Moran of the Lady Letty. Frank Norris
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six of them, Chinamen every one, in brown jeans and black felt hats. On the quarterdeck stood the Captain, barking his orders.
“Consider the Lilee of the Vallee,” bellowed the latter, as his eye fell upon Wilbur the Transformed. “Clap on to that starboard windlass brake, sonny.”
Wilbur saw the Chinamen ranging themselves about what he guessed was the windlass in the schooner’s bow. He followed and took his place among them, grasping one of the bars.
“Break down!” came the next order. Wilbur and the Chinamen obeyed, bearing up and down upon the bars till the slack of the anchor-chain came home and stretched taut and dripping from the hawse-holes.
“‘Vast heavin’!”
And then as Wilbur released the brake and turned about for the next order, he cast his glance out upon the bay, and there, not a hundred and fifty yards away, her spotless sails tense, her cordage humming, her immaculate flanks slipping easily through the waves, the water hissing and churning under her forefoot, clean, gleaming, dainty, and aristocratic, the Ridgeways’ yacht “Petrel” passed like a thing of life. Wilbur saw Nat Ridgeway himself at the wheel. Girls in smart gowns and young fellows in white ducks and yachting caps—all friends of his—crowded the decks. A little orchestra of musicians were reeling off a quickstep.
The popping of a cork and a gale of talk and laughter came to his ears. Wilbur stared at the picture, his face devoid of expression. The “Petrel” came on—drew nearer—was not a hundred feet away from the schooner’s stern. A strong swimmer, such as Wilbur, could cover the distance in a few strides. Two minutes ago Wilbur might have—
“Set your mains’l,” came the bellow of Captain Kitchell. “Clap on to your throat and peak halyards.”
The Chinamen hurried aft.
Wilbur followed.
II. A NAUTICAL EDUCATION
In the course of the next few moments, while the little vessel was being got under way, and while the Ridgeways’ “Petrel” gleamed off into the blue distance, Wilbur made certain observations.
The name of the boat on which he found himself was the “Bertha Millner.” She was a two-topmast, 28-ton keel schooner, 40 feet long, carrying a large spread of sail—mainsail, foresail, jib, flying-jib, two gaff-topsails, and a staysail. She was very dirty and smelt abominably of some kind of rancid oil. Her crew were Chinamen; there was no mate. But the cook—himself a Chinaman—who appeared from time to time at the door of the galley, a potato-masher in his hand, seemed to have some sort of authority over the hands. He acted in a manner as a go-between for the Captain and the crew, sometimes interpreting the former’s orders, and occasionally giving one of his own.
Wilbur heard the Captain address him as Charlie. He spoke pigeon English fairly. Of the balance of the crew—the five Chinamen—Wilbur could make nothing. They never spoke, neither to Captain Kitchell, to Charlie, nor to each other; and for all the notice they took of Wilbur he might easily have been a sack of sand. Wilbur felt that his advent on the “Bertha Millner” was by its very nature an extraordinary event; but the absolute indifference of these brown-suited Mongols, the blankness of their flat, fat faces, the dulness of their slanting, fishlike eyes that never met his own or even wandered in his direction, was uncanny, disquieting. In what strange venture was he now to be involved, toward what unknown vortex was this new current setting, this current that had so suddenly snatched him from the solid ground of his accustomed life?
He told himself grimly that he was to have a free cruise up the bay, perhaps as far as Alviso; perhaps the “Bertha Millner” would even make the circuit of the bay before returning to San Francisco. He might be gone a week. Wilbur could already see the scare-heads of the daily papers the next morning, chronicling the disappearance of “One of Society’s Most Popular Members.”
“That’s well, y’r throat halyards. Here, Lilee of the Vallee, give a couple of pulls on y’r peak halyard purchase.”
Wilbur stared at the Captain helplessly.
“No can tell, hey?” inquired Charlie from the galley. “Pullum disa lope, sabe?”
Wilbur tugged at the rope the cook indicated.
“That’s well, y’r peak halyard purchase,” chanted Captain Kitchell.
Wilbur made the rope fast. The mainsail was set, and hung slatting and flapping in the wind. Next the for’sail was set in much the same manner, and Wilbur was ordered to “lay out on the ji’boom and cast the gaskets off the jib.” He “lay out” as best he could and cast off the gaskets—he knew barely enough of yachting to understand an order here and there—and by the time he was back on the fo’c’sle head the Chinamen were at the jib halyard and hoisting away.
“That’s well, y’r jib halyards.”
The “Bertha Millner” veered round and played off to the wind, tugging at her anchor.
“Man y’r windlass.”
Wilbur and the crew jumped once more to the brakes.
“Brake down, heave y’r anchor to the cathead.”
The anchor-chain, already taut, vibrated and then cranked through the hawse-holes as the hands rose and fell at the brakes. The anchor came home, dripping gray slime. A nor’west wind filled the schooner’s sails, a strong ebb tide caught her underfoot.
“We’re off,” muttered Wilbur, as the “Bertha Millner” heeled to the first gust.
But evidently the schooner was not bound up the bay.
“Must be Vallejo or Benicia, then,” hazarded Wilbur, as the sails grew tenser and the water rippled ever louder under the schooner’s forefoot. “Maybe they’re going after hay or wheat.”
The schooner was tacking, headed directly for Meiggs’s wharf. She came in closer and closer, so close that Wilbur could hear the talk of the fishermen sitting on the stringpieces. He had just made up his mind that they were to make a landing there, when—
“Stand by for stays,” came the raucous bark of the Captain, who had taken on the heel. The sails slatted furiously as the schooner came about. Then the “Bertha Millner” caught the wind again and lay over quietly and contentedly to her work. The next tack brought the schooner close under Alcatraz. The sea became heavier, the breeze grew stiff and smelled of the outside ocean. Out beyond them to westward opened the Golden Gate, a bleak vista of gray-green water roughened with white-caps.
“Stand by for stays.”
Once again as the rudder went hard over, the “Bertha Millner” fretted and danced and shook her sails, calling impatiently for the wind, chafing at its absence like a child reft of a toy. Then again she scooped the nor’wester in the hollow palms of her tense canvases and settled quietly down on the new tack, her bowsprit pointing straight toward the Presidio.
“We’ll come about again soon,” Wilbur told himself, “and stand over toward the Contra Costa shore.”
A fine huge breath of wind passed over the schooner. She heeled it on the instant, the water roaring along her quarter, but she kept her course. Wilbur fell thoughtful again, never more keenly observant.
“She must come about soon,” he muttered uneasily, “if she’s going to stand up toward Vallejo.” His heart sank with a sudden apprehension. A nervousness he could not overcome seized upon him. The “Bertha Millner” held tenaciously to the tack. Within fifty yards of the Presidio came the command again:
“Stand by for stays.”
Once more, her bows dancing, her cordage rattling, her sails flapping noisily, the schooner came about. Anxiously Wilbur observed the bowsprit as it circled like a hand on a dial, watching where now it would point. It wavered, fluctuated, rose, fell, then settled easily, pointing toward Lime Point. Wilbur felt a sudden coldness at his heart.
“This isn’t going to be so much fun,” he muttered between his teeth. The schooner was not bound up the bay for Alviso nor to Vallejo for grain. The track toward Lime Point could mean but one thing.