Disko worked all hands mercilessly for the next three
or four days; and when they could not go out, turned
them into the hold to stack the ship’s stores
into smaller compass, to make more room for the fish.
The packed mass ran from the cabin partition to the
sliding door behind the foc’sle stove; and Disko
showed how there is great art in stowing cargo so
as to bring a schooner to her best draft. The
crew were thus kept lively till they recovered their
spirits; and Harvey was tickled with a rope’s
end by Long Jack for being, as the Galway man said,
“sorrowful as a sick cat over fwhat couldn’t
be helped.” He did a great deal of thinking
in those weary days, and told Dan what he thought,
and Dan agreed with him—even to the extent
of asking for fried pies instead of hooking them.
But a week later the two nearly upset the Hattie S.
in a wild attempt to stab a shark with an old bayonet
tied to a stick. The grim brute rubbed alongside
the dory begging for small fish, and between the three
of them it was a mercy they all got off alive.
At last, after playing blindman’s-buff in the
fog, there came a morning when Disko shouted down
the foc’sle: “Hurry, boys! We’re
in taown!”
CHAPTER VIII
To the end of his days, Harvey will never forget that
sight. The sun was just clear of the horizon
they had not seen for nearly a week, and his low red
light struck into the riding-sails of three fleets
of anchored schooners—one to the north,
one to the westward, and one to the south. There
must have been nearly a hundred of them, of every
possible make and build, with, far away, a square-rigged
Frenchman, all bowing and courtesying one to the other.
From every boat dories were dropping away like bees
from a crowded hive, and the clamour of voices, the
rattling of ropes and blocks, and the splash of the
oars carried for miles across the heaving water.
The sails turned all colours, black, pearly-gray, and
white, as the sun mounted; and more boats swung up
through the mists to the southward.
The dories gathered in clusters, separated, reformed,
and broke again, all heading one way; while men hailed
and whistled and cat-called and sang, and the water
was speckled with rubbish thrown overboard.
“It’s a town,” said Harvey.
“Disko was right. It is a town!”
“I’ve seen smaller,” said Disko.
“There’s about a thousand men here; an’
yonder’s the Virgin.” He pointed to
a vacant space of greenish sea, where there were no
dories.
The ‘We’re Here’ skirted round the
northern squadron, Disko waving his hand to friend
after friend, and anchored as nearly as a racing yacht
at the end of the season. The Bank fleet pass
good seamanship in silence; but a bungler is jeered
all along the line.
“Jest in time fer the caplin,” cried the
Mary Chilton.
“’Salt ’most wet?” asked the
King Philip.
Copyrights
Captains Courageous from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
