The Land of Fire: A Tale of Adventure

The captain being pointed out to him, he modestly and somewhat timidly makes known his wishes. But he meets only with an offhand denial, couched in words of scant courtesy.

Disconcerted, though not at all discouraged, he tries another ship; but with no better success. Then another, and another with like result, until he has boarded nearly every vessel in the harbour having a gangway-plank out. Some of the skippers receive him even rudely, and one almost brutally, saying, “We don’t want landlubbers on this craft. So cut ashore – quick!”

Henry Chester’s hopes, high-tide at noon, ere night are down to lowest ebb, and, greatly humiliated, he almost wishes himself back on the old farmstead by Godalming. He is even again considering whether it would not be better to give it up and go back, when his eyes chance to stray to a flag on whose corner is a cluster of stars on a blue ground, with a field of red and white bands alternating. It droops over the taffrail of a barque of some six hundred tons burden, and below it, on her stern, is lettered the Calypso. During his perambulations to and fro he has more than once passed this vessel, but the ensign not being English, he did not think of boarding her. Refused by so many skippers of his own country, what chance would there be for him with one of a foreign vessel? None whatever, reasoned he. But now, more intelligently reflecting, he bethinks him that the barque, after all, is not so much a foreigner, a passer-by having told him she is American – or “Yankee,” as it was put – and the flag she displays is the famed “Star-spangled Banner.”

“Well,” mutters the runaway to himself, “I’ll make one more try. If this one, too, refuses me, things will be no worse, and then – then – home, I suppose.”

Saying which, he walks resolutely up the sloping plank and steps on board the barque, to repeat there the question he has already asked that day for the twentieth time – “Can I speak with the captain?”

“I guess not,” answers he to whom it is addressed, a slim youth who stands leaning against the companion. “Leastways, not now, ’cause he’s not on board. What might you be wantin’, mister? Maybe I can fix it for you.”

Though the words are encouraging and the tone kindly, Henry Chester has little hopes that he can, the speaker being but a boy himself. Still, he speaks in a tone of authority, and though in sailor garb, it is not that of a common deck hand.

He is in his shirt-sleeves, the day being warm; but the shirt is of fine linen, ruffled at the breast, and gold-studded, while a costly Panama hat shades his somewhat sallow face from the sun. Besides, he is on the quarter-deck, seeming at home there.

Noting these details, the applicant takes heart to tell again his oft-told tale, and await the rejoinder.

“Well,” responds the young American, “I’m sorry I can’t give you an answer about that, the cap’n, as I told you, not being aboard. He’s gone ashore on some Custom House business. But, if you like, you can come again and see him.”

“I would like it much; when might I come?”

“Well, he might be back any minute. Still, it’s uncertain, and you’d better make it to-morrow morning; you’ll be sure to find him on board up till noon, anyhow.”

Though country born and bred, Henry Chester was too well-mannered to prolong the interview, especially after receiving such courteous treatment, the first shown him that day. So, bowing thanks as well as speaking them, he returns to the wharf. But, still under the influence of gratitude, he glances back over the barque’s counter, to see on her quarter-deck what intensifies his desire to become one of her crew. A fair vision it is – a slip of a girl, sweet-faced and of graceful form, who has just come out of the cabin and joined the youth, to all appearance asking some question about Chester himself, as her eyes are turned shoreward after him. At the same time a middle-aged ladylike woman shows herself at the head of the companion-ladder, and seems interested in him also.

“The woman must be the captain’s wife and the girl his daughter,” surmises the English youth, and correctly. “But I never knew that ladies lived on board ships, as they seem to be doing. An American fashion, I suppose. How different from all the other vessels I’ve visited! Come back to-morrow morning? No, not a bit of it. I’ll hang about here, and wait the captain’s return. That will I, if it be till midnight.”

So resolving, he looks around for a place where he may rest himself. After his thirty miles’ trudge along the king’s highway, with quite ten more back and forth on the wharves, to say nought of the many ships boarded, he needs rest badly. A pile of timber here, with some loose planks alongside it, offers the thing he is in search of; and on the latter he seats himself, leaning his back against the boards in such a position as to be screened from the sight of those on the barque, while he himself commands a view of the approaches to her gangway-plank.

