“Glad to see you, Britton,” repeated the Captain, in his dismal voice. If the lanky Captain was as glad to see us all as his words indicated, his expression fully contradicted the fact.
Britton saluted and walked aft, where I noticed several sailors squatting upon the deck in careless attitudes. To my glance these seemed as solemn and joyless as their captain; but I acknowledge that on this first visit everything about the ship was a disappointment to me, perhaps because I had had little experience with trading vessels and my mind was stored with recollections of the trim “Saracen.”
Below, however, was a comfortable cabin, well fitted up, and Uncle Naboth showed me a berth next to his own private room which was to be my future home. The place was little more than a closet, but I decided it would do very well.
“I thought you were the captain of the ‘Flipper,’ Uncle Naboth,” said I, when we were alone.
“No; I’m jest super-cargo,” he replied, with his usual wink. “You see, I wasn’t eddicated as a sailor, Sam, an’ never cared to learn the trade. Cap’n Gay is one o’ the best seamen that ever laid a course, so I hire him to take the ship wherever I want to go. As fer the cargo, that’s my ‘special look-out, an’ it keeps me busy enough, I can tell you. I’m a nat’ral born trader, and except fer that blamed Japan trip, I ain’t much ashamed of my record.”
“Will you go to Australia again?” I asked.
“Not jest now, Sam. My next venture’s goin’ to be a bit irregular — what you might call speculative, an’ extry-hazardous. But we’ll talk that over tonight, after supper.”
After making a cursory examination of the ship Uncle Naboth received the Captain’s report of what had transpired in his absence, and then we rowed back to town again.
We strolled through the city streets for an hour, had supper, and then my uncle took me to his room, carefully closed and locked the door, and announced that he was ready to “talk business.”
“Bein’ partners,” he said, “we’ve got to consult together; but I take it you won’t feel bad, Sam, if I do most of the consultin’. I went down East to Batteraft to talk my plans with your father, but he slipped his cable an’ I’ve got to talk ‘em to you. If you see I’m wrong, anywhere, jest chip in an’ stop me; but otherwise the less you say the more good we’ll get out’n this ‘ere conference.”
“Very well, sir.”
“To start in with, we’ve got a ship, an’ a crew, an’ plenty o’ loose money. So what’ll we do with ‘em? Our business is to trade, an’ to invest our money so we’ll make more with it. What’s the best way to do that?”
He seemed to pause for an answer, so I said: “I don’t know, sir.”
“Nobody knows, of course. But we can guess, and then find out afterward if we’ve guessed right. All business is a gamble; and, if it wasn’t, most men would quit an’ go fishin’. After I got back from Japan I met a lot o’ fellows that had been to Alaska huntin’ gold. Seems like Alaska’s full of gold, an’ before long the whole country’ll be flockin’ there like sheep. All ‘Frisco’s gettin’ excited about the thing, so they tell me, and if fortunes is goin’ to be made in Alaska, we may as well speak for one ourselves.”
“But we are not miners, Uncle; and it’s bitter cold up there, they say.”
“Well put. We’ll let the crowds mine the gold, and then hand it over to us.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said I, weakly. “No call for you to try, Sam. I’m your guardeen, an’ so I’ll do the understandin’ for us both. Folks has to eat, my lad, an’ gold hunters is usually too excited to make proper provisions fer their stomachs. They’re goin’ to be mighty hungry out in Alaska, before long, an’ when a man’s hungry he’ll pay liberal fer a square meal. Let’s give it to him, Sam, an’ take the consequences — which is gold dust an’ nuggets.”
“How will you do it, Uncle Nabe?”
“Load the ‘Flipper’ with grub an’ carry it to Kipnac, or up the Yukon as far as Fort Weare, or wherever the gold fields open up. Then, when the miners get hungry, they’ll come to us and trade their gold for our groceries. We’re sure to make big profits, Sam.”
“It looks like a reasonable proposition, sir,” I said. “But it seems to me rather dangerous. Suppose our ship gets frozen in the ice, and we can’t get away? And suppose about that time we’ve sold out our provisions. We can’t eat gold. And suppose — ”
“S’pose the moon falls out’n the sky,” interrupted Uncle Naboth, “wouldn’t it be dark at night, though!”
