eight hundred miles from that port.

“There!” said Captain McCloud when he had finished these operations, in all of which Breeze had been greatly interested. “If we steer due west, and hold this wind, we ought to sight Sable Island by day after to-morrow, and run into port inside of three days more. How would that suit you, my boy?”

“It seems as though I couldn’t wait for the time to come, father. Won’t it be glorious to sail into Gloucester harbor and take everybody by surprise? But, father, while we are on this cruise I wish you would teach me something of navigation. I never saw an observation taken before. They don’t take them on board fishing schooners, do they?”

“Not often. Most fishing skippers trust to their lead, log, and compass. They can generally tell by the sort of bottom the lead brings up where they are. You have often, I dare say, noticed skippers examining the sand and shells that stick to the tallow in the bottom of the lead.”

Breeze said he had, but that he should think it would 217be pretty hard to remember what the whole bottom of the ocean was made of.

“We don’t try to,” laughed his father, “we only remember what sort of material forms a few of the principal banks and reefs. For the rest we examine the charts, where it is all laid down. Now I am going to show you an old-fashioned-log, and how to use it. It is the only one I can find aboard, though many vessels nowadays use patent self-registering logs.”

“Of course I have often heard of heaving the log,” said Breeze, casting an eye aloft at the sails, then glancing at the compass, and giving the wheel a spoke or two to keep the brig on her true westerly course, “but I never knew exactly how it was done.”

Captain McCloud called upon Nimbus to bring him the log and the glass, and made ready to use them. The log was a triangular piece of thin board, having its base rounded and weighted with lead. Three short lines extending from the three corners fastened it to the log-line, much as a kite is hung. The log-line was about a thousand feet long, and had a number of red rags, or “knots,” tied to it, at distances of fifty-one feet apart. Each of these long spaces was divided into ten short spaces, called “fathoms,” by bits of leather twisted into the line.

The glass, which was to mark the time of the log’s running, 218was shaped like an hour-glass, but was much smaller, and the sand contained in it occupied only half a minute in running from one end to the other. Now, half a minute is the one hundred and twentieth part of an hour, and fifty-one feet is the same portion of a nautical mile, which is 6120 feet, or 840 feet longer than a geographical or land mile. Thus, when we say that a vessel sails six knots (or miles) an hour, we mean that six knots, or three hundred and six feet, of the log-line ran out in half a minute. The log-line is wound on a reel that turns very easily.

In the present instance Nimbus dropped the log into the water over the lee quarter of the brig, and held the reel in his hands. When the first fifty feet, which is called the “stray-line,” and is sufficient to carry the log clear of the vessel’s eddy, had run out, and Nimbus saw the first red rag touch the water, he sang out, “Turn!” Captain McCloud turned the half-minute glass, so that the sand in it began to drop to the other end, and answered, “Done!” The instant it stopped running he cried, “Stop!” and Nimbus held the reel, so that no more line should run out.

“Seben knot, five fadom, sah,” he reported to the captain.

“Very good,” said the captain; “reel in.” Then to Breeze and Wolfe he said, "That shows that we are running at the rate of seven and a half knots, or miles, an hour. By heaving the log every hour, and keeping note 219of all the courses steered, we shall not only know pretty nearly the distance run, but can determine our position at the end of each sea, or nautical, day, which is at noon. This is called ‘dead-reckoning,’ and is useful as a check on observations, and also when on account of cloudy weather no observation can be taken. Of course, for such reckoning we must have some fixed point to start from, or ‘point of departure,’ as it is called. Ours in the present case is the point, back here a few miles, that we established by finding its latitude and longitude, and marking it on the chart.

“There is one more thing to be thought of in our dead-reckoning, and that is the leeway. This may be caused by ocean currents, or by a beam wind, which not only acts upon the sails, so as to force the vessel ahead, but to a certain extent drives her sidewise. This must be allowed for, and every captain must use his own judgment to determine what leeway his vessel is making, and how much her course should be altered to allow for it. Now I am going to allow a couple of points for leeway, and instead of keeping her due west, Breeze, you may make it west-south-west.”

“Ay, ay, sir!” answered Breeze, promptly; “west-sou’west,” and he altered the brig’s course slightly in obedience to these instructions.

220“At the same time,” continued the captain, “we shall mark the course on the chart, as though we were heading due west.”

All this had been so interesting to the young sailors that, though already quite hungry again, they were almost sorry to hear Nimbus announce dinner just at this point.

After dinner, and after Captain McCloud had rested for an hour in the cabin, the boys asked him to tell them how he escaped from his awful position in the forecastle of the capsized Sea Robin, and of his experiences, since that time.

“Well,” he replied, “of course I will tell you the whole story; but I hate so to think of that time that I shall make my yarn as brief as possible.”

“You left off,” said Breeze, “just where poor Dick Simonds had dived out of the forecastle, and you didn’t hear anything more of him.”

"Yes, I remember. Well, as you can imagine, I felt badly enough in that place, all alone, with the water steadily gaining on me, and not the faintest hope of escaping. I would have followed Dick Simonds in a moment, but that I knew there was no chance of getting out that way. To do so would simply have been to commit suicide, and that has always seemed to me a pretty mean and cowardly way of escaping trouble.

221"When we were first shut in there we could sit on the edge of the lower bunks; but before Dick left the water had risen so that we were sitting in it, and I soon had to stand on the bunks to keep out of it. It must have been night again, for no ray of light came in through the broken hatch, when I found the water so deep that I was obliged to climb up on the foremast, and sit there with my head between two of the bunks on the upper side. I knew this was the last move I could make, and I fully expected to die there. I had no way of knowing how long I sat there; but it seemed like many hours, and doubtless was.

"All of a sudden, I seemed to hear faint, far-away voices, then some heavy object struck the hull of the schooner, and directly I heard footsteps, as though men were walking upon the bottom above me. I nearly suffocated in my efforts to shout; but somehow I couldn’t utter a sound. I don’t know whether it was from excitement or weakness, but my voice had left me. Then I tried to make them hear by pounding with my fists on the planking overhead; but though I kept it up until my hands were bleeding and numb, the sound did not reach them. At last I ceased to hear the footsteps, and imagined that the men, having satisfied their curiosity, were going to leave, which, as I afterwards found out, was the case.

222"At that moment I thought of my watch, which was still in my pocket, and which, as you know, Breeze, had a very heavy silver case. Pounding on the planking with it, I succeeded in making a sound that attracted their attention just as they were about to pull away. I never stopped my pounding for a moment until somebody sung out, ‘Hello in the schooner! Is anybody inside there?’

"I found voice then to answer that I was in there all alone, that the water had nearly reached me, and to beg them not to go away without trying to do something for me.

"‘All right, shipmate,’ came the answer; ‘we won’t leave you as long as there’s a chance of saving you. You may count on that. We are only going for some tools to cut a hole with, and will be back in a few minutes. So keep up a good heart.’

"I heard them go away and then return again; and by rapping on the planking with my watch, I managed to show them a place between two ribs where there was no inside sheathing. Here they began to cut, after asking me how thick the planking was. They did not break through in any one place until they had cut very nearly through all around, for fear of making holes out of which the air would rush. In that case, you see, the schooner would quickly sink, taking me with her.

“At last they sang out for me to keep from under, as 223they were ready to break in. Then came three or four quick blows, a section about two feet square was crushed in, and somehow I got out through the opening. I think I must have been almost shot out by the confined air that rushed out with a roar. At any rate, there was barely time for the men to drag me into their boat and push back a few yards from the wreck when she sank like a stone. The boat was spun around and around like a straw in the vortex that it made, and for a moment they were afraid that it was going to be sucked under. I knew nothing of this until afterwards, for I became unconscious the moment I got into the fresh air and out of the foul gases I had been breathing so long. When I recovered I was lying in a berth in the Esmeralda’s cabin.”

“The Esmeralda’s cabin!” interrupted Breeze. “Was it this very brig, father?”

"Yes; I was lying in the cabin of this very brig, which was bound for the west coast of Africa, with a cargo of salt fish from the Provinces. It seemed that, while lying becalmed that morning, they had drifted close to the wreck of the Sea Robin, and the mate, with a couple of men, had boarded it out of curiosity. They had got into their boat again to leave, without a suspicion that anybody was in her, when they heard the noise I made pounding with the old watch. The men said it was only 224rats, and wanted to go on; but the mate insisted on finding out what it really was.

"All hands, from the captain down, did everything for me; but it was a long time before I recovered from the horror of those two days shut up with the rats in that wreck. I was always on the lookout for some vessel on which I might get a passage to the United States, but we only spoke two on the whole voyage. One of these was bound for South America and the other around the Horn, so I stuck by the brig.

"We made a quick run out, discharged our cargo promptly, and tried to take in our return cargo of palm-oil quickly, so as to start back before the sickly season set in. Somehow, though, everything seemed to work against us. One delay followed another, until we had spent three months on the coast cruising from the mouth of one pestiferous river to another, picking up our cargo in small lots here and there.

"At last the fever broke out among us, and the captain was the first one to go. Then the cook died, and we got Nimbus in his place. Fortunately for us, he was visiting his old home at that time, and ever since he came aboard he has proved one of the best all-round hands I ever had on a vessel. The mate and crew begged me to act as captain and take the brig home, which I finally consented 225to do. I got away from the coast as quickly as possible, in hopes of saving the rest of them; but having once got its hold, the fever would not let go, and they dropped off one after another. I was taken down nearly a month ago, and the first mate not until two weeks later; but the fever made short work with him, poor fellow! When I got about again I found that Nimbus and I were the only ones left, and nothing but his constant care and good nursing pulled me through. The vessel has been left to drift for I don’t know how long; but, fortunately, we have had no very severe weather, and with such help as Nimbus could give her, she has taken care of herself.

“It’s a sad story, but it’s all past and done with now. After this wonderful meeting with you, I think the hard luck of the old brig must have left her, and within a few days more we’ll carry her, safe and sound, into Gloucester harbor.”

Captain McCloud and Wolfe Brady stood watch for the first half of that night, and at midnight they turned in, while Breeze and Nimbus came on deck.

Two hours later Nimbus, who was steering, lashed his wheel, and said they must heave the log, as the wind had freshened considerably. They got a lantern on deck, and Breeze was to turn and watch the glass, while Nimbus held the reel.

226The line had run about half out when it was suddenly slacked by the rising of the brig on a heavy sea. The slack caught on something, and Breeze leaned far over the taffrail to clear it. As he did so the big sea that had lifted her seemed to slide out from under the vessel, she dropped into the hollow with a sharp lurch, and the boy was flung far from her. Without a sound he disappeared, and the blackness of the night closed over him as the brig swept on her course.

CHAPTER XVII. OVERBOARD AND INBOARD.

Nimbus was of a peculiarly nervous temperament, and very apt to do things in moments of excitement that he regretted exceedingly as soon as he found time for reflection. So, in the present instance, acting impulsively, as he saw Breeze flung overboard in the darkness, he did just the wrong thing, and what, half a minute later, he would have given anything to undo. He should have tossed overboard a life-preserver or other object that would float, put the helm hard down, and thrown the brig up into the wind, thereby checking her headway and putting her into a position to sail back over the course she had just come. At the same time he should have called Captain McCloud and Wolfe. Above all, he should have instantly cut loose dory No. 6, which was towing astern by a short but stout line, so that Breeze might have a chance of seeing and reaching it almost as soon as he came to the surface after his plunge.

Instead of doing any of these things, the impulsive negro, 228who was still a young and active man though very fond of calling himself “old,” slid down into the dory, cut the line by which she was towing, and seized a pair of oars. He had done all this as silently as Breeze had tumbled overboard, and without making a single outcry to alarm the two sleepers left on board the brig.

The instant he had cut the line and found himself adrift he realized the folly of his act, and began to shout at the top of his voice, in the hope that it was not yet too late to arouse Captain McCloud and Wolfe. At the same time he began to pull wildly after the swiftly moving brig. He quickly realized that this was of no use, for she was moving three feet to his one, nor did his shouts bring any response from those on board. In spite of his excitement, a certain instinct told him that, so long as he could not catch the brig, the only thing remaining for him to do was to face about and try to find Breeze.

His movements had been so quick that he was at no great distance from where the boy had struck the water, and was now swimming in the direction of the vanishing brig. He, at least, heard the cries uttered by Nimbus, and answered them. He had retained his presence of mind wonderfully, and now realized that somebody was searching for him. So he swam as easily as possible, but continued to shout at regular intervals; and in about five 229minutes he had the satisfaction of seeing the dory loom out of the darkness close beside him. In another minute he had caught hold of its gunwale, and been drawn in, dripping and chilled, but very thankful for this escape from what had seemed a hopeless situation. His first glance was towards the brig, but he could not see even a shadow resembling her. She had disappeared in the darkness as utterly as though she had never existed.

“They must have put her about and headed her this way by this time,” he said to Nimbus. “I wonder that we don’t see her.”

“No, sah; dey don’ put um ’bout. Dey sailin’ away, an’ nebber know nuffin. Ole fool Nim nebber tell ’em good-by. Come off an’ keep on sayin’ nuffin at all to nobody.”

“You don’t mean to say, Nimbus, that you left without giving any alarm! without waking my father or Wolfe!”

“Yes, sah,” answered the black man in a most crestfallen tone. “Didn’t wake nobody. Didn’t t’ink ob nuffin scusin’ how to sabe young cap’n. Jump quick in boat, cut um ’drif, an’ come. Bimeby catch um, pull um in. Here he is! Here we is!”

“Yes, that’s certain enough, ‘here we is,’ and how we’re going to get out of this scrape it would puzzle a sea lawyer to tell. I suppose you did the best thing you 230could think of. If you’d only given an alarm, though! Now, with the wheel lashed, the brig may sail on for hours, always getting farther and farther away from us, before either of them wakes up. Well, we’re not dead yet, and while there’s life there’s hope. I’m very grateful to you, at any rate, for coming to me so quickly. Now, perhaps you can do me another good turn by telling me how to keep from freezing to death in these wet clothes.”

Yes, indeed, Nimbus could do that, and in a minute more Breeze had stripped off his soaked garments, slipped into his oil-skin jacket and trousers, which had fortunately been left in the dory, and was rapidly getting warm by hard work at the oars. At the same time Nimbus, with powerful hands, was wringing the wet clothing as dry as though it were in a centrifugal steam-wringer. Of course the things were still damp and cold when Breeze again put them on; but, with his oil-skins drawn over them to keep out the wind, and still keeping up his exercise with the oars, he was soon in a glow.

As he rowed he instinctively kept the dory headed on the same course the brig had taken, by holding her broadside to the wind, which still blew steadily from the southward.

At last the day broke, gray and cheerless, but free from 231fog. Each time the boat was lifted on a wave its occupants scanned the ever-widening horizon eagerly, in the hope of sighting some vessel. At last the day had fully come, and they knew the full extent of their disappointment. Their frail craft was the only object floating on the whole weary expanse of tumbling waters.

For a long time they sat in silence. Neither had any words of comfort to offer the other. Finally Nimbus said, mournfully,

“Who you s’pose cookin’ on de brig for de cap’n, now ole Nim done gone?”

“I don’t know,” answered Breeze, rousing up from his sorrowful reflections, and making a brave effort to throw off the gloomy thoughts that were taking possession of him, “but I guess they’ll manage to make out somehow. I know I could in their place.”

“Dey habin’ all de grub, an’ no cook in de camboose. We habin’ de cook, but no grub an’ no camboose,” continued Nimbus, following up the train of thoughts suggested by his hunger.

“No grub! Why, yes we have, right on board this very blessed dory,” cried Breeze, to whose memory the black man’s words recalled the ship-biscuit, a dozen of which still remained in the little stern locker. The stock of provisions which he thereupon produced seemed to restore 232both strength and hope to Nimbus, and he fairly laughed when he saw it.

“Ole Nim all right,” he declared, “so long he teef keep a-grindin’ an’ a-crunchin’.”

As they ate one apiece of the precious biscuit Breeze thought of Wolfe’s praise and disdain of this same food the day before, and wondered if he should ever again see his light-hearted dorymate.

In the fresh-water keg so little of the precious fluid remained that they allowed themselves only a single swallow with which to wash down the dry biscuit. On this account their simple meal was as prolonged as though it had been quite a substantial feast.

After they had finished this very unsatisfactory breakfast, and had resolutely put away the few biscuit that remained, in spite of their longing to eat them all, Nimbus said, “Well, young cap’n, wot we do now?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Breeze, “unless we try and row to land.”

“Wot lan’? Ware he? How far?”

“Father said yesterday that Sable Island bore due west 365 miles from where we were then. We must have come, let me see, seven and a half knots an hour for fourteen hours would be 105 miles. From 365, that leaves 260, and we have rowed perhaps ten. It must be about 233250 miles away from us at this minute. Do you think we could possibly row that distance, Nimbus?”

“Don’ know. Ole Mim row hard, row long way for grub. But how you fin’ um? Got no compass. How you steer um due wes’?”

“That’s so. I didn’t think of that. I don’t suppose the wind will always blow from the southward. Perhaps it has changed and is blowing from some other direction even now, and we don’t know the difference. And to think that I have got a compass here and can’t open it! I suppose I might manage to force the ball open with my knife, but that might break the compass.”

“Wot you say? You got um compass?” exclaimed Nimbus, who had listened attentively, while his companion thus thought aloud.

“Yes,” replied Breeze, drawing the golden ball from its pocket and unclasping the chain. “There’s a compass in this ball, but nobody knows how to open it.”

“Let ole Nim see um,” said the other, extending his great black hand for the trinket.

He examined it with the closest attention for more than a minute, and then said,

“Nim can open um.”

