Hard Cash

time March of this same year; the wind sout

arin boat, with two great glaring eyes set in the bows, came flying, rowed with forty paddles by an armed crew, whose shields hung on the gunwale and flashed fire in the sunbeams: the mandarin, in conical and buttoned hat, sitting on the top of his cabin calmly smoking Paradise, alias opium

he Cyclops, to judge by the tremendous thumps that kept clean time to their sturdy tune. Yet it was but human labour, so heavy and so knowing, that it had called in music to help. It was the third mate and his gang completing his floor to receive the coming tea-chests. Yesterday he had stowed his dunnage, many hundred bundles of light flexible canes from Sumatra and Malacca; on the

c not

to arrive, so many per day, with the tea-chests. Mr. Grey proceeded to lay the first tier on his saltpetre floor, and then built the chests, tier upon tier, beginning at the sides, and leaving in the middle a lane somewhat narrower than a tea-chest Then he applied a screw jac

Tickell, midshipman, ran up the side, skipped on the quarterdeck, saluted it first, and then the first mate; and gave h

g was ordered up to Canton for the captain. The next afternoon he passed the ship in her, going down the river to Lin–Tin, to board the Chinese admiral for his chop, or permission to leave China. All night the Agra showed three lights at her mizen peak for him, and kept a sharp look out. But he did not come: he was having a very serious talk with the Chinese admiral; at daybreak, however, the gig was reported in sight: Sharpe told one of the midshipmen to call the boatswain and man the side. Soon the gig ran alongside; two of the ship’s boys jumped like monkeys over the bulwarks, lighting, one on the main channels, the other on the

peated forward, followed by private admonitions, “Rouse and bitt!” “Show a leg!”

“Up all

in the netting, and covered with a snowy hammock-cloth; and the ha

elow, sir,”

Sharpe from the quarter-deck.

d and round, and, with brawny chests pressed tight against the capstan bars, sixty fine fellows walked the sh

a will, ye

e ar

rom Chainee

ard b

sir,” roars the boa

Way aloft. Loose

, the men all heaved with a will, the messenger grinned, the anchor was torn out of China with

s make sail.” Round she came slow and majestically; the

er chop, China being a place as hard to get into as Heaven, and to get out of as — Chancery.

the water and out pulled two boats with the passengers. While they were coming, Dodd sent and ordered the gunner to load the carronades with shot, and secure and apron them. The first boat brought Colonel Kenealy, Mr. Fullalove, and a prodigious negro, who all mounted by the side-ropes. But the whip was rig

boy’s health, intending to return to Calcutta: but meantime her husband was made a director

y highs and spoiled her with all their might. A similar process had been applied to her boy Frederick from infancy; he was now nearly six. Arrogance and caprice shone so in bot

his imps,” gru

the forest or the prairie, with a rifle and an Indian, and come out bronzed, and more or less bepanthered or bebuffaloed; thence invariably to sea for a year or two. There, Anglo–Saxon to the backbone, his romance had ever an eye to business; he was always after foreign mechanical inventions — he was now importing a excellent one from Japan — and ready to do lucrative feats of knowledge: thus he bought a Turkish ship at the bottom of the Dardanelles for twelve hundred dollars, raised her cargo (hardware), and sold it for six thousand dollars; then weighed the empty ship, pumped her, repaired he; and navigated her himself into Boston harbour, Massachusetts. On the way he rescued, with hi

ger boats

nds mak

ooked up as usual to see them work. Out bellied sail after sail aloft; the ship came curtseying round to the

ave and thoughtful, and often scanned the horizon with his glass; he gave polite but very short a

peep we into captain Dodd’s troubled mind, and into the circumstances which connect him with the hear

while he was at Calcutta, the greatest firm there suspended payment carrying astonishment and dismay into a hundred families. At such moments the press and the fireside ring for a little while with the common-sense cry,7 “Good interest means bad security.” As for Dodd, who till then had revered all these great houses with nautical or childlike confidence, a blind terror took the place of blind trust in him; he felt guilty towards his children for risking their money (he had got to believe it w

n (the iron one) is the

paid in an enormous sum in notes and m

s invited into th

country, Ca

s,

me of your money in bil

have notes, sir,

ithout our endorsement. However, you can have half and half

ldren’s fortune, but he had seen destruction graze it. The natural chill at being scraped by peril soon passed, the triumphant glow remained. The next sentiment was precaution: he filled with it to the brim; he went and bought a great broad pocket-book with a key to it; though he was on dry land,. he

k of his heart. Sailors are more or less superstitious, and men are creatures of habit, even in their courage. Now David had never gone to sea with a lot of money on him before. As he was a stout-hearted man, these vague forebodings would, perhaps, have cleared away with the bustle, when the Agra set her studding sails off Macao, but for a piece of positive intelligence he had picked up at Lin–Tin. The Chinese admiral had warned him of a pirate, a daring pirate, who had been lately cruising in these waters: first heard of south the line, but had since taken a Russian ship at t

in on this saluted him, and beckoned him to the weather si

u will clean and prepare a

he old Niler, with a

ur deck-guns ar

in one moment all the bile in

er butts to their breechings, and jammed his gear in between their nozzles, till they can’t breathe, poor things, far

aid Dodd. “At your age sir, I look to you

He added very loudly, and with a seeming access of

grees, and with a semigenuflexion every three steps, one like a magpie; and, putting his hands together, as our children do to approach the Almighty, delivered himself thus, in modulated tones, and