For a time he keeps intently on the watch, wondering what sort of man the Calypso’s captain may be, and whether he will recognise him amidst the moving throng. Not likely, since most of those passing by are men of the sea, as their garb betokens. There are sailors in blue jackets and trousers that are tight at the hip and loose around the ankles, with straw-plaited or glazed hats, bright-ribboned, and set far back on the head; other seamen in heavy pilot-cloth coats and sou’-westers; still others wearing Guernsey frocks and worsted caps, with long points drooping down over their ears. Now, a staid naval officer passes along in gold-laced uniform, and sword slung in black leathern belt; now, a party of rollicking midshipmen, full of romp and mischief.

Not all who pass him are English: there are men loosely robed and wearing turbans, whom he takes to be Turks or Egyptians, which they are; others, also of Oriental aspect, in red caps with blue silk tassels – the fez. In short, he sees sailors of all nations and colours, from the blonde-complexioned Swede and Norwegian to the almost jet-black negro from Africa.

But while endeavouring to guess the different nationalities, a group at length presents itself which puzzles him. It is composed of three individuals – a man, boy, and girl, their respective ages being about twenty-five, fifteen, and ten. The oldest – the man – is not much above five feet in height, the other two short in proportion. All three, however, are stout-bodied, broad-shouldered, and with heads of goodly size, the short slender legs alone giving them a squat diminutive look. Their complexion is that of old mahogany; hair straight as needles, coarse as bristles, and crow-black; eyes of jet, obliqued to the line of the nose, this thin at the bridge, and depressed, while widely dilated at the nostrils; low foreheads and retreating chins – such are the features of this singular trio. The man’s face is somewhat forbidding, the boy’s less so, while the countenance of the girl has a pleasing expression – or, at least, a picturesqueness such as is commonly associated with gipsies. What chiefly attracts Henry Chester to them, however, while still further perplexing him as to their nationality, is that all three are attired in the ordinary way as other well-dressed people in the streets of Portsmouth. The man and boy wear broadcloth coats, tall “chimney-pot” hats, and polished boots; white linen shirts, too, with standing collars and silk neckties, the boy somewhat foppishly twirling a light cane he carries in his kid-gloved hand. The girl is dressed neatly and becomingly in a gown of cotton print, with a bright coloured scarf over her shoulders and a bonnet on her head, her only adornment being a necklace of imitation pearls and a ring or two on her fingers.

Henry Chester might not have taken such particular notice of them, but that, when opposite him, they came to a stand, though not on his account. What halts them is the sight of the starred and striped flag on the Calypso, which is evidently nothing new to them, however rare a visitor in the harbour of Portsmouth. A circumstance that further surprises Henry is to hear them converse about it in his own tongue.

“Look, Ocushlu!” exclaims the man, addressing the girl, “that the same flag we often see in our own country on sealing ships.”

“Indeed so – just same. You see, Orundelico?”

“Oh, yes!” responds the boy, with a careless toss of head and wave of the cane, as much as to say, “What matters it?”

“’Merican ship,” further observes the man. “They speak Inglis, same as people here.”

“Yes, Eleparu,” rejoins the boy, “that true; but they different from Inglismen – not always friends; sometimes they enemies and fight. Sailors tell me that when we were in the big war-ship.”

“Well, it no business of ours,” returns Eleparu. “Come ’long.” Saying which he leads off, the others following, all three at intervals uttering ejaculations of delighted wonder as objects novel and unknown come before their eyes.

Equally wonders the English youth as to who and what they may be. Such queer specimens of humanity! But not long does he ponder upon it. Up all the night preceding and through all that day, with his mind constantly on the rack, his tired frame at length succumbs, and he falls asleep.

Chapter Three.

Portsmouth Mud-Larks

The Hampshire youth sleeps soundly, dreaming of a ship manned by women, with a pretty childlike girl among the crew. But he seems scarcely to have closed his eyes before he is awakened by a clamour of voices, scolding and laughing in jarring contrast. Rubbing his eyes and looking about him, he sees the cause of the strange disturbance, which proceeds from some ragged boys, of the class commonly termed “wharf-rats” or “mud-larks.” Nearly a dozen are gathered together, and it is they who laugh; the angry voices come from others, around whom they have formed a ring and whom they are “badgering.”

