Jack Harvey's Adventures Part 16

"Not much you wouldn't," exclaimed a voice beside him.

Henry Burns turned. The genial, kindly face of the steamboat captain met his gaze.

"It looks very pretty and all that, young man," said the captain; "but it's a hard life they lead aboard the dredgers. It's knock-down and drag out all winter long, with bad food and little to show for it in wages when the winter's done-that is, for the most of them. It's not much like what you think it is, I reckon. But they do look pretty coming in; that's a fact."

The dredger, Z. B. Brandt, coming in from down along sh.o.r.e, may have, with others of its kind, presented a pretty sight as viewed from the deck of the river steamer. Most a.s.suredly, the steamer, viewed from the deck of the dredger, looked good and inviting to the weary crew of the sailing vessel. To them, watching its approach, it represented all that they longed for-comfort, good food, freedom from abuse; and was a thing that would transport them home-if they could only, some day, reach it.

Hamilton Haley, eying the steamer from a distance, suddenly uttered an exclamation of amazement. A figure that, in dim outline, suggested someone whom he had seen before, stood out against the sky, as the person leaned against the steamer's rail.

"I'm blest if I wouldn't swear that ere was young Artie Jenkins!"

exclaimed Haley. "It's him or his ghost. I'll have a look at the chap.

Here you, Harvey, skip down into the locker, starboard, forward, and fetch me up that gla.s.s. Lively now. I want it quick."

Jack Harvey, who had long ere this learned the necessity of quick obedience aboard the dredger, hastened to obey. He brought the telescope and handed it to Captain Haley.

The latter, adjusting it to suit his eye, gave one long, careful look through the gla.s.s, then took it from his eye with another muttered exclamation.

"Well, I swear!" he said. "I knew it was him the minute I clapped my eye on him. I'd know his rakish rig anywhere. I wonder what mischief he's up to down here."

And he added, as he looked angrily at the steamer, "Wouldn't I like to have you aboard here, young feller! Wouldn't I have it out of you, for some of the counter-jumpers you've made me pay high for."

Jack Harvey, watching Haley with curiosity as the captain surveyed the steamer and as his face wrinkled with anger, wondered what he had seen aboard to excite his wrath. It could not be anybody that Harvey had ever known, but still he had a curiosity, an over-mastering desire, to take a look for himself. As the gla.s.s was returned to him by Haley, he paused a moment and asked, "May I have a look, sir?"

Haley nodded.

"Handle that gla.s.s easily, though," he snarled. "Break that, and you'll wish you'd never been born."

Harvey raised the gla.s.s to his eye, and levelled it at the deck of the steamer. He had never looked through a large telescope before, and it was wonderful how clear it brought out the figures aboard. He seemed to be looking into the very faces of men and women-all strangers to him.

Strangers? Strangers? The telescope, as it was slowly moved in Harvey's hand, so that his glance took in the row of faces from one end of the boat to the other, rested once on a group of four boys standing close by the rail. For a moment Jack Harvey stood, spell-bound. The next moment he forgot where he was; forgot the presence of the wrathful Haley; forgot all caution. Taking the gla.s.s from his eye, he brandished it in the air, and yelled at the top of his voice:

"Henry Burns! George Warren! h.e.l.lo, it's-"

The sentence was unfinished. Hamilton Haley, springing from the wheel-box, was upon him in an instant. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the telescope from Harvey's hand and, stooping, laid it on the deck. The next instant he had dealt Harvey a blow in the face that knocked him off his feet. Harvey fell, rolled over, half slid off the deck into the water; but he clutched at the inch of plank that was raised at the edge, held on, and Haley dragged him aboard again.

Holding him at the edge of the vessel, Haley shook him like a half drowned dog.

"Another cry out of you, and down you go!" he said. "I'd put you under now, if you hadn't made good, up the river the other night. You get below, and don't you let me hear a yip out of you. What's the matter with you-crazy?"

Jack Harvey, half out of his wits with amazement, dazed from the blow, and chilled with the sting of the icy water that had wet him to the shoulders, stumbled below, without reply.

And aboard the steamer, Henry Burns turned to the captain, in dismay.

Neither he nor his companions had distinguished the cry sent forth to them from the deck of the bug-eye, but they had seen a strange thing happen aboard the vessel they were watching.