“You can open it?” exclaimed Breeze, in great astonishment.

234“I t’ink so. Seen plenty all de same like um in de Eas’ Injes.”

“Well, let me see you do it.”

After much fumbling in the thick mat of wool that served him for hair, Nimbus drew from it a pin. With this he began to trace out, carefully and very slowly, the lines of the quaint pattern engraved on the surface of the ball. He followed one of them around and around, in and out, for several minutes, often stopping, going back, and beginning all over again. He did not speak, and Breeze, eagerly watching his movements, was also silent.

At last the movement of the pin was stopped, and on the spot that it indicated the pressure of a thumb-nail released a spring. The upper half of the ball swung on its pivot, and once more its interior was displayed to view.

“Well, if that don’t beat everything!” exclaimed Breeze. “How on earth did you ever learn that trick, Nimbus?”

“Him a labyrim ball,” answered the black man.

“A what?”

“A labyrim. Same like you might get los’ in.”

“Oh, a labyrinth.”

“Yes, sah, a labyrim, an’ if you fin’ de p’int ob de startin’, an foller to de end, den you open um.”

This was indeed the whole secret of the ball, and after 235it had been explained to Breeze he too could trace the delicate line from its beginning, which was plainly to be seen, to its end above the hidden spring. There was no distinguishing mark to indicate this point, and it was almost impossible to locate it, even after one had found it many times, without first tracing out the labyrinth. The accident by which Breeze had hit upon it and opened the ball while asleep was so unlikely to occur that, knowing the secret, he now wondered more than ever that it had happened. Nimbus had learned the secret of similar puzzles upon one of his many voyages to East Indian ports, and was made proud and happy by this opportunity of displaying his skill.

“Now,” he said, with a smile that exhibited two glistening rows of ivory, “we got a compass, we go fur Saple Islan’. Ole Nim row like steam-ingin’.”

And he did row like a steam-driven machine, with long, powerful strokes, hour after hour, all through the day--never faltering, never stopping, and never seeming to tire. To Breeze, who watched him with ever-increasing astonishment, he was a marvel of endurance. Breeze also rowed with the second pair of oars the greater part of the day; but he was several times obliged to stop and rest. With such unflagging energy was the dory urged forward that when night came he did not doubt they had made fifty 236miles since morning. He really began to hope that they might possibly reach Sable Island, though he still admitted that the chances were largely against their doing so.

They had decided to eat but two biscuit apiece each day, and thus make their scanty store last them three days; after which they looked forward to two days of starving before they could hope to sight the island. Even when they should have covered the required distance, they knew how little chance there was of their finding the long, low sand-bank, which is all that Sable Island is. The probabilities were that currents or winds might carry them so far either to the north or south that they would miss it entirely. They anticipated great suffering, and nerved themselves to bear it; but, happily, they were not to be called upon to undergo it.

Night had fallen, and as they could no longer see their compass, and the sky still remained overcast, they had ceased to row. Breeze, tired out with his day’s hard work, had fallen into a doze, while Nimbus sat silently gazing into the darkness. Breeze had slept for about an hour when he was awakened by a touch, and the voice of the black man saying, “Young cap’n, dere’s a light!”

The boy sprang up and gazed eagerly in the direction indicated. For a while he could see nothing; then he 237caught a momentary glimpse of it, the red side-light of some vessel sailing past them far to the southward. Nimbus had already taken to the oars, and was pulling like a madman in that direction. Watching the light closely, Breeze soon saw that it was moving too fast for them either to intercept or overtake it.

“It’s no use, Nimbus,” he said finally, “you are only wasting your strength. We can never catch that fellow. Oh for a match, though! If we could only make some kind of a flare!”

“Match!” cried Nimbus. “Yes, sah; dreckly, sah!”

With this he began to fumble again in his thatch of wool, which seemed almost as well supplied with articles required by shipwrecked sailors as was the famous bag in “The Swiss Family Robinson;” and in a moment he drew a brimstone match from it.

Breeze was too busy cutting the oil-skin biscuit-bag into strips to notice from what a curious safe the match was produced; and when it was offered to him he only said, “Light it quick! and I believe we’ll start a flare after all.”

In another moment one of the strips of oiled muslin was blazing finely; and, standing on a thwart, Breeze held it as high as he could reach above his head.

Before it had burned out another was lighted, and then 238another, but still no answering signal was seen. The boy’s heart had almost failed him as he lighted the last strip and waved it to and fro. Suddenly a bright flame darted out of the blackness from the direction in which the red light had just disappeared, and with a great blinding rush of joy he knew that their signal had been seen and answered.

They still continued to row with all their might in that direction, their hearts filled with the joyful emotions of unexpected hope. Although they had no breath with which to express it, the thought that it was the brig on her way back to look for them had entered both their minds. Breeze saw visions of his father and Wolfe and home, with the mother who awaited him there; while Nimbus revelled in thoughts of his beloved camboose, and of all the good things he would cook and eat as soon as he once more got into it.

A backward glance soon showed them both the sailing-lights of the vessel, and told them that her course had been altered so that she was headed in their direction. Then they began to shout, and at last heard the welcome answering hail. Finally the ghostly outline of sails and spars became visible. It was a schooner.

“BLESS MY SOUL, IF IT ISN’T BREEZE McCLOUD!”

They could hardly believe it at first, so convinced had they become that it must be the brig, but as she drew 239near they saw that she was indeed a schooner, and a regular Gloucester Banker at that.

Five minutes later they stood on her deck, and as the light of a lantern shone on his face, Breeze was seized by the hand, and a well-known voice exclaimed, “Bless my soul if it isn’t Breeze McCloud!”

CHAPTER XVIII. NEWS FROM HOME.

The voice that greeted Breeze so heartily was that of Captain Ezra Coffin, and the schooner he had just boarded was the Fish-hawk. The boy could hardly believe his senses. Could it be that he had again fallen in with friends on the high seas? Was this really the schooner he had left in Gloucester more than a month before? It did not seem possible, and yet here was Captain Coffin shaking his hand, old Mateo dancing about and trying for a chance to embrace him, and other familiar faces, seen dimly by the lantern-light, crowding forward to greet him.

Mateo, the cook, could not contain his joy, but danced and shouted extravagantly, “We found ’em! we found ’em! Me tella you fader we finda you, Breeza. Where zat rasca, Nimba, zat Guinea boy? You bringa him, eh, Breeza?”

“Here I,” cried Nimbus, who had stood back unnoticed as the crew crowded around Breeze. “Who callin’ me rask? Wot he mean? Ware he?”

241At the sound of this voice old Mateo, who had just succeeded in embracing Breeze, left him, made one bound to where the black man stood, and seizing him by his wonderful ears, began to shake his head violently, exclaiming, “You no a raska, eh? you black pickaninny! Ole Mateo teacha you! He pulla you ear many time! you forgetta him, eh?”

Nimbus was at first bewildered and thrown off his guard by this sudden attack, but recovering himself quickly, he seized the little cook with his powerful hands, and raising him clear of the deck, held him, kicking and screaming, at arm’s-length above his head, while he executed a waddling, uncouth sort of a war-dance. As he did so he shouted, or rather chanted,

“Ah, you ole Mateo! Now I know um well! You ole Portugee man! You pull Nimbo’s ears when he pickaninny! You show um de cookin’ ob de duff an’ de scouse! Now you gwine a-fishin’! You t’ink you catch um one time mo’, but you is mistooken! He grown to be a whale! He catch you, an’ he eat you! You ole rask yo’se’f!”

All this was shouted out in a singsong tone, to which the grotesque dancing-steps of the black man kept time. The whole affair was so ludicrous that the members of the crew screamed with laughter, and rolled on the deck 242in the excess of their merriment. Even Captain Coffin and Breeze were compelled to join in the general mirth, and the latter laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks. It was a great relief and pleasure to enjoy a hearty laugh once more after the sadness and anxiety of the days just past, and it did the boy more good than anything that could have happened just then.

The comical actions of Mateo and Nimbus were their peculiar modes of expressing great joy at again meeting with each other. Years before, Mateo, while cooking on board a vessel engaged in the African trade, had picked up Nimbus, then a boy, and taken him as an assistant. They had sailed together for several years, and had then lost sight of each other. This curious encounter in mid-ocean was their first meeting since that time.

When Nimbus set Mateo down, the old cook shook his fist in the face of his former pupil. He said nothing to him then, for he had just bethought himself of a neglected duty, and stepping over to where Breeze and the captain were standing, he uttered the famous expression that had so often proved a welcome one to the boy:

“Vell, Breeza, you hongry, eh?”

NIMBUS, RAISING HIM CLEAR OF THE DECK, HELD HIM AT ARM’S-LENGTH ABOVE HIS HEAD.

“I should say I was hungry. I guess anybody would be if he’d had only a couple of dry ship’s biscuit to eat in more than twenty-four hours.”

243“Holy feesh!” exclaimed Mateo, “you got ze ship’s cook an’ nottin’ do for eat? zat lazy Nimba! heem no good!”

The two castaways certainly tried their best to lay in a liberal supply of food for future use that evening, and it was hard to tell which was the happier, old Mateo in seeing them eat, or they in eating. Of course Nimbus found fault with each dish, and would not acknowledge that anything was as good as he could have prepared it, had he been lord of the galley, and of course Mateo treated his claims to be considered a cook with scorn. Thus was begun the professional rivalry between these two curious specimens of sea cooks, that offered infinite amusement to the crew of the Fish-hawk, and made this voyage one long to be remembered and laughed over.

When he had reached the stage at which he began to think of ship-biscuit much as Wolfe had done after their first meal on the brig, Breeze left the cooks to settle their differences as best they might, and went on deck for a talk with the skipper. From him he learned that the Fish-hawk was only four days out from Gloucester, and that when he last saw Mrs. McCloud she was well, though worrying sadly over the unexplained disappearance of her boy.boy.

“How did it all happen, Breeze?” asked the captain. 244“Wolfe Brady tried to tell me something about it, but I hadn’t time to hear much.”

“Wolfe Brady!” exclaimed Breeze. “What do you mean? Where have you seen Wolfe Brady?”

"Why, yesterday! Didn’t I tell you? How careless! I thought I told you first thing after you came aboard that we fell in with the Esmeralda yesterday; no, I mean to-day, for it isn’t midnight yet, about noon, and seeing her signal of distress I went aboard of her.

“I was never more surprised in my life than when I found your father and Wolfe Brady on the vessel, and all alone. You could have knocked me down with a rope yarn. They were in terrible low spirits over losing you, and didn’t know how to account for it. They had not waked until daylight, and had no idea of how long you had been gone or what had happened. Their only hope was that so long as the black man and the dory had gone too, you were both drifting round somewhere in it. They would have put their brig about and started back to look for you, but they hadn’t the strength to swing the yards. Altogether they formed a melancholy ship’s company.”

“That accounts for Mateo’s asking if I had brought Nimbus with me,” said Breeze. “I wondered how he knew anything about it. Poor father and poor Wolfe! Could you do anything to help them, captain?”

245“Oh yes; I put two men aboard to take the brig into Gloucester, and promised to sail over the course they had just come, and keep the sharpest kind of a lookout for you. Wolfe Brady wanted to come with us, but felt that his duty lay with your father. He said, though, he would never go dorymates with anybody else if you shouldn’t turn up again. Captain McCloud was very much broken down over losing you under such circumstances, so soon after your wonderful meeting with each other, and I was afraid he was going to have a relapse of his fever. For that reason I made him promise, before I left him, that he would take the brig at once into port, and not attempt to find you. I, of course, had no idea that you could be found, and had not the slightest hope of ever seeing you again. How did you manage to follow the brig’s course so well without any compass and under a clouded sky?”

“We had a compass,” replied Breeze, smiling.

“Did you? They said on board the brig that there was none in the dory, and that, provided you were in it, you would probably be lying to a drag about where they left you.”

Then Breeze told Captain Coffin the whole story of the golden ball, and the important part it had played in directing their movements.

When he had finished the captain said, “Well, it has 246certainly saved you this time by bringing you to this point; for if I had kept the course I was steering all night, and you had simply drifted before the wind, we might have been anywhere from thirty to fifty miles apart by morning. I don’t see now why you didn’t drift farther to the northward with this southerly wind.”

“I guess it was because I made a pretty big allowance for leeway,” replied Breeze.

“Oh yes; if you thought of that, I’ve no doubt it was.”

“By-the-way, captain, how does it happen that you are only just now on your way to the Banks?” asked Breeze. “I thought you were to start within a week after the Vixen left Gloucester.”

“So we did,” replied the skipper, “and got as far as Banquereau. There we lost our foremast in a gale, and ran back after a new stick. While we were refitting I heard such bad reports from the Banks that I determined to try a new ground to me, and make a trip to the Iceland coast after a load of fletched^[H] halibut.”

“To Iceland!” cried Breeze, in dismay.

“Yes, lad, to Iceland. Sixteen hundred miles farther 247away from Gloucester than we are now. Twenty-four hundred miles to go, and the same distance to return, is a pretty long fishing trip, isn’t it? But it will soon be over, and early next autumn we’ll land you safe and sound in Gloucester again, in plenty of time to get ready for a winter’s trip to George’s if you want to take one.”

The idea of going on such a long voyage, and having his return home deferred for several months, was so startling to Breeze that for a few moments he remained silent, not knowing what to answer.

“Why, lad,” said the captain, “what else is there for you to do? You know I can’t afford to put back to Gloucester again simply to carry you there. It would cost a thousand dollars to do that. Even if we should put about now and try to find the brig again, it isn’t at all likely we could do so. I am short-handed from having let two men go back with her, and you and your black friend will just give me a full crew again. Besides, your dunnage is already aboard and waiting for you. I meant to have sent it up to your house before sailing, but I forgot it. But, I say, Breeze, you haven’t told me yet how you happened to take French leave and come off to the Banks the way you did. Your poor mother was almost distracted when you didn’t come home that night, nor yet the next day. She sat up all night long waiting for you, and was at 248my house by daylight to get me to go and look for you.”

“Poor mother!” said Breeze, pityingly. “The worst of being carried off so was the thought of her distress, and now she’ll have a new cause for trouble when father and Wolfe get home and can’t tell her whether I’m dead or alive.”

“You were carried off, then?”

“Of course we were. You don’t suppose I would have gone off in that way of my own accord, do you?”

“No, not exactly; but there were ugly stories around town about your having been seen at Grimes’s, and been chased by the police for creating a disturbance on the streets. Of course your mother wouldn’t believe a word of them, and I didn’t wholly either, for I know how such things get exaggerated; but I was afraid you might have got into some sort of a scrape.”

When Breeze had told Captain Coffin the whole story of that night, the latter said, cordially,

“I believe every word you tell me, Breeze, and I think you acted just right under the circumstances; in fact, I do not see how you could have done anything else. Still, I think your long absence on this voyage will prove a good thing for you. It will give Wolfe Brady plenty of time to deny all the false stories, and will also give people time 249to believe him. You know it always takes folks longer to believe good than bad stories about a person.”

“Well, sir,” said Breeze, “under the circumstances, and as the only other thing to do would be to get into dory No. 6, and drift away again, I believe I’ll ship with you for this Iceland trip.”

“Yes, I think you had better,” replied the skipper, gravely.

Breeze was much pleased to find again the outfit of clothing that he had transferred to the Fish-hawk from the Albatross. After weeks of wearing old garments, picked up here and there among his recent shipmates on the Vixen, it was indeed a comfort to be able to dress himself once more in a full suit of his own clothes.

The Fish-hawk was a much larger and more comfortable schooner than any he had sailed in before; and only the thought that there were sorrow and anxiety in the little home cottage on his account prevented him from thoroughly enjoying the prospect of a trip in her to far distant seas. Even this cause of trouble was partially removed two days later, when they sighted several fishing schooners, and the skipper offered to run down to them, and ask the first one that should be homeward bound to take letters, and also to report Breeze McCloud as safe and well.

250As they drew near, one of these anchored vessels seemed strangely familiar to Breeze, who, after looking at her through a glass, said, “I do believe it’s the old Vixen.” He was right, and no men could have been more surprised than were her crew, when, soon afterwards, he and Captain Coffin rowed to her in dory No. 6. They welcomed Breeze as one from the dead, and there was not a man on board but shook him heartily by the hand and gave him a cordial greeting. Of them all, none appeared so glad to see him as poor Hank Hoffer, who, still suffering greatly from the effects of his exposure in the ice, had never ceased to mourn the loss of his brave young rescuers.

They were intensely interested in the story he had to tell them of his experiences since drifting away in the fog, and all declared that they had never before heard of any one person having such peculiar adventures during a single trip to the Banks. The Vixen was to return to Gloucester in two or three weeks more, and her skipper promised to contradict any unpleasant rumors he might hear concerning Breeze, and to tell the true story of his mysterious departure. He also promised to deliver, immediately upon his arrival, the letter Breeze had written to his mother, telling of his safety and where he had gone.

Before they left the Vixen her skipper told Captain 251Coffin that his anchor was caught on an ocean telegraph cable, and asked him whether he thought he ought to try and haul it up, thus running the risk of breaking the telegraph, or cut his own cable when he got ready to leave.

“Buoy your own cable and cut it, by all means,” replied Captain Coffin, promptly. “The telegraph company will pay you the full value of all that you lose, as soon as you send in a statement of the case to them. I did the same thing myself only about a year ago.”

After getting the suit of shore clothes he had left on the Vixen, Breeze bade his old shipmates good-by, and he and Captain Coffin returned to the Fish-hawk, one of the Vixen men going with them to carry back dory No. 6. Breeze could not help watching the departure of the old dory with regret, as he thought of all he had gone through with in it, and how often it had served him in times of danger.

