THE YOUNG SUPERCARGO

BRAIN AND BRAWN SERIES.

By William Drysdale.

Illustrations by Charles Copeland.

THE YOUNG REPORTER. A Story of Printing House Square. 300 pages. With five full-page Illustrations. Cloth. 12mo. $1.50.

THE FAST MAIL. The Story of a Train Boy. 330 pages. With five full-page Illustrations. Cloth. 12mo. $1.50.

THE BEACH PATROL. A Story of the Life-Saving Service. 318 pages. With five full-page Illustrations. Cloth. 12mo. $1.50.

THE YOUNG SUPERCARGO. A Story of the Merchant Marine. 352 pages. With five full-page Illustrations. Cloth. 12mo. $1.50.

*_** Other volumes in preparation.

“‘WHY, THIS IS NO WHARF-RAT, OFFICER.’”

THE
Young Supercargo

A Story of the Merchant Marine

BY
WILLIAM DRYSDALE

Author of “The Young Reporter,” “The Fast Mail,” “The Beach Patrol,” etc., etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY
CHARLES COPELAND

BOSTON AND CHICAGO
W. A. WILDE & COMPANY

Copyright, 1898,
By W. A. Wilde & Company.

All rights reserved.

THE YOUNG SUPERCARGO.

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE YOUNG SUPERCARGO.

CHAPTER I.
KIT SILBURN’S START IN LIFE.

A BIG black steamship lay beside the wharf in front of Martin’s Stores, in Brooklyn. The cold November night was so dark that from the brick warehouse, a hundred feet away, hardly anything could be seen of her but the lantern that swung in her rigging, a faint light that shone through her cabin portholes, and occasionally one of her tall top-masts standing out against the pale moon that tried with little success to show itself between the scudding clouds. It was bitterly cold, for November; and a stiff wind from the northeast was driving the black clouds seaward at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour.

The steamer was the North Cape, arrived the week before from Sisal, in Yucatan, with a cargo of hemp in bales. Though everything was dark and quiet about her on that wintry night, evidences of hard work in unloading lay all around. The bales had been taken out of her hold faster than the warehousemen could trundle them into the building, and the hundred feet of space between wharf and warehouse was littered with them. Some were piled up in tiers, and others lay scattered about in confusion.

That open space between the warehouse and the harbor was well sheltered from the cutting wind; and patrolman McSweeny, of the Brooklyn police, with ears and fingers tingling found it a warm corner, and made more frequent visits to it than his duty really required. If he had gone into one of the neighboring coffee-houses to warm himself, he might have been caught by the roundsman and fined; but in going through the brick archway under the building and prowling among the goods on the wharf in search of tramps or thieves he was strictly obeying orders. So on the cold November night he paid particular attention to the wharf of Martin’s Stores, and visited it so often that no burglar in the neighborhood would have had the least chance.

Patrolman McSweeny had been a Brooklyn policeman long enough to understand all the favorite police ways of stirring out homeless tramps who are so desperately wicked as to go to sleep in the warmest corner they can find. Among such goods as bales of hemp, for instance, he took his long nightclub and jabbed it into all the dark spaces that were wide enough for a boy or man to squeeze into. That way, he found, was certain to produce results, if anybody was there. Either the soft feeling at the end of the club told him that he had found a victim, or the vigor with which he poked it made the victim cry out with pain.

For a policeman weighing nearly two hundred pounds, and armed with a big club and a revolver, patrolman McSweeny, it must be admitted, made his rounds among the bales with great caution. The ordinary tramp is a mere bag of dirt for the average policeman to prod and cuff and shake as he likes; but about ten days before Mr. McSweeny had stirred up two tramps on that same wharf who had more muscle than most of their clan, and in their anger they had turned upon him and thrown him overboard. So he felt that his dignity needed a little polishing up, and he was ready to polish it up on the next tramp he caught.

And tramps were not his only victims along the wharves. Sometimes he came across a boy,—a frowsy, ragged, shivering, homeless boy; and that always gave him great delight, for a boy, unless he is a big one, is not as troublesome to handle as a hungry and desperate man. Some policemen have big hearts, and would rather buy a cup of coffee and a roll for a hungry boy than take him to the station house and lock him up; but patrolman McSweeny was not of that kind. He was trying to make a record on “the foorce,” and every arrest added to his laurels.

It was about eleven o’clock when the patrolman made his fourth trip that evening among the hemp bales. Never very good-natured, he was particularly cross that night. Something at the station had annoyed him; and with his aching fingers and one or two draughts of a stronger beverage than coffee, he was rather a dangerous person to be trusted at large with a club and a revolver and the authority of law. His next victim on the wharf of Martin’s Stores was pretty sure to have an unpleasant time.

He went from pile to pile of the bales, poking his club viciously into every dark nook and corner, always ready for a sudden attack. And he had not gone far before he poked something soft, lying between two bales, and heard a voice cry out, in startled but still sleepy tones:—

“Hey! who’s there?”

The voice was a relief to him, for it was the voice of a boy.

“Git up here, ye young thafe, till I show ye who it is. Will ye come out or shall I fan yer carcase wid me club?”

In answer to this gentle summons a boy’s head and shoulders appeared above the bales, and the big policeman seized the section of coat collar that was visible and snatched the rest of the boy out with a jerk.

“Stop that! Let go of me!” said the boy.

Such resistance as that almost took the policeman’s breath away. He was accustomed to having boys beg him to let them off, and promise to go home, or go to work, or almost anything else, to get out of his clutches. But here was a boy who demanded his liberty instead of begging for it. In such a case it would have made no difference, probably, even if it had been light enough for him to see that instead of an ordinary vagabond or river thief this boy was clean and well dressed.

“Lit go av ye, then, is it!” he repeated, giving his prisoner another shake; “it’s in the cells I’ll lit go av ye, an’ not before, ye young thafe. Yer caught in de act, an I’ll run yer in.”

“I am no thief,” said the boy, “and you have no business to poke me with your club or shake me. If you want to arrest me, I will go with you peaceably; but I have done nothing to be arrested for.”

“Done nothin’!” the policeman exclaimed, letting go of the boy’s collar and taking him by the sleeve; “didn’t I ketch ye stealin’?”

“What was I stealing?” the boy asked.

“Hemp, av coorse,” said the officer.

Indignant as he was, the boy could hardly help laughing at the idea of his stealing five hundred pound bales of hemp.

“I was sleeping there,” the boy answered, “because I had nowhere else to sleep.”

“Thin I’ll give yer a safe place ter slape!” the policeman declared. “You come wid me;” and he started toward the archway, still holding his prisoner by the sleeve.

They were just about to turn from the outer end of the arch into the almost deserted street when they nearly ran into a man who came along the sidewalk at a swinging gait and turned short about to enter the dark tunnel.

“Hello, officer; what’s this?” said the man, stopping to look at the young prisoner under the gas lamp.

