The Sea Lions; Or, The Lost Sealers. James Fenimore Cooper
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cunning mariner, "and it takes time for me to make out even so small a matter as my name."
"Ay, ay; you are a prudent fellow, and I like you all the better for it. But you have had leisure, and a plenty of it too, to make up your mind. You must know the schooner from her keel up by this time, and ought to be able to say now that you are willing to take luck's chances in her."
"Ay, ay, sir; that's all true enough, so far as the craft is concerned. If this was a West India v'y'ge, I wouldn't stand a minute about signing the articles; nor should I make much question if the craft was large enough for a common whalin' v'y'ge; but, sealin' is a different business, and one onprofitable hand may make many an onprofitable lay."
"All this is true enough; but we do not intend to take any unprofitable hands, or to have any unprofitable lays, You know me--"
"Oh! if all was like you, captain Gar'ner, I wouldn't stand even to wipe the pen. Your repitation was made in the southward, and no man can dispute your skill."
"Well, both mates are old hands at the business, and we intend that all the 'ables' shall be as good men as you are yourself."
"It needs good men, sir, to be operatin' among some of them sea-elephants! Sea-dogs; for sea-dogs is my sayin'. They tell of seals getting scurce; but I say, it's all in knowin' the business--'There's young captain Gar'ner,' says I, 'that's fittin' out a schooner for some onknown part of the world,' says I, 'maybe for the South Pole, for-ti-know, or for some sich out-of-the-way hole; now he'll come back full, or I'm no judge o' the business,' says I."
"Well, if this is your way of thinking, you have only to clap your name to the articles, and take your lay."
"Ay, ay, sir; when I've seed my shipmates. There isn't the business under the sun that so much needs that every man should be true, as the sea-elephant trade. Smaller animals may be got along with, with a narvous crew, perhaps; but when it comes to the raal old bulls, or bull-dogs, as a body might better call 'em, give me stout hearts, as well as stout hands."
'Well, now, to my notion, Watson, it is less dangerous to take a sea-elephant than to fasten to a regular old bull-whale, that may be has had half a dozen irons in him already."
"Yes, sir, that's sometimes skeary work, too; though I don't think so much of a whale as I do of a sea-elephant, or of a sea-lion. 'Let me know my shipmates,' say I, 'on a sealin' expedition.'"
"Captain Gar'ner," said the deacon, who necessarily overheard this discourse, "you ought to know at once whether this man is to go in the schooner or not. The mates believe he is, and may come across from the main without a hand to take his place should he leave us. The thing should be settled at once."
"I'm willing to come to tarms this minute," returned Watson, as boldly as if he were perfectly sincere; "only let me understand what I undertake. If I know'd to what islands the schooner was bound, it might make a difference in my judgment."
This was a well-devised question of the spy's, though it failed of its effect, in consequence of the deacon's great caution in not having yet told his secret, even to the master of his craft. Had Gardiner known exactly where he was about to go, the desire to secure a hand as valuable as Watson might have drawn from him some imprudent revelation; but knowing nothing himself, he was obliged to make the best answer he could.
"Going," he said; "why, we are going after seals, to be sure; and shall look for them where they are most to be found. As experienced a hand as yourself ought to know where that is."
"Ay, ay, sir," answered the fellow, laughing--"it's just neither here nor there--that's all."
"Captain Gar'ner," interrupted the deacon, solemnly, "this is trifling, and we must come to terms with this man, or write to Mr. Hazard to engage another in his place. Come ashore, sir; I have business with you up at the house."
The serious manner in which this was uttered took both the captain and the man a little by surprise. As for the first, he went below to conceal his good-looking throat beneath a black handkerchief, before he followed the deacon where it was most probable he should meet with Mary. While he was thus occupied, Watson came down out of the main-rigging and descended into the forecastle. As the young captain was walking fast towards the dwelling of Deacon Pratt, Watson came on deck again, and hailed Baiting Joe, who was fishing at no great distance from the wharf. In a few minutes Watson was in Joe's boat, bag and all--he had not brought a chest on board--and was under way for the Harbour. From the Harbour he sailed the same evening, in a whale-boat that was kept in readiness for him, carrying the news over to Holmes's Hole that the Sea Lion, of Oyster Pond, would certainly be ready to go out as early as the succeeding week. Although Watson thus seemingly deserted his post, it was with a perfect understanding with his real employers. He had need of a few days to make his own preparations before he left the 41st degree of north latitude to go as far south as a vessel could proceed. He did not, however, leave his post entirely vacant. One of Deacon Pratt's neighbours had undertaken, for a consideration, to let the progress of events be known, and tidings were sent by every opportunity, reporting the movements of the schooner, and the prospects of her getting to sea. These last were not quite as flattering as Roswell Gardiner hoped and believed, the agents of the Vineyard company having succeeded in getting away two of Hazard's best men; and as reliable sealers were not to be picked up as easily as pebbles on a beach, the delay caused by this new stroke of management might even be serious. All this time the Sea Lion, of Holmes' Hole, was getting ahead with untiring industry, and there was every prospect of her being ready to go out as soon as her competitor. But, to return to Oyster Pond.
Deacon Pratt was in his porch ere Roswell Gardiner overtook him. There the deacon gave his young friend to understand he had private business of moment, and led the way at once into his own apartment, which served the purposes of office, bed-room and closet; the good man being accustomed to put up his petition to the throne of Mercy there, as well as transact all his temporal affairs. Shutting the door, and turning the key, not a little to Roswell's surprise, the old man faced his companion with a most earnest and solemn look, telling him at once that he was now about to open his mind to him in a matter of the last concern. The young sailor scarce knew what to think of it all; but he hoped that Mary was, in some way, connected with the result.
"In the first place, captain Gar'ner," continued the deacon, "I must ask you to take an oath."
"An oath, deacon!--This is quite new for the sealing business--as ceremonious as Uncle Sam's people."
"Yes, sir, an oath; and an oath that must be most religiously kept, and on this bible. Without the oath, our whole connection must fall through, captain Gar'ner."
"Rather than that should happen, deacon, I will cheerfully take two oaths; one to clench the other."
"It is well. I ask you, Roswell Gar'ner, to swear on this Holy Book that the secrets I shall now reveal to you shall not be told to any other, except in a manner prescribed by myself; that in no other man's employment will you profit by them and that you will in all things connected with them be true and faithful to your engagements to me and to my interests--so help you God!"
Roswell Gardiner kissed the book, while he wondered much, and was dying with curiosity to know what was to follow. This great point secured, the deacon laid aside the sacred volume, opened a drawer, and produced the two all-important charts, to which he had transferred the notes of Daggett.
"Captain Gar'ner," resumed the deacon, spreading the chart of the antarctic sea on the bed, "you must have known me and my ways long enough to feel some surprise at finding me, at my time of life, first entering into the shipping concern."
"If I've felt any surprise, deacon, it is that a man of your taste and judgment should have held aloof so long from the only employment that I think fit for a man of real energy and character."
"Ay, this is well enough for you to say, as a seaman yourself; though you will find it hard to persuade most of those who live on shore into your own ways of thinking."
"That is because people ashore think and act as they have been brought up to do. Now, just look at that chart, deacon; see how much of it is water, and how little of it is land. Minister Whittle told us, only the last Sabbath,