Chapter III: Wild Life on the Ocean Wave

The good ship _Zingara_ has reached the South Pacific Ocean at long last, and with a favouring breeze, and every inch of canvas set that can be carried, she is bearing merrily up and away for the Polynesian islands.

What their strange adventures there may be, not even Antonio himself can tell. Yet he has been here before, more than once. Indeed, it would be difficult to say what part of the world the weird wee skipper had not visited. He had been a rover from his very youth, and many and wild were the adventures he had gone through.

The course steered was about nor’-west by west.

The weather was delightful now. True it is that terrible storms at times sweep over this lonely ocean, but at present all is quiet and serene--just the sea, the sky, and the breeze that every true sailor loves. But how lonesome! Day after day, starry night after starry night, yet never a sail in sight. All around, as far as the eye can reach, even from the main-top-mast cross-trees, nothing can be seen but that one mighty circle of dark blue water.

Not even a bird, save the frigate bird, or that great eagle of the sea--the albatross--is visible. The former bird, it is said, sleeps in the air, and may be on wing for days at a time.

But the flight of the albatross is marvellous. There is no breeze he cannot fly against. You may see him circling high in air one minute, and next he is rushing to leeward, like an arrow from a bow. So swiftly may he pass the ship, that you can scarcely make out his form and shape. He cares not for storm or tempest; he can surmount them, and, when tired of flight, then should he be thousands of miles from the place where his great nest is placed safely on some beetling crag, o’erhanging the dark deep ocean, a day or two takes him back to his own quiet home.

I can conceive of no existence so happy, so wild, so free as that of the albatross. The powers of man, with all his inventions--his steamers, his trains, his electric motors--sink into insignificance before the wondrous flight of this great eagle of the sea.

Everything on board the _Zingara_ is going on, to all appearance, happily and well. Our young heroes, Barclay and Davie, are sailors now worth the name; for if a young man loves the ocean, as these lads did, and is willing to study and learn everything theoretical and manual, he soon develops the cleverness, the activity, and strength which is so conspicuous in the true British sailor.

The monkeys have been behaving themselves as well as could be expected from any member of the simian race. They seemed to be a compound of lovingness, affection, and downright humorous mischief. The men made much of them, and cuddled them in their arms, as if they had been babies, but this did not prevent them from picking up a sailor’s pipe next minute, and escaping right away into the rigging with it.

Once it was a silver-mounted meerschaum belonging to the cooper that the biggest monkey stole.

Such fun there was after that, and what daring and agility there was displayed by the Jack-o’-tars in an endeavour to catch the thief. Nearly all hands were employed, Barclay and Davie among the rest. Up the ratlins, down the stays, here, there, everywhere, poor Dosie was chased and assailed from every quarter, while down below little Teenie was screaming with delight, and Miss Leona herself was much amused.

“Oh, Miss Leona, isn’t it fun,” screamed Teenie, clapping her hands and dancing. “Good Jacko! Good Dosie! don’t let them take you. Oh, look! look!” she continued.

They well might look, for Jacko, or Dosie, as he was as often called, and his pipe had shinned up the main-top-gallant mast, and actually seated himself on the gilded truck.

Who would volunteer to “speel” up after him? Barclay would and did. Not a tree in all England he could not have got to the top of, and not a flagstaff either.

So up he goes, and, clasping the thin mast with hands and knees, commences the dangerous ascent. It is hard work, for high up here the mast is describing the arc of a circle, and the motion makes him giddy. He is not to be denied, however. A brave British heart beats within him, and so he does what brave Captain Webb did when swimming from England to France--he just keeps “pegging away.”

But the monkey even now has the best of it. Unconscious apparently of his danger, he is carefully examining the pipe. Then he puts it in his mouth and pretends to smoke, and very old-fashioned he does look. He tires of this, and pulls out a morsel of tobacco. This he puts in his mouth, then spits and splutters.

“Faugh!” he seems to say, “how can those big white sailor apes use such stuff? I’ll drop it into the sea.”

His little arm is lowered along the mast, and the pipe is dropped. It is a good half yard from Barclay, but he dashes out his body and arm, and never on cricket field was ball more deftly caught.