As they sailed away from the Vixen, the thought of her being fast to a telegraph cable caused Breeze to ask the skipper how many cables there were crossing the Atlantic.

“I believe there are ten in all,” was the answer. “Two of them run to Newfoundland, and eight cross the fishing banks, and land either on the Nova Scotia or New England coast.”

252“Is the very first one still working?” asked Breeze.

“No, the first one, which was laid in 1858, was only able to transmit, very feebly, one or two messages, and then it became silent, never to speak again. The first one that was of any real service was laid in 1864, as I well remember, for I saw the Great Eastern while she was laying it; but I believe that also has been long since abandoned.”

While they were thus talking they lost sight of the Vixen, and were once more alone on the broad ocean. Then Breeze, for the first time, fully realized that he was really bound on a long voyage across the stormy Atlantic to the distant coast of Iceland.

CHAPTER XIX. THE DEVIL-FISH OF FLEMISH CAP.

Captain Coffin was an unusually well-informed man, and as Breeze was always on the lookout for stray bits of information, he took advantage of the opportunity afforded by this long voyage to ask the skipper a great many questions. One day, soon after leaving the Vixen, the lead, running out to a great depth, showed them to have crossed the Grand Bank, and to be on the deep waters of the North Atlantic. While they were talking of this, Breeze asked the captain how he supposed the Banks had been formed.

“My theory is,” answered the skipper, “that they were formed, and are constantly being added to, by icebergs. You see, every spring thousands of these big fellows come sailing down through Davis Strait for their summer outing. They bring with them tons and tons of gravel and sand, collected while they formed part of slow-moving arctic glaciers, or picked up off the bottom as they drifted along the Greenland and Labrador coasts. Now, no matter 254how large an iceberg is above water, it is more than twice as big below the surface--that is, we see less than one-third of its whole bulk, while the rest is under water. I saw one once aground in forty fathoms. Well, by-and-by the part that is under water begins to feel the influence of the Gulf Stream, and to melt much more rapidly than that which is above. As the bergs drift about in this melting condition, they lose, here and there, quantities of the sand they have brought with them. After a while they have melted away so much under water that they become top-heavy and capsize with a tremendous flurry, pitching overboard a great deal more of their cargo. Finally they melt away entirely, and all the material they have brought down from the north is swept up by the Gulf Stream, and deposited along its northern edge on what we call the Banks. To form them has been the slow but unceasing work of unnumbered centuries.”

“But why doesn’t this great quantity of sand and gravel pile itself up until it finally reaches the surface and becomes an island or a lot of small islands?”

“Because of the fierce currents that are continually sweeping over the Banks and scattering the material far and wide. They are caused by the mighty flow of the St. Lawrence River, by tides and winds, and very largely by the Gulf Stream; for, with such a volume of warm 255water flowing north and east all the time, there must be an equal quantity of cold water flowing south and west to take its place.”

“That’s so;” said Breeze, “I might have thought of that.”

“Many persons,” continued Captain Coffin, “imagine the Banks to be islands of mud rising to within a few feet of the surface, and even showing above it in places; and I have been asked if navigation on them was not very dangerous on account of the shoal water. I actually had a man ask me once if we often went ashore on the Banks.”

“Of course, I have always known better than that,” said Breeze; “but I don’t know how near they do come to the surface.”

“The shoalest waters of the Grand Bank,” answered the skipper, “are three fathoms, on the Virgin Rocks, ninety miles to the southward of Cape Race, and from that the depth increases to two hundred fathoms; while to the south-east of the Bank soundings of six miles have failed to reach bottom.”

“Well, there isn’t much danger of running aground in such waters,” laughed Breeze, “and I’m very much obliged to you for this information; but who do you suppose first found out that there were fish on the Banks?”

256“I don’t know; perhaps it was that old Iceland fellow, Lief Erikson, who they say first discovered America. I have been told by the French fishermen who come over here every summer that their countrymen knew of these grounds as early as 1504, and that less than twenty-five years from the time that Columbus made his first voyage, a fleet of more than a hundred French, Spanish, and Portuguese fishing vessels were visiting them regularly every summer.”

“I should think with such constant fishing the supply would give out,” said Breeze.

“It would seem so, but it doesn’t; and I believe there are just as many fish on the Banks now as there ever were. Of course, there are more in some seasons than in others. This, for instance, appears to be an off year, and that is the reason I am going to see if they haven’t gone to the other side of the ocean for the summer.”

Soon after this the Fish-hawk reached the small bank known as Flemish Cap, about three hundred miles east of Grand Bank, and the most distant of all the American fishing grounds. This was just twelve hundred miles from Gloucester, or half-way to Iceland, and Captain Coffin determined to set a few trawls, and see if they could not pick up some halibut here. As, under reduced sail, the schooner moved slowly across the Bank, several 257of the crew got out hand-lines and dropped them over the side. Among these was Nimbus, who, never having been on a fishing vessel before, was delighted to have a chance to try his luck at the new business, and very anxious to catch a halibut.

Now, Breeze was possessed of the peculiar power of ventriloquism, or the ability to so use his voice as to make it seem to come from other places than that in which he stood. He had only recently discovered this power, but had practised continually while on board the Vixen, and had become fairly skilful in performing the trick. In the excitement of the past week he had not thought of it; but now, as he saw Nimbus baiting a hook, and, under Mateo’s direction, preparing to make his first attempt at fishing, it flashed into his mind that here was a chance for some fun. He stationed himself close beside the two cooks, and waited patiently.

After a while there came a tug at the line, and Nimbus began excitedly to haul in. As the fish approached the surface old Mateo went in search of a gaff, with which to get it on deck. Just as its nose showed out of the water, and the black man was about to give a great shout of joy over his success, a voice, coming apparently from the halibut’s mouth, cried out,

“Let go, Nimbus, you hurt!”

258For a moment the negro stood petrified with amazement, his mouth wide open as it had been in readiness for his shout of triumph, and his eyeballs rolling wildly.

Once more the fish spoke. “Let go, I say!”

This was too much. With a yell of terror the negro dropped his line, which went whizzing out over the rail, and sprang backward. As he did so he encountered old Mateo, just coming to his aid with the gaff. The force of the collision sent the two cooks rolling on deck together. Nimbus shouting, “Ow! ow! luff ole Nim alone; he nebber catch um no mo’!” and Mateo clutching at the black man’s ears, and spluttering out his wrath in Portuguese.

He was the first to scramble to his feet, and picking up the gaff, began to belabor Nimbus over the head with its handle. Just then Breeze, who, though choking with laughter, had caught the line and pulled the halibut once more to the surface, called to him for help in getting it aboard.

As the little man, responding to this summons, reached over the schooner’s side with the gaff, and prepared to hook it into the great white fish, he nearly tumbled overboard with the fright of hearing a voice directly beneath him say,

“What do you want with me, old Mateo? I ain’t your fish.”

259Mateo bounded from the deck as though he had received an electric shock, and had not one of the crew who stood near seized the gaff, it would have dropped into the water as it fell from his hand.

The crew had by this time discovered the trick that Breeze was playing; but they were trying to suppress their laughter in order that the two victims of the joke might not suspect it.

As the halibut was lifted from the water and laid flapping on deck it seemed to say, “Well, this is what I call a mean trick! We heard you fellows were bound for Iceland, and--” There was no need to finish the remark, for before this point was reached old Mateo, with a howl of dismay, had darted forward and vanished in the forecastle, while Nimbus, with a yell of affright, had rolled aft and sought the safety of the cabin.

Then how those fishermen did roar with laughter, and stamp on the deck with their heavy boots, and slap Breeze on the back in token of their appreciation of his talent and its successful application! From that time forward he was obliged to exercise it frequently for the benefit of his shipmates; but it was long before Nimbus thoroughly understood it, or could be persuaded that the mysterious voices that seemed to come from all parts of the schooner were not produced by some invisible being.

260The readiness with which this first halibut had taken the hook determined Captain Coffin to make at least one set of the trawls at that point. It was to be a “set under sail.” That is, instead of coming to an anchor, the schooner, under easy sail, would drop one dory with its trawl, then another, and so on until all were out, when it would turn back, pick them up in the same order, and stand off and on near the buoys until it was time to haul. As each trawl was set at right angles to the course of the schooner, and there were six of them placed at intervals of half a mile, very nearly three square miles of bottom were thus covered.

The rest of the crew had been paired off, and had chosen their dories before Breeze and Nimbus came aboard, so these two naturally became dorymates. This time Nimbus was the green hand, and Breeze his instructor, in the art of trawl-setting. Everything went smoothly with them until they had partially hauled their trawl, when such a fearful thing happened to them that to this day Breeze cannot think of it without a shudder.

Nimbus was in the forward part of the dory hauling in the line, while Breeze stood just behind him, coiling it away. As they were thus engaged, the trawl seemed to catch in some heavy body, and, in spite of his strength, Nimbus was obliged to call upon Breeze for aid to move it.

261

MATEO, WITH A HOWL OF DISMAY, HAD DARTED FORWARD AND VANISHED IN THE FORECASTLE; WHILE NIMBUS, WITH A YELL OF AFFRIGHT, HAD ROLLED AFT.

“Mus’ hab um whale on de hook,” he panted, as he tugged at the straining line.

Directly the strain was slackened, so suddenly that they nearly tumbled over backward. The water surrounding the boat became black as ink, and from it darted something like a huge snake, that twined itself about the black man’s body. He gave a cry of horror, and tried to tear it loose, but at his first movement two more of the snake-like arms shot out from the inky water and also seized upon him. These twined about his legs and tripped him, so that he fell in the bottom of the boat, very nearly upsetting it. As it was, it was drawn so far over to one side by the weight of the creature attacking them that there was imminent danger of its filling, and leaving them to struggle powerlessly in the water.

All this had happened so suddenly that Nimbus was flat on his back before Breeze at all realized what was taking place. A glance over the side showed him two of the cruelest-looking eyes he had ever seen. They were quite round, very large, and projected from the base of the long writhing arms, or tentacles, that had seized upon Nimbus. Snatching up an oar, and using it as a sort of harpoon, Breeze aimed a furious blow at one of the protruding eyes. Whether he struck it or not he could not tell, for before he could recover the oar it was torn from 262his grasp and drawn under the water. At the same instant another of the monster’s tentacles was thrust upward and fastened upon him, pinning his left arm to his body.

In the first shock of his terror, Nimbus rolled, screaming and helpless, among the slippery fish in the bottom of the dory. Suddenly a cry from Breeze of “Help, Nimbus! Help me! I’m being dragged overboard!” seemed to restore his courage. He struggled to his knees, seized upon one of the snake-like things that held him, and, with a mighty wrench, literally tore it in two. This gave him some freedom of motion, and he managed to reach over to where Breeze was clinging to a gunwale, and drew the boy’s sheath-knife from his belt.

Now the black man became the attacking party, and with the keen-edged knife began to slash right and left at the clinging tentacles, several more of which had by this time risen from the water, and were endeavoring to seize him. He fought so savagely, and with such effect, that finally the monster, having lost five of his arms, sank sullenly from their sight beneath the discolored waters.

For several minutes after their enemy had disappeared they watched apprehensively for his return, dreading a renewal of the attack. Much of their trawl had run out during the struggle, and now, making a tub fast to it, they tossed it overboard, and while Breeze held up an oar 263as a signal for the schooner to come to them, Nimbus began to row towards her.

“What do you think it was, Nimbus?” Breeze asked, at length.

“Don’ know. Nebber see’d notting like um in all my sailin’. Mus’ be um debbil-fish.”

Although Nimbus had never heard of Victor Hugo, he had applied to his late enemy the same name given it by the great French writer, the “devil-fish,” which is so wonderfully described in the “Toilers of the Sea.”

“Well, I think it was a sea-serpent,” said Breeze, “and I’m not sure but what there were half a dozen of them, too.”

When Captain Coffin heard their story, and saw the portions of the monster that still remained in the dory, he fully realized the peril they had been in, and congratulated them upon their escape from the embrace of a giant cuttle-fish. He measured the largest of the arms that Nimbus had cut from the creature’s body. It was bloodless, and composed entirely of gristle, and from its length the skipper concluded the creature must have measured twenty feet from tip to tip of two of its arms.

“But what kind of a beast was it?” asked Breeze. “It had big eyes, and seemed to be swimming in ink, but I could not see any tail or fins.”

264“No, it did not have any. Its body was simply a round, leathery sack, about as big as a medium-sized squash. It had a horny beak like a parrot’s, and could have given you an ugly bite if it had got hold of you. The ink that it threw out was the sepia of commerce, from which India-ink is made. The creature was the giant squid, or octopus. He had eight arms, and but for your knife would undoubtedly have dragged you both to the bottom of the ocean.”

“Do they often attack people?” asked Breeze.

“No; they rarely appear on the surface of the water, and this fellow would not have done so if one of your trawl-hooks had not caught him. He belongs to the same family as the little squid we catch in such quantities on the Banks for cod bait.”

“I’d hate to have to catch such a fellow as he was for bait,” said Breeze, with a shudder.

“He’d make good whale bait,” replied the skipper. “There’s nothing the sperm-whale likes better. I once saw a piece of the arm of a cuttle-fish, thirty feet long, taken from a dead whale’s mouth, and we calculated that the creature to which it had belonged must have measured one hundred and twenty feet from tip to tip.”

“I thought a whale’s throat was too small to swallow a thing like that,” said Breeze.

265“Not the throat of a sperm-whale. That is large enough to swallow ’most anything. You are thinking of the right whale. He couldn’t swallow a mackerel, his throat is so small.”

One afternoon, ten days after this incident, by which time the crew of the Fish-hawk were heartily tired of the cold, stormy weather of the North Atlantic, the cry of “Land, ho!” rang through the schooner. The western sun, breaking through a bank of clouds, shone clear and full upon a distant snow-covered mountain-top. The ocean had been crossed, and Iceland was in sight.

CHAPTER XX. ON THE COAST OF ICELAND.

This first glimpse of the great northern island so fascinated Breeze that he could not take his eyes off the distant spot of glistening whiteness. It seemed too wonderful to be true, that he, a poor fisher-lad, should be about to visit the mysterious land of fire and snow that the majority of travellers consider to be far beyond their limit of time and money. He thought over all that he knew or had ever heard of Iceland, and found that it was very little indeed. He knew that it was an island, that it contained icy glaciers, smoking volcanoes, vast deserts of broken lava, and was noted for its geysers, though he had no clear idea of what a geyser was or even looked like. He had heard that Mount Hecla was the principal volcano of the island, and he wondered if the distant white object at which he was gazing might not be it. This was about all that Breeze could remember concerning this wonderful country, and I do not believe that many of the readers of this story know any more about it than he did. Do you?

267

THE FIRST VIEW OF ICELAND.

After gazing long through his glass at the snow-topped mountain they were approaching, and carefully studying his chart, Captain Coffin said it was not Mount Hecla, but must be the Snäfell Jökull, or mountain, near the end of the long narrow promontory of Snäfells (snow-hills). This projects from the western coast of the island, and separates the two great bays, or fiords, of Breda on the north and Faxa on the south. Although the halibut grounds, for which the Fish-hawk was bound, lie on the northern side of the island, while Reykjavik (pronounced Rike-ya-veek), the capital, is situated at the head of Faxa Fiord, in the south-western corner, Captain Coffin determined to run in there and have a look at the place before beginning work. Besides having a desire to see something of the capital city and the people of this out-of-the-way corner of the world, the schooner’s supply of fresh water was running short, and he was anxious to replenish it.

While Breeze is still gazing at the Snäfell Jökull, and Captain Coffin is altering his schooner’s course a point more to the southward, so as to fetch the light-house on Cape Reykjaines (smoking cape), let us take a sort of a general look at the curious island, and see if we can find out any more about it than these Yankee fishermen knew.

In the first place, everybody knows, or ought to know, 268that Iceland, as well as Greenland, belongs to Denmark, and is ruled by a governor appointed by the Danish king. Everybody, however, does not know that, while Iceland is over six hundred miles from the nearest point of main-land in Europe, it is only one hundred and forty miles from Greenland, and is now generally regarded as being a part of America. It is as large as Scotland and Wales taken together, or as the American States of Maine and New Hampshire. Two of its northern points just touch the arctic circle, but owing to the influence of the warm ocean-currents surrounding it, its average winter weather is no more severe than that of New England, though its summers are short, wet, and chilly.

The whole island is of volcanic origin, and though it was thrown up from the sea thousands of years ago, it still smokes and steams in many places, and displays every evidence of containing some of the principal vents for the everlasting fires that rage just below the earth’s crust.

There are now no trees in Iceland, other than stunted willows and birches, eight or ten feet high; but it is said to have been formerly covered with fine forests of fir-trees, from which ships were built and furnished with spars. Such of these forests as were not cut down were destroyed by the awful volcanic eruptions of the last century, which covered the whole country with lava, pumice-stone, 269sulphur, or ashes, killed nearly ten thousand human beings, and immense numbers of horses, cattle, and sheep, poisoned vast shoals of fish in the surrounding ocean, and threatened the total destruction of everything living, both animal and vegetable, on the unfortunate island.

Since that time the fortunes of Iceland have gone steadily from bad to worse. Its climate is slowly but surely growing colder. Its people are becoming poorer and poorer, and are leaving it for more favored lands in ever-increasing numbers. Each winter thousands of icebergs and vast fields of floe-ice drift across from Greenland, and pile themselves up on its western coast, clasping the island in a deadly embrace, and threatening its very life with their chill breath.

