Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-01-13

1 cause was young and foolish and tgno- rant that had 50 gayly cherished illusion; l perhaps it was the fine name of the brig that had given me exalted and gorgeous ideas, but had anticipated holiday sail on sunlit seas in sort of Cleopatra barge with companions fitly representing, if not the pomp and magnifcence, at least the poetry and romance of the orient. My pun | ishment for indulging such fantastic rever- ies was speedy and condign. The Bird of Paradise bore as much resemblance to the ship of my imagination as a hedgehog bears l to leopard. In plain truth, she was ap Ill smelling, leaky old coal bunker, with crew of the most desperate looking williams | that ever swung from yardarm. What their past had been 1t required little shrewd- ness to guess.
 | A glance made it clear that whatever pleasure, whatever romance there could be | in sailing with the dregs of Asiatic pirate | crews of men, who for reasons to be com prehended by the simplest had found it ex- pedient to lay aside for little their natural vocation of cutting throats, such pleasure and romance were mine. Naturally l was | amazed to find such men on MT. Matheson's ship, but the explanation came later. ] had forgotten that the Scotch are frugal and did not know how Asia pours her scum upon the sea.
 My security, such as it was, lay in the fact that among themselves there was not the least evidence of good will. They were sullen, suspicious and incommunicative, and in all their lives had probably never known what it is to smile out of pure good nature or innocent hilarity, for their fea- lures were fixed in a perpetual scowl which nothing could soften. Toward each other, as toward their officers, they had the sulky, defiant demeanor of caged beasts of prey, laTy nd a If fiI1opr ment. Of duty or on, they indulged in no freedom or jollity of intercourse. No sto- ries were told; no songs were sung. The spirit was that of a chain gang working at the point of the bayonet or the muzzle of the rifle. Misfortune, failure ill hazardous and bloody enterprises, had brought them together, and as yet they were not able to fraterniZe.
 The officers matched the crew. Though Captain Holden was an Englishman and MT. Malcolm, the mate, Scotch, there was nothing gracious or prepossesslng in either of them. The captain was short and broad, square rigged, with tremendous breadth of beam, as a sailor would say, and his squat, burly frame had in it the muscular strength and energy of the tiger His face, hairy as skye terriers, showed no feature in particular save the huge nose which, ow- ing to long course of grog, had assumed the appearance of a purple knob, and bulg- ing eyebrows that hung over small, deep set eyes as cliff overhangs cavern. His visage was truculent, and his temper and voice were in harmony. His most caress- ing tones were the growl of the thunder; his anger was the fury of fiend His nat ural qualities, too, had been we'll culti- vated. The breadside of oaths he poured upon his men when anything went amiss was an achievement in profanity to be re- membered with creepy shudder for a life time, and the gleam of his eyes and the way in which he fingered his pistols under the stress of passion showed that he was not of those who value human life.
 As might be expected, his career had been eventful, his experiences startling and va ried. He boasted-and am sure truthful ly-that he could show more sword cuts and bullet scars than any other man of his size then living. "A man with a greater extent of hide might beat me-" he would sometimes say, "but to the square inch show me him who equals me By Jupiter, if was to preach on that kind of tattooing, a week would be too short for my sermon" And you immediately assented.
 The mate could not be described as being of milder natural disposition, but only as
 being less fearfully developed. His name for cruelty was less eminent than his
 chiefs, but he was training excellently
 and gave high promise of brutality. Mean while he swore, took his grog and practiced | assiduously on the crew. The first day out he knocked a sailor down with marlin | spike under the very eyes of the captain who was too indifferent even to curse ap- provingly. A little later he sent another head foremost into the hold without so
 much as casting downward glance to see | whether the man were dead or alive, and 1oET hot ha1 1 IS,As, himself by some deed of cruelty or violence i Such, in brief, were my shipmates, and it | will be easily understood how quickly and
 completely my dreams of holiday voyage | vanished.
 It enhanced the discomforts of the situa-
 tion that fancied myself regarded by the
 captain and mate as an interloper-a spy
 whose proper place was with the sharks
 outside. But on that point I was unwit-
 tingly flattering myself Neither of them | troubled his head in the least about me, | nor ever came near me except it were by I chance and in the way of duty To be
 sure, the captain usually rolled some hoarse
 greeting when we met in the morning, but
 be never delayed his ship for conversation | and never once evinced a desire to know | how was enjoying myself. Only at meal 1 times did we come into close contact, and | then I was glad to get back to the deck and | the diSinfecting air of heaven.
 Nor was the mate much more sociable. 1 One evening, indeed, he spoke to me of | Scotland, but as his talk was of nothing but tavern debaucheries, their accompani-
 ments and results I did not encourage him.
 He left me with feeling of profound con
 tempt, never again making any attempt to l draw me into conversation. When we met,
 his looks declared as plainly as looks could
 that was priggish, puritanical landsman,
 who was no fit company for jolly, bias
 phemous sailor like himself.
 | Mir. Watson, the supercargo, was the only
 soul on board who took the smallest inter
 est in me or with whom I cared to speak.
 He understood my position, and l think
 had compassion for me. At any rate, he
 tolerated my amateurish views of seafar-
 ing men and things and sought oppor.
 tunity to discover topics we could discuss
 with mutual pleasure. He was fond oi
 talking of Edinburgh, which he knew well.
 having attended the high school there We
 compared notes on our reading, and he was | certainly not the worse read man of the | two.
 This rowing, free and easy life, Mir. Xiii
 gour," he said one day, 'has tendency, as | Burns says, to harden a within and petrify
 the feelings but I try to keep a fresh,
 sweet corner in my affections for the | thoughts and fancies of choice souls. Aft
 CT all, a good book is better than their riot.
 ous games at ninepins with virtue and
 character, and to read about a pretty girl is
 better than to go about carousing with an
 ugly and debauched one. As Sancho Panza
 says about sleep, God bless the man who
 invented books"
 Books, however, were the subjects of our
 bytalk only. OfteHest our conversation
 was about India, Arabia and our compan,
 ions.
 Just look at them, MT. Kilgour," he
 said once. Aren't they pretty seti
 Haven't they the look of having been born,
 bred, trained, educated, for the special pur.
 pose of wallowing in crimer Without ocu- lar evidence could you imagine that so much rascality could be condensed within few
 skins? They are the very essence of will