Arizona republican., 1899-02-13


 the bows: soon the sails began to draw,
 and the land and shipping to fit by on either side; and before could lie down
 to snatch an hour of slumber the His paniola' had begun her voyage to the
 Isle of Treasure.
 I am not going to relate the voy- age in detail. It was fairly prosperous. The ship proved to be a good ship, the crew were capable seamen, and the captain thoroughly understood his business. But before we came the length of Treasure Island, two or three
 things had happened which require to be known.
 Mir. Arrow, first of all, turned out even worse than the captain had feared. He had no command among the men. and people did what they pleased with him. But that was oy no means the
 worst of it; for after day or two at sea he began 10 appear on deck with hay eye, red cheeks, stuttering tongue,
 and other marks of drunkenness. Time after time he was ordered below in dis grace. Sometimes he fell and cut him self; sometimes he lay all day long in his little bunk at one side of the companion; sometimes for q day or
 two he would be almost sober and at tend to his work at least passably.
 In the meantime, we could never
 make out where he got the drink. That
 wae the ships mystery. Watch him as we pleased, we could do nothing to solve it; and when we asked him to his face, he would only laugh, if he were drunk. and if he were sober, deny solemnly
 that he ever tasted anything but water.
 He was not only useless as an officer, and a bad influence amongst the men. but it was plain that at this rate he mus soon kill himself outright; so nobody was much surprised, nor very sorry, when one dark night, with head sea, he disappeared entirely and was seen no more.
 "Oyerboard!" said the captain. ''Well. gentlemen, that saves the trouble of putting him in irons.'
 But there we were, without mate. and it was necessary, of course, to ad- vance one Of the men. The boatswain. Job Anderson, was the likeliest man aboard, and, though he kept his old title, he served in way as mate. Mir. Trelawney had followed the sea, and his knowledge made him very useful. l for he cften took watch himself in easy weather. And the cockswain, Is- rael Hands, was careful willy, old, ex perierced seaman, who could be trusted at pinch with almost anything.
 He was a great confidunt of Long John Silver, and so the mention of his name leads TIC on to speak of our ships | cook, Bar becue, as the men called him. |
 Aboard ship he carried his crutch by | a lanyard round his neck, to have both | hands as frec as possible. It was some thing to see him wedge the foot of the crutch against buikhead, and, propped | against it, yielding to every movement | of the ship, get on with his cooking like some one safe ashore. Still more strange was it to see him in the heaviest of weather cross the deck. He had a line or two rigged up to help him across the widest spaces-Long Johns ear rings, they were called; and he would hand himself from one place to another, now using the crutch, now trailing ii alongside by the lanyard, as quickly as another man could walk. Yet some of the men who had sailed with him before their pity to see him so re- duced.
 He's no common man, Barbecue" said the cockswain to me. He had good schooling in his young days, and can speak like book when so minded; and brave-ion's nothing alongside of | Long John! I see him grapple four and knock their heads together-him un- armed"
 All of the crew respected and even obeyed him. He had a way of talking to each and doing everybody some par ;icular service. To me I.e was un- weariedly kind, and always glad to see me in the galley, which he kept as clean as a new pin; the dishes hanging up furnished and his parrot in a cage in the corner.
 Come away, Hawkins he would say; "come and have yarn with John. Nobody more welcome than yourself, my son. Sit you down and hear the news. Here's Cap'n Flint calls my parrot Cap'n Flint, after the famous buc- Cap'n Flint predicting success to our wage. Wasn't you, aap'n?"
 And the parrot would say, with great rapidity: "Pieces of eightl pieces of tight! pieces of eight!" till you won Tered that it was not out of breath or till John threw his handkerchief over the cage.
 ''Now, that bird," he would say 'is, maybe, 200 years old, Hawkins hey live forever mostly; and if any oody's seen more wiclledness, it must , 'e- the devil himself. She's sailed with 1ngland-the great Capt. England, he pirate. She's been at Madagascar. md at Malabar and Surinam, and Providence, and Portobello. She was t the fishing up of the wrecked plate hips. It's there she learned Pieces of ight,' and little wonder; 35O,OOO of em, Hawkins! She was at the board : n of tLn eN-inn1.n1- c>f