Jack Harvey's Adventures; or, The Rival Campers Among the Oyster Pirates

by Gabrielle E. Jackson

  CHAPTER III DOWN THE BAY

  Jack Harvey's father, awakening next morning in his comfortablestate-room aboard the liner, would have been not a little astounded hadhe known how strangely the facts belied his remark to Mrs. Harvey thatJack must, by this time, be well on his way north. By no possible stretchof fancy could the vision of their son, lying asleep in the crazy cabinof the old schooner, appear to the minds of Harvey's parents. In blissfulignorance of his strange adventure, they sailed away. Miles and milesbehind, the schooner followed in the liner's wake.

  Jack Harvey was a good sleeper. The sun came up out of the bay and shedits light far and wide upon hundreds of craft, borne lightly by the windand tide. It penetrated, even, the cabin of the dingy schooner, and itlighted the way for the youthful sleeper to come back from dreams toconsciousness.

  For some moments, as Harvey lay with half opened eyes, he wondered wherehe was. Then it all came back to him in a flash: the Baltimorewater-front; the picturesque fishermen; the strange young man--and then,the remembrance that he had signed for a month aboard the schooner. Foran instant he almost regretted that act, and the thought brought him upquickly on one elbow, to look about him.

  One resolve he made at the moment. He would not back out now. He mightfind that impossible, anyway, since he had signed the paper. But he wouldsend a line to Miss Matilda Burns, letting her know what he was doing. Itwas no more than fair to her.

  The next moment, Jack Harvey leaped to his feet. He was fully awake now.Dressed, as he was,--for he had removed only his shoes and coat,--hesprang to one of the ports. He had sailed too much not to know that thevessel was under weigh, although, on a perfectly smooth sea and with noswell, there was but slight perceptible motion to the schooner.

  One glance told him the truth. He waited no longer, but ran up thecompanion-way on deck. Amazed, he looked about him. Far astern, somefifteen miles, the outlines of the city showed. The nearest shore was amile away. The schooner, foresail and main-sail set, and winged out, wasslowly gliding before the wind down the bay.

  Jack Harvey gave a whistle of astonishment. Then a feeling of resentmenttoward young Mr. Jenkins arose in his breast.

  "That's a cool trick!" he exclaimed. "Why didn't he tell me we were goingto sail so soon? He said we'd have time to get a few things in the shopsbefore we sailed. I'll tell him what I think of it."

  Without waiting to speak to anyone on deck, or scarce take notice of whowas there, Harvey darted down the companion-way and hastened to the bunkwhere he had seen Mr. Jenkins turn in, the night before.

  It was empty.

  Strangely puzzled, Harvey made his way out on deck. A tall, keen-eyedman, smooth-shaven save for a light blond moustache, sat astride thewheel box, steering. Harvey turned to him, somewhat excitedly.

  "Where's that fellow Jenkins?" he asked.

  Coolly surveying Harvey, with a pair of steady, blue eyes, the manreplied, "You call me 'Mr. Blake,' young feller; I'm mate."

  Harvey's face flushed, angrily. A feeling that he had been somehowtricked came over him. Ignoring the man's order, he stepped nearer tohim.

  "I want to see that chap, Jenkins," he repeated. "He didn't tell me wewere going to sail this way in the night. Where is he?"

  The lines about the mouth of Mr. Blake, mate, tightened as he looked theboy over from head to foot. Later experience enlightened Harvey as towhat would have happened to him had they been well down the bay. But, asit was, the man merely uttered something softly under his breath. "I'llleave you for Haley to deal with," was what he said. And he added, in amollifying tone, addressing Harvey:

  "Why, it's too bad about that young feller, Jenkins. You see he got left.He slipped up town for some stuff, early this morning--about threeo'clock, I guess, and didn't show up when the tide served for starting.Scroop wouldn't wait, and you can't blame him. But he left word forJenkins to come down on that boat that lay alongside us. She startsto-morrow. We'll pick him up down the bay. It'll be all right. You're theyoung feller that Joe told about, eh--going a trip with us?"