Only the coasts of the island are inhabited, while the interior is a desolate, lifeless, and almost unexplored waste of lava plains, bogs, volcanic mountains, and ice-filled valleys. The people live in huts built of wrecked timbers, picked up in the western fiords, or of blocks of lava roofed with turf. They cultivate forlorn little patches of oats and watery potatoes, raise flocks of lean, long-legged sheep, herds of black cattle, and shaggy ponies about the size of those that come from the Shetland Islands. They gather and export sulphur, Iceland moss, and the downy breast-feathers with which the eider-duck has lined her 270nest. Above all, they fish for cod, halibut, ling, haddock, and herring. But for the fish with which its surrounding ocean teems, the island would have long ago been abandoned to its icebergs and volcanoes. To these northern people fish is what bread and meat are to us. They eat it from year’s end to year’s end, and exchange it for all the other scanty necessities of their lives. They even feed their ponies, cattle, and sheep on dried fish during severe winters, after their meagre supply of coarse hay has given out. Fish are everything to Iceland, and it seems to furnish everything to them; for they swarm by millions in its waters. After them up into those wild seas go the fishing boats of England, France, Denmark, Norway, and even far away Massachusetts in New England; and after them had now come the good schooner Fish-hawk of Gloucester, bringing Breeze McCloud in her crew.

In this far northern latitude the midsummer sun is only out of sight, below the horizon, for about two hours, or from eleven o’clock in the evening until one o’clock in the morning; and at midnight, or the darkest hour, the twilight is hardly to be distinguished from the high noon of a cloudy day. As the time of the Fish-hawk’s reaching Iceland was about the middle of June, she sailed in unbroken daylight, and consequently the lamps were not lighted in the only two light-houses of which the island 271can boast, one on Cape Reykjaines and the other at the entrance to Reykjavik harbor.

About nine o’clock in the evening they passed the Mealsack, which, rising from the sea about fifteen miles from the Smoking Cape, is one of the most remarkable rocks of the world. It is nearly round, about one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, and its black, rugged sides rise sheer and straight for two hundred feet above the surface of the water. Its top is snowy white, from the excrement of the innumerable sea-fowl that circle screaming above it, and find rude resting-places in its crevices, or on its spray-wet ledges. It is perhaps needless to say that no human being has ever trod its summit, or even effected a landing upon it.

After leaving it, the Fish-hawk skirted the coast of Reykjaines, which presents as awful a scene of desolation, and of terrific struggles between fire and water, as can be imagined. The beetling cliffs of black lava are rent and broken into every conceivable shape. Deep fissures, into which the waves rush and roar with a mad fury only to be churned into foam, draw back their stony lips, as though grinning over the fate of the vessel that shall approach them too closely. Dark caverns echo the hollow booming of the waters that fill them. Peaks, pinnacles, and spires rise sharp and forbidding above the chaotic 272masses piled about their feet. Everywhere through the milk-white foam of the ceaselessly dashing breakers jagged rocks show themselves, like the black fangs of monstrous beasts cruelly eager for their prey. It was a sight to sober even the merry face of Breeze McCloud; while poor Nimbus, after a single glance at it, buried himself in the forecastle and refused to come out so long as they remained in the vicinity of such a “Debbil place,” as he called it.

A few hours later, after carefully threading her way through narrow channels, between numerous rocky islets that rose boldly from the water, the Fish-hawk dropped her anchor, and furled her sails in the harbor of Reykjavik. There were two or three square-rigged vessels in the port, and a number of fishing boats; but though it was still broad daylight, there were no signs of life aboard them, nor in the forlorn-looking little town in front of them. A solemn stillness, broken only by the occasional barking of dogs, brooded over the entire scene, and it was hard to realize that this was the capital of one of the oldest nations of the old world.

Breeze thought they must have made some mistake, and got into the wrong place, and Captain Coffin would have been inclined to agree with him if it had not been for the evidence of his chart; but there was no room for doubt 273there. Probably no coasts on the globe have been more accurately or thoroughly surveyed than those of Iceland, and no one who has a knowledge of how they were made ever disputes the maps issued by the Danish War Office.

“It’s all right, Breeze,” said the skipper. “This is the place we’ve been hunting for, miserable as it appears. We’d better turn in now for a few hours’ sleep, and perhaps things will look better to us to-morrow.”

But they did not; for under the lowering skies, and through the drizzling rain in which they next came on deck, the scene looked, if possible, more dreary than it had done the night before. About six o’clock the schooner was boarded by a man wearing an official cap, a long-skirted coat, and big boots, who was rowed off from the town in a small boat carrying a green flag. He was very polite, and talked a great deal of Danish, together with a few words of English, some French, and another language, which Breeze afterwards discovered to be Latin.

In spite of all this, he finally succeeded in giving them to understand that he was the Health Officer of the port, and wished to see the schooner’s papers. Being shown into the cabin, he carefully inspected these, though he was evidently unable to make anything from them, except that the vessel came from the United States.

In return, he handed the captain a long printed paper, 274of which nobody on board could read a word, and gravely selected a single silver coin from the handful that was offered him in payment of the port charges and his services. He satisfied himself by looking at them, that the crew were all in good-health; and learning that the schooner was in need of water, accepted one more dollar as a water fee, and pointed out a place on shore where they could take all they wanted. Then politely lifting his cap, he stepped into his boat, and was pulled back to the town.

“Well, boys,” said the skipper, when this official had gone, “I suppose it’s all right now, and we are free of the city, though I’m blamed if I can make out who that chap was. He may have been the governor himself for all I know. However, let’s get our water aboard, have a look at the place, and get away again as soon as we can, for we’ll all have the blues if we stay here many hours.”

When Captain Coffin and Breeze went on shore, soon afterwards, they found the city to consist of about a hundred one-story houses, painted black, and containing two or three rooms each, half a dozen stores in two-storied buildings, a comfortable-looking governor’s residence, a university, a forlorn-looking hotel, a stone church called the cathedral, and a windmill. These were crowded together, 275without any attempt at regularity, on a narrow strip of rocky land between the harbor and a lagoon.

Drawn up on the beach, in front of a row of rickety old wooden warehouses, were scores of fishing boats, and the whole place reeked with the smell of fish, fresh, dried, and decaying. Everywhere were nets, oars, and piles of fish. Brawny, hard-featured women trudged along the ill-paved streets carrying great loads of fish on frames like stretchers; while the men of the town lounged at the corners, with pipes in their mouths, and watched them. A drove of ponies fastened in a line, each to the tail of the one ahead of him, bore immense packs of merchandise on their backs; and between the houses prowled lean, villanous-looking dogs in search of something to eat or a chance to fight.

Inside of an hour Breeze and the captain had seen all they wanted to see of the city, and began to retrace their steps towards the landing. Just before they reached it they heard a great noise of shouting and laughter, and upon turning a corner they came upon a most comical sight.

Surrounded by a crowd of men, women, children, ponies, and dogs stood Nimbus, who was evidently the greatest curiosity these Icelanders had seen in many a day. He had stopped to examine one of the ridiculous little Iceland 276ponies that appear to be more than half mane and tail. Its owner thought he wanted to buy it, and had tried to tell the stranger what a splendid, strong animal it was. Somehow Nimbus gathered an idea of what he was saying, and, to show his utter contempt for such a specimen of horse-flesh, he had suddenly thrown his great arms about the little beast and lifted it from the ground, kicking, squealing, and trying to bite. Other horse-traders had hurried to the spot, dragging their ponies after them, and a crowd had quickly collected to stare at the black man who could carry a horse.

Finally Nimbus seized and lifted from the ground a pony with a man on his back, at which feat the crowd roared with delight. Suddenly the struggling pony screamed out,

“Wow! wow! put me down, or I’ll kick you!”

Nimbus dropped him like a hot coal, the man on his back tumbled off in affright, and the crowd scattered from about the marvellous beast as though he had been a roaring lion.

“Come, Nimbus, let’s get back to the schooner,” said Captain Coffin, who had slipped up behind him; and, turning, the black man now for the first time noticed Breeze, and understood how the pony had been gifted with the power of speech.

277They hurried away without explaining the wonder to the bewildered natives, and probably to this day that pony is regarded with awe and veneration as having once opened his mouth and talked.

Three days after this, Reykjavik had been left far behind, and the Fish-hawk was sailing over the stormy waters that wash the desolate northern shore of the island. This was where Captain Coffin had supposed the halibut, or “spraka,” as the Icelanders call them, would be found, but thus far there was no sign of them. In order to search the ground thoroughly, he decided to drop dories at intervals of about a mile apart, and give those in them an opportunity to fish with hand-lines, by which means he hoped some feeding-ground of the halibut might be discovered.

Near each dory was left an anchored buoy, bearing a flag with a number painted on it, and each crew was instructed to fish in a circle about its buoy, but on no account to lose sight of it. As the schooner sailed away the skipper carefully noted the bearing of each of these flags, and the distance between it and the next one, so that there might be no difficulty in returning to it.

Breeze and Nimbus were in the first dory thus left, and the flag on their buoy was marked No. 1. In less than three hours after they had been dropped, the Fish-hawk 278returned to pick them up. All the other dories had been sighted as she came back, and the crews of two of them were catching fish hand over hand. The buoy bearing flag No. 1 was easily found, but to the dismay and distress of Captain Coffin and old Mateo, who were the only ones left aboard the schooner, no trace of the dory to which it belonged, nor of its occupants, was to be seen.

CHAPTER XXI. TEMPTED FROM DUTY.

For a whole day the Fish-hawk cruised back and forth and in great circles in the vicinity of the deserted buoy, with a man constantly at the mast-head scanning the surface of the sea for some trace of the missing dory. Then leaving the spot, she ran into the coast, from which the buoy was about twenty miles distant, and made inquiries at several of the tiny fishing villages that nestle at the heads of the deep fiords. It was all in vain. Nothing was seen, nothing had been heard, and the cause of the dory’s sudden and complete disappearance could not even be satisfactorily guessed at. The only bit of information gained from the islanders was, that on the day the dory was lost a steamer had been seen skirting the coast, on her way to the southward, which was such an unusual circumstance that it was something to be talked about and wondered over.

Finally the crew of the Fish-hawk sailed sorrowfully back to the halibut grounds, convinced that their well-loved 280young shipmate and his black dory mate had been swallowed by the cold waters of that northern sea, and that they should never again see them in this world. Captain Coffin and old Mateo were especially distressed over what had happened, for they had loved the boy as an own son, and could not become reconciled to the fate which they supposed had overtaken him. It was the harder to bear because of its uncertainty. If they could only be sure of what had happened to him, and that he were not still drifting about, starving or perishing from thirst on that cruel sea, or stranded on some rocky islet of the inhospitable coast from which there was no escape!

With all this, the cause of the dory’s disappearance was a very simple one. Its occupants had merely been led astray, as many another has been and will be, in the pursuit of riches. They had hardly been left on their station, and begun fishing, when the negro’s quick eye detected a small lump of grayish matter floating on the water but a short distance from them. At the sight he uttered an exclamation of joy, and hastily hauling in his line, he seized the oars and began to pull towards it.

“What is the matter?” cried Breeze, who had not noticed the floating object, and would not have known what it was if he had. “Where are you going?”

281“Ole Nim catch um dreckly, young cap’n, den you see. Better’n fish! better’n gole! better’n ebberyting!”

What could he mean? And when Nimbus stopped rowing, and, stretching out his arm, lifted the little gray lump, about the size of a man’s fist, from the water, Breeze was no wiser than before.

“What is it, Nimbus, and what is it good for?” he asked, in perplexity.

“Amble grease! Good for sell! Heap money! P’r’aps fin’ more!” answered the black man, smelling of his prize and patting it with his great hands, while his eyes roved over the water in search of another like it.

“Ambergris!” shouted Breeze, who had heard from old fishermen stories of this precious substance, and of its fabulous value, but had never before seen it. “You don’t mean, Nimbus, that that dirty-looking stuff is ambergris!”

“Yes, sah. Him amble grease sure ’nough,” answered the black man, who had more than once seen this most valuable of all the products of the sea on his native African coast.

“Well, if that’s ambergris, I believe there’s another bit of it over there,” said Breeze, standing up and looking eagerly in the direction from which the wind blew.

He was right; there was another bit, and beyond that they found another, and still another, until they had gathered 282up a number of the small floating lumps that had been strung out over several miles of water.

“What is ambergris, anyway?” asked Breeze, while Nimbus was rowing towards one of these pieces.

“Don’ know,” was the answer. “Sick whale heave um up.”

“Sick whale!” exclaimed Breeze, in a tone of disgust. “I hope you don’t expect me to believe such a yarn as that, Nimbus.”

In spite of the boy’s disbelief, the black man was right; for ambergris has been found in the intestines of sperm-whales, but only of such as were very thin and evidently diseased. It has also been thrown up by such whales in their death-struggles after being harpooned. It is valuable on account of its delightful odor, and is used in the manufacture of most of the delicious perfumes for the handkerchief that chemists devote so much time and ingenuity to preparing and naming.naming. Nothing has ever been found to take its place, and it brings, according to the state of the market, from twenty-five to thirty-five dollars an ounce, or about five hundred dollars per pound.

Although Breeze and Nimbus had no distinct idea of the value of what they were finding, they knew enough about it to become intensely excited as they discovered piece after piece, and the little pile in the bottom of the 283boat began to assume very respectable proportions. In their eager search they forgot everything else, and paid no attention to where they were going, nor how far they had come. They even failed to notice the little squall of rain and fog that came whirling past them, bringing with it a change of wind. That they neglected to observe this was because, just at that moment, they sighted the great parent mass of gray stuff from which all the little pieces they had been picking up had broken off and drifted away.

If they were excited before, they were wild with excitement now, and both of them very nearly pitched into the water in their eagerness to secure their prize and get it into the dory. They estimated its weight to be nearly, if not quite, a hundred pounds; and its bulk was so great that they had hard work to squeeze it into the boat.

When at last this had been safely accomplished, they sat and gazed at it and at each other.

“I shouldn’t wonder if it was worth a thousand dollars,” said Breeze, at length.

“Mo’ like a millium!” answered Nimbus, whose ideas of the value of their prize were even more vague than those of his young dorymate.

“Well,” said Breeze, “let’s head back for the schooner; Captain Coffin will know pretty near what it is worth. 284I suppose we’ll have to share this find with the rest of the crew, though;” and with the shadow of covetousness creeping over his soul, the boy thought sadly of how much pleasanter it would be to divide their prospective profits between two than among fourteen.

The same thought was evidently weighing upon Nimbus, as he slowly picked up his oars and made ready to pull--where? Now for the first time since sighting the first bit of the stuff that had lured them from their post of duty they began to look for the buoy-flag, which they had been warned not to lose sight of.

“There it is!” cried Breeze, pointing to a distant speck on the water.

They pulled towards it; but, when they had approached close enough to discover its real nature, they found it to be but a bit of floating drift-wood, and though they did not know it, they had gone another half-mile in the wrong direction.

“Well,” said Breeze, “it can’t be very far off, and so long as we pull with the wind we must get near enough to it for the schooner to sight us. The ambergris drifted with the wind, and we were pulling against it, you know.”

Yes, Nimbus remembered that, and agreed that they must now go with the wind in order to retrace their 285course. But neither of them knew that the wind had changed.

So, for more than an hour they pulled, in what they imagined to be the right direction, and every stroke carried them farther away from the schooner.

At length they realized their true position. They were once more adrift on the open sea in a frail dory, and this time without food or water. This time, too, they had only themselves to blame; for only their own carelessness and direct disobedience of orders had brought them into this miserable plight. There was but little chance of their being picked up, for vessels were rare in these waters. As for seeking to gain the horrible, rock-bound coast of the island, the mere thought of what they had seen of it caused them to dread it almost as much as the open sea. Still, this seemed to be the only thing left for them to do, and once more the tiny compass that had already proved such a true friend to Breeze was brought into service.

Upon getting the ball open and looking at the card, they were greatly puzzled to account for its movements, and thought it must be out of order. One side of it was so drawn down, and the other so lifted up, that the ball had to be inclined at a sharp angle to get the card to move at all. Neither of them had ever heard of the dip of the magnetic needle, nor did they know that they were within 286about ten degrees of the magnetic north pole, or the point at which a compass-needle, if allowed to move freely in every direction, would incline directly downward. However, where they were it still worked sufficiently well to give them a course towards the land, of which they could as yet see nothing, and with heavy hearts they began to row in the direction thus indicated.

The mass of ambergris in the dory seriously interfered with their movements, and left room for only one of them to row at a time. At last, when they had rowed thus for several hours--though in this region of perpetual daylight they had no means of knowing what time it was--Breeze, tired, hungry, and discouraged, pulled in his oars, and exclaimed,

“I’ve a great mind to heave that stuff overboard, and I wish with all my heart that we’d never set eyes on it. The idea of its getting us into such a scrape!”

In saying this, Breeze was only dropping into the fault, so common to us all, of trying to lay the blame of his own wrong action upon somebody or something else; but Nimbus was wiser in this respect than his young companion.

“No, no!” he said. “De amble grease all right. He don’ do nuffin. Now we got um, we keep um. Bimeby be berry glad ob um. Now let ole Nim row.”

287“I don’t care,” replied Breeze, changing places with the negro. “I’d give the whole of it this minute for a loaf of bread. I don’t believe I ever was so hungry in my life.”

“Bimeby we get um bread,” said Nimbus, encouragingly, as he took the oars, “an’ hab um amble grease too.”

For an hour or two longer the dory was urged forward by the powerful, steady strokes of the black man, who seemed never to tire or to grow impatient at their hard fate.

At length Breeze exclaimed, “There’s land, Nimbus; I see it!”