“Well, sir?”
“If the gold-diggers can live in the ice fields, we can live in a good warm ship. And we’ll keep enough grub for ourselves, you may be sure of that.”
“When do we start?” I asked, feeling sure that no arguments would move my uncle to abandon the trip, once he had made up his mind to undertake it.
“As soon as we can get the cargo aboard. It’s coming on warmer weather, now, and this is the best time to make the voyage. A steamer left today with three hundred prospectors, an’ they’ll be goin’ in bunches every day, now. Already I estimate there’s over a thousand in the fields, so we won’t get there any too soon to do business. What do you say, Sam?”
“I’ve nothing to say, sir. Being my guardian, you’ve decided the matter for both the partners, as is right and proper. As your clerk and assistant, I’ll obey whatever orders you give me.”
“That’s the proper spirit, lad!” he cried, with enthusiasm. “We’ll go to work tomorrow morning; and if all goes well we’ll be afloat in ten days, with a full cargo!”
CHAPTER 5
“NUX” AND “BRYONIA.”
On the seventh day of May, 1897, the “Flipper” weighed anchor and sailed before a light breeze through the Golden Gate and away on her voyage toward Alaska and its gold fields. Stored within her hold was a vast quantity of provisions of the sort that could be kept indefinitely without danger of spoiling. Flour, hams, bacon, sugar and coffee were represented; but canned meats and vegetables, tobacco and cheap cigars comprised by far the greater part of the cargo. Uncle Naboth had been seriously advised to carry a good supply of liquors, but refused positively to traffic in such merchandise.
Indeed, my uncle rose many degrees in my respect after I had watched for a time his preparations for our voyage. Simple, rough and uneducated he might be, but a shrewder man at a bargain I have never met in all my experience. And his reputation for honesty was so well established that his credit was practically unlimited among the wholesale grocers and notion jobbers of San Francisco. Everyone seemed ready and anxious to assist him, and the amount of consideration he met with on every hand was really wonderful.
“We’ve bought the right stuff, Sam,” he said to me, as we stood on the deck and watched the shore gradually recede, “and now we’ve got to sell it right. That’s the secret of good tradin’.”
I was glad enough to find myself at sea, where I could rest from my labors of the past two weeks. I had been upon the docks night and day, it seemed, checking off packages of goods as fast as they were loaded on the lighters, and being unaccustomed to work I tired very easily. But my books were all accurate and “ship-shape,” and I had found opportunity to fit up my little stateroom with many comforts. In this I had been aided by Uncle Naboth, who was exceedingly liberal in allowing me money for whatever I required. At one time I said I would like to buy a few books, and the next day, to my surprise, he sent to my room a box containing the complete works of Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, with a miscellaneous collection of volumes by standard authors.
“I don’t know much about books myself, Sam,” he said; “so I got a feller that does know to pick ‘em out for me, an’ I guess you’ll find ‘em the right sort.”
I did not tell him that I would have preferred to make my own selection, and afterward I frankly admitted to myself that the collection was an admirable one.
By this time I had come to know all the officers and crew, and found them a pretty good
lot, taken altogether. The principle “characters” aboard were the dismal Captain Gay, who was really as contented a man as I ever knew, Acker, the ship’s doctor, and two queer South Sea islanders called by everybody Nux and Bryonia. Acker was a big, burly Englishman, who, besides being doctor, served as mate. He was jolly and good natured as the day was long, and had a few good stories which he told over and over again, invariably laughing at them more heartily than his auditors did. Singularly enough, Captain Gay and “Doc” Acker were close friends and cronies, and lived together in perfect harmony.
The South Sea islanders interested me greatly from the moment I first saw them. Bryonia, or “Bry,” as he was more frequently called, was the cook, and gave perfect satisfaction in that capacity. “Nux” was man-of-all-work, serving the cabin mess, assisting the cook, and acting as “able seaman” whenever required. He proved competent in nearly all ways, and was a prime favorite with officers and men.
