CHAPTER XVI.
ACAPULCO--ANOTHER YARN FROM BLUEFISH.
After a delay of a week or more with our friends at Santa Barbara weweighed anchor one bright morning in the middle of January and startedsouthward for Acapulco, intending to pick up what prizes might chance tocross our path on the way thither.
But our passage southward was scarcely broken by a single event soimportant as the capture of a British trader. We had splendid weatherall the way down.
When off Cape St. Lucas I for the first time witnessed that phenomenonof the desert and of the ocean which is denominated a mirage. Ithappened just about an hour before sunset. The day had beencharacterized by a peculiar kind of haze ever since noon. This silveryhaze or vapor completely banked the western horizon, and was smitten bythe beams of the descending sun into many beautiful hues, when--aboutthe time before mentioned--the lookout suddenly sung out:
"A sail on the larboard bow!" then again in a few seconds:
"A sail on the starboard bow!"
At last he sung out in a tone of amazement:
"Sails all around the ships!"
This was true enough, but they were visionary sails, not on the ocean,but high up in the misty air, and probably belonging to those vesselswhich came to the poet in his visions, when he
"Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue."
Some of these visionary vessels were very distinctly seen, with men ontheir decks and flags flying, but, as the apparitions were colorless, ofcourse, the character of the airy flags could not be determined. We werealmost becalmed while we were the witnesses of this strange phenomenon,and we had an hour or so to observe it in. But, as the night began tofall, an easterly gale sprung up, and, in a few moments, our "airynavies" vanished away.
We arrived at Acapulco, after a prosperous voyage of only a few days'duration, and remained there two days.
Acapulco was much then as it is now. It is a very solidly-built place,resembling Panama in this, and is possessed of more than one handsomeecclesiastical building. The bay of Acapulco is one of the finest in theworld--by far _the_ finest in America. It is well sheltered, iscapacious, deep and excellent in every respect. The region aroundAcapulco equals any in Mexico in point of fertility. Almost everytropical fruit flourishes profusely, and most of us were down somewhatwith dysentery, through indulging too freely.
Our ship was surrounded most of the time while in port by natives, mostof them children, who almost live in the water. Probably no people inthe world--except, perhaps, the natives of the South Sea Islands--areso much at home in the water as these Mexicans of the Southwest Coast.They would swim and dance in the water around us by the hour, begging tohave some one toss a shilling to them. I have repeatedly tossed a smallsilver coin overboard into the sea, when one of these children of thewaters would dive like a fish, catch the coveted coin before it reacheda depth of many fathoms, return to the surface, display it triumphantly,and then put it in his mouth for safe-keeping and clamor for some one totry him again with a similar bribe.
The people are very ignorant, contented and happy. They have few or nocares to distract their attention. Their wherewithal of subsistancegrows on the trees above their heads; and for clothing--they wear solittle that it can hardly be taken into account as an item of expense.
We intended to sail from Acapulco on a certain day in the latter part ofJanuary, but a severe storm sprung up in the afternoon which made itmuch more prudent to lie for a while longer under the shelter of theexcellent harborage in which we were. Nevertheless all hands were gotaboard ship and everything put in readiness for a start on the morrow,wind and weather permitting.
It was on this evening, when a number of us were merrily gathered roundour table in the forecastle discussing our grog and pipes, that oldBluefish, upon earnest solicitation, spun us one of his exceedinglyimprobable yarns.
Clearing his throat with a long pull at his glass of rum, and lighting afresh pipe, he commenced his yarn of
THE PHANTOM SHIP.
"P'r'aps most on yer," said he, "has hearn tell on the Phantom Ship, butI'll bet my old boots ag'in' a new tarpaulin and westcut that none onyer ever was aboard o' that craft, as my mother's son was, in the personof myself. Howsomedever that is neither this way nor that, for I mustpick up the eend of my yarn at a shorter beginning.
"It happened all along o' the schooner Jolly Admiral. I was a cabin-boyon her. We had been to Hong Kong for a load o' tea and was somewharatwixt Bombay and the Cape of Good Hope on a bright moonlight night inthe month of June when we first see'd the Phantom Ship. We didn't knowher true character until we came within a quarter of a mile of her andsaw her flimsy, threadbare canvas and the devil's blue-lights burning onher bowsprit and after-jib. We could see the captain and the crew goingabout on her in a ghostly sort of way. They all looked very melancholyand didn't pay any attention to us whatsoever.
"We could hear their voices, too, and jist let me tell yer, if you hadheard them 'ere voices you wouldn't want to do it ag'in in a hurry.Well, all of a sudden, although there warn't no breeze to speak of, thesails of the Phantom Ship bellied out, and away she scudded to thesouthward like a streak of blue thunder stuffed with lightning, leavingus jist nowhars at all.
"We was somewhat taken aback, but not so much surprised nuther, for, yersee, we had been made acquainted with the fact that them 'ere seas wasparticularly haunted by the devil's craft, and we was, therefore, sortof prepared for meeting her. But somehow, as soon as the critters fadedaway from our sight I jist whispers to myself, 'If ever I gits thechance I'm going to board that 'ere craft, or I ain't a Bluefish, butonly a blarsted mackerel.'
"It warn't long afore I had the chance. Only two nights arter the oneaforesaid, the sea was swept by one of them 'ere orful hurricanes orsimooms as is nat'ral to them parts. Although we was pretty wellprepared to meet it, the darned thing struck us so suddenly that we wasalmost throwed on our beam-eends. The night grew as black as pitch. Youcouldn't 'a'see'd your hand afore your face if you was as white as asnowdrift. I never see'd, afore or since, sich orful waves. You'd godown inter the hollers of 'em and think you'd never come up ag'in. Andthe wind--well, it's no use tryin' to describe one o' them 'ere simooms.Suffice ter say that it lifted us clean out of the sea more than once,and sometimes carried us, like a Mother Carey's chicken, for a mile ortwo over the waves, without our keel touchin' a single crest."