“Good avenin’ to you, Captain Griffith,” the policeman answered, in a very different tone from the one he had used in speaking to the boy. “It’s one of them loafin’ wharf rats I’ve caught among your bales of hemp, sir. But I’ll put him where he won’t be sn’akin’ around the wharves for one while, sure.”

“Why, this is no wharf rat, officer,” the newcomer said, taking the boy by the shoulder and turning him around under the lamp to have a better view of him. “He looks like a respectable boy. What were you doing on the wharf, my boy?”

“I went there to sleep between two of the bales, sir,” the boy replied, “because I had nowhere else to go.”

“Well, that’s no crime,” said the man; “we all have to sleep somewhere, I suppose. I think I wouldn’t lock him up just for that, officer. He’s a decent-looking boy, and I can give him a place to sleep aboard the ship. It’s no wonder a youngster hunts a warm place on such a night as this.”

“Af ye think best, Captain,” the policeman readily answered, releasing his hold on the boy’s arm. “It’s in luck ye are, bye, that Captain Griffith of the North Cape put in a good word for ye, or ye’d a been in a cell by this toime. Then I lave the bye with you, Cap’n.”

“Very good,” said the Captain. “Good night, officer; you’ll have cold work to-night. Come along, my boy.”

The next minute the boy was retracing his steps through the tunnel, no longer a prisoner, but sure of a warm place to pass the night. He had no time to wonder why it was that the captain of a freight steamer had so much influence with the Brooklyn police; and no matter how much he had wondered he could hardly have guessed the truth, that every time the North Cape lay at Martin’s Stores policeman McSweeny received a five-dollar tip for keeping extra watch over her at night. The big patrolman was too shrewd not to oblige his patron whenever he could.

Captain Griffith led the way up an inclined gangway to a lower part of the deck, then up an iron ladder to a higher deck amidships, then down a companionway to the snug little cabin of the North Cape, where he turned up the big cabin lamp that had been burning dimly. That done, he threw off his overcoat, sat down in a revolving-chair at the head of the cabin table, and looked at the boy for several minutes as if he intended to look right through him, clothes and all.

What he saw standing by the cabin table, hat in hand, was a manly-looking boy of about sixteen or seventeen, perhaps a little large for his age, strong of build, with a good honest face and bright bluish-gray eyes, and wavy dark brown hair, and hands and face bronzed by the sun.

“No place to sleep, eh?” the Captain asked, at length.

“No, sir,” said the boy.

“What are you doing in Brooklyn without a place to sleep?” the Captain went on.

“I came to New York to look for work, sir,” the boy replied. “This afternoon I answered an advertisement in Brooklyn, but did not get the place.”

“Where do you live?” the Captain asked.

“In Huntington, Connecticut, sir,” the boy replied.

“What’s your name?”

“Christopher Silburn, sir; they call me Kit.”

“And how did you happen to come to New York to look for work without any money?” the Captain continued.

“I had some money when I came, sir,” Kit answered, “but I have been here for three days, and it is nearly all gone. What little is left I am saving to buy food with.”

“Have you no friends?” the Captain asked, looking at Kit’s clothes, which though evidently not of city make, were clean and whole.

“I have a mother and sister, sir,” he answered, “and it is on their account that I have come to the city, for they need what I can earn. My father is dead—at least, I am afraid he is.”

“Afraid he is!” the Captain repeated; “don’t you know whether he is dead or not?”

“Not for certain, sir,” Kit replied. “He was first mate of the schooner Flower City, which sailed from Bridgeport for New Orleans with machinery nearly a year ago. She was sighted by a steamer off Hatteras, but she has never been heard from since, nor any of her crew. She was given up long ago, and there is hardly any hope.”

“Lost at sea!” the Captain said thoughtfully; and it was evident that from that moment he took a greater interest in the boy he had rescued. “The old story, I suppose. No money; family at home; wife and children left to starve.”

“Not quite as bad as that, sir,” Kit answered, “but very nearly. My father left us a little house in Huntington, nearly all paid for, and my mother earns some money by sewing. It is a hard pull; but if I can find something to do, it will make things a little easier.”

“Well, Mr. Kit Silburn, of Huntington,” the Captain said, after another long look at him, “you tell a very straight story. I thought out in the street that you looked like an honest boy; that’s the reason I got you away from the policeman. But I don’t judge boys by their faces; some of the best faces are owned by the biggest rogues. I have a sure way of my own of finding out whether a boy is likely to steal my spoons and cushions. I judge a bank by what it has in its safes, and a boy by what he has in his pockets. Empty out your pockets here on the table, till I see what you carry.”

Kit was a little surprised at this request, which was delivered more like an order on deck; but he obeyed promptly. He began with the trousers pocket on the right-hand side, and laid out an old knife, a key-ring without any keys on it, and a small foot rule. Then from the left-hand pocket he took a well-worn pocket-book.

“What’s in the purse?” the Captain asked.

Instead of replying in words, Kit opened it and held it upside down over the table, and there rolled out a half-dollar, a bright quarter, a five-cent piece, and two pennies.

“That your whole stock?” the Captain asked.

“Yes, sir, that is all the money I have left,” Kit answered. Then he began on his vest. From the upper pocket on the left-hand side he took a toothbrush, and a pocket comb fastened to the back of a small mirror. In a lower pocket, on one side, he had four collar buttons; and on the other side a card with his name and home address written upon it, prepared by his mother, as he explained, in case anything should happen to him.

Then he began to empty the pockets of his coat. From the breast pocket he took his handkerchief, and two clean handkerchiefs, folded, that were beneath it.

From one of the lower pockets he took a morning newspaper, with several of the advertisements marked with pencil. Then he put his hand up to the inside breast pocket, but paused.

“Well, go on,” said the Captain.

With a little hesitation Kit took from the pocket two clean collars, folded in the middle, and laid them on the table. Then a little pocket testament with gilt edges. Then a letter that had been opened, addressed to “Mr. Christopher Silburn, General Post Office, New York.”

“That’s all, sir,” he said.

“Where do you carry your matches?” the Captain asked.

“I don’t carry any matches, sir,” Kit answered.

“Nor cigarettes?”

“No, sir, I never smoke.”

The Captain picked up the testament and opened it at the fly-leaf and read, written in a neat womanly hand, “Christopher Silburn, from Mother. ‘The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.’”

“Now, my boy,” the Captain continued, “I see you have a letter there. Letters always tell their own story. If you want to tell me more about yourself, you can read that letter to me. But you need not do it unless you choose.”

“I am quite willing to read it, sir,” Kit replied, taking up the letter. “It is from my sister, with a few lines added by my mother.”

He took it from the envelope and stepped up closer to the light. The body of the letter was in a scrawly, girlish hand, and the postscript was written evidently by the same hand that wrote the inscription in the testament.

My dear Kit [he read]: We are so worried about you for fear something will happen to you in that big city. Mamma says it is more than fifty times as big as Bridgeport, and I am always a little afraid when I go there. I cried half the night last night, and I know Mamma was crying for you in the evening, though she didn’t think that I saw her. Dear old Turk was so quiet all day, I know he missed you, too.

