"Then I"ll let you stay a while."
These strange words were uttered by the man who stood outside the door, looking in at the lad with an odd smile on his countenance.
"What do you mean?" asked Jim, filled with a terrible fear.
"I mean just this: I want you to stay on the boat for the present. If you keep quiet and do what is told you, you won"t be hurt; but if you go to howling and kicking up a rumpus, you"ll be knocked in the head and pitched overboard."
"But tell me why you have brought me here?" asked Jim, swallowing the lump in his throat, and looking pleadingly up to the cruel stranger. "What do you want of me?"
"We want a big thing of you, as you"ll learn before long; but you mustn"t ask too many questions, nor try to get away, nor refuse to do what is told you. If you do, your clock will be wound up in short order; but remember what I"ve told you, and you"ll be released after a while, without any harm to you. I will now bid you good-night."
With this the man shut and fastened the door of the cabin, using a padlock to do so.
The lad heard his footsteps as he walked rapidly over the deck, leaping upon those adjoining, and quickly pa.s.sing up the wharf.
"Well, this beats everything," remarked Jim with a great sigh, sitting down again on the camp-stool.
As he sat thus in deep thought, it seemed to him, more than once, as if it was all a hideous dream, and he pinched himself to make sure it was not.
What it all meant was more than he could figure out, or even guess. The only possible solution he could hit upon was that this Hornblower, as he called himself, was in need of a cabin-boy, or perhaps a sailor, and he took this rather summary way of securing one, without the preliminary of obtaining the consent of the party most concerned.
Whoever Mr. Hornblower might be, it looked as if he had made elaborate preparations for the game played with such success.
"Poor Tom will be worried to death when he finds nothing of me," was the natural fear of Jim, while turning over in his mind the extraordinary situation in which he was placed. Despite the warning uttered by his captor before leaving, the boy stole up the steps and stealthily tried the door. It was fastened too securely for him to force it.
As he sat down again in the chair, he heard feet on the deck, and he concluded that his master had come back to see whether all was right.
But the fellow did not touch the cabin-door; and a minute later the lad noticed that two men were moving about, then the sounds showed that the sail was being hoisted. He could distinguish their words as they exchanged directions, and it was not long before the rippling water told that the schooner was under way.
"Like enough they have started for China or the Cape of Good Hope, and I won"t see Tom again for years."
He sat still in the cabin, which was lit by a lamp suspended overhead, and which soon became so warm from the stove and confined air, that he did what he could to cool off the interior.
He had just finished this when he felt a draught of cold air, and looking up, saw an ugly face peering down on him from the cabin door.
"h.e.l.lo, you"re down there, are you?" called out the man; "how do you like it?"
"It"s getting rather warm," answered Jim, hoping to make the best of a bad business.
"If you find it too hot, come on deck and air yourself."
The lad accepted the invitation, and hastily ascended the few steps, his chief object being to learn where he was.
Looking about in the gloom, he observed a ship under full sail on the right, and a little farther off one on the left. In the former direction he thought he discerned a faint dark line close to the water, which he supposed showed where the sh.o.r.e lay.
"Then we are putting out to sea," was his conclusion, while he shivered in the keen wind which swept over the deck.
The schooner had her mainsail and foresail up, both bellying far outward under the impulse of the wind, while the hull keeled far over to the right in response, and the foaming water at the bow told that she was making her way at high speed toward her destination, wherever that might be.
As well as Jim could make out in the gloom, neither of the two men who were managing the vessel was Hornblower.
"Where are we bound?" asked the prisoner, turning upon the one who invited him to come out of the cabin.
"To the moon," was the unsatisfactory response.
Jim said no more, for he was afraid he might offend the fellow by pressing his inquiries.
"I guess you"d better go below and sleep, for the likes of you ain"t of any use here."
The boy did as advised.
He saw no preparations for eating, but he was so wearied and anxious that he felt little appet.i.te; and, throwing himself in one of the hammocks, he committed himself to the care of Heaven, and was soon asleep.
He never opened his eyes till roused by the smell of burning meat, and looking up, saw one of the men cooking in the cabin, instead of on deck, as it seemed to the lad ought to have been the case.
He now took a good survey of the countenances of the men. They did not look particularly wicked, though both were hard and forbidding.
They paid scarcely any attention to the boy, but gave him to understand that he was at liberty to eat if he wished.
Jim did so, and as soon as the meal was finished strolled on deck.
From the direction of the morning sun he saw they were sailing southward, and the long stretch of land on the right he concluded must be the Jersey coast.
Chapter XIV.
Such a bleak and piercing wind swept across the deck of the Simoon that Jim Travers was glad to spend most of his time in the cabin, where a warm fire was always going.
The first day out the boy succeeded in picking up a few sc.r.a.ps of knowledge, which served rather to deepen than to clear up the mystery of his abduction.
The schooner was a good sailer, and was well furnished with coal, wood, water, and provisions, as if she were intended for a long voyage. There was no real cargo, as he could see; and the two men who managed the craft did not drop a word which could give any clew as to their destination.
It can scarcely be said that they treated the boy well or ill. Their conduct was more of the character of indifference, since they paid not the least attention to him, further than to notify him to keep out of their way.
This indifference might be considered kindness, inasmuch as it relieved the boy from attempting work which would have proven of a perilous nature.
This also relieved him in a great measure of the fear which made existence a burden during the first twenty-four hours.
On the third morning out from New York, Jim made the discovery that the rising sun was on his right, from which it was certain he was sailing toward the north. Other evidence led him to conclude, from his knowledge of geography, that they had entered Delaware Bay, and were approaching Philadelphia.
"It"s a queer way of getting back home again," was the reflection of the boy when convinced of the fact.
However, the Simoon did not propose to visit the Quaker City just then, and she came to anchor in a broad part of the bay, fully a half-mile from sh.o.r.e.
It was late in the afternoon that this stop was made; and just as night was closing in, a small boat containing two persons was discerned rowing out from land. When they were nigh enough to board the schooner, Jim saw that one was Mr. Hornblower, and the other was a herculean negro, who was swaying the oars with the ease of a professional.