Author: Oliver Optic
Category: Adventure
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If the yacht went so fast with only her main-sail, what would she not do with her jib also? The young skipper was determined to test the question, and, lashing the helm, he hoisted her headsail. Trimming the sail by the sheets which led aft, the yacht increased her speed, and tossed the water over her boughs at a fearful rate; but Little Bobtail had closed the fore scuttle, and he let it toss. It was wild excitement to him, and he enjoyed it to the utmost. In two hours he was approaching the Spindles off the Point, where he deemed it prudent to take in the jib; but the wind was not so fresh in shore, and he went up the harbor quite leisurely. He had time to think again; and a disagreeable consideration was forced upon him, as he heard the clock of the Baptist Church strike one.
He was in Camden harbor; he must come to anchor; and the next morning everybody would wonder what boat the stranger was. The boatmen and bummers about town would board her, and want to know what those boxes contained. Little Bobtail was worried; but it was high tide, and he anchored close up to the rocks in front of the cottage. He was not willing to "face the music" the next day, and he was determined to get rid of the boxes, even if he threw them overboard. Landing in the old boat, he went up to the cottage. Ezekiel was in a drunken sleep in his chamber. Nothing could wake him, as he knew from former experience, when he was in this condition. He went up stairs to his own chamber. The cottage was a one-story building, with two rooms finished in the middle of the roof. On each side of these chambers there was a space for old rubbish, which no one ever explored. The young skipper decided, after a careful examination of the premises, to store the boxes in these spaces. To will was to do with him, and he went to work at once.
In a couple of hours he had conveyed the twenty boxes from the boat, and packed them away in these lumber-holes, and covered them with old traps, so that even his mother would not suspect their presence in the house. Having done all this, he sailed the yacht out into the deep water near the Portland Pier, where he anchored her. Tired out after the long day and the long night, he stretched himself on one of the transoms, and went to sleep.
CHAPTER V.
MONKEY.
Little Bobtail slept as soundly on the transom of the yacht as Ezekiel Taylor did in the cottage; and, as he did not retire till after three in the morning, he did not turn out till nine. He had worked all day and nearly all night, and he was very tired. While he was slumbering soundly in the cabin, many an eye was directed from the shore, and from the boats and vessels in the harbor, at the trim and janty yacht which had come in during the night. She was not there the evening before, and she was there now. Scores of boatmen asked what she was and where she came from; but no one could answer. No one had seen her before, and all were confident that she did not belong anywhere in the bay. The gossips concluded that she was a yacht from Boston or Portland, with a party on board; and, as she had come in during the night, they supposed her crew were making up for lost time in the matter of sleep. Those who were out in boats, though they sailed around the stranger and examined her carefully, were considerate enough not to go on board of her, and thus waken the tired sleepers.
So Little Bobtail was permitted to finish his nap in peace. The clock on the Baptist Church was striking nine when he woke. He leaped upon the cabin floor with a start when he saw the sunlight streaming in through the round port-holes in the trunk. He had no toilet to make, for he had turned in without removing even his shoes; and, putting on his cap, he was ready for business at once, though he did wash his face and hands, and comb his hair, when a wash-basin at the forward part of the cabin suggested these operations to him. He had an opportunity to see the yacht now by daylight, and his previous impressions of her were more than confirmed. She was even trimmer and more janty than he had supposed.
The experience of the preceding night seemed to him very like a dream. He went on deck, and examined with a critical eye the standing and running rigging, than which nothing could be neater or better. The old tub in which he had been blown off the day before was anchored near her, with a slack line from her stern to the yacht, as he had left her. The dingy old craft looked so mean and insignificant compared with the yacht, that the contrast put him almost out of conceit with the brilliant plan he had considered to purchase the former. He was rather doubtful whether he should be willing to invest the ten dollars—if he should obtain it—in such an enterprise.
