CHAPTER XXX

A HUNGRY MILLIONAIRE

It was a desolate place where Captain Brisbane had abandoned Louis Belgrave; but the latter did not find himself in a desperate strait, or compare himself with Robinson Crusoe. He had been supplied with about half a cold ham, a quantity of hard bread, and a breaker of water, so that he and his companion were not likely to perish with hunger or thirst. The piece of sailcloth, rigged on a pole which the mate had prepared as a signal, had been left. A vessel in the distance could be hailed, and at worst a walk of six or eight miles would take them to an inhabited locality.

“Which we may ’ave to stay ’ere a week, sir,” suggested Bickling, after he had walked about the sand hills for a time.

“It is possible, but I don’t believe we shall,” replied Louis cheerfully, for he had made up his mind to be contented, however long he was compelled to remain; and the only thing that troubled him was the absence of his mother.

“Which it is no worse for me, sir, than it is for you as is a gentleman, sir,” added Bickling, gently opening his mouth in a grin which extended nearly from ear to ear, which was a surprise to his employer, for the cook generally wore a very solemn expression.

“It is about the same thing for both of us.”

“’Ow shall we hever get hoff, sir?” asked Bickling, looking earnestly into the face of his companion, as though he was deeply interested in the expected reply.

“I expect a steam-yacht to take me off; but I do not know when she will come,” answered Louis, who cast frequent glances at the ocean, though he hardly expected to see the Guardian-Mother so soon.

“A steam-yacht, sir!” exclaimed the cook. “And ’ow big might she be?”

“About six hundred tons.”

“Which she is owned by Captain Ringgold, the fine gentleman as was on board of the Maud with you, sir?” asked Bickling, opening his eyes very wide.

“No; I shall be the owner of her myself, I think.”

“Which it is you, sir, as owns a steam-yacht of six ’undred tons!” exclaimed the cook, rising from the ground on which both were seated, and involuntarily removing his hat.

“Nothing very strange about that, is there?” asked the yacht owner with an expansive smile.

“Which you are a very young gentleman to own a steam-yacht as big as that!” added Bickling, looking his companion all over as he would a live lobster. “Can it be possible? Which it must be as you says so. You must be as rich as Grease-us, sir.”

“I shall not have to go to the almshouse this year. What is your name, Bickling?”

“Which it is Bickling, sir; and I never denies my name, sir,” replied the cook, evidently very much surprised at the question.

“I mean your front name.”

“Which Bickling is my back name, is it, sir? Which my front name must be Baldwin, sir; and people as I meets most calls me Baldy,” responded the cook, taking off his soft hat, and passing his hand over the top of his head, which had no more hair on it than a pumpkin.

“Very well, my friend,” said Louis, laughing at the close fit of the name to the head. “Which you will not think I am impolite if I call you Baldy?”

“’Ow could a gentleman like you be impolite, sir? Which you can call me as it suits your fancy, Mr. Belgrave.”

As he had nothing else to do, Louis questioned his companion in regard to his previous history. He had been a servant till he was thirty-five, which explained his obsequious manners, and his slavish submission to those in authority, and to well-dressed people in general. He had worked about the kitchens of gentlemen and clubs till he had learned to cook. He had made two voyages as cook, and had gone to Baltimore in that capacity on board of a steamer.

He had worked in a restaurant there a year; but he could not get the “’ang of Hamerican ways,” and wished to get back to England. For this reason he had shipped as cook with Scoble. He had no money, for he had been too simple to make a good bargain with his late employer, and had worked for next to nothing.

[Illustration: “THERE IS A STEAMER HEADED THIS WAY, AND IT MAY BE THE GUARDIAN-MOTHER.” Page 241.]

“I intend to go to Bermuda in the Guardian-Mother, Baldy,” said Louis.

“The Guardian-Mother, sir!” exclaimed the cook. “And who is she, if you please, sir? Which I never ’eard of ’er before, sir.”

“That is the name of my steam-yacht.”

“Which it is a very hodd name, sir.”

“It is the name by which I think of my mother, the lady who is a prisoner on board of the Maud.”

“Then I takes hoff my ’at to the Guardian-Mother,” added Bickling, suiting the action to the words.

“But she is going to Bermuda in pursuit of the Maud; and perhaps you do not wish to go there, Baldy.”

“Which I should be very ’appy to go there, sir, if I can go with you, sir.”

“I shall go to England sooner or later in the Guardian-Mother, though I shall probably spend the coming winter in the West Indies, and it may be a year or more before the steamer goes to Europe.”

“Which it is all the same to me, sir. You ’ave been very good to me, sir, better as any other man now on the earth, sir. I should be ’appy to follow you all over the world, sir, wherever you go, never axing no questions, sir. I am not good for much, and I am the biggest coward as lives on the face of the footstool, sir,” replied the cook in a rather more fawning tone and manner than usual.