I do hope you will find some situation you like, and get a good start. But if you don’t find one, we want you to come home, Kit; Mamma says so.

I bought stamps with one of my dollars to-day and send them to you in this, for fear you may run out of money. If you don’t get anything to do, send me a postal card, and I will send you the other one too, so you can come home in the boat. I do wish you were here this evening.

Your loving sister,

Genevieve.

Then he read the postscript:—

My darling Boy: Sister has written for me, as my eyes ache in the evening. We hope to hear from you by to-morrow. Be sure we both miss you very much. God bless you, my boy, and take care of you. Remember what I told you before you started.

Mother.

“And you have spent your sister’s stamps, I suppose?” the Captain asked, when Kit, having finished, refolded the letter.

“No, sir, I was robbed of them,” he replied. “I took them into a little shop in one of the avenues to have them changed into money, and the man put them in the drawer, but would not pay me for them. He accused me of stealing them. ‘You’re not the first office boy has stolen his boss’s stamps and come here to sell them,’ he said. ‘Go and bring your boss, till I give him back his stamps.’”

“And being a country boy, you did not think of taking the address of the shop, I suppose?” the Captain asked.

“No, sir,” Kit answered. “He threatened to call a policeman if I didn’t go away, so I went.”

“Looks as if the shopkeeper was the thief himself,” said the Captain, smiling at Kit’s innocence. “Well, put your things back in your pockets. How old are you?”

“Sixteen, sir,” Kit answered; “nearly seventeen.”

“Ever been to sea?”

“No, sir. I know very little about the water, for a sailor’s boy. Huntington is ten miles back from the Sound, and a good many of the people there are seafaring men, but the boys don’t see much of salt water.”

“Would you like to go to sea?” the Captain asked, looking up at him suddenly.

“Yes, sir; I should like it very much indeed,” Kit answered promptly.

“Well, I haven’t taken all this trouble with you just for amusement,” the Captain went on. “I am in need of a cabin boy; and when I saw you in the hands of the policeman I rather thought that fate had sent me one without farther trouble. I never take a boy who has run away from home, and for that reason I wanted to find out about you by what you had in your pockets. And I find that you have not run away, and that you have very good references. A boy with a Bible in his pocket and a letter from his mother and sister has as good references as I want. I’m not very much of a church man myself; know more about log books than prayer books, maybe; but I like to see a boy who’s started out right. Would you like to be my cabin boy?”

“Yes, sir; I should like very much to have the place,” Kit replied.

“Then I’ll tell you what the place is, so you’ll know what you’re about,” the Captain continued. “You know what a tramp steamer is, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir,” Kit answered. “It is a steamer that belongs to no regular line, but goes wherever she can get freight to carry.”

“That’s it,” the Captain assented. “And the North Cape is a tramp steamer. She belongs to no regular line, but goes wherever she can get freight to carry. She is chartered for one more voyage to Sisal after hemp, and after that she will go wherever business offers. It may be on one side of the world and it may be on the other. So if you go with me, you are just as likely to be in China six months from now, as to be in New York.”

Such a prospect made Kit’s eyes sparkle.

“I should like that very much, sir,” he answered.

“Very well, then,” the Captain resumed. “Your pay will be six dollars a month, and you are not to go ashore without leave. That is not very much pay, but on the ship you will get your board, so you will have more money at the end of the month than you would have with more pay on shore. Your work will be to do whatever you’re told, and you’ll have to walk a very straight line. Don’t think because I have talked to you so much to-night that I’m going to pet you, for I’m not. When a ship leaves port, there is only one law for everybody on board, and that is the captain’s orders.”

He paused a moment, and then went on:—

“There is another boy on this ship, the engineers’ mess-room boy. You’ve heard the old saying, I suppose, that one boy is half a boy and two boys are no boy at all. But it’s not so on the North Cape. Each boy has to be a whole boy here, from the top of his head to the soles of his boots. I don’t allow any skylarking, or any quarrelling.”

Kit saw that he was expected to make some reply, so he said, “I will try to please you, sir.”

“I think you will,” said the Captain. “Now you have a start,—not a very big one, but as good as most boys have,—and the rest lies with yourself. You can push your way up in the world, or you can make a fool of yourself and go to the dogs. Nobody but yourself can say which it shall be.”

“I am very much obliged to you, sir,” Kit answered. “I found it pretty hard to get the start, but now that I have it I shall try to make the most of it.”

“It’s time to turn in,” said the Captain, glancing at the cabin clock and seeing that it was almost midnight. “To-morrow you must write home for whatever clothes you have. No matter what they are, they will be good enough when we are at sea. And you must ask your mother’s permission to go; I won’t take you without that, but as soon as you get it, I will let you sign the crew list; and you can begin your work to-morrow morning, while you’re waiting for it. We’ll not be away from here for a week yet, and there’s plenty of time. You can sleep on one of the cabin sofas to-night.”

With that the Captain turned the big lamp down low, picked up his overcoat, and disappeared through a door at the end of the cabin, leading, as Kit learned afterward, to his own stateroom.

Kit was a little dazed at first by the rapidity with which things were happening. Late in the afternoon he had concluded to go without any supper, because he was not very hungry and he could not afford to eat just because it was meal time. Then he had looked about for a place to sleep outdoors, having no idea how many thousand homeless people in New York are doing that same thing every night, nor how vigilant the police are to drive them away or arrest them. He had spent two nights in cheap lodging-houses in the Bowery, but everything was so foul and uncomfortable there that he preferred the open air. Then he had gone to sleep between the hemp bales, only to be poked with a club and shaken and put under arrest. And now here he was an hour later with as good a situation as he had hoped to find; and a chance to sleep in as snug and comfortable a cabin as he ever dreamed of; and a prospect of breakfast in the morning that would not have to be paid for out of his poor little eighty-two cents.

He went around the table to the longest of the three sofas in the cabin, and found it covered with soft leather cushions. There was even a leather pillow at the end. He lay down and tried to think things over. He had no doubt that his mother would consent to his going, for it had always been intended that he should go to sea with his father. Then he thought about Genevieve and her stamps, and about Turk, and in five minutes he was fishing in his dreams, in Bonnibrook, the stream that runs through Huntington.

A noise in the cabin awoke him. It was the steward giving the place its morning cleaning; and half asleep as he still was, Kit saw that the sun was streaming through the port-holes.

“Hello, there,” said the steward, “where did you come from?”

Kit sat up and looked around. He had to think a moment before he could tell where he did come from.

“I’m the new cabin boy, sir,” he said.

“Get up, then, and stir yourself,” said the steward.

CHAPTER II.
A VOYAGE TO YUCATAN.

FOR five days after Kit’s arrival on board the North Cape the steam winches were at work ten hours a day with their deafening clatter, first in hoisting the remainder of the hemp bales out of the hold, then in taking in what shipping men call a “general cargo,” consisting in part of barrels of flour, boxes of tea, cases of cloth, hats, shoes, and other things necessary in a country where little but hemp is produced.

