Willis the Pilot

CHAPTER XXII.

THE UTIL­ITY OF AD­VER­SI­TY--AN EN­COUNTER--THE HORO­KEN--BILL ALIAS BOB.

A light but fa­vor­able breeze car­ried them away from land, and they were once again on the open sea. Willis, af­ter a pro­longed in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the sun's po­si­tion, tak­en in re­la­tion to some ob­ser­va­tions he had made the day be­fore, con­clud­ed that the best course to pur­sue, un­der ex­ist­ing cir­cum­stances, was to steer for the Mar­ian Is­lands.[H] In ad­di­tion to the dis­tance they had orig­inal­ly to tra­verse, all the way lost dur­ing the storm was now be­fore them. As re­gards pro­vi­sions, they had lit­tle to fear; they could re­ly up­on falling in with a boo­bie or sea-​cow oc­ca­sion­al­ly, and fresh fish were to be had at any time. Their sup­ply of wa­ter, how­ev­er, gave them some un­easi­ness, for the quan­ti­ty was lim­it­ed, and they might be re­tard­ed by calms and con­trary winds. The chances of meet­ing a Eu­ro­pean ship were too slen­der to en­ter for any­thing in­to their cal­cu­la­tions.

“It ap­pears to me,” said Jack, one beau­ti­ful evening, when they were some hun­dreds of miles from any hab­it­able spot, “that, hav­ing es­caped so many dan­gers, the watch­ful eye of Prov­idence must be guard­ing us from evil.”

“Very pos­si­bly,” replied Fritz; “one of the ear­ly chron­iclers of the Chris­tian Church says that Lazarus, whom our Saviour re­sus­ci­tat­ed at the gates of Jerusalem, be­came af­ter­wards one of the most pop­ular preach­ers of Chris­tian­ity, and in con­se­quence the Jews re­gard­ed him with im­pla­ca­ble ha­tred.”

“But what, in all the world, has that to do with the Pa­cif­ic Ocean?” in­quired Jack.

“Very lit­tle with the Pa­cif­ic in par­tic­ular, but a great deal with the ocean in gen­er­al. Lazarus, his sis­ters, and some of his friends, were thrown in­to prison, tried, and con­demned.”

“And stoned or cru­ci­fied,” added Jack.

“No; the high priest of the tem­ple had a great va­ri­ety of pun­ish­ments on hand be­sides these. He re­solved to ex­pose them to the mer­cy of the waves, with­out pro­vi­sions, and with­out a mast, sail, or rud­der.”

“Thank good­ness, we are not so bad­ly off as that.”

“_He_, for whom Lazarus suf­fered, and who is the same that nour­ish­es the birds of the air and feeds the beasts of the field; watched over the for­lorn craft; un­der his guid­ance, the lit­tle colony of mar­tyrs were waft­ed in safe­ty to the fer­tile coasts of Provence. They land­ed, ac­cord­ing to the tra­di­tion, at Mar­seilles, of whom Lazarus was the first bish­op, and has al­ways been the pa­tron saint. Who knows?--the same good for­tune may per­haps await us.”

“We are not mar­tyrs.”

“True; but Prov­idence does not al­ways mea­sure its fa­vors by the mer­its of those up­on whom they are be­stowed--mis­for­tune, alone, is of­ten a suf­fi­cient claim; so it is well for us to be pa­tient un­der a lit­tle suf­fer­ing, for sweet of­ten is the re­ward.”

“A lit­tle hard­ship, now and then,” added Jack, “is, no doubt, salu­tary. The Ital­ians say: '_Le avver­sità sono per l'an­imo cio ch' è un tem­po­rale per l'aria_.' Suf­fer­ing teach­es us to prize health and hap­pi­ness; were there no such things as pain and grief, we should be apt to re­gard these bless­ings as val­ue­less, and to es­ti­mate them as our le­git­imate rights. For my own part, I was nev­er so hap­py in my whole life as when I em­braced you the oth­er day, af­ter es­cap­ing out of the clutch­es of the sav­ages.”