“Not quite so bad as that, Baldy. You had pluck enough to refuse to go on board of the Maud when Flounder tried to make you do so,” suggested Louis.

“Which he wanted me to be faithless to you, sir, and I was too big a coward to do that,” answered the cook, with an extended grin. “But he would ’ave murdered me if you had not been near.”

“All right, Baldy; you behaved very well, and I shall try to find a place for you on board of the Guardian-Mother,” replied Louis, who felt that he was under obligations to his companion for his fidelity.

It was growing dark on the sandbank; and it became a question to the young millionaire how he was to pass the night. He was confident that Captain Ringgold would not come for him in the darkness, for he would have but little chance of finding him. After the conversation Baldy walked down to the water where the wreck of the Phantom lay, while Louis was seeking a place to sleep among the pines. The fire in the steamer appeared to have smouldered out. The west wind had driven the flames to the after part of the hull; and the crew had thrown a great quantity of water on the forecastle while they were saving their own and the vessel’s effects.

Baldy went on board of the wreck by a gang-plank which had been left in its place. He soon discovered that the fire had not extended to the forecastle, prevented in its passage by the water above, and by an iron bulkhead below. He descended to the quarters of the crew, which had been stripped of everything movable, though some dirty coverlets remained in the bunks. Probably Captain Brisbane knew that the forecastle had not been burned out, for he and his men had been on board of the wreck an hour or two before they were taken from the sandbank by the Rocket.

The cook called Louis, and informed him of the condition of the forecastle. It was not a bad place to sleep, and it was too dark for the young man to see the dirt and grease that prevailed there. The cook had given him his supper before dark; and he found that his appetite was not impaired, for he partook heartily of the stinted fare. It was a dry meal for a millionaire; and Louis was no better off with his million and a half than his simple companion with nothing at all.

He turned in; and, while he was thinking of his Guardian-Mother now far out to sea, and his Guardian-Mother he expected to see the next day, he dropped asleep. He had not slept as much as a boy of his age required during the past three days, and he was very tired after the exciting labors of the day. He had covered himself with a greasy comforter, and he did not wake once during the night.

“Which it is about sunrise, if you please, sir,” said Baldy at the side of the bunk.

“Thank you for calling me, Baldy,” replied Louis, leaping hastily from the berth when he saw the daylight at the open scuttle; for it was time for him to be on the watch for the steam-yacht.

He had no toilet to make, but he took a plunge in the clear waters that washed the sandy beach. His first care was to look out upon the ocean; and he missed the glass he had used the day before, for Captain Brisbane had left him nothing but a scanty stock of provisions. He saw a steamer headed to the south far out to sea, and he watched her till she disappeared in the distance. Baldy gave him his breakfast, which was just what his supper had been; and when he ate the hard, dry ham, and the harder shipbread, he did not feel at all like a millionaire at sixteen.

It would require too much space to relate the tame incidents of Louis’s stay on the sandbank. All day long he watched and waited to see a steamer approach the desolate locality, but none came. Several small craft came within a mile or two of the shore, but nothing that looked like the Guardian-Mother. He and Baldy slept another night in the forecastle of the wreck.

Again his slumbers were deep and profound, and the cook called him at daylight. He hastened to the sand-hill which afforded him the best view of the ocean. No steamer was in sight; breakfast and dinner were served, but the scanty stock of eatables was very nearly exhausted. Baldy was blessed with a tremendous appetite, and he had done double his share in reducing the supply. For his sake rather than his own Louis put himself on short allowance, in spite of his companion’s protest. By dinner-time he was quite hungry; but he ate next to nothing, for the shipbread was all gone, and the ham was hardly eatable. He was a hungry millionaire by four in the afternoon, his stomach being badly pinched by the want of food. Baldy reasoned with him, and wished him to eat all that was left at noon; but he could beat the cook in an argument every time, and compelled him to finish the provisions.

At four o’clock in the afternoon Louis was sound asleep on the sand-hill, where he had laid down, actually suffering from the pain of an empty stomach. The change of position relieved, him, and, worn out with watching and anxiety, as well as by the loss of his usual meals, kind Nature had come to his aid in the form of sleep.

“Wake up, if you please, Mr. Belgrave; which there is a steamer headed this way, and it may be the Guardian-Mother, sir,” said Baldy, taking him by the hand.

Louis sprang to his feet as quickly as his feeble condition would permit. The words of the cook made him forget that he was hungry. He did not believe that he was starving, though he had not eaten a “square meal” since the last one he had taken on board of the Blanche. The news which Baldy had given him was quite sufficient to make a new being of him.

From the sand-hill he saw a steamer feeling her way with the lead towards the shore. She was not half a mile distant, and she was a magnificent craft. Within a quarter of a mile of the shore she stopped her screw. A boat was lowered into the water, and pulled for the inlet with eight men at the oars, and an officer in the stern sheets. Louis had fixed the signal on the sand-hill, and it had been seen.