"Is this story true?" I here interposed, with a solemn voice, quiteaghast at the imagination of the old salt.
"In course it is, yer lubberly son of a sea-cook! Does yer suppose acove as old as I be would tell yer anything as wasn't right-downgenuine?
"As I was a-sayin', the force of the wind was orful. Howsomdever, we hadas jolly a little craft as ever cut blue water, and we weathered itbravely. Sometimes, when the wind would sort of sink away a little, wewould drive right through the big waves, until even our main-tops wereall under water; but, as our hatches were clewed down and our deck waspretty tight, we allers came out of our bath as fresh as ever. Then thegale would start up again, and away we would go over the tops of thewaves.
"It was on one of these occasions that our lookout sung out, 'Lights onthe starboard bow!' In course, we was all curious enough at first; but,jist as we rose up on a big crest, what should we see but the PhantomShip, holdin' right across our course, and we jist ready to run interher larboard bulwarks with the next pitch we made. She had all her bluelights burnin', and there was a sort of yaller haze all around her.Notwithstandin' we was under bare poles, and found it hard work to keepfrom bein' blown skywards at that, the stranger had every stitch ofcanvas spread, and didn't seem to suffer anywise nuther. We hadn't timeto make many observations, howsomdever, before we struck the cussedthing right in her side, and began to shoot through her, jist as if shewas made
of smoke. I was standin' in the bows of the Jolly Admiral atthe time. 'Now or never!' I sings out to myself; and, simultaneous, Imade a jump and caught the ratlin's of the stranger, while the JollyAdmiral passed on her way and left me swingin' like a pendulum in theair.
"I fell down on the deck of the stranger, but immejiately resumed mylegs and took a survey of things in gineral. All the crew moped aboutthe deck, attendin' to their duties, while the captain bellered out hisorders through a trumpet made of condensed wind, lined with p'izen andstreaks of lightning.
"At first none on 'em paid any attention to me. But at last the firstmate--an orful-lookin' cuss--came right up to me, grabbed me by thegullet, and dragged me to the quarter-deck, and stood me up afore theskipper of the Phantom Ship.
"'Here, Cap,' says he, 'is a little cuss of a cabin-boy, as was leftbehind by that infernal craft as jist ran through us.'
"(I forgot to mention as how the hole, which the Jolly Admiral made inpassin' through the stranger, healed itself up ag'in in the mostsupernatural way in the world.)
"Well, the phantom skipper looked at me a moment without sayin' a word,even so much as a civil 'How d'ye do?' He was the orfulest-lookin' cussit was ever my fortin' to stumble across. His flippers were those of askeleton, and his head was a reg'lar death's head, with eyes as burnedlike two coals of fire, while a pair o' cross bones was suspended acrosshis bosom. I suppose they was some sort o' medals given the cuss onaccount o' meritorious conduct. At length the critter spoke to me, an'his voice was orful strange. You could hear it very distinctly, but itsort o' seemed to come from a long ways off, jist like the voice of aspeerit.
"'What's the name o' that 'ere ship what jist ran through us?' says he,in a melancholy way.
"'Please yer Honor,' says I, respectfully touchin' my cap, 'it warn't aship, but a schooner--the Jolly Admiral of New Bedford.'
"'Ha, boy,' says he, 'dostest thou dare to banter me with thy jokes.Howsomdever, what's your name?'
"'Bluefish,' says I.
"'The son of old Sol Bluefish of Nantucket, the man as was hanged?' sayshe.
"'The same,' says I.
"'Ha! is it indeed so?' he ejaculated, leanin' his chin on his breast,in a meditatin' mood. 'He was a nice man,' he added; 'he was also aparticular friend o' mine.'
"'Allow me to take your flipper,' says I, puttin' on a free-and-easyair. 'It allers gives me a vast amount of pleasure to meet any one aswas on good terms with the old man.'
"With that, I grabbed him by the bony hand, but immediately let thething drop like a piece of a thunderbolt, for it burned like a coal offire. He contemplated me with an affectionate smile.
"'Yes,' said he, 'I knowed the old man well. And how's your mother? Doyou know,' says he, 'I came mighty near marryin' that gal once myself?'
"'God forbid!' says I, with a unconscious shudder.
"When I said these 'ere words, the skipper's knees trembled, and healmost fainted away.
"'Young man,' says he, slowly recoverin' himself, 'be very careful howyou utters the name o' that individual on this 'ere ship, or we'll allbe knocked into the middle of kingdom come. Tell me,' says he, 'what wasyour object in boardin' this 'ere craft?'
"'I was jist sort o' curious ter see about the state of yer health,'says I. 'And now, if its all the same to you, suppose you put meashore.'
"'Thou hastest thy wish, my son,' says he, in a kindly voice. And withthat he taps me gently over the head with that 'ere trumpet of his, andI immediately sunk inter a deep state of non-sensibility.
"When I woke, I found myself sleeping quietly in my hammock on board theJolly Admiral, and when I tells my story, all on 'em laughs at me, andeven denies that there was any Phantom Ship at all.
"But, in course, that didn't make no difference to me, since it was alltrue."
"It was a dream," suggested Tony Trybrace.
"Certainly," said I.
"Avast, yer lubbers! Doesn't I know as what I knows?"
And with this conclusive argument, Bluefish "turned in."
Barney Blake, the Boy Privateer; or, The Cruise of the Queer Fish Page 16