A Jolly Fellowship | Page 6

from the wharf. I suppose the tide carried her out, as soon as the lines were cast off, for I'm sure the wheels had not been in motion half a minute before we heard them. But all that made no difference. We were off.
I never saw four such blank faces as the committee wore, when they saw the wide space of water between them and the wharf.
"Stop her!" cried Scott to me, as if I could do anything, and then he made a dive toward a party of men on the deck.
"They're passengers!" I cried. "We must find the captain."
"No, no!" said Harry. "Go for the steersman. Tell him to steer back! We mustn't be carried off!"
Tom Myers and his brother George had already started for the pilot-house, when Rectus shouted to them that he'd run down to the engineer and tell him to stop the engine. So they stopped, and Rectus was just going below when Scott called to him to hold up.
"You needn't be scared!" he said. (He had been just as much scared as anybody.) "That man over there says it will be all right. We can go back with the pilot. People often do that. It will be all the more fun. Don't bother the engineer. There's nothing I'd like better than a trip back with a pilot!"
"That's so," said Harry; "I never thought of the pilot."
"But are you sure he'll take you back?" asked Rectus, while Tom Myers and his brother George looked very pale and anxious.
"Take us? Of course he will," said Scott. "That's one of the things a pilot's for,--to take back passengers,--I mean people who are only going part way. Do you suppose the captain will want to take us all the way to Savannah for nothing?"
Rectus didn't suppose that, and neither did any of the rest of us, but I thought we ought to look up the captain and tell him.
"But, you see," said Scott, "it's just possible he might put back."
"Well, don't you want to go back?" I asked.
"Yes, of course, but I would like a sail back in a pilot-boat," said Scott, and Harry Alden agreed with him. Tom Myers and his brother George wanted to go back right away.
We talked the matter over a good deal. I didn't wish to appear as if I wanted to get rid of the fellows who had been kind enough to come all the way from Willisville to see me off, but I couldn't help thinking that it didn't look exactly fair and straightforward not to say that these boys were not passengers until the pilot was ready to go back. I determined to go and see about the matter, but I would wait a little while.
It was cool on deck, especially now that the vessel was moving along, but we all buttoned up our coats and walked up and down. The sun shone brightly, and the scene was so busy and lively with the tug-boats puffing about, and the vessels at anchor, and the ferry-boats, and a whole bay-full of sights curious to us country boys, that we all enjoyed ourselves very much--except Tom Myers and his brother George. They didn't look happy.
CHAPTER II.
GOING BACK WITH THE PILOT.
We were pretty near the Narrows when I thought it was about time to let the captain, or one of the officers, know that there were some people on board who didn't intend to take the whole trip. I had read in the newspapers that committees and friends who went part way with distinguished people generally left them in the lower bay.
But I was saved the trouble of looking for an officer, for one of them, the purser, came along, collecting tickets. I didn't give him a chance to ask Scott or any of the other fellows for something that they didn't have, but went right up to him and told him how the matter stood.
"I must see the captain about this," he said, and off he went.
"He didn't look very friendly," said Scott, and I had to admit that he didn't.
In a few moments the captain came walking rapidly up to us. He was a tall man, dressed in blue, with side-whiskers, and an oil-cloth cap. The purser came up behind him.
"What's all this?" said the captain. "Are you not passengers, you boys?" He did not look very friendly, either, as he asked this question.
[Illustration: THE VESSEL IS OFF.]
"Two of us are," I said, "but four of us were carried off accidentally."
"Accident? Fiddlesticks!" exclaimed the captain. "Didn't you know the vessel was starting? Hadn't you time to get off? Didn't you hear the gong? Everybody else heard it. Are you all deaf?"
This was a good deal to answer at once, so I just said that I didn't remember hearing any gong. Tom Myers