Springing upon his feet, he hurries toward the scene of contention, or whatever it may be, not from curiosity, but impelled by a more generous motive – a suspicion that there is foul play going on. For among the mud-larks he recognises one who, early in the day, offered insult to himself, calling him a “country yokel.” Having other fish to fry, he did not at the time resent it; but now he will see.

Arriving at the spot, he sees, what he has already dimly suspected, that the mud-larks’ victims are the three odd individuals who lately stopped in front of him. But it is not they who are most angry; instead, they are giving the “rats” change in kind, returning their “chaff,” and even getting the better of them, so much so that some of their would-be tormentors have quite lost their tempers. One is already furious – a big hulking fellow, their leader and instigator, and the same who had cried, “country yokel.” As it chances, he is afflicted with an impediment of speech, in fact, stutters badly, making all sorts of twitching grimaces in the endeavour to speak correctly. Taking advantage of this, the boy Orundelico – “blackamoor,” as he is being called – has so turned the tables on him by successful mimicry of his speech as to elicit loud laughter from a party of sailors loitering near. This brings on a climax, the incensed bully, finally losing all restraint of himself, making a dash at his diminutive mocker, and felling him to the pavement with a vindictive blow.

“Tit-it-it-take that, ye ugly mim-m–monkey!” is its accompaniment in speech as spiteful as defective.

The girl sends up a shriek, crying out:

“Oh, Eleparu! Orundelico killed! He dead!”

“No, not dead,” answers the boy, instantly on his feet again like a rebounding ball, and apparently but little injured. “He take me foul. Let him try once more. Come on, big brute!”

And the pigmy places himself in a defiant attitude, fronting an adversary nearly twice his own size.

“Stan’ side!” shouts Eleparu, interposing. “Let me go at him!”

“Neither of you!” puts in a new and resolute voice, that of Henry Chester, who, pushing both aside, stands face to face with the aggressor, fists hard shut, and eyes flashing anger. “Now, you ruffian,” he adds, “I’m your man.”

“Wh–wh–who are yi-yi-you? an’ wh–wh–what’s it your bi-bib-business?”

“No matter who I am; but it’s my business to make you repent that cowardly blow. Come on and get your punishment!”

And he advances towards the stammerer, who has shrunk back.

This unlooked-for interference puts an end to the fun-making of the mud-larks, all of whom are now highly incensed, for in their new adversary they recognise a lad of country raising – not a town boy – which of itself challenges their antagonistic instincts.

On these they are about to act, one crying out, “Let’s pitch into the yokel and gie him a good trouncin’!” a second adding, “Hang his imperence!” while a third counsels teaching him “Portsmouth manners.”

Such a lesson he seems likely to receive, and it would probably have fared hardly with our young hero but for the sudden appearance on the scene of another figure – a young fellow in shirt-sleeves and wearing a Panama hat – he of the Calypso.

“Thunder and lightning!” he exclaimed, coming on with a rush. “What’s the rumpus about? Ha! a fisticuff fight, with odds – five to one! Well, Ned Gancy ain’t going to stand by an’ look on at that; he pitches in with the minority.”

And so saying, the young American placed himself in a pugilistic attitude by the side of Henry Chester.

This accession of strength to the assailed party put a different face on the matter, the assailants evidently being cowed, despite their superiority of numbers. They know their newest adversary to be an American, and at sight of the two intrepid-looking youths standing side by side, with the angry faces of Eleparu and Orundelico in the background, they become sullenly silent, most of them evidently inclined to steal away from the ground.

The affair seemed likely thus to end, when, to the surprise of all, Eleparu, hitherto held back by the girl, suddenly released himself and bounded forward, with hands and arms wide open. In another instant he had grasped the big bully in a tiger-like embrace, lifted him off his feet, and dashed him down upon the flags with a violence that threatened the breaking of every bone in his body.

Nor did his implacable little adversary, who seemed possessed of a giant’s strength, appear satisfied with this, for he afterwards sprang on top of him, with a paving-stone in his uplifted hands.

The affair might have terminated tragically had not the uplifted hand been caught by Henry Chester. While he was still holding it, a man came up, who brought the conflict to an abrupt close by seizing Eleparu’s collar, and dragging him off his prostrate foe.