Down the Rhine; Or, Young America in Germany by Oliver Optic (best book club books for discussion .txt) 📕

"But I do believe he can't handle the ship."

"I don't. I hate Shuffles as bad as any fellow, but I believe he is as good a sailor as any person on board, man or boy."

"That's all in your eye!" retorted Howe, contemptuously. "He may be able to get along while we are lying in port, but I should like to see him work the ship in a gale of wind."

"He can do it," answered Sheffield, confidently. "But he is a flunky, and spoiled all our fun in the Josephine. I am willing to throw him over for being a hypocrite, and selling us out as he did. What else are we to gain?"

"We shall help along our chances of going down the Rhine, and," whispered Howe, "of seeing Paris and Switzerland."

"I don't see it."

"Well, I do. If we cave in and pretend to be lambs when we are lions, we shall have to do duty while the rest of the fellows are having a good time on shore. If we show that we are still wide awake, Lowington will take us with him, because he will not dare to leave us on board."

"He will leave Fluxion with us."

"Not much! I heard some of the fellows say that Fluxion was going to Italy to see his mother, or his sister, or somebody that is sick there."

"I heard that."

"If it is true, Lowington will not leave us behind, especially if he finds we are not as gentle as lambs."

"Perhaps not; but as the matter stands, we are already condemned to stay on board during the rest of the season."

"I know that; but Lowington will let us off."

"He will be more likely to do so if we behave well."

"Not he! Don't you believe it."

"They say Shuffles is teasing him to remit the rest of the penalty."

"Shuffles!"

"That's so; and Lowington promised to consider the matter. Tom Perth told me this; and he heard Shuffles talking to the principal about it."

"Humph! I don't want to go on those terms," replied Howe, in disgust. "That's some more of Shuffles's cant! One of his sensations! He thinks he whipped us out on board of the Josephine, and now he wants to be magnanimous with his victims. If we go with the crowd, it will be because Lowington is afraid to leave us behind. We are not a set of babies, Sheffield, to be whipped and sent to bed when we are naughty. Neither are we sailors before the mast, to be kicked here and there, at the pleasure of our masters. What do you suppose the fellows came to Europe for, if it was not to see the country? Are we to be left on board just because we went on a little lark? Not much!"

"That's all very good, but it won't go down," laughed Sheffield.

"I'm not going to eat humble pie for any one. Do you mean to tell me I am not as good a fellow as Bob Shuffles?"

"I didn't say you were not."

"Am I not his equal?" demanded Howe.

"I suppose you are, if you behave as well."

"Behave as well!" sneered the orator. "I behave well enough, and I'm not going to be put down, nor beg my rights of Bob Shuffles. If I am left on board, for one, when the fellows go down the Rhine, I intend to break things."

"Don't break your own head."

"Let me alone for that. If our fellows have any spirit at all, they will not be left behind. In the next drill, things will be mixed, and no one can tell who makes the mischief. Our fellows are not the only ones that don't like Shuffles, and you will find that about half the crew will help snarl things up. Now, keep your weather eye open, Sheffield. Take my advice, and don't whimper. Our fellows have a little business in Paris and Switzerland, and we shall attend to it in a week or two. There goes the pipe. Mind your eye, Sheffield."

The boatswain's call sounded through the ship, and officers and crew hastened to their stations.

CHAPTER II.

CLOSE QUARTERS.

The malcontents in the ship were, apparently, the most zealous seamen on board. Certainly no one would have suspected them of organizing any mischief, they looked so innocent and so determined to do their duty promptly. Howe, Wilton, Little, and others had done their work thoroughly and secretly. They had arranged at least a dozen different tricks for making confusion among the crew. To each one of the discontented a part had been assigned, which he was to perform in such a way as to conceal his own agency.

Captain Shuffles was planking the quarter-deck with the commodore. Everybody could see that he was not entirely at his ease. His position was a novel one to him, and he was oppressed by its responsibilities, especially since the crew had behaved so badly at the first drill. He could not help knowing that a portion of the crew were opposed to him, and would do anything they could to annoy him. The situation was a difficult one; for, at the commencement of his term of office, he did not wish to have any of the seamen punished for neglect or disobedience, even if he could discover the guilty ones.

Mr. Lowington was not on deck. He had purposely gone below, for he wished the new captain to act on his own responsibility, and overcome the difficulty alone. This was in accordance with his previous course, when, even in a gale of wind, he permitted the young officers to handle the ship without any dictation. Though the action adopted by the boys was not always in accordance with his own judgment, he never interfered unless an obvious and dangerous blunder was made. His policy had worked well thus far, and he was disposed to continue it. In the present instance, he was no better informed than the captain in regard to the real cause of the difficulty. He believed it was merely the effect of a fun-loving spirit on the part of the crew; a mere disposition to haze the new officers a little, and perhaps prove what they were made of. He hoped the new officers would satisfy them, and, if necessary, send a dozen or twenty of the mischief-makers to the mainmast for punishment.

