The Tale of Timber Town. Grace Alfred Augustus

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СКАЧАТЬ right, all right,” called a clear voice from inside the great shed. “I’m ready before you are this time, Pilot.”

      “An’ well you are,” growled the gruff old barnacle. “That furrin’-lookin’ barque outside has hoisted the yellow flag. Get aboard, lads, get aboard.”

      “Your men discovered the fact half an hour ago, by the aid of your telescope.” The doctor came slowly down the slip, carrying a leather hand-bag.

      “If you’ve any mercy,” said the Pilot, “you’ll spare ’em the use o’ that. Men die fast enough without physic.”

      “Next time you get the sciatica, Summerhayes, I’ll give you a double dose.”

      “An’ charge me a double fee. I know you. Shove her off, Johnson.”

      The grim old Pilot stood with the steering-oar in his hand; the skipper and the doctor sitting on either hand of him, and the crew pulling as only a trained crew can.

      “Steady, men,” said the Pilot: “it’s only half tide, and there’s plenty of water coming in at the entrance. Keep your wind for that, Hendricson.”

      With one hand he unbuttoned the flap of his capacious trouser-pocket, and took out a small bunch of keys, which he handed to Sartoris.

      “Examine the locker,” he said. “It’s the middle-sized key.” The captain, in a moment, had opened the padlock which fastened the locker under the Pilot’s seat.

      “Is there half-a-dozen of beer – quarts?” asked Summerhayes.

      “There is,” replied Sartoris.

      “Two bottles of rum?”

      “Yes.”

      “Glasses?”

      “Four.”

      “An’ a corkscrew?”

      “It’s here.”

      “Then we’ve just what the doctor ordered: not this doctor – make no mistake o’ that. An’ them sons o’ sea cooks, forrard there, haven’t yet found a duplicate key to my locker. Wonderful! wonderful!”

      The crew grinned, and put their backs into every stroke, for they knew “the old man” meant that they shouldn’t go dry.

      “I’m the Pilot o’ this here port, eh?”

      “Most certainly,” said the doctor.

      “An’ Harbour Master, in a manner o’ speaking?”

      “That’s so.”

      “And captain o’ this here boat?”

      They were hugging the shore of the island, where the strength of the incoming tide began to be felt in the narrow tortuous channel. The bluff old Pilot put the steering-oar to port, and brought his boat round to starboard, in order to keep her out of the strongest part of the current.

      “Now, lads, shake her up!” he shouted.

      The men strained every nerve, and the boat was forced slowly against the tide. With another sudden movement of the steering-oar Summerhayes brought the boat into an eddy under the island, and she shot forward.

      “Very well,” he said; “it’s acknowledged that I’m all that – Pilot, Harbour Master, and skipper o’ this boat. Then let me tell you that I’m ship’s doctor as well, and in that capacity, since we’re outside and there’s easy going now under sail, I prescribe a good stiff glass all round, as a preventive against plague, Yellow Jack, small-pox, or whatever disease it is they’ve got on yonder barque.”

      Sartoris uncorked a bottle, and handed a glass to the doctor.

      “And a very good prescription, too,” said the tall, thin medico, who had a colourless complexion and eyes that glittered like black beads; “but where’s the water?”

      “Who drinks on my boat,” growled the Pilot, “drinks his liquor neat. I drown no man and no rum with water. If a man must needs spoil his liquor, let him bring his own water: there’s none in my locker.”

      The doctor took the old seaman’s medicine, but not without a wry face; Sartoris followed suit, and then the Pilot. The boat was now under sail, and the crew laid in their oars and “spliced the main brace.”

      “That’s the only medicine we favour in this boat or in this service,” said the Pilot, as he returned the key of the locker to his pocket, “an’ we’ve never yet found it to fail. Before encount’ring plague, or after encount’ring dirty weather, a glass all round: at other times the locker is kept securely fastened, and I keep the key.” Saying which, he buttoned the flap of his pocket, and fixed his eyes on the strange barque, to which they were now drawing near.

      It could be seen that she was a long time “out”; her sails, not yet all furled, were old and weather-worn; her sides badly needed paint; and as she rose and fell with the swell, she showed barnacles and “grass” below the water-line. At her mizzen-peak flew the American ensign, and at the fore-truck the ominous quarantine flag.

      As the boat passed under the stern, the name of the vessel could be seen – “Fred P. Lincoln, New York” – and a sickly brown man looked over the side. Soon he was joined by more men, brown and yellow, who jabbered like monkeys, but did nothing.

      “Seems they’ve got a menag’ry aboard,” commented Sartoris.

      Presently a white face appeared at the side.

      “Where’s the captain?” asked the Health Officer.

      “With the mate, who’s dying.”

      “Then who are you?”

      “Cap’n’s servant.”

      “But where’s the other mate?”

      “He died a week ago.”

      “What’s wrong on board?”

      “Don’t know, sir. Ten men are dead, and three are sick.”

      “Where are you from?”

      “Canton.”

      “Canton? Have you got plague aboard?”

      “Not bubonic. The men go off quiet and gradual, after being sick a long time. I guess you’d better come aboard, and see for yourself.”

      The ladder was put over the side, and soon the doctor had clambered on board.

      The men in the boat sat quiet and full of contemplation.

      “This is a good time for a smoke,” said the Pilot, filling his pipe and passing his tobacco tin forrard. “And I think, Sartoris, all hands ’d be none the worse for another dose o’ my medicine.” Again his capacious hand went into his more capacious pocket, and the key of the locker was handed to Sartoris.

      “Some foolish people are teetotal,” continued Summerhayes, “and would make a man believe as how every blessed drop o’ grog he drinks shortens his life by a day or a week, as the СКАЧАТЬ