CHAPTER III
AN ACCOUNT OF THE WRECK OF THE SILVER SWAN
“TO what did these papers bear reference?” Brandon asked. “Father met with heavy misfortunes in his investments last year, and every penny, excepting the Swan itself, was lost. How could these papers have benefited me?”
“Well, that I don’t rightly know,” replied the sailor slowly.
He looked at the boy for several seconds with knitted brows, evidently deep in thought. Brandon could not help thinking what a rough looking specimen he was, but remembering his father’s good opinion of Caleb Wetherbee, he banished the impression as ungenerous.
“I b’lieve I’ll tell ye it jest as it happened,” said the man at length. “Sit down here again, boy, an’ I’ll spin my yarn.”
He drew forth a short, black pipe, and was soon puffing away upon it, while comfortably seated beside Don upon the rock.
“’Twere the werry night we sailed from the Cape,” he began, “that I was—er—in the cabin of the Silver Swan, lookin’ at a new chart the cap’n had got, when down comes a decently dressed chap—a landlubber, ev’ry inch o’ him—an’ asks if this were Cap’n Horace Tarr.
“‘It is,’ says the cap’n.
“‘Cap’n Horace Tarr, of Rhode Island, U. S. A.?’ says he.
“‘That’s me,’ says the cap’n ag’in.
“‘Well, Cap’n Tarr,’ says the stranger chap, a-lookin’ kinder squint eyed at me, ‘did you ever have a brother Anson?’
“Th’ cap’n noticed his lookin’ at me an’ says, afore he answered the question:
“‘Ye kin speak freely,’ says he, ‘this is my mate, Cale Wetherbee, an’ there ain’t a squarer man, nor an honester, as walks the deck terday,’ says he. ‘Yes, I had a brother Anson; but I persume he’s dead.’
“‘Yes, he is dead,’ said the stranger. ‘He died up country, at a place they calls Kimberley, ’bout two months ago.’
“That was surprisin’ ter the cap’n, I reckon, an’ he tol’ the feller that he’d supposed Anson Tarr dead years before, as he hadn’t heard from him.
“‘No, he died two months ago,’ says the man, ‘an’ I was with him. He died o’ pneumony—was took werry sudden.’
“Nat’rally this news took the old man—I sh’d say yer father—all aback, as it were, an’ he inquired inter his brother’s death fully. Fin’ly the man drew out a big package—papers he said they was—wot Anson Tarr had given him ter be sure ter give ter the cap’n when he sh’d see him. Then the feller went.
“O’ course, the cap’n didn’t tell me wot the docyments was, but I reckoned by his actions, an’ some o’ the hints he let drop, that they was valible, an’ I—I got it inter my head that ’twas erbout money—er suthin’ o’ the kind—that your Uncle Anson knowed of.
“Wal, the Silver Swan, she left the Cape, ’n’ all went well till arter we touched at Rio an’ was homeward boun’. Then a gale struck us that stripped the brig o’ ev’ry stick o’ timber an’ every rag o’ sail, an’ druv her outer thet ’ere rock. There warn’t no hope for the ol’ brig an’ she began to go ter pieces to once, so we tried ter take to the boats.
“But the boats was smashed an’ the only ones left o’ the hull ship’s company was men Paulo Montez, and yer father, an’—an’ another feller. We built the raft and left the ol’ brig, just as she—er—slid off er th’ rock an’ sunk inter the sea. It—it mos’ broke yer father’s heart ter see the ol’ brig go down an’ I felt m’self, jest as though I’d lost er—er friend, er suthin!”
The sailor paused in his narrative and drew hard upon his pipe for a moment.
“Wal, you know by the papers how we floated around on that ’ere raf’ an’ how yer poor father was took. He give me these papers just afore he died, an’ made me promise ter git ’em ter you, ef I was saved. He said you’d understand ’em ter oncet, an’,” looking at Brandon keenly out of the corners of his eyes, “I didn’t know but ye knew something about it already.”
Brandon slowly shook his head.
“No,” he said; “I can’t for the life of me think what they could refer to.”
“No—no buried treasure, nor nothing of the kind?” suggested the man hesitatingly.
“I guess not!” exclaimed Don. “If I knew about such a thing, you can bet I’d be after it right quickly, for I don’t know any one who needs money just at the present moment more than I.”
“Well, I believe I’ll go,” cried the sailor, rising hastily. “That ’orspital feller must hev forgotten ter mail them papers, an’ I’ll git back ter New York ter oncet, an’ see ’bout it. I b’lieve they’ll be of vally to ye, an’ if ye want my help in any way, jest let me know. I—I’ll give ye a place ter ’dress letters to, an’ I’ll call there an’ git ’em.”
He produced an old stump of a pencil from his pocket and a ragged leather note case. From this he drew forth a dog eared business card of some ship chandler’s firm, on the blank side of which he wrote in a remarkably bad hand:
CALEB WETHERBEE,
NEW ENGLAND HOTEL,
Water Street,
New York.
Then he shook Don warmly by the hand, and promising to get the papers from the “’orspital feller” at once, struck away toward the city again, leaving the boy in a statement of great bewilderment.
He didn’t know what the papers could refer to, yet like all boys who possess a good digestion and average health, he had imagined enough to fancy a hundred things that they might contain. Perhaps there was some great fortune which his Uncle Anson had known about, and had died before he could reap the benefit of his knowledge.
Yet, he felt an instinctive distrustfulness of this Caleb Wetherbee. He was not at all the kind of man he had expected him to be, for although Captain Tarr had never said much about the personal appearance of the mate of the Silver Swan, still Don had pictured Caleb to his mind’s eye as a far different looking being.
As he stood there in the path, deep in thought, and with his eyes fixed upon the spot where he had seen the sailor disappear, the fluttering of a bit of paper attracted his attention. He stooped and secured it, finding it to be a greasy bit of newspaper that had doubtless reposed for some days in the note case of the sailor, and had fallen unnoticed to the ground while he was penciling his address on the card now in Don’s possession.
One side of the scrap of paper was a portion of an advertisement, but on the other side was a short item of news which Don perused with growing interest.
SAVANNAH, MARCH 3. The Brazilian steamship Montevideo, which arrived here in the morning, reports having sighted, about forty miles west of the island of Cuba, a derelict brig, without masts or rigging of any kind, but with hull in good condition. It was daylight, and by running close the Montevideo’s captain made the wreck out to be the Silver Swan, of Boston, which was reported as having been driven on to Reef Number 8, east of Cuba, more than a month ago. The two surviving members of the crew of the Silver Swan were picked up from a raft, after twelve days of terrible suffering, by the steamship Alexandria, of the New York and Rio Line. The Montevideo’s officers report the brig as being a most dangerous derelict, as in its present condition it may keep afloat for months, having evidently withstood the shock of grounding on the reef, and later being driven off by the westerly gale of February 13th.
Her position, when sighted by the Montevideo, has been reported to the Hydrographic Office, and will appear on the next monthly chart.