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THE LITTLE FELLOW SMILED IN THE WEATHER-BEATEN FACE.
[See page 15.

DORYMATES

A TALE OF THE FISHING BANKS

By KIRK MUNROE

AUTHOR OF

“WAKULLA” “FLAMINGO FEATHER” “DERRICK STERLING” ETC.

Illustrated

NEW YORK AND LONDON

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

1903

Copyright, 1889, by Harper & Brothers.

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Do you carry a dory, captain?

Do you carry a dory on your deck?

Manned by two bold fishermen,

To save a life or board a wreck.

Landsmen cry, “Man the life-boat!” captain,

“Man the life-boat off our coast!”

But, captain, man the dory,

The fisherman’s glory,

The Banker’s pride and boast.

By the B. H. M.

DORYMATES:

A STORY OF THE FISHING BANKS.

CHAPTER I.
A WAIF OF THE SEA.

The fog had lifted, and a few stars were to be seen twinkling feebly; but the wind was very light, and what there was of it was dead ahead. There was a heavy swell rolling in from the eastward, but no sea running. The Gloucester fishing schooner Sea Robin was homeward bound from the Newfoundland Banks, and as she slowly climbed each glassy incline of black water, and then slid down into the windless hollow beyond, she seemed to be making no progress whatever on her course.

Although the Sea Robin had been out for more than four months, and had seen vessel after vessel of the fleet leave the Banks before she did and sail for home with full fares, not half the salt in her pens was used up, and she was returning with the smallest catch of the season. In spite of the fact that provisions were running low on board the schooner, her captain, Almon McCloud, would not have given up and left the Banks yet, had not a recent gale swept away his dories, and caused the loss of his new four-hundred-fathom cable.

Under these circumstances the crew of the schooner were very low-spirited, and there was none of the larking and fun among them that is usually to be noticed in a homeward-bound Banker. The men wondered as to the “Jonah” who had caused all their ill-luck. Finally they whispered among themselves that it must be the skipper. They now remembered that he had been unfortunate in more than one undertaking during the past year or two, and all were agreed that it would be wise not to sail with him again. This decision had been unanimously reached a few days before the one on which this story opens; and when, shortly before daybreak, there came a loud pounding on the cabin hatch, and a request that the captain should come on deck, one of the watch below turned restlessly in his bunk, and growled out,

“I expect we are in for another bit of the skipper’s tough luck.”

Reaching the deck, Captain McCloud found the two men on watch gazing earnestly at a dull red glow that lighted the distant horizon behind them.

“Looks like there was suthin afire back there, skipper,” said the man at the wheel.

The captain waited until the schooner rose on top of a swell, and then, after a long look at the light, gave the order to put her about and run for it.

There was some grumbling among the crew at this, for they were tired and sick of the trip. They wanted to get home and have it over with, and this running back over the course they had just come seemed to promise a long and vexatious delay. However, lucky or unlucky, their skipper had proved himself to be the captain of his vessel in every sense of the word more times than one, and they dared not question his action loudly enough for him to hear them.

For nearly an hour longer the light glowed steadily, then it expanded into a sudden wonderful brightness, and the next instant had disappeared entirely.

Three hours later, just as the sun was rising in all its sea-born glory, the Sea Robin sailed slowly through a mass of charred timbers and other floating remains of what evidently had been a large vessel. There were no boats to be seen, nor was anything discovered by which her name or character could be identified. For some time the schooner cruised back and forth through the wreckage in a fruitless search for survivors of the catastrophe. As they were about to give it up, and Captain McCloud had begun to issue the order to head her away again on her course towards home, he all at once held up his hand to command silence, and listened.

It was certainly the cry of an infant that came clear and loud across the water. The crew looked at each other in amazement, not unmixed with fear. There was no boat to be seen, no sign of life; and yet there it came again, louder and more distinct than before; the vigorous cry of a healthy baby who has just waked up and is hungry. The wind had died out entirely, the water was oily in its unruffled smoothness, and only the long swell remained.

Once more the cry was heard, and now it seemed so close at hand that several of the men trembled and turned pale. There was still nothing to be seen, save on the crest of the swell above them an apparently empty cask maintaining an upright position in the water, and showing a third of its length above it.

“That’s the life-boat!” shouted Captain McCloud. “There’s where the music comes from, men. Oh for the use of a dory for just five minutes!”

Having no boat, they could only watch the cask as it came slowly nearer and nearer, and several of the men prepared to jump overboard and swim for it in case it should drift past them. At last, when it was about thirty feet away, the skipper, making a skilful cast, settled the bight of a light line over the strange craft. Then he carefully drew it towards the schooner, over the low rail of which a couple of the crew were hanging, waiting with out-stretched arms to grasp it.

A minute later the cask stood on the schooner’s deck, and Captain McCloud was lifting tenderly from it a sturdy, well-grown baby boy, apparently about two years old. The little fellow smiled in the weather-beaten face, and stretched out his arms eagerly as the rough fisherman bent down towards him. At the same instant there came a fluttering of sails overhead, with a rattling of blocks, and one of the crew sang out as he sprang to the wheel, “Here’s a breeze! and it’s fair for home!”

“The baby’s brought it!” shouted another. “Hurrah for the baby!”

The shout was eagerly taken up by the crew; three hearty cheers were given for the baby, and three more for the breeze he had brought with him. Then, springing to sheets and halyards with more enthusiasm than they had shown before on the whole cruise, the active fellows quickly had the Sea Robin under a cloud of light canvas, and humming merrily along towards Gloucester.

They now found time to look at their baby, who, held in the skipper’s arms while he gave the necessary orders for working the schooner, contentedly sucked his thumb and gazed calmly about with the air of being perfectly at home. He was a beautiful child, with great blue eyes and yellow hair that curled in tiny ringlets all over his head. He was plainly dressed; but all that he wore was made of the finest material. Altogether he was so dainty a little specimen of humanity that he seemed like a pink and white rose-bud amid the rough men who surrounded him. He gazed at them for a minute or two with a smile, as though he would say that he was most happy to make their acquaintance, and was not in the least embarrassed by their stares. Then he turned to the skipper, and began to cry in exactly the tone with which he had announced his presence in the floating cask.

“Hello!” exclaimed the skipper, who, though married, had no children of his own, and had never held a baby before in his life, “what’s up now? Here, ‘doctor,’ you’ve had some experience in this line, I believe; cast your weather eye over this way and tell us the meaning of the squall.”

The cook, or “doctor,” as he is almost always called on board the fishing schooners, and, in fact, on most vessels, was a short, thick-set Portuguese, almost as dark as an Indian, but the very picture of good-nature. He now stepped up behind the skipper so as to have a good view of the baby, whose face, which rested on the skipper’s shoulder, was turned away from the crew, who stood looking at him in a helplessly bewildered way.

At the “doctor’s” sudden appearance the baby stopped crying, began again to suck his thumb, and, with great, wide-open eyes, stared solemnly at the grinning figure to whom it was thus introduced.

“Him hongry, skip,” announced the “doctor.” “Me fix him, pret quicka, bimeby, right off. Got one lit tin cow lef. You fetcha him down.”

The “doctor,” who was named Mateo, declared afterwards that the moment he looked into the baby’s face the little one had winked at him, as much as to say, “You know what I want, old chap, now go ahead and get it.”

By his “lit tin cow” he meant a can of condensed milk, and, as the only man on board who knew how to feed a baby, he had suddenly become the most important person among all the crew. Obeying his order, the skipper, with the new arrival in his arms, followed him down into the fore hold. The rest of the crew also attempted to crowd down into the narrow space to witness the novel sight of a baby at breakfast, but old Mateo quickly ordered them on deck, saying that the little stranger was big enough to occupy all the room there was to spare.

Then he bustled around in a hurry. He got out and opened the one remaining can of milk, and mixed a small portion of its contents with some warm water in a cup. The baby watched his every movement in silence, but with such a wise look that both the men felt he knew exactly what was going on. Now came the anxious moment--would he take the milk? Had he learned how to drink? The anxiety was quickly ended. He had learned to drink, and quickly emptied the proffered cup of every drop of its contents with an eagerness that showed how hungry he was. A ship biscuit, broken into small bits and soaked until soft in another cup of the warm milk, proved equally acceptable. When the members of the crew heard that the baby not only took kindly to the tin cow’s milk, but had eaten hard-tack, they were highly delighted. They declared that he was a natural born sailor, and would make a fisherman yet.

After his breakfast the baby was laid in the skipper’s own bunk in the cabin, where, warmly covered, and rocked by the motion of the schooner, he quickly fell asleep.

On deck the men conversed in low tones for fear of disturbing him. Their sole topic was the child’s miraculous preservation and rescue, first from the burning vessel and then from the sea. The cask in which he had floated to them was carefully examined and pronounced to be of foreign make. It had evidently been prepared hastily to serve the novel purpose of a life-boat, but the preparation had been made with skill. In the bottom was a quantity of scrap-iron, that had served as ballast and caused it to float on end instead of on its side. On top of this were, tightly wedged, two large empty tin cans, square, and having screw tops; while above these was a pillow, in which the baby, wrapped in a thick woollen shawl, had been laid. There was nothing else. Here was the baby, and here the cask in which he had been saved; there, far behind them, was the charred wreckage, and on the sky the night before had shone the red glow from the burning vessel. Where she was from, and where bound, whether or not others besides this helpless babe had been spared her awful fate, what was her name and what her nationality, were among the countless mysteries of the ocean that might never be cleared up.

There was little satisfaction to be gained by the discussion of these things; but the baby was a reality, and a novelty such as none of them had ever before seen on board a fishing schooner. Of him they talked incessantly during the three days’ homeward run. What they should call him perplexed them sadly for a time. The names suggested and rejected would have added several pages to a city directory. Finally this most important question was decided by the skipper, who said, “He brought a fair breeze with him that’s held by us ever since, and is giving us one of the quickest runs home ever made from the Banks. He’s as bright and cheery and refreshing as a breeze himself, and I propose that we call him ‘Breeze.’ It’s a name that might belong to almost any nationality, and yet give offence to none. As to a second name, for want of a better, and if he don’t discover the one he’s rightly entitled to, why, I’ll give him mine. What’s more, I’ll adopt him if his own folks don’t turn up; that is, if my old woman is agreeable, and I ain’t much afraid but what she will be.”

So the little waif of the sea became, and was known from that day forth as, Breeze McCloud--a name that was destined to become connected with as many exciting adventures and hair-breadth escapes as any ever signed to the shipping papers of a Gloucester fishing schooner.

The breeze that hurried the Sea Robin along was none too fair nor too strong; for the supply of milk furnished by the “doctor’s” tin cow was completely exhausted before they reached home. If they had not got in just as they did, the baby would have suffered from hunger, and the whole crew would have suffered with him. As it was, they passed Thatcher’s Island while he was drinking the last of the milk. Before he was again hungry, with everything set and drawing, and decorated with every flag and bit of bunting that could be found on board, the saucy Sea Robin had rounded Eastern Point and was sailing merrily up Gloucester harbor.

A crowd of people had assembled on the wharf to witness her arrival, and learn the cause of her decorations. As she neared it one of them called out,

“What is it, skipper? You’ve got your flags up as if you thought you was High-line[^[A]] of the fleet; but the old Robin don’t look to be very deep. What have you got?”

“We do claim to be High-line,” shouted back the skipper. “And here’s what we’ve got to prove it.” With this he held the baby high above his head so that all might see it, and added, “If any Grand Banker has brought in a better fare than that this season, I want to see it; that’s all.”

So Breeze McCloud entered Gloucester harbor, and never had any stranger been received with greater enthusiasm. The news of his arrival spread like wildfire, and it seemed as though half the population of the city had crowded down to the wharf to see him before Captain McCloud could get ready to leave the schooner. Then, with the baby in his arms, he stepped into the long seine-boat that, pulled by half a dozen lusty fellows, was waiting to take him across the harbor to the foot of the hill upon which his modest cottage was perched.

After many days of anxiety--for the Sea Robin was long overdue--the captain’s wife, who had watched his schooner sail up the harbor with flags flying, now awaited him in a fever of impatience. She had waited at home because she could not bear to meet him before strangers, so she had heard nothing of what he was bringing her. When at last she saw him coming up the hill, accompanied by an ever-increasing throng of men, women, and children, she was greatly perplexed to know what to make of the sight, and hurried down to the little front gate, where she waited for an explanation.

“Why! whose child can the man have picked up?” she said to herself, as her husband drew near enough for her to see what it was he held in his arms.

“The old Robin’s High-line this season, Dolly,” cried Captain McCloud as he reached the gate, “and I’ve brought you my share of the catch.”

“You don’t mean that baby, Almon!” exclaimed the bewildered woman.

“Yes, I do mean this very blessed baby! He’s a waif of the sea, without father, mother, or home, that anybody knows of; and if you say the word, we’ll give him all three.” With this he held the baby towards her.

She hesitated a moment, but the baby did not. With a happy little crow he at once stretched out his arms to her, and said, “Mamma!”

It was enough. All the mother-love within her responded to this cry, and the next moment the little one was hugged tightly to her bosom.

Turning to those who had accompanied him, Captain McCloud said, “That settles it, neighbors! I hadn’t much doubt of it before; now I know I am acting rightly; and here, before you all, I solemnly adopt this baby boy, Breeze McCloud, as my son, and promise, with God’s help, to be a father to him in deed as well as in name.”

On board the Sea Robin none of the rough nurses, not even the baby-wise Mateo, had dared undress the little one so strangely given into their charge, for fear they would not be able to dress him again. Thus, when he was delivered to Mrs. McCloud, it was evident that, next to food, his greatest needs were a bath and some clean clothes. These last his adopted mother borrowed from a neighbor who had children of all ages and sizes.

When the baby was undressed it was discovered that a slender gold chain was clasped about his neck. Attached to it was a golden ball covered with a tracery of unique and elaborate engraving. It was apparently hollow; but nobody was able to open it, nor could they discover any joint on its surface, so skilful was the workmanship that had created it. Finally, declaring that it was merely an ornament and not meant to be opened, Mrs. McCloud put it carefully away in a sandal-wood box, among her own little hoard of treasures.

In that box the golden ball lay for years, almost unnoticed, but ever guarding jealously the secret that some day should exert such a wonderful influence over the fortunes of the baby from whose neck it had been taken.

CHAPTER II.
ON BOARD THE “CURLEW.”

Fifteen years seems a long time, and yet when they are happy years how quickly they pass! They had been happy to Breeze McCloud; happy and busy years. No boy in Gloucester had a pleasanter home or more loving parents than he, though he was but an adopted son. He rarely thought of this, though, for Captain McCloud had, from the very first, been a true father, and the captain’s wife a loving mother to him. No other children had come to them since they had taken him into their hearts and home, and he was their pride and delight. He had grown to be a tall, handsome fellow, interested in his studies, and a bright scholar, but always impatient for the time to come when he should go out into the world and win from it his own livelihood.

Whenever Captain McCloud was at home the boy was his constant companion, and from him Breeze eagerly learned the rudiments of a sailor’s art. He delighted in being called his father’s “dorymate,” and was very proud of being able to swim, and to row and sail his own dory, before he was twelve years old.

Being so much in his father’s company, and listening to the conversations between him and other men, gave Breeze many ideas beyond the comprehension of most boys of his age. He sometimes wore a grave and thoughtful air, and often said wise things that sounded oddly enough in one so young.

The boy’s curly head was a familiar sight on board most of the fishing schooners that were constantly coming into or going out of the port. Here he was perfectly happy while listening to some tale of adventure on the Banks or more distant fishing grounds, perhaps told by its hero on the breezy deck or in the snug cabin of the very craft on which it had all happened.

At last the time had come for him to set forth in quest of similar adventures, and to do his share towards maintaining the home that had been such a safe and pleasant one to him. There was sorrow in it now, and there might soon be want. The Sea Robin had been gone six months, and no word had been received from her since the day she sailed out beyond Eastern Point, and vanished in the red glory of the rising sun.

Only in the hearts of his wife and adopted son did the faintest hope remain that the Robin’s captain was still alive. To all others he was as dead, and a new breadwinner was needed in his place.

“I must go now, mother,” said Breeze. “I’m large and strong for my age, and if they’ll take me I am sure I can do a man’s work and earn a man’s wages.”

“Oh, Breeze, my dear boy! my comfort! Is there not something else you can do? A clerkship would pay just as well, and there would be none of the horrible danger.”

“Don’t, mother! don’t urge it! It makes me heart-sick to think of a desk, or of being shut up all day in a store. I should never be good for anything, you know I wouldn’t, mother dear, trying to do work that I had no heart in.”

“But, Breeze--”

“But, mother! Please don’t think any more about a clerkship. Give me your consent and your blessing, and let me follow father’s calling and gain a living from the sea, as he has done. I came to you from the sea, you know,” he continued, with a winning smile, and patting her thin cheeks. “It was kind to me then, and it always will be, I am sure.”

After many talks of this kind Breeze carried his point. Then, one evening in March, there was no prouder boy in town than he, when he was able to announce to his mother that he had shipped for a mackerelling trip to the southward, on the schooner Curlew.

The vessel was already taking in her ice and stores, and would haul out into the stream the next morning, ready to start. Breeze was to go over to town the first thing after breakfast, and buy the oil-skin suit, rubber boots, and woollen cap that, besides the canvas bag of heavy clothing he would take from home, would form his outfit. These he would send aboard the schooner. Then he would come home again and say good-by if there was time--but perhaps there would not be, and so they had better make the most of this evening.

They did make the most of it, and until after ten o’clock, Breeze and his mother sat hand in hand, and talked, she sadly and tearfully, he bravely and hopefully.

The next morning, just before he left, his mother called him into her room, saying, “I have one more thing to give you, Breeze. It is something that should be the most precious thing in the world to you, and I want you to wear it always.” With this she took from the sandalwood box, that had kept it safely all these years, the slender chain and golden ball that had hung around his baby neck when she first held him in her arms.

Breeze was inclined to laugh at the idea of wearing a gold chain and a locket around his neck; but his mother was so in earnest in her desire that he should, that he promised to do as she wished.

“I CAME TO YOU FROM THE SEA,” HE SAID, PATTING HER THIN CHEEKS.

“It was, doubtless, your own mother first placed it there, and I have a strong feeling that it will, somehow or other, have much to do with your future safety and happiness,” she said. “See, I have made a little pocket in the breast of each of your flannel shirts to hold it,” she added, as she clasped the chain about his neck and kissed him.

“Own mother, or not own mother, no boy ever had a better, or sweeter, or dearer, or more loving mother than you have been to me,” cried Breeze, throwing his arms about her neck, “and I would not exchange you for any other in the world, not even if she was a queen.”

Now that the time to go had really come, the boy found it a very hard thing to part from his home. After he had kissed his mother good-by, and started down the hill, with his canvas bag on his shoulder, he dared not look back, though he knew she was standing in front of the little cottage watching him.

He had barely time in town to make his few purchases before the Curlew should sail; for wind and tide were both favorable, and her skipper was impatient to take advantage of them and get started. His hurry was owing to the fact that several other schooners were getting ready for trips to the same waters. He was anxious to be the first on the ground, and, if possible, carry the first fresh mackerel of the season into New York.

Although everybody has seen and eaten mackerel either fresh or salted, and though they are caught in immense numbers off the Atlantic coast of the United States every year, there is but little really known about them. Where they come from and where they go to are still unsolved mysteries. Every spring, between the middle of March and the middle of April, they appear in great shoals in the waters just north of Cape Hatteras. At this time they are very thin, and hardly fit for food; but on the coast feeding-grounds they rapidly improve, until in the early summer, when they have worked their way northward to New England waters, they are in prime condition. They generally run as far north as the Gulf of St. Lawrence, from which, in the fall, they suddenly disappear, to be seen no more until the following spring.

All through the summer, but especially at the very first of the season, those that are caught near a port are packed in ice and carried in to the market fresh. The greater part of the year’s catch is, however, salted in barrels on board the schooners, and afterwards repacked on shore, in kits or boxes, marked according to the size and quality of the fish they contain, Nos. 1, 2, 3, or 4, and sent all over the world.

The cruise on which Breeze McCloud was about to start was to be made in search of the very first mackerel of the season, and the Curlew’s destination was therefore the waters off the Delaware coast, or between there and Cape Hatteras.

By ten o’clock everything was in readiness for the start. The skipper had come on board, and all hands were hard at work, making sail or breaking out and getting up the heavy anchor. Then it was “up jib and away.” As the lively craft slipped swiftly down the harbor, Breeze found time for one long last look at his home. At the cottage door he could just make out a waving handkerchief, that told him he was being watched and remembered.

Once outside, all hands were kept busy for a couple of hours, setting light sails, coiling lines, stowing odds and ends, and making everything snug. The course they were heading would carry them just clear of Cape Cod; and before a spanking breeze, under a press of canvas, the Curlew tore along as though sailing an ocean race that she was bound to win. Almost any fishing vessel but a mackereller going out at this stormy season would have left both top-masts and her jib-boom at home, being content with the safest of working sails. To the early mackerel catcher, however, every minute gained may mean many extra dollars in pocket; so his craft sails in racing trim, and carries her canvas to the extreme of recklessness.

Like all fishing schooners, the Curlew had a forecastle, in which several of the crew slept, and in which were also the cook-stove and mess-table. Back of it was the pantry and store-room, in which were ten fresh-water tanks. Still farther aft was the hold, divided into pens by partitions of rough boards. These were now filled with cakes of ice, but later would be used for fish. Abaft the hold was the cabin, in which the skipper and five of the crew found sleeping accommodations. It was neatly finished in ash, and running along three sides of it was a broad transom that served as a seat or lounging-place. The only furniture was a small coal-stove, securely fastened in the middle of the floor. On the walls hung a clock, a barometer, and a thermometer. A few charts were stowed overhead in a rack, and, flung around in the bunks or on the transom, were a number of paper-covered novels.

The business of fishing is conducted upon the system of shares. That is, half the value of the catch, after outfitting expenses have been deducted, goes to the owners of the vessel, and half to the crew. Although the skipper and cook are not required to take part in the actual business of fishing, each of them receives a full share. The skipper gets, in addition, four per cent. of the value of the catch, and the cook has regular wages.

The living on board a fishing schooner is generally superior to that on almost any other craft. It consists of fresh meat, whenever it can be obtained, fresh fish, vegetables, dried fruit, soft bread, cakes and pies, eggs, condensed milk, and always tea and coffee, hot, strong, and in abundance.

The Curlew was manned by a picked crew of twelve men, including the skipper and cook. They were young, strong, and active, and, except Breeze, all were skilful fishermen. He had been considered very fortunate in obtaining a berth at a time of year when there are so many good men anxious to ship. That he had done so was largely owing to the friendship existing between the skipper, Captain Ezra Coffin, and his adopted father.

When he had consented to ship the boy for this trip, the skipper said,

“It’s a hard life, Breeze, and one full of chances. Every man aboard may have a hundred dollars to his credit before the week is out, and then again we may cruise for a month and not make enough to pay for our ice. You are only a boy, but you will have to do a man’s work, and hard work at that. There are perils of all kinds waiting on every minute of the night and day, and they’ll come when you least expect them. I’d rather a boy of mine would saw wood for a living on land than to try and make it by fishing. Besides all this, as you are a green hand, I can only offer you half a share for this trip. Still, if you are bound to come, I’m glad to have you, both for your own sake and for that of my old dorymate, Almon McCloud. So bring along your dunnage, lad, and may good-luck come with you!”

Breeze had answered, “I know it won’t be all plain sailing, sir, and that I’ve got a lot to learn before I can be called an A 1 hand. Still, hard and dangerous as you say the business is, I’d rather try and make a living at it than at anything else I know of, and I am much obliged to you for giving me a chance.”

Soon after leaving port, the skipper called all hands aft to draw for bunks and to “thumb the hat.” The bunks had numbers chalked on them, and now the skipper held in his hand as many small sticks as there were men in the crew. Each stick had notches cut in it corresponding to the numbers of the bunks, and one by one the crew stepped up and drew them from the skipper’s hand. Thus the sleeping quarters were distributed with perfect fairness, and there was no chance for grumbling. Breeze was lucky enough to draw one of the wide bunks in the cabin, and at once hastened to stow his possessions in it.

When all the berths had been thus distributed, the crew again gathered aft, and each man placed a thumb on the rim of an old straw hat that had been laid on top of the cabin. The skipper turned his back to them, one of the men named a number, and, without looking to see whose it was, the skipper touched one of the thumbs. Then he counted around until the number mentioned was reached. The man at whose thumb he stopped was to stand first watch and trick at the wheel, the next man on his right the second, and so on. There would be two men on watch in bad weather, but one is generally considered sufficient when it is fine.

With the parting injunction to “mind, now, and remember who you are to call,” the skipper went below. As eight bells, or twelve o’clock, was struck, the man who had first watch took the wheel, gave a glance at the compass, another at the sails, and the regular routine of duty was begun.

Now dinner was announced, and after the skipper was seated, the half of the crew that reached the mess-table and secured seats were entitled to eat at “first table” during the trip. The others had to be content to eat at “second table.” Breeze was not posted as to this, and consequently was among those who got left when the rush took place. Afterwards, this seemingly trifling circumstance proved to be of the most vital importance to him, as we shall see.

The cruise thus fairly begun was continued without incident until the Curlew reached the fishing grounds off the Virginia capes. Then, under easy sail, she stood off and on, with a man constantly at the mast-head, scanning the surface of the water in the hope of seeing mackerel. The great seine-boat was got overboard, and with the seine in it, was towed behind the schooner, ready for instant use.

At length, after four tedious days of this work, the impatient crew were brought tumbling on deck in a hurry one fine morning by the welcome cry of “There they school; half a mile away, off the weather bow!”

CHAPTER III.
THE HAULING OF THE SEINE.

In less than five minutes after the first cry announcing the appearance of the eagerly expected fish, the great thirty-foot, double-ended seine-boat, rowed by eight men, had left the schooner and started in the direction of the school. In its stern, with his hand on the long steering oar, stood the seine-master, directing the course of the boat and keeping a sharp lookout ahead. Pulling after them as fast as he could was Breeze McCloud, in the single dory that the Curlew carried. The schooner, left in charge of the skipper and cook, was thrown up into the wind, and was held as nearly stationary as possible until it could be seen where she would be wanted.

“Come, stretch yourselves, lads! stretch yourselves! Let’s see who’ll break the first oar! Those other fellows are just humping themselves. It’s Yankee against Yankee this time, and you’ve got a tough lot to beat,” shouted the seine-master.

He would, of course, have been very sorry to have an oar broken, but he had such confidence that the men could do no more than bend the tough ash blades, no matter how hard they tugged, that he was perfectly willing they should try. By the “other fellows” he meant the crew of another fishing schooner, which daylight of that morning had disclosed not far from them, and which had evidently discovered mackerel about the same time they had. They, too, were out in their seine-boat, and doubtless looked forward with as great confidence as did the men from the Curlew to taking the first fare of the season into New York.

“Easy, lads, easy now!” ordered the seine-master, in a tone of suppressed excitement; “here’s our school.” Now he tossed overboard a small keg, or buoy, to which was attached one end of the upper, or cork line of the great net. Near this Breeze was to wait in his dory. Then, bending to their oars, the boat’s crew began to pull, with lusty strokes, in a great circle around the school of fish that was rippling the water close beside them. Swimming in a dense body close to the surface, often throwing themselves clear of the water, with their steely blue sides flashing in the morning light, the mackerel were darting madly hither and thither. At one instant the whole school, moved by some mysterious impulse, would make a simultaneous dash in one direction, and the next it would as suddenly rush back again. In the cool dim depths beneath them, dog-fish, sharks, and other hungry sea pirates were breakfasting off the newly arrived strangers, and devouring them by the score. In the air above them circled and swooped great fishing hawks, anxious to make a meal off of fresh mackerel. Now to these enemies was added man, the most cruel and greatly to be dreaded of all. No wonder the poor fish were frightened and undecided as to the direction of their flight from so many imminent dangers.

Meantime the great net, a quarter of a mile long, had been skilfully drawn completely around them. Breeze, in his dory, obeying previously given instructions, carried the buoy that had first been thrown overboard to the seine-boat, in which the other end of the cork-line was still held and made fast. The circle was now perfect, and the fish were surrounded by a wall of fine but stout twine. Their only chance of escape lay at the bottom of the net, and in another minute this opening would also be closed against them.

While the upper edge of the seine was floated by means of numerous large corks attached to the rope that ran along its entire length, its lower edge was sunk and held straight down by an equal number of leaden rings. Through these ran a second stout line, known as the “purse rope,” an end of which remained in the boat. By pulling on this all the leaden rings could be drawn close together, and as the net was now in the form of a circle, its lower edge would form a purse in which there would be no opening for escape.

Hauling on this rope and “pursing” the seine is the hardest part of the entire job, and takes the united efforts of the seine-boat’s crew. It is also a most exciting operation, for if it is successfully accomplished the fish are caught and an ample reward for all the previous toil is almost certain. If, on the other hand, the fish take alarm at the last moment and dart downward through the still open bottom of the net, all the hard work goes for nothing and must be done over again, perhaps many times before a successful haul is made.

Such was the case in this instance. Success was almost within reach of the Curlew’s crew, when suddenly the entire school of fish, upon which they were building such high hopes, dropped out of sight like so many leaden plummets, and were gone. They had evidently decided that there were more chances for life among the sharks and dog-fish than within the power of their human enemies, and had wisely seized their last chance of escape from them.

It was a bitter disappointment, and it was made the keener by the sight of certain movements on board the rival schooner that indicated a successful pursing of their seine and a heavy catch of fish. Slowly, and with much grumbling over their hard luck, the Curlew’s men gathered in their net and empty seine. They piled it up carefully, rings forward and corks aft, in the after-part of their boat, ready for the next time. Then they listlessly pulled towards their schooner, which was lying near by, and on board which breakfast awaited them.

The Curlew sailed close to the other schooner in order to learn her luck, and witness the lively scene about her. The stranger’s seine had enclosed an enormous school of fish, which was estimated at nearly, if not quite, five hundred barrels. One end of it had been got on board the schooner, and the dipping out of the fish was about to begin. They were greatly frightened, and rushed from side to side with such violence that many of them were crushed to death. All at once they sank, and their weight was so great as to draw one gunwale of the heavy seine-boat under the water, although eight men were perched on the opposite side to counterbalance it.