Just then it occurred to him that he did not even know the name of the yacht. He walked out on the foot-rope at the end of the main boom, in order to see if it was painted on the stern. There it was— Skylark ; only this, and nothing more. The port from which she hailed was not there. Skylark was a very good name, though it was not particularly appropriate for a thing that was to sail on the water, and not in the air. But "skylarking" was a term applied to frolicking, to rude play; and in this sense "Skylark" was entirely proper. On the whole, he did not object to the name, and would not if the owner had appeared at that moment and made him a present of her. He was entirely satisfied both with the yacht and her name; and, having completed his survey by daylight, he again pondered the subject of smuggling in a general way, and then in its relations to the incidents of the previous night. No higher views, no better resolutions, came to him. The contraband cargo was safe under the eaves of the cottage, where no one would be likely to find it; though he could not help thinking what a disaster it would be if Ezekiel should happen to discover those boxes, which doubtless contained liquor enough to keep him drunk for a whole year.
Turning away from the great moral question which confronted him, Little Bobtail began to feel—distinctly to feel, rather than to think—that it was about breakfast time. He went forward and removed the scuttle from over the cook-room. Jumping down into the little apartment, he made a fire in the stove, and put on the tea-kettle. While it was warming up, he went on deck again, for he heard the dip of a pair of oars near the yacht.
"Hullo, Monkey!" he shouted, as he recognized the occupant of a dilapidated old dory, who was taking a leisurely survey of the trim yacht.
"Hullo, Bob! Is that you?" replied the person in the boat, who was a boy of about the age of Little Bobtail, though not half so handsome.
Robert had called him "Monkey," and it was not difficult to determine where he had obtained his sobriquet, for, looking at the youth, Darwinism seemed to be made easy, without distorting either facts or logic. In his case, no long ages appeared to have elapsed between the monkey and the man, and the transition seemed to have been easy and natural. In a word, he looked like a monkey in the face, while no one could possibly have suspected that he was one. Above his mouth his face abruptly receded, so that the end of his nose was not far from plumb with his lips. In the middle of his forehead the hair seemed to grow down to the bridge of his nose. A stranger, who was not of a melancholy turn of mind, could hardly have refrained from laughing when looking at him for the first time. But Bobtail did not laugh, for Monkey was a friend, and a brother, in the generic sense.
"Come on board, Monkey," added Little Bobtail.
"What boat's this?" asked the representative of Darwinism, as he leaped upon the deck with the painter of the dory in his hand.
"The Skylark," replied Bobtail.
As the new arrival stepped upon the deck of the yacht, he was not unlike the traditional monkey of the circus, for his dress was almost as fantastic as his face. His father, who was a fisherman, had been lost at sea, and his mother was a poor woman, with neither energy nor gumption, who occupied a miserable shanty about a mile from the village, in which hardly a mean dwelling could be found. The woman was believed to be a little "daft," for she always hid herself when any of the town's people appeared near her shanty. She had a garden, in which she raised potatoes and corn, and kept a pig and a cow; and these furnished her subsistence, with the trifle which her son earned by odd jobs. The woman's name was Nancy Monk, and her boy's was Peter Monk, though certainly the surname was not needed to suggest the nickname by which he was universally called.
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p; Of course Peter Monk's unfortunate affinity to the ape subjected him to no little annoyance from the sneers and insults of other boys, whose sense of decency was below their sense of the ludicrous.
Though Peter was, in the main, a good-natured fellow, there was a point of endurance beyond which he was not proof against the coarse jeers of his companions; and more than once Little Bobtail had been his protector when borne under by the force of numbers; for our hero had a hard fist as well as a kind heart. So Monkey was his friend for life, not so much because Bobtail had fought his battles, as because he treated him well, and made more of him than any one else did.
"Never heard of the Skylark before," said the visitor. "Where does she come from?"
"I don't know."
"Who owns her?"
"I don't know."
"Where does she belong?"
"I don't know."
"O, you don't?" grinned Monkey, exhibiting another affinity to the origin of the race.
"No, I don't."
"Where are the folks that belong to her?"
