A Final Reckoning: A Tale of Bush Life in Australia, G. A. Henty [best mystery novels of all time .TXT] 📗

you! They don't trouble as to quality, and some of the owners buys up condemned stores, and such like; anything, thinks they, is good enough for a convict ship—biscuits as is dropping to pieces, salt junk as 'as been twenty years in cask, and which was mostly horse to begin with. No wonder as they grumbles and growls. A convict is a man, you see, though he be a convict; and it ain't in human nature to eat such muck as that, without growling."

"What tonnage is the vessel?" Reuben asked.

"'Leven hundred and fifty ton, and as fine and roomy a ship as there is in the trade, and well officered. I have made three v'yages with the captain and first mate, and the second mate was with us on the last v'yage."

"How many hands are there, altogether?"

"Twenty-five, counting you as one, and not a-counting the two stewards."

"We are going to take some passengers, I see," Reuben said. "I have been at work, putting up pegs and shelves for them."

"Yes, there's eight or ten passengers, I hears," the sailor said. "Passengers don't mostly like going by convict ships, but then the fares are lower than by other vessels, and that tempts a few. Besides, the Paramatta is known to be a fast ship, and the skipper has a good name; so we shall have a better class of passengers, I expect, than usually voyages with convict ships; and besides the passengers there will be the officer of the convict guard, and a surgeon, so we shall be pretty full aft."

"And what will my duties be, when we are at sea?"

"It just depends on the captain," the sailor said. "You will be put in a watch, and work with the others, except that they may not send you aloft. That depends on the terms that you shipped."

"I shipped as carpenter, and to make myself generally useful, and to obey orders. I shall be happy to do anything I can; hard work is better than doing nothing, any day."

"That's the sort, my lad," the sailor said heartily. "Now I am sail maker, but, bless your heart! Except putting a patch on a sail, now and then, there's nothing to do that way; and when not so wanted I am one of the ordinary crew. Still, if you works your passage, it ain't to be expected as they will drive you the same as a man as is paid. He's a fair man, is the skipper; and you won't find yourself put upon, on board the Paramatta."

"Can't I go up aloft now?" Reuben asked. "I would rather accustom myself to it while we are lying steady, than go up when the wind's blowing, and she is heeling over."

"Go up! To be sure you can, and I will go up with you, and tell you some of the names of the ropes, and put you up to things. There's a pleasure in helping a lad who seems in any way teachable. Some of they boys as comes on board a ship ain't worth their salt, in these days."

The sailor led the way up the shrouds. Reuben found it much more difficult than it looked. He had seen the sailors running up and down, and it looked as easy as mounting a ladder; but the slackness of the ratlines—which, as the sailor told him, was the name of the pieces of rope which answered to the rounds of a ladder—made it at first awkward. When they reached the main top the sailor told him to sit down, and look round quietly, till he became accustomed to the height.

"It looks unnatural and risky, at first," he said; "but when you get accustomed to it, you will feel just as safe, when you are astraddle the end of a yard, and the ship rolling fit to take her masts out, as if you were standing on the deck."

As Reuben had heard the sailors laughing and joking aloft, as they hauled out the earrings of the sails, he had no doubt that what the sailor said was true; but it seemed, to him, that he should never accustom himself to sit at the end of a spar, with nothing but the water at a vast depth below. It would be bad, even with the ship lying quiet, as at present. It would be terrible with the vessel in a heavy sea.

The sailor now told him the names of the masts and stays, giving him a general idea of the work aloft, and presently asked him whether he would like to return to the deck now, or to mount a bit higher. Although Reuben was now becoming accustomed to the position, he would, had he consulted his inner feelings, have rather gone down than up; but he thought it was better to put a good face on it, and to accustom himself, at once, to what he would probably have to do sooner or later.

Holding on tight then, and following the instructions of his companion, he made his way up until he was seated on the cap of the top-gallant mast, holding tight to the spar, which towered still higher above him. He was surprised at the size and strength of the spars, which had looked so light and slender, from below.

"Very well done, lad," the sailor said approvingly. "You would make a good sailor, in time, if you took to a seafaring life. There's not one in ten as would get up there, the first time of going aloft. You don't feel giddy, do you?"

"No," Reuben replied, "I don't think I feel giddy, but I feel a strange shaky feeling in my legs."

"That will soon pass off," the sailor said. "You look at them hills behind the town, and the forts and works up there. Don't think about the deck of the vessel, or anything, but just as if you were sitting in a chair, watching the hills."

Reuben did as the sailor instructed him and, as he did so, the feeling of which he was before conscious passed completely away.

"I feel all right now," he said, after sitting quietly for a few minutes.

"All right, then; down we go. Don't look below, but just keep your eyes in front of you, and never leave go of one grip till you make sure of the next."