When a crew find a greater quantity of fish on their hands than they can take care of, as was the case now, it is customary, if there is another vessel within hail, to give her the surplus rather than to throw it away. Having often done this himself, Captain Coffin did not hesitate, as the two schooners drew close together, to hail the other skipper and ask if he had any fish to give away.

“No, I haven’t,” was the surly answer. “If you want fish go and catch ’em.”

“All right,” answered Captain Coffin, somewhat provoked, but still good-naturedly; “we’re the lads can just do that, and we’ll beat you into New York yet.”

“Looks like it now, doesn’t it?” shouted the other, scornfully. “If you do, though, it won’t be because I helped you. I’d rather lose every fish I’ve got alongside here than to give you one of them.”

These words were hardly out of his mouth when the captured fish darted violently towards the bottom of the net, and the seine-boat was nearly capsized, as has been related. Its crew hurriedly scrambled to the upper side. Suddenly the boat righted, so quickly that the whole eight men were flung overboard, and found themselves floundering in the cold water.

The situation was startling as well as comical, though the explanation of what had happened was very simple. The frightened fish, in their downward rush, had torn a great hole in the net, which was an old one, and through it they had instantly darted to depths of safety. The seine, being thus relieved of its burden, no longer pulled the boat down, and it at once yielded to the weight of the men on its upper gunwale.

Under ordinary circumstances this mishap would have excited the sympathy of those on board the Curlew. Now, on account of the uncivil reply of the rival skipper to their captain, they were inclined to rejoice at what had happened, and they roared with laughter at the rueful faces of the dripping men as they scrambled back into their boat.

To Breeze the whole affair presented itself in such a comical aspect that he laughed louder and longer than any of the others, though in a perfectly good-humored way, and without a trace of an unkind feeling towards those who had been so unfortunate. His mirth was, however, deemed peculiarly irritating by one of the rival crew, a young man with an ugly face that bore unmistakable traces of dissipation. He shook his fist at Breeze and called out,

“Never you mind, young feller, I’ll not forget you! And maybe I’ll find a chance to make you laugh out of the other side of your mouth some day.”

This speech sobered Breeze at once, though at first he looked around in a bewildered way, thinking it could not possibly be meant for him. When he realized that it was he shouted back,

“Seems to me I wouldn’t feel so bad about it if I was you. I wasn’t laughing at you, anyway. I was laughing to think how surprised those mackerel must have been when you went diving down after them, trying to catch ’em in your hands.”

This raised another shout of laughter from the Curlew men, but the young man towards whom it was directed only shook his fist again at Breeze, and turned away without a word, going below to find some dry clothes.

Breeze saw that he had unwittingly made for himself an enemy in this stranger, and for a time the knowledge caused him real distress. He was a warm-hearted boy, preferring friendships to enmities, and would at any time sacrifice his own pleasure or comfort to win the former and overcome the latter. At the same time, he was not sorry that he had asserted his own independence and answered back as he had. The incident soon passed from his mind, however, in the rush of more stirring events, and it was some time before he was again reminded of it.

Captain Coffin was much puzzled to account for the surliness of the rival skipper until the Curlew passed astern of the other schooner, so that her name, Roxy B., and her hailing port could be read. Then it flashed across him that this was the Rockhaven craft that was thought to be so fast, but which he had beaten in a fair race on a run into Boston the summer before.

“SEEMS TO ME I WOULDN’T FEEL SO BAD ABOUT IT IF I WAS YOU.”

To bear ill-will for such a cause certainly showed a small and mean mind, and Captain Coffin said he was very glad the other had refused to let him have any fish, for he should hate to be under obligations to such a man.

The Curlew had not gone more than a mile from the Roxy B. when the fish of which she was in search began to rise to the surface on all sides of her. The seine-boat was quickly sent out, while Breeze, in his dory, followed it as before. This time a school was successfully surrounded, and the net was pursed without a mishap. A flag hoisted on an oar in the boat was the signal to the schooner that they had made a large haul and needed her assistance. She was soon brought alongside of the pursed seine with its burden of glittering fish, and from it a long-handled scoop-net, worked with a tackle, was dipping them, a half-barrelful at a time, and transferring them to her deck.

The catch was about one hundred and fifty barrels of mackerel that were of a prime quality as to size, but so thin that they would have been unfit to split and salt. The afternoon was drawing to a close before they were all got on board and the seine was properly stowed in its boat; but there was no rest for the tired crew yet a while. Sail was made on the schooner, and she was headed for Sandy Hook, nearly three hundred miles away. Then all hands, except the cook and the man at the wheel, turned to and began “gibbing” and packing the fish.

Mackerel are so delicate that they die almost as soon as they touch a deck, and will quickly spoil if not cared for at once. So there was no time to lose, and the whole catch must be “gibbed,” or cleaned, and packed in ice before sleep could be thought of.

In “gibbing” a mackerel the gills are plucked out, and with them come the entrails. This operation was performed with marvellous rapidity by the skilled workers of the crew, the refuse matter was tossed into square wooden boxes known as “gib-tubs,” and the cleaned fish were thrown into bushel baskets.

Down in the hold the blocks of ice were removed from a pen, and reduced to small bits by heavy sharp-pointed “slicers.” A layer of this broken ice was shovelled over the bottom of the empty pen, and above it was spread a basket of fish. Then came another layer of ice, then more fish, and so on until the pen was full, when another was emptied and filled in the same manner. It was long after midnight before the crew of the Curlew knocked off work, with the last of their fish safely packed away; but, tired as they were, they were also highly elated by their success, and by the prospect of being the first mackereller of the season into New York.

The next day, spent in running up the coast with a brisk westerly breeze, was one of the happiest that can come to the in-shore fisherman. Everybody was in the best of humor, from the knowledge that they had, stowed beneath their hatches, a fair-sized catch of the very earliest mackerel of the season. They knew these would bring an extra price, and pay each of them at least twice as much as they would make under more ordinary circumstances. There was little to do except stand watch and clean ship; so that most of the day was devoted to the spinning of yarns in the forecastle, and the singing of songs to a banjo accompaniment in the cabin. The cook made them a great dish of Joe-floggers (peculiar pancakes stuffed with plums) for breakfast, and a gorgeous plum-duff for dinner. Upon the whole, Breeze enjoyed the day so thoroughly that he wondered how anybody could complain of the hardships of a fisherman’s life, or think it anything but fascinating.

They passed the double Highland lights, and rounding Sandy Hook, stood up New York Bay some time during the following night; the next morning, by daylight, they were snugly moored in the Fulton Market slip, among scores of other fishing vessels, none of which had on board a single mackerel. Theirs was the first catch of the season, and before breakfast-time it had been sold in bulk for three thousand dollars. Of this, after expenses were deducted, each full share amounted to ninety-two dollars, while the half share credited to Breeze was forty-six dollars. This seemed to him a large sum of money to have been earned in a week, only one day and night of which had been devoted to real hard work. He at once wrote to his mother telling her the good news, and as he did so he felt that he had become, if not an important member of society, at least a very wealthy one.

In the afternoon he took a short walk through the lower part of the great city, but became so bewildered by the noise, bustle, and crowds of people that he dared not go very far for fear of getting lost. On one of the downtown streets that he did visit he was attracted by the sight of a jeweller’s window. This reminded him of what his mother had said, that if anybody could open the golden ball that hung from the chain around his neck it would be a city jeweller.

Entering the store, he stepped up to an elderly gentleman who stood behind a desk, and unclasping the chain, handed it and the ball to him, saying, “I don’t know whether this ball will open or not; can you tell me, sir?”

The jeweller examined the trinket carefully, and seemed particularly interested in the unique tracery with which it was ornamented. For several minutes he did not speak; then he asked, abruptly, “Where did you get this?”

Breeze told him in a few words all that he knew of its history as well as his own.

“H’m,” said the jeweller. “You wait here a moment, while I show this to my partner.”

He was gone so long that Breeze began to grow uneasy, and had just about made up his mind to go in search of him, when he returned. He was accompanied by a low-browed, swarthy individual, who, when Breeze was pointed out, stepped up to him and said,

“This trinket, that you have brought in, is quite a novelty in our line, and I should like to buy it of you. It is a puzzle-charm of East Indian make. Unless one knows the secret of its construction, it cannot possibly be opened except by an accident that might not happen in ten thousand times of trying. I learned my trade in Calcutta, and am probably the only man in New York City to-day who can open this little ball. You see that I can do it.”

Here he showed Breeze the ball open, but did not let him see its contents. Then turning his back for an instant, he again displayed it closed as before.

“What will you take for it?” he asked.

“It’s not for sale,” answered Breeze, “but I am willing to pay for learning the trick of how to open it, for I am curious to know what it contains.”

“That information is not for sale either, nor will I tell you what the ball contains,” said the jeweller. “Moreover, if you will not sell it to me, or show me some proof that you are its rightful owner, I shall keep it until I can place it in the hands of the police, for it is my belief that you have stolen it.”

CHAPTER IV.
A SUDDEN DISASTER.

The jeweller’s accusation was so unexpected and startling to Breeze that he flushed hotly, and for a moment found no words to answer it. Then he demanded, indignantly,

“How dare you say such a thing? Give me back my property instantly, or I shall be the one to call in the police!”

“Certainly, my young friend, certainly, when you produce the proof that it is yours,” replied the man, dropping the trinket into a drawer, of which he turned the lock.

There was no element of decision lacking in Breeze’s character; he was quick to act in emergencies, and without another word he stepped to the door. A small boy was passing.

“Sonny,” said Breeze, “run quick and bring a policeman. If he is here within five minutes I will give you five cents.”

The boy, keenly alive to a situation that promised so much excitement as this, started off on a run. Breeze remained standing where he could survey the whole interior of the store, and could especially keep an eye on the drawer in which lay his property.

The men inside watched him closely. They had seen him despatch the boy on some errand, but had not overheard what he said, and did not know what it was. Now the one who had opened the ball approached him and said,

“Why don’t you go for your proofs? You had better hurry, as we shall close up soon, and then we could not look at them until to-morrow.”

“I have sent for them,” answered Breeze, simply.

“Oh,” said the man, somewhat disconcerted. “Well, of course, if they come in time, and are satisfactory, you shall have your charm back, and an apology into the bargain.”

“Here comes one of them now,” replied Breeze, as he handed a five-cent piece to a breathless small boy, who came running up just in front of a big policeman.

"THAT GENTLEMAN THERE REFUSES TO RETURN A GOLD BALL AND CHAIN THAT I HANDED HIM FOR EXAMINATION."

To this officer Breeze said, “That gentleman there,” pointing to the dark-skinned jeweller, “refuses to return a gold ball and chain that I handed him for examination. He says he thinks I stole them, and he has locked them up in a drawer. I think I can bring one of the best-known men in New York to vouch for my honesty; but it may be some time before I can find him. Now, I want to know if you will take this trinket, as the gentleman calls it, and keep it for me until I return?”

“Why not just as well leave it where it is?” interrupted the jeweller, eagerly. “It will be perfectly safe here, as this officer knows.”

“No,” said Breeze, “that will not do. You must give it to the officer at once, or else I shall go to the police-station, and enter a complaint against you for stealing.”

The partners whispered together for a minute. Evidently the bold stand taken by the lad, and his prompt action, had made a decided impression upon them.

Before they could reach a decision as to what they should do, the officer spoke up and said,

“The young man is right. If there is any stolen property in the question, the proper place for it is in the station-house. So, if you will just hand over this article, whatever it is, I will take it there.”

There was no appeal from this decision. The locket was reluctantly given up to the officer, who took both it and Breeze to the station-house near by. Here the sergeant in charge listened attentively to all that he had to say, as well as to the story Breeze had to tell.

“Go with him,” he said, finally, to the officer, “down to the schooner, and see what sort of a character his captain gives him. Then bring him back here.”

With this he placed the golden ball and chain in a drawer of his own desk, and again turned to his writing.

Breeze and the officer found Captain Coffin talking to the gentleman to whom he had sold his cargo of fish that morning. He happened to be not only a prominent business man, but an active local politician, and was the very person whom Breeze had in his mind when he had offered to bring a well-known citizen to establish his character.

Begging their pardon for the interruption, Breeze told his story to Captain Coffin, and the politician also listened to it.

When the story was finished, the latter, turning to the captain, said, “Can you vouch for this lad’s honesty, skipper?”

“Certainly I can, as I would for my own,” was the answer. “I have known him from his babyhood, and, moreover, I have often heard this golden ball spoken of by his adopted father, though I have never seen it.”

“Then,” said the other, “supposing we step up to the police-station, and have it returned to him. It is one of the most curious cases I ever heard of, and I am interested to see that the boy comes out of it all right.”

Within ten minutes the sergeant had been satisfied that Breeze was the rightful owner of the locket, had returned it to him, and he had again clasped its chain about his neck. He was very happy in thus regaining possession of it, and very thankful to those who had so promptly assisted him. When Captain Coffin proposed that they should now go to the jeweller’s shop and get him to again open the ball, Breeze begged him not to think of such a thing. “I don’t want that man ever to get it into his possession,” he said, “and I don’t believe he’d open it for us anyway, now.”

“I guess the boy is about right,” remarked the politician, thoughtfully. “That fellow has evidently some strong reason for wishing to obtain the trinket, and if he got hold of it again he might change it for another that looked just like it, and we never be the wiser.”

This was just what Breeze had thought of when he had refused to leave the jeweller’s shop and go in search of proofs of his ownership of the locket, and he was greatly pleased at this evidence that he had acted wisely.

That night the Curlew sailed out of New York Bay, and was once more headed to the southward in search of the early mackerel. The following day was clear and bright, but very cold for that season of the year. There were only a few clouds to be seen; but the sky was coppery in color, and the wind, which was still off-shore, was fitful and baffling. At supper-time, about an hour before sunset, the man at the wheel, who happened to be one of those who ate at the first table, said,

“Here, McCloud, you belong to second mess; take the wheel while I eat supper, will you?”

“Certainly I will,” answered Breeze, cheerfully. “What’s the course?”

“South by west, half west, an open sea, a favoring wind, and no odds asked or given,” was the laughing response, as the man hurried forward.

Captain Coffin was impatient to get back among the mackerel, and so the schooner was running under all the sail she could carry, including a jib-topsail and a huge main-staysail.

Somewhat to his surprise, Breeze now found himself the sole occupant of the deck. The skipper and half the crew were eating their supper in the forecastle, while the others were in the cabin, sleeping, reading, and keeping warm. On account of the cold, they had drawn the slide over the companion-way.

It was the first time the young sailor had been left in sole charge of the vessel, and he realized the responsibility of his position. Still, owing to his father’s teachings and careful training, he felt quite competent to manage her, so long as no especial danger threatened. He also comforted himself with the thought that there was not the slightest chance of anything happening in the short time before he should be relieved.

While thus thinking, and at the same time keeping a sharp watch of the sails, the compass, and the dog-vane that, fluttering from the mainmast-head, denoted the direction of the wind, he was startled by a curious humming sound in the air above him. It was a weird, uncanny sound, unlike anything he had ever before heard, and it filled him with a strange fear. He was just about to call the men in the cabin, when suddenly there came a roar and a shriek above his head. Then the little circular tornado, directly in whose track the unfortunate Curlew happened to be, struck her such a terrible blow that she was powerless to resist it. In an instant she was knocked down and thrown on her beam ends. The white sails, that had soared aloft so gracefully, and offered so tempting a mark for the spinning whirlwind, now lay flat in the water, heavily soaking and holding the schooner down.

Breeze had spun the wheel with all his might, and thrown the helm hard down, in the hope of bringing her up into the wind; but the blow had been too sudden and too heavy. The rudder no longer controlled her, and she lay as helpless as though waterlogged, held down by that terrible dragging weight of top-hamper.

As she went over, one man had struggled up from the forecastle and been instantly buried in the sea beneath the heavy canvas of the foresail. Breeze knew that the reason no more came was that a torrent of water was rushing with resistless force through the narrow opening. Beneath him he could hear the smothered cries and struggles of the prisoners in the cabin. In a few minutes more the vessel would sink, and all within her would be miserably drowned. Their only hope was in him. What could he do? What could he do?

Standing on the weather side of the wheel when the schooner was struck, he had saved himself from going overboard by clinging to it. Now he scrambled to the upper side of the house, and holding on to the weather-rail, began to hack desperately at the lanyards of the main rigging with his sheath-knife. If only the masts would break off and relieve the vessel of that awful weight of soaked canvas, she might right herself.

One after another the lanyards snap like strained harpstrings. There! the rigging has gone and the mast cracks. Now for the fore rigging! How he reached it the boy never knew; in fact he afterwards had very little recollection of what he did amid the terrible excitement of those two minutes; but he did reach and cut it.

Then there came a rending of wood as the tough masts broke off. Then slowly, very slowly, the vessel righted herself, and once more rode on an even keel, though half full of water, and as sad a looking wreck as ever floated.

As she righted, the after companion-way was burst open by the mighty effort of those beneath the slide, and they rushed out gasping for breath and with glaring eyes. They had been very nearly suffocated by steam and gas generated by the water pouring down the funnel on the glowing coals in the cabin stove.

From the forecastle also emerged, one by one, the half-drowned figures of those who had been imprisoned in it. But for the prompt action of the brave boy on deck, they would never have left its flooded recesses. One of their number was missing, and he was the man whose place at the wheel Breeze had taken, and who had forced his way out as the vessel capsized, only to be drowned beneath the canvas of the foresail. He would be sincerely mourned later, but there was no time to think of him now. The others were still in too imminent peril of losing their own lives.

As the stricken craft rolled like a log in the sea-way, she pounded heavily against the masts and spars, which, still attached to her by the lee rigging and head-stays, floated close alongside. The danger that her planking might thus be crushed in was so great that, in spite of his own wretched condition, Captain Coffin saw it the moment he gained the deck. Calling upon the others to follow his example, he drew his knife and began to cut away the tangle of cordage that bound the vessel to this new enemy.

When it was finally cleared, the seine-boat, which was still dragging astern, was pulled up, and half the crew went in it to tow the mass of spars and canvas clear of the schooner, and save such of the sails as they could. The rest began to labor at the pumps, and to rig a jury-mast on which they might spread such sail as would carry her into port. The main-mast had snapped off so close to the deck as to leave nothing to which they might fasten a jury-spar; but of the foremast a stump some six feet high remained, and with this they hoped to accomplish their purpose.

While the skipper, Breeze, and two others were thus engaged, those at the pumps suddenly called out that the water was gaining on them, and that the vessel was about to founder.

It was only too true; the stanch little schooner had evidently made her last voyage, and would never again sail into Gloucester harbor. In fact, the water was gaining so rapidly that it was within a foot or two of her deck, and there was no time to lose in leaving her. Those in the seine-boat were fortunately within easy hail, and dropping their work, they quickly had it alongside.

There was no need of seeking an explanation of the rapid inflow of water. It was only too plain that gaping seams had been opened by the great strain of her masts and sails while the schooner lay on her beam ends. It was more than probable, also, that butts had been started here and there by the jagged ends of the heavy spars as they lay in the water pounding and grinding against her sides.

Nothing could be saved. There was barely time for all hands to tumble into the seine-boat and pull it to a safe distance from the fast-sinking vessel. Then they lay on their oars and watched her. She seemed like some live thing, aware of the fate about to overtake her, and struggling pitifully against it. The swash of the water in her cabin sounded like sobs, and the faces of the men who watched her, usually so bright and merry, were as sad as though they watched at the bedside of a dying friend.

The sun was setting red and angry in a mass of black clouds that came rolling up out of the west as she took the final plunge, and diving bows first, disappeared forever, leaving her crew silent, motionless, and awe-stricken at the catastrophe that had thus overtaken them.

The skipper was the first to break the silence, and in a tone of forced cheerfulness he said, “Well, boys, the old Curlew has gone where all good crafts go, sooner or later, and we must be thankful she hasn’t taken us along with her. I honestly believe we should all have shared her fate, and that of poor Rod Mason, if it had not been for this brave lad and the quick wit that taught him to do exactly the right thing at the right moment. I have not the slightest doubt that we owe our lives to Breeze McCloud, and right here I want to thank him, and to pay my respects to the memory of the brave man who brought him up to act as a true sailor should in such an emergency.”

These were grateful words to poor Breeze, who was feeling the loss of his shipmate, and of the schooner, more keenly than any of his companions, and fearing that perhaps they would blame him for what had happened. He had given Captain Coffin a hurried account of the disaster, and of how he had cut away the masts; but the skipper had found no time then to say what he thought of the course the boy had pursued.

Now, one by one, the men reached forward to shake hands with him, and had it not been for the thought of the drowned man, he would, in spite of their miserable situation, have felt as light-hearted as though already in port.

There were neither water nor provisions in the boat, they had no mast, sail, nor compass. Most of them were wet through, and already chilled to the bone by the cold wind, which was rising, and promised to freshen into a gale before midnight. Breeze was the only one who was dry and had his oil-skins on, and but for his hunger he would have been comparatively comfortable.

They stopped near the floating wreckage of spars and sails long enough to obtain the schooner’s main-topsail, and the foregaff which they hoped to rig up as a mast in the boat. They also cut away a small lot of the lighter cordage. Then they headed their craft to the westward, and started to pull for the distant land. The skipper said they were not more than fifty miles from the coast, and if the sea did not get too rough, they ought to make it by noon of the next day.

They were divided into two watches, and while half of them rowed, the rest huddled together as close as possible in the bottom of the boat for warmth.

It was nearly midnight, the wind was blowing a gale dead against them, and they seemed to be making no progress whatever. Breeze, unable to sleep, was sitting up gazing out into the blackness behind them. Suddenly, as the boat rose on the crest of a great wave, he sprang to his feet and cried, “A light! I see a light!”

CHAPTER V.
SAVED BY ELECTRICITY.

The joyful cry of a light at once put new life and hope into the hearts of the hungry, drenched, and shivering occupants of the seine-boat. Those who had huddled together under the wet canvas of the top-sail in the vain effort to keep warm, as well as those who were pulling hopelessly and wearily at the oars, gazed eagerly in the direction indicated by Breeze. Yes, there it was, faint and yellow in the distance, apparently that of some vessel approaching them from the southward. They could see it as their boat rose on the crests of the great billows, though it was lost again when they sank into the black hollows between them.

Soon they were able to distinguish a second yellow light, lower than the other, and by the position of these they knew that the approaching vessel was a steamer, and a large one at that. Then her red and green side-lights came into view. They watched anxiously to see which of these would disappear first, in order to determine on which side of them she was going to pass. If the red light should be lost to view, then they would know she was passing to windward of them. In that case there would not be the slightest chance of any cries they could utter reaching her, and she would go on her way unconscious of their presence. If the green light should disappear, it would be a sign that she was about to pass to leeward. In that case there was a possibility that their shouts, borne down the gale, might attract the attention of the watch on her deck. Still, she might not stop even then, and it was an almost unheard-of thing for a boat to be picked up at sea in the darkness of midnight, amid the noise and tumult of a gale. They fully understood their position, but, slight as their chance was, they watched for it hopefully.

All at once, as they were lifted from a deep, watery hollow, and looked for the lights, they gave utterance to exclamations of dismay. They could still see the green light and the two yellow lights, but the red one was no longer visible.

“’Tain’t no use. She’s going to windward of us;” muttered one of the men, at once giving up all hope, and again lying down in the bottom of the boat. “Luck’s against us, and we might as well reckon on help from the old Curlew as from that craft.”

Most of the others evidently thought as he did, and they turned their eyes resolutely away from the lights, as though determined to be no longer tantalized by them. But Breeze could not give up so easily, and he still watched the lights whenever a lifting wave afforded him an opportunity of seeing them.

What! Can it be? Or are his eyes deceiving him? No. It certainly is the red light again, now much more distinct than before. The steamer has altered her course and is heading directly for them. The men are filled with new life at the boy’s exultant cry announcing his discovery. They spring up and gaze incredulously. It is true, and both lights are now to be plainly seen, not more than half a mile away and bearing directly towards them. Now they fear that she may run them down, and begin to pull to windward, so as to give her a clear berth. At last she is close upon them, and the green light disappears, while the red shows clear and steady.

“Now for a shout, men! All together as I give the word. One! two! three!” commands the skipper.

It is a wild, desperate cry that startles the lookout on the forward deck of the steamer from the half reverie into which he has fallen.

Again it comes to his ears, and again, borne on the wings of the gale across the angry waters; and now it is heard by the steamer’s captain, who has not left the pilot-house that night.

A gong clangs down among the engines, and a hoarse order is shouted to the engineer through the speaking-tube. The great screw under the steamer’s stern stops for a moment, and then churns the water violently as its motion is reversed and it revolves rapidly backward.

“See if you can pick them up with the electric,” is the captain’s order to the second officer, who has just appeared on deck. At the same instant a dazzling flash of white light darts forth from the steamer’s bow, and cuts a gleaming path-way between two solid walls of blackness above the raging waters.

The second officer seizes the handles at the back of the great lamp, and the broad band of light is slowly swept round to the direction from which the cries have come. In another moment it flashes full in the white faces of Breeze McCloud and his companions, sitting in their seine-boat not more than a hundred yards away. The wonderful eye of the search-light has discovered them, and they cover theirs with their hands, or turn away from the unbearable radiance.

“Pull under our lee,” shouts the captain of the steamer through a speaking-trumpet, “and we’ll try and get you aboard.”

It was a difficult task, for the ship rolled so deeply that it would have been unsafe to open her side-ports, and they must be taken aboard over the rail. As the seine-boat lay alongside, it was at one moment on a level with the steamer’s deck, and the next so far below it that her wet side rose like a black wall high above them. Nothing could be done until she was turned, so as to lie head to the wind. Then, one by one, the wrecked men caught the ropes flung to them, fastened them under their arms, and were hauled up to the steamer’s deck, where they were received and pulled on board by the stout arms eagerly out-stretched to aid them. Some of them were buried beneath the huge waves that sprang after them as though furious at being thus robbed of their expected prey and still determined to clutch it. Others were bruised by being swung violently against the iron side of the steamer. At last all of them were safely rescued, and, with the seine-boat towing by a long line astern, the great steamer was again headed on her course.

Was there ever anything so delicious as the hot coffee at once served to them, or so welcome as the plentiful meal that awaited them in the steamer’s mess-room, after they had got into the dry clothes furnished by her crew? Breeze did not think there was. And when, soon afterwards, he found himself in a comfortable bunk, under warm blankets, and dropping to sleep, he felt that he was one of the most fortunate and marvellously cared for boys in the world.

IN ANOTHER MOMENT IT FLASHES FULL IN THE WHITE FACES OF BREEZE McCLOUD AND HIS COMPANIONS.

The steamer that thus furnished the weary fishermen with shelter, safety, and all the comforts of a sailor’s life was one of a line plying between Boston and a southern city, from which she was now bound. Her captain was one of those noble sailors who are never so happy as when rescuing other toilers of the sea from its perils. He told Captain Coffin that, without any definite reason, he had felt impelled to alter his ship’s course half a point to the eastward shortly before their cries had been heard. It was this change of direction that had brought the red light once more into view.

Before morning the gale had so increased in fury that it was not probable their light craft could have lived through it had they not been picked up when they were. As it was, the seine-boat, while towing behind the steamer, was struck soon after daylight by a great sea that capsized it. The next crushed it like an egg-shell, and the broken wreck was cut adrift.

Twenty-four hours later they entered Boston harbor, and the crew of the lost Curlew, after expressing their heart-felt thanks to the captain, passengers, and crew of the steamer, who had done everything in their power to make them comfortable, left her. They made their way at once to the market slip devoted to the use of fishing vessels, where they were sure of finding friends and fellow-townsmen.

While walking slowly along the wharf, and looking wistfully over the many fishing vessels crowded into the basin, in search of a familiar face, Breeze was slapped on the shoulder, and a well-known voice exclaimed,

“Vy, Breeza, ma boy! how you vas? Vere you come from, eh?”

Turning, he saw the smiling face of old Mateo, the Portuguese cook who, on board the Sea Robin, had fed him with milk from the “lit tin cow” when he was a baby. The old cook had always retained a warm affection for the boy whom he had thus cared for in his helplessness, and had never returned to Gloucester without visiting him and bringing him some present. Now to see him seemed to Breeze almost like a glimpse of home.

Mateo, who, in spite of his years, was still hale and hearty, and one of the best cooks to be found in the fishing fleet, would listen to nothing where they stood. He insisted upon dragging Breeze aboard a new and handsome schooner named the Albatross, in which he had shipped for a cruise to the George’s. She had left Gloucester the day before, and run up to Boston, where her skipper had some business to attend to. Now she was to sail again within an hour.

Pulling his young friend down into the forecastle, and seating him before the mess-table, Mateo exclaimed, “Vell, Breeza, you hongry, eh?”

To him eating was the most important business of life, and until Breeze had assured him that he had just finished one breakfast, and had no room for another mouthful, he would listen to nothing else. His mind being set at rest on this point, Mateo asked,

“Vell, you not hongry, ma boy, ver is ze C’loo?”

“Gone to the bottom,” answered Breeze, “and poor Rod Mason has gone with her.”

“Vat you say? ze C’loo loss, and Rod Mason drowned? Oh, ze holy feesh! an his bruzzer Bill here, on ze ’Batross!”

It was indeed so; the only brother of the drowned man had shipped in the Albatross the day before. When he heard the sad news brought by Breeze, he declared he must return at once to Gloucester, and make arrangements for the future of his brother’s family. He would not even wait for the skipper’s return, but, collecting his dunnage, hurried away to catch the first train for home.

The rest of the crew, most of whom knew him, were intensely interested in what Breeze had to tell them of the loss of the Curlew and the rescue of her crew. They were still plying him with questions when the skipper of the Albatross returned. He, like Mateo, had been one of the Sea Robin’s crew upon the memorable occasion when Breeze had come to her, and now he gave the lad a hearty welcome. When he learned of William Mason’s desertion he was somewhat annoyed, but in a moment his face cleared and he said,

“Why won’t you come with us in his place, Breeze? You shall go as an A1 hand, have a full share of the catch, and we are not likely to be out more than a couple of weeks anyhow. She’s a good vessel, and you are always such a lucky chap that you’ll be more than welcome aboard of her.”

“Yes, Breeza, come ’long,” urged the cook. “Ole Mateo feeda you till you git fat like dog-feesh. Joe-flog, sea-pie, hatch, plenty good t’ings.”

