There were differences of opinion about the precise distance between Buenos Aires and Bahia Blanca, in which it seemed the authority of the steward was not accepted. Travelling light, however, the Bonadventure seemed little concerned about fifty miles either way. A current assisted in this turn of speed. It was enjoyable to be out of sight of land once more, in a morning coolness, with seagulls piping in our wake; although they were yellowish waters that were rolling by. The second pilot went down to the motor boat due to take him home; the blue peter was hauled down when he had gone; and we hurried south. A dove came by, alighted; presumably our course lay at no great distance from the coast: a sail, a smoke-trail here and there dappled the circling scene. The sailors and apprentices set to, cleaning the holds in preparation for a cargo of grain–a black job. Bucketful after bucketful was flung over the side, the wind playfully carrying off the murky clouds. I washed clothes at a safe distance. It was at this time or near it that an addition to my daily course was made. So long as the Bonadventure was at sea, the ship’s officers received cocoa and sandwiches by way of supper. To this edible privilege I could not imagine that I had the slightest claim, nor in fact was I anxious to be elected; but when the steward out of his magnanimity conferred The cocoa indeed was not to be lightly considered when ten o’clock found me, as it mostly did, with Mead on his night watch. The first night after we had left the mouth of the Plate, his mind was full of one matter. Before we had been released from Wilson’s Wharf, acting on the advice of the vendor, he had bought a fifth share in a lottery ticket. With this qualification, he began to paint his future in all the colours of £1,166–his possible, or as he wished to be assured, his probable, harvest. A small schooner, in the enchanted atmosphere of his pipe, seemed already to own him master; she would trade for long years of prosperity in South Sea islands, where uncultivated fruits and beauties abound. While we agreed on the plan, the moon went down; multitudes of stars shone out, and meteors at moments ran down the sky. A broad glow to starboard revealed the nearness of the coast. Everything was most still, except perhaps Mead’s spirit. There might be some hitch. But no, he felt his luck was in; he was sure, something told him that he carried the winning number. The day’s entries in my diary now began thus, or nearly: “Need I say it again–One mosquito, etc., but I killed him; then, one mosquito, etc.” The persistence of these self-satisfied hovering devils was puzzling, for the mornings dawned almost bitterly fresh, and the breeze was always awake. Its direction had now laid, during the night, a carpet of glittering coal-dust along the passage outside the door; and the day being Sunday, which should by all precedent be marked by an increased radiance in the outward as well as in the inward man, it was impossible to keep A gentler air, a bluer sea, a sandy coast in view. There was something lyrical about the “dirty ship” as with the buoyancy of her cargoless holds she fleeted to the south. Mead, his future resplendent with £1,166 and its South Sea bubble, seemed to feel this rhythmical impulse. Every now and then, in his consultations, he would break forth into singing, but seldom more than a fragment at a time; now it was “Farewell and adieu to you, bright Spanish Ladies”–a grand old tune–now “Six men dancing on the dead man’s chest.” But most, he gave in honour of his native Australia a ballad of a monitory sort with a wild yet sweet refrain. It began I was born in the city of Sydney, And I was an apprentice bound, And many’s the good old time I’ve had In that dear old Southern town. The apprentice fell in with a dark lady–indeed “she came tripping right into his way.” It was an unfortunate encounter. He became her “darling flash boy.” He could readily put the case against her when, as receiver of stolen goods, he had served some years in jail; and then, like the author of George Barnwell, he addressed apprentices on the subject: So all young men take a warning and Beware of that black velvet tie. For her eyes they shone like the diamonds, I thought her a Queen of the land, And the hair that hung over her shoulders was Tied up with a black velvet band. When Mead later on gave me a copy of this song, which I shall not forget, duly set out in “cantos,” he was good enough to ornament it with a little picture of the black bow as tailpiece. The heat became very strong, and as the day declined, a great cloud-bank rose up out to sea, and the air settled to that stillness in which the fall of the ripples from the side sounds most insistent. Dark came on, and from two arches or caverns of smouldering twilight under the extremities of that mighty cloud the lightnings burst; lightnings in whose general wide waft of brightness intense white wreaths suddenly lived and withered, branches of fire stretched forth and were gone; while in the opposite heaven “like a dying lady,” went the horned moon. Meanwhile the Bonadventure not slacking her unusual speed came to a lightship; then (for this was a pilot station) the engines thrashed up the water as she manoeuvred for the pilot’s most comfortable approach. The boatmen came rowing him lustily out to us; our rope ladder was lowered–at these moments I was sensible of a sort of proud anxiety on the part of all aboard, that such a detail should be carried out with all despatch–and up he came. And after him, a rope was asked for, and sent down; up came a great stringful of fish, gleaming like the sea under the We came now close by the misty lights of a town named Puerto Militar and further on those of Ingeniero White, the little port of Bahia Blanca to which the Bonadventure was actually bound, began to beckon. About eleven the anchors were let go, and the pilot retired to sleep; but I still stayed with Mead, regarding dully the dull lights of our surroundings, and consuming cocoa, and blessing the exhalation of the continent which had first met me at sea some weeks ago. Already fishing, the steward leaned over the rail close by; he had often painted the angling at Bahia Blanca in enthusiastic colours. However, he seemed to catch nothing. By this the moon, that had grown almost a giantess as she stooped down the horizon, and had reddened like a glowing coal to the last almost, was dwindling. The orb became a beacon dying on a hill; then dropped below the sky. The lightnings over the quiet sea had almost ceased. |