Meanwhile the sea was favorable, and, except the delays, navigation
would be accomplished under very supportable conditions.

Mrs. Weldon had been installed on board the "Pilgrim" as comfortably as
possible.

Neither poop nor "roufle" was at the end of the deck. There was no
stern cabin, then, to receive the passengers. She was obliged to be
contented with Captain Hull’s cabin, situated aft, which constituted
his modest sea lodging. And still it had been necessary for the captain
to insist, in order to make her accept it. There, in that narrow
lodging, was installed Mrs. Weldon, with her child and old Nan. She
took her meals there, in company with the captain and Cousin Benedict,
for whom they had fitted up a kind of cabin on board.

As to the commander of the "Pilgrim," he had settled himself in a cabin
belonging to the ship’s crew – a cabin which would be occupied by the
second officer, if there were a second one on board. But the
brig-schooner was navigated, we know, under conditions which enabled
her to dispense with the services of a second officer.

The men of the "Pilgrim," good and strong seamen, were very much united
by common ideas and habits. This fishing season was the fourth which
they had passed together. All Americans of the West, they were
acquainted for a long period, and belonged to the same coast of the
State of California.

These brave men showed themselves very thoughtful towards Mrs. Weldon,
the wife of the owner of their ship, for whom they professed boundless
devotion. It must be said that, largely interested in the profits of
the ship, they had navigated till then with great gain. If, by reason
of their small number, they did not spare themselves, it was because
every labor increased their earnings in the settling of accounts at the
end of each season. This time, it is true, the profit would be almost
nothing, and that gave them just cause to curse and swear against those
New Zealand scoundrels.

One man on board, alone among all, was not of American origin.
Portuguese by birth, but speaking English fluently, he was called
Negoro, and filled the humble position of cook on the schooner.

The "Pilgrim’s" cook having deserted at Auckland, this Negoro, then out
of employment, offered himself for the place. He was a taciturn man,
not at all communicative, who kept to himself, but did his work
satisfactorily. In engaging him, Captain Hull seemed to be rather
fortunate, and since embarking, the master cook had merited no reproach.

Meanwhile, Captain Hull regretted not having had the time to inform
himself sufficiently about Negoro’s antecedents. His face, or rather
his look, was only half in his favor, and when it is necessary to bring
an unknown into the life on board, so confined, so intimate, his
antecedents should be carefully inquired into.

Negoro might be forty years old. Thin, nervous, of medium height, with
very brown hair, skin somewhat swarthy, he ought to be strong. Had he
received any instruction? Yes; that appeared in certain observations
which escaped him sometimes. Besides, he never spoke of his past life,
he said not a word about his family. Whence he came, where he had
lived, no one could tell. What would his future be? No one knew any
more about that. He only announced his intention of going on shore at
Valparaiso. He was certainly a singular man. At all events, he did not
seem to be a sailor. He seemed to be even more strange to marine things
than is usual with a master cook, part of whose existence is passed at
sea.

Meanwhile, as to being incommoded by the rolling and pitching of the
ship, like men who have never navigated, he was not in the least, and
that is something for a cook on board a vessel.

Finally, he was little seen. During the day, he most generally remained
confined in his narrow kitchen, before the stove for melting, which
occupied the greater part of it. When night came and the fire in the
stove was out, Negoro went to the cabin which was assigned to him at
the end of the crew’s quarters. Then he went to bed at once and went to
sleep.

It has been already said that the "Pilgrim’s" crew was composed of five
sailors and a novice.

This young novice, aged fifteen, was the child of an unknown father and
mother. This poor being, abandoned from his birth, had been received
and brought up by public charity.

Dick Sand – that was his name – must have been originally from the State
of New York, and doubtless from the capital of that State.

If the name of Dick – an abbreviation of Richard – had been given to the
little orphan, it was because it was the name of the charitable
passer-by who had picked him up two or three hours after his birth. As
to the name of Sand, it was attributed to him in remembrance of the
place where he had been found; that is to say, on that point of land
called Sandy-Hook, which forms the entrance of the port of New York, at
the mouth of the Hudson.

Dick Sand, when he should reach his full growth, would not exceed
middle height, but he was well built. One could not doubt that he was
of Anglo-Saxon origin. He was brown, however, with blue eyes, in which
the crystalline sparkled with ardent fire. His seaman’s craft had
already prepared him well for the conflicts of life. His intelligent
physiognomy breathed forth energy. It was not that of an audacious
person, it was that of a darer. These three words from an unfinished
verse of Virgil are often cited:

"Audaces fortuna juvat"….

but they are quoted incorrectly. The poet said:

"Audentes fortuna juvat"….

It is on the darers, not on the audacious, that Fortune almost always
smiled. The audacious may be unguarded. The darer thinks first, acts
afterwards. There is the difference!

Dick Sand was audens.

At fifteen he already knew how to take a part, and to carry out to the
end whatever his resolute spirit had decided upon. His manner, at once
spirited and serious, attracted attention. He did not squander himself
in words and gestures, as boys of his age generally do. Early, at a
period of life when they seldom discuss the problems of existence, he
had looked his miserable condition in the face, and he had promised "to
make" himself.

And he had made himself – being already almost a man at an age when
others are still only children.

At the same time, very nimble, very skilful in all physical exercises,
Dick Sand was one of those privileged beings, of whom it may be said
that they were born with two left feet and two right hands. In that
way, they do everything with the right hand, and always set out with
the left foot.

Public charity, it has been said, had brought up the little orphan. He
had been put first in one of those houses for children, where there is
always, in America, a place for the little waifs. Then at four, Dick
learned to read, write and count in one of those State of New York
schools, which charitable subscriptions maintain so generously.