  The man's manner, changing thus suddenly from sharp to kindly, wassurprising--and a bit comforting, too. Without a companion, even thoughJenkins were a chance acquaintance, the venture seemed to have taken on asomewhat different and less pleasing aspect to Harvey.

  "Yes," he said, in answer to the mate's query, "I'm going one trip, justfor a month."

  "I see," said the mate, quietly. "Well, you'll like it. You're the rightsort. I can tell that. Ever shipped before?"

  Harvey shook his head, as he explained that he had done some bay sailing.He was about to explain further under what circumstances, but somethingmade him pause. Under the same sudden impulse--he knew not the reason forit, but obeyed it--he became reticent when Mr. Blake, mate, plied himwith questions concerning himself and where he was from.

  "I'm just knocking around a bit," he replied, and kept his own counsel. Afortunate thing for him, perhaps, in the light of subsequent events.

  The conversation was abruptly broken off. Up from the forecastle thereburst three men, clinching in a confused, rough-and-tumble fashion, andstruggling together. Had Jack Harvey been on deck the night before, andobserved the man who had been carried, sleeping, from the cabin to theforecastle, he might perhaps recognize him now as one of these three.

  Somewhat recovered from his condition of stupefaction was he; sufficientto gaze about him wildly, wrestle with the two men who attacked him,strike at them furiously, and cry out several times that he was up totheir tricks, that he couldn't be trapped like a dog and shanghaied downthe bay--and let them come on, if they dared.

  That they did dare was quite apparent; for they rushed him almost off hisfeet the next moment. And then, to Harvey's surprise, he found himselfsuddenly at service aboard the schooner.

  Leaping to his feet, the mate exclaimed, hastily, "Here, you, hold thatwheel a minute."

  Harvey obeyed. The mate made a few bounds across the deck, took advantageof the opening that offered as the strange man's back was turned to him,and dealt him a blow behind one ear that felled him, half stunned. Thenext moment, Harvey saw the three lift the vanquished fighter by head andheels and carry him below again.

  Harvey's heart sank a little. It was hardly an auspicious beginning of acruise on a strange craft.

  Mr. Blake was back again in a few minutes. He was as cool as thoughnothing unusual had taken place.

  "No, you keep the wheel a moment, while I light my pipe," he said, asHarvey started to relinquish the post. Then he laughed, drew forth hispipe and a piece of tobacco, and proceeded to cut a pipeful with hisknife.

  "That's Tom Saunders," he said. "Gets foolish drunk the minute he stepson shore; never's sober except when he's afloat. Comes aboard a-boilin'every trip, fights, and makes a mess about being carried off against hiswill. He'll straighten out tomorrow and be the best man in the crew."

  Harvey felt a bit easier. There had come over him, as he watched thestruggle, a feeling that perhaps he, too, had been trapped aboard here.It was strange, certainly: the disappearance of Mr. Jenkins, and thewords the man had just uttered about being shanghaied. However, he was infor the cruise; and come what would, Harvey resolved to make the best ofit.

  There came aft, presently, the man Scroop, captain of the schooner, whomHarvey eyed curiously, when the mate addressed him.

  "Well?" inquired Mate Blake.

  Captain Scroop gave vent to a vigorous expletive. "We've fixed him!" hesaid. "He'll shut up for a while. Hullo, who's this?"

  "A friend of Jenkins," replied the mate, giving a sly wink as he spoke.

  Captain Scroop looked at Harvey keenly. Harvey eyed him, eagerly, inreturn. What he saw was not wholly favourable. Scroop, a hard-featured,shifty-eyed man of middle stature, had not been rendered moreprepossessing by his recent encounter. A swelling under one eye showedwhere the stranger's fist had landed heavily. His woollen shirt was tornopen at the neck, wherein the veins were distended
from wrath andexcitement. He gave one quick, shifting glance at Harvey and saidabruptly, "All right. Get below now and tell Joe to give you breakfast."

  Harvey went below.

  Captain Scroop turned angrily upon the mate.

  "Who got him aboard?" he asked.

  "Jenkins--who do you suppose?"

  Captain Scroop's face darkened, and he shook a clenched fist in thedirection of Baltimore.

