Theres your fit-out, Mister Lilee of the Vallee, which the same our dear friend Jim makes a present of and no charge, because he loves you so. Youre allowed two minutes to change, an it is to be hoped as how you wont force me to come for to assist.
It would have been interesting to have followed, step by step, the mental process that now took place in Ross Wilburs brain. The Captain had given him two minutes in which to change. The time was short enough, but even at that Wilbur changed more than his clothes during the two minutes he was left to himself in the reekind dark of the schooners focastle. It was more than a changeit was a revolution. What he made up his mind to doprecisely what mental attitude he decided to adopt, just what new niche he elected wherein to set his feet, it is difficult to say. Only by results could the change be guessed at. He went down the forward hatch at the toe of Kitchells bootsilk-hatted, melton-overcoated, patent-booted, and gloved in suedes. Two minutes later there emerged upon the deck a figure in oilskins and a souwester. There was blood upon the face of him and the grime of an unclean ship upon his bare hands. It was Wilbur, and yet not Wilbur. In two minutes he had been, in a way, born again. The only traces of his former self were the patent-leather boots, still persistent in their gloss and shine, that showed grim incongruity below the vast compass of the oilskin breeches.
As Wilbur came on deck he saw the crew of the schooner hurrying forward, six of them, Chinamen every one, in brown jeans and black felt hats. On the quarterdeck stood the Captain, barking his orders.
Consider the Lilee of the Vallee, bellowed the latter, as his eye fell upon Wilbur the Transformed. Clap on to that starboard windlass brake, sonny.
Wilbur saw the Chinamen ranging themselves about what he guessed was the windlass in the schooners bow. He followed and took his place among them, grasping one of the bars.
Break down! came the next order. Wilbur and the Chinamen obeyed, bearing up and down upon the bars till the slack of the anchor-chain came home and stretched taut and dripping from the hawse-holes.
Vast heavin!
And then as Wilbur released the brake and turned about for the next order, he cast his glance out upon the bay, and there, not a hundred and fifty yards away, her spotless sails tense, her cordage humming, her immaculate flanks slipping easily through the waves, the water hissing and churning under her forefoot, clean, gleaming, dainty, and aristocratic, the Ridgeways yacht Petrel passed like a thing of life. Wilbur saw Nat Ridgeway himself at the wheel. Girls in smart gowns and young fellows in white ducks and yachting capsall friends of hiscrowded the decks. A little orchestra of musicians were reeling off a quickstep.
The popping of a cork and a gale of talk and laughter came to his ears. Wilbur stared at the picture, his face devoid of expression. The Petrel came ondrew nearerwas not a hundred feet away from the schooners stern. A strong swimmer, such as Wilbur, could cover the distance in a few strides. Two minutes ago Wilbur might have
Set your mainsl, came the bellow of Captain Kitchell. Clap on to your throat and peak halyards.
The Chinamen hurried aft.
Wilbur followed.
II. A NAUTICAL EDUCATION
In the course of the next few moments, while the little vessel was being got under way, and while the Ridgeways Petrel gleamed off into the blue distance, Wilbur made certain observations.
The name of the boat on which he found himself was the Bertha Millner. She was a two-topmast, 28-ton keel schooner, 40 feet long, carrying a large spread of sailmainsail, foresail, jib, flying-jib, two gaff-topsails, and a staysail. She was very dirty and smelt abominably of some kind of rancid oil. Her crew were Chinamen; there was no mate. But the cookhimself a Chinamanwho appeared from time to time at the door of the galley, a potato-masher in his hand, seemed to have some sort of authority over the hands. He acted in a manner as a go-between for the Captain and the crew, sometimes interpreting the formers orders, and occasionally giving one of his own.
Wilbur heard the Captain address him as Charlie. He spoke pigeon English fairly. Of the balance of the crewthe five ChinamenWilbur could make nothing. They never spoke, neither to Captain Kitchell, to Charlie, nor to each other; and for all the notice they took of Wilbur he might easily have been a sack of sand. Wilbur felt that his advent on the Bertha Millner was by its very nature an extraordinary event; but the absolute indifference of these brown-suited Mongols, the blankness of their flat, fat faces, the dulness of their slanting, fishlike eyes that never met his own or even wandered in his direction, was uncanny, disquieting. In what strange venture was he now to be involved, toward what unknown vortex was this new current setting, this current that had so suddenly snatched him from the solid ground of his accustomed life?
He told himself grimly that he was to have a free cruise up the bay, perhaps as far as Alviso; perhaps the Bertha Millner would even make the circuit of the bay before returning to San Francisco. He might be gone a week. Wilbur could already see the scare-heads of the daily papers the next morning, chronicling the disappearance of One of Societys Most Popular Members.
