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Title: In the Sargasso Sea

A Novel

 

Author: Thomas A. Janvier

 

Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9906]

[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]

[This file was first posted on October 29, 2003]

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Edition: 10

 

Language: English

 

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

 

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE SARGASSO SEA ***

 

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Michael Lockey

and PG Distributed Proofreaders

IN THE SARGASSO SEA

A Novel

BY

THOMAS A. JANVIER

AUTHOR OF

“THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL”

“THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE”

“STORIES OF OLD NEW SPAIN” ETC.

 

*

 

1898

TO

C.A.J.

CONTENTS

I. I PAY FOR MY PASSAGE TO LOANGO

 

II. HOW I BOARDED THE BRIG GOLDEN HIND

 

III. I HAVE A SCARE, AND GET OVER IT

 

IV. CAPTAIN LUKE MAKES ME AN OFFER

 

V. I GIVE CAPTAIN LUKE MY ANSWER

 

VI. I TIE UP MY BROKEN HEAD, AND TRY TO ATTRACT ATTENTION

 

VII. I ENCOUNTER A GOOD DOCTOR AND A VIOLENT GALE

 

VIII. THE HURST CASTLE IS DONE FOR

 

IX. ON THE EDGE OF THE SARGASSO SEA

 

X. I TAKE A CHEERFUL VIEW OF A BAD SITUATION

 

XI. MY GOOD SPIRITS ARE WRUNG OUT OF ME

 

XII. I HAVE A FEVER AND SEE VISIONS

 

XIII. I HEAR A STRANGE CRY IN THE NIGHT

 

XIV. OF MY MEETING WITH A MURDERED MAN

 

XV. I HAVE SOME TALK WITH A MURDERER

 

XVI. I RID MYSELF OF TWO DEAD MEN

 

XVII. HOW I WALKED MYSELF INTO A MAZE

 

XVIII. I FIND THE KEY TO A SEA MYSTERY

 

XIX. OF A GOOD PLAN THAT WENT WRONG WITH ME

 

XX. HOW I SPENT A NIGHT WEARILY

 

XXI. MY THIRST IS QUENCHED, AND I FIND A COMPASS

 

XXII. I GET SOME FOOD IN ME, AND FORM A CRAZY PLAN

 

XXIII. HOW I STARTED ON A JOURNEY DUE NORTH

 

XXIV. OF WHAT I FOUND ABOARD A SPANISH GALLEON

 

XXV. I AM THE MASTER OF A GREAT TREASURE

 

XXVI. OF A STRANGE SIGHT THAT I SAW IN THE NIGHT-TIME

 

XXVII. I SET MYSELF TO A HEAVY TASK

 

XXVIII. HOW I RUBBED SHOULDERS WITH DESPAIR

 

XXIX. I GET INTO A SEA CHARNEL-HOUSE

 

XXX. I COME TO THE WALL OF MY SEA-PRISON

 

XXXI. HOW HOPE DIED OUT OF MY HEART

 

XXXII. I FALL IN WITH A FELLOW-PRISONER

 

XXXIII. I MAKE A GLAD DISCOVERY

 

XXXIV. I END A GOOD JOB WELL, AND GET A SET-BACK

 

XXXV. I AM READY FOR A FRESH HAZARD OF FORTUNE

 

XXXVI. HOW MY CAT PROMISED ME GOOD LUCK

 

XXXVII. HOW MY CAT STILL FURTHER CHEERED ME

 

XXXVIII. HOW I FOUGHT MY WAY THROUGH THE SARGASSO WEED

 

XXXIX. WHY MY CAT CALLED OUT TO ME

IN THE SARGASSO SEA I

I PAY FOR MY PASSAGE TO LOANGO

 

Captain Luke Chilton counted over the five-dollar notes with a greater

care than I thought was necessary, considering that there were only

ten of them; and cautiously examined each separate one, as though he

feared that I might be trying to pay for my passage in bad money. His

show of distrust set my back up, and I came near to damning him right

out for his impudence—until I reflected that a West Coast trader must

pretty well divide his time between cheating people and seeing to it

that he isn’t cheated, and so held my tongue.

