San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-04-09

napIons ever before me to decide upon. They
had the matches open, tackles aloft and men
at work below while the mariners of other
countries would have been standing looking
on and "jawing" upon the course to be
taken. Some overran the fabric aloft,
clearing, cutting away, pounding, making
the ice fly in storms; others sweated the cap
STAINS till they clanked; others fell to the
pumps, working with hammers and kettles
of boiling water. The wondrous old
schooner was never busier-no, not in the
hey day of her flag, when her guns were
blazing and her people yelling.
AS half-past three in the afternoon the
breeze began to sit in dark curls upon the
water, and there was evidence enough in the
haziness in the west, and in the loom of the
shoulders of vapor in the dark blue obscure
there, to warrant a sackful for this capful
presently.
Il rcc.:on," says the captain to me, after
looking into the west, "that we'd best knock
off now. There's snow and wind yonder,
and we'd better see all snug while there's
time"
He called to one of the men to tell the sec
ond mate to come up from below and get tie
matches on, and bringing me to the rail he
pointed to a boat, and asked if that would
lO9 said yes, and thanked him heartily for
the gift, which was handsome, must say
the boat being a very good one. though,
TO be sure, he had got many times its value
out of the schooner; and party of men were
forthwith told off to get the boat hoisted and
slowed
The captain then shook me by the hand,
and, calling farewell to Wilkinson and the
negroes, scrambled into the chains and
dropped into his boat, very highly satisfied, l
make no doubt, with the business he had done
that day.
A boats crew were left behind to help us
to make sail. But the weather looking some
what wild in the west, with the red light of
the sun among the clouds there, and the dark
heave of the swell running into sickly
crimson under the sun, and then flowing out
dusky again, got them to treble reef the
mainsail and hoist it, and then thanking
them, advised them to be off. We gave them
q cheer when they started, which they re-
turned and then, putting Cromwell to the
tiller, l went forward with the others and
set the topsail and forestaysail the spritsail
lying furled), which would be show enough
Of canvas till l saw what the weather was
like. kept the topsail aback, waiting for a
boat to arrive with my chart, and in few
minutes the boat we had cheered returned
with what wanted.
Meanwhile they were shortening sail on
the whaler; and, though she was no beauty,
yet tell you | found her as picturesque as
any ship had ever beheld as she lay with
her maintopgallantSail clewed up, her top
sail yards on the caps, and the heads of men
knotting the reef points showing black over
the white cloths, her hull floating up out of
the hollow and finging wet orange CLEAN
to the west, a tumble of creamy foam about
her to her rolling-shadows like the passage
of phantom hands hurrying over her sails to
the swaying of her masts and the swelling
sea darkling from her into the east.
l followed my hands, and hailing the cap
tain, who was on the quarter deck, asked
him for the time by his chronometer. He
fourished his arm and disappeared and
presently returning shouted to know if | was
ready. put the key in my watch and an
swered yes, and then he gave me the time.
My watch. though antique, was a noble
piece of mechanism, and, have little doubt,
as trustworthy as his chronometer But
was careful to let it lie snug in my hand. |
did not want the negro at the tiller nor the
others to see it. They would wonder that so
fine jeweled piece as this should be in the
possession of the second mate of little brig,
and it was my business to manage that they
never should have cause to wonder at any
ching in that way.
The dusk of the evening came quick out
of the east, and the wind freshened with a
long cry in our rigging, as if the eastern
darkness was foe it was rushing out of the
west to meet. l brought the schooner north
northeast by my compass, and watched her
behavior anxiously. The swell was on the
quarter, and the wind and sea trifie abaft
the larboard beam; she leaned little to the
weight of her clothes, but was surprisingly
stiff considering how light she was. Wilkin-
son and the negro came and stood by my
side The sea broke heavily from the weather
bow, and the water rOared white under the
lee bends and spread astern in a broad wake
of foam. The whaler did not brace his yards
up till after we had started, and now hung
pale, faint mass in the windy darkness on the
quarter. A tincture of rusty red lowered,
like smoke colored by the furnace that pro-
duceS it, in the west, but the night had drawn
down quick and dark; the washing noise of
the water was sharp, the wind piercingly
cold; each sweep of the schooner's masts to
windward was followed by dull roaring of
the blast rushing out of the hollows of the
canvas and she swung to the seas with wild
yaws, but with regularity sufficient to prove
the strict government of the helm.
But it was being at sea, homeward bound,
too! There was no wish of mine, engendered
by my hideous loneliness on the ice by my
abhorred association with the Frenchman,
that l could not refer to as, down to this mo-
ment, gratified. My heart bounded; my spirits
conld not have been HIGHER had this ocean