The Coming Wave

CHAPTER I.. The Tempest in the Bay.

THE TEMPEST IN THE BAY.

"Well, parsenger, we're likely to get in to port before long, if we only have a breeze of wind," said Harvey Barth, the cook and steward of the brig Waldo, in a peculiar, drawling tone, by which any one who knew the speaker might have recognized him without the use of his eyes.

The steward was a tall, lank, lantern-jawed man, whose cheek-bones were almost as prominent as his long nose. His face was pale, in spite of the bronze which a West India sun had imparted to it, and his hair was long and straight. He had a very thin beard of jet black, which contrasted strongly with the pallor of his face. His voice was hollow, and sounded doubly so from the drawl with which he uttered his sentences, and every remark he made was preceded by a single long-drawn hacking cough, which might have been caused by the force of habit or the incipient workings of disease. He was seated in the galley, abaft the foremast of the brig, and when the passenger showed himself at the door of the galley, he had been engaged in writing in a square record-book, which he closed the instant the visitor darkened the aperture of his den.

The passenger--the only one on board of the Waldo--was a short, thick-set man of about forty, whose name was entered on the brig's papers as Jacob Wallbridge, and his trunk bore the initials corresponding to this name. In his hand he had a pipe, filled full of tobacco, and it was evident that he had called at the galley only to light it, though the steward proceeded to infold his book in an ample piece of oil-cloth which lay upon the seat at his side. It was clear that he did not wish the passenger to know what he was doing, or, at least, what he had written, for he was really quite nervous, as he securely tied the book, and then locked it up in a box under the seat. Though Harvey Barth did not confess it then, it was, nevertheless, a fact that he had been writing in his book about the passenger who darkened his door, though what he wrote was not seen by any human eye until many months after the pen had done its office.

"I thought this morning we should get in to-night," replied the passenger, as he stepped inside of the caboose. "May I borrow a coal of fire from the stove, doctor?"

"Certain, if you can get one; but the fire is about out. You will find some matches in the tin box on your right," added the steward.

"I like to light my pipe in the old-fashioned way when I can. I don't mean to begin to suck in brimstone just yet," continued Wallbridge, as he succeeded in finding a coal, and soon had his pipe in working order. "What were you doing with that book, doctor? Do you keep a log of the voyage?"

"Well, ya-as," drawled the steward. "I keep a log of this voyage, and a log of the voyage of life. I've kept a diary ever since I taught school; and that's seven years ago, come winter."

"It must be worth reading. I should like to look it over, if we have to stay out here another day. I suppose you have seen a good deal of the world, if you have been to sea many years."

"No; I haven't seen much of the world. I never went but one voyage before this, and that was in a coaster, from New York to Bangor. The diary is only for my own reading, and I wouldn't let anybody look at it for all the world," answered Harvey Barth, with an even more painful cough than usual.

"Then you are not a great traveller," added Wallbridge, puffing away at his pipe, as he watched the sun sinking to his rest beyond the western waves.

"Bless you! no. I was brought up on a farm in York State. I used to keep school winters till the folks in our town began to think they must have a more dandified chap than I am."

"Where did you learn to cook, if you were a schoolmaster?"

"Well you see I was an only son, and my mother died when I was but sixteen. Father and I kept house together till he died, and I used to do about all the cooking. I had an idea then that I could do it pretty well, too," replied Harvey, with a sickly smile. "The old man got to drinking rather too much, and lost all he had and all I had, too. My health wasn't very good; I had a bad cough and night sweats. I was an orphan at twenty-four, and I thought I'd go to New York city, and take a little voyage on the salt water. I had about a hundred dollars I earned after the old man died; but a fellow in the city got it all away from me;" and Harvey hung his head, as though this was not a pleasant experience to remember.

"Ah! how was that?" asked Wallbridge.

"The fellow offered to show me round town, and, as I was kind of lonesome, I went with him. We called at a place to pay a bill he owed. He had a check for three hundred dollars; but the man he owed couldn't give him the change, so I lent him my hundred dollars, and took the check till he paid me. Then my kind friend went into another room; and that's the last I ever saw of him. I couldn't find him, but I did find that the check was good for nothing. I hadn't a dollar left. At one of the piers I came across a schooner that wanted a cook, and I shipped right off. Then the cap'n's nephew wanted to cook for him, after we got to Bangor, and I was out of a job. I worked in an eating-house for a while, cooking; but my health was so bad I wanted to go to a warm climate; so I shipped in this brig for the West Indies. It was warm enough there, but I didn't get any better. I don't think I'm as stout as I was when I left Bangor. I shall not hold out much longer."

"O, yes, you will. You may live to be a hundred years old yet," added Wallbridge, rather lightly.

"No; my end isn't a great way off," added the steward, with a sigh, as the passenger, evidently not pleased with the turn the conversation had taken, walked away from the galley.

Any one who looked at Harvey Barth would have found no difficulty in accepting his gloomy prediction; and yet he was, as events occurred, farther from his end than his companions in the brig. The steward sat before his stove, gazing at the planks of the deck under his feet. He was deeply impressed by the words he had uttered if the passenger was not. He had improved the opportunity, while the weather was calm to write up his diary, and perhaps the thoughts he had expressed on its pages had started a train of gloomy reflections. The future seemed to have nothing inviting to him, and his attention was fixed upon an open grave at no great distance before him in the pathway of his life. Beyond that he had hardly taught himself to look; if he had he would, doubtless, have been less sad and gloomy.

His work for the day had all been done; supper in the cabin had been served, and the beef and hard bread had been given to the crew two hours before. It was a day in August, and the sun had lingered long above the horizon. Harvey had finished writing in his diary when the passenger interrupted him; but, apparently to change the current of his thoughts, he took the book from the box, and began to read what he had written.

"I don't know what his name is, but I don't believe it's Wallbridge," said he, to himself, as the last page recalled the reflections which had caused him to make some of the entries in the book. "That wasn't the name I found on the paper in his state-room, though the initials were the same. I don't see what he changed his name for; but that's none of my business. I only hope he hasn't been doing anything wrong."

"My pipe's gone out," said Wallbridge, presenting himself at the door of the galley again. "I want another coal of fire."

The steward carefully secured his book again, and returned it to the box, while the passenger was lighting his pipe.

"Rather a still time just now," said the steward, alluding to the weather, as Wallbridge puffed away at his pipe.

"Dead calm," replied the passenger.

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