Breeze laughed at the earnestness of the old man and the inducements he held out, but said, “If I only could go home and see mother for a little while first, I’d go in a minute. I’d have to get a new outfit too; the only thing I saved from the Curlew is this oil suit.”

“We’ll wait an hour for you to write to your mother and tell her just how things stand. That’ll give you time to get an outfit in, too. I guess you’d better come along,” urged the skipper.

“Outfeet!” cried Mateo, eagerly. “Vat you want? Peajack, boota, gole vatch an’ chain, eberyting vat you vill hab me getta him.”

So it was finally settled, and an hour later, having written a loving letter home, and been provided, through the old cook’s generosity, with an outfit of clothes quite as good as the one he had lost, Breeze found himself sailing out of Boston harbor in the good schooner Albatross, bound for the George’s Bank. Certainly, nothing had been further from his mind than this, when he had entered the same harbor a few hours before; but he was rapidly learning that nothing is so likely to happen in this life as those things we least expect.

St. George’s Bank, which furnishes the finest cod and halibut found on the American coast, lies about ninety-five miles due east from Highland light on Cape Cod. Its waters are fished all through the year by a large fleet of vessels from New England ports, but its supply continues apparently undiminished. It lies in a dangerous part of the ocean, for it is swept by the current of the Gulf Stream, is subject to fearful storms and dense fogs, and is crossed by all the transatlantic lines of steamers.

Although it is so near at hand, and though fishing was one of the earliest industries followed by the New England settlers, it was not until about 1836 that trips to George’s became a regular feature of the business. The bank was known to exist, and fish were known to be plenty on it, long before, but the fishermen were afraid of it. This fear was owing to the belief among them that the current, always sweeping across it, was strong enough to drag under and sink any vessel that should anchor within its influence.

The first three fishing vessels that visited the dreaded bank kept close together, and their crews fished as they drifted about. Finally, one of the skippers, who was regarded as a perfect dare-devil for proposing such a thing, said he was going to anchor and take his chances. Several of his crew were so frightened that they begged to be put aboard the other vessels, whose skippers were not so venturesome. They were allowed to go, and volunteers were called for from the other crews to aid this bold skipper in his desperate venture. When enough brave fellows had gone on board to be able to get the anchor up quickly in case of trouble, it was let go, the cable spun out, was checked, the anchor held, and the schooner rode to it as easily and quietly as though in Gloucester harbor.

Now occurred the most amusing part of this bold experiment. The swift current quickly bore the other two vessels away from the anchored craft, but those on board the latter imagined that they were moving and leaving their friends behind. They began to heave desperately on their cable, got their anchor up, and started back in pursuit of their companions. When they were once more united, all hands were fully satisfied with their exploit; and though they had taken but a few quintals[^[B]] of fish they sailed back to Gloucester filled with pride because one of their number had dared drop an anchor on George’s.

In those days, and until 1846, fishing vessels did not carry ice in which to pack their catch and bring it fresh into market. In place of this, many of them were made into what are known as “smacks” by having tight compartments built in their hold amidships, and filled with sea-water from auger-holes bored through the vessel’s bottom.

The greatest depth of water on George’s is 212 fathoms,[^[C]] or 1272 feet, nearly a quarter of a mile. The average depth for fishing is sixty fathoms, though halibut are often taken in water two hundred fathoms deep. It is, of course, tiresome work to drag these great fish to the surface from such great depths, and they are never sought for there if they can be found in shoaler water.

It is no rare thing to find a hundred fishing vessels at anchor at one time on George’s during any month of the year, and it was to join this fleet that the Albatross was now making her way swiftly around the point of Cape Cod. She was fitted out as a hand-liner--that is, her crew would fish with hand-lines over her sides--and she had a quantity of frozen herring stowed with the ice in her hold to be used as bait.

They reached the bank and caught sight of the anchored fleet early the following morning after leaving Boston. As they slipped along past one after another of the vessels already at work, they could see their crews hauling in their lines and tossing fish over the rail as fast as their arms could move. It seemed curious to Breeze that this busy work should always stop as soon as the Albatross drifted near any of the others. He asked why it was, and was told that they were afraid the new-comers would notice their good luck and anchor near them, which they did not wish to have them do.

As the Albatross moved slowly across the bank, soundings were taken, and the skipper kept a baited hook down. At last, in fifty fathoms of water he got a strong bite, and at once ordered the anchor to be dropped, Then the sails were snugly furled and the riding-sail set. This is a small triangular bit of canvas bent to the main-mast, and is used to hold the vessel’s head to the wind.

Now baskets of bait were got up, lines were overhauled, and soon every man on board had one or two over the side. They were allowed to run out until their leaden sinkers touched, when they were drawn up so that the hooks, that hung a fathom below them, were raised a few feet above the bottom.

There was an intense eagerness to bring up the first fish, and each man kept an eye on his neighbor’s line as well as on his own, to see if he were to be the lucky man. At last a shout announced a bite, and all turned to see Breeze McCloud tug away at something so tremendously heavy that it seemed to him he must be lifting a large piece of the bottom of the ocean.

CHAPTER VI.
THE GALE ON GEORGE’S.

“Look out, Breeze! Let him run a bit!” shouted the skipper. “Don’t try to snub him yet, or he’ll snap your line like a thread.”

Whish-hiss-s-s goes the stout line as the fish at the other end takes a downward plunge. Now he runs upward, and the slack is hastily gathered in. “There, he is off again! My, what a rush! There is evidently some serious work on hand here,” said the skipper, as he went to the young fisherman’s assistance. It took fifteen minutes of steady, patient, and skilful work to tire the powerful fish. During this time general attention was directed to the struggle, and the men almost neglected their own lines in their curiosity to see what sort of a creature Breeze had hooked.

Finally the exhausted fish gave up the fight and allowed itself to be drawn to the surface. Now was seen the great white head of a halibut, that looked to Breeze, who had never before caught a fish of this kind, large enough to be a whale. Two men with gaffs[^[D]] in their hands sprang to his assistance, but the fish was so huge that not until two more had also got gaffs into him was he lifted from the water and got on deck. Here he was despatched by a few smart taps on the head from the “halibut killer,” which is a short wooden club kept ready for this especial purpose.

Breeze was wild with delight over his capture, while the whole crew were more or less excited, as well they might be, for no such fish had been taken from George’s by any one else that season. It weighed three hundred and twenty-six pounds, and though larger halibut than this have been caught, they are few and far between. One of the men said that he was worth at least twenty dollars, and all admitted that he would create a sensation when they took him into port.

“Put your mark on him, Breeze,” said the skipper, “so that you will be able to pick him out when we get home. He might get lost, you know, among the really big ones that the rest of us are going to catch.”

The boy laughed, but felt very proud of his first fish, as with his sharp sheath-knife he cut a rude B like this,

, in the thick skin on its head, and inscribed the same mark near its tail.

Old Mateo was as delighted at the success of his protégé as the boy himself, and in honor of the event brought him a cup of hot coffee and an extra nice Joe-flogger spread with butter and sugar.

“Me tell ’em so ven you lit babee, an’ eat ze harda tack. Me tell ’em you catch ze feesh bimeby plentee, plentee! Now zey find out, eh?” he exclaimed, in a tone of self-satisfied pride. It was as much as to say that if they would only bring all the babies to him, he could tell whether they would make successful fishermen or not. The men laughed at him, and made many jokes concerning his wisdom; but he only laughed back good-naturedly, and shook his head at them as he again disappeared in the depths of his own domain.

For the rest of the day the fishing went on so merrily, and halibut and cod were piled up on deck so rapidly, that nobody found time to stop for dinner; but snatched hurried mouthfuls of food as they tended their lines. It was lively and exciting work; but when it was time to knock off, and begin to clear and pack the day’s catch, Breeze, for one, found himself aching in every joint, while his hands were raw and water-soaked from handling the hard, wet lines.

He would have gladly turned in at once, but the fish must be cleaned first, and after that it was his turn to stand a two hours’ watch on deck. Thus it was late in the evening before the exhausted lad tumbled into his bunk, where he dreamed of monstrous fish with twenty-dollar gold-pieces in their mouths, that turned into Joe-floggers as he reached for them.

The fishing was good for three days longer, and all hands were light-hearted and happy over their success. Songs and jokes were heard on all sides, and the yarns told at night in the cabin were all of big fares and quick trips to the Banks. It had been a stormy winter, and March had come in like an angry, roaring lion; but now it seemed to be anxious to prove the truth of the old saying, and to be about to go out like the meekest of lambs. Three days more of such luck as they had had would pull up their anchor and see them homeward bound. But March is a fickle month.

The fourth day broke cloudy and threatening. The sky was gray and the air was filled with a penetrating chill. The schooner rode uneasily, straining and surging at her cable in the heavy swell that rolled in from the eastward. The previous day had been what old sailors would call “a weather-breeder,” with the wind light and puffy from the south-west. The mercury in the barometer had stood about 30.7, which indicated a change, and something to be expected from off the sea.

As the day wore on there was a feeling of snow in the atmosphere, and the barometer fell steadily. The fish continued to bite eagerly, and every man did his best to swell the sum total of his catch while he had the chance. The luck of the Albatross had been noticed, and several other vessels were anchored near her, both ahead and astern.

By noon angry spurts of snow were driving in the faces of her crew, the wind was moaning drearily through the rigging, and an occasional dash of spray wet the deck. About this time all hands were ordered to “knock off” fishing, dress the morning’s catch, stow all light articles below, and “snug ship.” Twenty more fathoms of cable were paid out. The foresail was loosed and three reefs were tied in it, so that it might be ready for instant use in case the vessel broke adrift. Then it was again furled, and securely tied.

The storm came on rapidly after that, until at four o’clock, when supper was served, the schooner was pitching furiously, and bringing up with vicious jerks on its straining cable. It was already quite dark, and the snow drove in horizontal lines, tingling against a bare face like cuts from a whip-lash. The wind howled through the taut rigging, and the spray, torn from the crests of the racing seas, was blown in blinding sheets above the slippery decks.

Breeze had never experienced anything like this. To him it was already a frightful gale, and, as he almost pitched down the forward companion-ladder in answer to the supper call, he was surprised to find how calmly the men were taking it. In spite of the tumult on deck, the creaking and groaning of the vessel’s timbers, and her mad pitching, several of them were seated at the mess-table eating as unconcernedly as though nothing unusual were happening. Another lay in his bunk, smoking and exchanging jokes with those who were eating.

After the storm-swept deck, the forecastle seemed warm, light, and cheerful. As Breeze sat down to the table, from which, in spite of the storm-racks, the dishes were every now and then flung to the floor, he wondered that he had never before noticed what a cosey and comfortable place it was.

“Vel, Breeza!” shouted old Mateo, whose entire energies were devoted to keeping the coffee-pot from sliding off the stove. “How you lak him? Pret good, eh?”

“I lak him very much better down here than I do on deck,” answered the boy between his mouthfuls of hot coffee and biscuit. “But, I say, Mateo, don’t you call this a pretty stiff sort of a gale?”

“No,” replied the old cook, scornfully; “zis only one-a lit Georgy shake-up. For ze gale you mus’ go to ze Gran’ Bank. Ah, zat ze place!”

With this the others chimed in, and began to tell of their experiences in real gales, to which this one was but a March zephyr.

For all this, a little later, when the crew were gathered in the cabin, where, around the little red-hot stove, wet clothing and boots were sending up clouds of steam, the skipper, after looking out of the companion-way, said,

“Boys, we are in for a regular ‘rip-snorter.’ I never saw a nastier night. You’d better get a nap if you can now, for after midnight there won’t be any chance for sleep aboard this craft. I want the watch on deck to keep the sharpest kind of a lookout, and to call me the moment a light is seen in any direction.”

The great danger of the night lay either in getting adrift, through the parting of their cable or the dragging of their anchor, and rushing into collision with some anchored vessel, or in being run down. In either case the result would probably be the almost instant death of all on board.

Following the skipper’s advice, Breeze crept into his bunk for a nap, but for a long time found it impossible to sleep. The violence of the pitching and the roar of the gale seemed to increase with each moment, and it was only by the strongest effort of will that he could restrain himself from springing up and rushing on deck. At last he did sleep, but was only aware of it when a dash of icy water in his face awakened him. Forgetting where he was, he sprang up, and struck his head violently against the low ceiling above him.

A great sea of solid water had broken over the schooner’s bows, and swept aft in such a volume that it must have flooded the cabin had not the skipper, who stood in the companion-way, pulled the slide. As it was, about a bucketful had made its way in, and a portion of it had fallen on Breeze.

Scrambling from the bunk, he found his companions clad in their oil-skins and prepared to hurry on deck at the first notice that their presence was needed. Several of them were picking themselves up from the floor, to which they had been flung by the shock of the big wave, and one was lamenting a broken pipe. They were much more sober now than at supper-time, and their conversation, which was entirely of wreck and disaster, was not calculated to fill the boy with cheerful thoughts. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was past midnight, and the skipper’s warning that there would be no sleep for them after that hour flashed into his mind.

Following the example of the others, he pulled on his oil-skins, and sat down to wait, he knew not what for. A few minutes later the summons came. It was an unintelligible cry from the watch on deck, but its meaning was clear to the practised ears of those below, and as the skipper sprang up the steps, the others followed.

When Breeze reached the deck and felt the full force of the blast, it seemed to drive the breath from his body. The wind was shrieking through the strained rigging like a hundred steam-whistles. The snow had turned into fine particles of ice that pricked like needles. The billows hissed and seethed as, with streaming manes of glistening white, they galloped past the quivering vessel. Now she was poised on the crest of a gigantic wave, and the next instant buried in a yawning depth, beneath a smother of broken waters that leaped high up on her masts.

By the rays of the riding-light, that still burned steadily just abaft the foremast, Breeze could make out the several members of the crew clinging to whatever seemed to promise the greatest safety, the fife-rail, halyards, or rigging. Away forward, beside the groaning windlass, was a figure which he knew to be that of the skipper, crouching, axe in hand, ready to cut the cable.

All this had been taken in at one glance, the next revealed the cause of the outcry from the watch on deck. A light dead ahead was bearing swiftly down upon them. It was that of a fishing schooner torn from her anchorage, and being hurled by the storm giant, like a bolt of destruction, through the helpless fleet.

During the fearful suspense of the next minute the boy did not breathe, and his very heart seemed to cease its beating. Twice the gleaming axe in the skipper’s hand was raised to strike. Each time he thought of the vessels anchored astern of the Albatross, upon which she must drive in turn if cut adrift, and the blow was withheld.

Now the threatening light rose high above them, and then it swooped down and rushed past so close that they could almost have sprung aboard the drifting schooner. They caught a momentary glimpse of white faces, heard one wild cry, and felt the dragging of the broken cable as it was drawn across their own. Then all was again swallowed up in the furious blackness astern, and for them that danger was past.

The night was bitterly cold, but the first sensation of which Breeze was aware, when it was all over, was that of the profuse perspiration in which he was bathed.

There being no longer any need of their presence on deck, the members of the crew, after a fresh watch was set, again sought the shelter of the cabin. Here Breeze was advised to try and get some more sleep, as it would be his turn to go on watch at four o’clock. He lay down, but felt as though he should never sleep again; for he could not close his eyes without seeing, once more, the drifting phantom of destruction that had just swept past them. He started fearfully at each lurch of the reeling vessel, and fancied that he heard cries in the shriek of the blast overhead. Although he dreaded to go on deck, it seemed as though he should prefer it to remaining in the cabin, and it was a relief when he was called to go on watch.

The lad’s watchmate was much older than he, a weather-beaten sailor who had witnessed a hundred such gales, and felt that so long as the cable held, there was not much to fear. He helped Breeze up on the foregaff, where he would escape the worst of the great seas that continually broke over the schooner’s bows, sweeping her from stem to stern, and bade him keep a sharp lookout from there.

At last, faint and uncertain, the prayed-for, long-deferred, and anxiously awaited light of day began to creep over the wild scene, and the white foam-crests stretched away farther and farther. The snow ceased to fall, and there was some promise of a cessation of the gale. One of the first things they distinguished in the early light was the huge dim form of a square-rigged vessel that, under bare poles, drove past them, less than a quarter of a mile away, and vanished almost as soon as she was seen. Nothing was said, for only a shout close to the ear could be heard amid the tumult; but Breeze shuddered to think how powerless their little schooner would have been to resist that driving mass had they chanced to lie in its course.

They next saw a schooner plunging at her anchor, a short distance ahead of them, and noted how she had dragged during the night, for they had seen her the day before, but then much farther away. Her anchors had only caught just in time to save both her and them, and again Breeze realized the narrowness of their escape from the night’s perils.

As the daylight revealed her sad plight, they turned their attention to their own craft. The seas no longer broke over her so furiously as they had, but crushed bulwarks, and the deck swept clear of boat, gurry-kids, and everything not absolutely built into it told of their awful force.

All at once Breeze, from his slight elevation, noted a commotion on the deck of the schooner ahead of them. The men on watch seemed to be heaving lines at something in the water. It was evidently drifting past them, and their lines plainly failed to reach it. They were motioning, as though to attract his attention towards it, and the thought flashed into his mind that perhaps they had discovered a survivor of some wreck floating in the angry waters, and had tried unsuccessfully to save him. He told his companion of what he had seen, and they both watched eagerly in the hope that if it was indeed a man he might drift within their reach. They procured a couple of long light lines, made one end fast, and coiled them carefully, in readiness to be flung at a moment’s notice.

“I see him!” cried Breeze at length. “There, see! off our port bow; but he is going to drift clear of us.”

It was the figure of a man, clad in oil-skins, the yellow gleam of which had caught the boy’s eye as they showed for a moment on the crest of a wave.

As he came near they saw that he was apparently clinging to the bottom of an overturned dory. At the same time it was evident that he was going to drift far beyond their reach, and they doubted if their lines even could be made to reach him. They shouted again and again, but he gave no sign of hearing them.

Breeze began to tear off his oil-skins, then his jacket and boots, and to knot the end of a line about his waist.

“What are you going to do?” shouted his companion. “Not try and swim to him?”

“YOU’RE CRAZY, LAD! YOU CAN’T LIVE A MINUTE IN SUCH A SEA.”

“Yes, I am,” shouted Breeze, in reply. “It would be a pity if the best swimmer in Gloucester should let a man drown before his eyes for want of trying to save him.”

“But you’re crazy, lad! You can’t live a minute in such a sea!” and the man took hold of the boy’s arm to restrain him from the rash attempt.

With a single violent wrench Breeze freed himself from the other’s grasp, and just as some of the crew, who had been attracted by the shouts on deck, came up from the cabin, he plunged headlong into the raging waters.

CHAPTER VII.
A STRUGGLE FOR A LIFE.

For half a minute Breeze was lost to the view of those who from the deck of the schooner watched anxiously to see him emerge from his brave plunge. They gave a shout as he reappeared. He had only time to draw in a single breath of air before he was again buried beneath a huge curling wave that, before it broke, towered many feet above his head. His comrades were just about to haul him back by means of the line they were paying out, and the other end of which was knotted about his waist, when his head was once more seen above the surface.

This time they were astonished to note what a distance he had gained, for being many feet under water had not prevented his swimming sturdily towards the object of his efforts. Now how gallantly he dashed forward! with what splendid overhand strokes he took advantage of the few moments of surface-swimming granted him before he was again swallowed up! He had won many a swimming-match in both smooth and storm-tossed waters about Gloucester. He had taken many a header through green walls of inrushing breakers, but never before had he swam as now; never before had he struggled for the prize of a human life.

When for the third time he emerged from the suffocating waters, he saw the yellow-clad form, to gain which he had fought so bravely, within a few feet of him. With one more desperate effort, for the line about his waist was now dragging him back almost irresistibly, he reached it, and grasped the stern becket of the overturned dory.

Out-stretched upon its flat bottom, with both arms and legs twined about the life-line,[^[E]] lay the senseless form of a young man, apparently but little older than the brave swimmer who now tried to rouse him. It was impossible to do so, and Breeze feared that he was dead. Without casting loose the line from about his body, he gathered a bight in it, and made this fast to the becket of the dory. Then he waved his hand as a signal to those on board the schooner to pull in.

The strain upon the light line was terrible, and in any other hands but those of expert fishermen it would have parted a dozen times before its precious burden was drawn as close as was safe under the stern of the schooner. Then a second line was thrown to Breeze, who, nearly exhausted as he was, still found strength to secure it about the body of the senseless lad beside him. He could not, however, undo the clutch of the rigid fingers from the life-line, and for a moment began to despair, even within reach of rescue, of saving him for whom he had risked so much. But help was at hand, and it came as he least expected it.

From the schooner’s deck old Mateo had watched the brave struggles of his boy, as he called him, in an agony of apprehension. Now, with senses quickened by affection, he was the first to comprehend the difficulty. Just as Breeze was about to relax his efforts, feeling that he could do no more, the old cook’s heavy jack-knife, with the end of a fishing-line attached to the ring in its horn handle, came flying across the dory, and dropped into the water beyond it.

Breeze secured it, opened it, and with a last effort cut both ends of the dory’s life-line, as well as the becket to which he had fastened himself. Then the knife dropped from his nerveless fingers, and, as the dory drifted away, two senseless figures were drawn through the wild waters to the plunging schooner. With a final effort for their destruction, a huge billow hurled itself bodily upon them, and the lines had to be slackened for a few moments, or they would have parted. The limp forms were buried deep beneath the green waters; but again they were drawn to the surface, and this time they came within reach of the eagerly out-stretched arms waiting to grasp them.

The unknown lad was carried into the cabin; while Breeze, claimed by Mateo, was tenderly taken into the forecastle. There, while two men stripped and rubbed him, the old cook heated blankets, and prepared hot stimulants, wailing as he bustled about, “Oh, Breeza! ma boy, ma boy! You no-a die; you must leeve!”

It was half an hour before their efforts were rewarded by a faint sigh and a flush of returning color in the livid cheeks. Then the boy opened his eyes, and gazed about him wonderingly for an instant. A few minutes later, wrapped in hot blankets, he fell asleep and was breathing regularly.

Almost the same scene was taking place in the cabin, only there it was so long before the patient showed the least sign of life that some of those who worked over him were several times ready to give up in despair. They were only kept at it by the skipper, who exclaimed,

“Great Scott, men! it will be a shame if we cannot fetch him to, after that boy has nearly given his life to save him. I, for one, shall work over him from now till noon before I will give him up.”

At last he, too, was brought back to the life from which he had so nearly departed, and by noon, when the sun came out, both patients were doing finely. Neither of them was allowed to leave his bunk until the next morning; but they were kept warm, and encouraged to sleep as much as possible. In their exhausted condition this was easy to do. So with only one or two awakenings to take the light nourishment that Mateo prepared for them, by the aid of his never-failing “lit tin cow,” they slept through the rest of the day and the whole of the night.

The next morning they awoke, filled with the life and energy that always wait upon youth and a sound constitution, and almost inclined to believe their recent adventure to be but a troubled dream. Only a few bruises, and the marks about their bodies of the ropes by which they had been drawn aboard the schooner, remained as traces of what they had undergone.

The sea had gone down so rapidly the day before that the crew of the Albatross had been able to resume their fishing by noon, and had had remarkably good-luck until night. By a mutual agreement, suggested by the man who had been watchmate with Breeze that morning, they devoted half an hour to their brave young comrade, and the entire catch of fish, made during that time, was credited to him in the ship’s books.

The next morning when Breeze came on deck he saw the skipper talking to a well-built young stranger, whose naturally ruddy face had not yet wholly recovered its color. For an instant he wondered who it could be, and where he had come from. Then it flashed across him that this was the person whom he had rescued from the sea; and, not knowing exactly what to do or say, he stood looking at him curiously.

The young stranger noticing him, said something to the skipper, who turned quickly and exclaimed,

“Good-morning, Breeze! Why, you are looking as fresh as a daisy. This is Mr. Wolfe Brady,” he added, indicating the lad who stood beside him. “Although you two have already been dorymates, he declares he has never seen you before, and I am certain you have never been introduced. Mr. Brady, Mr. McCloud.”

In assuming this jesting tone the skipper hoped to put the young men at their ease, and relieve their first meeting of the embarrassment they might naturally be expected to feel under the circumstances.

There was a long, firm hand-clasp between the two who had so nearly met death together; but for a moment neither of them spoke. Then Wolfe Brady said,

“They tell me you saved my life, and nearly lost your own in doing it. I can’t thank you, because I haven’t the gift; but if ever the time comes when you can use it, I will offer my life to you as freely as you offered yours for me.”

“Thank you,” answered Breeze, simply. “I am very glad I succeeded in reaching you; but how did you happen to be afloat on that dory?”

THERE WAS A LONG FIRM HAND-CLASP BETWEEN THEM.

“I hardly know myself. Yesterday morning I belonged to the trawler Ibis of Boston. Just before daylight, while half the crew, and I among them, were on deck, we were run down by a large square-rigger scudding under bare poles. It was so dark that we did not see her until she was right on top of us, and then, though we cut the cable, it was too late. She struck us before those below could get on deck, and crushed the schooner down as though she were a herring-box. Then I’ve no knowledge of what happened to the others, or even to myself. I only know that I was under water such a long time that I wonder I did not stay there. When I came up something was floating close beside me, and I got hold of it. The rest is a blank. The next thing I knew, I was lying in a bunk and somebody was trying to pour something down my throat. Your skipper was just telling me what a splendid fight you made to get me, and how near you came to losing the number of your mess, and sending your vessel home with her flag at half-mast in doing it. I’m awfully grateful, and I hope some time I may be able to prove it; for I’ve been a pretty bad lot, and was not ready to go up aloft yet.”

“No,” said Breeze, soberly, “I don’t suppose many of us are.” Then he asked, “Are you an American?” The other’s name, and a foreign accent to his speech, led to the question.

“Not yet,” answered Wolfe, smiling, "but I hope to be in two years more when I come of age. At present I am an Irishman. That is, my father is Irish, my mother is English, and I was born in England, but brought up in Queenstown, Ireland, where my parents live, and from which I ran away to sea about a year ago. Before they were married, my father was butler and my mother lady’s-maid in the household of Sir Wolfe Tresmont. That’s where I got my first name. My father is now a linen-draper in Queenstown, where his best customers are Americans. I was sent to school in England for four years, but I hated it, and from seeing and hearing so much of Americans, I had a great desire to come to this country. Last year my father took me from school and set me to work in his shop. I hated that worse than school, and seeing a chance to run away and ship on board a bark bound for Boston, I took it and came over here.

“By the time I got on this side I had had enough of merchant sailing; and, as I could not find anything else to do, thought I would try fishing. Since then I have made two trips, one of four months to the Newfoundland Banks, and one to George’s before this one. Now here I am, and you know more about me than I have told to another living soul since leaving home.”

“Well,” said Breeze, “you know a good deal more about yourself than I do about myself. I suppose I must have had a real father and mother, but I never knew them, for I was picked up at sea, floating in a cask, when I was a baby. I am almost certain I must be an American, though, for I know I could never love any other country so well. I’m glad you are going to be one too, as soon as you can. Don’t you think I look more like an American than anything else?” he inquired, a little anxiously.

“I don’t know,” replied the other, regarding him attentively. “Yes, on the whole I think perhaps you do. Still, with light hair and blue eyes, you know, you might be a Scandinavian, or a Dutchman, or an Englishman, or a Scotchman, or even an Irishman.”

They both laughed at this, and Breeze said,

“You might as well quote ‘Pinafore’ at once and be done with it.”

So the conversation between the two, which had been rather constrained at first, became more easy and confidential, until they found themselves discussing each other’s hopes and plans with the freedom of old friends.

Every now and then a shadow would sweep over Wolfe’s face, and he would speak in a lower tone as he thought of the probable fate of his recent shipmates. Still, as grieving could do neither them nor him the slightest good, he tried to keep cheerful, by remembering how marvellously he himself had been spared. He confessed to Breeze that he had caused his parents much trouble and anxiety, by his manner of life, both in school and at home, but declared that now he really meant to turn over a new leaf.

“I’ll begin by writing to my mother as soon as ever we reach port,” he said, “for it makes me feel ashamed of myself to remember that I have not sent home a single line since I left there. I do not suppose they have the slightest idea what has become of me, or whether I am alive or dead.”

To Breeze, his mother was so near and dear, he had thought of her and written to her so often even during his short absence from home, that Wolfe’s account of his own neglect was most surprising. Still, he did not feel at liberty to express his feelings in the matter, and only said, “I would, if I were you, by all means; she must be feeling awfully at not hearing.”

The rest of the schooner’s crew had been hard at work catching fish since daylight, and during their conversation Breeze and Wolfe had also been busy with their lines. Several other schooners were still in sight, though at long distances from them. Most of the fleet had been scattered far and wide by the gale, which, though short, had been one of the severest of the season. After it was over many of the fishing vessels returned to port to refit, while the fate of others was told by the melancholy signs of wreck and disaster that every now and then floated past the Albatross. Her skipper knew that for a time fresh fish would command an extra price in the Eastern market, and so was anxious to carry in as large a fare as possible. For this reason, in spite of the damaged condition of his vessel, he remained on the bank two days longer before getting up the anchors that had held her so well, and heading for home.

In the mean time tidings of the gale and its destruction of lives and vessels had reached Gloucester, and had caused the greatest anxiety there. As one after another of the schooners that had escaped sailed into the harbor, their crews were eagerly questioned for news of this one or that one not yet heard from. At last one came in bringing with her a dory that she had picked up, and on which was stencilled the name “Albatross.” Her skipper reported that on the night of the awful storm, during a slight lull, he had caught a momentary glimpse of two lights. They were so close together that the vessels bearing them must have been in collision. They bore from him just as the Albatross had when he last saw her. As he looked the lights suddenly disappeared, either from the shutting in again of the snow, or because they had gone to the bottom. Soon afterwards his own craft had parted her cables, but had managed to weather the gale, and on the following day he had picked up this dory. That was all, but it seemed to seal the fate of the schooner, whose return had until then been watched for so hopefully and so anxiously.

Mrs. McCloud had made Captain Coffin, who was still at home, promise to bring her the very first tidings, whether good or bad, that should come. Now with a heavy heart he walked slowly towards the little cottage, in which sorrow was becoming so familiar a visitor.

The moment he opened the door, and the anxious loving mother caught sight of his face, she exclaimed, “He is lost; my boy is lost! I know he is! I can see it in your face!”