  "Won't he never tell the truth, nohow?" he exclaimed. "Lied to me lastnight, up and down. Twenty-five years old, or near that, was what heswore. Haven't I told him not to get these boys? That's a kid--if he'sseventeen he's doin' better'n I think. He's got to go, though. I'll puthim through, now. But wait till we get back. Won't I settle withsomebody? They'll have the law on us some day."

  "Pooh! You've said all that a million times," replied the mate, coolly."What's the odds? Aren't we taking chances, every trip we make? Haven'twe had boys before? Look at the lot of 'em we've had from New York.What's it to us? Leave Haley to work it out. And don't you go to gettingdown on Artie Jenkins. He knows his lay. He wouldn't have shipped thisfellow unless he knew it was all right. He's no fonder of trouble than weare."

  Jack Harvey, the innocent subject of the foregoing remarks, was, in themeantime, getting into a better frame of mind. There was no great fault,surely, to be found with the grub aboard the schooner. Nothing that hehad ever cooked and eaten at his camp by the shore of Samoset Bay tastedbetter than the corn flap-jacks handed out from the galley by the boy,Joe. Smeared with a substance, greasy and yellow, but that never was norever could be suspected of being butter, and sticky with a blackishliquid that was sweet, like molasses, they were still appetizing to ahungry youth who had never known the qualms of sea-sickness. A muddycompound, called by extreme courtesy coffee, warmed Harvey to the marrowand put heart in him. A few slices of fried bacon tasted better than thebest meal he could have had aboard the ocean liner.

  Eating heartily, despite his disappointment to find himself forsaken byMr. Jenkins, Harvey essayed to draw the boy, Joe, into conversation; butthe latter was sullen, and chary of his words.

  Would Jenkins surely be down by the next vessel? The boy nodded, somewhatblankly. He guessed so. Where would they begin fishing, and how? Harveywould see, later. And so on. There was clearly little to be gotten fromhim.

  Once there came down into the cabin the same, odd individual who had sat,huddled in the cabin, smoking, the afternoon before. He got a dish of theflap-jacks and a pail of the coffee, and started out again. Harvey fireda question at him, as the man waited a moment to receive his grub.

  "How do we fish, down the bay, anyway?" asked Harvey.

  The man turned a little, stared at Harvey in a surly manner for a moment,and then--apparently not all in sympathy with methods aboard the schoonerand in the trade generally--answered, "Hmph! You breaks yer back at abloody winder." And with this somewhat enigmatical reply, went about hisbusiness.

  "Say," said Harvey, turning to the boy, once more, "what's a winder?"

  "Why, it's a--a--winder," responded the boy.

  "That's just what I thought," said Harvey, smiling in spite of hisperplexity. "And what's it for?"

  "You get oysters with it," replied the boy. "You heaves the dredgeoverboard, and you winds it in again."

  "Oh, I see," said Harvey, enlightened by this lucid explanation. "It's asort of windlass, eh?"

  Joe nodded.

  "Hard work?" continued Harvey.

  "Naw--easy."

  But Harvey had his misgivings. And again he comforted himself with thethought, at worst, the cruise would be over and done in a month.

  "I guess I'm good for that," he muttered; and went out on deck again.

  The schooner's course had been changed a little, and they were nowsailing almost directly south, down Chesapeake bay. The schooner was nolonger winged out, but had both booms off to port, getting the wind onthe quarter. Fore-staysail and jib and main gaff top-sail, as well, wereset, and the old craft was swinging southward at a fair clip. The windhad begun to increase.

  This was action after Harvey's own heart, and he walked forward, towardthe gruff sailor, who was stationed near the forecastle. He observed, ashe advanced, that there was still another man forward by the jibs; andthat these two sailors, the captain and mate and the boy, Joe, wereapparently the only ones aboard the vessel, besides himself.

  Harvey glanced at the man forward. He was almost dwarfish in stature,thick-set, with unusually broad shoulders. Clearly, this was not the manthat Harvey had seen asleep, amid the bundle of blankets, in the cabin.Harvey had not seen the face of the sleeper, but he had noted once, whenthe man had stirred, that he was a tall man; that the figure stretchedout at length took up an unusual amount of room.