Nimbus, turning, saw it too--a long black line of coast; and beyond it, rising dimly through the mist-laden atmosphere, the huge forms of the snow Jökulls. An hour later they were close enough to it to distinguish the features of the forbidding-looking cliffs, pierced by deep fiords, and to begin to consider which of these they should enter.

As they talked the matter over in low tones, awed by the impressiveness of the scene, and the unbroken stillness that brooded over it, Nimbus suddenly raised a warning hand, and his great ears seemed to prick forward with the intentness of listening. He leaned over the side of the dory until one of his ears was close to the water, and when he again raised his head he said, “You hear um steamboat?”

288“Hear a what?” exclaimed Breeze, for as yet he had heard nothing.

“Steamboat! You no hear um steamboat coming?”

“No, I’m sure I don’t, nor you either. There aren’t any steamboats in these waters. What you hear must be the surf on the rocks.”

But Nimbus insisted that he did hear a steamboat, and after a while Breeze began to think that he too heard it. In a few minutes more there could be no doubt of it. It was the regular, unmistakable throb of a screw propeller; and though they could not for some time be certain from which direction it came, it was surely approaching them, and renewed hope sprang within their breasts as they listened to it.

At length they saw a thick column of smoke rising beyond a long promontory to the north of them, and soon afterwards the low, black hull and raking masts of a steam-yacht rounded the point and bore swiftly down upon them.

THE YACHT CAME DIRECTLY TOWARDS THEM.

For fear they would not be noticed, Breeze stood up and waved his hat. But there was no necessity for this. The yacht came as directly towards them as though their dory were the object for which it was steering, and it even began to look as though they were going to be run down. At last, when they could see the water jetting up like a 289fountain before her sharp prow, and could distinguish the features of the seamen, who gazed curiously at them from over her bows, she sheered a little to one side, as though about to pass them.

“Stop! Hold on!” screamed Breeze. “Don’t go off and leave us!”

“Well, by Jove! that’s odd,” said a young man who stood on the yacht’s bridge to an older one who occupied it with him, though of course those in the dory did not hear him; “I thought those fellows were native fishermen, and here they are hailing us in English.” As he spoke, he gave a brass handle in front of him a quick pull.

A gong clanged down in the engine-room, and almost instantly the motion of the screw was stopped. The momentum of the yacht was so great that she was shooting past the dory, when two more strokes of the engine-room gong set the screw to backing furiously. A single stroke stopped it again, and the yacht lay motionless.

“What’s up, and what do you fellows want?” demanded the young man, looking down into the dory from over the canvas side of the bridge.

“We are lost from an American fishing schooner,” replied Breeze, “and we are nearly starved, and we beg that you won’t go off and leave us.”

290“Leave you!” exclaimed the warm-hearted young Englishman--for such he was--“leave you here on this beastly coast! Of course we won’t. Come right aboard, both of you. Mr. Marlin, be so good as to have the side-ladder lowered, and get those poor fellows on board.”

A minute later Breeze McCloud, once more rescued, in an almost miraculous manner, from a position of great peril, stood on the deck of the steel steam-yacht Saga, in which her owner was making a summer’s cruise in those far northern latitudes.

Breeze had hardly reached the deck, and was about to speak to this gentleman, who was approaching him, when the gong in the engine-room clanged, and the vessel began once more to move ahead.

Just then came a most distressed cry from the side-ladder, on the lower step of which Nimbus was still standing, holding the painter of the dory in his hand:

“Oh, de amble grease! de amble grease!”

“What does the fellow say?” asked the gentleman, in a perplexed tone, of Breeze.

“Oh, sir, won’t you have the yacht stopped again, before she swamps our dory? It’s full of ambergris,” cried Breeze, who had entirely forgotten the precious cargo of the boat he had just left.

“What! ambergris? You don’t say so! Yes, of course. 291Mr. Marlin, stop her at once, and get that queer-looking craft, with its cargo, on deck. Why, young man, if that stuff you’ve got in there is truly ambergris, you are carrying a small fortune about with you.”

Acting under the orders of Mr. Marlin, the sailing-master of the yacht, half a dozen of her active, trimly dressed crew sprang to one of her quarter-boats, unhooked it from the davits, and took it in on deck. Then a couple of lines were passed entirely around the dory, which beside the dainty boats of the yacht looked to be a clumsy, ill-shaped craft, and it was lifted clear of the water, and swung up to the level of the rail.

“There,” said the gentleman; “your boat and its contents will be safe enough for the present. What did you say your name was?”

“I did not say,” replied Breeze, “but it is McCloud--Breeze McCloud.”

“And mine,” said the other, “is Seabright.”

“Thank you,” said Breeze, “and I’m very grateful to you for picking us up, Mr. Seabright.”

The boy could not imagine why Lord Seabright stared at him for a moment, and then burst out laughing, at hearing himself thus addressed, for the first time in his life, as plain mister.

CHAPTER XXII. THE STEAM-YACHT “SAGA.”

There was something so gentlemanly in the appearance of Breeze McCloud that Lord Seabright at once noticed it; and, in spite of the boy’s rough clothes, and declaration that he was one of the crew of an American fishing schooner, could not regard nor treat him as an ordinary fisher-lad. While Nimbus was sent forward, to be cared for in the forecastle and at the mess-table of the crew, Breeze was shown into the ward-room, or quarters occupied by the sailing-master, mate, and chief engineer of the yacht. Here the cabin steward was sent to him, with orders to make him as comfortable as possible.

The first thing this individual noticed was that Breeze was soaked to the skin, and shivering as though in a chill, and he hurried away to find him some dry clothes. A few minutes later he returned with an old but complete yachting suit, belonging to Lord Seabright, which, as the latter was but a few years older than Breeze, and of about the same build, fitted the boy as though made for him.

BREEZE’S WELCOME TO THE “SAGA.”

While he was changing his clothes in the tiny stateroom 293which he was told he might occupy as long as he remained on board the Saga, the steward spread a table with the remains of the cabin dinner, which, as it was now about half-past eight in the evening, had been just finished when the dory was picked up.

As the steward announced that his dinner was ready, and asked him if he were not hungry, Breeze was reminded of old Mateo, and his cheery “Vell, Breeze, ma boy, you hongry, eh?” It gave him a homesick feeling, and he thought how gladly he would, if he could, exchange his present luxurious surroundings, in the company of strangers, for the forecastle of the Fish-hawk, and its narrow mess-table surrounded by the faces of his friends. There is nothing more true than that the humblest abode in which are a person’s own people is a happier place to him than a palace without them.

Having eaten nothing since very early that morning, Breeze did not allow these thoughts to interfere in the slightest with his enjoyment of the meal set before him. To him it seemed one of the most sumptuous dinners he had ever sat down to, though the cabin steward apologized for it, saying that their cook had unfortunately fallen overboard and been drowned while they were cruising off Jan-Mayen, and since then they had been obliged to get along as best they could.

294It was wonderful to note how differently this man treated Breeze since he had appeared in Lord Seabright’s clothes. He had been kind before, but now he was respectful. All of which goes to show that, while clothes do not make the man, they have a great deal to do with the estimation in which he is held by strangers. Consequently it is very important that everybody, boys as well as men, should always dress as neatly and becomingly as their circumstances will allow.

Lord Seabright always commanded his own yacht, in which he took great pride, and which he was capable of managing in every detail. Whatever this young man undertook he performed thoroughly, and at present he found his chief pleasure in yachting, a pursuit in which his great wealth enabled him to indulge without a thought of the expense attending it. This was the Saga’s first cruise, and it had been extended as far northward as the wild land of Jan-Mayen, which is about two hundred miles nearer the north pole than Iceland. It is also a volcanic bubble of the earth’s crust, though much smaller and even more desolate than its neighbor on the south.

Since leaving these, and reaching the coast of Iceland, the Saga had penetrated several of the deep northern fiords, and Lord Seabright had visited a number of the fire Jökulls, boiling sulphur springs, and other interesting 295objects and places of that part of the island. Now the yacht was on her way to Reykjavik, from which an inland expedition was to be made to the famous geysers.

After Breeze had finished his dinner the steward informed him that his lordship would like to have a few words with him in the cabin.

The cabin, or main saloon, was located as nearly as possible in the centre of the yacht, though forward of the engines and boilers. As Breeze was ushered into it, he was for a moment bewildered by its elegance and its luxurious appointments, which far surpassed anything he had ever dreamed of. Mirrors, carvings, silken curtains, rich furniture, velvet carpets, a sideboard glistening with silver, a small upright piano built into the oak wainscoting, an open fireplace with a chimney-piece of carved oak above it, a small library of choice books, and many other beautiful things, of which he did not know the names or uses, greeted the boy’s astonished gaze. Although it was still daylight outside, the sky was so overcast that the saloon would have been in comparative darkness had it not been for the floods of light coming from four opaque globes set into the ceiling and softening the electric flames that flashed behind them.

As the saloon door was thrown open by the cabin steward, 296and Breeze was confronted by all this blaze of light and color, he hesitated for a moment, and felt almost afraid to enter. Then the Yankee independence to which he had been educated asserted itself, and he stepped inside the gorgeous apartment.

Lord Seabright did not at first recognize the handsome, gentlemanly appearing fellow who, clad in a becoming blue yachting suit, now stood before him, and for an instant looked inquiringly at him. He had risen from the easy-chair in which he had been seated, and the moment he realized who the visitor was, he stepped forward, instinctively held out his hand to Breeze, and bade him welcome to the Saga. Then he introduced him to the only other occupant of the saloon, a tired-looking young man, who lay upon a lounge smoking.

"Without rising, this gentleman greeted Breeze with, “Ah, pleased awfully! Have a weed?”

“No, I thank you,” replied Breeze, who could hardly help laughing. “I have not learned to smoke yet.”

“Ah, good boy! Advise you not to. Beastly habit. Rough on the constitution.”

“Oh, Whyte! Whyte!” laughed his friend. “If you would only practise the half of what you preach, what a fine fellow you would become!”

“Yes,” replied the other, “I fancy my theory is very 297nearly perfect, but it is really too much of a grind, don’t you know, to put it into practice. I’d rather let some other chap do that.”

This was a fair example of Mr. Whyte Whymper’s character. He was good-natured, easy-going, blessed with most excellent mental and physical qualities, but was too indolent to improve either the one or the other. He was not exactly the companion the owner of the Saga would have chosen for this northern trip, but several other friends had disappointed him at the last moment, and he was obliged to make the best of the one who was at liberty, and willing to accompany him.

“Well, McCloud,” said Lord Seabright, after a few moments’ pleasant chat that served to make the boy feel quite at home, “sit down and tell us how you and your black friend happened to get lost, and to be drifting about on the open sea in that queer-looking craft of yours. It strikes me that you were in a pretty nasty position, and I’m curious to hear about it.”

Although Breeze confined his story to his experiences while on the Fish-hawk, and after leaving her, his hearers were much interested in what he had to tell them. They seemed to consider it a very plucky thing for a small schooner, such as he described, to cross the Atlantic for the purpose of fishing in those stormy northern seas, and 298they asked him many questions in regard to the American methods of fishing.

“What do you expect to do, now that you have lost your schooner?” asked Lord Seabright, at length.

“I don’t know, sir,” replied Breeze. “If I knew of any way to find her again I’d try it; but I can’t seem to think of any.”

“Neither can I, and I don’t see that there is anything for you to do but to come with us to Reykjavik and see what offers when you get there. Perhaps there will be some vessel in port bound for America, on which you can engage a passage.”

“Well, sir,” said Breeze, “I suppose that will be the best thing for us to do, and we’ll be very glad to work our passage if you’ll let us. Nimbus is a good cook, and as yours got drowned, perhaps you can make him useful in that way. I am willing to do anything I can. At any rate,” he added, brightening at the thought, “if you’d take ambergris, we might pay for our passage in that.”

Both the gentlemen were highly amused at this suggestion, and as soon as he could control his voice, Lord Seabright said,

“My dear fellow, yachts are not allowed to receive payment for carrying passengers. Even if they were, you must not think so meanly of us as to fancy that we would 299consider the aiding of distressed mariners any less of a pleasure than it is a duty. I shall be only too glad to employ your black friend, and if he proves a good cook will pay him liberal wages. As for yourself, it is a pleasure to have your company, and I am especially glad to have somebody on board who has been at least once into Reykjavik harbor, and can give us some information as to the channel and the place itself.”

“I shall be only too glad to do anything I can to earn my passage, and will give you all the information I have,” replied Breeze, “but I am afraid it won’t amount to very much.”

“Whatever it is, I feel certain it will be worth the having,” said the other, politely, “and now I move that we all turn in, and prepare by a good sleep for our grand entrance into the capital to-morrow.”

After Breeze had gone, Lord Seabright remarked to his friend, “I like that fellow, Whyte. He seems to be an uncommonly bright and manly sort of a chap.”

“Oh yes,” replied the other, indifferently. “He’s not half bad for a Yankee.”

After satisfying himself that Nimbus was comfortably provided for, and that the ambergris, upon which he was now building many hopes and no longer wished to exchange for a loaf of bread, was safe, the tired boy sought 300his bunk, feeling very grateful for the snug quarters in which he found himself.

On the following day, Nimbus, to his own intense satisfaction, was installed in the galley, and given charge of more pots, pans, kettles, and other kitchen utensils than he had ever dreamed could exist in one ship. He also found that he had full authority to order about as he pleased, a young lad who filled the position of scullion in his department. With the gaining of this knowledge, he assumed such an air of dignity as made him appear comical enough to all eyes except those of the unfortunate boy for whose especial benefit it was put on. The originality of the black man’s appearance was further increased by a white jacket, a large white apron, and a cook’s white linen cap. When this cap was perched on the back of his head it seemed to rest upon his immense ears; while his grotesque thatch of wool projected several inches in front of it. In spite of the absurdity of his appearance, he proved to be a capital cook, and managed his department in a manner thoroughly satisfactory to his new employer. The good-natured fellow’s sole regret, which he expressed to Breeze many times, was, that “Dat ole rask Mateo” could not see him in his present exalted station, “at de head ob a camboose fit fo’ de King ob Africa hissef.”

301During this day, too, the grayish mass in the dory was pronounced to be ambergris, beyond a doubt, was carefully weighed, and stored in stout boxes made by the yacht’s carpenter. Its weight was found to be a few ounces over one hundred and twenty pounds, and Lord Seabright told Breeze that its value in the London market would not be far from fifty thousand dollars.

Quite dazzled by the magnitude of this sum, Breeze for a while thought of himself as a young man of fortune, and indulged in delightful dreams of what he would do with the money as soon as it came into his possession. Suddenly the remembrance of Nimbus came upon him like a blow. Was not the black man, who had been his faithful dorymate, entitled to an equal share in it? Of course he was, though it was with reluctance that Breeze admitted the fact to himself. Still, even such a division would leave him twenty-five thousand dollars. It would be enough to purchase several fishing vessels, and make him a person of considerable prominence in Gloucester.

The thought of Gloucester brought another with it. On what terms was the fishing business carried on there? Was it not on the basis of one-half the catch to the vessel and half to the crew? To be sure it was, and this ambergris was one of the incidental profits of the Fish-hawk’s voyage to Iceland. But, then, had not he and Nimbus 302found it all by themselves and risked their lives in obtaining and saving it? It would be easy enough to sell it, keep the money, and say nothing about it.

So, locked in his tiny state-room, the boy struggled with the right and the wrong of this question for more than an hour. Finally the right triumphed, and when he became conscious of the fact, Breeze felt as light-hearted and happy as though he had been crushed under the whole weight of fifty thousand dollars in gold, and it had suddenly been lifted from him.

When, soon afterwards, he was congratulated by Mr. Whyte Whymper upon the amount of his fortune, he replied, “Yes, sir, seventeen hundred dollars is a good deal of money for a boy like me to have at once.”

“Seventeen hundred dollars!” exclaimed the other. “Why, I thought it was ten thousand pounds?”

“So it is, sir, in all; but, according to Gloucester rule, half of it goes to the schooner, and the other half must be divided among her crew of twelve others besides Nimbus and myself.”

When he made this statement of the case to his black dorymate, he was put to shame by discovering that the honest fellow had never taken any other view of it.

At the same time Mr. Whyte Whymper was saying to Lord Seabright, “I have just discovered that our young 303Yankee friend is possessed of a degree of honesty that, to me, would be worth all his other good qualities put together.”

About noon the yacht passed the Snäfells and entered the waters of Faxa Fiord. As she approached Reykjavik, and began to thread her way among the islands that enclose its harbor, Breeze stood on the bridge with Lord Seabright and Mr. Marlin. He had already pointed out on the chart the course taken by the Fish-hawk a few days before, and the same one was now held by the Saga. There was one very narrow channel that Breeze bore in particular remembrance on account of the huge, isolated mass of lava that had risen from and partially leaned over one side of it. Both he and Captain Coffin had wondered if it might not some time topple over and block the passage. Now he looked for it in vain. Could he be mistaken in the place? Again he studied the chart intently. No, the other landmarks were all right, but this one had disappeared. The Saga was just about to enter the channel. He was not absolutely sure that he was right, but he felt impelled to call out, “Stop her, sir! Stop her, please, and back her!”

“Why, what is the matter, McCloud?” exclaimed Lord Seabright, as he complied with this request and rang the engine-room bell.

304When Breeze had told them of his fears Mr. Marlin went with a boat’s crew to sound the channel. Upon his return he reported an ugly rock rising to within a few feet of the surface, almost in the middle of it, with deep water on both sides.

So the Saga, which was carefully worked through the narrow place to one side of the danger, was saved from almost certain wreck only by Breeze McCloud’s keen observation and retentive memory. They afterwards learned that the huge mass of rock had fallen into the sea with a tremendous crash on that very day.