On the fifth day there came indications that the ship was about to sail. The last of the piles of merchandise on the wharf disappeared, the winches stopped, and two of the hatches were battened down. Kit was prepared for this, for he was now a legal member of the ship’s family, having signed the crew list. He had written home and had received his mother’s permission to go to sea, coupled with many loving expressions and much good advice; and had received, too, an affectionate letter from Genevieve, and a little bundle containing the clothing he had left at home.

Early in the afternoon the Captain’s bell rang, and it was Kit’s business to answer it.

“Go tell the chief I want steam at eight o’clock,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Kit answered, and ran up to the chief engineer’s room to deliver the order. When he left the chief’s room he was stopped near the engine-room skylights by the boatswain.

“Here, youngster,” said he, “run up for’ard and ask the first officer to send me the load-water-line; I’ve got to take soundings.”

“Yes, sir,” Kit answered again, and was about to start on the errand when he was stopped by Tom Haines, the fourth engineer, a pleasant-faced young Scotchman of about twenty, who was leaning against the skylights.

“Don’t go, young ’un,” Haines said; “he’s trying to make a fool of you. The load-water-line is painted on the side of the ship; besides, we don’t take soundings lying at a wharf.”

Kit laughed good-naturedly at the joke, and Haines added:—

“They’ll soon get tired of playing tricks on you, as you don’t get mad. Just keep your eyes open and your mouth shut, and you’ll soon know as much about the ship as any of them.”

“Oh, I don’t intend to let them make me mad,” Kit answered, “no matter how many tricks they play on me. A new boy has to expect that sort of thing, I suppose.”

Before he reached the cabin companionway he was stopped by “Chocolate” Cheevers, the engineer’s mess-room boy, whose nickname was generally abbreviated to “Chock.” This boy had already played more tricks upon Kit than all the rest of the crew combined, and the new cabin boy felt sure that he would not be a pleasant companion on the voyage. The curious nickname that the sailors had given him came, it was easy to see, from the brown hue of his skin; and this and his tight-curled black hair and velvety brown eyes marked him for a light West Indian mulatto. He was about a year older than Kit, tall and slender.

“Say, farmer,” he said, laying a hand on Kit’s shoulder (disliking his own nickname, he was anxious to attach one to Kit), “don’t you want to go ashore with me and have a look at the town to-night? This will be our last night in port.”

“Why, we’re going to sail at eight o’clock,” Kit answered.

“Well, you are a green one!” Chock laughed. “How can we sail before we get our crew on board? We’ll not leave the wharf before midnight, and then she’ll anchor out in the harbor till morning.”

“But I can’t go on shore without leave,” Kit protested, “nor you either.”

“We can get leave fast enough, on the last night. Come along, and we’ll take in some of the shows on the Bowery. It’s a gay old place, that Bowery.”

“Oh, that’s what you mean by taking a look at the town, is it?” Kit laughed. “I don’t care about that kind of a look, thank you. I saw a little of the Bowery when I was looking for a job, and I’m not fond of it; and I have no money to throw away on such things. We’d better both stay on board and attend to our business.”

“Ah, the cabin boy is a preacher as well as a farmer, is he?” Chock sneered. “Service of song every Sunday morning.”

“No, I am no preacher,” Kit answered pleasantly; “but I am not fool enough to spend my money on Bowery shows, either.”

The Captain’s bell rang again, and he had to hurry away before Chock had a chance to retort. He was wanted this time to help the Captain get ready to go ashore; and after the Captain had gone he took the opportunity to write his last letter home before sailing, as he always had less to do when the Captain was away. There were writing-materials on the big cabin table, and he sat down and wrote:—

Dear Mother and Vieve:—We are getting up steam and will be off to-night or to-morrow morning, so this is the last letter you will get from me till I am back from Yucatan. And won’t I be a regular old sailor by that time!

The Captain has gone ashore, and we expect the rest of the crew this evening. You see only about half the crew stay by the ship all the time; the rest are shipped new for every voyage. The regular ones are the Captain, the first and second mates, the chief engineer and his three assistants, the boatswain, the cabin steward, cabin boy (that’s the undersigned!), cook, galley boy (that boy is about thirty!), and the engineers’ mess-room boy. Then before sailing we ship six men “before the mast,” and four firemen, or stokers. That will make twenty-three of us on board when we sail.

I think I have given the Captain satisfaction so far, and I like it first-rate. Of course we are only in port yet, but I shall like it at sea too. We have a beautiful little cabin, and the Captain’s room is about half as large as the cabin. I have to take care of his room, keep it clean, and keep his clothes in order; clean the cabin every morning, fill and polish the big lamp, run when the Captain’s bell rings, and, as he says, “do whatever I’m told,” which of course I do.

At the other end of the cabin, across a little alley, are three good staterooms. The first and second mates have one together, and the cabin steward and I have another. He sleeps in the lower berth, and I in the upper. It makes fine quarters for us; but we would have to move out if there were passengers on board.

At meal times the Captain and first mate eat together first, then the second mate comes down and eats, and after he is done the steward and I eat together. The engineers have their own mess-room. Of course there is plenty to eat, and our china is all marked N. C., for North Cape. You wouldn’t think things would be so grand on a freight ship. Why, the cabin is all furnished in mahogany, with soft leather cushions. Oh, I forgot to say that I have to help the steward wash the dishes, so it’s well you taught me how.

Don’t think I am off on a pleasure trip. I didn’t leave you both for that. I have lots of work to do; and I hope to do it faithfully, so that before long I may be something better than a cabin boy. But cabin boy isn’t so bad for just now.

The North Cape’s size is 2850 tons, and she is a very strong iron ship; so you need not be worried about me. Shake dear old Turk’s paw good-by for me. You know how much love I send to you both. Good-by for a month or six weeks.

Your loving

Kit.

That was the longest letter he had ever written; and by the time it was finished he had to help set the supper table, for the ship’s meals must go on whether the Captain was on board or not. Then the dishes were hardly washed and put away after supper before the Captain returned, to be followed in a few minutes by a shipping agent who brought the crew—the six sailors and four stokers, most of whom had been supplied with enough liquor to make them willing to sign orders for advances on their pay, for the benefit of the agent and boarding-house keeper. Some of them were quite sober, however, and there was one young man of good appearance whom Kit thought he should like.

It was nine o’clock by the time the sailors were aboard and quartered down in the forecastle, but still there were no further signs of the ship’s moving; on the contrary, the Captain went ashore again, and the usual harbor lights were kept burning in the rigging. About eleven o’clock, having nothing to do, but feeling too much excited over the start to turn in, Kit went up on deck, and was glad to find Tom Haines taking the air while he waited for his watch to begin at midnight.

“I wonder why we don’t get off, sir,” Kit said, going up to the young engineer.

“You mustn’t say ‘sir’ to me, young ’un,” Haines laughed. “It’s only the Captain and the two mates and the chief engineer that you’re to say ‘sir’ to. But we’ll be off in a few minutes now.”

