Courage, True Hearts: Sailing in Search of Fortune. Stables Gordon

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      Would he take Frank as his apprentice?

      Why, he would be glad to have the whole three. They were so bold and bright, there was not the least fear of their not getting on.

      Wouldn't they come? His present ship was not so large as he would like it to be, but he would make shift somehow.

      But Duncan, while he thanked him, was firm.

      "Well," said Talbot, "I'll tell you what I'll do for you, for somehow I have acquired a liking for you all Frank here, then, shall come with me, not as an apprentice belonging to the owners, but as a friend who wishes to get well up in seamanship and eventually pass even for master-mariner. You see, Frank, you will be rated as apprentice to me, and not to the company, else they would hold you to the same ship for years. And my reason is this: in about a year or a little over, I shall, please God, have a ship of my own. It is to be a great project, but I am promised assistance, and many of the savants in London say the project is well worthy of the greatest success. I shall voyage first to the Antarctic regions, and come home with a paying voyage of oil and skins of the sea-elephants, and this shall smooth my way to exploring further south than any ship has yet reached.

      "So you see, Duncan, as you and your brother will not be bound to any tie as regards apprenticeship, you can both sail with me to the South Pole, and who knows but you may yet become the Nansens of the Antarctic."

      "Too good to be true," said Duncan laughing; "but I'm just determined to do my best, and no one can do more."

      "Bravo, lad!" cried the colonel, laying his hand on Duncan's shoulder. "And you remember what the poet says:

      "''T is not in mortals to command success,

      But we'll do more…; we'll deserve it'"

      "Brave words, Colonel Trelawney," cried Talbot. "Why, sir, scraps of heroic verse have helped me along all through life. I'm a ship-master now, with a bit in bank. But my first voyage was to the Arctic and I had hardly clothes enough to keep out the terrible weather. My mother was a poor widow in Dundee, and I-being determined to go to sea-became a stowaway. I hid in a coal-bunker, and it came on to blow, so that I was very nearly killed with the shifting coals that cannonaded against my ribs.

      "Luckily the storm did not last long, but when they hauled me out at last I was as black as a chimney-sweep and covered with blood.

      "I was too ill to be lifted and landed at Lerwick. The doctor said I was dying. The first mate, who was never sober, said, 'Serve the young beggar right!' But, boys, I knew better. Dundee boys don't die worth shucks, and so I was on deck in ten days' time. There were two dogs on board, and my duty was to feed and look after them, and also to assist the cook.

      "I roughed it, I can tell you, lads; but, Lord bless you, it did me a power of good. We were out for six months, and by that time I was as strong as a young mule. How old was I? Oh, not more than sixteen. But I felt a man. And I could reef and steer now, and splice a rope, and do all sorts of things. For the bo's'n had taken me in hand, and right kind he was.

      "Ah! but that rascally mate! A long black, red-cheeked chap he was, and not a bit like a sailor, but he kept up his spite against me, and, when half-seas over-which he always was when not completely drunk-he would let fly at me with a belaying-pin, a marling-spike, or anything else he could lay his hands on.

      "'Why don't you land him one," said the bo's'n one day, 'right from the shoulder?'

      "'That would be mutiny, wouldn't it?' said I.

      "'Nonsense, lad, the skipper likes you, and he wouldn't log you for it.'

      "I determined to take the bo's'n's advice next time the drunken mate hit me.

      "Well, I hadn't long to wait. You see I had come to really love the dogs under my charge. So one day the mate kicked one of them rather roughly out of his way.

      "'Don't you dare kick that dog,' I cried; 'they are both in my charge.'

      "How well do I remember that forenoon. We were on the return voyage, running before a light breeze, with every scrap of canvas set, low and aloft, and the sun shining bonnie and warm.

      "But the mate grew purple with rage when I checked him. He could hardly speak. He could only stutter.

      "'You, you beggar's brat,' he shouted, 'I'll give you a lesson.'

      "He rushed to pull out a belaying-pin.

      "I tossed off my jacket and threw it on the top of the capstan.

      "I twisted the belaying-pin out of his hands before you could have said 'knife'.

      "'Fight fair, you drunken scamp!' I cried.

      "Pistols and rifles lay ready loaded in boxes at the top of the cabin companion, and he made a stride or two as if to take one out.

      "'Mutiny!' he muttered, 'rank mutiny!'

      "I sprang between him and the box, and dealt him a square left-hander that made him reel. I followed this up with a rib-starter, then with one on the nose.

      "Down he went, and he actually prayed for mercy.

      "That bulbous nose of his was well tapped, and there was no fear of him taking apoplexy for a while anyhow.

      "But when I let him up he seemed to lose control of his senses, for the demon drink was now in the ascendant. He faced me no longer, however, but rushed for poor, faithful Collie, and before I could prevent it, had seized and pitched him overboard.

      "The men, untold, rushed to haul the foreyard aback and to lower a boat.

      "But he checked them.

      "'What! lower a boat for a dog?' he cried.

      "'Lower a boat for a man then,' I shouted, 'and just as I was I leapt upon the bulwark and dived off it. Next minute I was alongside Collie. Ay, lads, and alongside something else. A huge shark sailed past us, and passed us so near I could almost have touched him. He must have been fully fifteen feet long.3 I knew that nothing but splashing and shouting could keep him at bay, and I did both as well as I knew how to.'"

      "But the boat came quickly to our rescue, and we were soon safe on board. The skipper liked me, and did not log my mutinous conduct. In fact he became my friend, and I was apprenticed to his very ship. So I had many and many a voyage to the Sea of Ice after this.

      "There is a glamour about this weird and wonderful frozen ocean, boys, that none can resist who have ever been under its bewitching spell. It is on me now, and this it is which has determined me to seek soon for adventures in the Antarctic, which very few have ever sought to explore.

      "Now, Duncan and Conal, I'll tell you what I shall do with you. There is a big Australian ship to sail from Southampton in about a month. The captain is a personal friend of mine, and will do anything for you. I shall give you a letter.

      "Mind this, he is strict service, and if you do your duty, as I'm sure you will, you'll soon have a friend on the quarter-deck."

      Captain Talbot-or Master-mariner Talbot as he liked best to be called-had been as good as his word, and now our young heroes were far away at sea.

      The Ocean's Pride was a full-rigged Aberdeen clipper-built vessel, and could show a pair of clean heels to almost any other ship in the trade. The skipper and his two mates СКАЧАТЬ