Although hospitably received and entertained by the governor and other members of Reykjavik society, the two English gentlemen were almost as much disappointed in the Icelandic capital as Breeze had been on his former visit to it. Lord Seabright, however, anticipated great pleasure from the proposed trip to the geysers, and hurried forward the preparations for it as rapidly as possible. His friend was by no means so enthusiastic as he, and finally decided that he would rather remain in comfortable quarters on board the Saga than to undertake the tedious journey to the geysers merely for the sake of seeing what he termed a fountain of boiling water.

Nothing could alter this decision, and finally, declaring him to be altogether too lazy to live, Lord Seabright 305turned to Breeze and said, “Will you go with me in his place, McCloud? I know the invitation comes rather late; but if you will overlook that, and accept it, I shall be most happy to have your company on this trip to the geysers.”

CHAPTER XXIII. PONIES AND GEYSERS.

As there were no vessels in the harbor of Reykjavik, save one that was taking in a cargo of ponies for Norway, besides the native fishing boats, and Breeze saw no chance of returning to America at present, he gladly accepted Lord Seabright’s invitation to accompany him to the geysers.

Nimbus was to go, of course, to cook for the little expedition, and he looked forward with considerable anxiety to mounting and riding one of the shaggy little ponies that he had treated with such contempt upon the occasion of his former visit to the capital. He had never ridden on horseback in his life; but it was certain he must do so now if he expected to reach the geysers, for his own short legs would never carry him that distance, and there was not a wagon, cart, or carriage to be had in all Iceland. So horseback it must be, or not go at all; and during the several days of preparation for the trip, Nimbus occasionally went on shore, and gazed in silence and 307sadness at the little shaggy monsters that were being collected by the guide, evidently trying to determine upon which one of them it would be safest to trust himself.

The guide was a grave, fresh-faced young Icelander named Haik Gierssen, who had conducted tourists to the geysers ever since he had been old enough to do so, and whose father, Gier Zöega, had been a guide before him. He had undertaken to buy the ponies for the expedition, and in consequence was the most eagerly sought man in the town. Everybody had ponies to sell; and though the trip would probably occupy less than a week, it was necessary to carry tents, provisions, blankets, and extra clothing, even for that short time, and they must all be carried on ponyback. Thus, for the party of four, including the guide, twelve ponies were required, two apiece to be alternately ridden and rested over the rough roads, and four to carry the camp outfit. It is necessary to travel thus in Iceland, because there are no hotels on the whole island but the one at Reykjavik. The country-people are very hospitable, and will gladly share with a stranger the best they have; but they are also very poor, and most of their huts are so small and filthy that one is not apt to accept their kind offers of food and shelter more than once.

At last all was in readiness, and the morning set for the departure arrived. It was dreary, wet, and chilly; but in 308spite of all that, an enthusiastic and curious crowd of towns-people had assembled to see them start. They were principally attracted by the sight of Nimbus, who had become quite a celebrity among them, and whom they regarded as by far the most important personage of the party. Breeze had found it hard to persuade his black dory mate to leave behind the white cap, jacket, and apron, which were his robes of office. Nimbus had finally yielded, and in their place now wore a fisherman’s sou’wester, with ear-tabs to it, tied firmly on his head, a monkey-jacket the sleeves of which were several inches too short for his long arms, white duck trousers, and a pair of the carpet slippers, run down at the heel, without which no sea cook is happy.

The moment he found himself on the pony’s back, from which his short legs stuck out almost at right angles, Nimbus leaned down over the animal’s neck, twined both hands into its shaggy mane, and resigned himself to his fate. He could not be induced to hold the bridle, and would not have known what to do with it if he had. All the pack-ponies and spare animals were fastened, each to the tail of the one in front, to keep them from straying. As Nimbus was evidently incapable of steering his, it was made fast to the tail of the last pack-pony, and thus the unhappy cook brought up the rear of the procession.

309At last, with much cracking of his leathern whip and shoutings of “Hur-r-r! hur-r-r!” and “Ga, ga!” (go on), the guide succeeded in getting the long line of ponies started. As Nimbus clung for dear life to his, the comical workings of his face aroused the spectators to yells of applause and shouts of laughter. It was more like a circus than anything they had ever before seen. So amid the cheers of the multitude, the barking of dogs, the cracking of whips, and the squealing of the ponies, the party clattered through the rough streets of the fishy, evil-smelling town into the rougher roads of the black, desolate-looking country beyond, and were fairly off for the geysers.

These are about sixty miles inland, and nearly due east from Reykjavik. They are the largest and most famous objects of their kind in the world, even surpassing in size and the wildness of their surroundings those of our own Yellowstone Park, or the valley of the Russian River in California.

The road for the first day’s journey led over rugged lava plains, up and down the foot-hills of the snow-capped Jökulls, and most of the time through a country so barren as to contain no trace of human occupation. It often skirted dark lagoons and quaking bogs dotted with queer head-like tussocks of grass. In one of these poor Nimbus came to grief.

310For greater ease in travelling, the ponies had been unfastened from each other when they had got some miles out from Reykjavik, and were urged to proceed at full gallop over the rough roads. This drew forth groans of anguish from Nimbus, who felt that he would not be able to retain his seat from one moment to another. He tugged at the pony’s mane, dug his heels into its ribs, and finally so worked upon its feelings that it laid back its ears, and turned directly towards one of the black bottomless bogs, of which there were several in that vicinity. In vain did the unhappy rider shout “Whoa!” and in vain did the others pursue the flying beast. It would not stop until it began to feel the soft ground of the bog under its feet, and then it drew up so suddenly that its rider was flung far over its head, and landed at full length in the treacherous mud.

Dismounting and tossing his bridle to Breeze to hold, the guide, skipping from tussock to tussock, quickly made his way to where Nimbus was wallowing, in imminent danger of being suffocated. He got a rope under the negro’s arms, and the others, catching hold of it, literally dragged him ashore. Here he sputtered and choked and rolled his eyes, and dripped mud from every point, and presented such a woe-begone and ridiculous aspect that even the grave Icelander laughed at the sight. As for 311Breeze, his excess of merriment caused the tears to roll down his cheeks, and he had hardly strength enough to help scrape the worst of the mud from the comical figure.

“YOU OUGHT TO HAVE WORN A DIVING SUIT, NIMBUS,” SAID BREEZE.

“You ought to have worn a diving suit, Nimbus,” he exclaimed between his outbursts of laughter.

“Oh, g’way now, young cap’n. You oughter be ’shamed makin’ fun er ole Nim when he in a heap er trouble. I tell you, sah, dis cruisin’ on dry lan’ ’s dangersome work, an’ ef ebber ole Nim git back to salt-water he stick to um.”

As a precaution against further mishaps of this nature, they lashed him fast to his pony after the manner of a pack, and once more the procession was got under way.

That afternoon they passed through a wonderful gorge known as the Almannajau, with sides of shining black lava rising as sheer and regular as though it had been hewn out by giants. Beyond it lay the valley of Thingvalla, showing scattered patches of fresh green grass upon which sheep were grazing. In it stood a small church, and the house, or rather cluster of huts, in which dwelt the pastor of Thingvalla and his numerous family.

They camped for the night beside the church, though the hospitable pastor begged them to consider his dwelling as theirs for as long as they chose to use it, and urged them at least to sleep in his Bädstove, or guest-chamber. 312One breath of the foul, suffocating air of the interior of the house was enough for Lord Seabright, and to the great relief of his young companion, he courteously declined in very good Latin the proffered hospitality.

As fuel was one of the scarcest articles in that vicinity, they accepted a pot of coffee from the pastor’s wife, and made their dinner from it and what cold provisions they had brought along. They tried to eat some of the bowl of skeyer, or cheese curds, which the good man pressed upon them; but it was so rank that they were unable to swallow a single mouthful. It was thereupon turned over to Gierssen, who found no difficulty in eating the whole bowlful. In return for these favors, Lord Seabright presented the pastor with several tins of meat, with which he was greatly pleased, and for which he expressed thanks in the choicest Latin.

The next morning, after poor Nimbus, stiff, aching in every joint, and groaning at the hard fate that had dragged him thus far away from the sea, had been lashed firmly to his pony, an early start was made. For a few miles the riding was comparatively smooth, and then the road plunged into the most awful country ever traversed by men and horses. It became an indistinct trail only marked by occasional piles of stones, and the savage region through which it led was torn and rent to pieces as though it had 313been the battle-ground of demons. It was inconceivably blasted, scorched, and strewn with chaotic masses of lava. It was traversed in every direction by deep chasms, between which the trail, often but a few feet wide, wound its perilous way, and into which a single misstep would have hurled horse and rider, to be lost beyond recovery. Numerous rushing torrents were forded, and in one foaming river, the Bruara, a bottomless fissure cleft in the middle of its channel was crossed on a bridge of planks that were actually laid below the surface of the water and were not seen until they were reached.

The frightful nature of this journey at first drew from poor Nimbus groans, prayers, and entreaties to be left where he was and not taken any farther into what he termed “de home ob ole Satan hissef.” Finally he closed his eyes, and passively allowed himself to be borne onward to what he believed was certain destruction.

It was a tedious day’s ride; but after passing the Bruara the country became somewhat better, and showed occasional little green valleys, in one of which the travellers rested for an hour and ate their luncheon. Here and there lonely huts were passed, and some flocks and herds were seen, as well as an occasional human being in the distance. Finally they reached the world-famed valley of the geysers, where, within a space of half a mile, some 314forty or fifty springs of all sizes and shapes boiled, bubbled, and sent up clouds of steam and sulphurous vapors.

Of them all, the two best worth seeing are the Great Geyser and the Strokhr, or churn. The latter can be made to go off, but the former only displays his superb fountains of boiling water when it pleases him to do so. Often tourists have waited near him for days, and then been compelled to leave without having seen an eruption.

A camping-place was selected on a plot of grass but a short distance from the basin of the Great Geyser, the tents were pitched, and Nimbus, with his spirits somewhat restored by reaching the journey’s end, began to cook dinner. He had no need to make a fire, and there was nothing to make it with if he had wanted one. He simply followed Haik Gierssen’s directions, and made coffee, tea, and a delicious soup in a boiling caldron of beautifully clear water that hissed and steamed on a rocky ledge a few yards back of the tents. Nimbus would not believe it was hot enough to cook meat, until he had made a test by thrusting a finger into it. Then the howl of pain with which he snatched back his hand convinced the others that he was fully satisfied with his experiment.

While he was preparing dinner the others busied themselves in cutting sods with which to make the Strokhr “sick,” as Haik Gierssen said.

315Breeze did not understand what he meant; but he was one of those rare boys who would rather wait a little for information that he was sure would come to him, than to try and force it by useless questions; so he held his tongue, and busily cut sods with the others.

The Strokhr is a funnel-shaped hole in the rock, about six feet across at the top, in which, some twenty feet below the surface, water boils and tumbles uneasily. In its depths are heard groans and rumblings, while occasional jets of hissing steam and upward rushes of water indicate its great uneasiness and desire to burst from its rocky prison.

After a huge pile of sods had been cut and stacked on its edge, Haik Gierssen said there was enough to make him very sick, and pushed them all into the steaming opening.

A terrible commotion followed, and peering over the edge, they could see the sods swirling and dashing about in the angry waters, while the rumblings and roarings were louder than ever. Suddenly, almost without warning, a vast column of ink-black water, flecked with foam and dotted with sods, was belched forth and shot up nearly a hundred feet into the air. It was a magnificent sight, and looked like a hundred fountains joined in one, and surrounded by clouds of steam and hissing spray.

316The spectators sprang back, and running for dear life, were barely beyond reach of the boiling torrents as they fell back, drenching the ground for fifty feet about the mouth of this terrible churn. Again and again did the vast column of water shoot upward, as though the Strokhr had been made deadly sick by the sod pills administered to it and was determined to get rid of them. It was a fearful yet fascinating exhibition of the hidden forces of nature, and Lord Seabright said that if he saw nothing more of the geysers he should feel fully repaid for all the hardships of the trip by this one display.

To Breeze it was so marvellous that he could find no words to express his awe and delight at the wonderful phenomenon.

The effect of the eruption upon poor Nimbus was such, that after one glance at it he threw himself, face downward, flat upon the ground, where he lay kicking and screaming with fright long after it had subsided.

The eruptions were continued at intervals through the night, and the sleep of the tired travellers was sadly broken by the heavings and groanings of the monster whom they had made so sick. Towards morning, in the midst of these, a heavy booming sound, apparently far down in the depths of the earth, was added to the other weird noises of this uncanny place, and a shout from the 317guide warned them that something important was about to happen. As they sprang from their tent there was a tremendous report, as of a park of artillery, and before them, sparkling in the red light of the newly risen sun, towered the vast watery mass of the Great Geyser. It was snowy white, in striking contrast to the blackness of the Strokhr, and sprang upward in a series of great domes. For ten minutes they stood fascinated by the superb exhibition, then, with a few gurgling gasps, the waters sank back into their underground boilers, and the show was over.

There was nothing more to wait for. They had been so unusually fortunate as to see both the Great Geyser and the Strokhr within a few hours, and so long as they lived the marvellous fountains would remain with them as vivid mind-pictures. Now, to hasten back to the Saga, and leave this dreary land of fire and snow, ice, and boiling waters behind them as soon as possible was the one desire both of Lord Seabright and Breeze.

The companionship and strange experiences of this trip had drawn the English lord and the Yankee fisher-lad together with a feeling that, had their stations in life been more equal, would have been a warm friendship; and on their way back to Reykjavik the one invited the other to be his guest for a while longer.

318“Come to England with us, McCloud,” said Lord Seabright. “There you can sell your ambergris, get the best market price for it, and go home by steamer whenever you choose. If you stay here you may have to wait in the beastly place a year before finding a chance to go to America.”

Of course this kind offer was gratefully accepted by Breeze, who only asked that he might be set ashore at Queenstown, in Ireland.

CHAPTER XXIV. A DORYMATE’S HOME.

Upon accepting Lord Seabright’s offer of a passage to England in the Saga, Breeze had instantly thought of Ireland, and of Queenstown, the home of his beloved dorymate, Wolfe Brady. Amid all the strangeness of the Old World, it was pleasant to think that there were at least two people in it who, for the sake of their boy, would be glad to see him. Then, too, they would have heard from Wolfe by this time, and thus he would learn the home news for which he so longed. So, just now, Queenstown seemed the most desirable place in all Europe for him to visit; and Breeze was made happy by Lord Seabright’s answer, which was,

“Why, certainly; we can run into Queenstown if you must go there. It will not be far out of our course to Cowes. But whatever can you want to go there for?”

When Breeze explained that the only friends he had on that side of the Atlantic lived there, he could see that the 320other was wondering what sort of people his friends could be to live in Queenstown.

When, on the fifth day after leaving it, the little cavalcade of tired men and weary ponies clattered back into Reykjavik, the place really seemed quite like a town, as compared with the wilderness they had just traversed, and they wondered they had not noticed before how much there was going on in it. Poor Nimbus feasted his eyes on the sea, and drew in long breaths of the salt and fishy air. The moment he was unlashed from his pony, although he was almost too stiff and lame to walk, he waddled off towards the landing.

While Lord Seabright was having a settlement of accounts with Haik Gierssen, and Breeze was collecting the articles that were to be returned on board the Saga, they both heard strange rumors of a fire that had taken place in the town the night before. Their informants told them excitedly about a certain stranger who, at the peril of his own life, had saved three of the inmates of the burning building, and then mysteriously disappeared.

“He was a plucky fellow, whoever he was, and I wish we had been here to help him,” was Lord Seabright’s comment upon this story.

When all the business had been settled, and they returned once more to the Saga, the yacht seemed to Breeze 321delightfully home-like and comfortable, and he was more than ever glad that his cruise on her was to be extended. Nimbus was already hard at work in the galley, from which came a happy clatter of pots and pans, and the tones of his voice as he told his awe-stricken young assistant marvellous tales of his thrilling adventures and hairbreadth escapes during the trip to the geysers.

“But where is Mr. Whymper?” asked Lord Seabright of Mr. Marlin, who replied that the gentleman was turned in, recovering from his recent exertions.

“Lazy dog!” exclaimed his friend; “I’ll soon stir him up.” And after giving orders for the yacht to put to sea, he went below. As he entered the saloon, Mr. Whyte Whymper, who was lying on a lounge, threw down the semi-monthly Reykjavik paper, which, as it was wholly printed in Icelandic, he had been trying in vain to read, and exclaimed,

“Awfully glad you’ve come back, old fellow! Haven’t had a thing to do since you left except read this stoopid paper. Went ashore once, but got mixed up in a beastly row, and haven’t been off the ship since. Awfully glad, ’pon honor. What sort of a trip have you had? and how did our young Yankee friend enjoy it?”

“What sort of a row did you get into?” inquired Lord Seabright, without answering these questions, and gazing 322suspiciously at the bandages with which his friend’s head and hands were swathed. “Was it in connection with a fire?”

“Well, yes,” admitted the other, hesitatingly, “it was a sort of a fire, and some children were left in rather an uncomfortable position, because the beggars outside were too stoopid to know what to do.”

“And you showed them?”

“Yes, I put them up to a wrinkle that I thought might be useful to them at some future time.”

“Whyte, you are a splendid fellow!” exclaimed Lord Seabright, enthusiastically. “You saved those children’s lives at the risk of your own, and then hurried away to avoid being thanked for it. After this I’d like to hear anybody call you lazy and selfish again!” With this he stepped forward to grasp his friend’s hand.