“Then we’ll be out at sea in two or three hours!” Kit exclaimed.

“Not a bit of it,” Haines answered. “We’d hardly go to sea without the Captain, and he is spending the night on shore. We’ll drop down below the Statue of Liberty and anchor there, and some time to-morrow we’ll get off.”

“What delays us so long, when everything is ready?” Kit asked.

“Everything is not ready,” Haines replied. “We have to give the crew a few hours to sober up in, for one thing; they are not fit for duty now. It’s an outrageous shame the way the sailors are brought on board drunk; but that’s always the way, so I suppose there’s no use worrying about it. Then we can’t go till the charterers of the ship tell us to; the minute they say go, we’re off. You may as well turn in, young ’un, for you’ll not see her fairly under way much before noon to-morrow.”

Kit went down to the cabin and did such odd jobs as he could find, for he knew it was useless for him to try to sleep when the ship was about to move. When everything was straightened up, he sat down by the big table under the lamp and took out the little book in which his mother had written his name.

“I wish they’d had steamships in these Bible times,” he said to himself; “I’d like to see what they had to say about them. There’s a good deal here about ships, but they were all such little ones; and I don’t see anything about cabin boys; maybe they didn’t have any cabins.”

He had not been reading long before the blowing of the big whistle and the noise on deck told him that the ship was about to move, and he hurried out. But that first little stage of the journey was a disappointment. She merely crawled over to the Statue of Liberty and dropped her anchor, and there was nothing to be seen but the great blazing torch over the statue, and the twinkling lights on shore.

It was hardly daylight in the morning when Kit felt himself roughly shaken, and heard the voice of the steward saying:—

“Come, hustle out here, boy. We’re away from the wharf now, and you’ve got to stir yourself. Don’t lie there and say ‘yes, sir,’ but jump. I’ll have no lazy boys about my cabin.”

Kit sprang up and dressed as fast as he could, but nothing he did satisfied the steward, who ordered him here and there apparently for the sake of showing his authority, scolded him, and once took him by the shoulders and shook him.

“I’d rather hate to sail with the steward for captain!” Kit said to himself, laughing inwardly at the little man’s feeble attempt at violence. He did not even know the man’s name, for he was always addressed as “steward”; but he was a middle-aged, dried-up little fellow, his yellowish face marked from small-pox, and his body so thin that his coat always hung like a bag. He spoke with a strong foreign accent, and Kit had noticed already that the Captain did not seem to like to have him about him; but he was a capital steward, and understood his business from top to bottom.

“I ought to have brought a note-book along to keep a list of the things I learn,” Kit said to himself after several hours of this nagging; “I’ve learned a fresh thing this morning, anyhow—not to make a show of myself by giving unnecessary orders if I’m ever put in any little position of authority.”

How differently the Captain managed things! About ten o’clock a little tug came alongside, and the Captain and the pilot climbed aboard.

“Put her under way, Mr. Mason,” he said to the first mate as he passed him, as quietly as if he had been saying “It’s a fine day.” The steward would have made more fuss over having the carving-knife cleaned.

It was a grand thing to be steaming out to sea in a fine ship like the North Cape; but now that the moment had come Kit felt a little more serious over it than he expected. He had never been away from home before, and a thousand recollections of the old place crowded into his mind. What were his mother and Vieve doing, and how long would it be before he should see them again? Having little to do in the middle of the morning, he went up on deck and leaned over the rail while the steamer ran down through the Narrows and into the lower bay. Everything was new and beautiful to him; but he would have enjoyed it more if there had not been, somehow, a little bit of a haze before his eyes. Suddenly he felt a friendly clap on the back, and heard the kindly voice of Tom Haines:—

“Brace up, young ’un. You might as well start your first voyage laughing as crying.”

“Oh, I’m not crying,” Kit protested; and he proved it by wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. “You’ll think I’m a big baby, won’t you?”

“Not at all,” Haines answered; “I salted the ocean myself a little when I first left home. You’ll soon get used to being away.”

“It’s not only that,” Kit said thoughtfully. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen the big ocean, and I can’t help thinking that my father is lying at the bottom of it somewhere. He was lost at sea about a year ago.”

“All the more reason for you to keep up a bold front, young ’un,” Haines insisted. “If you have no father, you have to shift for yourself, and for your family too, like enough. Keep at work and don’t stop to think about such things. If you want to send a line home to let them know you’re all right, you can send it ashore by the pilot, you know, when we’re outside the Hook.”

Captain Griffith was not the man to leave his ship in the hands of the pilot, as some captains do. He was up on the bridge, glass in hand, and remained there till he had seen the flags run up that announced to the signal station at Sandy Hook, “North Cape, for Sisal,” so that her departure would be announced to the owners and all interested. Then he went below, and the chief mate took his place on the bridge.

Kit was surprised, perhaps almost disappointed, to find that the sea was as smooth as the bay. It was one of those days that come sometimes even in winter, when there is hardly a ripple on the surface. There was not a sign of the seasickness he expected, and while the Captain was on the bridge he had an opportunity to write another “last line” home.

“Dear Mother,” he wrote with pencil, “I can write you another line to send by the pilot. We are at sea now, just outside Sandy Hook, and it is as smooth as Bonnibrook. I am not the least seasick. A little bit homesick, but I’ll soon work that off. I have to help set the dinner table now. Love to all. Kit.”

In another half-hour the pilot was gone, and they were fairly cut off from the world till they reached the coast of Yucatan. The Atlantic Highlands loomed up, and Seabright, and Long Branch, and so many more places on the New Jersey coast, that it looked to Kit as if it must be one continuous town. When darkness came they could still see the lights on shore.

An hour after supper the Captain went into his stateroom, sat down at his desk that had a bookcase over the top, and called Kit. He had a bundle of very large sheets closely written in columns before him, and more sheets of the same paper, blank.

“Can you read writing, my boy?” he asked. “Oh, yes, I know you can,” he added, “for you read a letter to me. See whether you can read this writing to me while I copy it,” and he handed Kit one of the big sheets.

Kit took it and began with the first line across the broad page:—

“‘Hernandez & Co., Merida,’” he read; “‘1 case dry goods; weight 168 pounds;’ then here’s some sort of a mark—a square with an H inside of it.”

“That’s what we call a diamond H,” the Captain explained; “when it’s in a circle, we call it a circle H. Now go on.”

Kit read several more of the lines without difficulty, till the Captain stopped him.

“You’ve been to school, then, have you?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, sir!” Kit answered. “I always went to school till about six months ago. Since then I’ve been doing whatever work I could get.”

“Study geography?” the Captain asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you know about the place we’re going to—Sisal?”

“It is a small place on the coast of Yucatan, sir,” Kit answered promptly; “a seaport for the city of Merida, which lies about twenty miles inland. But I have learned most of that from your books here since I came aboard, sir,” he added, blushing a little.

