Dab Kinzer Part 17

We must have a good hearty lunch, and put 'The Swallow' before the wind for a while. I daren't risk any more of these cross seas. We might get pitched over any minute. They're rising."

"Dat's so," said d.i.c.k. "And I's awful hungry, I is."

"The Swallow" was well enough provisioned for a short cruise, not to mention the bluefish, and there was water enough on board for several days if they should happen to need it; but there was little danger of that, unless the wind should continue to be altogether against them.

It was blowing hard when the boys finished their dinner, but no harder than it had already blown several times that day; and "The Swallow"

seemed to be putting forth her very best qualities as a "sea-boat."

There was no immediate danger apparently; but there was one "symptom"

which Dab discerned, as he glanced around the horizon, which gave him more anxiety than either the stiff breeze or the rough sea.

The coming darkness?

No; for stars and lighthouses can be seen at night, and steering by them is easy enough.

Nights are pretty dark things, sometimes, as most people know; but the darkest thing to be met with at sea, whether by night or by day, is a _fog_, and Dabney saw signs of one coming. Rain, too, might come with it, but that would be of small account.

"Boys," he said, "do you know we're out of sight of land?"

"Oh, no, we're not!" replied Ford confidently. "Look yonder."

"That isn't land, Ford. That's only a fog-bank, and we shall be all in the dark in ten minutes. The wind is changing, too, and I hardly know where we are."

"Look at your compa.s.s."

"That tells me the wind is changing a little, and it's going down; but I wouldn't dare to run towards the sh.o.r.e in a fog, and at night."

"Why not?"

"Why? Don't you remember those breakers? Would you like to be blown through them, and not see where you were going?"

"Well, no," said Ford: "I rather guess I wouldn't."

"Jes' you let Capt'in Kinzer handle dis yer boat," almost crustily interposed d.i.c.k Lee. "He's de on'y feller on board dat un'erstands nagivation."

"Shouldn't wonder if you're right," said Ford good-humoredly. "At all events, I sha'n't interfere. But, Dab, what do you mean to do about it?"

"Swing a lantern at the mast-head, and sail right along. You and d.i.c.k get a nap, by and by, if you can. I won't try to sleep till daylight."

"Sleep? Catch me sleeping!"

"You must; and so must d.i.c.k, when the time comes. It won't do for us to all get worn out together. If we did, who'd handle the boat?"

Ford's respect for Dabney Kinzer was growing hourly. Here was this overgrown gawk of a green country boy, just out of his roundabouts, who had never spent more than a day at a time in the great city, and never lived in any kind of a boarding-house; in fact, here was a fellow who had had no advantages whatever,--coming out as a sort of hero.

Ford looked at him hard, as he stood there with the tiller in his hand, but he could not quite understand it, Dab was so quiet and matter-of-course about it all; and, as for that youngster himself, he had no idea that he was behaving any better than any other boy could, should, and would have behaved in those very peculiar circ.u.mstances.

However that might be, the gay and buoyant little "Swallow," with her signal lantern swinging at her mast-head, was soon dancing away through the deepening darkness and the fog; and her steady-nerved young commander was congratulating himself that there seemed to be a good deal less of wind and sea, even if there was more of mist.

"I couldn't expect to have every thing to suit me," he said to himself.

"And now I hope we sha'n't run down anybody. Hullo! Isn't that a red light, through the fog, yonder?"

CHAPTER XII.

HOW THE GAME OF "FOLLOW MY LEADER" CAN BE PLAYED AT SEA.

There was yet another gathering of human beings on the wind-swept surface of the Atlantic that evening, to whose minds the minutes and hours were going by with no small burden of anxiety to carry.

Not an anxiety, perhaps, as great as that of the three families over there on the sh.o.r.e of the bay, or even of the three boys tossing along through the fog in their bubble of a yacht; but the officers, and not a few of the pa.s.sengers and crew, of the great iron-builded ocean-steamer were any thing but easy about the way their affairs were looking. It would have been so much more agreeable if they could have looked at them at all.

Had they no pilot on board?

To be sure they had, for he had come on board in the usual way, as they drew near their intended port; but they had somehow seemed to bring that fog along with them, and the captain had a half-defined suspicion that neither the pilot nor he himself knew exactly where they now were. That is a bad condition for a great s.h.i.+p to be in at any time, and especially when it was drawing so near a coast which calls for good seamans.h.i.+p and skilful pilotage in the best of weather.

The captain would not for any thing have confessed his doubt to the pilot, nor the pilot his to the captain; and that was where the real danger lay, after all. If they could only have choked down their pride, and permitted themselves to talk of their possible peril, it would very likely have disappeared. That is, they could at least have decided to stop the vessel till they were rid of their doubt.

The steamer was French, and her captain a French naval officer; and it is possible he and the pilot did not understand each other any too well.

It was a matter of course that the speed of the s.h.i.+p should be somewhat lessened, under such circ.u.mstances; but it would have been a good deal wiser not to have gone on at all. Not to speak of the sh.o.r.e they were nearing, they might be sure they were not the only craft steaming or sailing over those busy waters; and vessels have sometimes been known to run against one another in a fog as thick as that. Something could be done by way of precaution in that direction, and lanterns with bright colors were freely swung out; but the fog was likely to diminish their usefulness somewhat. They took away a little of the gloom; but none of the pa.s.sengers were in a mood to go to bed, with the end of their voyage so near, and they all seemed disposed to discuss the fog, if not the general question of mists and their discomforts. All of them but one, and he a boy.

A boy of about Dab Kinzer's age, slender and delicate-looking, with curly light-brown hair, blue eyes, and a complexion which would have been fair, but for the traces it bore of a hotter climate than that of either France or America. He seemed to be all alone, and to be feeling very lonely that night; and he was leaning over the rail, peering out into the mist, humming to himself a sweet, wild air in a strange but exceedingly musical tongue.

Very strange. Very musical.

Perhaps no such words had ever before gone out over that part of the Atlantic; for Frank Harley was a missionary's son, "going home to be educated;" and the sweet, low-voiced song was a Hindustanee hymn which his mother had taught him in far-away India.

Suddenly the hymn was cut short by the hoa.r.s.e voice of the "lookout," as it announced,--

"A white light, close aboard, on the windward bow."

That was rapidly followed by even hoa.r.s.er hails, replied to by a voice which was clear and strong enough, but not hoa.r.s.e at all. The next moment something, which was either a white sail or a ghost, came slipping along through the fog, and then the conversation did not require to be shouted any longer. Frank could even hear one person say to another out there in the mist, "Ain't it a big thing, Ford, that you know French? I mean to study it when we get home."

"It's as easy as eating. Dab, shall I tell 'em we've got some fish?"

"Of course. We'll sell 'em the whole cargo."

"Sell them? Why not make them a present?"

"We may need the money to get home with. They're a splendid lot. Enough for the whole cabin-full."

"Dat's a fack. Cap'in Dab Kinzer's de sort ob capt'in fo' me, he is!"

"How much, then?"