“There are many charms in life that are al­most with­out al­loy: the per­fume of flow­ers--mu­sic--the singing of birds--the rich­es of art--the in­ter­course of so­ci­ety--the de­lights of the fam­ily cir­cle--the trea­sures of imag­ina­tion and mem­ory. Some of the most benef­icent gifts of Na­ture we on­ly know the ex­is­tence of when we are de­prived of them; oc­ca­sion­al dark­ness alone en­ables us to ap­pre­ci­ate the un­speak­able bless­ing of light. Man has a mul­ti­tude of en­joy­ments at his com­mand; but so many sweets would be ut­ter­ly in­sipid with­out a few bit­ters.”

“The rheuma­tism, for ex­am­ple,” said Willis, rub­bing his shoul­ders.

“Many en­joy­ments,” con­tin­ued Fritz, “spring from the heart alone; the af­fec­tions, benev­olence, love of or­der, a sense of the beau­ti­ful, of truth, of hon­esty, and of jus­tice.”

“On the oth­er hand,” said Willis, “there are dis­hon­esty, in­jus­tice, dis­ap­point­ment, and blight­ed hopes; but you are too young to know much about these. When you have seen as much of the world on sea and on land as I have, per­haps you will be dis­posed to look at life from an­oth­er point of view. In old stagers like my­self, the ten­der emo­tions are all used up; it is on­ly when we are amongst you young­sters that we for­get the present in the past; when we see you strug­gling with dif­fi­cul­ties, it re­calls our own tri­als to our mind, rous­es in us sen­ti­ments of com­mis­er­ation, and soft­ens the as­per­ities of our years.”

“Ac­cord­ing to you, then,” said Fritz, lev­el­ling his ri­fle at a pe­trel, “the mis­for­tunes of the one con­sti­tute the hap­pi­ness of the oth­er?”

“Un­ques­tion­ably,” said Jack; “for in­stance, if you miss that bird, so much the worse for you, and so much the bet­ter for the pe­trel.”

“It is very rarely, broth­er, that you do not in­ter­rupt a se­ri­ous con­ver­sa­tion with some non­sense.”

“Keep your tem­per, Fritz; I am about to pro­pose a se­ri­ous ques­tion my­self. How is it that the pe­trel you are aim­ing at does not come and perch it­self qui­et­ly on the bar­rel of your ri­fle?”

“Jack, Jack, you are in­cor­ri­gi­ble.”

“Did you ev­er see a hare or a pheas­ant come and stare you in the face when you were go­ing to shoot it?”

“Stun­sails and tops!” cried Willis, “if I do not see some­thing stranger than that star­ing us in the face.”

“The sea-​ser­pent, per­haps,” said Jack.

“I thought it was a sea-​bird at first,” said Willis, “but they do not in­crease in size the longer you look at them.”

“They nat­ural­ly ap­pear to in­crease as they ap­proach,” ob­served Fritz.

“Yes, but the in­crease must have a lim­it, and I nev­er saw a bird with such sin­gu­lar up­per-​works be­fore. Just take a cast of the glass your­self, Mas­ter Fritz.”

“Halls of Æo­lus!” cried Fritz, “these wings are sails.”

“So I thought!” ex­claimed Willis, throw­ing his sou'-west­er in­to the air, and ut­ter­ing a loud hur­rah.

“If it is the _Nel­son_” said Jack, “it would be a sin­gu­lar en­counter.”

“_The Nel­son_!” sighed Willis, “in the lat­itude of Hawai; no, that is im­pos­si­ble.”

“She is bear­ing down up­on us,” said Fritz.

“Just let me see a mo­ment whether I can make out her fig­ure-​head,” said Willis. “Aye, aye!”

“Can you make it out?”