"I don't know."
"What you doing on board of her, Bob?"
"I'm looking out for her till somebody comes who has a better right to do so."
"How come she here?"
"I brought her here."
"Where from?"
"Blank Island."
"Nobody lives there."
"I know it."
And Little Bobtail smiled at the perplexity of the visitor.
"Well, then, how come she over there, where nobody don't live?"
"I picked her up adrift."
"O, you did—did you?"
"I did. But come below; I want to get my breakfast," added Bobtail, as he led the way down into the cabin.
Monkey stared, and exclaimed as he viewed the comfortable, and even luxurious, furnishings of the yacht. He asked a thousand questions which Bobtail could not answer, and a thousand more which he did answer.
"Have you been to breakfast, Monkey?" asked Bobtail, as he seated himself before the stove in the cook-room, while the guest remained at the door in the cabin.
"Yes, I had something," replied Monkey, glancing at the leg of bacon.
The host knew very well that Monkey did not live much better at home than the pigs in the sty of the first-class farmer; that he was always a hungry waif, who could make a meal at any time. He resolved to give his visitor a treat on the present occasion; and he anticipated his own breakfast with double pleasure when he thought of the satisfaction which the meal would give his companion.
"Monkey, will you take Prince's boat over to her moorings for me? Somebody may want her," said he, as he put the coffee-pot on the stove, and took down the leg of bacon.
"To be sure I will, Bob. I'll do anything for you."
"I wish you would; and then come back and have some breakfast with me."
Monkey grinned, and even chattered, as he hastened to execute his errand. By the time he returned, Bobtail had set the table in the cabin; for, as he had company, he decided to take the meal in state. He had fried all the rest of the kid of potatoes, and two large slices of ham. He made the coffee, and mixed up a pitcher of condensed milk.
"Sit down, Monkey," said Little Bobtail, as he wiped the perspiration from his brow, for the cook-room was a hot place, even with the scuttle open.
"Yes," replied Monkey, showing all the teeth in his head, for when the mouths were given out he had been supplied with a very liberal share.
The host helped him to a big piece of ham and a great heap of fried potatoes. The guest was not very elegant in his manners; but what he lacked in refinement he made up in zeal. Fingers seemed to come handier to him than a fork, or, rather, a "slit spoon," as he called it. He did not often make two parts of a slice of potato, and his mouthfuls of ham were big enough to bait a large cod. Fortunately there was enough to fill him up.
"Somebody's looking for you, Bob, up in the village," said Monkey, when he began to be gorged, which, however, was not till both the slices of ham were nearly consumed.
"For me?" asked Little Bobtail.
"Squire Gilfilian asked me if I'd seen you; and I told him I hadn't. He was askin' everybody for you. Some on 'em said you wan't to home; and the old man said he hadn't seen you sence yesterday mornin'."
"Who wants me?"
"I don't know; but the squire wanted to see you powerful bad," grinned Monkey.
"All right. I'll go up and see him by and by," said Bobtail, as he left the table.
With the assistance of his new ally he washed the dishes, cleaned up the stove and cooking utensils, and swept out the cabin. Everything was put into the neatest condition. When this was done, the decks were washed down, the sails stowed more trimly than the skipper could do it in the dark, all the running rigging hauled taut, and the ends coiled away, so that the yacht was in man-of-war style. He found a padlock, with a key in it, to fasten the cabin door; and having put the tiller below, so that no one could sail the Skylark in his absence, he secured the door, and went on shore with Monkey. He stopped at the cottage to see if his mother had returned from Rockport, but neither she nor Ezekiel was there.
Walking towards the village, he wondered what Squire Gilfilian could want of him. He began to be a little troubled about the letter again, for, in the excitement of his cruise over to Blank Island, he hardly thought of the disagreeable circumstances connected with it. He found the squire in his office, with a stranger, a flashy-looking and ill-visaged fellow.
"I hear you want to see me," said Little Bobtail.
