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Updated: June 6, 2025
From Ironbridge, two days later, they sailed with a general cargo for Stourwich, the Seamew picking her way carefully down the river by moonlight, followed at an ever-increasing distance by a cork fender of abandoned aspect. A great change had come over Henry, and an attitude of proud reserve had taken the place of the careless banter with which he usually regaled the crew.
Composed as the man's features were, there was still an expression upon them which startled the woman. It brought her out of her chair, even if it did not bring an audible question to her lips. "I was delayed, Aunt 'Cretia," he said. "No; nothing new about the Seamew or about business. It's there's trouble up to the Balls'."
Only the lofty tops of craft like the Seamew were visible, black streaks against the mother-of-pearl sky line. The captain closed the kitchen door softly behind him. He sat down on a bench and painfully pulled on his shoes and laced them. When he tried to straighten up it was by a method which he termed, "easy, by jerks." He sat and recovered his breath after the effort.
"And is that the house?" the girl asked, for in approaching the Ball homestead from this angle it looked different from its appearance as viewed standing on the deck of the inbound Seamew. "That is the Ball house, and Aunt Prue taking in her wash," Tunis replied. "I suppose she had John-Ed Williams' wife over to wash for her, but Myra will have gone home before this to get the supper. Tush!
It was midnight when they got the anchor up and dropped silently down the river. Gravesend was silent, and the dotted lines of street lamps shone over a sleeping town as the Seamew crept softly by.
"Look look here, Cap'n Ira!" she exclaimed. "Can it be the Seamew? Is she trying to head in for the channel? Oh! Are they in danger out there?" The old man rose with his usual difficulty and hobbled to the door, leaning on his cane. He peered out over her shoulder, and his keen and experienced eyes saw and identified the laboring vessel almost at once. "I swan!
"How about you, Zebedee?" demanded the captain of the Seamew. "I am not afraid of any foolish talk, anyway, Captain Latham. Had I been I wouldn't have applied for the berth. I had heard enough about it. Eunez Pareta, I believe, talked too much to the Portygees, and that is why you couldn't keep them. But I'm not a Portygee." "I'll say you're not," agreed Tunis.
But he had already picked his crew with some care. Mason Chapin was mate, a perfectly capable navigator who might have used his ticket to get a berth on a much larger craft than the Seamew. But he had an invalid wife and wished only to leave home on brief voyages. Johnny Lark was shipped as cook, with a Portygee boy, Tony, to help him.
I cared nothing for the Seamew or her crew, and determined to seek my old friends to fight out the day with them. What little thought I gave it justified the deed. My position as an officer of the King would palliate deserting the ship which had brought me over. I slipped down the anchor chain without noise into the throbbing sea, and swam ashore to a point some three or four cable lengths away.
"What of it?" retorted the cook. "She is a fine lady and a pretty lady." "So Tunis Latham think heh?" demanded Eunez fiercely. "And why not?" grinned Johnny. "Bah! Has not all gone wrong with that Seamew ever since she sail in the schooner?" demanded the girl. "An anchor chain breaks; a rope parts; you lost a topmast yes? How about Tony?
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