“Keep back! No demonstrations! Hands off!” cried the other, apprehensively drawing back his bandaged members. “My flippers are still a little tender.”

And no wonder; for the poor brave hands were so terribly burned that they would be scarred and disfigured for life.

“I tell you, it made me feel more than ever proud of being an Englishman,” said Lord Seabright, in talking of the affair to Breeze, “to see the pluck with which 323that fellow concealed his sufferings, and made light of them.”

This incident taught Breeze that appearances are often very deceitful, and first impressions are apt to be unjust ones; also, that some of the noblest natures are only developed by extraordinary circumstances.

After steaming out of the harbor, and rounding Cape Reykjaines, the Saga skirted the wild southern coast of Iceland, with Mount Hecla in sight, for nearly a day. Then, turning due south, she was headed for the Färöe Islands. This rocky group of thirty-five small islands, of which about twenty are inhabited, belongs to Denmark, and lies half-way between Iceland and Scotland. It was intended that the Saga should stop here for a day or two, and remain in the picturesque harbor of Thorshavn, on Strömöe Island, the largest of the group, while her passengers explored the surrounding waters and country. Now, on account of the serious nature of Mr. Whyte Whymper’s injuries, which demanded skilful medical attention, this plan was abandoned, and the yacht was urged with all possible speed towards England.

After the Färöes, the Shetland Islands were passed, then the Orkneys, and a day later the Saga sailed through the channel known as the Minch, between the Hebrides and the main-land of Scotland. Then down, past the 324western islands, through the north channel between Scotland and Ireland, across the Irish Sea, close to the Isle of Man, and finally, five days after leaving Reykjavik, she steamed into the mouth of the Mersey, and came to an anchor off the Liverpool docks.

Here it was decided that the injured man must be at once removed to London, and although he still made light of his wounds, Lord Seabright insisted upon accompanying him and seeing that he was properly cared for. He ordered Mr. Marlin to take the yacht to Queenstown, where he would try and rejoin him within a day or two.

To Breeze he said, “Of course you will go to Queenstown with the yacht, McCloud, and if you fail to find your friends, you are to make yourself as comfortable as you can aboard until I come. Then we shall run around to Cowes, from which place it will be easy to send your ambergris up to London and dispose of it.”

Breeze was very grateful for the great kindness shown him by this young Englishman, and tried to tell him so, but was checked by “Oh, nonsense, man! Don’t give it a thought. It’s no more than you would do if you were in my place, and I in yours, and no more than any true sailor would do for another whom he found in trouble. I should apologize to you for running off and leaving you 325in this way, but that you understand the necessity of the case as well as I.”

By this kindness and politeness to one who was apparently so greatly his inferior in social station, as well as almost a stranger to him, Lord Seabright proved himself a thorough gentleman by breeding as well as by birth; for a true gentleman will treat with equal courtesy all persons worthy of respect with whom he is thrown in contact.

A few hours after she had entered the Mersey the Saga sailed out again, and stood down the Irish Sea, with Breeze McCloud as her only passenger. Had he been a young prince he could not have travelled more luxuriously. Sitting alone in the beautiful saloon, and surrounded by all its luxury, it was with a curious sensation that he traced the wonderful chain of events that had led him from the forecastle of the old fishing schooner Vixen to this exquisitely appointed yacht.

The following day the Saga steamed into the magnificent harbor of Queenstown, ran up past the forts, and dropped anchor near a huge American steamer, just in from New York, that was sending ashore her mails and a number of passengers. These, and those who remained on board the great steamer, gazed with admiration at the dainty yacht, and many of them cast envious glances at 326the young man standing on her bridge, whom they imagined to be her owner.

Breeze waited until after dinner before leaving the yacht. Then he was set ashore in the gig, which Mr. Marlin said would be sent for him whenever he should come down to the landing and blow the shrill little silver whistle that he loaned him.

Breeze had no sooner stepped ashore than he was surrounded by a clamorous throng of men, who wanted him to ride in a jaunting-car, or take a carriage for the Queen’s hotel, who would show him all the sights of the city, including the new cathedral, for a shilling, or would serve him in any way he chose to name.

Now, for the first time Breeze remembered that he had not a cent of money in his pockets, and anxious to get rid of his noisy persecutors, he pushed his way through the crowd as quickly as possible, without paying any regard to where he was going. He did not wholly escape the attentions showered upon him, for one old woman succeeded in thrusting a bit of shamrock into a button-hole of his coat, and evidently expected to be paid for so doing. Breeze thanked her politely, but did not succeed in getting rid of her, until he had walked rapidly through several short, steep, and remarkably dirty streets, when he found himself in the main business street of the city.

327

THOSE ON BOARD THE GREAT STEAMER GAZED WITH ADMIRATION AT THE DAINTY YACHT.

Here he asked a man if he could tell him where Mr. Brady’s store was.

“Is it Mike Brady the tinman, yer honor ’ll be wantin’ to find? or Pat that kapes the grane-grocery? or mayhap ’tis Tim the alderman who has no thrade at all, excipt for the bit of law he do pick up?”

Breeze said he did not think it was any of these, for the one he wanted to find sold linen.

“Thin ’tis Peter the Squire you’ll be manin’; and by the same token, his is the shop f’ninst ye, across the way.”

Breeze afterwards learned that, having held some small political office, Wolfe’s father had been dignified by his fellow-townsmen with the title of “Squire.” He was very proud of this, and always insisted upon being addressed by it.

Now, looking in the direction indicated, the lad saw the sign, “Peter Brady, Linen Draper,” staring him in the face, and thanking the man, he hurried across the street.

An old porter, who was putting up the shutters, told him that the squire had driven away in a carriage a few minutes before with a stranger, and had left word that he should not be back that night.

Where did he live! Why, about two miles from there, away out on the edge of the city, but a cab would take him there in no time.

328There were no cabs for Breeze that evening, and so he walked, and inquired his way from one and another. At last, after more than two hours’ persevering labor, he found himself lifting the knocker of a small but neat-looking house some distance outside of the town, in which he had been told that Squire Brady lived.

The maid who answered the knock said the squire was at home, and wouldn’t the gentleman step into the parlor. When she asked what name she should announce, he told her to say that it was a friend of the son who was in America.

After she had gone, he could not help overhearing a whispered consultation that took place in the hall. While he was wondering about it, a quick footstep approached the room, and the next moment the door was opened by his old dorymate, Wolfe Brady.

It would be hard to tell which of the two boys was the more astonished at this meeting. Perhaps Wolfe had the better reason for amazement, at seeing the friend from whom he had been parted thousands of miles from there, under circumstances that led him to fear he was dead.

“Breeze!”

“Wolfe!”

These were the only words the dorymates uttered for a 329full minute, as they stood holding each other’s hand, and gazing into each other’s face.

“How do you happen to be here?” asked Breeze at length.

“Oh, my coming is simple enough,” answered Wolfe. “I got a thousand dollars salvage money for helping to carry that brig into port, and thinking I would like to see father and mother once more, I came. I only just got in on the steamer from New York. But where in the name of all that’s wonderful did you come from, and how?”

“I,” said Breeze, “have just got in from Iceland on the steam-yacht Saga.” Then in a few words he gave his friend the briefest possible outline of his adventures since their parting.

“Well!” exclaimed Wolfe, when he had finished, “if it doesn’t beat the ‘Arabian Nights,’ or ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ or anything else I ever heard of, then I’m a mackerel. And to think that I should stand on that steamer’s deck and watch you sail into the harbor only three hours since, and not know it was you any more than Adam! But I must tell father and mother. They’re nearly crazy already from seeing me, and I only hope it won’t upset them entirely when I tell them who you are.”

If it did not quite upset them, it certainly did greatly agitate the stout, ruddy-cheeked Irishman, and his equally 330stout but pleasant-faced wife, whom Wolfe introduced as his father and mother, to meet the person who had saved their son’s life.

The latter started when she saw Breeze, and after shaking hands with him, and thanking him profusely for all that he had done for her boy, she sat down and gazed at him keenly whenever he was not looking at her.

Her husband, too, appeared to be greatly interested in the lad’s face, and although cordial and hospitable in the extreme, he seemed uneasy in his presence. When he learned that Breeze had come in on the Saga, he remarked to his wife that she was Lord Seabright’s yacht.

“You know him?” asked Breeze, innocently.

“To be sure I do,” answered the other. “I’ve known him since the day he was born. Sir Wolfe was his grandfather on his mother’s side, and it’s likely our boy has told you how intimately we were connected with Sir Wolfe’s family.”

Breeze acknowledged that Wolfe had told him.

About this time the “squire” disappeared for a few minutes, and when he returned he was followed by the maid bearing a tray, on which were a plate of biscuit and some bottles and glasses.

Filling the glasses with wine from one of the bottles, the master of the house said, “I want to propose the 331health of the distinguished visitor from across the ocean, who honors our humble home with his presence to-night. I refer to Mr. Breeze McCloud.”

As Wolfe instinctively stretched out his hand towards one of the glasses, Breeze said, in a low tone, “Point true, Wolfe.”

Wolfe’s face flushed, as he quickly withdrew his hand, saying, “Thank you, Breeze. I own I had almost forgotten.”

At the same time, both the squire and his wife set down their untasted glasses, and the latter, turning to Breeze, said, in a trembling voice, “May I ask you, sir, where you heard them words?”

“I did not hear them,” answered Breeze, “but I saw them; and if you are at all interested I can show them to you; for, oh, Wolfe!” he added, turning to his dorymate, “I have learned the secret of the golden ball.”

With this he unclasped the slender chain from about his neck, opened the locket, and handed it to Wolfe’s mother.

She cast one glance at it, uttered an exclamation of joy, and very nearly fainted from the excess of her emotion.

CHAPTER XXV. STARTLING DISCOVERIES.

Breeze stared in amazement at Wolfe’s mother, and wondered what could possibly have affected her so greatly. Wolfe sprang to her side and helped her into a chair; while the squire, who had caught the golden ball as it was about to drop from his wife’s hand, now gazed at it as intently as though it were some charm that fascinated him.

“What is it, mother?” inquired Wolfe, anxiously.

“The Tresmont coat of arms,” she answered, faintly, “and the very locket my young lady gave to Mr. Tristram just after they were married. Oh, tell me, sir,” she said, turning to Breeze, “how did it come into your keeping? and what do you know of them it belonged to?”

“It has belonged to me,” answered Breeze, “since before I knew anything; for it was clasped about my neck when I was a baby, and picked up at sea floating in a cask.”

BREEZE STARED IN AMAZEMENT AT WOLFE’S MOTHER.

“Then,” exclaimed Wolfe’s mother, standing up in her 333excitement, “you must be the son of our own Mr. Tristram, and the heir to Tresmont! Don’t you see the likeness, husband? He is the very image of Mr. Tristram.”

Yes, the squire saw it, and had noticed it the very moment he set eyes on the young gentleman. Now it was plainer than ever to him. There were the same blue eyes, the same closely curling yellow hair, and the same tall straight figure. There could not be the slightest doubt of it.

Breeze was so bewildered by this wonderful turn of events, and by the tumult of conflicting emotions aroused by what he had just heard, that for a few moments he was speechless, and appeared like one in a dream. Finally finding his voice, he said to the squire,

“If you knew my real father and mother, sir, won’t you please tell me something of them?”

“Of course I will, sir; but it will make a long story to tell, even the little I knew of them. So we’d better seat ourselves comfortable-like; and with my wife here to help me where my memory fails, I think perhaps I may come at the telling of it understandingly.”

Thus saying, the worthy man began, and in spite of many interruptions from his wife and the questions asked by both Breeze and Wolfe, he finally succeeded in relating the following tale:

334"As you already know, sir, before we were married both my wife and I lived in the family of Sir Wolfe Tresmont, of Tresmont in Lincolnshire, England, she as lady’s-maid and I as butler. When I first took service there Mr. Tristram was a fine young gentleman of about your own age, although the missis, having been brought up in the family, had known him from his boyhood.

"After I had been in the family for five years, one of which we had been married, Mr. Tristram got through with his college, and was sent off on his travels around the world. His mother died while he was gone, but his father heard from him regular.

"At last there came a long letter, telling as how Mr. Tristram had got married to an American young lady, who was the daughter of a ship captain. She went with her father to the East Indies, and somewhere out there Mr. Tristram met them, and engaged passage to New York on the same ship. They fell in love with each other on the voyage, and were married as soon as the ship reached port. Then he wrote to his father what he had done, and asked if he might bring his wife home.

"Sir Wolfe was very angry at all this, for he had no love for the Yankees, begging your pardon, sir, and he could not bear the thought of his only son marrying one of them. What he wrote to Mr. Tristram I never knew, 335but at any rate they did not come home for nearly two years, when they brought their baby, which must have been you, sir, with them. Mrs. Tristram, as we called her, was one of the sweetest young ladies as ever I laid eyes on; but Sir Wolfe would not see her, and they stayed with Mr. Tristram’s elder sister, who was my Lady Seabright.

"While they were there, I met the nurse one day wheeling the baby in his little carriage, and when I stopped to look at him I took notice of this very identical gold ball hanging around his neck. The nurse said it was one of them puzzle-balls that Miss Merab--that was your mother, sir--had got in the East Indies, and had had fixed up as a present for Mr. Tristram. It was he himself fastened it to a gold chain and hung it around the baby’s neck. I never saw the inside of it, but my wife there did many a time, for she was stopping with my Lady Seabright, in place of her own maid, who was sick all the time Mr. Tristram and his wife were there.

"Finally they decided to go back to America, and as the doctor said a long sea voyage would be the very best thing for Mrs. Tristram’s health, they took passage on a sailing-ship, of which I mind the name well, it being such a queer one. It was Señora, and from the day she left Liverpool docks to this never a word has come from her, good or bad.

336"Soon after that I left Sir Wolfe’s service, and he helped me start the little business that I’ve followed ever since here in Queenstown, with fairly good success, thanks to the Americans. I never saw him again; but I heard he was never the same man after the ship his son had sailed in was given up for lost. He died about six months ago, rest his soul, and at that time the newspapers all over the world, but particular in America, had advertisements in them asking for any information of Mr. Tristram, or his wife, or their son, who would, if he was alive, be heir to Tresmont. I saw some of the advertisements myself, and heard of others from my American customers; but I never knew of any answer coming to them, and I don’t suppose there ever was one.

“And now, sir, I have no doubt in the world that you are the son of Mr. Tristram and his sweet young American wife, and the same little baby that I saw in its carriage. If you are, you are heir to Tresmont, own cousin to Lord Seabright, and your name is Tristram Coffin Tresmont.”

“Why,” said Breeze, “was my mother’s name Coffin?”

“Yes, Merab Coffin; and her father came from a place in America they call Nantucket, I believe.”

Wolfe was even more excited than Breeze over the tale they had just heard; the facts of which, if proved, would 337make such a difference in the fortunes of his dorymate. The glittering prospects of the future seemed to make but little impression upon Breeze; but they instantly flashed across Wolfe’s mind in all their brilliancy, and he asked his parents many questions concerning Tresmont. From them the boys learned that it was situated in the northern part of Lincolnshire, and overlooked the Humber with its broad fen-lands. They also learned that much of the family property was invested in the fisheries of Grimsby, which is the largest fishing port in the world.

“That alone would go a long way towards proving you the son of the family, ‘Sir Breeze,’” laughed Wolfe, “for you have taken as naturally to fishing as a dory to water. I told you that you were a prince in disguise, and you promised to remember me when you came into your kingdom. Now I claim the captaincy of your largest smack.”

“You shall be admiral of the whole fleet!” answered Breeze, with a smile. “You know, old man, that no matter what might happen, I could never forget the dorymate with whom I had drifted through the fogs of the Newfoundland Banks. By-the-way, how did you manage to get the brig into port after Nimbus and I left you in such a hurry?”

Wolfe told him of the cruise, of their safe arrival in Gloucester, of the meeting between Captain McCloud and 338the loving wife who had never given him up for lost, of the sadness occasioned by their boy’s absence, and of how his adopted mother still watched for him with a firm faith that he would yet return to her, of the salvage money received, and of so many other things, that more than an hour was occupied in the telling of them all.

Then Breeze had to narrate his adventures after tumbling overboard from the brig, and tell of being picked up by the Fish-hawk, of the great cuttle-fish, of finding the ambergris and losing the schooner, of Iceland and its wonderful geysers, and, in fact, of all that had happened to him since the dorymates had last seen each other on the deck of the Esmeralda. “And to think, Wolfe,” he said, “that this meeting is but the end of the cruise on which we started together so long ago, against our will, in the old Vixen!”

“It only goes to prove,” said Wolfe, “how very much stranger truth is than fiction. If all your adventures were written in a book, no one would ever believe they had ever actually happened. Would they, father?”

“Well, no, my son,” replied the squire. “I can’t say that they would, and I don’t know that anybody could be blamed for the doubting of them. Sir Wolfe used frequent to tell of the remarkable adventures of a gentleman of the name of Polo; but to my mind, these here of 339Mr. Breeze--begging his pardon, I mean Sir Tristram--beats them away out of sight.”

Thus talking, they all became hungry; and by the time they had finished the nice little supper that Wolfe’s mother prepared for them, and were ready to go to bed, it was long past midnight.

Breeze had been told one thing that evening that troubled him greatly, and it was that, in case he had not been found, Lord Seabright, who was now the executor of Sir Wolfe’s estate, would have inherited it. He could not bear the thought of thus stepping in and claiming a property that would otherwise belong to one who had shown him such great kindness.

It was this thought that caused him to assent rather reluctantly, when, after a late breakfast the next morning, Wolfe proposed that they should go on board the Saga, and see if her owner had rejoined her. At any rate, he said, he would like exceedingly to visit the yacht, and to renew his acquaintance with Nimbus.