“Well, I am glad to see you are honest about it,” the Captain said, with a smile. “I think you can stand there and read some of these manifests to me while I copy them. These things are the plague of my life. I have to make three copies of them before we reach Sisal, and I’d rather navigate a ship around the world than do it. Go ahead, now, and be very careful; for the least mistake will make no end of trouble.”

Kit began and read line by line with great care, while the Captain laboriously copied. After fifteen or twenty minutes of the work the Captain laid down the pen, and began to open and shut his hand and to rub it.

“Ah, my fingers are not as nimble as they once were,” he said. “It gives me cramp in the hand.”

For some time Kit had been revolving something in his mind while he read, but could not quite determine to speak it out. This pause of the Captain’s, however, decided him.

“I write a plain hand, sir,” he said; “if you could trust me, I think I could copy them for you.”

The Captain looked up at him with one of the piercing looks that seemed to go through him, and Kit was a little alarmed. Maybe it was presuming too much for the cabin boy to suggest such a thing. Even then, though, under that sharp gaze he thought it was worth the venture, for if he succeeded, it would show that he was good for something better than scouring the knives.

“Sit down here and let me see your handwriting,” the Captain said at length, laying a bit of plain paper on top of the manifests.

Kit sat down and took up the pen, and had just begun to write when something happened that gave him so much satisfaction that he could hardly keep a straight face. There came a knock at the door, and the engineers’ mess-room boy stepped in with the engineer’s report of the number of tons of coal in the bunkers. For this boy to see him seated in the Captain’s stateroom, writing at the Captain’s desk, with the Captain himself standing by watching him, was the best answer he could give to the assertion that he was a “farmer” and a “preacher.” Chock Cheevers could not have looked more astonished if he had seen one of the stokers on the bridge taking an observation.

The little interruption over, Kit wrote, as neatly and plainly as he could, “Christopher Silburn, cabin boy, steamship North Cape, for Sisal.”

“Yes, that is a good plain hand,” the Captain said, taking the paper. “I will let you try it, at any rate. You can go ahead while I go up on the bridge. Remember that you can’t be too careful.”

He hooked the stateroom door open as he went out; and he had hardly been gone five minutes before Mr. Hanway, the big, powerful second mate, went down to his room for a reefing jacket. Seeing the new boy at the Captain’s desk, and being fond of a little quiet fun, he went up to the open door, touched his cap in mock politeness, and said,

“She’s heading sou-sou-west, sir.”

Kit hardly knew whether he dared joke with the second mate or not; but with an inspiration he looked up from his work without the least change of countenance, and, returning the salute, replied,

“Very good, sir; keep her so, sir.”

More than an hour passed before the Captain returned from the bridge, and in the interval Kit nearly filled one of the large sheets.

“That will do for to-night,” the Captain said, looking over the page. “You have done it very well; but there’s more than one night; you can do a little at it every evening.”

Then the steward had something to say when Kit went into the pantry, which also opened from the cabin. The steward was not pleased to see the new boy taken into the Captain’s favor.

“I want that cabin cleaned before six o’clock in the morning,” he growled. “You needn’t think you’re going to shirk your work because you write for the Captain.”

“Very well, sir,” Kit answered. “I don’t intend to shirk any work.”

It did not seem quite right, on his first voyage, that the sea should be so smooth all the way down the coast. Even when the North Cape passed Hatteras there was no more than a little swell. When she reached the Florida coast, in about four days, she kept so well in shore that the sandy beach could be seen plainly, and the palm trees just as he had seen them in pictures. He learned from Tom Haines that steamers bound for the Gulf always run as close to the Florida coast as they dare, to be inside of the Gulf Stream, which flows northward at the rate of about four miles an hour, and retards a south-bound steamer just that much when she runs against it.

On the seventh day they sighted the eastern cliffs of Yucatan; and after two days of steaming along the coast, but so far out that they could see nothing but the outlines of the low hills, Kit learned that they were approaching Sisal. By that time he had made three copies of the long manifest, working at it a little nearly every evening on the cabin table.

It was early in a hot afternoon that they dropped anchor off Sisal; and nowhere in the world is it more appropriate to say of a ship that she lies “off” a port, for at Sisal a ship of any size must lie at least three miles off. There is no harbor, and the shore slopes off so gradually that no ship can approach the town.

“That must have been as smooth a voyage as ever a ship made,” Kit said to Tom Haines, as they stood by the rail together when the anchor went down. “I didn’t know it ever was so smooth for ten days at a time.”

“The Atlantic is a treacherous old pond,” Tom answered. “To-day it makes you believe it’s only a big lake; to-morrow it knocks you all to pieces. And this is a bad part of the coast we’re on, this south side of the Gulf; when we get any bad weather here, we have to hoist anchor and run to sea. But you want to keep your eyes open now; you’ll see some queer people in a few minutes.”

“What are all those little boats coming out to us?” Kit asked; “lighters to take off the cargo?”

“No indeed!” Tom laughed. “They don’t begin work as fast as that here. Everything is ‘mañana’ here, which means ‘to-morrow’ in Spanish; these people all speak Spanish, you know. That first boat, the one with the flag at the stern and rowed by four men, is the government boat, that brings out the Captain of the port, the health officer, and a lot of custom-house men. After they have examined our papers and found that we’re all well, the other boats will come up. They are what we call ‘bum-boats,’ with things to sell—cigars and tobacco, bead work, canes plated with tortoise-shell, all sorts of nonsense; and they will be on the lookout for passengers who may want to go ashore. But it’s the officers in the first boat I want you to see; they’ll be aboard in a minute.”

The gangway had been lowered, and after a great deal of shouting in Spanish the government boat came up to it and made fast. Then there came up the steps a dozen swarthy men whose appearance gave Kit more surprise than anything else he had seen on the voyage. Each one, as far as he could see, wore nothing but a white shirt and a high black silk hat, with a belt around the waist with a big revolver stuck in each side. They carried themselves with great dignity, which made their costume all the more grotesque; and as they stood on deck shaking hands with Captain Griffith, it was as much as Kit could do to restrain his laughter.

“Don’t they wear trousers in this country?” he whispered to Tom.

“They all have trousers on—white linen ones,” Tom answered; “but they roll them clear up so they won’t get wet in the boat. And it’s the fashion in Yucatan to wear the end of the shirt outside instead of inside the trousers. It wouldn’t be so bad in this hot climate, with their bare feet and legs, if they didn’t wear the high black hats to look stylish.”

The Captain took his visitors down into the cabin; and next minute his bell rang, and Kit had to run.

CHAPTER III.
A NORTHER ON THE GULF.

WHEN the port officers returned to shore they left behind four of the custom-house men, who were to stay on board the North Cape as long as she lay there; and these men deposited their high hats in the cabin and put on dark blue caps that they carried in their pockets, rolled down their trousers, and thus, though still in their bare feet, transformed themselves into respectable-looking citizens.

Kit heard the order given from the bridge, “Lower away the captain’s gig!” and in a few minutes Captain Griffith followed the officers ashore to arrange for lighters to land his cargo. He returned in time for supper, bringing along a package of letters that had been handed him at the custom-house—some for himself, and some for members of the crew.