“You must not give up all hope yet,” said the captain, soothingly, seeking to comfort her, though he felt that his words would be in vain. “We do not yet know certainly the fate of the Albatross, though we have every reason to fear the worst.”

CHAPTER VIII.
A FALSE FRIEND, AND AN OPEN ENEMY.

All night long the poor mother seemed to hear Captain Coffin’s last words, “We have every reason to fear the worst,” repeated over and over; but, as though to comfort her, they were always followed by the thought, “Nothing certain is yet known.” She always tried to find a bright side to her troubles, and by looking steadily at it, to forget that there was any dark side. This plan worked so well now that by morning she had determined to still hope for the best, instead of fearing the worst, until something more definite should be known. This was certainly the wisest thing to do, for more than half of all our troubles are those we think may come, but which, after all, never do come; and hoping steadily for the best goes a long way towards bringing the best to us.

Though all this had nothing to do with bringing Breeze McCloud home, he came nevertheless. While his mother was busy, with almost her usual cheerfulness, preparing breakfast, she heard a joyous shout in the little front yard, the door was burst open, and the next moment her boy’s arms were thrown about her neck.

The Albatross had made a glorious run home, and passed in by Eastern Point at sunrise that morning. The moment she was made fast to her wharf Breeze had jumped into a dory and pulled across the harbor, so as to be the first to tell his mother of his own arrival. He could stay to breakfast, but must get back to the schooner as quickly as possible afterwards, and help discharge the fare of fish she had brought in. One of the boy’s first questions was,

“Is there any news from father yet, mother?”

“Not yet,” was the answer; “but I feel certain there will be soon, and that when it comes it will be good news. How much we shall have to tell him when he does get home, and how proud he will be of you!” she added, fondly.

Her faith in her husband’s return was still as strong as ever, and Breeze had always shared it.

While they were at breakfast there came another shout in the front yard, the door again opened, and before he got fairly inside, Captain Coffin exclaimed, “It’s all right, Mrs. McCloud! The Albatross is in, and Breeze is--”

“Here, and mighty glad to see you, sir!” cried the lad, jumping up from the table to greet the new-comer.

“Bless my soul!” exclaimed the astonished skipper, shaking Breeze heartily by the hand, and gazing at him incredulously, “you have both out-footed and out-pointed me this time. I didn’t suppose the Albatross was tied up yet, and thought I had at least half an hour’s start of you.”

The captain sat down to breakfast with them, and between mouthfuls Breeze tried to give them an outline of his recent adventures. They were all so excited, and Mrs. McCloud had to jump up from the table so often to replenish the plates, that she only received a confused impression that her boy had saved somebody’s life and caught the biggest fish that ever was seen. This, however, satisfied her for the present; the details she could learn afterwards.

As soon as breakfast was over, Breeze started back for the schooner, and Captain Coffin went with him. While they were rowing across the harbor the latter said,

“I’ve got a new schooner, Breeze, and a finer craft was never built in Essex. Her name is the Fish-hawk, and she is fitting out for a salt trip to Grand Bank. Don’t you want to ship on her? I can offer you a full share now.”

“I don’t know, sir. It seems as though I ought to stay with mother a few days at any rate.”

“So you can; we sha’n’t get off for a week yet, but I thought I would speak about it now, so that if you decided to go I could hold the place for you. Besides, you could put your dunnage right aboard, which would save you the trouble of carrying it home when the Albatross hauls out for repairs.”

“All right, sir,” said Breeze; “I should like to go with you better than with anybody else, and I guess, inside of a week, I can persuade mother to let me start off again. If you’ve got room for another, I’d like to speak for a berth for a friend of mine too.”

“Do you mean the one you went dorymate with on George’s the other day?” asked the captain, laughing.

“Yes, sir. His name is Wolfe Brady, and he has been on one trawling trip to the Banks already, besides two to George’s.”

“Well, I’ve got about all the men I want, except a cook, and I don’t suppose he can fill that berth, but I’ll take a look at him, and if we suit each other perhaps I can make room for him.”

“If you want a cook,” said Breeze, eagerly, “why not try and get old Mateo? He is the best cook sailing out of Gloucester, and if the Albatross is going to be laid up for some time, perhaps he will go with us.”

“I see that you were cut out for a regular shipping agent,” laughed the captain, “but I’ll get Mateo if I can.”

Everything went well that day. Captain Coffin took a fancy to Wolfe and offered him a berth on the Fishhawk almost as soon as he saw him. Wolfe, who was willing to ship for any kind of a trip, was greatly pleased at the prospect of going with Breeze, and at once accepted the offer.

Old Mateo, too, who, now that his boy had become a sailor, seemed to think it his duty to follow and watch over him, was easily booked as cook of the new schooner.

The big halibut caught by Breeze sold for nearly twenty dollars, and the boy was handed a check for thirty-four dollars as the result of his eight days’ trip to George’s. Wolfe was also made happy by receiving twelve dollars as his share of the three days’ fishing after he had been picked up.

After getting his check cashed, and repaying what old Mateo had loaned him, Breeze carried the rest home to his mother. This money, added to what he had made on the mackerelling trip in the Curlew, amounted to sixty-five dollars. It would be hard to tell whether he or his mother was the prouder over this satisfactory result of the boys’ first efforts as a bread-winner.

During the long, happy talk that they had after supper, their one regret was that the father was not there to share their joy, but they spoke hopefully of his coming, and the future looked brighter to them than it had for many a day. Mrs. McCloud was greatly interested in what Breeze had to tell her of his adventure with the New York jeweller who had opened the golden ball. They both examined it minutely, but could discover no joint amid the delicate tracery of its surface. After it had been again restored to its place, Mrs. McCloud cautioned the boy to always guard it carefully, as she felt more than ever certain that some day it would prove of great value to him.

About eight o’clock Breeze started up, saying that he must go back to the schooner after Wolfe Brady. He had invited him to come home to supper and spend the night, but Wolfe had begged for a little time in which to purchase some very necessary additions to his scanty wardrobe, and Breeze had promised to meet him on board the Albatross soon after eight o’clock. Since then he had told his mother all that he knew of the young stranger, and so excited her interest in him that she now sent him an invitation to stay with them as long as he should remain in port.

Kissing his mother good-by, and promising to be back very soon, Breeze left the house; and taking her sewing, Mrs. McCloud sat down to await his return.

Neither Wolfe Brady nor anybody else was to be seen on the Albatross when Breeze reached her. Near by lay the Fish-hawk, to which he had transferred his dunnage that afternoon, but she too was deserted. On the opposite side of the wharf lay a shabby-looking old schooner, named Vixen, on which several men were still at work, evidently getting her ready for sailing. Breeze asked them if they had seen anybody answering Wolfe’s description about there recently.

“Yes,” answered one of them, “I seen a young feller like that hanging round here ’bout half an hour ago. He came over here and got talking with Hank Hoffer, one of our men, and they walked off uptown together. I expect they’ll be back directly.”

“Did you hear them say where they were going?”

“No; seems to me, though, I did hear Hank say something ’bout Grimes’s. Shouldn’t wonder if they’d gone up there to get a drink.”

Breeze started at the mention of Grimes’s, for he knew it to be one of the lowest and very worst drinking-dens in the town. Such places are not permitted by law to exist in Gloucester, but occasionally they escape the vigilance of the police for a short time, and in them many a sturdy fisherman is tempted to squander the money he has risked his life to earn.

Captain McCloud had seen so much of the pitiful misery and sorrow caused by drink that he had brought Breeze up to regard it with horror. As soon as the boy was old enough to realize what he was doing, he had promised his father that, so long as he lived, he would never touch a drop of any intoxicating liquor. He had never signed a pledge, nor had his father asked him to; for although Breeze was slow to make promises, he would as soon cut off his hand as to break one that he had made, and his father trusted him implicitly.

Now, although he was neither a prig nor a goody-goody boy it distressed Breeze to think of any one whom he called friend visiting Grimes’s. His one hope was that, being a stranger in town, Wolfe did not know what sort of a place it was, and that he would leave it and come back as soon as he discovered its character.

In this hope he waited for half an hour longer, and then, as Wolfe still failed to appear, he determined to go in search of him. He knew pretty nearly where Grimes’s was, and walked in that direction. Very soon he saw several men come out from a dark passage-way and turn down the street, talking and laughing loudly. He followed them until satisfied that Wolfe was not among them, and then returned and waited until another party came out from the same passage-way. His friend did not appear this time, and he felt that he must go in and either satisfy himself that Wolfe was not there, or persuade him to come away if he was.

He walked back and forth several times before he could make up his mind to go in. At last, feeling that he was acting the part of a coward, he entered the passage, and finding a closed door at its farther end, tried to open it. The noise that he made was evidently heard inside, for a slide in one of the upper panels of the door was pushed back a few inches, and a bright light flashed full in his face.

“Who are you?” asked a voice through the opening.

“No matter who I am,” replied Breeze. “I come to look for a friend and I want to be let in.”

“Well, you can’t come in until you’ve told me your name, and whether you are alone or not.”

“My name is Breeze McCloud, if you must have it, and I am alone,” answered the boy.

“That’s all right; I recognize you now,” said the voice, and the next moment the door was thrown open.

Just then two figures came through the dimly lighted hall-way that the open door disclosed, and in the voice of one of them Breeze recognized that of Wolfe Brady.

He waited until they got to where he was standing, and then, taking hold of his friend’s arm, he said, “I’ve been looking for you, Wolfe, and waiting to take you home with me.”

“Hello, Breeze!” exclaimed the other, huskily; “glad to see you, old boy. You’re just in time to go back and have a drink with us.”

“No, thank you,” replied Breeze; “I never drink anything. I only came here to find you, and now I want you to go home with me.”

“Oh, come along in,” said Wolfe’s companion, in a disagreeable tone. “You ain’t afraid, are you?”

“No,” said Breeze, “I’m not afraid; but now that I’ve found my friend there’s no reason why I should go in, and I don’t choose to do so.”

“Well, you needn’t put on any of your high and mighty airs with me,” exclaimed the other, threateningly. “This gentleman is as much my friend as he is yours, and I’m going to prove it by taking him inside again. Come back in, old pard,” he added, grasping Wolfe’s other arm as he stood balancing himself unsteadily between the two.

“No,” said Breeze, decidedly, “he sha’n’t go back;” and with this he endeavored to pull Wolfe through the still open door-way into the street.

Here the door-keeper, who had watched the scene impatiently, interfered, and saying, “I can’t have any disturbance here, gentlemen; you’ll have to settle this business outside,” assisted Breeze to such purpose that the next moment all three were in the street, and the door was closed behind them.

This excited Wolfe’s anger so that he began to kick the door, at the same time screaming to be let in.

“Oh, come, this won’t do!” exclaimed Wolfe’s companion. “This racket’ll bring the police down on us in no time. You see now what a fix you’ve got us into, don’t yer?” he asked, turning to Breeze.

“I see what a fix you’ve got this poor fellow into by bringing him to such a place,” replied the latter, indignantly, “and I hope you feel as ashamed of yourself as you ought to be.”

“None of your preaching!” cried the other, fiercely, “or you and I’ll have a bigger score to settle than we’ve got now. Take hold of him, can’t you? and let’s get away from here before we get nabbed.”

Together they succeeded in pulling Wolfe from the door, and in directing his unsteady steps down the street in the direction of the wharf.

While Breeze was wondering what on earth he should do with his friend in this wretched condition, Wolfe’s intoxication assumed a new form, and he began to yell and sing at the top of his voice.

“Stop that noise, or I’ll take you all in,” shouted a gruff voice behind them.

“Shut up, can’t yer?” exclaimed Wolfe’s companion to him, angrily. “Don’t you hear the police?”

But Wolfe only yelled the louder, and began to revile the police, and dare them to come and get him.

“We must cut for it,” said Hank Hoffer, for this was the name of Wolfe’s companion. “Grab him tight and run him. We’re pretty near there.”

Almost carrying Wolfe between them, the others hurried him along at such a pace as to quite take his breath away and put a stop to any further outcries.

As they reached the wharf Hank said, “Quick, now! let’s get him aboard this schooner. I belong here, and it’ll be all right. We’ll get him below, and put him in a bunk, where they’ll never notice him. Hurry, they’re coming!”

In the excitement of the moment Breeze did not stop to think whether this was a wise thing to do or not; and, only anxious to shield his friend from the consequences of his own folly, he blindly obeyed these instructions.

Wolfe stumbled on the deck of the schooner and fell, striking his head against the wheel. When they got him below he seemed stupid, and blood was flowing from a gash on his forehead.

“QUICK, NOW! LET’S GET HIM ABOARD THIS SCHOONER.”

Pulling forward a bucket of water, and handing Breeze a rag, Hank said, “You sponge him off, and keep him quiet while I go on deck and see whether the police have followed us down here or not.”

Without waiting for an answer, he sprang up the companion-way and pulled the slide over it. Then he went forward, and began to talk in a low tone to the skipper of the schooner, who, with several other men, was on deck. The police had evidently given up the chase some time before, for none were in sight on the wharf.

What Hank Hoffer said to the skipper was, “I’ve brought you a couple of first-class hands, and they’re both drunk down in the cabin; but they’ll be all right to-morrow. They were making such a racket in the streets that the police gave us a run for it. I’m afraid they’ll come after us yet; so, as long as we’re all ready, why don’t you cast off, drop out into the stream, and make a start.”[start.”]

Now, this skipper was not much liked by those who knew him, nor was his old schooner a popular boat; so he had found it somewhat difficult to get a crew for the trip she was about to make to the Newfoundland Banks. He had, however, succeeded in shipping all but two of the necessary number, and now that these two had come aboard of their own free-will, he saw no reason why he should not take Hank Hoffer’s advice and make a start.

The motion of the schooner was so gentle as she drifted away from the wharf that Breeze, busily bathing his friend’s head, did not notice it. When, however, those on deck began to hoist the sails, he recognized the sound quickly enough, and springing up, tried to push back the companion-way slide. It was locked. Then he began to pound on it furiously, and to shout for somebody to come and unfasten it; but no attention was paid to his outcries.

“It’s only those drunken fellows in the cabin,” explained Hank Hoffer to the rest of the crew; “they’ll quiet down directly.”

So Breeze McCloud and Wolfe Brady sailed away in the old schooner Vixen for Grand Bank, while in the little cottage on the eastern hill an anxious woman sat and waited for their coming.

CHAPTER IX.
KIDNAPPED.--THE PROMISE.

Finding that no notice was taken of his shouts to be released from the cabin, Breeze finally sat down on the transom beside the bunk in which Wolfe was now sleeping heavily, and tried to puzzle out the meaning of what had taken place. At first he thought it might be a sort of a practical joke, and perhaps the Vixen was only being carried out in the bay to get a good position for an early start in the morning. In that case he did not doubt but he would be allowed to return to the city when she came to anchor. As time wore on, and the schooner still continued to move rapidly through the water, even this hope began to disappear. At last the motion of the vessel convinced him that she had passed out of the bay, and was now riding the long, regular swells of the open sea.

He now remembered that the Vixen had been fitting for a trip to the Grand Bank, and realized that she had really begun the long voyage that might last for months. If he could only have bidden his mother good-by, and told her where he was going! Now the thought of her distress at his unexplained absence completely overcame him. Throwing himself at full length on the hard transom, he buried his face in his hands and sobbed as though his heart would break. Finally, tired out by his long, hard day’s work, his recent excitement, and the strength of his emotions, he fell into a troubled sleep.

Soon afterwards the companion-way slide was pushed back, and the skipper, Hank Hoffer, and another man entered the cabin and tumbled into their bunks, but without waking the prisoners.

“Sleep sound enough, don’t they?” remarked the skipper.

“Yes,” answered Hank Hoffer. “Drunken men always do.”

It was broad daylight when Breeze awoke, cramped and stiff from lying so long on the bare boards of the transom. As he sat up and looked about him, his thoughts were in such confusion that he could not for a moment recall where he was. Seeing Wolfe Brady asleep in the bunk beside him brought back the events of the preceding evening with a rush, and starting up, he went on deck. There a single glance showed him that they were out of sight of land and heading to the eastward.

A young man whose face looked somewhat familiar to him was at the wheel, though he could not recollect where he had seen it.

“Hello!” exclaimed this individual. “Turned out, have yer? Feel any better than you did last night?”

Breeze started at the sound of the voice. It was that of Wolfe Brady’s companion of the night before, of whose face he had not at any time obtained a good view, but whom he now recognized. “What do you mean,” he asked, stepping up to the young man, “by playing such a trick on me? How dared you lock us into that cabin and bring us off in this way?”

“Ho, ho!” laughed the other, “I dare do almost anything. As for what I meant by it, I told you a while ago that I’d get even with you for laughing at me when that mackerel seine broke and pitched us all overboard. I’ve only kept my word.”

Now it flashed across Breeze where he had seen the face before. It was while on his trip in the Curlew, and this young man had been one of the crew of the Rockhaven schooner--the one who had shaken his fist and threatened him for laughing at their ridiculous mishap.

“I laid up another grudge agin you yesterday,” continued Hank Hoffer. “When I went to Captain Coffin and asked for a chance on the Fish-hawk, he said he had just engaged you and your mate, and didn’t want any more hands. So I had to ship on this old packet. When I found your mate hanging around alone last evening, I saw a chance to fix him, and thought I’d get even with you that way. Then you had to come along, like the greenhorn that you are, and walk right into the trap too. I tell you what, young feller, you won’t never gain nothing by running afoul the hawse of Hank Hoffer! So put that in your pipe and smoke it, and see that you remember it too.”

It was all plain enough to Breeze now, and he turned away angry and heart-sick, to think that his own carelessness should have led him into such a predicament. He thought he could not feel any worse than he did, but a minute later he found himself confronted by a new trouble, beside which the other became insignificant.

As he re-entered the cabin he found the skipper awake, and at once began to charge him with having kidnapped them, and to threaten that if they were not set aboard the first homeward-bound vessel they met, he would have him arrested the moment they again reached Gloucester.

The skipper listened to all this in amazement, and when Breeze had ended said,

“You’d better be careful in your choice of words, my young friend, or you may get yourself into trouble. I never kidnapped you or anybody else in my life, and I don’t know what you mean. You came aboard this vessel of your own free-will just as she was about to start. Your friend on deck there told me that you wanted to ship with us for the pleasure of sailing in his company. I took his word for it instead of talking with you, because you were too drunk to--”

“I drunk!” interrupted Breeze, excitedly. “I never drank a drop of liquor in my life, and anybody who says I was drunk last night lies; that’s all.”

“Oh, come now,” said the skipper, beginning to get angry in turn, “that’s too thin. Didn’t you come stumbling aboard last night as no sober man would have done? Didn’t you raise particular Cain down here in the cabin for a while, and then fall into such a heavy sleep that nothing could wake you from it? Don’t your eyes show that you have been drinking? Wasn’t the smell of whiskey almost strong enough to knock a man down when I came into the cabin to turn in, and nobody’d been here but you and your mate? Besides all this, didn’t I see you myself hanging round Grimes’s not more than half an hour before you came aboard? Don’t tell me again you wasn’t drunk. There’s nothing I despise so much as a sneak that tries to crawl out of a scrape by lying about it. Now wake up that partner of yours and turn him out, or I’ll come down here and do it for you with a bucket of salt-water.”

With this the skipper went on deck, leaving Breeze bewildered and stunned by the charge just made against him, and the amount of apparent proof brought to sustain it.

The worst of it all was that if the skipper had seen him in the vicinity of Grimes’s, others might also have seen him there, and would report the fact when inquiries began to be made for him. Then, too, if the whole crew of the Vixen believed as their captain evidently did, that he had been drunk, would anybody ever believe his simple assertion that he had not been so, against their statement that he was? What would Captain Coffin think? What would his mother think? Would not her heart be broken by this horrid report coming on top of his mysterious and unexplained disappearance? In his agony of mind the poor boy groaned aloud. At this sound a voice behind him exclaimed,

“Hello! What’s the matter, Breeze?”

Turning quickly, he saw Wolfe Brady awake, but still lying in his bunk and regarding him with dull eyes.

“Matter enough,” he answered; “for if ever a fellow was in a worse fix than I am I should like to know it. You ought not to be the one to ask, anyhow,” he added, bitterly.

“Why, what do you mean, old man?” inquired Wolfe, leaning upon his elbow and gazing about the dirty cabin with a perplexed air. “Where are we, anyhow? What craft is this? Somehow, it doesn’t seem like the Albatross.”

“Albatross!” exclaimed Breeze. “I should say not. We are on board the Vixen, bound for the Grand Bank, with only our shore clothes for an outfit, and nobody in Gloucester knows what has become of us.”

“You don’t mean it!” cried Wolfe, now thoroughly aroused. “How did it all happen?”

“Do you mean to tell me,” said Breeze, “that you do not remember anything of what happened to us last night?”

“Not a thing. ’Pon my honor. The last I remember is that after waiting a while for you I fell in with a pleasant fellow on the wharf who wanted me to stroll uptown with him. He said we would not be gone more than fifteen minutes. We stopped in at some kind of a place to get a drink. He treated me, then of course I had to treat him, and after that I don’t remember anything more. What vile stuff it must have been! Ugh! my mouth tastes like brass and my head feels as though it were made of red-hot lead.”

“Well,” said Breeze, “that drink of yours has got us into about as mean a scrape as I know of, and if it hasn’t completely ruined my reputation and broken my mother’s heart, I shall be thankful.”

“My dear fellow, you don’t mean to tell me it is as bad as all that!” exclaimed Wolfe, now sitting up, and with a tone of deep concern. “It doesn’t seem possible. I wish you would explain what you mean.”

“There isn’t time now,” answered Breeze; “the cook called breakfast ten minutes ago, and we’ll have to hurry if we want to get any. You’d better get on deck and douse your head in a bucket of cold water. It will do you good. After breakfast I’ll tell you the whole story, and then we can make up our minds what to do.”

The men who sat at the breakfast-table with Breeze and Wolfe regarded them curiously, winked slyly to one another, and made a few jokes in low tones upon their appearance, but nobody spoke to them.

After the meal was over, as no particular attention was paid to them, they found a sheltered place forward, away up in the eyes of the schooner. There Breeze related to Wolfe all that had happened during the preceding night, bringing his story down to that morning, and not omitting the remarks the skipper had made to the effect that he had been intoxicated.

Before he had finished, Wolfe was worked up into a state of furious anger. “You miserable low-lived scoundrel!” he muttered through his clinched teeth, shaking his fist in the direction of Hank Hoffer, whom he now recognized as the one who had played him such a mean trick the night before; “I’ll pay you off for this; see if I don’t.”

“It was a mean trick, and I hope he’ll live to be sorry for it,” said Breeze; “but don’t you think you were almost as much to blame as he?”

“I!” exclaimed Wolfe, in surprise; “how do you mean? By being so soft as to let that fellow get the best of me?”

“I mean by having anything to do with him when you found out that he wanted you to drink with him.”

“Why, man! I thought he only wanted me to take a glass with him in a friendly way.”

“And do you think it is right to take that kind of a glass?”

“Certainly; where’s the harm?”

“Well, I expect you and I have been differently brought up, then. My father thinks it is the very worst and most dangerous habit a young man can get into. As for the harm, seems to me it is plain enough in this case at any rate. If it hadn’t been for that glass we wouldn’t be in this fix now, and mother wouldn’t be breaking her heart at home, as I’m sure she is at this minute, for not knowing what has become of us.”

“I hadn’t thought of it in that light,” said Wolfe, who had never been taught as Breeze had, to regard drinking as a sin.

“I wish I could get you to think of it in that light now,” said Breeze. “Oh, Wolfe! if you would only promise, this very minute, that you’d never touch another glass of liquor as long as you live, I believe I should be glad that all this had happened--will you?”

Wolfe looked at him for a moment without speaking, then he said, “Would you rather I’d promise you that than anything else, Breeze?”

“Yes, I would.”

“Then I’ll do it. Not long ago you risked your life to save mine, and I told you that from that time on it was at your service. This is the first thing you have asked of me since, and I’m not the lad to go back on my word. So now I promise you, and there’s my hand on it, that so long as I live I’ll never taste another drop of strong drink unless you ask me to.”

“Then you never will,” said Breeze, smiling; “and, Wolfe, if you only knew how glad I am to have that promise, it would make you very happy to think you had given it to me.”

“It makes me happy already to see you smile again, for I begin to see now how I have brought on all this trouble.”

“Let’s not call it trouble any longer,” said Breeze, cheerily, “but do as my mother does, and try to look on the bright side of it. We were coming to the Banks, anyway, in a week or so, and perhaps this trip will be luckier than the one on the Fish-hawk would have been, who knows?”

Just then the skipper came up to where they were sitting, and said, “Well, boys! how goes it now? Feeling any better than you did?”

“Yes, very much,” answered Breeze, “but not so well as we should if you’d only get rid of the idea that I was drunk when we came aboard last night.”

“It’s true, skipper,” added Wolfe, earnestly, “I was a little under the weather, I acknowledge, but Breeze, here, never drinks, and was as sober as a halibut. I can vouch for that. And I’m never going to get that way again either. I’ve sworn off.”

“Oh, well,” answered the skipper, carelessly, “it’s all right now. There isn’t a drop aboard this craft,[^[F]] so I ain’t afraid but that you’ll keep straight enough till the end of the trip anyhow.”

“Now that you have got us off here,” said Wolfe, “what are you going to do in the way of finding us something to wear, besides these store clothes?” Here he looked ruefully at the new suit he had bought the day before, which was already showing signs of hard usage.

“What!” exclaimed the skipper, “are those all you’ve brought with you?”

“Of course they are; we have not a rag except what we stand in.”

“Well, now, that’s bad; but perhaps some of the other fellows can spare a few old things, and there are a couple of extra oil suits aboard that you can have and I’ll charge ’em up to you. By-the-way, I suppose you two will go dorymates?”

“Of course,” answered Breeze, promptly; “we’ve already been dorymates on one trip, and we mean to be on every other we ever take together.”

“You’ll use dory No. 6, then,” said the skipper, “and you’d better get to work overhauling your trawls right off. You want to have everything in order before we get to the Banks, ’cause there won’t be any time to waste then. When we once get to fishing I shall expect every man on board the old packet to jump quick and make every minute tell, or else he’ll have to reckon with me for it.”

“That’s all right, skipper. We’ve made up our minds to do our best so long as we are here and can’t help ourselves,” said Breeze. “But we belong to the Fish-hawk, you know, and if we should happen to run across her at any time while we are on the Banks, you must not be surprised if we turn up missing some fine day.”

“We’ll see about that when the time comes,” replied the skipper, grimly; “but mind you, if you leave the vessel before the trip’s finished, you’ll lose all interest in what has been caught up to that time, and can’t claim a cent’s worth of it.”

Both sides having thus arrived at a fair understanding with each other, the boys proceeded to make themselves as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. Though they declined to have anything to do with Hank Hoffer, they soon established friendly relations with the rest of the crew. They found the Vixen to be a dirty old craft, and very uncomfortable in many respects. She was, however, an able sailor and a good sea-boat, and after weathering a pretty stiff gale she reached Grand Bank, nearly nine hundred miles from Gloucester, during the night of the sixth day out.

Although the boys had said nothing more about deserting her, if they had a good chance they had fully made up their minds to do so. Little did they imagine, however, under what circumstances this leave-taking was to be effected, or how they should long to once more set foot on the well-worn deck of the old Vixen.

CHAPTER X.
TRAWLS AND WHALES.

A trawler, such as the Vixen was, is fitted out very differently from a seiner or a hand-liner, the styles of craft on which Breeze had made his previous fishing trips. Instead of a large seine-boat, she carries from four to eight dories, and a crew sufficiently large to allow two men to each dory, besides the skipper and cook. The trawls are tarred cotton ropes the size of a lead-pencil, that come in lengths of about fifty fathoms, or three hundred feet each. To these are attached at distances of a fathom apart for cod, and a fathom and a half apart for halibut, short lines of from three to six feet long, to the ends of which hooks are made fast. About six of these lengths of trawl, or 1800 feet, are coiled in a tub, and each dory will carry out and set from four to six tubs of trawl in from twenty to two hundred fathoms of water. The lines contained in the several tubs are made fast to each other, and all are set in one straight line, from one to two miles in length. The trawls are anchored at each end, and buoyed by small kegs, so that the hooks shall hang just clear of the bottom.

As the Vixen was on a “salt trip,” the pens in the hold, instead of being filled with ice, contained several hundred bushels of coarse rock-salt. She had a crew of fourteen men all told, and on her deck, fitting into each other like nests of buckets, were six dories, three on each side.

The next morning after reaching the Bank a fishing-ground was chosen, and the anchor was dropped overboard. Then the canvas was furled, the riding-sail was bent on, top-masts were sent down, and everything was made as snug as possible, and put in readiness for all sorts of weather. Baskets of frozen herring were got up from the hold, and cut into bait sizes with sharp knives on the bait-boards. These are heavy planks laid on top of the cabin. With this cut-up herring each dory crew baited the thousand or more hooks of their own trawl, and coiled the lines snugly away again in the tubs.

That afternoon the trawls were set, one astern of the schooner, one ahead, one off each quarter, and one off each bow, these positions having been drawn for by lot beforehand. Thus the schooner formed the centre of a circle of trawls, the outer ends of which were nearly two miles from her. The position falling to Breeze and Wolfe was that directly ahead of the vessel. After going far enough away to be sure of being well clear of her, in case she should have swung round by morning, they began to set their trawl. Breeze continued to row in a straight line away from the schooner, while Wolfe, after dropping overboard the light anchor and the buoy-line attached to its floating keg, began to pay out the trawl with its baited hooks. It required great care and considerable skill to get them overboard without snarls or knots, so that each hook would be certain to hang straight down by itself and clear of all the others. After the job had been done neatly and properly, the second anchor was dropped, and a buoy, with a flag on it to mark the outer end of the trawl, was flung overboard. Then their work was finished for the present; for the line was to be left “set” all night, and would not be visited until early in the morning.

As they rowed back to the schooner Breeze said, “Wolfe, I want always to carry out some fresh water and some hard-tack in the dory after this. I’ve heard my father say a great many times that if all fishermen would only do this, half the lives that are now lost on the Banks might be saved.”

“You’ll be well laughed at on board for a coward if you do,” replied Wolfe.

“I don’t care. I’d rather any time be laughed at than to be lost out there somewhere in a fog, and perhaps drift round for days without anything to eat or drink.”

“All right,” said Wolfe; “I guess I can stand it if you can.”

