CHAPTER XXX
SHOWING WHAT MISS MILLY DOES FOR BRANDON
BRANDON crept away from the trap in the bulkhead, fearing that at any moment the person who had entered the outer cabin during his conversation with the captain’s daughter, might strive to capture him. He was afraid that the person had heard his movements in descending into the cargo hold again; but if the newcomer did hear anything, Milly evidently convinced him that there was nothing unusual going on, for Brandon was not disturbed.
Then ensued for the stowaway a period of anxious waiting. The very fact that some hope of successful escape had been held out to him, made the waiting all the harder to bear.
Each hour was bringing the Success nearer to Savannah, and Brandon remained near the bulkhead all the time, so as to miss no communication from his fair assistant.
Miss Milly seemed to really enjoy her secret knowledge of the stowaway’s presence, and before the Success reached port she several times called him to the bulkhead, ostensibly for the purpose of finding out if he was all right, and was not going hungry. She supplied him with water, too, these last two or three days, and he no longer had to leave the hold on midnight foraging expeditions.
“We shall be in this evening—perhaps before dark—so father told me last night,” she whispered to him one morning, and Brandon’s heart leaped for joy at the information.
Slowly, indeed, did that day pass.
The Success was beating up toward Savannah against a light head wind, which gave promise of becoming an off shore gale before it was through with. Fortunately, the brig escaped it, taking a tug about the middle of the afternoon, and pulling into her dock about dark.
“Thank Heaven!” was Brandon’s mental ejaculation, when this information was whispered through the crack in the bulkhead door to him, and he was indeed devoutly grateful.
His life in the hold from the time of departure from New York, had been a continual fever of impatience and doubt, and now that the real danger of attempting to escape was at hand, he was rejoiced. In a short time he would know whether he was to be free, or in Jim Leroyd’s power.
Milly had informed him that Captain Frank was exceedingly hard on all stowaways (as sea captains usually are, in fact), and he had no doubt but that he would be placed in a very uncomfortable, if not dangerous, position if the doughty captain should discover him.
Leroyd, of course, would step forward at once and declare that he (Brandon) was wanted in New York for robbery, and that fact could be proved by telegraphing, should the Savannah officers desire to do so. Then, if the whaleback steamer was not in, he should be absolutely friendless, and at the mercy of the vindictive sailor.
He lay close up against the door of the bulkhead all through the early evening. Some of the crew, he judged by what he heard, were allowed to go ashore for a few hours, and a part of the officers went with them—which officers, however, he could not tell.
There was both a first and second mate on the Success.
Brandon had no means of telling the time, but it must have been well along towards ten o’clock—perhaps later—when he heard the two gentle raps for which he had been so anxiously listening.
“Are you there, Brandon?” whispered the captain’s daughter, and as Don pulled the door slightly ajar, she seized his hand, and aided him through the opening.
“Is the coast clear?” he asked anxiously.
“Sh! Yes, father and Mr. Marsh have gone up town with some of the men, and Mr. Barry has finally gone to bed.” (Mr. Barry was the second officer.) “I was afraid that he’d never stop talking to me. I had to fairly freeze him out,” and the merry girl laughed softly.
“But Leroyd?” pursued Brandon.
“He’s gone, too.”
“To bed?”
“No; up the street. I hope you can get off the brig before any of them get back. Now hurry.”
“You’re a good girl, Miss Milly. I hope I shall be able to repay you some time.”
“Hush! go along now,” she said, smiling, but pushing him toward the companionway. “What’s that for?” for Brandon had thrust a little wad of bank notes into her hand.
“It is to pay for the stores I broke into below. Take it, and put it where your father will see it. Good by.”
He started up the ladder, but came back again to ask,
“Is there a steamer in the bay? Did you get in time enough to see?”
“Lots of them.”
“No, I should have said a whaleback steamer?”
“What are those—oh, I know what you mean. A great long, steel boat, with cabins way up above the hull, and no deck to speak of.”
“That’s it,” said Brandon eagerly.
“Yes, there is one here. I saw it and meant to ask father what it was. I thought it was a dredger of some kind,” and Milly laughed again gleefully. “Is that a steamer?”
“Yes. My friends are aboard her.”
“Then you will find them,” she returned delightedly. “That funny boat lies not far from our dock. Now go, or somebody will catch you.”
Brandon crept noiselessly up the steps at this command, and peered out across the deck. A sailor sat on the rail some rods away, but his back was towards him; nobody else was in sight.
“Now’s my chance,” muttered Don, and springing quickly up the remaining steps, he darted as noiselessly as a shadow across the deck, and leaped upon the pier. An instant later he was on the street, and slinking along in the shadow of the buildings, hurried away from the vicinity.
He did not know in which direction the “funny boat” Milly had seen, lay, but went blindly along, his only care for the moment being to escape from the neighborhood of the Success and from his enemy, Jim Leroyd.
The street he followed kept close to the wharves—skirted the waterfront in fact—and he passed many sailors; but he kept in the shadow as much as possible and nobody remarked about his apparel or the grime on his face and hands.
Suddenly, as he approached a great pier, where several large vessels were lying, he caught sight of a familiar figure coming down the street toward him. There was no mistaking that rolling, peculiar gait, nor the sound of the sharp “tap, tap” of the steel shod leg on the wooden pavement.
It was Caleb Wetherbee!
“Oh, Cale!” Brandon almost shouted, and running forward fairly threw himself into the sailor’s arms.
“By the jumping Jehosophat!” cried the startled Caleb, and then, recognizing the boy, despite his rags and dirt, he uttered a loud “hurrah!” which left no doubt in Brandon’s mind as to the sailor’s satisfaction at seeing him once more.
But in a moment, he pushed the boy away from him and holding him by both shoulders, peered down upon him curiously.
“Well, well!” he exclaimed. “Where in the name o’ Davy Jones have you been? Ye look as though you’d been stowed away in the hold o’ a coal barge for a month.”
“Well, I have been stowed away in a brig’s hold—she got in only this evening. I’ve just got away from her. Did you get my note by Swivel?”
“I did, my lad.”
“And Swivel himself?”
“He’s aboard the steamer.”
“I’m glad of that,” declared Brandon. “I hoped you’d be kind to him. He did me a lot of favors, and I shan’t be able to repay him for some time to come. Now, have you heard anything further from the Silver Swan?”
“I have, my lad, this very afternoon. She was sighted two weeks ago by a steamship from Rio to New York. Adoniram telegraphed me. But there’s something else that ain’t so pleasin’.”
“What’s that, Caleb?”
“The Kearsarge has been ordered to destroy several of these derelicts, the Silver Swan included, on her way down the coast to Havana. She sails tomorrow, I hear.”
“Then we haven’t any time to lose,” Brandon exclaimed. “Let’s go aboard at once, Cale. The first thing I want is a wash—I’m as dirty as a pig—and then I’ll tell you the whole story.”
“We’ll do so right now,” declared the big captain. “Come on. My boat’s down here. Number Three lays off some way.”
He hurried Brandon down to the dock, and they were quickly seated in the steamer’s small boat, and the men pulled out to the long, low, odd looking craft, which, since her arrival in the bay three days before, had attracted an enormous amount of attention.
“She sails like a swan, Don,” declared Caleb, who, from openly scoffing at the whaleback, had begun fairly to worship her. “I never see anything beat it. She can outsail any cruiser in the navy, I believe, an’ if we don’t reach the Silver Swan in her first, it’s because somethin’ busts!” with which forcible declaration he helped the boy over the low rail to the iron deck of the steamer.