l commanders at sea, Dodd hailed Mr. Tickell, a midshipman, and sent him down to the lady’s cabin. M

her indignant. Why had he stopped the ship miles and miles from Macao, and given her the trouble and annoyance of a voyage

oal water? It was laziness, and want of consider

e kind, madam,

rson they call

es

dy, or I shall take the lib

or cast away the ship. She would not see it. When Dodd saw she wanted, not an explanation, but a grievance, he ceased to thwart her. “I am neglecting my duties to no purpose,

een-pounders she carried on that deck, he cleared three, and that with difficulty. To clear any more he must have sacrificed either merchandise or water

st one nest of them, at all events: the Ladrone isles. At nine P.M., all the lights were ordered out. Mrs. Beresford had brought a novel on board, and refused to comply; the master-at-arms insisted; she threatened him with the vengeance o

atitude 16. And now they sailed for many days out of sight of land. Dodd’s chest expanded: his main anxiety at this part of the voyage l

Malay islands: at which the captain’s glass began to sweep the horizon again

n their mouths. But champagne popped, the sexes flirted, and the sailors span fathomless yarns, and danced rattling hornpipes, fiddled to by the grave Fullalove. “ If there is a thing I can dew, it’s fiddle,” said he. He and his friend, as he systematically called Vespasian, taught the crew Yankee steps, and were beloved. One honest saltatory British tar offered that W

ivered the mind of the united midshipmen when he proposed Dodd’s health in their mess-room, “

of it. As for the men, they seldom came in contact with the captain of a well-officered ship: this crew only knew him at first as a good-tempered soul, who didn’t bother about nothing. But one day, as

y man.

ur honour, axing your p

Mr. Meredith, a midshipman, “be

t an oath nor a threat but a re

oretopman aft again. He made his scrape and presented his fid. The captain tasted the soup,

he dailies with it.” With this the captain went below, and the cook, supping at the bucket delivered himself as follows: “Well, ye lubbers, it is first — rate. There’s no burn in it. It goes down like

te. “Sup more,

, Lord bless you, I can’t eat any more of it. (Whack.) I’ll give you my grog for a week only to let me fling the —— stuff

n, reappearing; and the u

, fore a

ip

eat nothing I can’t eat myself. My care is heavier than theirs is; but not my work, nor my dange

ir

og: they have been c

ay,

ok’s and his mat

ay,

, pipe

the foretopman. “This old Agra i

Still, it is unlucky the British seaman is so enamoured

, came a few light puffs in the upper air and inflated the topsai

s of precaution; but Dodd was not yet thoroughly acquainted with his ship’s qualities: and the hard cash round his neck made him cautious. The lee ports were closed, all but one, and that was lowered. Mr. Grey was working a problem in his cabin,

after a vain struggle with its might, shrieked for help; down tumbled the nearest hands, and hauled on the tackle in vain. Destruction was rushing on the ship, and on them first. But meantime the captain, with a shrewd guess at the general nature of the danger he could not see, had roared out, ” Slack the main sheet.” The ship righted, and the port

d he, sternly. “How many ships have been lost by this in fair we

ng myself over the s

rd to lose a good officer for a

ty night came on. At eight bells Mr. Grey, touched by Dodd’s clemency and brimful of zeal, reported a light in Mr

e it away,”

e cabin. “Oh, mercy! mercy! I w

of her so long, went down

pest!” she cried. “AND TO

wing half a gale of

always talk to us ladies. Oh, pray giv

e that should there be one grain of danger, he would lie to; but said he must not make a foul wind of a fair one

oon next day,

e sun came out high in heaven’s cent

n Cross rise, and overhead a whole heaven of glorious stars most of us have never seen, and never shall see in this world. No belching smoke obscured, no plunging paddles deafened; all was musical; the soft air sighing among the sails; the phosphorescent water bubbling from the ship’s bows; the murmurs from little knots of men on deck subdued

es below them sparkled. Thence splashes of living gold flew and settled on the ship’s white sails, the deck, and the faces; and wi

the foretop-gallant-mast-h

SAIL! RIG

dressing in his cabin. He came soon after on deck

ir. Can’t see

ce, through the light haze of a glorious morning, he espied a long low schooner, lateen-rigged, lying close under Point Leat, a small is

to,” said Dod

ger lay about two miles to

er, and half a dozen glasses. Everybody,

Malay coming north with canes, and short of

bre with his arms on the bulwarks

construction. His inspection was long and minute, and, while the glass was

s glass, he let drop a word at a time, as if the facts were trickling into his te

he deck with his cigar, saw they were watching another ship with maritime curiosity, and making comments but he discerned no par

was this: “I judge there are too few hands on deck, and t

d Bayliss, uneasily; “

ng his glass to Dodd. The captain thus

orts, and the white eyebrow

looked through,” said Dodd doggedly

a Malay pirate,

eed angrily: “Nonsense. And if he is, he

fish,” suggested Fullalove,

ss at his eye, turned half round t

oard i

outh-sou

e ship’s course was t

He held his tongue as long as he could: but at last his surprise and

y, sir,” re

t not be wiser to keep our course, and

; my changing my course two points won’t change his mind, but it may make him declare

said Sharpe,

nder the land still, and with only a few hands on deck, while the Agra edged away from her and entered the St

r’s deck swarms

ned through the gaps like black teeth; his huge f

e sky a vaulted sapphire, the sea a m