That night Breeze hunted up a small keg, which he filled with fresh water, and a box into which he put a couple of dozen ship biscuit wrapped in paper and stuffed into a sort of a water-proof bag that he made out of an old oil-skin jacket.

When the whole crew was turned out at daylight the next morning, they found dreary, shivering weather up on the cold deck; but after the hot coffee and hearty breakfast which the cook had ready for them, they felt better. All were then soon off in their dories, going in the direction of the several buoy-flags left at the outer ends of their trawls the night before.

As Breeze stowed his fresh water and provisions in the stern of dory No. 6, Hank Hoffer noticed what he was doing, and sung out to know what he was afraid of, and if he didn’t want to be tied to an apron-string for fear of getting lost.

Wolfe’s hot Irish blood rushed to his face at these taunts, and he would have answered back but for Breeze, who said,

“Let him alone, Wolfe. It makes him feel a great deal worse not to be noticed at all. Nothing would please him better than to get us into a muss, and to have the skipper order us off about our business.”

“Well, I don’t know but what you are right, Breeze; but what a queer fellow you are, anyhow. It seems to me you must have been born with a wise head on your shoulders. Here I am a year older than you, but most any one hearing us talk would take you for the old boy and me for the young one.”

They rowed steadily while they talked, and soon reached the little canvas flag that marked the buoy at the outer end of their trawl.

“I wonder what luck we’re going to have?” said Breeze. “What I like best about fishing is the not knowing what you are going to catch, and the thinking whenever you have bad-luck you may have better next time.”

“I expect that is the most interesting part about most things in this world,” said Wolfe; “but with all my luck I can’t start this anchor. It’s got foul of something. I expect we’ll have to rig up the hurdy-gurdy.”

This was a small iron winch that could be set up in the bows of the dory, and which is often found necessary in heaving up heavy trawls. With its aid the refractory anchor was soon got aboard. The buoy had already been picked up, and at length the trawl began to appear. Now came the exciting moment. What would it bring? Would every hook have its fish, or would they be few and far between? They would not even consider the possibility of its being what fishermen describe as a “water haul,” or one bringing them nothing but empty hooks. Wolfe stood forward in the dory pulling in the line, while Breeze stood a few feet behind him, ready to take off the fish and stow the trawl in its tubs.

“Here he is!” cried Wolfe at last. “Number one a cod, and a jolly big fellow at that. My eye! but he must weigh fifty pounds at least. Our luck’s begun good at any rate. Bear a hand here with the gaff, Breeze. Quick! There, my hearty! lie still where you are put, and we’ll soon give you plenty of company.”

After this came two or three bare hooks, and then a small halibut. Then half a dozen more codfish, one close after the other, and next only the skeleton of a fish with its bones picked as clean as though there had never been a particle of flesh on them. It astonished Breeze greatly, and he said,

“Well! I never knew before that a fish’s skeleton would take bait. How hungry it must have been! It does look rather thin and gaunt, for a fact,” he added, laughing.

“He was something a good deal better than a skeleton when he took that hook,” explained Wolfe, who had hauled trawls before. “The sand-fleas have made a meal off of him, and there must have been a pretty lot of them to go through him so quickly and completely.”

“Sand-fleas?” repeated Breeze, inquiringly.

“Yes, just such chaps as you may see almost any time hopping on a beach.”

A haddock bearing the teeth-marks of the halibut that had tried to swallow him after he was caught came next. Then followed cod, cod, cod, so fast that by the time the trawl was half hauled, dory No. 6 was deep in the water and her crew did not dare to put another fish into her.

They were in fine spirits over their good-luck, as they buoyed the trawl and pulled back to the schooner to get rid of their load before attempting to finish the haul. By this time a stiff northerly breeze was blowing, and the Vixen had swung with the change of wind, so that she now lay stern to them. This made their pull much shorter than it otherwise would have been. Owing to this they had the satisfaction of pitching the first fish of that cruise on the schooner’s deck. This greatly disappointed Hank Hoffer, who came up a minute later in dory No. 5, and who had fully expected to be able to claim the honor of “first fish.”

He began to make ugly remarks to the effect that if they had waited to get a full load they would not have been back so quickly. This time the skipper cut him short with, “Look to your own load, Hank. If you’d ’a’ waited to make it as big as the one these lads have brought in, you wouldn’t have come for half an hour yet.”

As soon as the fish had been unloaded from dory No. 6, and the two tubs of trawl already hauled had been lifted out, the boys returned for the rest of their catch. They had hardly got the buoy aboard, and were just beginning to haul in the remainder of the trawl, when suddenly the most surprising thing occurred.

The dory was at once, and without the slightest warning, lifted bodily several feet into the air, and both its occupants were flung down, Wolfe striking and breaking a thwart in his fall. Immediately afterwards the dory slid on its side, and apparently downhill, into the water. It was only by scrambling hastily to the upper gunwale that the boys kept it from capsizing. As it was, it was half full of water before they succeeded in righting it.

At the same moment they heard a loud rushing sound like escaping steam, a column of spray was thrown high in the air, and they caught a glimpse of a huge black object sinking out of sight but a short distance from them. As it disappeared, their boat was rocked violently on the waves that surged over the place where it had been.

Both the boys were terribly startled, and for a moment greatly frightened, by this mysterious occurrence. They had instinctively begun bailing the water from the dory almost as soon as they found that she still floated right side up. Breeze was the first to recover the breath which had been nearly driven from his body by the shock of his overthrow, and now he gasped out,

“Do you think it was an earthquake, Wolfe?” Before Wolfe could answer, a large whale, evidently the mate of the one that had given them such a scare, rose to the surface to blow, a hundred yards to one side of them, and Breeze exclaimed, “So that’s what it was! Well, I’m mighty glad he didn’t come along and hoist us on his back while the dory was loaded down as she was half an hour ago.”

“So am I,” began Wolfe, “but hello!” he cried, stopping his bailing and starting up. “Whatever has got into the old Vixen? She must have a steam-engine aboard.”

A LARGE WHALE ROSE TO THE SURFACE TO BLOW

Breeze looked, and, to his astonishment, saw the schooner moving away from them, and going through the water at a speed of ten or twelve knots an hour[knots an hour]. Her sails were still furled, and apparently her anchor was still down; but she was certainly moving, and that at a rapid rate. The white water was foaming under her bows, and a wake, like that of a steamer, was trailing and eddying behind her.

“It’s one of those whales, and he’s caught a fluke of her anchor in his blow-hole or in his jaws. Yes, sir, he’s running away with her!” exclaimed Breeze, who had heard his father describe a similar occurrence as having happened to him once on the Banks.

“That’s what it must be,” said Wolfe. “But it beats anything I ever heard of. My eye! isn’t she going, though!”

“Well,” remarked Breeze, as they watched the rapidly vanishing schooner, “I should say that fishing in these waters was pretty exciting work. I know it beats mackerelling, or life on George’s. Do you know whether it is always as lively here as it seems to be this morning, Wolfe?”

“This goes ahead of anything in my experience,” was the reply. “I only hope the old man will cut his cable before he loses sight of us, or that he has had sense enough to take our bearings so that he can pick us up again. Now that we have got a quiet spell, I suppose we might as well finish bailing before the next performance begins.”

After they had rid the boat of all the water she had shipped, they began once more to haul in on their trawl. They reasoned that if the schooner came back they would be so much ahead with their work, and if she did not, they could pitch the fish overboard; while, in the mean time, the occupation would keep them from worrying over what might happen.

They had got nearly to the end of their trawl, and the dory was again deeply laden with fish, when Breeze cried out, joyfully, “Here she comes back!”

He was right. The white sails of the schooner could be seen, though at a great distance from them, and they knew that she had in some way got rid of her unwelcome tow-boat, and was on her way back.

Two of the other dories that had been left behind now approached them, and a man in one of them called out, “I don’t suppose you fellows have got any fresh water aboard, have you?”

“Yes, we have plenty of it,” shouted Wolfe. “I declare I had forgotten it, though, and I’m awfully thirsty myself,” he added to Breeze.

The latter had no reason to regret his thoughtfulness when he saw how heartily they all enjoyed the water and a lunch of biscuit that, but for him, they would have gone without.

So far had the schooner been towed before the whale had managed to clear himself from his encumbrance that she was nearly two hours in making her way back to them. Her skipper had refused to cut the cable, for he was a part owner in the vessel, and did not want to be put to the expense of a new one. Thus he showed one of the traits in his character that made him so unpopular. He was always ready to sacrifice the comfort, and even the safety, of his men, rather than run the risk of losing money.

At last the schooner did return to the waiting dories, and their loads of fish were transferred to her deck, after which the trawls were rebaited and again set out. Then came a busy time spent in “dressing down;” that is, cleaning the fish, cutting off their heads, splitting and salting them, and finally packing them in the hold. After this, the trawls were again hauled and again set for the night. Owing to the delay of the morning, the second catch had to be “dressed down” by lantern-light, so that it was nearly eleven o’clock before the tired crew were allowed to throw themselves into their bunks for a few hours’ sleep.

The air during the day had been growing steadily colder, and before dark the peculiar chill denoting the presence of ice at no great distance had been noticed, and had occasioned some anxiety. The season was unusually backward, and a recent succession of northerly gales had driven the arctic ice almost to the edge of the Gulf Stream. This had been reported before the Vixen left Gloucester; but, as her crew had not yet met with any ice, they hoped it had again gone north, and that they were to escape it entirely.

While Hank Hoffer was on watch that night he busied himself for some time with the contents of dory No. 6, and any one standing close beside him might have heard him mutter, “There, I hope those sneaks will enjoy the drink I’ve fixed for them. I’ll teach ’em that we don’t want any cowards aboard this craft.”

An hour later, or shortly before daylight, the tired sleepers in cabin and forecastle were roused from their dreams, and brought shivering out from their warm bunks by the hoarse voice of the watch on deck shouting down the companion-ways, “Hear the news below there! Tumble out all hands! Lolly ice all around us, and a big berg bearing down from dead ahead!”

CHAPTER XI.
SURROUNDED BY ARCTIC ICE.

There is nothing more dreary or depressing in the whole experience of a fisherman’s hard life than to be awakened from a sound sleep and turned out from snug quarters to fight against ice. In either form, as it drifts down upon his vessel from arctic seas, or as it accumulates in the form of frozen spray upon her bows, until, to reduce the great weight that endangers her safety, he must attack it with axes and iron bars, it is an enemy to be dreaded and cordially hated. So, to the tired crew of the Vixen, the unwelcome announcement made at the close of the last chapter brought them on deck, grumbling at their hard fate and shivering in the deadly chill of the air.

There was no time to spare, for they could plainly distinguish, looming from out the gloom on their starboard bow, the vast form that threatened their destruction. They could already feel its icy breath, colder even than the chill of the night, and note that its motion, aided by converging currents of air and water, was such that within a few minutes it must sweep over the very place they were occupying.

As many as could man the bars sprang to the windlass and began to get up the anchor. One hurriedly cast off the stops from the furled foresail, while another loosed the jib. Then the former was hoisted, and at the same instant the cable was announced as “hove short;” but the anchor obstinately refused to break out. Once, twice, and again they heaved on it in vain.

The steady but silent advance of the monster now close upon them was awful in its relentlessness, and finally, given added strength by the terror of its nearness, the straining crew at the windlass made one last effort that tore the unwilling anchor from its hold just as the skipper had raised his axe to cut the cable.

The big jib seemed to run up the stay of its own accord, while powerful arms held its clew well over to windward. Breeze, who had tugged and strained with the others at the windlass until he was dripping with perspiration, sprang aft to the wheel and rolled it hard over. Then slowly, oh, so slowly! as it seemed to the breathless crew, the schooner began to pay off, and then to forge ahead. Even then they did not know but that they were too late. Already the small drift-ice pushed ahead of the berg was grinding against the vessel’s sides, while the towering mass was cutting off the wind from her sails and leaving her becalmed to await its pleasure.

It revolved slowly as it drifted, and all at once this rotary motion opened up to them a deep cleft in its formation, through which whirled a sudden gust of wind. As it struck the out-spread sails the schooner heeled over before it and bounded forward, as though only then awakened to the consciousness of her danger.

She just cleared it, and that was all. For her and her crew, five little seconds and a cat’s-paw of wind spanned the infinite gulf that separates safety from destruction, life from death. For a moment they could hardly realize they had escaped, and as the monster swept sullenly past them, still revolving like a gigantic millstone seeking to grind to powder all who dared oppose it, they gazed at it in silence and with bloodless faces.

But the reaction came quickly. The men who fish on the Newfoundland Banks learn to forget their perils almost before they have passed. At the hoarse command of “Ready about! Stand by the jib-sheets!” the crew of the Vixen seemed to awaken as from a troubled dream.

Within fifteen minutes their vessel was again at anchor in nearly the same place she had occupied before the berg drove them from it. Her sails were furled, and all who could be accommodated at the little mess-table were eating, with a relish, the breakfast that the cook had been steadily preparing amid all the exciting scenes that had just passed. He knew that, to live and to work, men must eat, and that so long as the vessel held together and floated, it was his duty to prepare food for them.

The berg that had caused all this trouble and anxiety was a solitary rover that had left its frigid companions in order to pursue its own erratic course. It was not even accompanied by large floe-cakes, but only by quantities of the small drift or “lolly” ice. This would not interfere to any great extent with the handling of the trawls, though it would render the work particularly cold and disagreeable.

As the daylight strengthened, however, practised eyes on board the Vixen detected a pale glimmer on the northern horizon that indicated the presence of those vast ice-fields that frequently sweep over the Newfoundland Banks in the spring of the year. They often carry death and destruction to the fishermen and their vessels, always bring hard, dangerous work, and threaten a disastrous loss of gear. Therefore, on the present occasion the skipper hurried the men through their meal, and despatched them as quickly as possible in the dories to haul their trawls. They were ordered to cut the lines if necessary, and to return to the schooner with all speed the moment the close approach of the ice should be indicated by the signal of the ship’s flag displayed in the main rigging.

In the present position of the schooner the trawl belonging to dory No. 6 was at some distance astern of her, and our dorymates had a long pull before reaching its outer buoy. They worked like beavers in getting the trawl aboard; and as it was nearly bare of fish, the ice having seemingly driven them away, they succeeded in hauling the whole of it before the recall signal was shown.

Just as he had got in the last anchor, Wolfe, casting a glance in the direction of the schooner, observed the flag, though there was not now wind enough to flutter it, and exclaimed, “There it is, Breeze! the skipper’s giving us the recall, and he is not the man to do it until the last moment. You may count on the ice being close to her now, as well as on the fact that we’ve got a stiff pull ahead of us to get back in time.”

And it was a stiff pull. The strong young backs straightened out splendidly with every stroke, the tough oars bent and rattled sharply against their confining thole-pins, and the white water sped away from the prow of the old dory, as though she were a racing boat. But they had been too heavily handicapped; the ice had been allowed too great a start, and they were still several hundred feet from the schooner when a shout from her deck caused them to look around.

What they saw made them heart-sick, and for a moment their case seemed hopeless. They were already cut off from the vessel by several great cakes of ice that were grinding and crashing together angrily. Others were rapidly drifting into, and narrowing, the open space that still remained, and they could not see any chance of ever being able to pass this moving, treacherous barrier. All at once the loud cries and eager gestures of those on board the schooner directed their attention to a buoy lying on one of the cakes nearest to them. To their great joy they saw that to it was attached a line that was being paid out over the stern of the vessel. Somebody had been thoughtful enough to make this use of the cake as it drifted by.

Altering their direction slightly, the boys had, in a minute more, snatched the buoy from its ice raft, and Wolfe was making the line it had brought them fast to the rope becket in the bow of the dory. At the same moment a shout was heard from another direction. Looking up they saw another dory still farther off than they were, and evidently about to be cut off, not only from the schooner but from them, by the cruel ice.

IN A MINUTE MORE THEY HAD SNATCHED THE BUOY FROM THE ICE-RAFT.

As quick as thought, Breeze tossed one of their trawl buoys, with its line still attached, to the cake of ice that had brought help to them from the schooner, and which was still within reach. It fell so close to the edge that he had to pay out the line most carefully to prevent its being dragged off. In a few minutes he had the satisfaction of seeing the dory pulled alongside of the floating cake, and one of her crew step carefully out upon it, and walk towards the buoy.

His weight bore the ice down so that water began to flow over its edge; and just as he stooped to pick up the buoy, it floated and eluded his grasp. He made a clutch and succeeded in seizing it; but at the same instant his feet slipped from under him, and he plunged headlong into the cold waters.

The cry with which the unfortunate man disappeared from view was echoed from the dory he had just left. In it Hank Hoffer was now as effectually cut off from the schooner as though he were already miles away, instead of almost within reach of her.

For the time being the crew of dory No. 6 paid but little attention to him. All their energies were directed towards saving the man in the water, who had now come to the surface, still grasping the buoy. A great cake bore down upon him, and threatened to crush him, or at least to force him under. Fortunately the line by which he was held passed over it, and he was able to draw himself on to its slippery surface. From it he again went into the water, and thus, slipping, scrambling, jumping, and swimming, but always clinging to the line, he finally reached the dory, cut, bruised, and nearly exhausted.

Then the dorymates began to look after their own safety, for they were still in great danger of going adrift. A portion of the line that connected them with the schooner was under the ice, and might at any moment be cut or parted. There was also the danger that the sides of the dory might be crushed in or cut through by the heavy jagged cakes, some of which were fifty feet wide, and from five to ten feet thick. By jumping out on the larger cakes, and pulling the boat over them, pushing aside the smaller ones, tugging, straining, and working with all their might for half an hour, they finally got the line clear and above the ice. All this time those on the schooner had held it taut. Now it was a comparatively easy matter to pull the boat, with its brave crew and the man whom they had rescued, close under the stern of the vessel, and to hoist her clear of the water by the davits.

Thankful enough were the dorymates to tread once more the firm deck of the old Vixen, and hearty was the welcome given them by her crew. All the other dories, except that which held Hank Hoffer, had been got safely on board, some with all their trawls, and others with only portions of them. The lost dory, with its solitary occupant, had become but a dim speck against the white background of ice that now covered the sea as far as their sight could reach. The boys barely caught a glimpse of it as it was pointed out to them from the deck of the schooner before it vanished entirely. They both sprang into the main rigging to get another sight of it; but, though they climbed to the mast-head, they could not again discover it. They did, however, see several icebergs drifting in that direction, and it was with heavy hearts and very sober faces that they descended to the deck and reported the probable fate that had overtaken their shipmate. He had proved himself their enemy, and even among the rougher members of the crew he had made no friends. Still he was a human being, who for more than a week had formed one of their little community, and been thrown into close companionship with them. Now he was called upon to suffer terribly, and alone, a fate that might have overtaken any one of them, and they pitied him from the bottom of their hearts.

With the exception of a few puffy squalls, the morning had been without moving air enough to lift the ensign that still drooped listlessly from the main rigging, but about noon a breeze sprang up from the southward. With the first sign of wind the Vixen’s anchor was hove up, sail was made, and she began to beat slowly in the direction taken by the missing dory, through a lead of clear water that had opened through the floe. There was not much chance that anything would ever again be seen of it or its unfortunate occupant; but they could not give him up without making an effort to save him, and so, for several hours, the almost hopeless search was continued.

Navigation was extremely difficult, for the spaces of open water were few and often very narrow. Sometimes they led abruptly into ice so closely packed that no headway could be made against it, and the schooner barely held her own, as it ground and scraped along her sides with a force that threatened to cut through even her stout planking.

At length Breeze, who had climbed to the mast-head to take a look through the skipper’s glass, reported that he could see something black that looked like a man on one of the icebergs they had noticed earlier in the day, and which they were now approaching.

After the object had been pointed out to the skipper, and he had looked at it long and carefully, he also expressed the opinion that it was a man, and ordered the schooner to be headed in that direction. Her progress was necessarily very slow, and the afternoon was well advanced before she reached a broad space of open water, beyond which rose the iceberg. It was now not more than half a mile from them; but it was surrounded by an apparently impassable barrier of floe ice. This, though in motion, was so densely packed along its outer edge that the vessel could not be forced into it. Again and again was the attempt made, but it only resulted in failure, and each successive shock threatened her with irreparable damage.

At length these efforts were abandoned, and the schooner began to cruise up and down along the barrier, seeking for some opening through which she might pass. The black object on the iceberg had remained in sight long enough for them to be certain that it was a man, but then it had disappeared. This disappearance greatly puzzled the Vixen’s crew. Some of them said he must have slipped off the ice into the water, and been drowned, or else he would certainly have remained in sight to make signals to them. Others thought perhaps the berg had swung round so as to hide him from them, and that he was unable to reach any point from which he could be seen. Among the latter were Breeze and Wolfe, who, as time wore on, became very impatient at the delay caused by the icy barrier.

“If we do not get to him soon,” said Breeze, “he will certainly freeze to death. Wolfe, don’t you think we could get our dory across the floe to that iceberg, if we should try?”

“You don’t mean to say that you’d be willing to try it for the sake of that fellow, do you?” exclaimed his companion in amazement. “Why, man, the chances would be ten to one, yes a hundred to one, against your ever getting back to the schooner again.”

“That may all be,” replied Breeze, “but if they were a thousand to one against it I’d rather take the one chance than to go off and leave that poor fellow to die there without even trying to save him. I believe it can be done, and I’m going to ask the skipper to let me go.”

“Well,” said Wolfe, “you are the softest and the pluckiest fellow I ever met. I don’t believe the skipper will hear of your going, but if he should you sha’n’t go alone.”

“I was sure you’d say that!” cried Breeze, “and I’m just as sure that we’ll succeed if we are only allowed to try my plan.”

The skipper hesitated some time before giving his consent to the scheme proposed by Breeze; but at length, finding that no further headway could be made by the schooner, he yielded reluctantly, and said they might make the attempt.

The rest of the crew tried to dissuade the boys from such a foolhardy undertaking, “especially,” as one of them said, “when the man doesn’t show up, and is probably gone long before this.” When they found them determined to go, however, they lent them every assistance in their power.

Before starting, both the boys drank a cup of hot coffee and ate a hasty luncheon. Into dory No. 6 they put a box of provisions, two pairs of blankets, a coil of rope, and a hatchet. Their water-keg was already full. The skipper promised to remain within sight of that iceberg until they returned, or until he knew what had become of them, and as they started the crew gave them a hearty cheer.

They found it hard and tedious work to get their dory over the first barrier of ice, which was about a hundred yards wide. After that was passed they progressed more rapidly, and discovered so many little lanes of open water that they reached the berg much more easily than they had expected to.

As they rowed alongside of it they discovered a small level place, close to the water’s edge, upon which a landing could be made. The ends of the berg rose into points fifty or sixty feet high, but above this point was a depression that did not rise more than twenty feet above the water.

When they reached this place Breeze said, “Let me land here, Wolfe, and climb up to the top, where I can look over, while you stay in the dory.”

So saying, and taking the hatchet with him, he stepped out on the ice, and began slowly to make his way up the gentle but slippery incline. As he reached the top he stood there for a moment looking around, and then turned as though about to call out to his friend. Suddenly he seemed to slip, and to Wolfe’s dismay he threw up his arms, uttered a loud cry, and disappeared.

CHAPTER XII.
AN ICE CAVE AND ITS PRISONERS.

At first Wolfe hoped that Breeze had merely slipped and fallen, and for a minute waited anxiously for him to reappear. Then it occurred to him that his companion might have slid into the water, and that possibly he was even now drowning, or struggling in vain to regain a footing upon the treacherous surface. Thus thinking, he sprang to his oars, and pulling furiously, soon carried the dory to the other side of the iceberg, which was not a very large one. To his dismay he could discover no trace of his friend even here, and he now began to be seriously alarmed. He could see the whole side of the ice island as it rose, glittering and sparkling above him, in the light of the setting sun. It shone with all the colors of the rainbow, and was coldly, awfully beautiful to look upon, but nowhere did it offer to his view the faintest trace of a human presence.

This side was rugged, and so precipitous that it would be impossible for any one to gain a foothold upon it from a boat, much less from the water; all of which Wolfe noticed with a feeling of despair. As he examined the frigid mass above him more closely he noticed that, near its top, there seemed to be several platforms or terraces, and he determined to pull back to the landing-place and climb up and examine them. Rowing slowly around the other end of the berg, and scanning every foot of its surface in the vague hope of discovering something, he finally came again to the place where Breeze had left him. Here, with a heavy heart, he made his preparations to follow the course his friend had taken. Hauling the dory partially out of the water, so that there would be less danger of its being crushed by floating cakes, he jammed its anchor into a crack of the ice and pulled the anchor rope taut. Then, taking advantage of the occasional holes Breeze had cut in the ice with his hatchet, he began to climb towards the summit of the ridge.

When at last he reached it he dreaded to look around him; for this was his last hope, and if he should see nothing of his dorymate from here, he felt that he must indeed give him up for lost. At length he forced himself to gaze, slowly and carefully, in every direction about him. There was only the ice, the water, the sunset sky, and, sharply outlined against it, the Vixen, standing off and on beyond the floe, waiting for them.

Waiting for them, and he must return to her alone. This thought broke him down completely, and he groaned aloud in his distress. He knew now how strong a hold his sunny-faced young dorymate had gained upon his affections, and feeling that he had gone from his life forever, the whole world seemed as lonely and dreary and cold as the scene around him. In his misery he called out, “Breeze! oh, Breeze! come back to me.”

“Well, I’m coming as fast as I can,” answered a muffled voice so close to him that he started in affright, and came very near rolling down the incline he had just ascended. He trembled so that he could hardly speak; but he finally managed to call out, “Is that really you, Breeze? And where are you?” for, as yet, he could neither see his friend nor locate the spot from which his voice had come.

“Of course it’s me,” answered the voice, “and I’m down here in a hole with poor Hank. I wish you’d fetch the rope and throw one end of it down to me, for it’s mighty slow work cutting these steps, and I could get up by it a good deal quicker. We’ll want it for Hank, anyhow, because he’s hurt and can’t climb.”

The crest of the ridge on which Wolfe was seated--for he had not dared stand up as Breeze had done--was quite narrow, and sloped sharply down the opposite side from that up which he had come. This side was wet and very slippery, for the afternoon sun had been warm enough to melt the surface in places. A few feet below him the slope appeared to end with a short upward incline, beyond which the ice again fell away to the water.

In compliance with his friend’s request, Wolfe hurried back to the dory for the rope, with his heart as full of joyful emotions as a few minutes before it had been of sorrowful ones. He could not yet imagine what had happened to Breeze, nor in what sort of a place he was, and he hardly cared; the mere fact that he was alive was sufficient for the present.

He afterwards learned that the icy slope down the opposite side of the ridge ended abruptly about two feet above the short upward incline that, from his point of view, it had appeared to join; while between the two was a deep, narrow crevice, extending far down towards the heart of the berg. This crevice had originally been filled with snow, and in the angle between the two slopes there had collected, while the iceberg was still a part of some Greenland glacier, a bank of arctic sand. Attracting the heat of what little sunshine fell upon it, this material had gradually melted its way deep into the snow. Then water had flowed into the depression thus made, and moving the sand back and forth, had slowly enlarged the hole until it had finally become a deep crevice, with smooth walls of glare ice and a sandy bottom. No trap could have been better planned, and after waiting perhaps hundreds of years for its victims, it had caught two in one day. It would also have held on to them so long as the iceberg continued to float if Breeze had not happened to hold a hatchet in his hand when he nearly killed poor Hank Hoffer, and frightened as much as he hurt him by suddenly sliding down on top of him. He had done this without giving the slightest warning of his coming, about an hour after Hank had landed at the bottom of the crevice with a sprained ankle and no hope of ever getting out again.

After the first shock was over, and a few words of explanation had been exchanged between the two prisoners, Breeze had set to work to chop a series of footholds up the sides of the crevice, and to gradually make his way towards the top. Wolfe had heard the faint clicking sound of the hatchet, but imagined it to be the beating of small drift-ice against the base of the berg. When in his despair he called out the name of Breeze, the latter had nearly reached the top of the crevice, and was within twenty feet of where his dorymate sat, though still effectually concealed from his view.

When Wolfe again returned to the top of the ridge with the rope, Breeze had worked his way up so that his head could be seen above the edge of the crevice, and the friends gave each other a joyful greeting. After receiving the assurance that the other was not hurt, Wolfe said, “Did you say that Hank Hoffer was down there where you have just come from?”

“Yes, indeed he is, and pretty badly hurt. He is stiff with the cold too, and we must get him out as quick as we can.”

“I don’t see how we are going to do it if he can’t help himself,” said Wolfe. “Yes, I do too,” he added, after a moment’s thought. “But we must work fast, for it will soon be dark, and we don’t want to stay here all night. You just wait two minutes longer.”

With this he again made his way to the dory, took the anchor from the crack into which he had jammed it, thrust the blade of an oar down in its place, and made the dory fast to it. Then he carried the anchor to the top of the ridge, got the hatchet from Breeze by means of the rope which he let down to him, chopped a hole to receive a fluke of the anchor on his own side of the ridge, made the rope fast to it, and again tossed an end of the line to his companion.

First testing the strength of the rope and anchor thoroughly, he slid down to where Breeze was waiting, and the dorymates exchanged as warm a hand-clasp as though they had been separated for months instead of minutes.

All this time poor Hank had been groaning at the bottom of the crevice, and calling upon them to hurry. The rope was fortunately long enough to reach him, and Breeze, again descending to where he lay, knotted the end of it under his arms. While he was doing this Wolfe cut a few footholds on the face of the slope leading to the top of the ridge. Then Breeze came up, and the two athletic young fellows drew the almost helpless form of their shipmate slowly but steadily to where they stood. While Wolfe supported him there Breeze pulled himself, by the aid of the rope, to the top of the ridge, where he took in the slack of the line and fastened it anew to the anchor. Hank being thus secured against sliding back into the crevice, Wolfe left him, and joining Breeze, they together drew the sufferer to the top of the ridge. Slowly and carefully they helped him down the opposite side, and at last had the satisfaction of placing him safely in the bottom of the dory.

It was now quite dark, but they could still note the position of the Vixen by the light of the “flare,” that was kept constantly burning on board for their guidance. They dreaded leaving their comparatively safe position and attempting to force their frail craft through the masses of moving ice that lay between them and the schooner. The thought of spending the night where they were was, however, still worse, and they decided to try and reach her.