They were natives of some small island of the Sulu archipelago, and their history was a strange one. In answer to my question as to why the islanders were so queerly named, Uncle Naboth related the following:
“It were six years ago, or thereabout, as we were homeward bound from our third Australy trip, that we sighted a native canoe in the neighborhood of the Caroline Islands. It was early in the mornin’, and at first the lookout thought the canoe was empty; but it happened to lay in our course, and as we overtook it we saw two men lyin’ bound in the bottom of the boat. So we lay to, an’ picked ‘em up, an’ when they was histed aboard they were considerable more dead ner alive. Bill Acker was our mate then, as he is now, an’ in his early days he studied to be a hoss doctor. So he always carries a box of medicines with him, to fix up the men in case they gets the jaundice or the colic. Mostly they’s pills, an’ sugar coated, for Doc hates to tackle drugs as is very dangerous. An’ on account of a good deal of sickness among the crew that trip, an’ consequently a good deal of experimentin’ by Doc on the medicine chest, the pills an’ such like was nearly used up, though no one seemed much the worse for it.
“Well, after we’d cut the islanders’ bonds, an’ rubbed ‘em good to restore the circulation, we come near decidin’ they was dead an’ heavin’ of ‘em overboard agin. But Doc wouldn’t give up. He brought out the medicine box, an’ found that all the stuff he had left was two bottles of pills, one of ‘em Nux Vomica, an’ the other Bryonia. I was workin’ over one of the men, an’ Doc he hands me one o’ the bottles an’ says: ‘Nux.’ So I emptied the bottle into the dead man’s mouth, an’ by Jinks, Sam, he come around all right, and is alive an’ kickin’ today. Cap’n Gay dosed the other one with the Bryonia, an’ it fetched him in no time. I won’t swear it were the pills, you know; but the fact is the islanders lived.
“Afterwards we found the critters couldn’t speak a word of English, ner tell us even what their names were. So we called one Nux, and the other Bryonia, accordin’ to the medicine that had saved their lives, an’ they’ve answered to those names ever since.”
The islanders were gentle and good natured, and being grateful for their rescue they had refused to leave the ship at the end of the voyage, and were now permanent fixtures of the “Flipper.”
‘They are not slaves, are they?” I asked, when I had listened to this story.
“Mercy, no!” exclaimed Uncle Naboth. “They’re as free as any of us, an’ draw their wages reg’lar. Also they’re as faithful as the day is long, an’ never get drunk or mutinous. So it were a lucky day when we picked ‘em up.”
Bryonia stood fully six feet in height, and was muscular and wonderfully strong. He had a fine face, too, and large and intelligent eyes. Nux was much shorter, and inclined to be fat. But he was not a bit lazy, for all that, and accomplished an immense amount of work in so cheerful a manner that never a complaint was laid at his door. Not a sailor could climb aloft with more agility or a surer foot, and both Nux and Bryonia were absolutely fearless in the face of danger.
Although these men were dark-skinned they were not negroes, but belonged to a branch of the Malay race. Their hair was straight, their noses well formed and their eyes very expressive and intelligent. The English they had picked up from the crew, however, was spoken with an accent not unlike that peculiar to the African negroes, but with a softer and more sibilant tone.
Before I had been on the ship a week both Nux and Bry were my faithful friends and devoted followers, and in the days that were to come their friendship and faithfulness stood me in good stead.
A very interesting person to me was big Bill Acker, the mate, called by courtesy “Doc.” He seemed far above his mates in the matter of intelligence, and was evidently a well bred man in his youth. A shelf above his bunk bore a well-thumbed row of volumes on the world’s great religions, together with a Talmud, a Koran, a Bible, the works of Confucius and Max Muller’s translation of the Vedas. One seemed to have been as thoroughly read as the others, yet never have I heard Doc Acker say one word, good or bad, about religion. Whatever the result of his studies might be, he kept his opinions strictly to himself.
A stiff breeze sprang up during the first night, and the second day at sea found me miserably ill, and regretting that I had ever trusted myself to the mercies of cruel old ocean. Indeed, I lay in a most pitiable plight until the big Englishman came to me with doses of medicines from his chest. He might have been merely “a hoss doctor,” as Uncle Naboth had said; but certain it is that his remedies helped me, and within twenty-four hours I was again able to walk the deck in comfort.