  It flashed over Harvey that the man he had seen asleep in the cabin, thenight before, was missing from there now. Harvey was certain he had notseen him, as he sat eating. To make sure, he went back and looked. Theman was not there.

  "That's odd," said Harvey to himself, as he came on deck again. "I wonderif they've lugged him down into the forecastle, too. They must have doneit in the night. By jimminy! I wonder how many they've got stowed awaydown there, anyway."

  Somewhat startled at the idea that there might be other men held there,and curious to see for himself, Harvey approached the companion. As hedid so, the surly seaman barred his way.

  "Keep out 'er there," he said, roughly. "You can't go below now. Them'smy orders."

  Harvey stepped back, in surprise. There was a mystery to the forecastle,then, sure enough. He hazarded one question:

  "What's the matter? What's down there?"

  The man made no reply.

  Harvey went forward to where the other man stood.

  "Say, what's there to do aboard here?" he asked.

  The fellow turned and eyed Harvey for a moment, curiously.

  "Nothin' now," he replied, finally. "Nothin' till we get down the bay. Weall takes it easy like, till then."

  But further than this, he, too, became uncommunicative when Harveyquestioned him about the cruise. It was discouraging, and Harvey gave itup. He seemed likely to have little companionship, if any, aboard theschooner, and the thought was not pleasing. Again he wondered at thestrange disappearance of Mr. Jenkins, and hoped it might be true that theyoung man would rejoin them down the bay.

  The day passed somewhat monotonously for the most part. The schooner washolding an almost straight course down the bay, along the western shore.Harvey, having an eye for safety, noted that the coast was almostunbroken for miles and miles, affording no harbour in case of storm. Hespoke of it once to the sailor by the forecastle.

  "Plenty of harbours down below," replied the man. "We're goin' well;reckon we'll lie in the Patuxent tonight. There's harbour enough foryou."

  It was a positive relief to Harvey when, some time in the afternoon, itcame on to blow very fresh, and the foresail and mainsail were bothreefed. He lent a hand at that, tieing in reef points with the other two.They seemed surprised that he knew how to do it.

  But, with the freshening of the wind, it altered its direction and blewup finally, towards evening, from the eastward; so that they made slowerprogress, running now on the wind, close-hauled. Rain began falling attwilight, and a bitter chill crept into the air. Harvey thought of theoil-skins he had intended buying in Baltimore, and wished he had them.There was nothing for him to do on deck now, however, and he gladly wentbelow.

  He ate his supper alone, for all hands were on deck. The schooner pitchedand thrashed about in the short, rough seas. It was gloomy in the dimlylighted cabin, and the boy Joe, at work in the galley, positivelydeclined to enter into conversation. Jack Harvey, left to himself,mindful of his strange situation, of the mysterious forecastle with itsimprisoned men, and depressed by the wretched night, didn't dare admit tohimself how much he wished himself ashore. The confinement of the cabinmade him drowsy, not long after he had eaten, and he was glad enough toroll up in a blanket on one of t
he bunks and go off to sleep.

  While he slept, the schooner thrashed its way in past a light-house on apoint of land on the western shore, and headed up into the mouth of abroad, deep river. They sailed into this for something like half a mile,Scroop at the wheel, and the mate and two seamen forward, peering aheadthrough the rain.

  Presently the mate rushed aft.

  "There she lies," he said, pointing, as he spoke, to where a lanterngleamed in the fore-mast shrouds of a vessel at anchor.

  "I see her," responded Scroop.

  The old schooner, under the guiding hand of Scroop, rounded to and cameup into the wind a few rods astern of the other vessel. And now, lyingastern, the light from the other's cabin shone so that the forms of threemen could be distinguished vaguely, standing on the deck. The schooner'sanchor went down, the foresail was dropped, and, the jibs having alreadybeen taken in, the craft was soon lying snug, with her mainsail hauledflat aft, to steady her. A small boat was launched from the deck, andmade fast alongside.

