it was some days later, long after the storm had blown itself out, that the fleet was making its fifteen knots in column formation over a waveless sea, smooth as a mirror under a clear blue sky. the jackies lolled about the decks in the hour after dinner, some smoking, some writing long letters home and some reading or skylarking.
suddenly herc shattered the repose of all hands by a loud shout.
“there’s a sail right ahead of us, ship-mates!”
now the monotony of a sea voyage is always agreeably interrupted by the sighting of a vessel, and the one herc had spied was the first to be encountered since the fleet had sailed from san francisco. all sorts of speculations flew about regarding the ship that herc had sighted.
[158]
“maybe we can send mail home on her,” said some one, and the letter writers hastened to put their epistles into envelopes and hurried off to the ship’s writer for stamps.
but they might have saved their efforts. it was ned who called their attention to the fact that, inasmuch as the strange craft was a sailing ship, it was not likely that she would reach america before the mail steamer from the sandwich islands.
the jackies clustered forward like a swarm of bees watching the ship as they came closer to her. she was an odd-looking craft, bluff-bowed, clumsy, and rigged as a barque with short, stumpy masts and wide yards. in the calm she appeared to be hardly moving and it soon became evident that they would pass quite close to her.
all sorts of guesses were hazarded as to what the wanderer of the seas would prove to be.
“she’s a rooshian, you can tell that by the cut of her jib,” declared old harness cask, knowingly.
[159]
“no such thing,” contradicted another ancient mariner, “she’s a whaler.”
“not she. where’s her boats?” came from another foc’sle wiseacre.
“whatever she is, she is an old-timer,” spoke ned.
“you’re right there, young feller,” growled old harness cask. “afore i jined the navy i’d sailed on many a craft just like her, but they don’t build nothing but eighteen knot steel tanks nowadays, an it ain’t often that a good old barky gets your eye.”
“aye, aye, all sailoring’s gone adrift,” agreed another veteran of the seas. “young chaps nowadays who can handle a paint-brush or a gun are shoved ahead of them as knows every rope and sail on a ship. it weren’t so when i was a young feller.”
“no; there’s nothing but ‘monkey-wrench’ sailors to be met with nowadays,” came from another “sea-lawyer.”
[160]
as they drew closer to the strange vessel, they could make out various odd-looking marks on her sails.
“crow’s feet!” cried ned. “red crow’s feet! what in the name of time is the reason of that?”
on the bridge, officers stood with glasses leveled at the odd craft with the strangely bedezined sails.
a sailor who had formerly sailed in the british navy partially explained the mystery.
“that’s what the britishers call the broad-arrow’,” he said. “it’s the mark they put on their convicts’ clothes.”
“but what’s that old ship doing with it?” wondered ned.
“hullo, look at that lettering on her bows,” cried herc a few minutes later; “can you make it out?”
“not yet,” responded his companion, “but we’ll be close enough in a while to read it.”
not long after, herc spelled out the inscription on the ship’s bluff bows.
[161]
“convict ship, victory,” he read out to the assemblage.
“oh, that explains it all,” cried ned. “i remember reading in a newspaper before we left that the victory was on her way from australia to america to be exhibited. they say that she was built in 1790 and was used for many years to bring out convicts from english prisons to australia, which was at that time a convict settlement. she’s supposed to be just as she was in those days, with whipping posts, irons, and all sorts of instruments of punishment still intact.”
“cracky! i’d like to see her,” exclaimed herc, a wish that was echoed by not a few. there was a sort of fascination in gazing at the craft which had been the scene of so much barbarity in the bad old days when she had been known as a floating inferno.
“look, they’re signaling something!” cried herc suddenly as a string of bunting went up in the stranger’s peak.
[162]
“short of water,” spelled out a signal-man, who happened to be in the group of interested tars.
“and we’re going to help ’em out, too,” he added soon after, as an answering string of flags went aloft on the manhattan. “the old man’s signaling the rest of the fleet to heave to while we help them out. maybe you’ll get a chance to see that old hooker, after all,” he added, turning to the boys.
“if they send away number one cutter we will,” rejoined ned, naming the boat to which both of the dreadnought boys were assigned and in which he pulled stroke oar.
presently a bos’un’s mate came roaring along the deck.
“away, number one cutter! do you hear!”
“aye! aye!” cried the sailors assigned to that boat, and headed by ned and herc they hastened to the boat deck, where they found a young ensign in command. the boat was swiftly lowered and several casks of water placed on board.
[163]
“give way,” came the command, and the cutter began to move over the water toward the becalmed ship, ned setting a swift, deep navy stroke.
as they came alongside, a jacob’s ladder was snaked over the side of the old craft, and her crew ranged along the bulwarks looking admiringly at the trim, sun-burned navy men in the cutter.
a tall man, of gangling build and with a gray goatee came to the gangway.
“right glad you could help us out,” he drawled with a strong new england accent. “we’ve bin uncommon short of water fer ther last ten days an’ it looked like we would be a floating sahary afore long, when you hove in sight.”
the ensign scrambled upon deck and ned took charge of the conveyance of the water kegs on board. while they loaded the water into the victory’s tanks the captain, whose name was abner samuels, was explaining to the ensign how he[164] had bought the old convict ship as a speculation and had made quite a lot of money exhibiting her at different points. the young officer, in his turn, informed the down-east skipper that he ought to feel highly flattered at halting the united states fleet to supply his needs.
“wa’al, uncle sam is always powerful good to his nevvys,” responded the old captain, who was quite a character.
when the transferring of the water was finished, the skipper invited all hands to look over his unique craft.
“everything’s just as it was in the old days when seven hundred convicts used to be packed aboard,” he said, “all the torture instruments and thumb-screws and whipping posts and all. she’s a right interesting old ship.”
the ensign agreed to allow the jackies then on board to make a hasty survey of the old craft, and they scattered through her while the skipper took charge of the ensign.
[165]
the old ship was just as interesting as her owner and captain had proclaimed. her gloomy holds were partitioned off into tiny cells in which a man could not stand upright, and iron manacles and wooden stocks were on every side. ned and herc felt oppressed and gloomy as they viewed the venerable craft, and saw unmistakable evidences of the suffering and torment that the unhappy human beings on board her must have endured.
suddenly, from the deck, came the shrill sound of a pipe. it was the call to return. ned darted off, but herc, always curious, lingered just a minute to peep into what had been a solitary cell, a tiny, black hole with a heavy iron door.
he swung the door open, and striking a match, stepped inside.
“wow! just think of being shut in a place like that with the ship boiling and roasting in the tropics!” he exclaimed with a shudder. “why a man could hardly live in such a——”
clang!
[166]
the iron door had suddenly banged to as the ship gave a slight roll on the swells generated by the close proximity of the big dreadnought. herc sprang at the door. but it resisted his stoutest efforts to open it. it had closed with a spring lock and there was herc a prisoner in the bowels of the old convict ship.
after the lapse of so many years, the solitary cell once more held a victim. this time though, it was no cringing, shaven convict going into exile, but a yankee blue-jacket.
herc set up a lusty yelling for help. he shook the solid door and roared for release out of his predicament.
“goodness,” he exclaimed, “in trouble again! but this time the joke is certainly on me. it’s a good thing i was never a convict,” he added in his whimsical fashion, “or they’d have been feeding me to the sharks in a very short time. gracious! what a hole! hot as a furnace, too, and as dark as it was in those coal bunkers. i hope they hurry and let me out!”
