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Updated: May 26, 2025
He was in a gay humour, and she departed in a reflected gleam of his good spirits. He told her all about it, as he sat talking with her at the stern of the boat, lingering till the last moment, and then stepping ashore, with as little waste of time as Lapham himself, on the gang-plank which the deck-hands had laid hold of.
As soon as there was steam enough for the purpose, the pilot, now the captain, rang his bell to back her, and the deck-hands were instructed in getting the fasts on board. Ben Wilford, who was standing on the wharf, cast off the hawsers, and then jumped aboard, himself. The bells jingled for a few moments, and then the Woodville went off on her course. "This is all very fine," said Ben.
Varney took the key from the door, put it in outside, turned it and came on deck again. The crew had vanished to their several haunts. Two deck-hands in blouses and red caps had just completed the rehabilitation of the deck, and at sight of him discreetly vanished forward. "Ferguson," called Varney, "a word with you, please."
Captain Benson was still busied with his log when the steamship from New Zealand arrived to take the shipwrecked men away. The El Dorado's boat was stowed carefully on the deck of the liner. I saw the skipper watching it as the deck-hands put chocks under it and made it fast against the rolling of the ship.
Besides the family and a servant, Valentine Roch, who had been with them since Bournemouth days, the party consisted of the skipper, Captain Otis, who was well acquainted with the Pacific, a crew of four deck-hands, and a Japanese cook. The Casco was a fore-and-aft schooner, ninety-five feet in length, of seventy tons' burden.
Jackson looked in vain for the heavy, foreign faces, the greasy canvas jackets and blanket trousers he was accustomed to see. Not that these men seemed to be landsmen each carried in his face and bearing the indefinable something by which sailors of all races may distinguish each other at a glance from fishermen, tugmen, and deck-hands.
On the previous night, he said, he had set his net and dozed off to sleep in the bottom of the boat. The next he knew it was morning, and he opened his eyes to find his boat rubbing softly against the piles of Steamboat Wharf at Benicia. Also he saw the river steamer Apache lying ahead of him, and a couple of deck-hands disentangling the shreds of his net from the paddle-wheel.
The Captain told the pilot to hold the boat, and then he told the deck-hands if they would come on board and behave themselves he would take them to St. Joseph. They promised they would not raise any more disturbance, so he took them on board and we started on our way. Soon after starting some one told the Captain that the deck-hands were talking about having me arrested when we got to St.
'Twas not hard to surmise their errand. My sister sighed I ran to the door the doctor began at once to get into his boots and greatcoat. But, to our surprise, two deck-hands from the mail-boat pushed their way into the room. There was need of a doctor aboard. Need of a doctor! What of the mail-boat doctor? Ah, 'twas he who was in need. My heart bounded to hear it! And how had he come to that pass?
Now, as a couple of the deck-hands hauled and howled unsuccessfully at the unwieldy chain-box, this mysterious person suddenly appeared, as if spirited up, and, throwing himself stomach on to the loaded vehicle, shot across with it to the other side of the deck with wonderful velocity, retiring, then, with a gliding movement, so as to preserve the rectitude of the deck, which now seemed inclined to slope rather too much the other way.
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