As there was enough open water to row in for a while Wolfe took the oars, and Breeze busied himself with the rescued man. He rolled him in the blankets they had brought, rubbed his hands and limbs briskly, and offered him food. Hank declined this, but asked for water, saying that he was dying of thirst.

“Why didn’t you get a drink on the iceberg?” asked Breeze, in surprise. “I’m sure there was plenty of water there; or you might have eaten a bit of ice.” At the same time he got out their little keg of water and handed it to the sufferer.

“I didn’t suppose an iceberg was made of fresh ice,” replied Hank, eagerly seizing the keg and applying his lips to the bung-hole for a long drink. The next instant he dropped it, spat out the mouthful of water he had taken, and sank down in the bottom of the boat with a groan.

“What is the matter?” cried Breeze, picking up the keg. As Hank made no answer, he lifted it to his own lips and tasted of its contents. It was full of salt water.

AND THE TWO ATHLETIC YOUNG FELLOWS DREW THE ALMOST HELPLESS FORM OF THEIR SHIPMATE SLOWLY BUT STEADILY TO WHERE THEY STOOD.

There was no time then for questions or explanations, as the floes on either side of them began closing together so rapidly that the dory was in danger of being crushed between them. The boys sprang from the boat, and managed to drag it out on the ice, just as the drifting masses met with a shock that ground their edges to powder and nearly threw Breeze and Wolfe from their feet.

Then began a struggle similar to that which they had gone through in the morning, only with the danger increased a hundred-fold by the darkness. Now they dragged the dory by main strength over some great cake that lay squarely in their way, then, both in the boat, they used the oars as poles and pushed it along from piece to piece. Occasionally a submerged mass would rise beneath the boat, and it was only by the greatest activity that they prevented it from capsizing. Several times one or the other of them slipped into the icy water; but they always clung to the dory, and managed to pull themselves out.

But for the flare, that continued to blaze brightly from the schooner’s deck, they would have given over the struggle a dozen times. Hank could lend them no assistance, but lay, numbed and stupid, in the bottom of the boat, a dead-weight.

At last, when after a harder struggle than usual, on account of their exhaustion, they had again dragged the dory out on the ice, Breeze threw himself down in it exclaiming, “I’m about done for, Wolfe; and I’m afraid we’ve got to give it up.”

“I feel the same way myself,” said Wolfe, “I can’t pull another pound.”

The frigid breath of the ice-fields, penetrating their soaked garments, chilled them to the marrow, and they shook as with the ague. A short time longer of such exposure would have finished the story of these dorymates, and one more tale of death would have been added to the long list that saddens the history of the Banks fisheries. But their situation was not yet utterly hopeless. One brave spirit of that little group was not yet wholly prepared to yield itself beaten by the terrors that surrounded them.

After remaining a few minutes motionless and silent, Breeze shook off the numbness that was stealing over him, and endeavored to arouse his companions. Wolfe responded readily to his efforts, but it was a difficult matter to rouse Hank Hoffer. When at last he seemed able to understand them, Breeze said,

“We mustn’t give up yet, fellows. The schooner isn’t so very far off, and though we can’t drag the dory any farther, perhaps if we give a shout all together they may hear it on board and do something for us. The wind is blowing that way.”

Breeze remembered his experience in the seine-boat, off the capes of Delaware, and how the combined voices of its crew had saved them on that occasion.

The others were willing to try, and as Breeze gave the word they raised a cry so wild and shrill that they themselves were startled by it. Again and again they shouted until their voices were spent; but no sound came to them in reply. Still they sat shivering in the chill wind, and feeling the awful numbness again creeping over them, but with their eyes fixed upon the schooner’s light, that seemed so near and yet so immeasurably far from them.

All at once Wolfe started up, exclaiming, “There’s another light! see it, Breeze? A little one, between us and the flare. They’re coming for us! They’re coming for us!”

It was a faint wavering light, like that of a lantern, and often, as they watched, it disappeared, but always to appear again. Now it seemed to be going away from them, and again finding their voices, they raised once more the cry for help.

This time they fancied they heard an answer, and a little later were sure of it. Half an hour of alternate fear and hope passed, before, guided by their shouts, the rescuing party of four brave fellows from the schooner reached them. They had made but slow progress, dragging their dory over the broken ice, and not knowing but that each step might plunge them into the water; but never since hearing that first cry for help had they hesitated for a moment, or thought of turning back.

The meeting between the rescued and the rescuers was too joyful for description; but there was no time for words. The new-comers had found an unbroken floe extending from the schooner, which was made fast to the outer edge of it; but there was no certainty that it would remain unbroken from one moment to another, and they could not hasten back too quickly.

New strength came to Breeze and Wolfe with renewed hope, and they were able to aid in dragging the dories back.

In less than half an hour later they were once more safe on board the Vixen, and the whole crew was striving to see who could do the most for their comfort, and show them how fully the brave deed they had accomplished was appreciated.

They now learned that ever since darkness set in, those who came to their rescue had held themselves in readiness to set forth the moment they should find out in what direction to go, and that their very first cries for help were heard and answered.

Breeze and Wolfe were readily thawed out by hot drinks and blankets, so that they soon fell asleep, to awaken in the morning feeling but little the worse for their hardships. With Hank Hoffer the case was different. His hands and feet were frost-bitten, and besides having a badly sprained ankle, he was so prostrated by what he had suffered that he was confined to his bunk for many days, and never wholly recovered from his terrible experience.

He never could tell exactly how he escaped to the iceberg, after his dory had been crushed between it and the drifting cakes by which he was surrounded. He was able, however, to describe in vivid and forcible language his joy at sight of the schooner, his horror at losing his foothold and falling into the deep crevice while trying to signal her, and his fright when Breeze came sliding down on top of him. Towards Breeze and Wolfe his gratitude knew no bounds. He begged them to forgive him for the cruel tricks he had played upon them, and was never afterwards tired of sounding their praises.

In this taste of arctic trials and sufferings the dorymates thought they had met with adventures as strange as any they were likely to encounter. But their trip was by no means ended, and the Banks still held startling experiences in store for them, as they were to discover ere many days had passed.

CHAPTER XIII.
LOST IN THE FOG.

For several days after that on which Hank Hoffer was rescued the wind blew steadily from the south, driving the ice-fields far back towards their northern home, but bringing in their place dense masses of the almost equally dreaded fog. Fog is the ever-present terror of the Banks, and hangs over them so constantly as to cause the remark to be frequently made that in this latitude three hundred and sixty-five days out of the year are foggy. Of course this is an exaggeration; but it is true that hardly a day passes that does not disclose a fog-bank rising above the horizon in one or another direction.

This stealthy enemy is ever lying in wait for the fisherman, and generally surprises him when he is least prepared for its coming. It swoops down and envelops him in its blinding folds when he is out in his dory, and when it again lifts, as though to mock him, he finds himself alone on the vast waters, with no vessel in sight. It steals his gear, and sends his craft drifting aimlessly hither and thither. Above all, it leads swift-rushing steamers to where the fishing schooners lie, and causes the great ships to spring upon them and crush them down beneath iron prows, never to rise again.

The fog is terrible; but whether it comes or whether it goes, the fish must be caught, for wives and children must be fed. So the dories go out from the vessels, and if they never return there are others to take their places. So accustomed does he become to its presence that the fisherman hardly gives the fog a thought, until in his turn it swallows him up, and he disappears forever.

The Vixen was now beset by a fog, sometimes so dense that it settled down upon the water like a pall. Again it would lift, so that her crew were able to set and haul their trawls, with some hope of finding their vessel when the task was finished. It was dull, dispiriting work, and in the midst of it an amusing incident, of which Breeze McCloud was the hero, was hailed with delight by his shipmates.

One night they were lying at anchor. The fog had lifted to such an extent that it was not thought necessary to keep the fog-horn constantly blowing. About midnight Breeze was turned out of his bunk to go on watch. He had hardly reached the deck, and was still rubbing his eyes, when suddenly he caught sight of a dim light. It rose from the mist at about the height of a steamer’s mast-head light, and was apparently bearing directly down upon them amidships. He made one spring for the companion-way and another into the cabin, yelling at the top of his voice,

“Turn out all hands! Steamer close aboard!” and snatching up the fog-horn, he again rushed on deck, blowing it furiously as he went, and followed by the startled crew.

Breeze did not even glance at the dreaded light again, so intent was he upon getting all the sound he could from his fog-horn; but all at once such a roar of laughter burst forth behind him that he dropped the horn and turned indignantly to learn what it meant.

“Blow, sonny, blow!” cried one of the men between his shouts of merriment. “You’ll have to do better than that to make the man in the moon hear you.”

Then poor Breeze realized that what he had mistaken for a steamer’s light was indeed the dim and watery moon struggling to show itself through the upper edge of a fog-bank. There was nothing for him to say or do, except to bear as meekly as possible the jokes of his companions and the bursts of laughter with which they greeted him whenever they met him the next day.

“BLOW, SONNY, BLOW!” CRIED ONE OF THE MEN.

The trawls were set as usual the following evening, for in spite of the fog the work of fishing was continued with considerable regularity, and the next morning dory No. 6 went out with the others in quest of its fare. It was customary in thick weather, while the dories were absent, to keep the fog-horn constantly sounding on board the schooner, so that they might be enabled to find her again.

On this occasion there was such a heavy sea running that unusual care was necessary in the management of the dory, and its crew were frequently obliged to swing her head to it to prevent her from capsizing. After considerable difficulty they discovered their buoy, and began to haul the trawl. In spite of the violent pitching of the boat they were conducting this operation successfully, and had nearly completed their task when, unnoticed by them, as their backs were turned to it, a larger wave than usual came rushing towards them.

It seemed to spring at the deeply laden dory, and lifted it so suddenly that Wolfe, who was leaning over the gunwale, was pitched head-foremost into the water. At the same instant Breeze, who had been standing up, was thrown violently backward against the opposite side of the boat, which was probably all that saved it from upsetting. As it was, she shipped a quantity of water, and this, in addition to the load of fish, sank her far below the limit of safety.

Her head, which had only been held to the wind by the trawl, now swung off, and as Wolfe rose to the surface and clutched the stern becket she had turned completely around, and was beginning to drift.

Quickly recovering himself, Breeze went to his companion’s assistance, and was endeavoring to help him into the boat, when Wolfe gave a sharp cry of pain, exclaiming,

“I’m caught in the trawl! One of the hooks is in my leg! It’s dragging me down! Oh, Breeze, help me!”

For an instant Breeze was horror-stricken; but his quick wit enabled him to understand the situation at once, and also suggested a remedy for it. Wolfe now formed the connecting link between the dory and the trawl, which alone prevented it from drifting off before the wind. The strain on his arms was so great, and the pain from the hook in his leg was so intense, that he could not keep his hold on the becket more than a minute longer. When he should once let go he would instantly be dragged down beneath the dark waters.

While these thoughts were flashing through his mind Breeze had picked up the buoy-line, cut it free from its keg, and passing the end under Wolfe’s arms and around his body, had made it fast to the after-thwart. He thus effectually fastened his companion to the dory, and relieved, in a measure, the strain on his arms.

He next threw off his oil suit, his heavy outer clothes, and his boots. Then, standing erect, with his sharp sheath-knife held between his teeth, he sprang overboard and disappeared, head-foremost, beneath the water, much as his dorymate had done a few minutes before. In another moment the trawl-line holding Wolfe was cut, and the terrible strain upon his leg was instantly relieved.

If Breeze had not been the splendid swimmer that he was, and brought up from his earliest boyhood to feel almost as much at home in the water as on land, he could not possibly have accomplished this feat. Neither would he have been able to regain the dory, which, taking a send of the sea, was at some distance from him when he again rose to the surface. He only reached it after a hard swim, and was breathless with his exertions by the time he had managed to clamber in over the bow.

His first act was to lighten it, and cause it to ride more buoyantly, by tossing overboard a quantity of the fish with which it was laden. Then he helped Wolfe into the boat; and though the poor fellow’s face was white with the pain he was suffering, he gave no expression to it, but at once began to bail out the water that still caused them great anxiety.

While he was thus employed Breeze was hard at work with the oars, pulling in what he supposed was the direction of the schooner, and keeping a sharp lookout for any waves of unusual size.

At last, when Wolfe had nearly finished bailing, he paused for a moment in his task and said, “Breeze, it was splendid! I don’t believe there was ever a finer thing done on the Banks.”

“Oh, pooh!” replied the other. “What would be the use of learning how to dive and swim under water if you couldn’t do it when it was necessary?”

“Yes, I know; it’s well enough to talk about doing such things within reach of shore, but out here in the middle of the ocean, with a sea like that running, makes it a very different matter. I say it was splendid!”

“Wolfe, if you knew how like a coward it makes me feel now to think of it, you wouldn’t speak of it again. I thank God that he put it into my heart, and gave me the strength to do what I did. Above all, I thank him that you are now with me in this boat, instead of at the bottom of the sea; but I don’t want to talk about it.”

“And I say ‘Amen’ to your thankfulness with all my heart,” replied Wolfe.

“By-the-way,” said Breeze, anxious to change the subject, “do you hear anything of the horn?”

“No, I do not, and I don’t think I have heard it since we were hauling the trawl,” exclaimed Wolfe, with a startled air, while an anxious expression swept over his face. “Let’s listen a minute.”

Breeze stopped rowing, and they listened until he was again obliged to use the oars to head the dory towards another big sea that he saw approaching; but they heard no sound, save the moan of the wind and the rushing of the waters on all sides of them.

It came upon them both like a shock, the terrible thought that they were lost on that wild sea, and in a fog so dense that they could not see fifty feet in any direction. Each saw by the other’s face what he was thinking, but neither of them had the heart to put the thought into words.

“I don’t suppose," said Breeze, at length breaking the silence, “that there’s any use in rowing so long as we don’t know in which direction the schooner lies."

“No,” replied Wolfe, “I don’t suppose there is. We[We] had better make a drogue and get it overboard, to hold her to the wind and keep her from drifting as much as possible. Then we’ll fix ourselves as comfortable as we can, until the fog lifts and we can catch sight of the schooner again.”

Neither of them would admit in words that they did not expect the fog to lift shortly, and that the schooner would still be in sight when this happened. They both knew, however, that it might enshroud them for days, and that they had but a slight chance of ever seeing the Vixen again.

They made a “drogue,” or drag, by fastening an end of the buoy rope to the bow of the dory, and the other to a couple of their trawl tubs, which they then dropped overboard with the trawl anchor attached, to serve as a weight. The tubs filled and sank until their upper edges were on a level with the surface of the water. In this position they acted as a floating anchor to the dory, which tailed off from them at once and rode head on to the wind and sea.

“Stow the oars snugly,” said Wolfe; “we must not lose them whatever happens. Then, I suppose we might as well toss the rest of these fish overboard, though it seems a pity, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, and I’m afraid we’ll be sorry for it when we get back to the schooner; but here goes,” and Breeze began to toss the fish overboard vigorously.

When this job was finished, and the dory rode the seas much more easily than she had done, Wolfe said,

“Now that you’ve made things snug and ship-shape, old man, will you help me a bit with this beastly hook? It’s hurting me more than a little.”

“Oh!” cried Breeze in a tone of pitying remorse. “Why didn’t you speak of it sooner? It was awful to leave it in there all this time.”

“Had too much else on hand. It couldn’t get away, and I knew we’d find it right there whenever we got ready to attend to it,” said Wolfe, with an attempt to relieve the anxiety of his friend by making light of his own sufferings.

Each of these two brave young spirits was intent upon presenting a cheerful front to the other, while hiding its own anxiety and forebodings, but neither of them was for a moment deceived as to the nature of their situation.

As carefully as possible, Breeze first cut away the small portion of line that still remained attached to the shank of the hook. Then, after cutting little slits in them and clearing them from it, he drew off Wolfe’s wet lower garments. The hook was fastened into the calf of the right leg, and had torn the flesh cruelly. Now, while Breeze could, if necessary, bear any amount of pain himself, it made him faint to inflict it in cold blood upon others. So, when Wolfe said, “It looks as if you’d have to cut the beggar out, old man,” he replied, “I can’t do it, Wolfe! I haven’t the nerve.”

“Then I must,” answered his companion; and without a moment’s hesitation he reached down, and with one powerful wrench tore the hook from his leg and flung it overboard. “That’s a good job quickly done,” he said, laughing at the other’s pale face. “Now if I only had something to bind it up with!”

For a moment they could think of nothing suitable, for all their garments were woollen. Then Breeze remembered his silken neck-handkerchief, and hastily pulled it off. As he did so it caught on the slender chain that he always wore clasped about his neck according to the promise he had given his mother, and the golden ball attached to it was brought into view.

Wolfe had never before seen it, and as he tightly bandaged his wounded leg he asked Breeze what it was, and why he wore it. In answer Breeze told him all that he knew concerning the ball, not forgetting the encounter with the New York jeweller who had opened it and then closed it again without allowing him to look at its contents.

Wolfe was greatly interested in all this, and examined the locket closely, in the hope of discovering its secret fastening, but without success. For some time they occupied their minds, and kept themselves from thinking of their unhappy situation, by speculating as to what it contained. They wondered who had first clasped the chain around the boy’s baby neck, and Wolfe declared that Breeze was undoubtedly a lost prince, who would some day come into his kingdom. He begged him not to forget his old dorymate when that happy event occurred.

The word “dorymate” recalled them to their present surroundings, and looking up, Wolfe said, “Well, there doesn’t seem to be any prospect of the fog’s lifting yet a while. I wish it would, though, in time to let us get back to the schooner for dinner, for I’m awfully hungry. Speaking of dinner, have we got a bite of anything to eat besides the raw fish we threw overboard?”

At another time Breeze would have laughed heartily at this Irish bull, but now he only answered by going to the dory’s little stern locker and drawing from it his oil-cloth provision-bag. A glance at its contents assured him that they were all right, and he exclaimed, joyfully,

“Here are two dozen large biscuit, and they’ve kept dry!”

“How about water?”

“I looked after that this morning, and the keg’s full of fresh water.”

“Then,” said Wolfe, “we’ve every reason to feel very grateful that we’re so well off; and if we only had a compass we would head for the coast of Newfoundland, and row to it, too, barring bad weather and accidents, before our provisions gave out.”

“Yes,” said Breeze, “we’ve certainly got provisions enough to do it with, for if each of us eats one biscuit a day, they will last us twelve days.”

“Couldn’t we take two a day, and make it six days?” suggested Wolfe.

“How would you like to eat three a day, one each for breakfast, dinner, and supper, and call it a four days’ supply?” asked Breeze.

“Faith! I believe I could eat a dozen of them now, and then wish for the rest without trying, I’m so hungry. But say, Breeze, how long would they last us if we took three apiece the first day, two the second, one the third, and then began and did it all over again?”

Thus talking, and in slowly eating two of their precious biscuit, they managed to pass several hours, at the end of which they were gladdened by a ray of sunlight. The fog was lifting. Starting up, they eagerly scanned their widening horizon, which now extended for some miles on all sides of them. To their bitter disappointment, they could see no sign that any other human beings had ever floated on that dreary waste of waters.

Shortly before sunset the fog settled down again, thicker than ever; and lying down in the bottom of their boat, the dorymates very nearly abandoned themselves to despair. Finally, huddling as closely together as possible, for the sake of what warmth they could thus obtain, they both fell asleep.

In his sleep Breeze dreamed that he was sailing a boat into Gloucester harbor, but that instead of looking out for the familiar landmarks, he was steering her by compass. He dreamed this same thing over and over, until at last he awoke with it strongly impressed upon his mind.

It was night, and intensely dark, while the wind moaned mournfully above the dashing waters. Breeze had no idea of the time, nor how long it would be before daylight. While he was wondering about this he became conscious, to his great surprise, that in his hand he held the golden chain and locket that had been about his neck. His surprise was, moreover, quickly changed to amazement when he felt that the ball was open.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN BALL.

It seemed to Breeze as though daylight never would come, as he lay there holding the open locket in his hand and wondering about it. How had it come open? and what did it contain? He was adrift in a fog, far out at sea, in a frail open boat. He was wet, cold, and hungry. His situation was about as uncomfortable as can well be imagined; but all this was lost sight of and forgotten in the thoughts aroused by that golden ball, which during his sleep he must have taken from his neck, and which had so unaccountably been opened. It was the visible evidence of the great mystery of his life, that he so longed to solve, and in his curiosity he wished for the daylight only that he might see what it contained. He hoped Wolfe would wake up, that he might talk of all this with him; but he would not disturb him, and after a while he, too, fell asleep again.

When Breeze next awoke it was early morning, and daylight was sifting faintly through the fog. Wolfe had been aroused some time before by the pain of his leg. He had just finished attending to the wound as well as he was able, and was replacing the bandage.

The moment he noticed that Breeze had opened his eyes, he exclaimed, “Good-morning, dorymate! We seem to be in luck, as usual.”

“How?” asked Breeze, wonderingly.

“How! Why, don’t you notice that the wind has gone down and the sea is getting smooth? We have had a pretty comfortable night, and I shouldn’t wonder if the sun drove away this beastly fog before long, and shone out warm and pleasant. Then we must surely sight something, out of all the vessels that are cruising on the Banks.”

“That’s so!” said Breeze, quite cheered by this hopeful view of the situation. Then, bethinking himself of the wonderful event of the preceding night, and anxious to add his bit of pleasant intelligence, he continued, “And best of all, Wolfe, the ball is open.”

“The what?” asked Wolfe, greatly puzzled for the moment to know what his companion meant.

“The ball! The golden ball that I wear around my neck, and that we were looking at yesterday.”

“You don’t mean it!” exclaimed the other, now greatly interested. “How did you get it open? What’s in it? Where is it?”

“I don’t know how I got it open, and I don’t know what is in it because it was too dark to see; but here it is.”

With this Breeze withdrew the locket from the bosom of his flannel shirt, into which he had instinctively thrust it for safe-keeping when he found himself dropping off to sleep, and they both bent over it eagerly.

One half had swung back from the other on a pivot, by which the two sections were still held together. After a single glance at it, Wolfe gave a shout.

“A compass, by all that’s wonderful!” he cried. “The very thing we’ve been wanting, above all others! Well, old man, any one who says we are not in luck now doesn’t know what he’s talking about, that’s all!”

One side did indeed hold a small but perfect compass, the daintiest that was ever seen. Its freely moving card was a thin plate of gold upon which were enamelled the four cardinal points and a coat of arms. The latter consisted of a blue shield with a diamond, cut in the form of a star, upon which the card was pivoted, in its centre. On the shield, above the star, and in the lower corners were three devices, which Breeze thought might be pyramids, and which Wolfe called volcanoes. Above the shield was a closed helmet, and beneath it, in letters of gold, the motto, “Point True.”

As Wolfe repeated this over to himself, his face wore a puzzled look. “‘Point True,’” he said aloud; “I have certainly heard that before, and I wonder where?” Finally he satisfied himself that he must have read it in some book, and gave the matter no further thought.

In the other half of the ball was a second golden plate on which was enamelled the same coat of arms, with the only difference that the central star in this case was formed of a pearl. A spring, which they did not discover for some time, slipped this plate aside, and in the cavity beneath it the boys saw three tiny locks of hair, of which one had evidently been cut from the head of an infant. On the under side of the plate was engraved “Merab to Tristram,” and Ruth’s answer to Naomi, “Whither thou goest, I will go.”

Breeze could not help feeling somewhat disappointed when he found that this was all. Although the ball had yielded up its secret, it had in reality told him nothing. It had merely given a new direction to his curiosity. Who were Merab and Tristram? To whom had the locks of hair belonged? The only satisfactory features of its revelation were the coat of arms and the compass. The former might at some future time be located, while the latter could be immediately used.

This thought had also come to Wolfe, who had rejoiced at the very first sight of the little vibrating card, and who now said,

“Let’s have breakfast right off, Breeze, and then start for Nova Scotia. I’ve been thinking the situation over, and though I believe we are somewhat farther away from Nova Scotia than we are from Newfoundland, we’ll stand a better chance of falling in with some sort of a vessel by steering west than if we headed to the north. So what do you say to laying a course due west, and sticking to it, taking turns at the oars all day?”

“I don’t care much which way we go,” answered Breeze; “but I think it will be much better for us to row than to lie still, because it will at any rate occupy our time and keep us warm.”

“All right, then, west it is; and I wish the cook would hurry up breakfast so that we could make a start. I’m not only awfully hungry, but I’m in a great hurry to get to Nova Scotia.”

The cheerfulness and flow of spirits by which this Irish lad managed to sustain both his own and his dorymate’s courage were wonderful. They never flagged, and from the first to the last of that memorable voyage his constant effort was to make the best of everything, and turn every trifling circumstance to account for the purpose of provoking a smile or inspiring fresh hope.

The two biscuit which, washed down with a swallow of water from the little keg, formed their breakfast, were quickly eaten. Then the drag to which they had been lying was taken aboard, and seizing a pair of oars, Wolfe, who had insisted upon keeping first watch, as he called it, began pulling vigorously in the direction indicated by Breeze. The latter made himself as comfortable as possible in the stern of the dory, with his gaze fixed upon the small compass that he held in his hand.

In addition to his own inclination to look upon the bright side of things, Breeze was happily influenced by his companion’s cheerful view of their situation, and now he said, “So long as we have lost the Vixen and found a compass, what a comfort the fog is!”

“Is it!” asked Wolfe, in surprise. “Well, I must confess I had not quite taken that view of it. How do you make it out?”

“Because it keeps us all the time hoping for something to turn up. It would be awfully discouraging to be able to see for miles, with nothing but water to look at. Now we may come upon some vessel at any minute.”

“That’s so. The skipper was telling the other night of some fellows who were out four days in a fog without food or water, and who had just given up in despair, when their dory was nearly capsized by drifting afoul of the cable of an anchored schooner.”

“I remember a story my father used to tell,” said Breeze, “about two men who were lost in a fog on this very Bank. They had been out only about an hour when the fog lifted, and they saw the flare their mates were burning for them. They rowed for it as hard as they could pull, but the schooner was under way, and kept just about the same distance ahead of them all night. The next day they could still see her, with her flag at half-mast for them; but they couldn’t get near enough for those on board to see them. After they lost sight of her they were out two days longer, both of them bright and clear. During that time they sighted and chased five more vessels. Then the fog shut down again, and an hour afterwards they were nearly run down by the schooner that picked them up. Now, if they’d been in the fog all the time they would have taken things a great deal more easy, and probably got picked up just as quick.”

“Yes,” admitted Wolfe, “that all may be very true; but I’m afraid there’s another side to it. Hark! didn’t you hear a whistle?” he exclaimed, resting on his oars to listen.

The next moment it came to them plainly, the hoarse warning whistle of some great steamer. At first they could not locate the sound; but as they heard it again, and this time much nearer, they fixed it as coming from the direction in which they were heading, and knew that it proceeded from some transatlantic liner, bound eastward. Then they became filled with a fever of apprehension, of mingled hopes and fears. What if she should run them down? What if she should pick them up? What if she should pass without seeing or hearing them? These were the questions they asked each other over and over again during the few minutes that elapsed before the vast, formless object rushed by them still concealed by the fog, but so near that they could hear voices from her decks. They had not been seen, nor were their frantic shouts heeded, if they had been heard.

In deep, dejected silence they sat motionless, listening to the sound of the whistle until it was lost in the distance. Then Wolfe said, “That’s the other side to it.”

“Yes,” replied Breeze, “and it’s a pretty dark side to have to look at too. If the fog had only lifted, ever so little, even for one minute, we might be on board that steamer safe and comfortable now, on our way to--I don’t knew where and I shouldn’t have cared. At any rate, we wouldn’t be here, lost, starved, and drifting through a fog-bank.” The boy’s tone was very bitter, and it showed the heaviness of his heart.

“Take a biscuit, old man,” said Wolfe, sympathetically, “it’ll cheer you up.”

For a moment Breeze tried to look angry, at what he considered an ill-timed levity on the part of his companion; but the expression of the other’s face changed his mood, and he laughed in spite of his unhappiness.

“That’s right!” exclaimed Wolfe. “Laughing’s a sight more becoming to you than crying, and whenever you ‘Point True’ to yourself, it’s plenty of the first and little of the last you’ll be indulging in.”

“But it is hard to bear such a disappointment. Just think how near she came to us!”

“Faith! It might have gone harder with us if she’d come nearer. For my part I’m just thankful she didn’t run us down entirely. Those same steamers are the terrors of the Banks. I mind well the last trip I was here in the old Walpus. We were lying to an anchor in a fog every bit as thick as this, and minding our own business, when one of them came rushing down on us. They paid no attention to our shouting, or to our horn, and turned neither to port nor starboard; but just came on tooting their old whistle for all other folks to get out of their way. Well, sir, we were all in the act of piling over the stern into the dories when she drove past within a handshake of the end of our jib-boom, and we could see the scared faces of the people on her deck looking down at us. She was that close that the patent log towing behind her caught on our cable and parted its line. We hauled it in the next day when we hove up our anchor. No, sir! none of your steamers for me! They’re too careless and overbearing-like, and I say we’ve just had a mighty lucky escape, and should be thankful for it. Come, now, stand your watch like a good fellow, and pull for Nova Scotia, or for some decent, easy-going sailing-vessel that’ll pick us up.”

So Breeze took a spell at the oars, and thus rowing by turn, and telling each other yarns of their own experience, or repeating what they had learned from others to divert their thoughts, they passed the second day in the dory.

The fog had not lifted for a single moment since morning, and when darkness again shut down upon them it still infolded them in its clammy embrace. Although the night was calm, they tossed their drag overboard lest a wind should rise while they slept. Then, after eating their scanty supper of a single biscuit each, they lay down, hugging each other closely for warmth, and prepared to pass the night in such comfort as their circumstances would permit.

Before they dropped asleep Breeze heard Wolfe say, as though talking to himself, “We must have made something over fifty miles to-day, and at the same rate we’ll soon reach the Nova Scotia coast now.”

Breeze smiled at this too evident attempt to cheer him; for he knew, as well as Wolfe, that they had not made more than twenty or twenty-five miles at the most, and that the coast towards which they were heading was still several hundred miles from them. Three more days would finish their biscuit at the rate they had been eating them, and even now he was so hungry that he felt they might as well starve at once as to try and economize them any longer. Their fresh water was already half gone, and altogether their prospect was a very gloomy one.

