In the Sargasso Sea | Page 2

New York to the Coast, and that's a fact; but you say
that it's an object with you to get your passage low, and I say that even
at that price I can make money out of you. The _Golden Hind_ has got
to call at Loango, anyhow; there's a spare room in her cabin that'll be
empty if you don't fill it; and while you're a big man and look to be
rather extra hearty, I reckon you won't eat more'n about twenty dollars'
worth of victuals--counting 'em at cost--on the whole run. But the main
thing is that I want all the spot cash I can get a-holt of before I start.
Fifty dollars' worth of trade laid in now means five hundred dollars for
me when I get back here in New York with what I've turned it over for
on the Coast. So, you see, if you're suited, I'm suited too. Shake! And
now we'll have another drink. This time it's on me."
We shook, and Captain Luke gave me an honest enough grip, just as he
had spoken in an honest enough tone. I knew, of course, that in a
general way he must be a good deal of a rascal--he couldn't well be a
West Coast trader and be anything else; but then his rascality in general

didn't matter much so long as his dealings with me were square. He
called the waiter and ordered arrack again--it was the most wholesome
drink in the world, he said--and we touched glasses, and so brought our
deal to an end.
That a cheap passage to Loango was an object to me, as Captain Luke
had said, was quite true. It was a very important object. After I got
across, of course, and my pay from the palm-oil people began, I would
be all right; but until I could touch my salary I had to sail mighty close
to the wind. For pretty much all of my capital consisted of my headful
of knowledge of the theory and practice of mechanical engineering
which had brought me out first of my class at the Stevens Institute--and
in that way had got me the offer from the palm-oil people--and because
of which I thought that there wasn't anybody quite my equal anywhere
as a mechanical engineer. And that was only natural, I suppose, since
my passing first had swelled my head a bit, and I was only
three-and-twenty, and more or less of a promiscuously green young
fool.
As I looked over Captain Luke's shoulder, while we supped our arrack
together--out through the window across the rush and bustle of South
Street--and saw a trim steamer of the Maracaibo line lying at her dock,
I could not but be sorry that my voyage to Africa would be made under
sails. But, on the other hand, I comforted myself by thinking that if the
Golden Hind were half the clipper her captain made her out to be I
should not lose much time--taking into account the roundabout way I
should have to go if I went under steam. And I comforted myself still
more by thinking what a lot of money I had saved by coming on this
chance for a cheap cast across; and I blessed my lucky stars for putting
into my head the notion of cruising along South Street that October
morning and asking every sailor-like man I met if he knew of a craft
bound for the West Coast--and especially for having run me up against
Captain Luke Chilton before my cruise had lasted an hour.
The captain looked at his glass so sorrowfully when it was empty that I
begged him to have it filled again, and he did. But he took down his
arrack this time at a single gulp, and then got up briskly and said that he

must be off.
"We don't sail till to-morrow afternoon, on the half flood, Mr.
Stetworth," he said, "so you'll have lots of time to get your traps aboard
if you'll take a boat off from the Battery about noon. I wouldn't come
earlier than that, if I were you. Things are bound to be in a mess aboard
the brig to-morrow, and the less you have of it the better. We lie well
down the anchorage, you know, only a little this side of Robbin's Reef.
Your boatmen will know the place, and they'll find the brig for you if
you'll tell 'em where to look for her and that she's painted green. Well,
so long." And then Captain Luke shook hands with me again, and so
was off into the South Street crowd.
I hurried away too. My general outfit was bought and packed; but the
things lying around my lodgings had to be got together,