What Happened at Quasi: The Story of a Carolina Cruise

by George Cary Eggleston

  XIV

  CAL RELATES A FABLE

  THE _Hunkydory_ was completely loaded when Cal and Dick returned, andthere was nothing further to do except cook the fish and game, so thatthere might be no need to stop anywhere to get dinner.

  There was a fairly stiff breeze blowing when the anchors were weighed,but sailing was impracticable until the boat should be well out of thenarrow creek, so all hands went to the oars.

  When the land was cleared, Larry ordered that the oars be stowedin their fastenings and the sails raised. Without discussion orarrangement of any kind, Cal went to the helm. It seemed the properthing to do in view of his superior knowledge of the surroundings, butCal was not thinking of that. He had a plan and purpose of his own tocarry out, though he said nothing about the matter.

  There was quite an hour of sailing necessary before the course couldbe laid in the direction of the waterway that led toward Beaufort, andwhen the time came for heading in that direction, Cal laid quite adifferent course, heading for a shore that lay several miles away.

  Larry was dozing in the forepeak and did not at first observe on whatcourse his brother was sailing. When at last he did notice it, heassumed that something in the direction of the wind made Cal’s coursedesirable, but after a glance at the sails he changed his mind.

  “Why are you heading in that direction, Cal?” he asked, looking abouthim. “Your course will take us several miles out of our way. Head hertoward the point of land over there where the palmettos are.”

  Cal made no change and he waited a full minute before he answered. Whenhe did so it was in his most languid drawl.

  “Larry,” he said, quite as if he had not heard a word that his brotherhad uttered, “there was a schooner sailing down the Hudson River oneday. The captain of that craft was a Dutchman of phlegmatic temperamentand extreme obstinacy. The mate was a Yankee, noted for his alertreadiness of resource. The schooner was loaded with brick. The captainwas loaded with beer. The mate wasn’t loaded at all. It was thecaptain’s business to steer and manage things in the after half of theship. It was the function of the mate to manage things forward. Butwhen the mate saw that the schooner’s course was carrying her straightupon the rocks, he went aft and remonstrated with the captain. Forreply the captain said:

  “‘Mate, you go forward and run your end of the schooner and leave me torun my end.’

  “The mate went forward and ordered the anchor heaved overboard. Thengoing aft again, he said:

  “‘Captain, I have anchored my end of the schooner; you can do what youplease with your end.’”

  Cal ceased, as if he had finished speaking. The others laughed at thestory, and Larry said:

  “What’s the moral of that yarn, Cal?”

  “_Haec fabula docet_,” replied Cal, “that _I’m_ sailing the _Hunkydory_just now; that I know where we are going and why.”

  “Would you mind telling us, then?” demanded Larry.

  “Not in the least. We are heading for the shore, on our lee; as forwhy, there are several reasons: One is that the tide will turn prettysoon, and when it does it will run out of the creek you want me toenter as fast as it does out of the Bay of Fundy. Another is, thatthe wind is falling and we shall have to take to the oars presently.Another is, that I am persuaded it will be easier rowing across thesmall current out here than against a tide that rushes out of thecreek like a mill tail. There are other and controlling reasons, butI have already given you as many as your intellectual digestion canassimilate. The rest will keep till we’re comfortably ashore. There,that’s the last puff of the wind.”

  With that he hauled the boom inboard, let go the halyards and left therudder-bar.

  “It is now after three o’clock,” he said, while the others wereunstepping the mast, “and the distance is about three miles or a trifleless. Rowing easily we shall have time after we get there to settleourselves comfortably before nightfall.”

  “I suppose you’re right, of course,” Larry answered, “but it meansseveral more meals on meat and fish alone.”

  “Better not cross that bridge till you come to it, Larry. You see wemight find manna over there, or some bread-fruit trees newly importedfrom Tahiti—who knows?”

  The others shared Larry’s regret as to the food prospect, but they allrecognized Cal’s superior knowledge of conditions as a controllingconsideration; so all rowed on in silence.

  When at last they reached the neighborhood of the shore, Cal beganscrutinizing it closely as if searching for the landing place he hadselected in his mind. He was in fact looking for the very narrow andcane-hidden entrance to a land-locked bay that he remembered very well.Presently he turned into it and shot the boat through a channel thatone might have passed a dozen times without seeing it. It wound aboutamong the dense growths for a little way and then opened out into aconsiderable little bay.

  Here Cal directed the landing, but instead of arranging to anchor theboat a little way from shore he put on all speed with the oars and ranher hard and fast upon a gently sloping beach.

  “What’s that for, Cal?” asked Dick, whose nautical instincts wereoffended by the manœuvre.

  “To save trouble,” Cal answered. “You see this is a considerable littlebay, and the entrance to it is so very narrow that before much of aflood tide can run into the broad basin the time comes for it to turnand run out again, so there is never a rise and fall of more than sixor eight inches in here. The boat will lie comfortably where she is solong as we choose to stay here. We can reach her without much if anywading, and we can shove her off into deep water whenever we like.”

  “Is there a spring about here?” asked Tom, whose concern about watersupply had become specially active.

  “No, but we can make one in fifteen minutes.”

  Then selecting a sort of depression in the sandy beach about sixtyyards from the water’s edge, Cal said:

  “We have only to scoop out a basin in the sand here—about three feetdeep as I reckon it, and we’ll have all the water we want.”

  “But will it be good water?”

  “Perfectly good. You see, Tom, this beach is composed of clean whitesand. The water in the bay sipes through it at a uniform level, andwe’ve only to dig down to that level in order to get at it.”

  “But won’t it be salt water?”

  “Slightly brackish, perhaps, or possibly not at all so. You see beforereaching this point it is filtered through sixty or seventy yards ofclosely packed sand, which takes up all the salt and would take up allother impurities if there were any, as there are not. Suppose you digfor the water, Tom, while the other fellows make camp and pick up wood.It’s very easy digging and it won’t take long. I’m going off a littleway to see what there is to see—and to look for the manna I spoke of awhile ago.”

  So saying, Cal took up his gun and set out inland. It was more thanan hour before he returned and the dusk was falling. But to theastonishment of the others a string of young negroes followed closeupon his heels, all carrying burdens of some sort, mostly poised upontheir heads.