Five minutes later he stood on the deck.

"Well done, my lad, for the first time," the first mate said, as Reuben put his foot on the deck "I have had my eye on you. I shouldn't have let you go beyond the top, at the first trial; but I didn't think you would go higher, till you were fairly up, otherwise I should have hailed you from the deck.

"You ought not to have taken him up above the top, Bill. If he had lost his head, it would have been all up with him."

"I could see he wasn't going to lose his head. Trust me for not leading a young hand into danger. He was a little flustrated, when he got into the top; but after he had sat down a bit, his breath come quiet and regular again, and I could see there was no chance of his nerve going."

The next morning, soon after daybreak, the dockyard boats began to row alongside, with grey-coated convicts. Reuben watched them as they came on board, with a sort of fascination with their closely cut hair, bullet heads, and evil faces. Although he had no doubt that the repulsive expression was due partly to the close-cut hair and shaved faces, and their hideous garb, he could scarcely repress a shudder as he looked at them. In some faces an expression of brutal ferocity was dominant. Others had a shifty, cunning look, no less repulsive.

There were a few good-humoured faces, one or two so different from the others, that Reuben wondered whether they were innocent victims of circumstances, as he had so nearly been. Not till now did he quite realize how great his escape had been. The thought that he might have had to spend the rest of his life herding with such men as these, made him feel almost sick; and he thanked God more fervently, even, than he had done when the verdict was returned which restored him to his liberty, that he had been saved from such a fate.

A hundred and eighty convicts came on board. They were in charge of ten warders, with loaded muskets, and an hour later a party of twenty marines, under the charge of an officer, also embarked. They were on their way out to join a ship in Australian waters, and were to aid the warders in keeping the convicts in good order.

The wind being favourable, no time was lost after the marines had come on board. The moorings were cast off and sails hoisted, and the Paramatta made her way against the tide to the mouth of the Medway; and there dropped her anchor to wait until the tide began to ebb, for the wind was so light that little would have been gained by an attempt to proceed at once. Sail was made again as soon as tide turned and, on turning out next morning at daylight, for he had not yet been assigned to a watch, Reuben found that the ship was lying at anchor in the Downs.

Two or three hours passed.

"What are we doing here, Bill?"

"We are waiting for the passengers. They are all coming on board here. I expect that big lugger you see, running out direct for us, 'as got them on board."

"I wonder they didn't come on board when we started," Reuben said. "I should think it would have been pleasanter than coming all the way down to Dover by coach."

"So I should think, my lad; but you see, it ain't every time as a ship has the luck we've had. It's a long job coming down to the Downs, if the wind don't serve. We might have been beating about there, at the mouth of the Thames, for a week. So you see, most of these 'longshore chaps like to send their traps on board while the vessel's in the docks, and then to come down here and stop till she comes round."

In a few minutes the lugger was alongside, the gangway was lowered, and the passengers began to come on board. They were, as the sailor had said they would be, some ten in number. There were six men, four ladies, and three children, the latter not counting as regular passengers, as they were stowed away in their parents' cabins.

The convicts who were on deck looked over the bulwarks, and cracked coarse jokes among themselves, as the passengers ascended the gangway. Reuben found that only one-third of the number were allowed on deck at once. Two soldiers paced up and down the deck, on guard of the hatchway leading below, and two sentries were posted at other points.

A number of small boxes, bags, coats and cloaks were handed up, and then the rope was cast off, and the lugger made her way back to Dover, and the Paramatta again got under sail. While they had been waiting, the chief mate had told Reuben that, according to the captain's orders, he would henceforth be in his watch.

"As you are not regularly shipped as a sailor," the mate said, "the captain does not wish you to go aloft, unless by your own desire; but there will be plenty of work for you to do on deck, hauling at the braces, scrubbing, and so on."

"I should be glad to do my work with the rest," Reuben said, "as soon as I feel I can be useful aloft. I was up two or three times yesterday, and hope in a few days to be quite accustomed to it."

"I have noticed you, my lad, and you could not be in better hands than Bill's. He is a capital sailor, and as he has taken to you, and you are willing to learn, you will be a useful hand before we get to Sydney; and even if you never go to sea again, all your life, you will find that you have learned a great deal that is useful on board the Paramatta."

The fine weather, which the Paramatta had experienced so far, speedily left her. The sky grew overcast, and the wind freshened fast, and the next morning the ship was staggering, under close-reefed canvas, in the teeth of the southwesterly gale.

For the next three days Reuben made no advance in seamanship, being prostrated with seasickness. At times he crept out from the forecastle, and tried to lend a hand whenever he saw a party of men hauling at a rope; but the motion of the ship was so great that he could scarce keep his feet on the slippery decks, and at last the mate ordered him to go