The Sea-Witch | Page 2

can be more enamored of his promised bride.
But the craft to which we especially refer at the present writing, was a
coquette of the first class, beautiful in the extreme, and richly meriting
the name that her owners had placed in golden letters on her stern--the
"Sea Witch." She was one of that class of vessels known as flat upon
the floor, a model that caused her to draw but little water, and enabled
her to run free over a sandbar or into an inlet, where an ordinary ship's
long boat would have grounded. She was very long and sharp, with
graceful concave lines, and might have measured some five hundred
tons. Speed had evidently been the main object aimed at in her
construction, the flatness of her floor giving her great buoyancy, and
her length ensuring fleetness. These were points that would at once
have struck a sailor's eye, as he beheld the ship bowling gracefully on
her course by the power of the trade winds that so constantly befriend
the mariners in these latitudes.
We have said that the "Sea Witch" was of peculiar model, and so
indeed she was. Contrary to the usual rig of what are called clipper
ships, her masts, instead of raking, were perfectly upright, for the
purpose of enabling her to carry more press of sail when need be, and
to hold on longer when speed should be of vital importance--that the
straighter construction of the masts furthers this object, is a fact long
since proven in naval architecture. She was very low, too, in her rigging,
having tremendous square yards; enabling the canvass to act more
immediately upon the hull, instead of operating as a lever aloft, and
keeping the ship constantly off an even keel. Though low in the waist,
yet her ends rose gracefully in a curve towards the terminations fore
and aft, making her very dry on either the quarter-deck or forecastle.
She might have numbered fifty men for her crew, and if you had looked
in board over her bulwarks you would have seen that her complement
was made up of men. There were none there but real able-bodied
seamen--sea dogs, who had roughed it in all weather, and on all sorts of

allowance.
There was a quiet and orderly mien about the deck and among the
watch, that spoke of the silent yet potent arm of authority. The men
spoke to each other now and then, but it was in an under tone, and there
was no open levity. A few men were lounging about the heel of the
bowsprit on the forecastle, one or two were busy in the waist coiling
cable; an officer of second or third caste a quiet, but decided character,
to judge from his features, stood with folded arms just abaft the
mizzen-mast, and a youthful figure, almost too young seemingly for so
responsible a post, leaned idly against the monkey-rail, near the sage
old tar who was at the helm. At first you might have supposed him a
supercargo, an owner's son as passenger, or something of that sort,
from the quite-at-home air he exhibited; but now and then he cast one
of those searching and understanding glances aloft and fore and aft,
taking in the whole range of the ship's trim, and the way she did her
duty, that you realized at once the fact of his position; and you could
not mistake the fact that he was her commander.
He wore a glazed tarpaulin hat of coarse texture, and his dress was of
little better material than that of the crew he commanded, but it set it
somehow quite jauntily upon his fine, well-developed form, and there
was an unmistakable air of conscious authority about him that showed
him to be no stranger to control, or the position which he filled. The
hair, escaping in glossy curls from beneath his hat, added to a set of
very regular features a fine effect, while a clear, full blue eye, and an
open, ingenuous expression of countenance, told of manliness of heart
and chivalric hardihood of character. Exposure to the elements had
bronzed his skin, but there were no wrinkles there, and Captain Will
Ratlin could not have seen more than two and twenty years, though
most of them had doubtless been passed upon the ocean, for his
well-knit form showed him to be one thoroughly inured to service.
"She does her work daintily, Captain Ratlin," said he who was
evidently an officer, and who had been standing by the mainmast, but
now walked aft.
"Yes, Mr. Faulkner, 'daintily' is the word. I wish our beauty could be a
little more spunky, time is money in our business, sir," was the prompt
reply.
"But the willing craft does all she can,