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The Water Devil
by
“I am not a sailor,” said the other; “I am a soldier; a sea-soldier–in fact, a marine.”
“I should say, sir,” remarked the school-master, in a manner intended rather to draw out information than to give it, “that the position of a soldier on a ship possessed advantages over that of a soldier on land. The former is not required to make long marches, nor to carry heavy baggage. He remains at rest, in fact, while traversing great distances. Nor is he called on to resist the charges of cavalry, nor to form hollow squares on the deadly battle-field.”
The stranger smiled. “We often find it hard enough,” said he, “to resist the charges made against us by our officers; the hollow squares form themselves in our stomachs when we are on short rations; and I have known many a man who would rather walk twenty miles than sail one, especially when the sea chops.”
“I am very sure, sir,” said school-master Cardly, “that there is nothing to be said against the endurance and the courage of marines. We all remember how they presented arms, and went down with the Royal George.”
The marine smiled.
“I suppose,” said the blacksmith, “that you never had to do anything of that sort?”
The stranger did not immediately answer, but sat looking into the fire. Presently he said: “I have done things of nearly every sort, although not exactly that; but I have thought my ship was going down with all on board, and that’s the next worst thing to going down, you know.”
“And how was that?” inquired Fryker.
“Well,” said the other, “it happened more times than I can tell you of, or even remember. Yes,” said he, meditatively, “more times than I can remember.”
“I am sure,” said the school-master, “that we should all like to hear some of your experiences.”
The marine shrugged his shoulders. “These things,” said he, “come to a man, and then if he lives through them, they pass on, and he is ready for the next streak of luck, good or bad. That’s the way with us followers of the sea, especially if we happen to be marines, and have to bear, so to speak, the responsibility of two professions. But sometimes a mischance or a disaster does fix itself upon a man’s mind so that he can tell about it if he is called upon; and just now there comes to my mind a very odd thing which once happened to me, and I can give you the points of that, if you like.”
The three men assured him that they would very much like it, and the two women looked as if they were of the same opinion.
Before he began the marine glanced about him, with a certain good-natured wistfulness which might have indicated, to those who understood the countenances of the sea-going classes, a desire to wet his whistle; but if this expression were so intended it was thrown away, for blacksmith Fryker took no spirits himself, nor furnished them to anybody else. Giving up all hope in this direction, the marine took a long pull at his pipe and began.
“It was in the winter of 1878 that I was on the Bay of Bengal, on my way to Calcutta, and about five hundred miles distant from that city. I was not on my own ship, but was returning from a leave of absence on an American steamer from San Francisco to Calcutta, where my vessel, the United States frigate Apache, was then lying. My leave of absence would expire in three days; but although the General Brooks, the vessel I was aboard of, was more of a freight than a passenger vessel, and was heavily laden, we would have been in port in good time if, two days before, something had not happened to the machinery. I am not a machinist myself, and don’t know exactly what it was that was out of order, but the engine stopped, and we had to proceed under sail. That sounds like a slow business; but the Brooks was a clipper-built vessel with three masts and a lot of sails–square sails, fore-and-aft sails, jib sails, and all that sort of thing. I am not a regular sailor myself, and don’t know the names of all the sails; but whatever sails she could have she did have, and although she was an iron vessel, and heavily freighted, she was a good sailer. We had a strong, steady wind from the south, and the captain told me that at the rate we were going he didn’t doubt that he would get me aboard my vessel before my leave ran out, or at least so soon afterward that it wouldn’t make any difference.