“No; but, from the sheer of the hull, I think the ship is British built.”

“Thank God!” ex­claimed both the young men.

“Yes, you may say 'Thank God;' but, if it turns out to be a man-​of-​war, I must re­port my­self on board, and I doubt whether my sto­ry will go down with the cap­tain.”

“But if it is the _Nel­son_?” in­sist­ed Jack.

“Aye, aye; the _Nel­son_,” replied Willis, “is not go­ing to turn up here to oblige us, you may take my word for that.”

“I have bet­ter eyes than you, Willis; just let me see if I can make her out. No, im­pos­si­ble; noth­ing but the hull and sails.”

“It is just pos­si­ble,” per­sist­ed Jack, “that the _Nel­son_ may have been de­tained at the Cape, and af­ter­wards blown out of her course like our­selves.”

“All I can say is,” replied Willis, “that if Cap­tain Lit­tle­stone be on board that ship, it will make me the hap­pi­est man that ev­er mixed a ra­tion of grog. But these things on­ly turn up in nov­els, so it is no use talk­ing.”

“She has hoist­ed a flag at the mizzen,” cried Fritz.

“Can you make it out?”

“Well, let me see--yes, it must be so.”

“What, the Union Jack?” cried Willis.

“No, a red ground striped with blue.”

“The Unit­ed States, as I am a sin­ner!” cried Willis. “Well, it might have been worse. We can go to Amer­ica; there are sur­geons there as well as in Eu­rope--at all events, we can get a ship there for Eng­land. But let me see, we must hoist a bit of bunting; un­for­tu­nate­ly, we have on­ly British col­ors aboard, and I am afraid they are not in par­tic­ular­ly high fa­vor with our Yan­kee cousins just now.”

“Nev­er mind a flag,” said Fritz.

“Oh, that will nev­er do, they have hoist­ed a flag and are wait­ing a re­ply. But let me see,” added Willis, rum­mag­ing amongst some stores, “here is one of our Shark's Is­land sig­nals--that, I think, will puz­zle the Yan­kee con­sid­er­ably.”

The Pi­lot's sig­nal was an­swered by a gun, the re­port of which rang through the air. The strange ship's sails were thrown back and she stood still. A boat then put off with a young man in uni­form and six row­ers on board.

“Pin­nace ahoy!” cried the of­fi­cer through a speak­ing trum­pet, “who are you?”

“Ship­wrecked mariners,” cried Fritz, in re­ply.

“What is the name of your craft?”

“The _Mary_.”

“What coun­try?”

“Switzer­land.”

“I was not aware that Switzer­land was a naval pow­er,” ob­served Willis.

“She has no sea-​port,” said Jack, “but she has a fleet--of row boats.”

“Where do you hail from?” in­quired the of­fi­cer.

“New Switzer­land.”

“That gen­tle­man is very cu­ri­ous,” ob­served Jack.

Here a si­lence of some min­utes en­sued; the of­fi­cer seemed at fault in his ge­og­ra­phy.

“Where away?” at last re­sound­ed from the trum­pet.

“Bound for Eu­rope,” replied Fritz.

This re­ply elicit­ed an ex­pres­sion of doubt, ac­com­pa­nied with such a tremen­dous exjur­ga­tion as made both Fritz and Jack al­most shrink in­to the hold.

A few min­utes af­ter the Yan­kee in com­mand stepped on board, and ex­pla­na­tions were en­tered in­to that per­fect­ly sat­is­fied the re­pub­li­can of­fi­cer. He con­tin­ued, how­ev­er, to eye Willis cu­ri­ous­ly.

The _Hobo­ken_, for that was the name of the strange ship, was an Amer­ican cruis­er, car­ry­ing twelve ship guns and a long paix­han. She was at­tached to the Chi­nese sta­tion, but had re­cent­ly ob­tained in­for­ma­tion that war had been de­clared be­tween Eng­land and the States. She was now mak­ing her way to the west by a cir­cuitous route to avoid the British squadron, and, at the same time, with a view to pick up an En­glish mer­chant­man or two.