Thats well, yr throat halyards. Here, Lilee of the Vallee, give a couple of pulls on yr peak halyard purchase.
Wilbur stared at the Captain helplessly.
No can tell, hey? inquired Charlie from the galley. Pullum disa lope, sabe?
Wilbur tugged at the rope the cook indicated.
Thats well, yr peak halyard purchase, chanted Captain Kitchell.
Wilbur made the rope fast. The mainsail was set, and hung slatting and flapping in the wind. Next the forsail was set in much the same manner, and Wilbur was ordered to lay out on the jiboom and cast the gaskets off the jib. He lay out as best he could and cast off the gasketshe knew barely enough of yachting to understand an order here and thereand by the time he was back on the focsle head the Chinamen were at the jib halyard and hoisting away.
Thats well, yr jib halyards.
The Bertha Millner veered round and played off to the wind, tugging at her anchor.
Man yr windlass.
Wilbur and the crew jumped once more to the brakes.
Brake down, heave yr anchor to the cathead.
The anchor-chain, already taut, vibrated and then cranked through the hawse-holes as the hands rose and fell at the brakes. The anchor came home, dripping gray slime. A norwest wind filled the schooners sails, a strong ebb tide caught her underfoot.
Were off, muttered Wilbur, as the Bertha Millner heeled to the first gust.
But evidently the schooner was not bound up the bay.
Must be Vallejo or Benicia, then, hazarded Wilbur, as the sails grew tenser and the water rippled ever louder under the schooners forefoot. Maybe theyre going after hay or wheat.
The schooner was tacking, headed directly for Meiggss wharf. She came in closer and closer, so close that Wilbur could hear the talk of the fishermen sitting on the stringpieces. He had just made up his mind that they were to make a landing there, when
Stand by for stays, came the raucous bark of the Captain, who had taken on the heel. The sails slatted furiously as the schooner came about. Then the Bertha Millner caught the wind again and lay over quietly and contentedly to her work. The next tack brought the schooner close under Alcatraz. The sea became heavier, the breeze grew stiff and smelled of the outside ocean. Out beyond them to westward opened the Golden Gate, a bleak vista of gray-green water roughened with white-caps.
Stand by for stays.
Once again as the rudder went hard over, the Bertha Millner fretted and danced and shook her sails, calling impatiently for the wind, chafing at its absence like a child reft of a toy. Then again she scooped the norwester in the hollow palms of her tense canvases and settled quietly down on the new tack, her bowsprit pointing straight toward the Presidio.
Well come about again soon, Wilbur told himself, and stand over toward the Contra Costa shore.
A fine huge breath of wind passed over the schooner. She heeled it on the instant, the water roaring along her quarter, but she kept her course. Wilbur fell thoughtful again, never more keenly observant.
She must come about soon, he muttered uneasily, if shes going to stand up toward Vallejo. His heart sank with a sudden apprehension. A nervousness he could not overcome seized upon him. The Bertha Millner held tenaciously to the tack. Within fifty yards of the Presidio came the command again:
Stand by for stays.
Once more, her bows dancing, her cordage rattling, her sails flapping noisily, the schooner came about. Anxiously Wilbur observed the bowsprit as it circled like a hand on a dial, watching where now it would point. It wavered, fluctuated, rose, fell, then settled easily, pointing toward Lime Point. Wilbur felt a sudden coldness at his heart.
This isnt going to be so much fun, he muttered between his teeth. The schooner was not bound up the bay for Alviso nor to Vallejo for grain. The track toward Lime Point could mean but one thing. The wind was freshening from the norwest, the ebb tide rushing out to meet the ocean like a mill-race, at every moment the Golden Gate opened out wider, and within two minutes after the time of the last tack the Bertha Millner heeled to a great gust that had come booming in between the heads, straight from the open Pacific.
Stand by for stays.
As before, one of the Chinese hands stood by the sail rope of the jib.
Draw yr jib.
The jib filled. The schooner came about on the port tack; Lime Point fell away over the stern rail. The huge ground swells began to come in, and as she rose and bowed to the first of these it was precisely as though the Bertha Millner were making her courtesy to the great gray ocean, now for the first time in full sight on her starboard quarter.
The schooner was beating out to sea through the Middle Channel. Once clear of the Golden Gate, she stood over toward the Cliff House, then on the next tack cleared Point Bonita. The sea began building up in deadly earnestthey were about to cross the bar. Everything was battened down, the scuppers were awash, and the hawse-holes spouted like fountains after every plunge. Once the Captain ordered all men aloft, just in time to escape a gigantic dull green roller that broke like a Niagara over the schooners bows, smothering the decks knee-deep in a twinkling.
