Jack at Sea

"So would you seem small if you were thirty or forty miles away," said the captain, taking the gla.s.s and having another good long look. "The air is very clear this morning, and the island looms up. But we shall see better by and by."

They had been steadily sailing east for some days, and land had been sighted several times since. Jack had stood gazing longingly over the starboard rail at the tops of the Java volcanoes, which had followed one another in succession, some with the clouds hanging round their sides and their peaks clear, but two with what looked in the distance like tiny threads of smoke rising from their summits, and spreading out into a top like a mushroom.

This long island had tempted him strongly, and he had suggested to his father that they should make a halt there, but Sir John and the doctor both shook their heads.

"No," said the latter, "I vote against it. I believe Java to be a very interesting country, but for our purpose it is spoiled."

"Yes," said Sir John; "we don't want to get to a place full of plantations and farms; we want an out-of-the-way spot where the naturalist and traveller have not run riot over the land; where Nature is wild and untamed."

"And where we can find something new," said the doctor. "That place the captain talked about is the very spot."

"But we may not find it," said Jack.

"Let's chance it, my boy," said his father; "and even if we do not hit upon that, there are plenty of places far more interesting to us than Java is likely to be."

And now at last they were in sight of the very place, and a wild excitement began to fill the boy's breast as he went over the doctor's imaginary description, one which the captain declared to be perfectly accurate, for so many islands existed formed upon that very plan.

It did not occur to Jack that a great change had come over him, nor that people on board were noticing him when he hurried down to finish dressing that morning, and back on deck with his powerful binocular gla.s.s, to stand gazing away toward the east.

"This is clearer and better than the captain's gla.s.s," he thought to himself, "and easier to use," as he made out the misty little undefined patch, but was disappointed to find how slightly it had changed in the time he had been below.

He ate his breakfast hurriedly, and came on deck again with his excitement growing, and Sir John and the doctor exchanged

"When shall we make the land, captain?" said Sir John.

"Perhaps not till to-morrow morning," was the reply, "under sail: the wind's falling."

"Why, where is Jack?" said the doctor suddenly. "He came on deck."

The captain gave him a queer look, and jerked his head backward, as he stood facing the wheel.

"Forward in the bows?" said the doctor.

"No: look up."

Sir John and the doctor looked up in astonishment to find that Jack had mounted the mainmast shrouds, and was now perched in the little apology for a top, with his arms about the foot of the topmast, against which he held his gla.s.s, gazing east.

Sir John drew a deep breath, and looked at his friend.

"Don't take the slightest notice," said the latter; "treat it as quite a matter of course. He has taken his spring and is out of his misery. He won't want any corks to swim with now, nor for us to hold him up."

"That's right, gentlemen," said the captain. "His spirit's rising, and that will carry him along. I wouldn't notice anything."

"Hi! father!" cried the lad, as he lowered his gla.s.s and caught sight of them. "I can't make much out even here. I say, Captain Bradleigh, are you sure this is the island?"

"Well, I'm sure it's land," replied the captain.

"But we don't seem to get a bit nearer."

"Sun's getting higher and makes it fainter. But the wind is falling, and we'll clap on a little more sail."

As the morning went on sail after sail was added, the men springing aloft and shaking out the squaresails, while long triangular pieces of canvas were run up the stays till the yacht was crowded, and she glided along with a delightfully easy motion.

But it was all in vain; the wind sank and sank, till at mid-day the sails hung motionless in the glowing suns.h.i.+ne, while, save for a slow soft heaving, the gla.s.sy transparent sea was absolutely without motion.

"Oh, this is vexatious!" cried Jack impatiently.

"Yes, you'll have to whistle for the wind, Jack," said the doctor, stretching himself under the awning and lighting his cigar.

"Whistle for nonsense!" said the lad irritably. "So tiresome, just too as we have come in sight of the place."

"Practice for your patience, my boy," said Sir John merrily. "Oughtn't he to come under the awning out of the scorching sun?" he continued to the doctor, as Jack went forward to where Captain Bradleigh was giving orders about lowering some of the studding-sails.

"Won't hurt him so long as he does not exert himself," replied the doctor. "The sun, sir, is the real fount of life. Nature incites all animals to bask in it, even the fish. There's a shoal swimming yonder.

We'll have a try for some presently. Do him good."

"Then why don't you go and lie in it?" said Sir John, smiling.

"Because I don't want doing good. Too idle. I'm drinking all this in.

I never felt so well in my life."

"Nor I," said Sir John, watching his son's movements, "but I begin to feel as if I should like to be doing something active. What's Jack about?"

The answer came in the boy's voice, heard distinctly enough in the clear air,--

"I say, don't take the sails down, Captain Bradleigh," he said; "the wind may come again soon."

"Not before sundown," replied the captain, "and then we shan't want stuns'ls."

"But it might!"

"Yes, and it might come with a sudden touch of hurricane, my lad. We're getting where dangers lie pretty quickly, and we old sea-going folk don't like to be taken unawares."

"What would it do then if a touch of hurricane did come?"

"Perhaps take our masts short off by the board before we could let everything go. Not nice to have half our canvas stripped away. You haven't been at sea so long as I have, squire."

"No, of course not," said Jack impatiently. "But I say, why don't you get up steam?"

"Because we want to keep our coal for an emergency, or when we want to get on."

"Well, we want to get on now."

The captain smiled.

"Go and ask your father what he thinks."

"Yes; come with me."