Fritz and Jack be­ing cit­izens of a sis­ter re­pub­lic, and sub­jects of a neu­tral pow­er, were re­ceived on board with a hearty wel­come, and with the hos­pi­tal­ity due to their in­ter­est­ing po­si­tion. Willis al­so re­ceived some at­ten­tion, and was treat­ed with all the cour­tesy that could be shown to the na­tive of an en­emy's coun­try.

The pin­nace was tak­en in tow till the young men made up their minds as to the course they would adopt. A free pas­sage to the States was kind­ly of­fered to them, and even pressed up­on their ac­cep­tance; but the cap­tain left the mat­ter en­tire­ly to their own op­tion.

Fritz and Jack were de­light­ed with the warmth of their re­cep­tion; and, af­ter be­ing so long cooped up in the nar­row quar­ters of the pin­nace, looked up­on the Yan­kee cruis­er, with its men and of­fi­cers in uni­form, as a sort of float­ing palace. The _Nel­son_ hav­ing been on­ly a despatch-​boat, it had giv­en them but an in­dif­fer­ent idea of a man-​of-​war. On board the Yan­kee ev­ery thing was kept in ap­ple-​pie or­der. Dis­ci­pline was main­tained with mar­tinet strict­ness. The fit­tings shone like a mir­ror. The brass cap­pings glis­tened in the sun. Com­pli­cat­ed rolls of ca­ble were pro­fuse­ly scat­tered about, but with­out con­fu­sion. The deck al­ways seemed as fresh as if it had been planked the day be­fore. The sails over­head seemed to obey the word of com­mand of their own ac­cord. The boatswain's whis­tle seemed to act up­on the men like elec­tric­ity. The sea­men's cab­ins, six feet long by six feet broad, in which a ham­mock, lock­er, and lash­ing ap­pa­ra­tus were con­ve­nient­ly stowed, were some­thing very dif­fer­ent from the ac­com­mo­da­tion on board the pin­nace. These things were re­gard­ed by Fritz and Jack with great in­ter­est; and nowhere is the ge­nius of man so bril­liant­ly dis­played as on board a well-​ap­point­ed ship of war.

The young men, how­ev­er, when they sat down to din­ner in the cap­tain's cab­in, and be­held a long ta­ble flanked with cush­ioned seats, com­mand­ed at each end by arm-​chairs, the side-​board plen­ti­ful­ly gar­nished with plate and crys­tal of var­ious kinds, fas­tened with cop­per nails to pre­vent dam­age from the ship's pitch­ing, they did not re­flect that they were in the crater of a vol­cano, and that two paces from where they sat there was pow­der enough to blow the ship and all its crew up in­to the air.

They were like­wise high­ly amused by the per­pet­ual “guess­ing,” “cal­cu­lat­ing,” “reck­on­ing,” and in­ex­haustible cu­rios­ity of the crew; but their ad­mi­ra­tion of the ship, her guns, her stores, and her tack­le, were bound­less; they felt that their pin­nace was a mere toy in com­par­ison. The ur­ban­ity of the of­fi­cers al­so was a source of much grat­ifi­ca­tion to them; Jack even de­clared that all the civ­iliza­tion of Eu­rope had been shipped on board the _Hobo­ken_, and in so far as that was con­cerned, they had no oc­ca­sion to go on much fur­ther.

The ob­ject of this ex­pe­di­tion, how­ev­er, was a sur­geon. There was one on board. Would he go to New Switzer­land? Jack de­ter­mined to try, and ac­cord­ing­ly he walked straight off to the per­son­age in ques­tion.

“Doc­tor,” said he, “would you do my­self and my broth­er a great fa­vor?”

“Cer­tain­ly; and, if it is in my pow­er, you may con­sid­er it done.”