 

Having satisfied himself that the tale was correct and that the notes

were genuine, he brought out from the inside pocket of his long-tailed

shore-going coat a big canvas pocket-book, into which he stowed them

lengthwise; and from the glimpse I had of it I fancied that until my

money got there it was about bare. As he put away the pocket-book, he

said, and pleasantly enough:

 

“You see, Mr. Stetworth, it’s this way: fifty dollars is dirt cheap

for a cast across from New York to the Coast, and that’s a fact; but

you say that it’s an object with you to get your passage low, and I

say that even at that price I can make money out of you. The _Golden

Hind_ has got to call at Loango, anyhow; there’s a spare room in her

cabin that’ll be empty if you don’t fill it; and while you’re a big

man and look to be rather extra hearty, I reckon you won’t eat more’n

about twenty dollars’ worth of victuals—counting ‘em at cost—on the

whole run. But the main thing is that I want all the spot cash I can

get a-holt of before I start. Fifty dollars’ worth of trade laid in

now means five hundred dollars for me when I get back here in New York

with what I’ve turned it over for on the Coast. So, you see, if you’re

suited, I’m suited too. Shake! And now we’ll have another drink. This

time it’s on me.”

 

We shook, and Captain Luke gave me an honest enough grip, just as he

had spoken in an honest enough tone. I knew, of course, that in a

general way he must be a good deal of a rascal—he couldn’t well be a

West Coast trader and be anything else; but then his rascality in

general didn’t matter much so long as his dealings with me were

square. He called the waiter and ordered arrack again—it was the

most wholesome drink in the world, he said—and we touched glasses,

and so brought our deal to an end.

 

That a cheap passage to Loango was an object to me, as Captain Luke

had said, was quite true. It was a very important object. After I got

across, of course, and my pay from the palm-oil people began, I would

be all right; but until I could touch my salary I had to sail mighty

close to the wind. For pretty much all of my capital consisted of my

headful of knowledge of the theory and practice of mechanical

engineering which had brought me out first of my class at the Stevens

Institute—and in that way had got me the offer from the palm-oil

people—and because of which I thought that there wasn’t anybody quite

my equal anywhere as a mechanical engineer. And that was only natural,

I suppose, since my passing first had swelled my head a bit, and I was

only three-and-twenty, and more or less of a promiscuously green

young fool.

 

As I looked over Captain Luke’s shoulder, while we supped our arrack

together—out through the window across the rush and bustle of South

Street—and saw a trim steamer of the Maracaibo line lying at her

dock, I could not but be sorry that my voyage to Africa would be made

under sails. But, on the other hand, I comforted myself by thinking

that if the Golden Hind were half the clipper her captain made her

out to be I should not lose much time—taking into account the

roundabout way I should have to go if I went under steam. And I

comforted myself still more by thinking what a lot of money I had

saved by coming on this chance for a cheap cast across; and I blessed

my lucky stars for putting into my head the notion of cruising along

South Street that October morning and asking every sailor-like man I

met if he knew of a craft bound for the West Coast—and especially for

having run me up against Captain Luke Chilton before my cruise had

lasted an hour.

 

The captain looked at his glass so sorrowfully when it was empty that

I begged him to have it filled again, and he did. But he took down his

arrack this time at a single gulp, and then got up briskly and said

that he must be off.

 

“We don’t sail till to-morrow afternoon, on the half flood, Mr.

Stetworth,” he said, “so you’ll have lots of time to get your traps

aboard if you’ll take a boat off from the Battery about noon. I

wouldn’t come earlier than that, if I were you. Things are bound to be

in a mess aboard the brig to-morrow, and the less you have of it the

better. We lie well down the anchorage, you know, only a little this

side of Robbin’s Reef. Your boatmen will know the place, and they’ll

find the brig for you if you’ll tell ‘em where to look for her and

that she’s painted green. Well, so long.” And then Captain Luke shook

hands with me again, and so was off into the South Street crowd.

 

I hurried away too. My general outfit was bought and packed; but the

things lying around my lodgings had to be got together, and I had to

buy a few articles in the way of sea-stock for my voyage in a sailing

vessel that I should not have needed had I gone by the regular steam

lines. So I got some lunch inside of me, and after that I took a

cab—a bit of extravagance that my hurry justified—and bustled about

from shop to shop and got what I needed inside of an hour; and then I

told the man to drive me to my lodgings up-town.

 

It was while I was driving up Broadway—the first quiet moment for

thinking that had come to me since I had met Captain Luke on South

Street, and we had gone into the saloon together to settle about the

passage he had offered me—that all of a sudden the thought struck me

that perhaps I had made the biggest kind of a fool of myself; and it

struck so hard that for a minute or two I fairly was dizzy and faint.

 

What earthly proof had I, beyond Captain Luke’s bare word for it, that

there was such a brig as the Golden Hind? What proof had I

even—beyond the general look of him and his canvas pocket-book—that

Captain Luke was a sailor? And what proof had I, supposing that there

was such a brig and that he was a sailor, that the two had anything

to do with each other? I simply had accepted for truth all that he

told me, and on the strength of his mere assertion that