Perhaps I had inherited some of my father’s fondness for salt water, for my new life soon became vastly interesting to me, and it was not long before I felt entirely at home on the dingy old “Flipper.”
One morning, after standing by the bulwarks for a time watching the water slip by, I climbed upon the rail and sat with my heels dangling over the side. Suddenly I felt a strong hand grasp my shoulder and draw me to the deck, and I turned around indignantly to find Nux beside me.
“Bad place to sit, Master Sam,” he said, coolly; “might tumble ov*board.”
Before I could reply, Uncle Naboth, who had witnessed the incident, strolled up to us and said:
“Nux is right, my lad. You never find a sailor sitting on the rail; they know too well how onreliable the motion of a ship is. If anybody drops overboard the chances o’ bein’ picked up alive is mighty slim, I tell you. Only fools put ‘emselves into unnecessary danger, Sam. Take it on them orful railroad cars, for instance. Old travellers always wait’ til the train stops afore they gets on or off the cars. Them as don’t know the danger is the ones that gets hurt. Same way handlin’ a gun. An old hunter once told me he never p’inted a gun at anything he didn’t want to kill; but there’s a lot o’ folks killed ev’ry year that don’t know the blamed thing is loaded. It ain’t cowardly to be keerful, lad, but only fools an’ ignorant people is reckless enough to get careless.”
I am glad to say I took this lecture with good humor, admitting frankly that Uncle Naboth was right. At least once in the future a recollection of this caution saved me from hopeless disaster.
On the sixth day the breeze died away and the ship lay still. There was not a breath of air, and the heat was so intense that the interior of the ship was like a furnace. At night we slept upon the deck, and by day we lay gasping beneath the shade of the tarpaulins. Bryonia let the galley fire die out and served us cold lunches, but our appetites were small.
There being no occasion to work, the crew gathered in little bunches and told a series of never-ending yarns that were very interesting to me, because most of them were of hair-breadth adventures and escapes that were positively wonderful — if one tried to believe them. One of the best of these story-tellers was Ned Britton, who had been appointed our boatswain and was already popular with his mates. As his yarns were all of the Atlantic, and most of the “Flipper’s” crew had sailed only on the Pacific, Britton opened to them a new field of adventures, which met with univ
ersal approval.
Nux and Bry, who bore the heat better than their white brethren, added to the general amusement by giving exhibitions of the Moro war dances, ending with desperate encounters, with sticks to represent spears, that were sure to arouse the entire crew to enthusiasm. They sometimes sang their native war songs, also — a series of monotonous, guttural chants. And then Dan Donnegan, a little red-whiskered Irishman, would wind up with “Bryan O’Lynne” or some other comic ditty that set the forecastle roaring with laughter.
During this period of enforced idleness the dismal Captain Gay walked the deck with solemn patience and watched for signs of a breeze. Bill Acker, the mate, read his religious library all through — probably for the hundredth time. Uncle Naboth taught me cribbage, and we played for hours at a time, although I usually came out second best at the game. Also I learned the ropes of the ship and received many lessons in navigation from my friends the sailors, not one of whom knew anything about that abstruse problem.
“Thay ain’t a man o’ the lot as could take the ship back to ‘Frisco, in case of emergency,” said my uncle; and I believe he was right. Common sailors are singularly ignorant of navigation, although they have a way of deceiving themselves into thinking they know all about it.
After being becalmed six days, the intense heat was at last relieved by a thin breeze, which sprang up during the night. The sails were at once trimmed, and within an hour the “Flipper” was skipping the little waves to the satisfaction of all on board.
But the wind steadily increased, and by morning all hands were called to shorten the sail. By noon we encountered a stiff gale, which blew from the east, and soon lashed the waves into a mad frenzy.
As the storm gradually increased, Captain Gay began to look anxious. There was a brief lull toward evening, during which a great hail-storm descended upon us, the icy bullets pelting the sailors unmercifully and driving all to shelter. Then the wind redoubled its fury, and the Captain put the ship before it, allowing the gale to bear us considerably out of our course.
Complete Works of L. Frank Baum Page 641