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Page 39
What is the vessel lying at anchor in the offing?
The vessel is the _Amazon_--dispatched from England to receive
the surviving officers and men of the Arctic Expedition. The
meeting has been successfully effected, on the shores of North
America, three days since. But the homeward voyage has been
delayed by a storm which has driven the ship out of her course.
Taking advantage, on the third day, of the first returning calm,
the commander of the _Amazon_ has anchored off the coast of
Newfoundland, and has sent ashore to increase his supplies of
water before he sails for England. The weary passengers have
landed for a few hours, to refresh themselves after the
discomforts of the tempest. Among them are the two ladies. The
veil left on the table in the boat-house is Clara's veil.
And who is the man sitting on the chest, with the cord in his
hand, looking out idly at the sea? The man is the only cheerful
person in the ship's company. In other words--John Want.
Still reposing on the chest, our friend, who never grumbles, is
surprised by the sudden appearance of a sailor at the boat-house
door.
"Look sharp with your work there, John Want!" says the sailor.
"Lieutenant Crayford is just coming in to look after you."
With this warning the messenger disappears again. John Want rises
with a groan, turns the chest up on one end, and begins to fasten
the cord round it. The ship's cook is not a man to look back on
his rescue with the feeling of unmitigated satisfaction which
animates his companions in trouble. On the contrary, he is
ungratefully disposed to regret the North Pole.
"If I had only known"--thus runs the train of thought in the mind
of John Want--"if I had only known, before I was rescued, that I
was to be brought to this place, I believe I should have
preferred staying at the North Pole. I was very happy keeping up
everybody's spirits at the North Pole. Taking one thing with
another, I think I must have been very comfortable at the North
Pole--if I had only known it. Another man in my place might be
inclined to say that this Newfoundland boat-house was rather a
sloppy, slimy, draughty, fishy sort of a habitation to take
shelter in. Another man might object to perpetual Newfoundland
fogs, perpetual Newfoundland cod-fish, and perpetual Newfoundland
dogs. We had some very nice bears at the North Pole. Never mind!
it's all one to me--_I_ don't grumble."
"Have you done cording that box?"
This time the voice is a voice of authority--the man at the
doorway is Lieutenant Crayford himself. John Want answers his
officer in his own cheerful way.
"I've done it as well as I can, sir--but the damp of this place
is beginning to tell upon our very ropes. I say nothing about our
lungs--I only say our ropes."
Crayford answers sharply. He seems to have lost his former relish
for the humor of John Want.
"Pooh! To look at your wry face, one would think that our rescue
from the Arctic regions was a downright misfortune. You deserve
to be sent back again."
"I could be just as cheerful as ever, sir, if I _was_ sent back
again; I hope I'm thankful; but I don't like to hear the North
Pole run down in such a fishy place as this. It was very clean
and snowy at the North Pole--and it's very damp and sandy here.
Do you never miss your bone-soup, sir? _I_ do. It mightn't have
been strong; but it was very hot; and the cold seemed to give it
a kind of a meaty flavor as it went down. Was it you that was
a-coughing so long last night, sir? I don't presume to say
anything against the air of these latitudes; but I should be glad
to know it wasn't you that was a-coughing so hollow. Would you be
so obliging as just to feel the state of these ropes with the
ends of your fingers, sir? You can dry them afterward on the back
of my jacket."
"You ought to have a stick laid on the back of your jacket. Take
that box down to the boat directly. You croaking vagabond! You
would have grumbled in the Garden of Eden."
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