At eight, the taste for the sea, which Dick had from birth, caused him
to embark as cabin-boy on a packet ship of the South Sea. There he
learned the seaman’s trade, and as one ought to learn it, from the
earliest age. Little by little he instructed himself under the
direction of officers who were interested in this little old man. So
the cabin-boy soon became the novice, expecting something better, of
course. The child who understands, from the beginning, that work is the
law of life, the one who knows, from an early age, that he will gain
his bread only by the sweat of his brow – a Bible precept which is the
rule of humanity – that one is probably intended for great things; for
some day he will have, with the will, the strength to accomplish them.

It was, when he was a cabin-boy on board a merchant vessel, that Dick
Sand was remarked by Captain Hull. This honest seaman immediately
formed a friendship with this honest young boy, and later he made him
known to the ship-owner, James W. Weldon. The latter felt a lively
interest in this orphan, whose education he completed at San Francisco,
and he had him brought up in the Catholic religion, to which his family
adhered.

During the course of his studies, Dick Sand showed a particular liking
for geography, for voyages, while waiting till he was old enough to
learn that branch of mathematics which relates to navigation. Then to
this theoretical portion of his instruction, he did not neglect to join
the practical. It was as novice that he was able to embark for the
first time on the "Pilgrim." A good seaman ought to understand fishing
as well as navigation. It is a good preparation for all the
contingencies which the maritime career admits of. Besides, Dick Sand
set out on a vessel of James W. Weldon’s, his benefactor, commanded by
his protector, Captain Hull. Thus he found himself in the most
favorable circumstances.

To speak of the extent of his devotion to the Weldon family, to whom he
owed everything, would be superfluous. Better let the facts speak for
themselves. But it will be understood how happy the young novice was
when he learned that Mrs. Weldon was going to take passage on board the
"Pilgrim." Mrs. Weldon for several years had been a mother to him, and
in Jack he saw a little brother, all the time keeping in remembrance
his position in respect to the son of the rich ship-owner. But – his
protectors knew it well – this good seed which they had sown had fallen
on good soil. The orphan’s heart was filled with gratitude, and some
day, if it should be necessary to give his life for those who had
taught him to instruct himself and to love God, the young novice would
not hesitate to give it. Finally, to be only fifteen, but to act and
think as if he were thirty, that was Dick Sand.

Mrs. Weldon knew what her protégé was worth. She could trust little
Jack with him without any anxiety. Dick Sand cherished this child, who,
feeling himself loved by this "large brother," sought his company.
During those long leisure hours, which are frequent in a voyage, when
the sea is smooth, when the well set up sails require no management,
Dick and Jack were almost always together. The young novice showed the
little boy everything in his craft which seemed amusing.

Without fear Mrs. Weldon saw Jack, in company with Dick Sand, spring
out on the shrouds, climb to the top of the mizzen-mast, or to the
booms of the mizzen-topmast, and come down again like an arrow the
whole length of the backstays. Dick Sand went before or followed him,
always ready to hold him up or keep him back, if his six-year-old arms
grew feeble during those exercises. All that benefited little Jack,
whom sickness had made somewhat pale; but his color soon came back on
board the "Pilgrim," thanks to this gymnastic, and to the bracing
sea-breezes.

So passed the time. Under these conditions the passage was being
accomplished, and only the weather was not very favorable, neither the
passengers nor the crew of the "Pilgrim" would have had cause to
complain.

Meanwhile this continuance of east winds made Captain Hull anxious. He
did not succeed in getting the vessel into the right course. Later,
near the Tropic of Capricorn, he feared finding calms which would delay
him again, without speaking of the equatorial current, which would
irresistibly throw him back to the west. He was troubled then, above
all, for Mrs. Weldon, by the delays for which, meanwhile, he was not
responsible. So, if he should meet, on his course, some transatlantic
steamer on the way toward America, he already thought of advising his
passenger to embark on it. Unfortunately, he was detained in latitudes
too high to cross a steamer running to Panama; and, besides, at that
period communication across the Pacific, between Australia and the New
World, was not as frequent as it has since become.

It then was necessary to leave everything to the grace of God, and it
seemed as if nothing would trouble this monotonous passage, when the
first incident occurred precisely on that day, February 2d, in the
latitude and longitude indicated at the beginning of this history.

Dick Sand and Jack, toward nine o’clock in the morning, in very clear
weather, were installed on the booms of the mizzen-topmast. Thence they
looked down on the whole ship and a portion of the ocean in a largo
circumference. Behind, the perimeter of the horizon was broken to their
eyes, only by the mainmast, carrying brigantine and fore-staff. That
beacon hid from them a part of the sea and the sky. In the front, they
saw the bowsprit stretching over the waves, with its three jibs, which
were hauled tightly, spread out like three great unequal wings.
Underneath rounded the foremast, and above, the little top-sail and
the little gallant-sail, whose bolt-rope quivered with the pranks of
the breeze. The schooner was then running on the larboard tack, and
hugging the wind as much as possible.

Dick Sand explained to Jack how the "Pilgrim," ballasted properly, well
balanced in all her parts, could not capsize, even if she gave a pretty
strong heel to starboard, when the little boy interrupted him.

"What do I see there?" said he.

"You see something, Jack?" demanded Dick Sand, who stood up straight on
the booms.

"Yes – there!" replied little Jack, showing a point of the sea, left
open by the interval between the stays of the standing-jib and the
flying-jib.

Dick Sand looked at the point indicated attentively, and forthwith,
with a loud voice, he cried;

"A wreck to windward, over against starboard!"