One wild cheer bursts from every part of the ship, low and aloft, and is three times repeated.

“Come on my shoulder, Jacko, old man,” says Barclay.

The old man does so, and down they come, but the poor monkey looks so thoroughly penitent and lovable, that not even the cooper has the heart to scold him.

“Oh, you good, brave Dosie,” cries Teenie, running aft with him in her arms.

Pussy is jealous, and, jumping up suddenly, warms both Jacko’s ears for him.

There is no love lost between Muffie and the monkeys. They pull her tail, and tease her so incessantly. Only the cat can take her own part.

One bright moonlight night though, while pussy was sitting on the top of the weather-bulwark forward, waiting for a flying-fish to spring on board, the two monkeys made a sudden spring, and pussy was hurled into the sea.

There would have been no more Muffie to skylark with Teenie or amuse the men had not a sailor at once shouted--

“Man overboard!”

The man at the wheel himself pulled a knob behind him. The beacon life-buoy was lit. He pulled another, and it fell into the sea.

He kept one hand on the wheel all the while, however, to prevent the ship from falling off.

“Man the life-boat!”

She was manned, lowered, and away in less than two minutes.

The captain was the first to rush on deck.

“Who is missing, and how did it happen?” he asked hurriedly at the man who had seen the whole affair.

“The monkeys sprang on her, sir, and walloped her into the briny.”

“It is a woman, then. Good Heavens! not Teenie, surely, nor Miss Leona?”

“No, sir, no. ’Twas honly the cat, sir.”

Antonio laughed now.

“But you were perfectly right, James,” he said, “and I hope they’ll save her.”

They did. They found Muffie clinging to the little mast that supported the beacon-light. She had had a narrow shave, for the sea appeared alive with sharks. I believe they all wanted to know how a cat would taste.

* * * * *

Rounding the Horn had been for the officers and crew of the _Zingara_ a weary and dangerous experience. It was in July, and this is the deadest, darkest month of winter in these regions. The days were short; the cold was bitter and piercing. Sometimes a snowstorm was raging on the deck itself, and the drift blowing as suffocatingly fierce as ever it does on a Highland mountain. The deck, too, was slippery with ice, and the bows so clogged with it that men had to be lowered with iron jumpers to dig it off.

Then contrary winds delayed them too, and once a gale of such fierceness raged, that although they lay to with very little canvas indeed, they were drifted far south, till they came in touch with the Antarctic ice.

Here was danger indeed--danger throughout all the short and gloomy days, and still greater danger throughout the black and starless nights.

The men became dull and dispirited; only the captain and officers kept up their hearts.

The monkeys slept all day in the men’s bunks, and pussy before the galley fire. Johnnie Smart held back his head and smiled as usual, only, instead of his cheeks being red, they were now both blue and red, like badly pickled cabbage.

Oar boys were as brisk as ever. It really needed the whole watch to pull the frozen sheets or ropes through the blocks; but Barclay and Davie Drake always bore a hand in this work, and the men respected them all the better for it.

It was terrible labour now to reef topsails, so hard were they frozen.

One poor fellow who was lying well out to the end of the yard, with bleeding hands and cold, got so benumbed that he fell off the yard into the black, black water.

All haste was made to lower a boat, but before this could be done, he threw up both arms, uttered a piercing scream, and suddenly disappeared.

The blood-red patch and bubbles told too plainly that he had been dragged down by some monster shark. For here, as in the far-off Arctic Ocean, they grow to an immense size.

The death of Tom Ritchie, who was a general favourite, cast an additional gloom on every one, fore and aft.

During their sojourn in these bleak seas, Miss Leona confessed herself crumpled up; but our Teenie, warmly clad, was every day on deck.

She clapped her hands with joy when they passed an iceberg, but shuddered somewhat if an enormous black seal, or a goggle-eyed sea-elephant lifted his head and stared wonderingly at the vessel as she passed.

* * * * *

But all this was past now. The ship was in a far more genial climate, and the men had once again recovered their health and spirits.

As I have said before, there is nothing certain at all except the unexpected, and one night an event occurred of so startling a nature that it caused general terror throughout the ship.