I know no finer sight, for those who have never seen it, than the English Channel. It is the highway of the world. Ships of all nations are pa.s.sing up and down, Dutch, Scotch, Venezuelan, and even American.
Chinese junks rush to and fro. Warships, motor yachts, icebergs, and lumber rafts are everywhere. If I add to this fact that so thick a fog hangs over it that it is entirely hidden from sight, my readers can form some idea of the majesty of the scene.
We had now been three days at sea. My first sea-sickness was wearing off, and I thought less of father.
On the third morning Captain Bilge descended to my cabin.
"Mr. Blowhard," he said, "I must ask you to stand double watches."
"What is the matter?" I inquired.
"The two other mates have fallen overboard," he said uneasily, and avoiding my eye.
I contented myself with saying "Very good, sir," but I could not help thinking it a trifle odd that both the mates should have fallen overboard in the same night.
Surely there was some mystery in this.
Two mornings later the Captain appeared at the breakfast-table with the same shifting and uneasy look in his eye.
"Anything wrong, sir?" I asked.
"Yes," he answered, trying to appear at ease and twisting a fried egg to and fro between his fingers with such nervous force as almost to break it in two-"I regret to say that we have lost the bosun."
"The bosun!" I cried.
"Yes," said Captain Bilge more quietly, "he is overboard. I blame myself for it, partly. It was early this morning. I was holding him up in my arms to look at an iceberg and, quite accidentally I a.s.sure you-I dropped him overboard."
"Captain Bilge," I asked, "have you taken any steps to recover him?"
"Not as yet," he replied uneasily.
I looked at him fixedly, but said nothing.
Ten days pa.s.sed.
The mystery thickened. On Thursday two men of the starboard watch were reported missing. On Friday the carpenter"s a.s.sistant disappeared. On the night of Sat.u.r.day a circ.u.mstance occurred which, slight as it was, gave me some clue as to what was happening.
As I stood at the wheel about midnight, I saw the Captain approach in the darkness carrying the cabin-boy by the hind leg. The lad was a bright little fellow, whose merry disposition had already endeared him to me, and I watched with some interest to see what the Captain would do to him. Arrived at the stern of the vessel, Captain Bilge looked cautiously around a moment and then dropped the boy into the sea. For a brief instant the lad"s head appeared in the phosphorus of the waves. The Captain threw a boot at him, sighed deeply, and went below.
Here then was the key to the mystery! The Captain was throwing the crew overboard. Next morning we met at breakfast as usual.
"Poor little Williams has fallen overboard," said the Captain, seizing a strip of ship"s bacon and tearing at it with his teeth as if he almost meant to eat it.
"Captain," I said, greatly excited, stabbing at a ship"s loaf in my agitation with such ferocity as almost to drive my knife into it- "You threw that boy overboard!"
"I did," said Captain Bilge, grown suddenly quiet, "I threw them all over and intend to throw the rest. Listen, Blowhard, you are young, ambitious, and trustworthy. I will confide in you."
Perfectly calm now, he stepped to a locker, rummaged in it a moment, and drew out a faded piece of yellow parchment, which he spread on the table. It was a map or chart. In the centre of it was a circle. In the middle of the circle was a small dot and a letter T, while at one side of the map was a letter N, and against it on the other side a letter S.
"What is this?" I asked.
"Can you not guess?" queried Captain Bilge. "It is a desert island."
"Ah!" I rejoined with a sudden flash of intuition, "and N is for North and S is for South."
"Blowhard," said the Captain, striking the table with such force as to cause a loaf of ship"s bread to bounce up and down three or four times, "you"ve struck it. That part of it had not yet occurred to me."
"And the letter T?" I asked.
"The treasure, the buried treasure," said the Captain, and turning the map over he read from the back of it-"The point T indicates the spot where the treasure is buried under the sand; it consists of half a million Spanish dollars, and is buried in a brown leather dress-suit case."
"And where is the island?" I inquired, mad with excitement.
"That I do not know," said the Captain. "I intend to sail up and down the parallels of lat.i.tude until I find it."
"And meantime?"
"Meantime, the first thing to do is to reduce the number of the crew so as to have fewer hands to divide among. Come, come," he added in a burst of frankness which made me love the man in spite of his shortcomings, "will you join me in this? We"ll throw them all over, keeping the cook to the last, dig up the treasure, and be rich for the rest of our lives."
Reader, do you blame me if I said yes? I was young, ardent, ambitious, full of bright hopes and boyish enthusiasm.
"Captain Bilge," I said, putting my hand in his, "I am yours."
"Good," he said, "now go forward to the forecastle and get an idea what the men are thinking."
I went forward to the men"s quarters-a plain room in the front of the ship, with only a rough carpet on the floor, a few simple arm-chairs, writing-desks, spittoons of a plain pattern, and small bra.s.s beds with blue-and-green screens. It was Sunday morning, and the men were mostly sitting about in their dressing-gowns.
They rose as I entered and curtseyed.
"Sir," said Tompkins, the bosun"s mate, "I think it my duty to tell you that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction among the men."
Several of the men nodded.
"They don"t like the way the men keep going overboard," he continued, his voice rising to a tone of uncontrolled pa.s.sion. "It is positively absurd, sir, and if you will allow me to say so, the men are far from pleased."
"Tompkins," I said sternly, "you must understand that my position will not allow me to listen to mutinous language of this sort."
I returned to the Captain. "I think the men mean mutiny," I said.
"Good," said Captain Bilge, rubbing his hands, "that will get rid of a lot of them, and of course," he added musingly, looking out of the broad old-fashioned port-hole at the stern of the cabin, at the heaving waves of the South Atlantic, "I am expecting pirates at any time, and that will take out quite a few of them. However"-and here he pressed the bell for a cabin-boy-"kindly ask Mr. Tompkins to step this way."
"Tompkins," said the Captain as the bosun"s mate entered, "be good enough to stand on the locker and stick your head through the stern port-hole, and tell me what you think of the weather."
"Aye, aye, sir," replied the tar with a simplicity which caused us to exchange a quiet smile.
Tompkins stood on the locker and put his head and shoulders out of the port.
Taking a leg each we pushed him through. We heard him plump into the sea.