"All hands, up anchor, ahoy!" piped the boatswain, after he had received the order from the captain, through the proper officers.

Those whose stations were at the cable and capstan sprang to their places with unwonted alacrity.

"Bring to, forward!" added the first lieutenant, giving the order to attach the messenger. "Ship and swifter the capstan bars!"

As it was not intended to get the ship actually under way, only a portion of the work indicated by the orders was really executed. The form of hooking on the messenger was gone through with, as also were the various preparations for catting and fishing the anchor. The capstan bars were inserted in the pigeon-holes.

"Heave round!" shouted the first lieutenant; and the order was repeated by the second lieutenant, whose station is on the forecastle.

Everything appeared to be progressing with proper order and regularity, and Captain Shuffles hoped the warning words of the principal had produced an impression upon the minds of the mischief-makers. But appearances are very deceptive. While the hands were walking around the capstan, four of the bars suddenly came out of the pigeon-holes at the same instant, and a dozen of the seamen were thrown, apparently with great violence, upon the deck. The bars, confined at one end by the swifter, swung round and cracked the shins of others, and a scene of confusion ensued, which set at nought all ideas of discipline.

No one was badly hurt, but every one was excited. Those who were not concerned in the plot caught the spirit of mischief from the others, and, with but few exceptions, the crew joined in the sport. The seaman who originated the trouble had simply neglected to insert the pins which confine the capstan bars within the pigeon-holes, or had left the bars with the heads against the pins. As nearly all joined in the frolic, there were none to inform against others, and it was simply impossible for Leavitt, the second lieutenant, or Ellis, the first master,—under whose eye this breach of discipline had occurred,—to determine who the ringleaders were.

Shuffles and the commodore were intensely annoyed at this scene, and immediately went forward. By this time, those who had been thrown upon the deck, which included nearly all at the capstan, had picked themselves up. The Knights looked even more innocent than those whom they had dragged into the scrape, and the high officers from the quarter-deck were no wiser than the lieutenant and master. In the midst of the confusion, Howe and Wilton had removed the pins from the bars, which still remained in the drumhead of the capstan.

"Mr. Leavitt, how did this happen?" demanded Captain Shuffles.

"Half the bars dropped out of the capstan all at once, and the hands were thrown down," replied the lieutenant, who was hardly less annoyed than the captain.

"Were the bars pinned in?"

"I supposed they were, sir."

Captain Shuffles walked up to the capstan. Not a single pin was inserted.

"Let your midshipman see that the bars are properly pinned and swiftered next time," said the commander, as he walked aft to resume his place on the quarter-deck.

"Unship the bars!" said Leavitt; and they were restored to the rack, leaving everything as it was before the drill began.

The crew were piped to muster, and the order to weigh anchor repeated. The capstan bars were shipped, and this time, the midshipman whose station was on the forecastle satisfied himself that they were securely pinned, and so reported to the second lieutenant. As the rogues had made no provision for this state of things, they were thrown upon their own resources for the means of defeating the operation a second time. Commodore Kendall had placed himself in position to watch the movement, and the officers in charge had pinned their eyes wide open, fully resolved that the authors of the trouble should not escape a second time.

Directly abaft the capstan was the fore-hatch, over which lay the path of those who walked around at the bars. Ordinarily the hatch was closed when the capstan was used; but, on the present occasion, a plank had been placed across the aperture, to avoid the necessity of putting on the hatch, and thus excluding the air from the kitchen, where the cooks were baking their daily batch of bread.

"Heave round!" said the first lieutenant.

"Heave round!" repeated the second lieutenant; and the hands at the capstan began their circular march.

By some means not observed by the vigilant officers, the plank over the fore-hatch slowly travelled along until one end of it barely caught on the combing of the hatch. Half a dozen seamen had given it a kick with their heels as they passed over it, and it was soon in condition to drop into the steerage below. Little stepped upon it, and down it went. Releasing his hold of the bar, he dropped upon the steps below, and disappeared. Sheffield followed him, and then Ibbotson. The hands at the other side of the capstan took care that the party should keep moving. A few well-disposed boys, when they came to the hatch,—which was not more than four feet wide,—leaped across it, as any of them might have done, if they had not been infected with the spirit of mischief.

"Avast heaving!" shouted the second lieutenant.

At this instant one of the lambs was on the combing of the hatch, and he must either go over or hang by the bar; so he pushed along, and his movement brought another into a similar position. Seeing how the case was, the rogues kept the capstan going, in spite of the commands of the officers, until two thirds of the gang had dropped into the steerage. It was