“No, we shouldn’t. The men are at dinner just now, and we can slip in when the backs of the fellows on deck are turned.”
“I forgot that,” said Frank; “but we should be certain to be seen when we landed.”
“Ay, no doubt. But that will be too late, won’t it? Once ashore, I guess they must be pretty nimble to catch us; and besides, old Jennings is too good-natured to do anything against us, which he isn’t obliged to do.”
“Well, that’s true, certainly,” returned Wilmore. “What do you say, Warley? Are you game to make the trial?”
“Yes, I am,” returned Ernest. “I think it is regular tyranny to oblige us to stay in the ship, when there is no reason for it, except the captain’s caprice. But if we mean to try this, we must make haste.”
The three lads hurried on deck; and a glance showed them they were just in time. There were only two or three men to be seen, and they were at the other end of the ship. They skimmed nimbly down the ladder, and found no difficulty in concealing themselves at the bow end of the boat, which was completely hidden from sight by the empty casks. They had not been in their hiding-place very long, before the old quartermaster and his men were heard coming down the side. The shore was soon reached, and the keel had no sooner grated on the sand, than the boys sprang out and ran up the beach, saluting old Jennings with a parting cheer as they went.
“Well, I never,” muttered the old man. “The cap’en ’ull be in a nice taking when he hears of this! And there ain’t no chance but what he will hear of it. We’ve Andy Duncan in the boat, and he carries everything to the first lieutenant, as sure as it happens. Well, I ain’t bound to peach, anyhow – that’s one comfort!”
Meanwhile the captain had gone on shore, his temper not improved by the report of the doctor which had been brought to him as he was leaving the vessel, that another of his best hands was rendered useless – for several weeks to come at all events – by a bad attack of fever, which might very possibly spread through the ship. He returned on board after nightfall, still more provoked and vexed. He had met with the greatest difficulty in his attempts to fill the places of his missing men. There were, as the reader has been told, very few whites on the island, and none of them were sailors. The blacks were very unwilling to engage, except upon exorbitant terms, and hardly one of those with whom he spoke appeared good for anything. He had at one time all but given up the matter in despair. But late in the afternoon he was accosted by a dark-complexioned man, lean and sinewy as a bloodhound, who informed him that the vessel in which he traded between the South African ports and the West Indian Islands, had been driven on the Cape Verdes and totally wrecked. But the crew had escaped, he said, and were willing to engage with Captain Wilmore for the voyage to Calcutta.
The captain hesitated. He had little doubt that the lost vessel had been a slaver, and he had an instinctive abhorrence of all engaged in that horrible traffic. Still there seemed no other hope of successfully prosecuting the voyage, and after all it would be a companionship of only a few months. He resolved to make one effort more to obtain less questionable help, and if that should fail, to accept the offer. Desiring the stranger to bring his men to the quay in an hour’s time, he once more entered the town, and made inquiries at all the houses to which sailors were likely to resort. His success was no better than it had been before, and he was obliged to close with the proposal of the foreign captain. He liked the looks of the crew even less than those of their captain. There were eighteen of them, however, and all strong serviceable fellows, if they chose to work. He must hope for the best; but even the best did not appear very promising; and if the Yankee captain, who had been the prime cause of the mischief, had been delivered into his hands at that moment, it is to be feared he would have met with small mercy.
In this frame of mind he regained the Hooghly, and shortly after his arrival was informed by the first lieutenant of the escapade of the three boys, with the gratuitous addition that he had himself delivered them the captain’s message – that no one was to be permitted to leave the ship, except those who had gone ashore with the captain.
The skipper’s wrath fairly boiled over. He vowed he would straightway give his nephew a smart taste of the cat-o’-nine-tails, and put the other two into irons, to teach them obedience. The boatswain accordingly was summoned, and the delinquents ordered into custody, but after a delay of half an hour, during which the captain’s wrath seemed to be every moment growing hotter, it was announced that the boys could not be found, and the boat’s crew sent ashore with the water-casks positively declared that they did not return with them. As no other boats but theirs and the captain’s had held any communication with the land, it appeared certain that the young gentlemen were still on shore, intending probably to return by a shore boat later in the evening.
“Do they?” exclaimed Captain Wilmore fiercely, when this likelihood was suggested to him by Mr Grey. “They’ll find themselves mistaken, then. Up with the anchor, Crossman, and hoist the mainsail. Before their boat has left the quay, we shall be twenty miles from land. Not a word, Mr Lavie. A month or two’s stay in these islands will be a lesson they’ll keep by them all their lives.”
No one ventured to remonstrate. The anchor was lifted, the great sails were set, and in half an hour they were moving southward at a pace which soon left the lights of Porto Prayo a mere speck in the distance.
But the boys had not been left behind, though no one but themselves and old Jennings was aware of the fact. He had kept the boat from putting off on her return to the ship, on one pretext or another, as long as he could venture to do so, in the hope that the lads would make their appearance. But he was aware that Andy Duncan’s eye was upon him, and could not venture to delay longer. It happened, however, that soon after his return, Mr Lavie had found it necessary to send on shore to the hospital for some ice, of which they had none on board, and old Jennings had volunteered to go. He took the smallest boat and no one with him but his nephew, Joe Cobbes, who was completely under his orders. He landed at a different place from that at which the boat had been moored in the morning, and sent his nephew with the message to the hospital. He then made search after the boys, whom he soon discovered at the regular landing-place, waiting anxiously for some means of regaining the Hooghly.
“Hallo, Jennings,” exclaimed Frank, as he caught sight of the old man’s figure through the fast gathering darkness; “that’s all right, then. I was afraid we were going to stay ashore all night?”
“I hope it is all right, sir,” answered Jennings, “but if the captain finds out that you’ve been breaking his orders – ”
“I don’t believe he has given any order – ” interrupted Frank. “And it would be monstrous if he had,” exclaimed Ernest in the same breath.
“I don’t know what you believe, Mr Frank, but it’s sartain he has ordered that no one shall leave the ship; and I don’t know as it’s so unreasonable, Mr Warley, after the desertion of the hands at Madeira.”
“We never heard of their deserting,” cried Warley.
“I dare say not, sir. It was kep’ snug. But that’s why the cap’en would allow no boats to go ashore, except what couldn’t be helped. You see, sir, if more of the men were to make off, there mightn’t be enough left to work the ship, and if there came a gale – ”
“Yes, yes; I understand that,” again broke in Frank, “but we didn’t know anything about their deserting.”
“Well, sir, it was giv’ out this morning as that was the reason, and every one, I thought, knew it. But anyways, sir, you’d best come and get aboard my boat, and keep out of the skipper’s way. He’ll be sure to find out about your doings. Andy ’ull tell the first lieutenant, and he’ll tell the skipper – ”
“I am sure I don’t care if he does,” exclaimed Warley.
“Ah, you don’t know him, sir. He’s not a man as it’s wise to defy. Wait a bit; let him cool down and he’s as pleasant a man as any one. But when he’s put up, old Nick himself can’t match him. I don’t mind a gale of wind off the Cape, or boarding a Frenchman, or a tussle with a pirate, but I durstn’t face the cap’en, when he’s