The night passed uneventfully, but before daylight Wolfe was awakened by an exclamation of dismay from his companion. “What is the trouble?” he inquired, sitting up stiffly.

“The ball is closed,” answered Breeze.

“Closed?”

“Yes; it must have got pushed together somehow while I was asleep, and I can’t get it open again.”

“And a good job, too,” said Wolfe. “Now we’ll have no excuse for rowing this day, and I’m glad; for my back’s broke thinking of it.”

“But don’t you want to get to Nova Scotia?”

“Indeed, I do not! An out-of-the-way place like that? I’d prefer to be picked up where we are by some craft that’ll take us into New York, or Boston, or maybe Gloucester itself.”

An hour later the sun rose, and under its cheerful influence the last trace of fog disappeared, and a perfect spring morning broke over the sparkling waters of the Grand Bank. It was just such a morning as would cause the New England birds to break forth in an ecstasy of song, and Breeze almost expected to hear them as he sat up in the dory and looked around.

His ears were not greeted by the songs of birds, but his eyes were gladdened by a sight so welcome that his first joyful exclamation was choked by his emotion.

Wolfe sprang up in alarm at the sound, only to see his friend pointing with trembling finger to the southward. There, not more than half a mile from them, he saw a square-rigged, deeply laden vessel, rising and falling gracefully on the long swells.

The next moment Breeze had cut the line that held them to their drag with a blow from his sheath-knife, and, under the impulse of two pairs of oars, dory No. 6 was surging over the calm waters as it had never before been driven in all its storm-tossed career.

The dorymates spoke no word to each other, nor looked around, until they paused, breathless and panting, close beside the vessel. Although there was not a breath of wind, they had feared that somehow she might sail away and leave them. Now that there was no danger of that, they sat in their boat and gazed at her curiously. Her bottom was covered with sea-grass and barnacles, and she was weather-beaten to the last degree, though her spars were all in place and she still looked stanch and seaworthy. Not a human being was to be seen on board of her, nor did their hail receive any answer.

The strangest feature of the brigantine, for such she was, lay in her sails and rigging. Instead of showing a cloud of light canvas, as would naturally be expected in such weather, she was under a double-reefed main-sail, single-reefed fore-topsail, and fore-staysail only. Her fore-course was clewed up but not stowed, and the royal was furled; but the topgallant-sail seemed to have been blown away, judging from the few streamers of tattered canvas that still hung from the yard. Her running rigging was either hanging at loose ends, or tangled in the greatest confusion. To crown all, a ragged American ensign drooped at half-mast, and union down, from her main-peak.

NOT A HUMAN BEING WAS TO BE SEEN ON BOARD OF HER, NOR DID THEIR HAIL RECEIVE ANY ANSWER.

The boys pulled entirely around the vessel several times, wondering at her condition, but still unable by their shouts to attract the attention of her crew. On her stern they read her name, Esmeralda, of Baltimore.

Finally Breeze spied a rope hanging over her side near the fore-chains, and proposed that they board her by it. Having tested it and found it strong enough for their purpose, they went up hand over hand. Breeze was the first to clamber over the bulwarks and gain her deck. It was absolutely deserted, and he walked aft while Wolfe was making the dory fast.

There was something mysterious and awful about this apparently deserted brig that caused Breeze to shiver and gaze about him apprehensively. He walked as far aft as the quarter-deck, and as he gained it a gaunt, pale-faced man came slowly up the companion-way leading down into the cabin, and stood looking at him. Breeze, too, stared for a moment, and then sprang towards the trembling figure.

CHAPTER XV.
A WONDERFUL MEETING.

As Breeze came towards him, the white-faced man in the companion-way, who was so weak and emaciated that he seemed to have just arisen from a sick-bed, tried feebly to wave him back. The effort was made in vain; for the next moment the boy had sprung to where he was standing, thrown his arms about his neck, and, half laughing, half crying in his excitement, was exclaiming,

“Father! oh, father! We knew you weren’t dead. We knew you’d come back to us--mother and I did!”

“Gently, lad, gently. I’m not quite steady on my pins yet, and if you don’t have a care you’ll pitch me down the steps,” answered Captain McCloud, trying to speak calmly and to quiet the excited boy. But tears stood in his eyes, and directly his weakness had mastered him. He cried out, brokenly,

“God bless you, Breeze! God bless you, my boy! I’d thought never to see you again, and in my heart I’d bidden you good-by, mother and you. But I wasn’t reconciled to it. I couldn’t die without seeing you. You’d not ask it, lad. You’ll not leave me again to the fever, will you?”

Then, overcome by his emotion, the man who had been so strong, but who was now so weak and wellnigh helpless, bowed his head and sobbed like a child.

This pitiful sight, and the piteous appeal just made to him, almost unnerved Breeze, but he controlled himself by a strong effort, and led his father to a seat, at the same time speaking soothing and loving words to him.

“No, father,” he said, “of course I’ll not leave you. I’ve come to stay with you, and take care of you, and carry you into port, where mother is waiting for us. Only you must hurry and get well, for it would never do to go back to her sick and looking like this, you know. It would frighten her to see you so.”

Just then, walking stiffly on account of his wounded leg, Wolfe came aft in search of Breeze, and was filled with amazement at what he saw. For once his ready tongue failed him, and he stood staring at the little group in silence. He wondered what could have affected them so deeply, and if they had ever met before, or whether he were not witnessing the effects of a mild species of insanity, as exhibited by the stranger.

“At any rate,” he said to himself, “I’ll not interfere with them, for Breeze seems to have a quieting way with the old gentleman, and maybe hearing another strange voice might send him off again.”

All at once his attention was attracted by the sudden appearance of the most uncouth and altogether peculiar human face he had ever seen. The head to which it belonged had just been lifted cautiously above the cabin companion-way, and the great eyes, which seemed to Wolfe to be wholly white, were rolling wildly at the sight of the strangers. The face was the color of black ashes, the flat nose expanded into a pair of enormous nostrils, while the lips were of unusual thickness, even for a full-blooded negro. This strange face was set off, and in a manner overshadowed, by a pair of most remarkable ears. Not only were they large, but they projected almost at right angles from the head, which gave them the appearance of always being pricked forward with an air of extreme attention or curiosity. Above and in front of these the head was covered with a thick growth of kinky hair, which had been for so long brushed, pulled, or otherwise trained forward that it surrounded the face like a sort of a furry hood. On account of it some wag in the far-away country from which this odd-looking individual came had called him “Nimbus,” and this name had clung to him ever since. He was so short as to be almost a dwarf, but his body was thick-set, and powerful enough to belong to a giant. The length of his arms was extraordinary, and so was the size of his feet, but his legs were so ridiculously short that he waddled rather than walked. He was as strong as two ordinary strong men, and at the same time he was tender-hearted, obliging, good-natured, a fair sailor, and a capital cook. He was a Guinea negro, from the west coast of Africa, but had passed the greater part of his life in the galleys of sailing-vessels, and had thus visited most of the principal ports of the world. He was fond of occasionally returning to his own country, which he managed to do about once in every two or three years. Such was the individual who now appeared at the top of the companion-ladder, and exclaimed,

"T’ank de good Lord, gemmen, you’s come at las’! Me an’ de cap’n, we’se been habin’ a mons’rous hard time, an’ we’se mos’ gib up. You mus’ scuse me, gemmen, fur not bein’ on de deck to receib you proper an’ ship-shape, but I ain’t had no sleep fur more’n a week, an’ I jus’ takin’ a nap. You see, fus’ de port watch on deck all night, den de cook he busy waitin’ on de cap’n all night, den de starbor’ watch he up all night, den de fus’ ossifer, den de secon’ ossifer, dey don’ get no sleep all night, an’ I is all ob um. Yes, sah, ole Nim he ebberyt’ing but cap’n ob de Esmeral now. De res’ all dead an’ go oberboard. De feber catch um. Sometime one, sometime two, t’ree togedder. De las’ one, he de fus’ mate, die more’n t’ree day. De cap’n here, he mos’ die, but ole Nim pull um troo; couldn’ be lef’ alone nohow. Where[Where] you’ ship, eh?"

As he asked this question Nimbus looked around with a perplexed air, in search of the vessel from which he supposed these strangers must have come.

Wolfe was delighted with this odd character, and now glad of a chance to use his tongue, he told their story as briefly as possible, and ended by saying that they were awfully hungry.

Nothing pleased Nimbus more than a chance to cook for strangers; and, with a broad grin on his hooded face, he waddled away towards the galley, saying,

“Dreckly, gemmen! dreckly ole Nim get you mons’rous fine breakfus.”

In the mean time Captain McCloud had recovered his composure, and now, to Wolfe’s amazement, Breeze introduced him as his father. At the same time he said, “Wolfe Brady is my dorymate, father, and next to you and mother, my dearest friend. We haven’t known each other very long, but what we’ve been through with has made us pretty well acquainted.”

“ME AN’ DE CAP’N, WE’S BEEN HABIN’ A MONS’ROUS HARD TIME.”

“Yes, sir,” said Wolfe, “we met only about three weeks ago, but in that time your adopted son has twice saved my life at the risk of his own, and we have been in some rather tight places together. I don’t mind saying, now that it is all over with and we are standing on a good solid deck once more, that drifting around in that dory, through the fog of the last two days, was about the meanest fix of them all, and I hadn’t much hope that we were going to get out of it either. I’d go through with all its suffering and anxiety again, though, for the sake of being present at such a wonderful meeting as this. I never heard of anything like it.”

“It is truly a wonderful meeting,” replied Captain McCloud, “and there have got to be a great many explanations made before we shall understand how it was all brought about. Certainly we have been guided in marvellous ways. You said your mother was well, Breeze?”

“Yes, sir, quite well,” answered Breeze, “and looking for you to come in at any time.”

“So she hasn’t given me up yet! Bless the little woman! Well, there’s a chance of getting there now. I didn’t think there was any hope of it three days ago, when the mate died, and left Nimbus and me alone on the old brig, and I too weak to lift a rope’s end.”

“Do you mean to say, father,” exclaimed Breeze, who had not comprehended the true state of affairs before this, “that you two are the only ones left aboard?”

“Yes,” replied the captain, sadly, “we have buried all the rest, and are the only survivors of a crew of twelve souls.”

“That’s the reason, then, you’re under such short sail.”

“Yes, she was got under this canvas in a blow, two weeks ago, while the mate and two others of the crew were alive, and still able to work. Since then there has not been force enough on board to do anything with them. Nimbus is as strong as an ox, and he can manage the head-sails alone. I believe he got the course clewed up too; but the poor fellow has had a hard time trying to steer, cook, wait on me, keep a lookout, set the lights, ring the fog-bell, bury the dead, and in fact do all the work of twelve men. He fell asleep last night on the cabin floor, utterly exhausted. This morning I was going to try and shift for myself, and let him have his sleep out. I was about to look for something to eat when you came aboard. I’m feeling hungry for the first time in weeks.”

“Faith, sir!” cried Wolfe, “it must be catching. I’m so hungry myself that if starving’s any worse it would take a wiser man than I am to point out the difference. And to think, Breeze, of the elegant biscuit we left behind in the dory! If we’d only eaten them yesterday, and had the comfort of them! Never mind, we’ll have them up after a while for a dessert, like, for of all the sea-biscuit ever I tasted those have the finest flavor. But here comes breakfast now, praised be the cook!”

Nimbus was going to carry the breakfast down into the cabin, but Captain McCloud said they had better eat on deck, on account of the fever that had been in the cabin. “I tried to warn you, Breeze, against coming too close to me when I first saw you,” he added, “but you didn’t seem to pay any attention.”

“As if I could have, father, when I was so surprised and so happy!” replied Breeze, reproachfully.

Never had a meal tasted better, or been more thoroughly enjoyed by the dorymates than this one, and it seemed as though they could not stop eating. Even Captain McCloud developed a wonderful appetite for a sick man. He ate so heartily that Nimbus, who waddled around them, his face beaming with pleasure, as he brought them this thing or that, began to grow somewhat anxious and exclaimed,

“Take care, cap’n; you’ ’tomach’s powerful weak yet, an’ you mus’n’t s’prise um too much!”

“Which are you now, Nimbus, doctor or cook?” asked Captain McCloud, smiling at the faithful fellow’s anxiety.

“I’se bofe, cap’n. De ship’s doctor and de ship’s cook am de same. P’r’aps de cook tell you eat, an’ de doctor tell you not eat. You min’ um bofe, den you all right. You min’ de cook, you eat too much. Berry bad! You min’ de doctor, you eat too little. Berry bad too! You min’ ole Nim, you all right. Berry good!”

Wolfe was immensely amused at all this, and the negro’s comical appearance, together with his earnest manner, caused the young Irishman to roar with laughter. He declared that Nimbus had more sense in his woolly head than half the white folks he knew, and that if he were as good a doctor as he was a cook, he ought to be a member of the Royal College of Surgeons.

“Don’ know nuffin ’bout no surgins, sah,” replied Nimbus, showing the ivory of his teeth in a broad grin, and highly flattered by this praise; “but if de young gemman’s ready for anodder cup ob coffee, I’se got um a-bilin’ in de camboose.”[^[G]]

“Will I have another cup of coffee? Of course I will! It’s the best I ever tasted. I tell you what, Breeze, there’s nothing like drifting around a few days without anything to eat to make a fellow appreciate a meal like this.”

“We had the sea-biscuit,” said Breeze.

“Yes, sea-biscuit! But what did they amount to? Dry, tasteless things! I’d almost as soon eat so many chips,” exclaimed Wolfe, in a scornful tone, as he finished the last mouthful of a hot buttered roll.

“Then you are not going to have them up for a sort of a dessert?”

“Dessert! I should say not. I hope I’ll never have to see one, much less eat one again. They would always remind me of drifting through a fog-bank in an open dory.”

All of which goes to show how very differently a hungry man and a well-fed man may view the same object.

The sea still remained unruffled by a breath, and after breakfast Captain McCloud said, “So long as there’s nothing we can do until we get some wind, we’ve a chance for a yarn. If you’d like to hear about it I’ll tell you how I happen to be aboard this brig, and how she got into the sad condition you see her in now.”

As both Breeze and Wolfe expressed the strongest desire to hear the captain’s story, he related it to them as follows:

“You remember, Breeze, when I left home in the old Sea Robin last October for the Banks I said that if all went well I’d be back in time for Christmas?”

“Yes, sir, I remember.”

“Well, we made a fair trip, but did not fill up as fast as I had hoped we would, so that it got to be pretty near Christmas-day before we saw our way clear to picking up our anchor and heading for Gloucester. By-the-way, have any of the Robin’s crew ever turned up?”

“No, sir; not one of them. You were reported as seen on the 15th of December, but since then not a word has come from you until this day.”

"Poor fellows! they’re long since gone, then. Well, as I was saying, we were all ready to start for home the day before Christmas, when there came on such a gale of wind as I’ve rarely seen in these latitudes. By night it was a hurricane, and such a sea was running that it seemed as though each wave must swallow the schooner as it came rushing-down on her. We were hove-to under a three-reefed foresail, and the riding-sail with a bag-reef tied in it. About nine o’clock in the evening, I’d been on deck so long, and was so drenched and chilled, that I stepped into the forecastle to get a cup of coffee. There was one other man there, poor Dick Simonds--you remember him, Breeze--and the cook. The rest were either on deck or in the cabin.

"I had just braced myself between the foremast and the edge of a bunk, and was reaching for the coffee, when the vessel seemed to give a great leap in the air. When she dropped it was on her beam ends, and I could feel her settling down. The cook got out someway, how I don’t know; but Dick was met by the water pouring in the companion-way. He pulled the slide to keep it out, thinking she’d right in a minute if she didn’t fill first.

"At the first shock I was so braced that, lying on my back as I was, I couldn’t move, and when I did get right side up, there we were, Dick and I, shut up like two rats in a trap, and the schooner was bottom side up.

"Dick stood it as long as he could, which I suppose was some time the next day. By then it had got so quiet overhead that we judged the storm had gone down. At the same time we knew our air must be escaping, for we could feel the water slowly but surely rising in the forecastle. The rats were becoming troublesome, too, and swarming over us. Though we couldn’t see them, we managed to catch and drown quite a number of them.

"At last Dick said he couldn’t die but once anyhow, and that he was going to make a try for one more breath of fresh air and one more sight of God’s blessed daylight. He succeeded in smashing off the companion-way slide, and a faint light came in through the water, so we knew it was day. I didn’t remember till afterwards that it was Christmas-day, and I’m glad I didn’t.

"Dick’s plan was to dive through the opening with the hope that he’d clear the rigging and sails underneath it some way or another. I tried to dissuade him from trying it, and pointed out how slim his chance was; but he was bound to go. He said it was better to drown at once and have it over with than to stay in there and meet a slow death along with the rats. He stripped off his clothes so as to have a better chance of swimming, wrung my hand, and said, ‘Good-by, skipper. If I get out, you’ll hear me pounding. If you don’t hear anything you’ll know what’s happened.’ Then he drew in a long breath, and made a dive for the hole. He got through it, I know, for I saw the ray of light darken and then come again; but I didn’t hear a sound from him afterwards, though I listened for more than an hour.

“But hello, boys! here comes a puff of wind and there’s more behind it. If you and Nimbus can manage to get some sail on the old craft we will make a start for home, and I’ll spin you the rest of my yarn some other time.”

CHAPTER XVI.
NAVIGATING THE BRIG.

The brigantine, on which our dorymates now found themselves shipped as able seamen under the command of Captain McCloud, had been almost left to herself for nearly two weeks, during which time the current of the Gulf Stream had carried her far to the northward of her course. No observations had been taken on board in all this time, and the dense fog, through which the vessel had been drifting for the past four days, would have effectually prevented this work even had Captain McCloud been strong enough to perform it. He was therefore not surprised to learn from the boys that he was now on the Grand Bank, but he determined to try and take an observation at noon that day, and discover their exact position.

The promise of wind that interrupted the captain’s story was fulfilled by a steady breeze from the southward, which, as their general course was westerly, was favorable and satisfactory. While the captain took the wheel, Nimbus and the boys hoisted the jib, got the foresail loosed and sheeted home, shook the reefs out of the fore-topsail, swayed up the heavy yard by means of a winch, and set the royal. They got one reef out of the main-sail without much trouble, but when it came to the second they found it so difficult to hoist the great folds of heavy canvas and its weighty spar that the boys became wholly exhausted with their efforts, and even the enormous strength of Nimbus was exerted to its utmost. After bracing the yards, trimming the sheets of the head-sails, and even getting in a bit of the main-sheet, they set to work overhauling the running rigging, and bringing order out of its confused tangle.

At this last work Wolfe, having sailed before the mast on a square-rigged vessel, was more at home than Breeze, but the latter was quick to comprehend, and so learned easily; for a ready comprehension is more than half of learning. While the boys were thus employed Captain McCloud called Breeze to take the wheel, as it was nearly noon, and time to take his observation. Fortunately, amid all the trouble and disaster that had overtaken the brig, her chronometer had not been allowed to run down, and with the sextant, and other instruments belonging to her late captain, it was still in a serviceable condition.

Bringing the sextant on deck, Captain McCloud gazed through it at the sun, as reflected in a small mirror, until it had reached its greatest altitude and stood exactly above the meridian, or, in other words, until it was noon. By looking at the chronometer, which was set to Greenwich time, the difference between the noon where they then were and Greenwich noon was found to be three hours and twenty-six minutes, or two hundred and six minutes. As the earth revolves from west to east at the rate of one degree--which at the equator is sixty miles--every four minutes, the whole number of minutes divided by four gave fifty-one and a half, or 51° 30´, as the longitude of the brig west from Greenwich.

The latitude of the place--its distance north or south from the equator--was obtained by another observation of the sun, taken with the sextant, for the purpose of finding the angle between it and the zenith, or point directly overhead. A glance at the Nautical Almanac under the date of that day, and a minute’s figuring, gave the required result. The latitude thus found was 43° 37´, and of course, being north of the equator, it was north latitude, or 43° 37´ north.

Having obtained these two figures, Captain McCloud got out a chart of that portion of the Atlantic, and drawing on it a fine north and south line through meridian of longitude 51° 30´ west, and a delicate east and west line to indicate parallel of latitude 43° 37´ north, he made a small cross at their point of intersection, and showed it to Breeze as the position of the brig at that moment. It was very near the southern point of the Grand Bank and almost due east from Gloucester, but over eight hundred miles from that port.

“There!” said Captain McCloud when he had finished these operations, in all of which Breeze had been greatly interested. “If we steer due west, and hold this wind, we ought to sight Sable Island by day after to-morrow, and run into port inside of three days more. How would that suit you, my boy?”

“It seems as though I couldn’t wait for the time to come, father. Won’t it be glorious to sail into Gloucester harbor and take everybody by surprise? But, father, while we are on this cruise I wish you would teach me something of navigation. I never saw an observation taken before. They don’t take them on board fishing schooners, do they?”

“Not often. Most fishing skippers trust to their lead, log, and compass. They can generally tell by the sort of bottom the lead brings up where they are. You have often, I dare say, noticed skippers examining the sand and shells that stick to the tallow in the bottom of the lead.”

Breeze said he had, but that he should think it would be pretty hard to remember what the whole bottom of the ocean was made of.

“We don’t try to,” laughed his father, “we only remember what sort of material forms a few of the principal banks and reefs. For the rest we examine the charts, where it is all laid down. Now I am going to show you an old-fashioned-log, and how to use it. It is the only one I can find aboard, though many vessels nowadays use patent self-registering logs.”

“Of course I have often heard of heaving the log,” said Breeze, casting an eye aloft at the sails, then glancing at the compass, and giving the wheel a spoke or two to keep the brig on her true westerly course, “but I never knew exactly how it was done.”

Captain McCloud called upon Nimbus to bring him the log and the glass, and made ready to use them. The log was a triangular piece of thin board, having its base rounded and weighted with lead. Three short lines extending from the three corners fastened it to the log-line, much as a kite is hung. The log-line was about a thousand feet long, and had a number of red rags, or “knots,” tied to it, at distances of fifty-one feet apart. Each of these long spaces was divided into ten short spaces, called “fathoms,” by bits of leather twisted into the line.

The glass, which was to mark the time of the log’s running, was shaped like an hour-glass, but was much smaller, and the sand contained in it occupied only half a minute in running from one end to the other. Now, half a minute is the one hundred and twentieth part of an hour, and fifty-one feet is the same portion of a nautical mile, which is 6120 feet, or 840 feet longer than a geographical or land mile. Thus, when we say that a vessel sails six knots (or miles) an hour, we mean that six knots, or three hundred and six feet, of the log-line ran out in half a minute. The log-line is wound on a reel that turns very easily.

In the present instance Nimbus dropped the log into the water over the lee quarter of the brig, and held the reel in his hands. When the first fifty feet, which is called the “stray-line,” and is sufficient to carry the log clear of the vessel’s eddy, had run out, and Nimbus saw the first red rag touch the water, he sang out, “Turn!” Captain McCloud turned the half-minute glass, so that the sand in it began to drop to the other end, and answered, “Done!” The instant it stopped running he cried, “Stop!” and Nimbus held the reel, so that no more line should run out.

“Seben knot, five fadom, sah,” he reported to the captain.

“Very good,” said the captain; “reel in.” Then to Breeze and Wolfe he said, "That shows that we are running at the rate of seven and a half knots, or miles, an hour. By heaving the log every hour, and keeping note of all the courses steered, we shall not only know pretty nearly the distance run, but can determine our position at the end of each sea, or nautical, day, which is at noon. This is called ‘dead-reckoning,’ and is useful as a check on observations, and also when on account of cloudy weather no observation can be taken. Of course, for such reckoning we must have some fixed point to start from, or ‘point of departure,’ as it is called. Ours in the present case is the point, back here a few miles, that we established by finding its latitude and longitude, and marking it on the chart.

“There is one more thing to be thought of in our dead-reckoning, and that is the leeway. This may be caused by ocean currents, or by a beam wind, which not only acts upon the sails, so as to force the vessel ahead, but to a certain extent drives her sidewise. This must be allowed for, and every captain must use his own judgment to determine what leeway his vessel is making, and how much her course should be altered to allow for it. Now I am going to allow a couple of points for leeway, and instead of keeping her due west, Breeze, you may make it west-south-west.”

“Ay, ay, sir!” answered Breeze, promptly; “west-sou’west,” and he altered the brig’s course slightly in obedience to these instructions.

“At the same time,” continued the captain, “we shall mark the course on the chart, as though we were heading due west.”

All this had been so interesting to the young sailors that, though already quite hungry again, they were almost sorry to hear Nimbus announce dinner just at this point.

After dinner, and after Captain McCloud had rested for an hour in the cabin, the boys asked him to tell them how he escaped from his awful position in the forecastle of the capsized Sea Robin, and of his experiences, since that time.

“Well,” he replied, “of course I will tell you the whole story; but I hate so to think of that time that I shall make my yarn as brief as possible.”

“You left off,” said Breeze, “just where poor Dick Simonds had dived out of the forecastle, and you didn’t hear anything more of him.”

"Yes, I remember. Well, as you can imagine, I felt badly enough in that place, all alone, with the water steadily gaining on me, and not the faintest hope of escaping. I would have followed Dick Simonds in a moment, but that I knew there was no chance of getting out that way. To do so would simply have been to commit suicide, and that has always seemed to me a pretty mean and cowardly way of escaping trouble.

"When we were first shut in there we could sit on the edge of the lower bunks; but before Dick left the water had risen so that we were sitting in it, and I soon had to stand on the bunks to keep out of it. It must have been night again, for no ray of light came in through the broken hatch, when I found the water so deep that I was obliged to climb up on the foremast, and sit there with my head between two of the bunks on the upper side. I knew this was the last move I could make, and I fully expected to die there. I had no way of knowing how long I sat there; but it seemed like many hours, and doubtless was.

"All of a sudden, I seemed to hear faint, far-away voices, then some heavy object struck the hull of the schooner, and directly I heard footsteps, as though men were walking upon the bottom above me. I nearly suffocated in my efforts to shout; but somehow I couldn’t utter a sound. I don’t know whether it was from excitement or weakness, but my voice had left me. Then I tried to make them hear by pounding with my fists on the planking overhead; but though I kept it up until my hands were bleeding and numb, the sound did not reach them. At last I ceased to hear the footsteps, and imagined that the men, having satisfied their curiosity, were going to leave, which, as I afterwards found out, was the case.

"At that moment I thought of my watch, which was still in my pocket, and which, as you know, Breeze, had a very heavy silver case. Pounding on the planking with it, I succeeded in making a sound that attracted their attention just as they were about to pull away. I never stopped my pounding for a moment until somebody sung out, ‘Hello in the schooner! Is anybody inside there?’

"I found voice then to answer that I was in there all alone, that the water had nearly reached me, and to beg them not to go away without trying to do something for me.

"‘All right, shipmate,’ came the answer; ‘we won’t leave you as long as there’s a chance of saving you. You may count on that. We are only going for some tools to cut a hole with, and will be back in a few minutes. So keep up a good heart.’

"I heard them go away and then return again; and by rapping on the planking with my watch, I managed to show them a place between two ribs where there was no inside sheathing. Here they began to cut, after asking me how thick the planking was. They did not break through in any one place until they had cut very nearly through all around, for fear of making holes out of which the air would rush. In that case, you see, the schooner would quickly sink, taking me with her.

“At last they sang out for me to keep from under, as they were ready to break in. Then came three or four quick blows, a section about two feet square was crushed in, and somehow I got out through the opening. I think I must have been almost shot out by the confined air that rushed out with a roar. At any rate, there was barely time for the men to drag me into their boat and push back a few yards from the wreck when she sank like a stone. The boat was spun around and around like a straw in the vortex that it made, and for a moment they were afraid that it was going to be sucked under. I knew nothing of this until afterwards, for I became unconscious the moment I got into the fresh air and out of the foul gases I had been breathing so long. When I recovered I was lying in a berth in the Esmeralda’s cabin.”

“The Esmeralda’s cabin!” interrupted Breeze. “Was it this very brig, father?”

"Yes; I was lying in the cabin of this very brig, which was bound for the west coast of Africa, with a cargo of salt fish from the Provinces. It seemed that, while lying becalmed that morning, they had drifted close to the wreck of the Sea Robin, and the mate, with a couple of men, had boarded it out of curiosity. They had got into their boat again to leave, without a suspicion that anybody was in her, when they heard the noise I made pounding with the old watch. The men said it was only rats, and wanted to go on; but the mate insisted on finding out what it really was.

"All hands, from the captain down, did everything for me; but it was a long time before I recovered from the horror of those two days shut up with the rats in that wreck. I was always on the lookout for some vessel on which I might get a passage to the United States, but we only spoke two on the whole voyage. One of these was bound for South America and the other around the Horn, so I stuck by the brig.

"We made a quick run out, discharged our cargo promptly, and tried to take in our return cargo of palm-oil quickly, so as to start back before the sickly season set in. Somehow, though, everything seemed to work against us. One delay followed another, until we had spent three months on the coast cruising from the mouth of one pestiferous river to another, picking up our cargo in small lots here and there.

"At last the fever broke out among us, and the captain was the first one to go. Then the cook died, and we got Nimbus in his place. Fortunately for us, he was visiting his old home at that time, and ever since he came aboard he has proved one of the best all-round hands I ever had on a vessel. The mate and crew begged me to act as captain and take the brig home, which I finally consented to do. I got away from the coast as quickly as possible, in hopes of saving the rest of them; but having once got its hold, the fever would not let go, and they dropped off one after another. I was taken down nearly a month ago, and the first mate not until two weeks later; but the fever made short work with him, poor fellow! When I got about again I found that Nimbus and I were the only ones left, and nothing but his constant care and good nursing pulled me through. The vessel has been left to drift for I don’t know how long; but, fortunately, we have had no very severe weather, and with such help as Nimbus could give her, she has taken care of herself.

“It’s a sad story, but it’s all past and done with now. After this wonderful meeting with you, I think the hard luck of the old brig must have left her, and within a few days more we’ll carry her, safe and sound, into Gloucester harbor.”

Captain McCloud and Wolfe Brady stood watch for the first half of that night, and at midnight they turned in, while Breeze and Nimbus came on deck.

Two hours later Nimbus, who was steering, lashed his wheel, and said they must heave the log, as the wind had freshened considerably. They got a lantern on deck, and Breeze was to turn and watch the glass, while Nimbus held the reel.

