Johnson was finishing the preparations for setting sail. The day was overcast, and the sea, outside of the docks, rather high; a stiff southwest breeze was blowing, but they could easily leave the Mersey.
At twelve o’clock still nothing. Dr. Clawbonny walked up and down uneasily, looking about, gesticulating, and “impatient for the sea,” as he said. In spite of all he could do, he felt excited. Shandon bit his lips till the blood came.
At this moment Johnson came up to him and said—
“Commander, if we are going to take this tide, we must lose no time; it will be a good hour before we can get off from the docks.”
Shandon cast one last glance about him, and looked at his watch. It was after the time of the midday distribution of letters.
“Cast off!” he said to his boatswain.
“All ashore who are going!” cried the latter, ordering the spectators to leave the deck of the Forward.
Thereupon the crowd, began to move toward the gangway and make its way on to the quay, while the crew began to cast off the last moorings.
At once the inevitable confusion of the crowd, which was pushed about without much ceremony by the sailors, was increased by the barking of the dog. He suddenly sprang from the forecastle right through the mass of visitors, barking sullenly.
All made way for him. He sprang on the poop-deck, and, incredible as it may seem, yet, as a thousand witnesses can testify, this dog-captain carried a letter in his mouth.
“A letter!” cried Shandon; “but is he on board?”
“He was, without doubt, but he’s not now,” answered Johnson, showing the deck cleared of the crowd.
“Here, Captain! Captain!” shouted the doctor, trying to take the letter from the dog, who kept springing away from him. He seemed to want to give the letter to Shandon himself.
“Here, Captain!” he said.
The dog went up to him; Shandon took the letter without difficulty, and then Captain barked sharply three times, amid the profound silence which prevailed on board the ship and along the quay.
Shandon held the letter in his hand, without opening it.
“Read it, read it!” cried the doctor. Shandon looked at it. The address, without date or place, ran simply—“Commander Richard Shandon, on board the brig Forward.”
Shandon opened the letter and read:—
You will sail towards Cape Farewell. You will reach it April 20. If the captain does not appear on board, you will pass through Davis Strait and go up Baffin’s Bay as far as Melville Sound.
Shandon folded carefully this brief letter, put it in his pocket, and gave the order to cast off. His voice, which arose alone above the roaring of the wind, sounded very solemn.
Soon the Forward had left the docks, and under the care of a pilot, whose boat followed at a distance, put out into the stream. The crowd hastened to the outer quay by the Victoria Docks to get a last look at the strange vessel. The two topsails, the foresail, and staysail were soon set, and under this canvas the Forward, which well deserved its name, after rounding Birkenhead Point, sailed away into the Irish Sea.
V
At Sea
The wind, which was uncertain, although in general favorable, was blowing in genuine April squalls. The Forward sailed rapidly, and its screw, as yet unused, did not delay its progress. Towards three o’clock they met the steamer which plies between Liverpool and the Isle of Man, and which carries the three legs of Sicily on its paddle-boxes. Her captain hailed them, and this was the last goodbye to the crew of the Forward.
At five o’clock the pilot resigned the charge of the ship to Richard Shandon, and sailed away in his boat, which soon disappeared from sight in the southwest.
Towards evening the brig doubled the Calf of Man, at the southern extremity of the island of that name. During the night the sea was very high; the Forward rode the waves very well, however, and leaving the Point of Ayr on the northwest, she ran towards the North Channel.
Johnson was right; once at sea the sailors readily adapted themselves instinctively to the situation. They saw the excellence of their vessel and forgot the strangeness of their situation. The ship’s routine was soon regularly established.
The doctor inhaled with pleasure the sea-air; he paced up and down the deck in spite of the fresh wind, and showed that for a student he had very good sea-legs.
“The sea is a fine thing,” he said to Johnson, as he went upon the bridge after breakfast; “I am a little late in making its acquaintance, but I shall make up for my delay.”
“You are right, Dr. Clawbonny; I would give all the land in the world for a bit of ocean. People say that sailors soon get tired of their business; but I’ve been sailing for forty years, and I like it as well as I did the first day.”
“What a pleasure it is to feel a stanch ship under one’s feet! and, if I’m not mistaken, the Forward is a capital sea-boat.”
“You are right, Doctor,” answered Shandon, who had joined the two speakers; “she’s a good ship, and I must say that there was never a ship so well equipped for a voyage in the polar regions. That reminds me that, thirty years ago, Captain James Ross, going to seek the Northwest Passage—”
“Commanded the Victory,” said the doctor, quickly, “a brig of about the tonnage of this one, and also carrying machinery.”
“What! did you know that?”
“Say for yourself,” retorted the doctor. “Steamers were