"I do," replied the lawyer, sternly and decidedly. "Come in here;" and he led the way to his private office in the rear. "Now, boy, I want to know what you did with that letter."
"I told you before what I did with it. I put it on your desk," answered Bobtail, promptly; and it is not strange that his brown cheek flushed a little, but it was with indignation, not guilt.
"So you told me before; but I don't believe it," added the squire, with a terrible frown, and in a very loud tone, doubtless involuntarily resorting to one of the tricks of his trade to intimidate the youth.
"Do you think I would lie about a letter?" demanded Bobtail, warmly.
"Do you know what was in that letter?"
"How should I know?"
"Because you opened it," sharply retorted the lawyer, as though he intended to overwhelm a contumacious and guilty witness.
"I didn't open it," protested the boy, stoutly. "I put it on your desk; and that's all I know about it."
"It is easier for you to say that than it is for me to believe it."
"I can't help it, if you don't believe me. I have told the truth. I had a letter for you, and another for Captain Chinks. I gave him his here in your office, and chucked yours on your desk. That's the whole truth, and all I know about the letters. If Captain Chinks was here he would tell you the same thing, for he said you was busy in here, and told me to put the letter on the desk; and that's just what I did, and just all I did."
"Captain Chinks isn't here, and has been gone a week."
"He'll come back some time, I suppose."
"I don't know whether he will or not. He's mixed up with a smuggling case, and he may not deem it prudent to come back."
"Whether he does or not, I never saw the letter after I put it on your desk."
The lawyer bit his lips. There was nothing in the tones or the manner of the youth to excite suspicion, and Little Bobtail's reputation for honesty was first class. A year before, he had found the wallet of a stranger, which he might have kept, but had taken great pains to find the owner. In fact, everybody that knew him knew that he was honest.
"Now, Little Bobtail, you stand very well in the village," continued Squire Gilfilian, with a smile, as he suddenly changed his tactics.
"I always mean to keep myself straight, sir," added Bobtail.
"Of course you do. But the best of us are sometimes tempted to do wrong. If you have been led away, and—"
"I
haven't been led away, sir."
"You may have made a mistake. If you opened that letter by accident or otherwise—"
"I didn't open it by accident or otherwise. I didn't open it at all," interposed the boy, with energy.
"Hear what I have to say, Little Bobtail. The best of folks are sometimes led away. Even ministers of the gospel once in a great while do a wicked deed."
"I don't care if they do; I haven't opened your letter."
"But I'm only supposing a case."
"Well, sir, you needn't suppose I opened that letter, for I didn't."
"Suppose you had opened it—"
"I didn't."
"It is only an hypothesis."
"I don't care if it is; I didn't open the letter," persisted Bobtail, who had not the least idea what an hypothesis was.
"If somebody else, then, had opened that letter, and taken out the money. He might have been sorely tempted; he might have opened it by accident," said the squire, in soft, oily tones.
"Somebody else might, but I didn't."
"If he don't feel bad about it now, he will, as sure as he lives, for the truth will come out. Don't you think so?"
"I do think so."
"It will ruin his reputation, send him to the state prison, and spoil his prospects forever. Now, don't you think it would be better for him to give up the money, if I should say to him that I wouldn't mention the matter?"
"I think he had better give it up, whether you mention it or not," answered Bobtail, more calmly.
"Then don't you think you had better give it up?"
"I tell you again, I didn't open the letter, and haven't seen the money," protested Bobtail, violently.
"You had better think it over."
"I don't want to think it over."
"You will have to go to jail if you don't."
"I can go to jail, but I can't give up what I haven't got, nor own up to what I didn't do."
"The letter which you brought to my office that morning contained five hundred dollars in one bill. It was my advance fee for defending the Buckingham Bank robbers. Their friends raised the money; but only a rogue would have sent it in cash. The letter is gone. It was last in your hands. Now you had better think it all over, and you may stay here and do so, while I talk with the gentleman in the other room." And the squire opened the door.