“Well, will you em­bark with us for New Switzer­land?”

“For what pur­pose, my friend?”

“My moth­er is la­bor­ing un­der a mal­ady, which there is ev­ery rea­son to fear is can­cer.”

“And sup­pose a fever was to break out in this ship whilst I am ab­sent, what do you imag­ine is to be­come of the of­fi­cers and crew?”

“There are no symp­toms of dis­ease on board; but my moth­er is dy­ing.”

“You for­get, young man, that dis­ease may make its ap­pear­ance at any mo­ment. There are many sons on board whose lives are as dear to their moth­ers as your moth­er's is to you, and for ev­ery one of these lives I am of­fi­cial­ly ac­count­able.”

Jack hung down his head and was silent.

“No, my good friend, it is im­pos­si­ble for me to grant such a re­quest; but, from what I know of your his­to­ry, and the means at your com­mand, you may be able to ob­tain the ser­vices of a com­pe­tent med­ical man. I would, there­fore, rec­om­mend you to aban­don your boat, and pro­ceed with us to our des­ti­na­tion.”

Af­ter a lengthy con­sul­ta­tion, the two broth­ers and Willis de­ter­mined to adopt this course. The car­go of the pin­nace was ac­cord­ing­ly trans­ferred to the hold of the _Hobo­ken_. A short sum­ma­ry of their his­to­ry was writ­ten, corked up in a bot­tle, and fas­tened to the mast of the _Mary_, which was then cut adrift. A tear gath­ered on the cheeks of the young men as they saw their old friend in ad­ver­si­ty drop­ping slow­ly be­hind, and they did not with­draw their eyes from it till ev­ery ves­tige of its hull was lost in the shad­ows of the wa­ters.

As Fritz and Jack were thus en­gaged in gaz­ing list­less­ly on the ocean, and re­flect­ing up­on their al­tered prospects, and per­haps try­ing to pen­etrate the veil of the fu­ture, Willis came to­wards them rub­bing his breast, as if he had been seized with a vi­olent in­ter­nal spasm.

“Hilloa,” cried Jack, “the Pi­lot is sea-​sick! Shall I run for some brandy, Willis?”

“No, stop a bit; we were in hopes of falling in with Cap­tain Lit­tle­stone, were we not?”

“Yes; but what then?”

“We were dis­ap­point­ed, were we not?”

“Yes. That has not made you ill, has it?”

“No; some­body else has turned up; there is one of the _Nel­son's_ crew on board this ship.”

“One of the _Nel­son's_ crew?”

“Aye, and if you on­ly knew how my heart beat when I saw him.”

“I can eas­ily con­ceive your feel­ings,” said Jack, “for my own heart has al­most leaped in­to my mouth.”

“And I am thun­der­struck,” added Fritz.

“I went to­wards my old friend,” con­tin­ued Willis, “with tears in my eyes, threw my arms round him, and gave him a hearty but af­fec­tion­ate hug.”

“And what did he say?”

“Noth­ing, at first; but, as soon as I left his arms at lib­er­ty, he gave me such a punch in the ribs as al­most dou­bled me in two; it was enough to knock the in'ards out of a rhinoceros--ugh!”

“A blow in earnest?” ex­claimed Fritz in as­ton­ish­ment.

“Yes; there was no mis­take about it; it was a re­al, good, earnest John Bull knock-​down thump; it put me in mind of Portsmouth on a pay day--ugh!”

“Ex­treme­ly touch­ing,” said Jack, smil­ing.

“Then, when I called him by his name Bill Stubbs, and asked what had be­come of the sloop, he said that he knew noth­ing at all about the sloop, and swore that he had nev­er set his eyes on my fig­ure-​head be­fore, the varmint--ugh!”

“Odd,” re­marked Jack.

“Are you sure of your man?” in­quired Fritz.

“But you say his name is Bill, whilst he de­clares his name is Bob.”