  Mr. Blake, mate, pointing toward the cabin, inquired briefly, "Take himfirst?"

  "No," said Scroop. "Clear out the forecastle. He'll make a fuss, Ireckon. When we drop him, I want to get out and leave him to Haley."

  Advancing hastily across the deck, the four men, captain and mate and thetwo sailors, disappeared into the forecastle. They reappeared shortly,bearing an unconscious burden between them, much as they would havecarried a sack of potatoes; which burden, however, showed some sign ofanimation as the rain fell upon it, and muttered somethingunintelligible. They deposited the burden in the bottom of the smallboat.

  Another disappearance into the forecastle, and a repetition of theperformance; another and similar burden being laid alongside the first inthe boat.

  Then five men emerged from the forecastle, the fifth man walking upright,held fast by the others. It was the man that Harvey had seen strugglingwith the two sailors that morning. But he went along quietly now, thereason being apparent in the words of Scroop.

  "You go along or you go overboard," he said. "The first yip out of youand you get that belayin' pin in the head."

  The boat, with its conscious and unconscious cargo, rowed by the twosailors and guided by Scroop in the stem, put away from the schooner andwas soon alongside the other vessel.

  "Hello," said a voice.

  "Hello, Haley."

  "How many?"

  "Three here and one to come; good men, too--sailors, every one of 'em."

  A snort of incredulity from the man on deck.

  "Let you tell it!" he exclaimed. "I'm in luck if there's one of 'em thathasn't been selling ribbon over a counter. Well, fetch 'em on."

  A hatch-way forward received the three men; a short, thick-necked, burlyindividual--the same being Hamilton Haley of the bug-eye Brandt--eyingthem with evident suspicion as they were taken below. After which, thetwo worthy captains repaired together to the cabin of the bug-eye, andpartook of something in the way of refreshment, which was followed by thetransfer of forty dollars in greasy bills, from a chest in the cabin tothe wallet of Captain Scroop.

  "Dredging good?" inquires Scroop.

  "Not much. Lost a man day before yesterday--took sick and died. Wentoverboard in the chop, down below, and I couldn't get him."

  "Wasn't near time for his paying off, eh?" suggests Scroop, leeringskeptically.

  "Never you mind what it was near. It couldn't be helped, and the matewill swear to it."

  This asserted by Haley, red of face, wrathful of manner, and bringing aheavy fist down hard on the chest.

  Some time later, Jack Harvey awoke suddenly from sound sleep. Someone wasshaking him. Dazed and hardly conscious of where he was, he recognizedthe mate.

  "What's the matter?" he asked.

  The mate shook him again.

  "Get up!" he said. "Get up. We're going to row ashore. Hurry now, jumpinto your boots and coat."

  Harvey, blinking and drowsy, did as he was ordered. Escorted by the mate,he went out into the drizzle on deck. It was almost like an unpleasantnight-mare, the act of stumbling down into the boat, the short, pitchingride in the rainy night. Then, all at once, the side of the other vesselloomed up. Another moment, Harvey found himself lifted roughly aboard,and, before he knew hardly what had happened, the rowboat was going awayand leaving him.

  "Here!" he cried, thoroughly frightened. "What are you doing? What areyou leaving me here for? This isn't ashore. Here, you, keep your handsoff me."

  But there was no hope for Jack Harvey. In the grasp of two stalwartsailors, seeing in a flash the truth of what had befallen him, knowing,all too late, that he had been tricked and trapped aboard a strangevessel, he found himself dragged across the deck. He was half carried,half thrown down the companion-way. He found himself in a stuffy,ill-smelling forecastle, not much bigger than a good sized dog-kennel. Itwas already crowded with men; but there, by lying at close quarters withthis forsaken lot of humanity, he might sleep out the rest of the night,if he could.

  And thus Jack Harvey was to begin his adventures aboard Hamilton Haley'sbug-eye. Nor would it matter, as he should find, that the satchelcontaining the articles which had occasioned so much hilarity on the partof young Mr. Jenkins, had been left behind, in the confusion. Jack Harveysurely would not need them aboard the Z. B. Brandt.