The line had run about half out when it was suddenly slacked by the rising of the brig on a heavy sea. The slack caught on something, and Breeze leaned far over the taffrail to clear it. As he did so the big sea that had lifted her seemed to slide out from under the vessel, she dropped into the hollow with a sharp lurch, and the boy was flung far from her. Without a sound he disappeared, and the blackness of the night closed over him as the brig swept on her course.

CHAPTER XVII.
OVERBOARD AND INBOARD.

Nimbus was of a peculiarly nervous temperament, and very apt to do things in moments of excitement that he regretted exceedingly as soon as he found time for reflection. So, in the present instance, acting impulsively, as he saw Breeze flung overboard in the darkness, he did just the wrong thing, and what, half a minute later, he would have given anything to undo. He should have tossed overboard a life-preserver or other object that would float, put the helm hard down, and thrown the brig up into the wind, thereby checking her headway and putting her into a position to sail back over the course she had just come. At the same time he should have called Captain McCloud and Wolfe. Above all, he should have instantly cut loose dory No. 6, which was towing astern by a short but stout line, so that Breeze might have a chance of seeing and reaching it almost as soon as he came to the surface after his plunge.

Instead of doing any of these things, the impulsive negro, who was still a young and active man though very fond of calling himself “old,” slid down into the dory, cut the line by which she was towing, and seized a pair of oars. He had done all this as silently as Breeze had tumbled overboard, and without making a single outcry to alarm the two sleepers left on board the brig.

The instant he had cut the line and found himself adrift he realized the folly of his act, and began to shout at the top of his voice, in the hope that it was not yet too late to arouse Captain McCloud and Wolfe. At the same time he began to pull wildly after the swiftly moving brig. He quickly realized that this was of no use, for she was moving three feet to his one, nor did his shouts bring any response from those on board. In spite of his excitement, a certain instinct told him that, so long as he could not catch the brig, the only thing remaining for him to do was to face about and try to find Breeze.

His movements had been so quick that he was at no great distance from where the boy had struck the water, and was now swimming in the direction of the vanishing brig. He, at least, heard the cries uttered by Nimbus, and answered them. He had retained his presence of mind wonderfully, and now realized that somebody was searching for him. So he swam as easily as possible, but continued to shout at regular intervals; and in about five minutes he had the satisfaction of seeing the dory loom out of the darkness close beside him. In another minute he had caught hold of its gunwale, and been drawn in, dripping and chilled, but very thankful for this escape from what had seemed a hopeless situation. His first glance was towards the brig, but he could not see even a shadow resembling her. She had disappeared in the darkness as utterly as though she had never existed.

“They must have put her about and headed her this way by this time,” he said to Nimbus. “I wonder that we don’t see her.”

“No, sah; dey don’ put um ’bout. Dey sailin’ away, an’ nebber know nuffin. Ole fool Nim nebber tell ’em good-by. Come off an’ keep on sayin’ nuffin at all to nobody.”

“You don’t mean to say, Nimbus, that you left without giving any alarm! without waking my father or Wolfe!”

“Yes, sah,” answered the black man in a most crestfallen tone. “Didn’t wake nobody. Didn’t t’ink ob nuffin scusin’ how to sabe young cap’n. Jump quick in boat, cut um ’drif, an’ come. Bimeby catch um, pull um in. Here he is! Here we is!”

“Yes, that’s certain enough, ‘here we is,’ and how we’re going to get out of this scrape it would puzzle a sea lawyer to tell. I suppose you did the best thing you could think of. If you’d only given an alarm, though! Now, with the wheel lashed, the brig may sail on for hours, always getting farther and farther away from us, before either of them wakes up. Well, we’re not dead yet, and while there’s life there’s hope. I’m very grateful to you, at any rate, for coming to me so quickly. Now, perhaps you can do me another good turn by telling me how to keep from freezing to death in these wet clothes.”

Yes, indeed, Nimbus could do that, and in a minute more Breeze had stripped off his soaked garments, slipped into his oil-skin jacket and trousers, which had fortunately been left in the dory, and was rapidly getting warm by hard work at the oars. At the same time Nimbus, with powerful hands, was wringing the wet clothing as dry as though it were in a centrifugal steam-wringer. Of course the things were still damp and cold when Breeze again put them on; but, with his oil-skins drawn over them to keep out the wind, and still keeping up his exercise with the oars, he was soon in a glow.

As he rowed he instinctively kept the dory headed on the same course the brig had taken, by holding her broadside to the wind, which still blew steadily from the southward.

At last the day broke, gray and cheerless, but free from fog. Each time the boat was lifted on a wave its occupants scanned the ever-widening horizon eagerly, in the hope of sighting some vessel. At last the day had fully come, and they knew the full extent of their disappointment. Their frail craft was the only object floating on the whole weary expanse of tumbling waters.

For a long time they sat in silence. Neither had any words of comfort to offer the other. Finally Nimbus said, mournfully,

“Who you s’pose cookin’ on de brig for de cap’n, now ole Nim done gone?”

“I don’t know,” answered Breeze, rousing up from his sorrowful reflections, and making a brave effort to throw off the gloomy thoughts that were taking possession of him, “but I guess they’ll manage to make out somehow. I know I could in their place.”

“Dey habin’ all de grub, an’ no cook in de camboose. We habin’ de cook, but no grub an’ no camboose,” continued Nimbus, following up the train of thoughts suggested by his hunger.

“No grub! Why, yes we have, right on board this very blessed dory,” cried Breeze, to whose memory the black man’s words recalled the ship-biscuit, a dozen of which still remained in the little stern locker. The stock of provisions which he thereupon produced seemed to restore both strength and hope to Nimbus, and he fairly laughed when he saw it.

“Ole Nim all right,” he declared, “so long he teef keep a-grindin’ an’ a-crunchin’.”

As they ate one apiece of the precious biscuit Breeze thought of Wolfe’s praise and disdain of this same food the day before, and wondered if he should ever again see his light-hearted dorymate.

In the fresh-water keg so little of the precious fluid remained that they allowed themselves only a single swallow with which to wash down the dry biscuit. On this account their simple meal was as prolonged as though it had been quite a substantial feast.

After they had finished this very unsatisfactory breakfast, and had resolutely put away the few biscuit that remained, in spite of their longing to eat them all, Nimbus said, “Well, young cap’n, wot we do now?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Breeze, “unless we try and row to land.”

“Wot lan’? Ware he? How far?”

“Father said yesterday that Sable Island bore due west 365 miles from where we were then. We must have come, let me see, seven and a half knots an hour for fourteen hours would be 105 miles. From 365, that leaves 260, and we have rowed perhaps ten. It must be about 250 miles away from us at this minute. Do you think we could possibly row that distance, Nimbus?”

“Don’ know. Ole Mim row hard, row long way for grub. But how you fin’ um? Got no compass. How you steer um due wes’?”

“That’s so. I didn’t think of that. I don’t suppose the wind will always blow from the southward. Perhaps it has changed and is blowing from some other direction even now, and we don’t know the difference. And to think that I have got a compass here and can’t open it! I suppose I might manage to force the ball open with my knife, but that might break the compass.”

“Wot you say? You got um compass?” exclaimed Nimbus, who had listened attentively, while his companion thus thought aloud.

“Yes,” replied Breeze, drawing the golden ball from its pocket and unclasping the chain. “There’s a compass in this ball, but nobody knows how to open it.”

“Let ole Nim see um,” said the other, extending his great black hand for the trinket.

He examined it with the closest attention for more than a minute, and then said,

“Nim can open um.”

“You can open it?” exclaimed Breeze, in great astonishment.

“I t’ink so. Seen plenty all de same like um in de Eas’ Injes.”

“Well, let me see you do it.”

After much fumbling in the thick mat of wool that served him for hair, Nimbus drew from it a pin. With this he began to trace out, carefully and very slowly, the lines of the quaint pattern engraved on the surface of the ball. He followed one of them around and around, in and out, for several minutes, often stopping, going back, and beginning all over again. He did not speak, and Breeze, eagerly watching his movements, was also silent.

At last the movement of the pin was stopped, and on the spot that it indicated the pressure of a thumb-nail released a spring. The upper half of the ball swung on its pivot, and once more its interior was displayed to view.

“Well, if that don’t beat everything!” exclaimed Breeze. “How on earth did you ever learn that trick, Nimbus?”

“Him a labyrim ball,” answered the black man.

“A what?”

“A labyrim. Same like you might get los’ in.”

“Oh, a labyrinth.”

“Yes, sah, a labyrim, an’ if you fin’ de p’int ob de startin’, an foller to de end, den you open um.”

This was indeed the whole secret of the ball, and after it had been explained to Breeze he too could trace the delicate line from its beginning, which was plainly to be seen, to its end above the hidden spring. There was no distinguishing mark to indicate this point, and it was almost impossible to locate it, even after one had found it many times, without first tracing out the labyrinth. The accident by which Breeze had hit upon it and opened the ball while asleep was so unlikely to occur that, knowing the secret, he now wondered more than ever that it had happened. Nimbus had learned the secret of similar puzzles upon one of his many voyages to East Indian ports, and was made proud and happy by this opportunity of displaying his skill.

“Now,” he said, with a smile that exhibited two glistening rows of ivory, “we got a compass, we go fur Saple Islan’. Ole Nim row like steam-ingin’.”

And he did row like a steam-driven machine, with long, powerful strokes, hour after hour, all through the day--never faltering, never stopping, and never seeming to tire. To Breeze, who watched him with ever-increasing astonishment, he was a marvel of endurance. Breeze also rowed with the second pair of oars the greater part of the day; but he was several times obliged to stop and rest. With such unflagging energy was the dory urged forward that when night came he did not doubt they had made fifty miles since morning. He really began to hope that they might possibly reach Sable Island, though he still admitted that the chances were largely against their doing so.

They had decided to eat but two biscuit apiece each day, and thus make their scanty store last them three days; after which they looked forward to two days of starving before they could hope to sight the island. Even when they should have covered the required distance, they knew how little chance there was of their finding the long, low sand-bank, which is all that Sable Island is. The probabilities were that currents or winds might carry them so far either to the north or south that they would miss it entirely. They anticipated great suffering, and nerved themselves to bear it; but, happily, they were not to be called upon to undergo it.

Night had fallen, and as they could no longer see their compass, and the sky still remained overcast, they had ceased to row. Breeze, tired out with his day’s hard work, had fallen into a doze, while Nimbus sat silently gazing into the darkness. Breeze had slept for about an hour when he was awakened by a touch, and the voice of the black man saying, “Young cap’n, dere’s a light!”

The boy sprang up and gazed eagerly in the direction indicated. For a while he could see nothing; then he caught a momentary glimpse of it, the red side-light of some vessel sailing past them far to the southward. Nimbus had already taken to the oars, and was pulling like a madman in that direction. Watching the light closely, Breeze soon saw that it was moving too fast for them either to intercept or overtake it.

“It’s no use, Nimbus,” he said finally, “you are only wasting your strength. We can never catch that fellow. Oh for a match, though! If we could only make some kind of a flare!”

“Match!” cried Nimbus. “Yes, sah; dreckly, sah!”

With this he began to fumble again in his thatch of wool, which seemed almost as well supplied with articles required by shipwrecked sailors as was the famous bag in “The Swiss Family Robinson;” and in a moment he drew a brimstone match from it.

Breeze was too busy cutting the oil-skin biscuit-bag into strips to notice from what a curious safe the match was produced; and when it was offered to him he only said, “Light it quick! and I believe we’ll start a flare after all.”

In another moment one of the strips of oiled muslin was blazing finely; and, standing on a thwart, Breeze held it as high as he could reach above his head.

Before it had burned out another was lighted, and then another, but still no answering signal was seen. The boy’s heart had almost failed him as he lighted the last strip and waved it to and fro. Suddenly a bright flame darted out of the blackness from the direction in which the red light had just disappeared, and with a great blinding rush of joy he knew that their signal had been seen and answered.

They still continued to row with all their might in that direction, their hearts filled with the joyful emotions of unexpected hope. Although they had no breath with which to express it, the thought that it was the brig on her way back to look for them had entered both their minds. Breeze saw visions of his father and Wolfe and home, with the mother who awaited him there; while Nimbus revelled in thoughts of his beloved camboose, and of all the good things he would cook and eat as soon as he once more got into it.

A backward glance soon showed them both the sailing-lights of the vessel, and told them that her course had been altered so that she was headed in their direction. Then they began to shout, and at last heard the welcome answering hail. Finally the ghostly outline of sails and spars became visible. It was a schooner.

“BLESS MY SOUL, IF IT ISN’T BREEZE McCLOUD!”

They could hardly believe it at first, so convinced had they become that it must be the brig, but as she drew near they saw that she was indeed a schooner, and a regular Gloucester Banker at that.

Five minutes later they stood on her deck, and as the light of a lantern shone on his face, Breeze was seized by the hand, and a well-known voice exclaimed, “Bless my soul if it isn’t Breeze McCloud!”

CHAPTER XVIII.
NEWS FROM HOME.

The voice that greeted Breeze so heartily was that of Captain Ezra Coffin, and the schooner he had just boarded was the Fish-hawk. The boy could hardly believe his senses. Could it be that he had again fallen in with friends on the high seas? Was this really the schooner he had left in Gloucester more than a month before? It did not seem possible, and yet here was Captain Coffin shaking his hand, old Mateo dancing about and trying for a chance to embrace him, and other familiar faces, seen dimly by the lantern-light, crowding forward to greet him.

Mateo, the cook, could not contain his joy, but danced and shouted extravagantly, “We found ’em! we found ’em! Me tella you fader we finda you, Breeza. Where zat rasca, Nimba, zat Guinea boy? You bringa him, eh, Breeza?”

“Here I,” cried Nimbus, who had stood back unnoticed as the crew crowded around Breeze. “Who callin’ me rask? Wot he mean? Ware he?”

At the sound of this voice old Mateo, who had just succeeded in embracing Breeze, left him, made one bound to where the black man stood, and seizing him by his wonderful ears, began to shake his head violently, exclaiming, “You no a raska, eh? you black pickaninny! Ole Mateo teacha you! He pulla you ear many time! you forgetta him, eh?”

Nimbus was at first bewildered and thrown off his guard by this sudden attack, but recovering himself quickly, he seized the little cook with his powerful hands, and raising him clear of the deck, held him, kicking and screaming, at arm’s-length above his head, while he executed a waddling, uncouth sort of a war-dance. As he did so he shouted, or rather chanted,

“Ah, you ole Mateo! Now I know um well! You ole Portugee man! You pull Nimbo’s ears when he pickaninny! You show um de cookin’ ob de duff an’ de scouse! Now you gwine a-fishin’! You t’ink you catch um one time mo’, but you is mistooken! He grown to be a whale! He catch you, an’ he eat you! You ole rask yo’se’f!”

All this was shouted out in a singsong tone, to which the grotesque dancing-steps of the black man kept time. The whole affair was so ludicrous that the members of the crew screamed with laughter, and rolled on the deck in the excess of their merriment. Even Captain Coffin and Breeze were compelled to join in the general mirth, and the latter laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks. It was a great relief and pleasure to enjoy a hearty laugh once more after the sadness and anxiety of the days just past, and it did the boy more good than anything that could have happened just then.

The comical actions of Mateo and Nimbus were their peculiar modes of expressing great joy at again meeting with each other. Years before, Mateo, while cooking on board a vessel engaged in the African trade, had picked up Nimbus, then a boy, and taken him as an assistant. They had sailed together for several years, and had then lost sight of each other. This curious encounter in mid-ocean was their first meeting since that time.

When Nimbus set Mateo down, the old cook shook his fist in the face of his former pupil. He said nothing to him then, for he had just bethought himself of a neglected duty, and stepping over to where Breeze and the captain were standing, he uttered the famous expression that had so often proved a welcome one to the boy:

“Vell, Breeza, you hongry, eh?”

NIMBUS, RAISING HIM CLEAR OF THE DECK, HELD HIM AT ARM’S-LENGTH ABOVE HIS HEAD.

“I should say I was hungry. I guess anybody would be if he’d had only a couple of dry ship’s biscuit to eat in more than twenty-four hours.”

“Holy feesh!” exclaimed Mateo, “you got ze ship’s cook an’ nottin’ do for eat? zat lazy Nimba! heem no good!”

The two castaways certainly tried their best to lay in a liberal supply of food for future use that evening, and it was hard to tell which was the happier, old Mateo in seeing them eat, or they in eating. Of course Nimbus found fault with each dish, and would not acknowledge that anything was as good as he could have prepared it, had he been lord of the galley, and of course Mateo treated his claims to be considered a cook with scorn. Thus was begun the professional rivalry between these two curious specimens of sea cooks, that offered infinite amusement to the crew of the Fish-hawk, and made this voyage one long to be remembered and laughed over.

When he had reached the stage at which he began to think of ship-biscuit much as Wolfe had done after their first meal on the brig, Breeze left the cooks to settle their differences as best they might, and went on deck for a talk with the skipper. From him he learned that the Fish-hawk was only four days out from Gloucester, and that when he last saw Mrs. McCloud she was well, though worrying sadly over the unexplained disappearance of her boy.[boy.]

“How did it all happen, Breeze?” asked the captain. “Wolfe Brady tried to tell me something about it, but I hadn’t time to hear much.”

“Wolfe Brady!” exclaimed Breeze. “What do you mean? Where have you seen Wolfe Brady?”

"Why, yesterday! Didn’t I tell you? How careless! I thought I told you first thing after you came aboard that we fell in with the Esmeralda yesterday; no, I mean to-day, for it isn’t midnight yet, about noon, and seeing her signal of distress I went aboard of her.

“I was never more surprised in my life than when I found your father and Wolfe Brady on the vessel, and all alone. You could have knocked me down with a rope yarn. They were in terrible low spirits over losing you, and didn’t know how to account for it. They had not waked until daylight, and had no idea of how long you had been gone or what had happened. Their only hope was that so long as the black man and the dory had gone too, you were both drifting round somewhere in it. They would have put their brig about and started back to look for you, but they hadn’t the strength to swing the yards. Altogether they formed a melancholy ship’s company.”

“That accounts for Mateo’s asking if I had brought Nimbus with me,” said Breeze. “I wondered how he knew anything about it. Poor father and poor Wolfe! Could you do anything to help them, captain?”

“Oh yes; I put two men aboard to take the brig into Gloucester, and promised to sail over the course they had just come, and keep the sharpest kind of a lookout for you. Wolfe Brady wanted to come with us, but felt that his duty lay with your father. He said, though, he would never go dorymates with anybody else if you shouldn’t turn up again. Captain McCloud was very much broken down over losing you under such circumstances, so soon after your wonderful meeting with each other, and I was afraid he was going to have a relapse of his fever. For that reason I made him promise, before I left him, that he would take the brig at once into port, and not attempt to find you. I, of course, had no idea that you could be found, and had not the slightest hope of ever seeing you again. How did you manage to follow the brig’s course so well without any compass and under a clouded sky?”

“We had a compass,” replied Breeze, smiling.

“Did you? They said on board the brig that there was none in the dory, and that, provided you were in it, you would probably be lying to a drag about where they left you.”

Then Breeze told Captain Coffin the whole story of the golden ball, and the important part it had played in directing their movements.

When he had finished the captain said, “Well, it has certainly saved you this time by bringing you to this point; for if I had kept the course I was steering all night, and you had simply drifted before the wind, we might have been anywhere from thirty to fifty miles apart by morning. I don’t see now why you didn’t drift farther to the northward with this southerly wind.”

“I guess it was because I made a pretty big allowance for leeway,” replied Breeze.

“Oh yes; if you thought of that, I’ve no doubt it was.”

“By-the-way, captain, how does it happen that you are only just now on your way to the Banks?” asked Breeze. “I thought you were to start within a week after the Vixen left Gloucester.”

“So we did,” replied the skipper, “and got as far as Banquereau. There we lost our foremast in a gale, and ran back after a new stick. While we were refitting I heard such bad reports from the Banks that I determined to try a new ground to me, and make a trip to the Iceland coast after a load of fletched[^[H]] halibut.”

“To Iceland!” cried Breeze, in dismay.

“Yes, lad, to Iceland. Sixteen hundred miles farther away from Gloucester than we are now. Twenty-four hundred miles to go, and the same distance to return, is a pretty long fishing trip, isn’t it? But it will soon be over, and early next autumn we’ll land you safe and sound in Gloucester again, in plenty of time to get ready for a winter’s trip to George’s if you want to take one.”

The idea of going on such a long voyage, and having his return home deferred for several months, was so startling to Breeze that for a few moments he remained silent, not knowing what to answer.

“Why, lad,” said the captain, “what else is there for you to do? You know I can’t afford to put back to Gloucester again simply to carry you there. It would cost a thousand dollars to do that. Even if we should put about now and try to find the brig again, it isn’t at all likely we could do so. I am short-handed from having let two men go back with her, and you and your black friend will just give me a full crew again. Besides, your dunnage is already aboard and waiting for you. I meant to have sent it up to your house before sailing, but I forgot it. But, I say, Breeze, you haven’t told me yet how you happened to take French leave and come off to the Banks the way you did. Your poor mother was almost distracted when you didn’t come home that night, nor yet the next day. She sat up all night long waiting for you, and was at my house by daylight to get me to go and look for you.”

“Poor mother!” said Breeze, pityingly. “The worst of being carried off so was the thought of her distress, and now she’ll have a new cause for trouble when father and Wolfe get home and can’t tell her whether I’m dead or alive.”

“You were carried off, then?”

“Of course we were. You don’t suppose I would have gone off in that way of my own accord, do you?”

“No, not exactly; but there were ugly stories around town about your having been seen at Grimes’s, and been chased by the police for creating a disturbance on the streets. Of course your mother wouldn’t believe a word of them, and I didn’t wholly either, for I know how such things get exaggerated; but I was afraid you might have got into some sort of a scrape.”

When Breeze had told Captain Coffin the whole story of that night, the latter said, cordially,

“I believe every word you tell me, Breeze, and I think you acted just right under the circumstances; in fact, I do not see how you could have done anything else. Still, I think your long absence on this voyage will prove a good thing for you. It will give Wolfe Brady plenty of time to deny all the false stories, and will also give people time to believe him. You know it always takes folks longer to believe good than bad stories about a person.”

“Well, sir,” said Breeze, “under the circumstances, and as the only other thing to do would be to get into dory No. 6, and drift away again, I believe I’ll ship with you for this Iceland trip.”

“Yes, I think you had better,” replied the skipper, gravely.

Breeze was much pleased to find again the outfit of clothing that he had transferred to the Fish-hawk from the Albatross. After weeks of wearing old garments, picked up here and there among his recent shipmates on the Vixen, it was indeed a comfort to be able to dress himself once more in a full suit of his own clothes.

The Fish-hawk was a much larger and more comfortable schooner than any he had sailed in before; and only the thought that there were sorrow and anxiety in the little home cottage on his account prevented him from thoroughly enjoying the prospect of a trip in her to far distant seas. Even this cause of trouble was partially removed two days later, when they sighted several fishing schooners, and the skipper offered to run down to them, and ask the first one that should be homeward bound to take letters, and also to report Breeze McCloud as safe and well.

As they drew near, one of these anchored vessels seemed strangely familiar to Breeze, who, after looking at her through a glass, said, “I do believe it’s the old Vixen.” He was right, and no men could have been more surprised than were her crew, when, soon afterwards, he and Captain Coffin rowed to her in dory No. 6. They welcomed Breeze as one from the dead, and there was not a man on board but shook him heartily by the hand and gave him a cordial greeting. Of them all, none appeared so glad to see him as poor Hank Hoffer, who, still suffering greatly from the effects of his exposure in the ice, had never ceased to mourn the loss of his brave young rescuers.

They were intensely interested in the story he had to tell them of his experiences since drifting away in the fog, and all declared that they had never before heard of any one person having such peculiar adventures during a single trip to the Banks. The Vixen was to return to Gloucester in two or three weeks more, and her skipper promised to contradict any unpleasant rumors he might hear concerning Breeze, and to tell the true story of his mysterious departure. He also promised to deliver, immediately upon his arrival, the letter Breeze had written to his mother, telling of his safety and where he had gone.

Before they left the Vixen her skipper told Captain Coffin that his anchor was caught on an ocean telegraph cable, and asked him whether he thought he ought to try and haul it up, thus running the risk of breaking the telegraph, or cut his own cable when he got ready to leave.

“Buoy your own cable and cut it, by all means,” replied Captain Coffin, promptly. “The telegraph company will pay you the full value of all that you lose, as soon as you send in a statement of the case to them. I did the same thing myself only about a year ago.”

After getting the suit of shore clothes he had left on the Vixen, Breeze bade his old shipmates good-by, and he and Captain Coffin returned to the Fish-hawk, one of the Vixen men going with them to carry back dory No. 6. Breeze could not help watching the departure of the old dory with regret, as he thought of all he had gone through with in it, and how often it had served him in times of danger.

As they sailed away from the Vixen, the thought of her being fast to a telegraph cable caused Breeze to ask the skipper how many cables there were crossing the Atlantic.

“I believe there are ten in all,” was the answer. “Two of them run to Newfoundland, and eight cross the fishing banks, and land either on the Nova Scotia or New England coast.”

“Is the very first one still working?” asked Breeze.

“No, the first one, which was laid in 1858, was only able to transmit, very feebly, one or two messages, and then it became silent, never to speak again. The first one that was of any real service was laid in 1864, as I well remember, for I saw the Great Eastern while she was laying it; but I believe that also has been long since abandoned.”

While they were thus talking they lost sight of the Vixen, and were once more alone on the broad ocean. Then Breeze, for the first time, fully realized that he was really bound on a long voyage across the stormy Atlantic to the distant coast of Iceland.

CHAPTER XIX.
THE DEVIL-FISH OF FLEMISH CAP.

Captain Coffin was an unusually well-informed man, and as Breeze was always on the lookout for stray bits of information, he took advantage of the opportunity afforded by this long voyage to ask the skipper a great many questions. One day, soon after leaving the Vixen, the lead, running out to a great depth, showed them to have crossed the Grand Bank, and to be on the deep waters of the North Atlantic. While they were talking of this, Breeze asked the captain how he supposed the Banks had been formed.

“My theory is,” answered the skipper, “that they were formed, and are constantly being added to, by icebergs. You see, every spring thousands of these big fellows come sailing down through Davis Strait for their summer outing. They bring with them tons and tons of gravel and sand, collected while they formed part of slow-moving arctic glaciers, or picked up off the bottom as they drifted along the Greenland and Labrador coasts. Now, no matter how large an iceberg is above water, it is more than twice as big below the surface--that is, we see less than one-third of its whole bulk, while the rest is under water. I saw one once aground in forty fathoms. Well, by-and-by the part that is under water begins to feel the influence of the Gulf Stream, and to melt much more rapidly than that which is above. As the bergs drift about in this melting condition, they lose, here and there, quantities of the sand they have brought with them. After a while they have melted away so much under water that they become top-heavy and capsize with a tremendous flurry, pitching overboard a great deal more of their cargo. Finally they melt away entirely, and all the material they have brought down from the north is swept up by the Gulf Stream, and deposited along its northern edge on what we call the Banks. To form them has been the slow but unceasing work of unnumbered centuries.”

“But why doesn’t this great quantity of sand and gravel pile itself up until it finally reaches the surface and becomes an island or a lot of small islands?”

“Because of the fierce currents that are continually sweeping over the Banks and scattering the material far and wide. They are caused by the mighty flow of the St. Lawrence River, by tides and winds, and very largely by the Gulf Stream; for, with such a volume of warm water flowing north and east all the time, there must be an equal quantity of cold water flowing south and west to take its place.”

“That’s so;” said Breeze, “I might have thought of that.”

“Many persons,” continued Captain Coffin, “imagine the Banks to be islands of mud rising to within a few feet of the surface, and even showing above it in places; and I have been asked if navigation on them was not very dangerous on account of the shoal water. I actually had a man ask me once if we often went ashore on the Banks.”

“Of course, I have always known better than that,” said Breeze; “but I don’t know how near they do come to the surface.”

“The shoalest waters of the Grand Bank,” answered the skipper, “are three fathoms, on the Virgin Rocks, ninety miles to the southward of Cape Race, and from that the depth increases to two hundred fathoms; while to the south-east of the Bank soundings of six miles have failed to reach bottom.”

“Well, there isn’t much danger of running aground in such waters,” laughed Breeze, “and I’m very much obliged to you for this information; but who do you suppose first found out that there were fish on the Banks?”

“I don’t know; perhaps it was that old Iceland fellow, Lief Erikson, who they say first discovered America. I have been told by the French fishermen who come over here every summer that their countrymen knew of these grounds as early as 1504, and that less than twenty-five years from the time that Columbus made his first voyage, a fleet of more than a hundred French, Spanish, and Portuguese fishing vessels were visiting them regularly every summer.”

“I should think with such constant fishing the supply would give out,” said Breeze.

“It would seem so, but it doesn’t; and I believe there are just as many fish on the Banks now as there ever were. Of course, there are more in some seasons than in others. This, for instance, appears to be an off year, and that is the reason I am going to see if they haven’t gone to the other side of the ocean for the summer.”

Soon after this the Fish-hawk reached the small bank known as Flemish Cap, about three hundred miles east of Grand Bank, and the most distant of all the American fishing grounds. This was just twelve hundred miles from Gloucester, or half-way to Iceland, and Captain Coffin determined to set a few trawls, and see if they could not pick up some halibut here. As, under reduced sail, the schooner moved slowly across the Bank, several of the crew got out hand-lines and dropped them over the side. Among these was Nimbus, who, never having been on a fishing vessel before, was delighted to have a chance to try his luck at the new business, and very anxious to catch a halibut.

Now, Breeze was possessed of the peculiar power of ventriloquism, or the ability to so use his voice as to make it seem to come from other places than that in which he stood. He had only recently discovered this power, but had practised continually while on board the Vixen, and had become fairly skilful in performing the trick. In the excitement of the past week he had not thought of it; but now, as he saw Nimbus baiting a hook, and, under Mateo’s direction, preparing to make his first attempt at fishing, it flashed into his mind that here was a chance for some fun. He stationed himself close beside the two cooks, and waited patiently.

After a while there came a tug at the line, and Nimbus began excitedly to haul in. As the fish approached the surface old Mateo went in search of a gaff, with which to get it on deck. Just as its nose showed out of the water, and the black man was about to give a great shout of joy over his success, a voice, coming apparently from the halibut’s mouth, cried out,