The Belted Seas

n the weight's gone-pretty chipper. I used to come often from the other end of Newport Street, where I was born, to Pemberton's. But that wasn't on account of Pemberton, though he

says. "No digging clams and fishing for small fr

same reason as a lobster has for being green. It's the nature of him, which he'll change that co

, "I'll fix up Pemberto

n her mind. But if she thought the less of me for

York, and the wharves and ships of East River, a

cocky as if I owned it, looking for a ship that pleased me, and I came to one lying at dock with the name Hebe Maitland in gilt letters on a boar

and small, and precise in manner, and not like one trained to the s

d. "Now I'm thinking you know

igh seas, nor in any such vessel as the Hebe Maitland. She was painted dingy black, like most of the others, and I judged

ls, and a hinge table that swung down from the wall between us. He looked at me

nnecticut was a point in my favour; still I judge he must have taken to

ks in the Sound. But more'n that, the point with you is you're

etty uppish, and thinking I wasn't t

st

bit did I know what I was talking about. Capt

to our country's laws as duty is. Why now, I'm thinking of taking you, for I see you're a likely lad, and one that will argue for his principles. Good wages, good food, good treatment; will you go?" The last was shot out and cut off close behind, his li

of that week con

itland, Clyde, Merchan

to del Rey, for I was there once,

the meantime. Somebody had been doing something, but it wasn't the Hebe Maitland. Ships may have notions for aught I know, and the Hebe Maitland was no fool, but if so, I

'n with the Bible between them, arguing over it by the hour. It was a singular crew to argue. Stevey Todd here, who was cook, was a Baptist and a Democrat, and the mate he was a Presbyterian and Republican, and the bos'n he was for Women's Rights, and there was a man named Simms

ugh I'd seen him but seldom before. Three more I'll name, Kid Sadler, J. R. Craney, and Jimmy Hagan, who was called Irish; f

by nature, but in port, Clyde would now and then let them run riotous. He was a little, old, dried up,

aitland's hull was any kind of a dingy black, but the rails, canvas, tarpaulins, and companion were all white. By the end of the day almost everything had modified. They'd got a kind of fore-shortening out of the bowsprit, and another set of canvas partly up that was dirty and patched. The boats

f rope, and the more I thought it o

ittle, and there was Captain Clyde, the bos'n

no United States laws," he says, "against dodging South American customs that I ever see nohow, and bei

actions with intent to deceive, and deception pursuant," weren't moral, and, moreover,

he mate; "we're

t country by wrongfully preventing them from buying U. S. goods; so that, having sworn to the U. S., we weren't bound by S

in Clyde," says the bos'n. "I

che, and before I knew it I was arguing hard

bringing up. I judge he had a theory about arguments, that so long as they talked up to him and freed their opinions, there wouldn't be any secret trouble brewing below, or maybe it was only his humour. It was surely a fact that they were steady in business and a rare crew to his purpose, explain it as one may. He taught me navigation, and treated me like a son, and it's not for me to go back on him. I don't know why he took to me that way, and different from the rest. He taught me his business and how he did it.

Clyde knew all about it. I'm not saying but what an odd official of a government here and there was acquainted with the merits of a percentage, being instructed in it by the same

few miles coming down by St. Christopher, as I heard afterward. Then a Spanish cruiser ran us down, at last, under a co

k above the shore, and half a mile out was the black cruiser, with a pennon of smoke against t

ttling her, T

Now, I never knew before that day that Clyde didn't keep his money in a bank, same as any other civilised gentleman, and it shows how little I kne

at?" I says, surprised at the sig

he says; "I'd give you a writing, but it would do

t," I says. "Scuttled she is, if y

e'll give 'em a hunt. But I've got a fancy you ain't got to the end of your rope yet, lad," and he says no more for a minute or two, and

had such a notion that

e boats to round the island and wait for us, and Clyde and I took the fourth boat, and stowed the canvas bags, and went ashore, running up a little reedy inlet to the end. We buried them in the exact middle of a small triangle of three trees. Then we rowed out, and I threw t

cheerful, but as soon as we'd drifted apart, we grew quieter, and Stevey Todd began to act scared and lost, and was for s

andering in his mind, yet he could tell land by the smell. Put him within twenty miles of land at sea, no matter how small an island, and he'd smell the direction of it, and steer for it like a bullet, and that's a thing he don't understand any more than I. I never m

he week after held an it

d are thought to have been all hanged. This summary action would seem entirely unjustifiable, as smuggling is not a capital offence under any civilised law. The disturbed state of affairs under our Spanish

ng News of three mo

, Cap., which left this port the 9th o

rowed all night to westward and were picked up next morning by an English steamer bound for Colon on the Isthmus of Panama, and were properly landed in course of time, I argue there

I never made it out; yet I'd say he was given to sentiment, and to turning out poetry like a corn-shucker, and singing it to misfit and uneducated tunes, and given to joyfulness and depression by turns, and to misleading his fellow-man when he was joyful, and suffering r

aureole. Generally silent he was, except when excited, and seemed even then to be settled to his place in this world, which was to be Sadler's heeler. He followed Sadler all his after days, so far as I know, same as St

d I were coming out of the inlet, he gave

d for putting cash into my pocket, that I shouldn't have said was natural to him without further reasons. But supposing he'd been there before, he surely put more back in the end than he ever took out. On the other hand, if I'd had the money in Colon I might have gone back to the Windwards and to the triangle of three trees, with Sadler, Irish, and Stevey Todd, and so back to Greenough and Madge Pemberton, and been a hotel-keeper maybe, which is a good trade in Greenough. Craney was ambitious and enterprising. He ha

at the time of the Hebe Maitland'

Abe had gone. Pretty soon we were badly off. We couldn't see

, "One of 'em's me," and we all went, footing thirty mile

There we found a ship ready in port that was short of hands, and

ed to fill his pipe aga

,' was my words, and I never give in," and

uy here and

hat dangle

was mistoo

got good fo

une that to his banjo the night we got to Colon. Abe's got that kind of a