“And where do you sleep at night, Jim?”
“Anywhere, sah. Jim ain’t pertikler; some time it is a sugar barrel, an oder time a door-step.”
A low, sneering laugh was at this moment heard from the mysterious bundle Jim carried. McBain started.
“Don’t be afeared, sah,” said Jim; “it’s only de cockatoo, sah!”
“Have you any money, Jim?” asked McBain.
“Only de cockatoo, sah,” replied Jim; “but la!” he added, “I’se a puffuk gemlam (gentleman), sah – I’se got a heart as high as de steeple, sah!”
“Well, Jim,” said McBain, laughing, “would you like to sail in a big ship with me, and – and – black my boots?”
“Golly! yes, sah; dat would suit Jim all to nuffin.”
“But suppose, Jim, we went far away – as far as the North Pole?”
“Don’t care, sah,” said Jim, emphatically; “der never was a pole yet as Jim couldn’t climb.”
“Have you a surname, Jim?”
“No, sah,” replied poor Jim; “I’se got no belongings but de cockatoo.”
“I mean, Jim, have you a second name?”
“La! no, sir,” said Jim; “one name plenty good enough for a nigga boy. Only – yes now I ’members, in de ship dat bring me from Sierra Leone last summer de cap’n never call me nuffin else but Freezin’ Powders.”
McBain did not take long to make up his mind about anything; he determined to take this strange boy with him, so he took him to a shop and bought him a cage for the cockatoo, and then the two marched on board together, talking away as if they had known each other for years.
Freezing Powders was sent below to be washed and dressed and made decent. The ship was passing Inellan when he came on deck again. Jim was thunderstruck; he had never seen snow before.
“La! sah,” he cried, pointing with outstretched arm towards the hills; “look, sah, look; dey never like dat before. De Great Massa has been and painted dem all white.”
Chapter Five.
Danger on the Deep – A Forest of Waterspouts – The “Arrandoon” is Swamped – The Warning
“La la lay lee-ah, lay la le lo-O” So went the song on deck – a song without words, short, and interrupted at every bar, as the men hauled cheerily on tack and sheet.
Such a thing would not be allowed for a single moment on board a British man-o’-war, as the watch singing while they obeyed the orders of the bo’sun’s pipe, taking in sail, squaring yards, or doing any other duty required of them. And yet, with all due respect for my own flag, methinks there are times when, as practised in merchant or passenger ships, that strange, weird, wordless song is not at all an unpleasant sound to listen to. By night, for instance, after you have turned in to your little narrow bed – the cradle of the deep, in which you are nightly rocked – to hear it rising and falling, and ending in long-drawn cadence, gives one an indescribable feeling of peace and security. Your bark is all alone – so your thoughts may run – on a wild world of waters. There may not be another ship within hundreds of miles; the wind may be rising or the wind may be falling – what do you care? What need you care? There are watchful eyes on deck, there are good men and true overhead, and they seem to sing your cradle hymn, “La la lee ah,” and before it is done you are wrapt in that sweetest, that dreamless slumber that landsmen seldom know.
There was one man at least in every watch on board the Arrandoon, who usually led the song that accompanied the hauling on a rope, with a sweet, clear tenor voice; you could not have been angry with these men had you been twenty times a man-o’-war’s man.
It was about an hour after breakfast, and our boys were lazing below. For some time previous to the working song, there had been perfect silence on board – a silence broken only now and then by a short word of command, a footstep on deck, or the ominous flapping of the canvas aloft, as it shivered for a moment, then filled and swelled out again.
Had you been down below, one sign alone would have told you that something was going to happen – that some change was about to take place. It was this: when everything is going on all right, you hear the almost constant tramp, tramp of the officer of the watch up and down the quarter-deck, but this was absent now, and you would have known without seeing him that he was standing, probably, by the binnacle, his eyes now bent aloft, and now sweeping the horizon, and now and then glancing at the compass.
Then came a word or two of command, given in a quiet, ordinary tone of voice – there was no occasion to howl on this particular morning. And after this a rush of feet, and next the song, and the bo’sun’s pipe. Thus: —
Song. – “La la lee ah, lay la le lo-O.”
Spoken. – “Hoy!”
Boatswain’s Pipe. – “Whee-e, weet weet weet, wee-e.”
Song. – “La la lee ah, lay la le lo-O.”
Spoken. – “Belay!”
Boatswain’s Pipe. – “Wee wee weet weet weet weet, wee-e.”
Spoken. – “Now lads.”
Song. – “Lo ah o ee.”
Pipe. – “Weet weet!”
Then a hurry-scurrying away forward, a trampling of feet enough to awaken Rip van Winkle, then the bo’sun’s pipe encore.
Allan straightens his back in his easy-chair – he has been bending over the table, reading the “Noctes Ambrosianae” – straightens his back, stretches his arms, and says “Heigho!” Rory is busy arranging some beautiful transparent specimens of animalculae, not bigger than midges, on a piece of black cardboard; he had caught them overnight in a gauze net dragged astern. He doesn’t look up. Ralph is lying “tandem” on a sofa, reading “Ivanhoe.” He won’t take his eyes off the book, nor move as much as one drowsy eyelid, but he manages to say, —
“What are they about on deck, Rory?”
“Don’t know even a tiny bit,” says Rory.
“Rory,” continues Ralph, in a slightly louder key; “you’re a young man; run up and see.”
“Rory won’t then,” says Rory, intent on his work; “fag for yourself, my lazy boy.”
“Oh!” says Ralph, “won’t you have your ears pulled when I do get up!”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Rory, “you’ll have forgotten all about it long before then.”
“Freezing Powders!” roared Ralph.
The bright-faced though bullet-headed nigger boy introduced in last chapter appeared instantly. He was dressed in white flannel, braided with blue. Had he been a sprite, or a djin, he couldn’t have popped up with more startling rapidity. Truth is, the young rascal had been asleep under the table.
“Off on deck with you, Freezing Powders, and see what’s up.”
Freezing Powders was down again in a moment.
“Take in all sail, sah! and square de yard; no wind, sah! nebber a puff.”
It was just as Freezing Powders said, but there was noise enough presently, and puffing too, for steam was got up, and the great screw was churning the waters of the dark northern ocean into creamish foam, as the vessel went steadily ahead at about ten knots an hour. There was no occasion to hurry. When Rory and Allan went on deck, they found the captain in consultation with the mates, Mitchell and Stevenson.
“I must admit,” McBain was remarking, “that I can’t make it out at all.”
“No more can we,” said Stevenson with a puzzled smile. “The wind has failed us all at once, and the sea gone down, and