“I think I have something here for you, Christopher,” he said as he passed through the cabin, where Kit was setting the table. “Yes,” he went on, pausing under the lamp to look over the letters, “‘Mr. Christopher Silburn, S. S. North Cape, Sisal, Yucatan.’ There’s news from home for you. The mail steamer left three days behind us, but she has beaten us down and gone on to Vera Cruz; so you will have a chance to answer your letter when she comes back, in about a week.”

“Thank you, sir,” Kit answered, as the Captain handed him a letter addressed in his mother’s familiar handwriting. He was delighted to hear from home, but still the letter frightened him a little, for he had not expected to hear while he was away, and his first thought was that there must be something the matter. He hastily cut the envelope open and read far enough to see that no one was sick, then put the letter in his pocket till his work was done. It was not till the supper dishes were washed and put away that he had any leisure, and then he sat down under the cabin lamp and read it. The main letter was from his mother, and there was a shorter one from Genevieve.

My dear Boy [his mother wrote]: Though I have no news to tell you, I want to send you a few lines by the first mail steamer, for I don’t want you to feel that you are entirely cut off from home and family. No matter how far away you are, you know we are always thinking about you.

And I don’t want to tire you with a lot of advice, but I do hope, my dear boy, that you will take care of yourself in every way. It may be selfish in me to say so, but I want you to remember that you have not only yourself, but your mother and sister too, to think about and work for. You are all we have. I am sure you will do your best wherever you are, but I want you to take great care of your health. That is an unhealthy country you are in, and you must not expose yourself to the hot sun. I will try to have some new shirts ready for you when you get back to New York; and I think you had better buy a few handkerchiefs, for you have not enough. And don’t forget the little book I gave you, Kit.

Your Loving Mother.

Then he unfolded the note from Genevieve.

Dear Kit [she wrote]: This is the first note I ever wrote without mother’s seeing it, but I do not want her to see this, because I am going to write to you about father, and that always troubles her.

I want you always, when you are travelling about the world, to keep your ears open for news of the Flower City or some of her boats. It may be foolish, but I never can believe that we shall not see him any more. You know how many people have been shipwrecked and then come home again years afterwards. You’ll do this, won’t you?

Dear old Turk is trying to write to you. He heard me say that I was going to write, so he sits here beside me, putting up first one paw and then the other. I am sure he would write if he could. With love,

Vieve.

He was about to read the letters over again, when the Captain’s bell rang. All the doors and port-holes were left open now, for the heat was intense even after dark, and he went into the Captain’s room without knocking.

“Shut the door, my boy,” the Captain said; “I have something to say to you;” and as Kit obeyed, he could not help wondering whether he had done anything that he was to be scolded for. But the Captain’s first words relieved his mind.

“I am going to put you at a job to-morrow that will require all your brains,” he said. “The lighters will be here in the morning after cargo, and I am going to send you ashore to make a list of every package landed. I have to keep a sharp eye on these boatmen, or they rob me. Everything will be checked off as it leaves the ship, and you will keep a list on shore, and the goods go into the hands of our agent in Sisal immediately, and he receipts for them.

“Now I want you to understand,” he continued, “that this is very important work. I have never trusted such work to a cabin boy before. If you miss a package, it may cost me a great many dollars. But I see you have some brains, and I want you to use them, and do the work carefully.”

“Thank you, sir,” Kit answered. “I will certainly do my best.”

Kit returned to the cabin, with a little flush on his face. He had seen for some days that his position on the ship was much better than when he started, but he had not dreamed of such an important commission as this. It would give him a great amount of extra work to do, but what of that? He was not afraid of work. Nearly any one in the crew would jump at the chance to go ashore and do what he was to do. Copying the manifests had given him extra work, but it had paid many times over by giving the Captain a good opinion of him.

Immediately after breakfast next morning the gig was lowered again, and the Captain was rowed ashore by two of the men, with Kit sitting in the stern by his side. Kit knew how some of the crew were wondering to see him going off in this style, but he had no chance to speak to them. On the way they passed three of the lighters going out—open boats about thirty feet long, very strongly built, with a single mast, each with a large crew of half-clad Mexicans ready for work.

The Captain waited till the first of the lighters arrived with its load, and showed Kit where he was to stand on the mole, as the Mexicans call the wharf, and how he was to keep his list. Then he returned to the ship, and the cabin boy was left to his own resources.

“I’m going to be roasted and broiled and frizzled here,” he said to himself, “under this sun. But I can stand it if these fellows can. And when there’s no lighter in sight I can get into the shade there beside the warehouse.”

He soon found that he was to have company in the hot sun; for as the agent had to receipt for the goods, he sent one of his own clerks to check them off on one of the manifests that Kit had copied. The clerk was a slender young man in a broad-brimmed Panama hat; and Kit was greatly amused when he touched his hat to him, and called him “Señor.” But the young man spoke a little English, and they soon became acquainted.

“You are young for a supercargo, Señor,” the clerk said, in a lull in the work.

“‘YOU ARE YOUNG FOR A SUPERCARGO, SEÑOR.’”

Kit had read enough sea stories to know something about supercargoes, though he did not know that he was doing the work of one at that minute.

“I’m not the supercargo, sir,” he replied; “I’m the cabin boy; we have no supercargo.”

“Ah!” said the clerk; and it was still more amusing to see how dignified he immediately became, and what a superior air he assumed. But another trifling incident soon made him friendly again, for the agent himself came down to the mole to inquire about something, and he, too, touched his hat to Kit and called him Señor, whereupon the clerk said something in Spanish that must have explained that Kit was only the cabin boy, for the agent immediately replied, “Oh, cabin boy is he? Well, he must be a good one, or he wouldn’t be put at this work. Bring him up to the house to breakfast.”

Kit was under the impression that he had had his breakfast several hours before, on board ship; but he followed Tom Haines’s advice to “keep his eyes open and his mouth shut,” and before long he learned that the southern custom is to take only a cup of coffee and a roll in the early morning, and to wait till midday for the full breakfast, which is really an early dinner.

About twelve o’clock there were no lighters in sight, for the boatmen were eating their breakfast too, and the clerk took Kit through a narrow street to a big one-story stone warehouse, the agent’s business place, where, on a shady rear verandah, a long table was spread. This was “the house” the agent had referred to; and by keeping both eyes and ears open, Kit learned that it is the custom in Yucatan for the proprietors and all the employees of large business houses to eat together in the warehouses, a cook and waiters being kept on the premises.

He was a little embarrassed to find that he was to be seated at the right hand of Mr. Ysnard, the agent, near the head of the table; for he was bright enough to see that the seats were arranged according to rank in the firm, with the proprietor at the top of the table, the cashier and chief clerks next, then the minor clerks, and the porters and boys near the foot.

“Hadn’t I better go lower down, sir?” he asked. “I don’t think I belong up here.”

