Black Ivory | Page 2

you've read and talked so much about, and wished so often to travel through. I have chartered a brig, and shall send her out to Zanzibar with a cargo of beads, cotton cloth, brass wire, and such like: what say you to go as supercargo? Of course you won't be able to follow in the steps of Livingstone or Mungo Park, but while the brig is at Zanzibar you will have an opportunity of running across the channel, the island being only a few miles from the main, and having a short run up-country to see the niggers, and perchance have a slap at a hippopotamus. I'll line your pockets, so that you won't lack the sinews of war, without which travel either at home or abroad is but sorry work, and I shall only expect you to give a good account of ship and cargo on your return.--Come, is it fixed?"
Need we say that Harold leaped joyfully at the proposal? And now, here he was, called on to abandon the `Aurora' to her fate, as we have said, near the end of a prosperous voyage. No wonder that he was perplexed.
The crew were fully aware of the state of matters. By the captain's orders they stood ready to lower the two largest boats, into which they had put much of their worldly goods and provisions as they could hold with safety.
"Port, port your helm," said the captain to the man at the wheel.
"Port it is, sir," replied the man at the wheel, who was one of those broad-shouldered, big-chested, loose-garmented, wide-trousered, bare-necked, free-and-easy, off-hand jovial tars who have done so much, in years gone by, to increase the wealth and prosperity of the British Empire, and who, although confessedly scarce, are considerately allowed to perish in hundreds annually on our shores for want of a little reasonable legislation. But cheer up, ye jolly tars! There is a glimmer of sunrise on your political horizon. It really does seem as if, in regard to you, there were at last "a good time coming."
"Port, port," repeated the captain, with a glance at the compass and the sky.
"Port it is, sir," again replied the jovial one.
"Steady! Lower away the boat, lads.--Now, Mr Seadrift," said the captain, turning with an air of decision to the young supercargo, "the time has come for you to make up your mind. The water is rising in the hold, and the ship is, as you see, settling fast down. I need not say to you that it is with the utmost regret I find it necessary to abandon her; but self-preservation and the duty I owe to my men render the step absolutely necessary. Do you intend to go with us?"
"No, captain, I don't," replied Harold Seadrift firmly. "I do not blame you for consulting your own safety, and doing what you believe to be your duty, but I have already said that I shall stick by the ship as long as she can float."
"Well, sir, I regret it but you must do as you think best," replied the captain, turning away--"Now, lads, jump in."
The men obeyed, but several of those who were last to quit the ship looked back and called to the free-and-easy man who still stood at the wheel--"Come along, Disco; we'll have to shove off directly."
"Shove off w'en you please," replied the man at the wheel, in a deep rich voice, whose tones were indicative of a sort of good-humoured contempt; "wot I means for to do is to stop where I am. It'll never be said of Disco Lillihammer that he forsook the owner's son in distress."
"But you'll go to the bottom, man, if you don't come."
"Well, wot if I do? I'd raither go to the bottom with a brave man, than remain at the top with a set o' fine fellers like you!"
Some of the men received this reply with a laugh, others frowned, and a few swore, while some of them looked regretfully at their self-willed shipmate; for it must not be supposed that all the tars who float upon the sea are of the bold, candid, open-handed type, though we really believe that a large proportion of them are so.
Be this as it may, the boats left the brig, and were soon far astern.
"Thank you, Lillihammer," said Harold, going up and grasping the horny hand of the self-sacrificing sea-dog. "This is very kind of you, though I fear it may cost you your life. But it is too late to talk of that; we must fix on some plan, and act at once."
"The werry thing, sir," said Disco quietly, "that wos runnin' in my own mind, 'cos it's werry clear that we hain't got too many minits to spare in confabilation."
"Well, what do you suggest?"
"Arter you, sir," said Disco,