The Penang Pirate | Page 6

captain before turning in had told Mr Scuppers that they were to sail at daybreak.
"Whee--eo! Whee--eo! Whee--ee!" The boatswain's shrill whistle was heard piercing through every nook and cranny of the ship.
"Tumble up, there! Tumble up! All hands up anchor!" shouted out Bill Martens in stentorian tones that supplemented the call of his whistle. "Now, you Lascar beggars, show a leg, will you? All hands on deck, and up anchor. Here, look alive, serang! Man the capstan-bars, and be sharp with it. Cheerily, men; cheerily ho! Walk her up to her anchor. Now she rides--heave, men, with a will. Belay!"
The ship by this time has been brought up, with all the slack of the cable in; and the chief mate now lends his voice to add to the bustle and movement of the scene.
"'Way aloft there, men; loose topsails; let fall. There! Now, serang, heave with a will! heave with a will! Now it's free; heave away, my hearties!" and the anchor was run up to the bows with a will, and secured with tackles; when, the ship's head being now loosed from her hold of the ground, she began to pay off, with her bows dancing up and down, as if she were bidding a polite adieu to the Celestial Empire and all its belongings.
"Man the topsail halliards; up with the jib; loosen those courses; set the spanker sharp, will you? Hurrah! there she fills!" The sails bellied out and drew; and the ship bore round to her course, and began to move, at first slowly, and then more swiftly, down the river, south and west, on her way towards England--homeward-bound, as it is joyously phrased.
A regular staunch clipper is she--the good ship Hankow Lin; one of the best of the old-fashioned tea-traders that as yet spurned the modern innovation of the Suez Canal, and despised, in the majesty of their spreading canvas, the despicable agency of steam! A sound, teak-built, staunch, ship-rigged vessel of 1200 tons register, and classed A1 at Lloyd's for an indefinite number of years.
Captain Morton--a bluff old sea-dog, with a jovial red face, and crisp, wiry grey hair, and mutton-chop whiskers that projected on either side as if electrified--was standing on the poop to windward, with the first mate, Mr Scuppers, and the passenger, "Mr Meredith," looking up aloft at the nimble topmen, who were adding acre to acre to the sail-surface of the ship, and pluming her snowy pinions with a pull here and a shake there. Mr Sprott, the second mate, was to leeward of the helmsman; the boatswain on the forecastle, monarch of all he surveyed in that department; and little Jack Harper, the middy--a special favourite both with the officers and sailors--looking on amidships at the gang of Malays, who were hauling away at halliards, and slackening sheets, and curling ropes, in a more slipshod and leisurely way than regular jack tars are wont.
Jack Harper called out to the serang Kifong to make him rouse up his men, but he was nowhere to be seen. Presently, he perceived him bending over the side amidships, partly concealed by the shrouds, and apparently talking to some one overboard. Wondering what was up, Jack cautiously approached him without being observed, and peered over the side too. His face brightened up with excitement as he heard the sounds of men's voices speaking in Chinese rapidly, and then he listened with rapt attention for a minute. Only for a minute, however, as the serang, turning rapidly round, saw him, and, calling out something which he could not catch, a sampan, or native boat, quickly sheered off from the vessel, and, impelled by two rowers, darted off shore wards; the serang, with a look of unconsciousness at Jack, sauntering back to his gang, as if he were only doing the most natural thing in the world.
The captain perceived the sampan the moment it left the ship's side, and hailed Jack.
"Hullo! What was that boat doing alongside?"
"Can't say, sir," said Jack, touching his cap. "I suppose some of the Lascars' friends bidding them good-bye!"
"That so?" said the captain. "It isn't discipline, but I suppose we can't help it;" and he resumed his conversation with the passenger and Mr Scuppers.
By and by, when the serang and his gang had gone forward again, to unbit the cable chain and cat and fish the anchor, Jack went up on the poop to the captain.
"Beg your pardon, Cap'en Morton," he said, "but I think that Malay chap is up to something; can I speak to you privately?"
"Oh, never mind Mr Meredith," said the captain; "we are all friends here; speak out."
"Well, you know, sir," said Jack, diffidently--he didn't like spinning a yarn, as he called it, before strangers--"that I understand a little Chinese; and I caught something of what the serang