"Captain," said Henry Burns, his face flus.h.i.+ng with indignation, "I guess what you said about rough treatment aboard those vessels is true. Why, I just saw the man at the wheel strike some one and knock him down."

"The brute!" exclaimed the steamer's captain. "I told you so. But it's nothing new. It happens every day."

"I'm sorry for the chap that got it," remarked Henry Burns. "I hope he gets square with the captain, some day."

And for half that night, Jack Harvey, tossing in his bunk, unable to sleep, wondered if what he had seen could have been true; wondered if his eyes had deceived him; wondered, even, if his brain was going wrong under his hard treatment.

Once he got up and roused Tom Edwards.

"Tom," he said, "have you noticed anything queer about me lately?"

Tom Edwards sat up and looked at his friend in astonishment.

"Queer!" repeated Tom Edwards. "Of course I haven't. You've been just the same as ever. Why, what's the matter, Jack? Are you sick?"

"I guess perhaps I am," replied Harvey, dully. "I've heard about sailors seeing mirages and things that didn't exist. I saw something on a steamer, as we came in, that couldn't have been true. I thought I saw some friends of mine that live way up in Benton in the state of Maine.

They can't be down here in winter-hold on, though. They might be, after all. Yes, sir, perhaps they've come to look for me. I'll bet that's it!"

"But," he added, ruefully, "I don't see how that can be, either. They'd have come long before this, if they were looking for me. But I saw them.

I saw them, Tom Edwards, just as clear as I see you now."

"Well, you don't see me very clear in this dark forecastle, Jack, old chap," replied Tom Edwards. "Turn in and go to sleep, and see what you can make out of it to-morrow."

CHAPTER X FLIGHT AND DISASTER

When Jack Harvey awoke, the next morning, it was in a confused state of mind that he turned out of his bunk. The reason for this was at once apparent. A heavy south-easter was on, and a rough sea was tumbling in between the two projections of land that marked the entrance to the river from the bay-Drum Point and Hog Point. Lines of white breakers were foaming and cras.h.i.+ng about the light-house.

The bug-eye, Brandt, lying well out in the river, and exposed to the sea, had been tossing about violently, although Haley had given the anchor-rode good scope, in order to ease the strain. The unconscious sleepers in the forecastle had been thrown about against the hard wooden sides of the bunks in which they lay; and Harvey found himself bruised and lame. He put his head out of the companion-way just as a sea sprayed over the vessel, wetting him. He rubbed the salt water from his eyes and hair, and looked out into the bay beyond.

It was certainly rough, outside. As far as he could see, the broad expanse of water was rioting in high frolic. Seas leaped and tumbled in wild confusion. The sharp flaws of the south-easter whipped the white caps from the curling breakers and sent the scud and spindrift flying.

Far out, a few stray vessels, close reefed and rolling heavily as they ran, were making for the harbour; the ends of their lean booms, with sails tied in, looked like bare poles. Jack Harvey noted one thing, with especial satisfaction. Not a single craft in all the harbour fleet was going out, or making any preparation therefor. Harvey gave a sigh of relief, as he went below again.

"Tom," he said, as he stepped to his comrade's bunk and roused him, "Tom, we're in luck. It's blowing a gale outside. No dredging to-day. Hooray!"

Tom Edwards sat up, and groaned.

"Oh, but I'm lame," he said. "What with that tough day's work, yesterday, and this confounded slatting about, I'm just about done for. Haley'll kill us yet, if we don't get away."

Tom Edwards, erstwhile travelling man and frequenter of good hotels, stepped stiffly out on to the floor and proceeded to rub his arms and joints, to limber them up.

"Jack," he said, "I'm sorry now that you didn't take the chance up the river, that night, and swim for it. You'd have got away, and they'd be after us all by this time. Jack, I tell you, we've got to get out of here pretty soon, or there'll be no Tom Edwards left to go anywhere. I can't stand this much longer."

Harvey stepped to the side of his friend, and whispered softly.

"Neither can I, Tom," he answered, "and what's more, I don't intend to.

We'll get away. We'll escape."

To their surprise, the conversation was interrupted by the sharp call of the mate for them to hustle out and help get the bug-eye under weigh.