“Oh, yes, you do!” Mr. Ysnard laughed; “you are my guest to-day, and my guests always belong in the seat of honor.”

While the many courses were brought on, soup, fish, roasts, dessert, and fruits, Mr. Ysnard asked Kit enough questions to keep him busy answering—how long he had been on the North Cape, how he liked it, where he lived, and all about himself. But when, after the meal was finished, they all sat talking, and most of them smoking, he began to grow uneasy.

“I shall have to ask you to excuse me, sir,” he said to Mr. Ysnard. “I am afraid some of the lighters will be coming in, and I must not miss anything.”

“Very true, my boy, you must attend to business,” Mr. Ysnard answered. “And you can safely follow the example, Michel,” he called down the table to Kit’s fellow-clerk on the wharf, who sat about the middle.

Together they returned to their work, and up to dark they had little chance for conversation, for eight lighters were now busy bringing cargo. When it was too dark to see longer, the gig was sent to take Kit on board.

“Make way for the supercargo!” Chock Cheevers cried, as he stepped on board. “Clear a gangway there. Don’t you see who’s come aboard?”

But the second mate had something more important to say.

“Bring your list into the chart-room,” he ordered, “and compare it with my tally.” The second mate had been keeping the tally of everything that left the ship; and when the comparison was made they corresponded exactly, showing that on his first day, at any rate, Kit had made no mistakes.

It seemed a little odd to go to washing dishes again after being a clerk all day; but they were soon done, and next morning he was out bright and early to clean the cabin and set the table. After breakfast he was rowed ashore as before, but dressed this time in his thinnest clothes. Even at eight o’clock the sun was burning hot, and the cloudless sky seemed to indicate an intensely hot day. He was soon to learn, however, that tropical skies change very rapidly. Five or six of the lighters had come in with loads and returned to the ship, when there came a single puff of wind from off the water that reminded Kit of home. It was the first really cool thing he had felt since his arrival in Yucatan; and this little puff, lasting only a few seconds, was more than cool—it was actually chilly.

“Ah, that’s good!” he said to the clerk; “I wish they’d give us more of that.”

The clerk shivered in his linen clothes, and pointed with one hand toward the sky. There far in the north was a big dark-gray cloud, that seemed to grow larger and darker as they looked at it.

“El Norte!” Michel exclaimed; and shivered again.

“What’s that?” Kit asked.

“A norther, you call it in English,” the clerk replied; “a great cold storm from the north. That puts an end to our work for some days. There’ll be a heavy sea on in a few minutes.”

“Then I ought to get back to the ship,” Kit said half to himself.

“You couldn’t do it,” said the clerk. “Look.”

He pointed seaward, and Kit saw all the lighters scudding toward shore before a wind that they hardly felt yet on the mole. Thick black smoke was pouring from the North Cape’s funnel, and across the water he heard the “click, click, click,” of the steam windlass.

“Why, she’s going off!” Kit cried; “she’s hoisting anchor!”

“Of course she is,” Michel laughed; “she’ll have to put to sea; she can’t lie there in a norther, and you’ll see no more of her till the storm is over. That often happens here.”

“And what becomes of a cabin boy who happens to be left on shore?” Kit asked, half inclined to laugh at the predicament he was in.

“You’re better off here than on the ship,” Michel answered, “and we won’t let you starve.”

By this time the whole sky was overcast, and frequent blasts of the cold wind struck them. The foremost of the lighters arrived, and their men worked like beavers to land what cargo they had. All about were men on the beach drawing their boats far up on shore out of reach of the heavy sea that they knew was coming. As fast as the lighters were unloaded, they too were drawn up. It was as much too cold now as before it had been too hot, but they had to stay on the mole till everything was checked off.

“Now make a run for it to the warehouse!” It was the voice of Mr. Ysnard, who had come down to see that all was left snug, and who saw that both the youngsters were shivering. Already the spray was beginning to fly over the mole, and in one glance seaward Kit saw that the North Cape was standing out into the Gulf. He was left alone in Yucatan; but instead of waiting to worry over it, he took to his heels and beat Michel to the warehouse by several yards.

There he hardly knew the place, it was so dark; for all the shutters on the seaward side had been closed to keep out the wind, as there was no glass in the windows. People were hurrying through the streets, and the sky was growing blacker every minute.

“Now we’ll catch it, my boy,” Mr. Ysnard laughed, as he followed them in, half soaked with spray. “Three days these things last, generally, and then it takes two or three more for the sea to go down so that the lighters can go out. So you are a prisoner in Mexico for five days at least, and you will be my guest longer than you expected.”

“Thank you, sir,” Kit answered; “but I hope the ship will not be in any danger.”

“Oh, no more than from any other storm. There is plenty of sea room, and she will run out fifty or a hundred miles and keep her nose in the wind. No, she will be all right.”

The breakfast table had to be set in the warehouse, as the verandah was too much exposed to the wind; and Kit noticed that the norther interfered with business and upset everything just about as much as an earthquake would at home. The clerks really suffered from cold, though Kit found it warm enough in the shelter of the building. The storm increased every minute, and they soon began to hear the roar of the sea breaking against the mole.

It was a relief to everybody when closing time came, five o’clock. Mr. Ysnard’s open carriage arrived to carry him to his home in the country, and he told Kit that he was to go along.

“But you must have something around you, in this wind,” he said; “I think I can lend you a Mexican overcoat.” And he went into the office and returned in a minute with two large red blankets, one for himself and one for Kit.

“This is what we call a ‘serape,’”[1] he explained. “See, there is a slit cut in the middle for the head to go through,” and he slipped the blanket over Kit’s head and put his own on in the same way; and Kit could not help laughing to see himself so suddenly transformed into a young Mexican.

[1] Pronounced ser-rap-pa.

As they were driven through the streets he saw that Sisal was a desolate little place of few houses, some of them of stone plastered over and some covered with corrugated iron; and the streets were nearly deserted on account of the norther, and most of the shutters closed. The few men to be seen were all wrapped in serapes, which warmed the shoulders, but could not warm the bare feet, nor heads covered with straw hats.

Mr. Ysnard’s house was on the brow of a low hill overlooking the town and the sea, and after the late dinner he took Kit into his “den,” as he called it, and they had a long talk before bedtime.

“As you copied the manifests,” the agent said in the course of the conversation, “you are familiar with all the marks on the cargo. You may see some cases coming ashore without any marks at all. Those are little private ventures by some of the officers or crew; and when you see one of them all you have to do is let it pass without putting it on your list, you know. They escape paying duty by slipping them through that way.”

“No, sir; I have no instructions of that kind,” Kit answered. “My orders are to make a list of everything brought ashore.”

“But if there should be a little profit in it for you?” Mr. Ysnard suggested. “Suppose you were paid a small commission on everything that slipped through without your seeing it?”

“I don’t think you ought to ask it of me, Mr. Ysnard,” Kit replied. “The Captain trusts me, and I should be ashamed to betray him. I couldn’t possibly do it.”