In the Sargasso Sea | Page 3

and I had to
buy a few articles in the way of sea-stock for my voyage in a sailing
vessel that I should not have needed had I gone by the regular steam
lines. So I got some lunch inside of me, and after that I took a cab--a bit
of extravagance that my hurry justified--and bustled about from shop to
shop and got what I needed inside of an hour; and then I told the man to
drive me to my lodgings up-town.
It was while I was driving up Broadway--the first quiet moment for
thinking that had come to me since I had met Captain Luke on South
Street, and we had gone into the saloon together to settle about the
passage he had offered me--that all of a sudden the thought struck me
that perhaps I had made the biggest kind of a fool of myself; and it
struck so hard that for a minute or two I fairly was dizzy and faint.
What earthly proof had I, beyond Captain Luke's bare word for it, that
there was such a brig as the Golden Hind? What proof had I
even--beyond the general look of him and his canvas pocket-book--that
Captain Luke was a sailor? And what proof had I, supposing that there
was such a brig and that he was a sailor, that the two had anything to do
with each other? I simply had accepted for truth all that he told me, and
on the strength of his mere assertion that he was a ship-master and was
about to sail for the West African coast I had paid him my fifty
dollars--and had taken by way of receipt for it no more than a clinking

of our glasses and a shake of his hand. I said just now that I was only
twenty-three years old, and more or less of a promiscuously green
young fool. I suppose that I might as well have left that out. There are
some things that tell themselves.
For three or four blocks, as I drove along, I was in such a rage with
myself that I could not think clearly. Then I began to cool a little, and
to hope that I had gone off the handle too suddenly and too far. After
all, there were some chances in my favor the other way. Captain
Chilton, I remembered, had told me that he was about to sail for West
Coast ports before I asked him for a passage; and had mentioned, also,
whereabouts on the anchorage the Golden Hind was lying. Had he
made these statements after he knew what I wanted there would have
been some reason for doubting them; but being made on general
principles, without knowledge of what I was after, it seemed to me that
they very well might be true. And if they were true, why then there was
no great cause for my sudden fit of alarm. However, I was so rattled by
my fright, and still so uncertain as to how things were coming out for
me, that the thought of waiting until the next afternoon to know
certainly whether I had or had not been cheated was more than I could
bear. The only way that I could see to settle the matter was to go right
away down to the anchorage, and so satisfy myself that the Golden
Hind was a real brig and really was lying there; and it occurred to me
that I might kill two birds with one stone, and also have a reason to
give for a visit which otherwise might seem unreasonable, if I were to
take down my luggage and put it aboard that very afternoon.

II
HOW I BOARDED THE BRIG GOLDEN HIND
Having come to this conclusion, I acted on it. I kept the cab at the door
while I finished my packing with a rush, and then piled my luggage on
it and in it--and what with my two trunks, and my kit of fine tools, and
all my bundles, this made tight stowing--and then away I went
down-town again as fast as the man could drive with such a load.

We got to the Battery in a little more than an hour, and there I
transshipped my cargo to a pair-oared boat and started away for the
anchorage. The boatmen comforted me a good deal at the outset by
saying that they thought they knew just where the Golden Hind was
lying, as they were pretty sure they had seen her only that morning
while going down the harbor with another fare; and before we were
much more than past Bedloe's Island--having pulled well over to get
out of the channel and the danger of being run down by one of the