When they reached the landing-place, the shrill sound of the silver whistle that Breeze carried soon brought a boat from the yacht to them; and as they were rowed off Breeze was relieved to learn that Lord Seabright had not arrived.

Wolfe was astonished, as well as delighted, with all that 340was shown him on board the beautiful craft; but nothing pleased him so much as the meeting with Nimbus, to whom he had taken a great fancy during their one day’s acquaintance on board the Esmeralda.

Nimbus was just lifting down a pan of flour from a high shelf as Wolfe appeared, unannounced, at the galley door. The black man started so violently at the sudden sight of one whom he supposed to be on the other side of the ocean that the pan of flour was upset, and he was instantly covered from head to foot as with a mantle of snow. Quickly recovering his presence of mind, the good-natured cook exclaimed,

“Golly! Misto Wolfe Brady. You scare um pore brack man so he turn white! Where you leab um ole Esmeral’ an’ de cap’n?”

Amid his shouts of laughter at the negro’s comical appearance, Wolfe helped to brush him off, and at the same time explained his own presence on board the Saga.

After a lunch, which Nimbus insisted upon getting for them, the young men returned to the city. As they were walking up the main business street, a carriage that was driven rapidly towards them suddenly drew up, and a cheery voice called out, “Hello, McCloud!”

It was Lord Seabright, who had just arrived, and was on his way to the yacht. He asked Breeze if his companion 341were the friend whom he had expected to meet. When Breeze answered that he was, and that his name was Wolfe Brady, the other exclaimed, “What! not the son of the Brady who used to be butler to Sir Wolfe Tresmont? I believe he did come to Queenstown to open some kind of a shop.”

Breeze said that was the very person, and, moreover, that they were stopping in front of his shop at that very moment. Upon this his lordship said he must step in and speak to the old fellow, whom he remembered very well.

Squire Brady was greatly flustered by the sudden appearance in his humble establishment of this titled visitor; but, reassured by his cordial greeting, he gathered up his wits, and saying that he had a communication of the greatest importance to make to him, begged his lordship to step into his private office for a moment.

Somewhat puzzled, and wondering what it could be, the young man good-naturedly consented. After the door had been carefully closed, and his visitor had refused an offered chair, the worthy shopkeeper and ex-butler said, mysteriously,

“My lord, I have every reason to believe that the heir to Tresmont has appeared.”

“Yes, so have I.”

“And that he is a young man.”

342“Yes.”

“From America.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Who was picked up at sea when an infant.”

“Certainly; I know that. Anything else?”

“He is the own son of Mr. Tristram and his American wife.”

“Of course he is.”

“And he’s got evidence to prove who he is.”

“I examined his evidence in London yesterday.”

“But he was not in London.”

“I saw him there, I tell you.”

“He spent last night in my house, your lordship.”

“Who on earth are you talking about, Brady?”

“The young gentleman who came on your lordship’s yacht, and who calls himself Breeze McCloud, but who is really your lordship’s own cousin, Sir Tristram Coffin Tresmont.”

“Come, come, Brady! you don’t know what you are talking about,” said Lord Seabright, impatiently. “I left Sir Tristram Coffin Tresmont in London yesterday, and he is no more Breeze McCloud than I am. Whatever have you got into your head?”

“But, your lordship,” persisted the shopkeeper, now considerably excited, “this young gentleman wears the golden 343puzzle-ball fast to a chain around his neck that was give to Mr. Tristram by his wife, which I saw it with my own eyes on him when he was a blessed infant in his carriage.”

“So does the Sir Tristram Coffin Tresmont now in London wear a golden chain from which hangs a golden puzzle-ball, as you call it, that was fastened around his baby neck by his father, to whom it was presented by his wife. Is there anything more?”

“Well, I am beat!” gasped the astonished shopkeeper, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.

“So am I,” said Lord Seabright. “It’s bad enough to have to give up a fine property that I have for some time considered my own; but to have two claimants to it appear at once, and each of them producing the same proof of his identity, is a little too much. Have you any other reason for thinking this young friend of yours is what he claims to be?”

For answer the shopkeeper opened the door, and calling Breeze into the office, asked him to show his lordship the locket he wore about his neck.

Breeze produced the ball, opened it, and offered it for Lord Seabright’s inspection.

“Exactly the same,” said he, looking at it carefully.

Then Breeze touched the inside spring, and displayed 344the three tiny locks of hair, and the inscription on the under side of the plate.

“Hello! This is something new,” exclaimed Lord Seabright. “This proof goes away ahead of the other chap’s. We must look into this matter more closely.”

CHAPTER XXVI. PROUD OF BEING A YANKEE.

To explain the curious state of affairs disclosed in the last chapter, it is necessary to go a long way back in our story, and recall the New York jeweller who had shown Breeze that his locket could be opened, and had then tried to obtain it from him. This man had seen the advertisement asking for any information concerning Mr. Tristram Tresmont, or his son, and it had made such an impression upon him that he had studied it carefully. He had even looked up the Tresmont coat of arms in a book on heraldry, that contained colored plates of such things.

When Breeze brought the golden ball to him he was at first interested in it as a puzzle, and then startled at the sight of its contents. He hastily compared its coat of arms with the one in his book, and noted the little compass that it contained. So hurried was his examination, however, that he did not discover the second spring, and consequently knew nothing of the locks of hair or the inscription.

346It had flashed across the mind of this bad man that if he could obtain possession of the ball, he might receive a reward for it, or perhaps use it in making a claim upon the Tresmont estate; for it had been mentioned in the advertisement as one of the proofs by which the missing child might be known. He did not tell Breeze of what he had discovered, for he hoped to make more out of his information in another way.

Failing to buy the trinket, he had tried to have it left with him at least overnight, that he might study it more carefully; but this plan was spoiled by the lad’s prompt action and the interference of the police. Then the jeweller procured a second labyrinth ball, and aided by the book on heraldry, fitted its interior with enamelled plates of thin gold bearing the Tresmont coat of arms. While doing this he planned a bold scheme, which he thought might be safely carried out, for obtaining at least a share of the Tresmont property.

This was nothing more nor less than the taking of his own boy, who was about the same age as Breeze, to England, and by means of the false locket persuading people to believe him to be the son of Mr. Tristram Tresmont. Having carefully worked out every detail of this wicked plan, the jeweller finally appeared with his son, whom he had trained to be as bad as himself, before the Tresmont 347family lawyer, and claimed to have discovered the true heir to Sir Wolfe’s property.

The lawyer listened to all that he had to say, and became almost convinced that he was telling the truth, but declined to commit himself to one thing or another until Lord Seabright, who was then in Iceland, should return. The false locket was even shown to a number of old Tresmont and Seabright family servants, who declared it to be the very same that had been clasped by Mr. Tristram about the neck of his infant son.

When Lord Seabright returned to London the whole case was submitted to him; and although he disliked exceedingly the appearance and manner of the young man who claimed to be his cousin, he could not help admitting that all the evidence seemed to be in his favor.

The wicked father had been recalled to America upon urgent business about a week before Lord Seabright’s return to the city; but his case seemed to be progressing so favorably that he had not hesitated to leave it for a short time in the hands of a lawyer whom he had engaged. He never dreamed that the Yankee fisher-lad would succeed in opening the ball; or that if he did he would understand the meaning of its contents, or realize their value.

Thus the case stood when Squire Brady introduced an 348entirely new feature into it by drawing Lord Seabright’s attention to Breeze McCloud and the locket that had been placed about his neck when he was a baby.

The young Englishman was as decided in his character and as prompt in action as Breeze himself. Now he determined to sift this matter to the very bottom, and to make a personal investigation of all the facts regarding it that could be discovered. Having rapidly thought out his plan, he said to Breeze, as they left the linen-draper’s shop together,

“Look here, McCloud, I like you a thousand times better than I do that other chap, and should be pleased to acknowledge you as a relative. I think, too, that your story is a much more likely one than his; but I am not yet wholly satisfied that you are my cousin Tristram. Now, I have a plan to propose, which is this: If you will stay quietly here in Queenstown with the Bradys for a few days, until I can attend to some business affairs in London, I will come back for you, and take you to America in the Saga. There we will see what we can discover in regard to your early history. In the mean time Mr. Marlin can sell your ambergris for you in London. What do you say?”

What could Breeze say to this generous offer except to thank his kind friend for it, and to accept it gladly?

349Although expecting the return of the Saga from day to day, and consequently not writing home, Breeze waited two weeks in Queenstown before Lord Seabright’s business would permit him to start for America.

When at last the yacht did arrive, Wolfe Brady, who had been disconsolate at the idea of again losing his dorymate, was made supremely happy by the offer of a mate’s position on her.

At the same time Breeze was astonished to learn that the ambergris he and Nimbus had picked up had been sold for fifty-six thousand dollars, which, when divided, according to Gloucester fishing law, among the crew of the Fish-hawk, would give them two thousand dollars apiece.

Ten days after leaving Queenstown, the Saga, having on board Lord Seabright, the dorymates Breeze McCloud and Wolfe Brady, and their highly prized friend Nimbus the cook, rounded Eastern Point, and steamed swiftly up Gloucester harbor.

It was late in the afternoon, and as Breeze eagerly turned his gaze towards the little white cottage on the eastern heights--that was the only home he had ever known--it was radiant with the glory of the setting sun, and seemed to be smiling a welcome to him. How the boy’s heart thrilled as he looked upon the familiar sights of the harbor, and thought of all that had happened to 350him since he had left it, an unwilling prisoner on board the Vixen. Why, there she lay now, at anchor in the stream, the same shabby, disreputable-looking old craft. And there, too, was the Albatross. What recollections the sight of her aroused in the minds of the dorymates!

The yacht had hardly dropped anchor before Breeze had been set ashore, and was climbing the hill towards the little cottage. He was alone, for his friends would not intrude upon his first meeting with those whom he loved so dearly.

Captain and Mrs. McCloud had just sat down to supper, when, without warning, the door was flung open, and their boy, alive, well, and handsomer than ever, stood before them.

So long as he lives Breeze will never forget his mother’s cry of “My boy! my boy! my darling boy!” as she sprang to him, clasped him in her arms, and sobbed out her great joy upon his neck.

There were even glad tears on Captain McCloud’s weather-beaten cheeks, as he held both the lad’s hands in his sturdy grasp and exclaimed, “Thank God, my son, that you have been brought in safety back to us.”

BREEZE’S WELCOME HOME.

The happy inmates of the cottage got but little sleep that night, and the next day all Gloucester rang with the joyful news that Breeze McCloud, who had long since 351been given up for lost, had come back safe and sound, and bringing a fortune with him. Above all, it was whispered that he had come as dorymate of a real, live English lord, who had picked him up somewhere near the north pole, and brought him home in the finest steam-yacht that ever was seen.

Soon after breakfast that morning Lord Seabright and Wolfe Brady appeared at the McCloud cottage, and were warmly welcomed--the former for his great kindness to Breeze, the latter for himself. The English gentleman had asked both Breeze and Wolfe not to say anything at present regarding his errand to America. After a while he led the conversation to Breeze, the mystery surrounding his parentage, and his rescue from the floating cask when a baby.

Then Captain McCloud showed them the very cask that had proved so truly a life-boat to the boy. He told them the date of its discovery, and pointed out on its bottom a partially erased stencil-mark, over which he said he had often puzzled in vain. It was something like this, PE--IP--ÑORA, and although Lord Seabright did not say so at the time, he felt pretty sure that it had originally been “PER SHIP SEÑORA.”

Next, Mrs. McCloud brought out the baby-clothes Breeze had worn when first laid in her arms, and on one dainty 352little garment showed them the embroidered letters “T. C. T.”

After a while they all went on board the Saga, where her owner had invited them to luncheon. Here the unbounded joy of Nimbus at again meeting with the “cap’n,” in whose company he had suffered so much on board the Esmeralda, was touching to witness.

After luncheon, as they stood on the deck of the yacht, a weather-beaten fishing schooner, with her flag at half-mast, came sailing slowly up the harbor.

“She is bringing sorrow to some poor souls,” said Mrs. McCloud, as she noted the mournful sign.

“Why, mother, it’s the Fish-hawk!” shouted Breeze, springing up in great excitement.

In a short time the vessel had approached so closely that there could be no doubt of it. She was the very schooner that he had left so long ago off the coast of Iceland. At length she drew so near that they could distinguish the features of those on her deck.

Suddenly one of them shaded his eyes with his hand, and gazed earnestly at the yacht. Then, with a joyful cry, he sprang to the signal-halyards, and in a moment the schooner’s colors streamed out full and free from her mast-head, while a wild cheer broke from her crew.

353“Hurrah for Breeze McCloud! Hurrah for Nimbus!” they shouted over and over again.

“The flag was at half-mast for us, mother,” said Breeze, his voice choking with emotion. At the same moment the deep-mouthed roar of the yacht’s cannon answered the cheers of the Fish-hawk’s crew.

They, poor fellows, had had little enough cause for joy, for their whole weary cruise had been nearly barren of results, and they had come home poorer than when they left. Their sadness was, however, exchanged for great rejoicing, and their poverty for riches, when they heard of the good-fortune of Breeze and Nimbus, and knew that, owing to it, their schooner was “High-line” of the fleet for that season, and that they were worth two thousand dollars apiece.

As soon as his anchor was dropped, Captain Coffin went on board the yacht to see Breeze, and to hear the wonderful story he had to tell. Then Breeze went back with him to the Fish-hawk, to be the bearer of his own good news to her crew, who shouted themselves hoarse in greeting him. Never was there a happier home-coming to any schooner of the Gloucester fishing fleet.

Of all those men who had just sailed down from the icy northern seas, none was so overjoyed at the sight of Breeze as old Mateo. He regarded the lad as his boy, 354and had been inconsolable over his loss. Now his happiness was so great that he could not control himself. He sobbed and laughed in the same breath, as he exclaimed, “Ah, Breeza, ma boy! ma boy! You is come back, an’ ole Mateo could sing an’ dance an’ holler, he vas so hap.”

It was a day of joyful meetings, and one long to be remembered. The skipper of the Vixen came to welcome Breeze, and to tell him that a hundred dollars had been placed to his credit, as his share of that schooner’s catch on the Grand Bank. Hank Hoffer came; and many another, who had felt a diffidence about venturing on board the English lord’s yacht, rowed out to the Fish-hawk to greet him there. Was it not worth all that he had gone through to be thus welcomed home? Breeze thought it was, and as much more.

The next day the Saga sailed away, leaving Breeze behind, and it was a week before she returned. The first notice the McClouds had of her coming back was the appearance of Lord Seabright at their cottage late one evening.

He greeted Mrs. McCloud and the captain, and then, turning to Breeze with out-stretched hand, he said, “Cousin Tristram, I am proud to welcome you as a relative, and as master of Tresmont. How soon will you go back to England with me?”

355Before Breeze could answer, Lord Seabright turned to the others, and told them the whole story. He ended it by stating that he had discovered the rascally jeweller in New York, and compelled him to own up to his villany and admit the falsity of his claim upon Tresmont.

“Now,” he said, “I want to take Cousin Tristram home with me, and place him where he may become fitted to take charge of the great English estate that will be his as soon as he comes of age.”

“But I don’t want to become an Englishman!” exclaimed Breeze, now finding a chance to speak. “I am an American by birth, I have grown up as an American, and an American I mean to be, just so long as I live. Oh, sir! if you are truly my cousin, as you say you are, I would a thousand times rather you would keep whatever English property might be mine, and leave me here to live with those whom I love and who love me.”

No entreaties nor inducements in the shape of the brilliant career open to him in England could alter his determination. He said that while he should be proud to be an Englishman if he had been born in England, having been born in Yankee land, he was more proud than anything of being a Yankee, and that he would not exchange that title for any other in the world.

Finally Lord Seabright, who had always been anxious 356to possess the Tresmont property, which adjoined his own, said,

“Well, Cousin Tristram, I do not know but that you are right. A man can have but one country, and the one he will always love the most is the one in which he was born and has passed the first twenty years of his life. Such being my belief, I will make you this offer: I will purchase Tresmont of you, if you are willing to sell it, when you become of age, paying you its full money value. Besides this, you will have a handsome income from the invested property left by your grandfather. The only conditions that I attach to my offer are that in the mean time you will complete your education in the best American university, and that you will spend every summer vacation for the next three years with me in England.”

“It’s a bargain, sir,” cried Breeze, “provided I can have money enough now to pay Wolfe Brady’s expenses through college as well as my own.”

“My dear fellow,” replied Lord Seabright, “there is money enough already held in trust for you from Tresmont to pay the expenses of every boy in this town through college, and you would be welcome to as much more if you wanted it.”

Here, with a parting word, we must leave the manly 357young fellows whose adventures on the Fishing Banks we have followed so closely. Breeze--or “Sir Breeze,” as his college friends delight to call him--and Wolfe are no longer dorymates, but classmates. The former means to study law, and says that, though he had an English father, his mother was an American, and as he was born in America, he may some day be President of the United States. Who knows?

Wolfe says that although, having been born an Irishman, he can never be the head of the nation, he would like to be Secretary of the Navy. He begs that his friend will bear this in mind when he becomes President, and Breeze gravely says he will.

Wolfe does not like to study, but Breeze keeps him up to it, while he keeps Breeze from studying too hard.

With a portion of the wealth that is soon to become his, Breeze expects to build a steam-yacht which shall be the equal, in every respect, of the Saga. Her name is to be Merab, and her private signal a blue flag bearing a golden ball, while on her bows, in letters of gold, is to be engraved the legend, “Point True.”