The wind blew violent and cold, the spray was flying like icy small-shot. Without intermission the Bertha Millner rolled and plunged and heaved and sank. Wilbur was drenched to the skin and sore in every joint, from being shunted from rail to mast and from mast to rail again. The cordage sang like harp-strings, the schooners forefoot crushed down into the heaving water with a hissing like that of steam, blocks rattled, the Captain bellowed his orders, rope-ends flogged the hollow deck till it reverberated like a drum-head. The crossing of the bar was one long half-hour of confusion and discordant sound.
When they were across the bar the Captain ordered the cook to give the men their food.
Git forrd, sonny, he added, fixing Wilbur with his eye. Git forrd, this is tawble dee hote, savvy?
Wilbur crawled forward on the reeling deck, holding on now to a mast, now to a belaying-pin, now to a stay, watching his chance and going on between the inebriated plunges of the schooner.
He descended the focsle hatch. The Chinamen were already there, sitting on the edges of their bunks. On the floor, at the bottom of the ladder, punk-sticks were burning in an old tomato-can.
Charlie brought in supperstewed beef and pork in a bread-pan and a wooden kitand the Chinamen ate in silence with their sheath-knives and from tin plates. A liquid that bore a distant resemblance to coffee was served. Wilbur learned afterward to know the stuff as Black Jack, and to be aware that it was made from bud barley and was sweetened with molasses. A single reeking lamp swung with the swinging of the schooner over the centre of the group, and long after Wilbur could remember the grisly scenethe punk-sticks, the bread-pan full of hunks of meat, the horrid close and oily smell, and the circle of silent, preoccupied Chinese, each sitting on his bunk-ledge, devouring stewed pork and holding his pannikin of Black Jack between his feet against the rolling of the boat.
Wilbur looked fearfully at the mess in the pan, recalling the chocolate and stuffed olives that had been his last luncheon.
Well, he muttered, clinching his teeth, Ive got to come to it sooner or later. His penknife was in the pocket of his waist-coat, underneath his oilskin coat. He opened the big blade, harpooned a cube of pork, and deposited it on his tin plate. He ate it slowly and with savage determination. But the Black Jack was more than he could bear.
Im not hungry enough for that just now, he told himself. Say, Jim, he said, turning to the Chinaman next him on the bunk-ledge, say, what kind of boat is this? What you dowhere you go?
The other moved away impatiently.
No sabe, no sabe, he answered, shaking his head and frowning. Throughout the whole of that strange meal these were the only words spoken.
When Wilbur came on deck again he noted that the Bertha Millner had already left the whistling-buoy astern. Off to the east, her sails just showing above the waves, was a pilot-boat with the number 7 on her mainsail. The evening was closing in; the Farallones were in plain sight dead ahead. Far behind, in a mass of shadow just bluer than the sky, he could make out a few twinkling lightsSan Francisco.
Half an hour later Kitchell came on deck from his supper in the cabin aft. He glanced in the direction of the mainland, now almost out of sight, then took the wheel from one of the Chinamen and commanded, Ease off yr fore an main sheets. The hands eased away and the schooner played off before the wind.
The staysail was set. The Bertha Millner headed to southwest, bowling easily ahead of a good eight-knot breeze.
Next came the order All hands aft! and Wilbur and his mates betook themselves to the quarterdeck. Charlie took the wheel, and he and Kitchell began to choose the men for their watches, just as Wilbur remembered to have chosen sides for baseball during his school days.
Sonny, Ill choose you; youre on my watch, said the Captain to Wilbur, and I will assoom the ree-sponsibility of your nautical eddoocation.
I may as well tell you at once, began Wilbur, that Im no sailor.
But you will be, soon, answered the Captain, at once soothing and threatening; you will be, Mister Lilee of the Vallee, you kin lay to it as how you will be one of the best sailormen along the front, as our dear friend Jim says. Before I git throo with you, youll be a sailorman or shark-bait, I can promise you. Youre on my watch; step over here, son.
The watches were divided, Charlie and three other Chinamen on the port, Kitchell, Wilbur, and two Chinamen on the starboard. The men trooped forward again.
The tiny world of the schooner had lapsed to quiet. The Bertha Millner was now clear of the land, that lay like a blur of faintest purple smokeever growing fainterlow in the east. The Farallones showed but their shoulders above the horizon. The schooner was standing well out from shoreeven beyond the track of the coasters and passenger steamersto catch the Trades from the northwest. The sun was setting royally, and the floor of the ocean shimmered like mosaic. The sea had gone down and the fury of the bar was a thing forgotten. It was perceptibly warmer.