“Aye, he has ev­ident­ly been up to some mis­chief, and changed his tick­et.”

“Then what con­clu­sion do you draw from the af­fair.”

“I am com­plete­ly be­wil­dered, and scarce­ly know what to think; per­haps the crew has mu­tinied, and turned Cap­tain Lit­tle­stone adrift on a desert is­land. That is some­times done. Per­haps--”

“It is no use per­haps­ing those sort of melan­choly things,” said Fritz; “we may as well sup­pose, for the present, that Cap­tain Lit­tle­stone is safe, and that your friend has been put on shore for some mis­de­meanour.”

“May be, may be, Mas­ter Fritz; and I hope and trust it is so. But to have an old com­rade amongst us, who could give us all the in­for­ma­tion we want, and yet not to be able to get a sin­gle thing out of him--”

“Ex­cept a punch in the ribs,” sug­gest­ed Jack.

“Ex­act­ly; and a punch that will not let me for­get the lub­ber in a hur­ry,” added Willis, clench­ing his fist; “but I in­tend, in the mean­time, to keep my weath­er eye open.”

A few weeks af­ter this episode the _Hobo­ken_ was slow­ly wend­ing her way along the bights of the Ba­hamas. Fritz, Jack, and Willis were walk­ing and chat­ting on the quar­ter-​deck. The sky was of a deep azure. The sea was cov­ered with herbs and flow­ers as far as the eye could reach--some­times in com­pact mass­es of sev­er­al miles in ex­tent, and at oth­er times in long straight rib­bons, as reg­ular as if they had been spread by some West In­di­an Le Notre. The ship seemed mere­ly dis­play­ing her graces in the sun­shine, so gen­tle was she mov­ing in the wa­ter. The air was laden with per­fumes, and a soft dreamy lan­guor stole over the friends, which they were try­ing in vain to shake off. In one di­rec­tion rose the misty heights of St. Domin­go, and in an­oth­er the cloud-​capped sum­mits of Cu­ba. Some­times the high­est peaks of the lat­ter pierced the veil that en­veloped them, and seemed like is­lands float­ing in the sky, or heads of a race of gi­ants.

“The air here is al­most as balmy and fra­grant as that of New Switzer­land,” re­marked Fritz.

“Aye, aye,” said the Pi­lot; “but it is not all gold that glit­ters: in these sweet smells a nasty fever is con­cealed, with which I have no wish to re­new my ac­quain­tance.”

“By the way, talk­ing about ac­quain­tances, Willis, have you ob­tained any fur­ther in­tel­li­gence from your friend Bill, _alias_ Bob?” in­quired Jack.

“No, not a syl­la­ble; the viper is as cun­ning as a fox, and keeps his mouth as close as a mouse-​trap.”

“He seems as ob­sti­nate as a mule, and as ob­du­rate as a Chi­na­man in­to the bar­gain.”

“All that, and more than that; but,” added Willis, “I have found out from the mate that he was pressed on board this ship at New Or­leans.”

“Pressed on board?” said Fritz, in­quir­ing­ly.

“Yes; that is a mode of re­cruit­ing for the navy pe­cu­liar to Eng­land and the Unit­ed States. Would you like to hear some­thing about how the sys­tem is car­ried out?”

“Yes, Willis, very much.”

“The trans­ac­tions, how­ev­er, that I shall have to re­late are in no way cred­itable, ei­ther to my­self or any­body else con­nect­ed with them; and I am afraid, when you hear the par­tic­ulars, you will be ready to turn round and say, your friend the Pi­lot is no good af­ter all.”

“Have you, then, been des­per­ate­ly wicked, Willis?”

“Well, that de­pends en­tire­ly up­on the view you take of what I am to tell you. Lis­ten.”

FOOT­NOTES:

[H] Some­times called the _Ladrones_ or _Archipela­go of Saint Lazarus_.